Optimal Alignment

Our physical experience is directly linked to our emotional and mental state. When the body is in pain we experience sadness, anger, frustration and hopelessness. When the body comes out of pain we experience happiness. relief, joy and gratitude. This shows the important role yoga can play with the physical mental/emotional relationship. Its awesome to know that if our phyiscal bodies are well aligned it can take the body out of pain and bring with it a shift in attitude and mood.

I taught last Saturday and talked about optimal blueprint. Optimal blueprint is the best alignment for your unique body. When the bones and muscles are held in this place of alignment so much healing takes place. I was explaining to the students how it feels for me to be in a pose and use the universal principles of alignment to adjust and how I experience a *ahhhh haaa* as if I can feel ,my blood, breath, lymphatic fluid, prana..all flowing through me and that's my sign that I am in good alignment.

It is hard to explain what it feel like when you move from just being in a yoga posture to being in optimal alignment. Its like trying to explain the experience of eating really good chocolate. Everyone has their own experience and their own words of explaining.

After attending this workshop my husband (who is not big into yoga but comes to support me says), "when we were doing natarajasana I felt my leg bone click into place. Like it has been out of place for years and something clicked and it was like *wooooshhhhhh* I could feel all this energy flowing through me it felt so good. This is why I love Anusara yoga." Oh how I love when he talks yoga to me. Another great alignment qoute from my husband happened this weekend after he came home from a 120 mile bike ride. He said "I'm glad I have learned good alignment from you, it makes biking more fun!"

During a private I was teaching the other day my student, who has really connected with the principles of alignment made several comments about her experience of optimal alignment. I wish I recorded our session so I could quote her because her words wore so elegant and perfect. "I just cant believe how good the pose feels when it do the alignment. Nothing hurts. I don't want to come out of the pose I just want to stay in it and enjoy".

I really enjoyed Jessica Jennings description of optimal alignment:

"Muscles and bones have an optimal direction they want to go. We know this instinctively – for instance, the shoulders ideally move back, instead of rounding forward.

What many of us aren’t aware of is that these common misalignments cause joint instability, pain, bone spurs, cartilage and disc problems, and many musculoskeletal difficulties that we all experience.

We develop habits – often to avoid using our core strength – that over time, cause certain muscles to be hyper-tense, and certain muscles to weaken. When we do yoga WITHOUT understanding optimal alignment, we can simply be strengthening our misalignments.

When we do yoga WITH an understanding of optimal alignment, we can be doing something similar to physical therapy for our aches and injuries: helping muscles and bones move back in the direction they want to be. In the process, we lengthen the muscles that are too tight, and strengthen the muscles that are overstretched and weak."