Listening to Your Body

One of the principles we emphasizes over and over again in yoga is “Listen to your body.” But what does that actually mean? In the beginning, especially, of a yoga practice, your body might well be almost screaming at you – yet you aren’t attuned to hearing it. Of course, one of the basic meanings has to do with pain vs. discomfort. In yoga, we firmly disallow “No pain, no gain.” Pain bad, pretty much, in our way of thinking. However, when you are starting out, and stretching joints, muscles, ligaments, tendons that haven’t been stretched for a while, there is bound to be some discomfort. Only the individual student – through listening to her body – can decide where the line is between discomfort that leads to opening up of that joint or muscle, and paink, that means, “Please quit doing that to me.” If you are doing a stretch that causes some discomfort, try breathing through it, with long exhalations releasing the tension. But if you feel pain, stop immediately, and allow the instructor to give you an alternate position, or just breathe through until the class moves to another asana or pose.
Speaking of discomfort: Looked at in another way, it’s your body telling you that those are the positions and poses you need the most, because those are targeting where you are the most tight. It’s natural to like the positions that are easy for you (“Oh, boy, Cat, I love Cat!”), but actually, the ones you don’t like are probably the ones that, carefully and mindfully practiced, will do you the most good.
For example, even after mumble-mumble years of yoga, I still have some trouble with the asana called Camel, in which you are on your knees, bend back, grab the heels, and arch the torso forward. So, in my private practice, I make sure to include this pose on a regular basis, realizing my body is clueing me that I am tight in my quads and need to stretch those out.The long-term benefit of learning to listen to your body in yoga class is that it carries over outside of class, too. So instead of ignoring the tension in your neck and trapezius muscle during a long day at your desk, you hear (and feel) it, and do some Shoulder Shrugs to break it up. If you are settling into sleep for the night, and your hip says, “Move me over a bit, would ya?”, you do, and wake up without the ache there.
We’ll talk more in another newsletter issue about how this relates to listening to what else the body needs in hydration, nutrition, supplements, and so on. For now, just get acquainted and start the conversation.