Are you ready? Send me an email!

1. What went well for what you wanted to work toward?
2. What went well for your willingness to do what it takes to get there?
3. What didn’t go so well for what you wanted to work toward?
4. What didn’t go so well for your willingness to do what it takes to get there?

Here’s the rub: only reflect what was within YOUR control!

What am I working toward? (From January 2020 Newsletter, “Experiment and Experience”)

1. Finishing what I have started, especially training-wise. Relaxing the grasping and clinging, fear of losing what I have now or not getting what I want in the future.
2. Getting out of my practice bubble by taking occasional classes and workshops.
3. Learning by following my bliss, leaving alone the well-trodden path of expectation.
4. Staying in tuned with what brings on emotions of overwhelm and too much-ness.

• ​2021: “Learning by following my bliss, leaving alone the well-trodden path of expectation.”

Librarian and critic Nancy Pearl once laid out the “Rule of 50”: if you’re 50 years old or younger, give a book at least 50 pages before giving up on it; if you’re over 50, subtract your age from 100 and use that number instead. I have something similar for yoga classes and teachers. I like to say try it for 16 weeks and then decide. However, at this point, 20 years in of consistent practice, I have to admit that I’ll make a decision within 3 weeks whether to stick with a yoga teacher consistently. Some teachers I like to practice with intermittently, but not weekly. In the bigger picture, however, I consistently practice 3+ times a week, usually rotating between the three teachers I am currently feeling energized and comforted with. I found some online teachers that really inspire and comfort me. I look forward to my practices with these teachers and am doing my practice for me, rather than “taking notes” for how to teach to students.
I also was able to really integrate what I learned in 2020 regarding core, pelvic floor and breathing. As you are well aware, I have spent the past year focusing on this intensively.
When my personal trainer moved out of state, I was able to find a new trainer without missing a week! The new trainer, Steve Trumfio is diametrically different from DeOnté Durden-Jackson and this has brought some interesting new challenges and delights to my workout. Additionally, I continue on with a shoulder, back and chest workout program I started several years ago, as I find that the same program changes as my understanding of movement and strength changes.

• 2021:” Staying in tuned with what brings on emotions of overwhelm and too much-ness.”

I am very happy that I stopped chasing students, that I no longer am interested in working harder for their well being than they did for themselves.
I am very happy that I decided to not worry if a monthly email is late and that I decided to days off from teaching, guilt-free.

​What didn’t go so well this year?

​Well, I STILL haven’t finished the “Complete Hip And Shoulder Pelvis And Shoulders” course, the Anatomy Trains’ “Freeing the Shoulders and Arms” or the last hour and test for “Deeper Ground: Restoration and Vitality for the Female Pelvis”.
I must admit that hiking has become consuming these days, and I have segued to taking courses with The Mountaineers on Navigation, Snow Routes, Scrambling and First Aid.
I could give a lot of rationalizations for the incompleteness of anatomy courses and completeness of hiking courses, but why? Just let the bright shiny object speak for themselves.

​I still have not found an in-person community to practice yoga or workout with- I continue to wonder how much this will “bite me in the ass” one of these days…..

I have not yet completely released my thinking that students will put forth the time commitment and effort to learn and understand outside class. I put more time investment in these monthly emails as a way to save class for practice rather than long, clarifying lectures on how the body moves. I admit it sucks that less than half the students read them.
Even more, I am not sure that those who do read them figure out how put into action the muscular engagement I write about. I am not sure there is the understanding that no matter the yoga pose, no matter the particular exercise, 99% of the muscular engagement will be the same. Am I communicating, "Don't worry about where your leg is so much as pay attention to the sensation in your torso. Do you feel the traps working? Do you feel the obliques working"?
Should I be reducing the full form of the exercise or the yoga pose until the muscle activation is felt in every position? If I did that, would we be able to get the other benefits of moving in class, too? I don't know.

Well, I am going to put:

1. “Finishing what I have started, especially training-wise. Relaxing the grasping and clinging, fear of losing what I have now or not getting what I want in the future.”
2. Getting out of my practice bubble by taking occasional classes and workshops.

​back on the list. I am still very interested in what I might learn and still really like the individuals who offered them. But I will take note that I seem to do better with courses where the study and completion is not self-paced, rather has a deadline.

I will add to this:

• Release expectations and fears of future outcomes.

​The past year has been a learning of letting be what is, even when there is fear of what will come as a result, without manipulation without editorial comments (aka criticism). The past year has been a year of working to unlearn manipulation and criticism. The past year has been realizing that I always want a positive outcome, that I always want to avoid dissatisfaction and unhappiness. I am REALLY uncomfortable with discontent and turmoil. For the past year my practice has been to “learn to turn toward the pain we feel—toward the dukkha we are experiencing in these difficult circumstances—and to hold that dukkha with a quality of patience; thinking, I will be with this situation, period. In other words, there’s no expectation that the situation will change or get better.” - Bhikkhu Bodhi and Ajahn Sucitto

​Why I am I sharing this as “Something I am Working Toward”? It is something I have to deal with- sooner or later. It is an underlying cause and condition that unconsciously and subconsciously drives me and affects all my relationships. It’s the boogie man in the closet- the monster under the bed. The tempter Mara, coming in for tea, his daughters and his army waiting outside. Welcome Mara, may I offer you my friendship and ask what it is you need.

This is your “Shoulder Girdle” (men's doesn't look much different in the bony and muscular shape) - the bones in aqua blue green. As I have said many times, This is the bony structure that raising your arms relies upon, the bony structure that pushing or pulling rely upon. As I have said many times, the only “mechanical” connection of the shoulder girdle is the collar bone to the sternum- and it’s really small.

The shoulder girdle pretty much floats on the torso! Mostly what holds the shoulders onto the body, in addition to what moves the shoulders are the powerful muscles of the chest and back - the theme of my teaching these many months. (See November and October's posts)

I want to illustrate for you how you lift your collar bones, how to “lift your chest” without kinking your lower back, without popping out your lower front ribs, without lifting your chin up.

Let's go back to that first image- here it is below so that you won't have to scroll back up.

If you go back to last month's post, you can watch the video on Scapular Force Coupling, animating how the shoulder muscles work together. Let's add onto this "Force Coupling" by looking at what can happen to the collar bones and the pectoralis minor muscle when the scapular muscles work together. Using a basic "see-saw" or coupling of force, the serratus anterior tightening and getting shorter will tilt the blade side of the shoulder blade into the back, down and to the side of the body. That in turn, will pull the upper tip (and it is really kind of just a tip, called the coracoid process) up and back, in turn pulling on the pec minor. These 3 slips of the muscle get stretched long, and if pulled sufficiently will pull open the upper ribs the muscle grows out from. Voila- lifting the upper chest.

 ​Now, let's say you are doing what you read about in November- in concert with engaging your serratus anterior, you are also engaging the obliques, internal and external, which are growing out of your lower ribs, anchoring them down to the crest of your hips (pelvis). Go ahead- take a peek back to refresh your visual memory this is all a lot to take in at once. Voila- anchoring the lower ribs, lifting the upper ribs. Look Ma- no thrusting ribs, no kinking back, no chin lift!

Yes, it might take a long time, much trial and error, different queues and lots of visualization to get this to happen. But, your body NEVER looses it's ability to develop muscle or find neurological pathways.

​I love the visuals, as they help me imagine in my brain and body what the pathway is as I move, and I personally have found this extremely effective. I hope you do, too.

You who have been practicing with me since the resumption of class know that I have been super focused on these two muscles as a fulcrum for every movement and breath during practice (and hopefully as you go through your daily activities.

​Whether it is back pain, shoulder issues, knee damage even balance and ultimately breathing that we are working with, the synergy of these two muscles in motion has an effect.

​The Obliques, internal and external, when you were a fetus, grew from your 5th through 8th rib and attached to the ridge of your pelvis. If you pull the two ends toward each other, they bring your ribs and your pelvis closer together. If you gently snuggle them into isometric contraction, they stabilize the front of your upper torso so that the pelvis and the ribs do not get loose from each other.
On the other hand, if they are “locked”, meaning they don’t have not expanded or contracted and are in myofascial non-squishiness (you like that term?), like a dried out sponge, not only will they not stabilize the torso, the upper torso and the lower torso will have no freedom of independent movement from each other.

​We want (we should want) both and even better, stability and freedom, each on demand when the situation calls for each.

The Serratus Anterior grew from the 1st through 8th (sometimes 9th) ribs and headed up, at a diagonal under the armpit to fasten to the underside of the shoulder blades- the side between the shoulder blades and the rib cage. They have a lot of tasks. To keep you with me here, let’s focus on how they should work to keep the shoulder blades from “winging” or popping off the back. They also are crucial in lifting the arms without wear and tear of the infamous rotator cuff muscles and the biceps and triceps.

​What I really want to get at is how the obliques and the serratus are really one continuum of force- they DO NOT work separately from each other. Even looking at the human anatomy, it’s pretty impossible to show how they could separate.

​Looking at the Gray’s Anatomy drawing, imagine how in your own body, you can pull the shoulder blade (hidden underneath the Latissimus dorsi) down and forward toward the frontal rib anchors with the assistance of engagement by the obliques at the Crest of the Ilium- AKA your pelvic crest- remember I mentioned above, “If you gently snuggle them into isometric contraction, they stabilize the front of your upper torso so that the pelvis and the ribs do not get loose from each other.” This is going to help you then snuggle the shoulder blade into position as you lift your arm. If you took the time to watch the YouTube video, scapular force coupling, that does a good animation of what we want so that we experience less pain, greater mobility and even more strength.

​This all gets a little nerdy/geeky (use your preferred term), I know, but almost all of us at Aspiration Community Yoga are struggling with strength and mobility issues that stem from this muscle being under activated, so much so that for some of us it’s going to take a lot of coaxing, time and patience to get the neurons to fire the synapses and for the serratus anterior to fully lengthen and shorten again. You can do it!! The body never, no matter the age of the tissues, looses the ability to re-fire and re-wire!