Topic 6.08.17 Being There: Hold Each Position
Topic 6.08.17 Being There: Hold Each Position. VERSION CONTROL: 1 August 2017
Holding a position in Yoga enables you to harmonise and balance strength with flexibility. Strength without flexibility causes rigidity, Flexibility without strength leads to fragility.
• Muscles must receive sustained strain (action) to stay in condition.
• Do not bounce. Each bouncing movement activates the ‘stretch reflex’, tightening the very muscles you are trying to stretch. Bounce-stretching is likely to tear muscle fibres. It is appropriate only in advanced classes.
• Repeating an exercise for too long is appropriate only for advanced classes, as super-setting of the muscles occurs.
• Become aware of your weaknesses, directing your challenge toward eliminating them.
• Never hold a dead pose. To bring it to life, find out the unresponsive dull part and activate it.
• Holding a position is equal to doing the exercise over and over, thus overcoming and discarding the need for several repetitions. Saves the joints, works through the ‘meat’ of the muscle.
• Beginners hold your poses for 5 breaths, gradually increasing the duration after a year’s practice. 10 breaths in intermediate practice, for the next couple of years, and longer as you advance
Because they read in a book that Yoga exercises, if held for a long time, will bestow great benefits, some people hold these poses for a long time as soon as they become introduced to such practices. In many cases this has counter-productive results. Even if you find it easy to retain the poses for a long time at the beginning, it is better to indicate your enthusiasm by being regular in daily practice than practicing for long hours some days and leaving practice completely undone on others.
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