health

by Baxter Let�s talk about the shoulder blades today. Recently, while evaluating my newest batch of teacher trainees during their teaching intensive, I was surprised to hear the instructions to �move the shoulder blades toward the pelvis� when the arms were in the overhead position, such as in Urdhva Hastasana. I heard it in Warrior 1, in Utkatasana, in Downward-Facing Dog, and virtually anytime my young wards had the arms overhead. And I flinched each time they uttered it, which just about every one of them did for the four classes they taught. Without naming names, I should mention �always move your shoulder blades down your back� is an instruction that I have heard on many occasions from very experienced teachers. These trainees did not hear me utter such words, but I realized that some of their instructors were still using this outdated understanding. This is too simplistic, as it is not what actually needs to happen for healthy movement of the arms overhead and it can actually res...

by Nina Photo by Erin Collom Last week, my friend Erin Collom (thank you, Erin!), a Bay Area yoga teacher, took some photographs of me doing some of my favorite stress management and anti-anxiety poses. It was kind of nerve wracking for me because I�ve never been photographed doing yoga before (I�m typically somewhere behind the camera). But I decided we needed an older woman on the blog, and I was the handiest one around, so.... When I saw this photograph of me doing Downward-Facing Dog, I was actually quite pleased. My alignment looks pretty good! Even my shoulders look good, which I wasn�t expecting. A well-balanced Downward-Facing Dog takes flexibility in both the legs (the hamstrings especially) and the shoulders. Back in the day, before I hit menopause, I had a lot of flexibility in both areas (some of it was natural and some of it was earned through consistent practice of the asanas over a period of years). But the hormonal changes brought on by perimenopause and menopause trigg...