Today was a glorious improvement from yesterday. You can never have a bad day when it starts off with Emmy's class. She's 87 by the way, older than I previously mentioned. According to Jon Burras' lecture (www.jonburras.com) today on FASCIA and all of it's unspoken benefits, age doesn't matter. With yoga, you can actually get better as you age, provided that you have healthy Fascia.
What is Fascia? Besides being critically correlated to healthy bones, Fascia is a kind of connected tissue that can stretch the muscles. It's essentially a container for the body and it's what keeps us upright. But it's important to understand that Fascia can't move by itself; it must be pulled.
Old Theory #1 (Western): Your body is built like a column / a building and your bones hold you up.
New Theory (Model of Eastern medicine): Our body is built like a cable system. It's the balancing of your muscles and Fascia that creates stability and a pain free life. Tension pulling on bones creates lift and your bones are in essence floating in a sea of Fascia.
Old Theory #2 & #3 (Western): Hardness = health. Old people shrink/harden.
Before this New Model can work for you, you have to believe what Burras is saying. I 100% agree with him, mainly because he put his money where his mouth is and showed us visually how all of this occurs. His real life examples, encompass 20+ years of the most relative experience I've been exposed to thus far in the six weeks that I've been here. The proof really is in the pudding.
Burras gave us many more highlights to prove this super important change of thinking, here are a few that I found meaningful:
*When people don't hydrate their bodies, the Fascia hardens, creating (energy) blockages and stiffness.
*Yoga is not about shedding weight and losing inches, it's a complete paradigm shift.
*Connected tissue, like Fascia, has the ability to change shape. Practicing yoga will warm and liquify the Fascia, by design, enabling us to stretch it.
*A "yoga body" isn't as chiseled looking as a "fitness body," but it's a healthier body.
To be continued.....
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