What your posture says about you
Posture is so important. It expresses, in the moment, our mood and our intention and over time, it shows who you are. Once you get to know it, posture can tell you a lot about a person. But posture is too often used in arts like tai chi, yoga, pilates and other movement based therapies as a kind of stick to beat people with. Even in zen you hear about the old master who beats the new student if they do not sit “correctly”. What is “correct” posture anyway? Continue Reading
Ido Portal’s blog
Though not really about yoga, Ido’s blog talks a lot about physical therapy through movement. Ido is an incredibly well trained athlete who seems to work a lot with gymnastics and Capoeira. Continue Reading
Makko Ho Stretches
What are the Makko Ho?
The Makko Ho are a series of simple stretches designed to help re-align your body, while at the same time promoting health by stretching your meridians. This set of Makko Ho stretches were devised by Shizuto Massunaga who used them in conjunction with Shiatsu to promote health and wellbeing.
Makko-Ho stretches:
Video of Makko-Ho
Wow, Someone has made a video of the Makko-Ho stretches. A nice visual guide, with some nice scenery toboot.
Flexibility
Check out everything you ever wanted to know about Stretching and Flexibility by Brad Appleton. Basically, this is a free book which takes you through the mechanism of stretching from a more scientific point of view. It covers pretty much everything from an intro to the musculoskeletal system to discussions on what muscles are, various types of muscle fibres and what happens when you stretch. Then, there is info on different types of stretching – balistic, dynamic, passive etc etc and also a good section on how to stretch. Warm up and cool down routines are covered, as well as normal range of motion information for various body parts. No actual diagrams, but well written, this could keep you busy for some time and makes a useful reference for anyone undertaking any sort of flexibility training. Great stuff!