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If you practice yoga,
(Lengthen...)
you want to be able to have a happy spine.
Free from injury.
(Imagine your spine is getting longer.)
(Give space for your discs.)
You must watch this video to the end.
(That's kind of tight but...)
Welcome to this very special Action Ship.
I'm gonna be giving you some keys
and some challenges that you really need to know about.
So thank you Amber for writing this question.
She wrote to me saying,
"Please enlighten us with the following Action Ship request.
We all love Yoga, and many reap amazing benefits from this ancient science.
But, on a pragmatic level, are the physical asana (postures)
truly supporting the structure of the body and alignment of the spine.
Is it possible that Yoga can create more harm than good?
Please help us to tune in to what is optimal for our structure.
Gratitude to you!"
And gratitude to you too Amber!
And thank you for bringing up the topic of
"What are we teaching?"
"What are we practicing?", "What are we believing?"
when we go and take a Yoga class.
And "What is actually happening in the body?"
and "Do this things agree?".
So don't you think that a Yoga experience
is doing something that agrees with your body's function.
So if your body is trying to do something naturally
and you go against that, what do you get?
You get tension.
Your going against the natural laws of existence.
So we need to find out okay, what is the science,
what is my physical body actually doing, and am I allowing it to do that or am I trying to block that?
So we're gonna take a very common cue from a Yoga class.
If you're told to do a spinal rotation,
So you could be sitting, you could be standing, and you're told, okay, rotate your spine.
What is usually the cue that goes along with that?
"Lengthen", right?
You're told, lengthen up as you turn.
Lengthen your spine. Get tall up.
What's wrong with that? You might ask?
I'm gonna tell you.
So we're gonna take a look at the spine and see what is happening when you rotate.
For this, we're gonna need a spine, a green feather boa, and a sponge.
So let's start with the sponge.
Here is the famous Franklin Method Sponge.
So I'm gonna put one hand on the top, one hand on the bottom,
and then I'm gonna do something brilliant.
I'm going to twist it.
So what happens when you twist a sponge?
So can you see how tall the sponge is? And when I twist it,
what happens? Does it stay the same height?
or does it get taller?
or does it get shorter?
So obviously you can see it's getting shorter.
So when you rotate anything,
and you twist it, it gets shorter. It's science.
You can't rotate something and expect it to lengthen.
So in your spine,
you have lots of discs,
you have lots of vertebrae,
and then you have a hole through here where the spinal cord goes.
So your spinal cord, we're gonna use this green feather boa as your spinal cord.
The spinal cord is made up of lots and lots and lots of nerves.
It's where your brain is sending lots of information
to your entire body and your body is sending information to your brain.
And what the nerves not like?
They don't like compression,
you will know if you ever had a slip disc,
and they don't like stretch.
If you stretch a nerve it tears.
So your spinal cord is in your spine,
and we established that when you rotate something, it gets shorter.
So, if you're rotating your spine,
and you're trying to lengthen up while you do that,
what is gonna happen?
If I twist and pull, what is the best way to tear something?
You twist it and you pull it.
So your body is designed when you...
when you rotate it there will be an actually, a shortening
and naturally there's a small compression, so that your spinal cord stays healthy.
So if you're trying to lengthen up while you turn,
two things are gonna happen.
One is you're gonna be very prone to tearing
one of those or many of those nerve fibers which could result in injury in back spasm,
the other thing that's gonna happen is that your brain is going to intelligently shut down your flexibility.
It's gonna say "No! This is dangerous, shut it down."
give her some tightness, give her resistance.
and so then you get tension, you can't go very far.
And this is intelligent of your body.
What is not so intelligent of us is when we're trying to go against that.
So why don't we try it together.
So you're going to sit, you can stay sitting in your chair, or you can sit on the floor,
and just imagine the length of your spine, so maybe put your hand on the top of your head
and then just feel those spine all the way down to your tail bone
and now we're going to just rotate and as you do so imagine that your spine
is just getting a little shorter.
And then as you come back, back, and it's just lengthening again.
So it's almost like you're going down the spiral stair case.
Just allow it to get a little shorter and then taller.
And shorter, and taller, keep doing it with me,
and shorter, and taller. So now's the time refill it in your body shorter, taller, shorter, taller,
one more time, shorter, taller and just drop your arms
and just noticed how do you feel.
Do you actually feel you might even feel more quiet, calm in your mind, in your body
you might feel that your spine is actually
feeling more bent and lengthened.
So now let's compare that to the feeling
of lengthening as you rotate. So you're gonna twist,
and as you do so you're gonna imagine that you're gonna
trying to lengthen your spine gives space.
Space in your spine. So lengthen as you turn
and keep lengthening
and keep lengthening.
and just noticed what happens.
Do you feel that resistance?
So often we confuse resistance with strength
they're very different.
Resistance is when our body is saying "No! I don't actually work like this."
So could you feel that? You couldn't go so far,
So go back to the just allowing our spine just to shorten a little
and then come back and it lengthens the little one
shorter and longer.
So if you want to learn more.
If you're ready to start looking at how you actually function
how can you get more strength more flexibility,
and keep your body healthy,
support it's natural function which ultimately becomes even more Yoga.
Then make sure you're on my email list.
Go to laurahamesfranklin.com
sign up there, very soon, the flexibility video
is going to be ready for you while I go into a so much more depth
of what is safe and what is unsafe,
and how we can create more flexibility with strength, with balance, with coordination
so that we maintain a healthy body.
And we don't just trying to stretch ourselves into positions
which could, well, be causing injury.
If you like this video, if you hated this video,
because it was like, "Oh no! What have I been doing?"
Send it to somebody else,
send it to a yoga teacher,
send it to your favorite yogi,
Let me know in the comments
why this is challenging,
and if you felt a change in your body.
So remember, it's you and your spine.
I will see you next time. Bye.