My 4-week course, Applied Functional Anatomy for Yoga Teachers and Curious Students, wrapped yesterday and I wanted to share the biggest take-away from this course with you.
Here it is:

We are not built the same therefore we’re all going to have different preferences in terms of alignment in yoga postures.
Then:
It is normal, expected and encouraged to be tailoring your yoga practice for what works for how your body is structured.
It’s like going shopping at a fast-fashion store (e.g. Old Navy, Walmart, Forever 21, H&M, Zara)… where they’re mass-producing clothing that isn’t designed to fit all body types.
And what happens when we go to these stores and those clothes don’t fit? We tend to get frustrated with ourselves. We internalize it.
“Something’s wrong with my body.”
“Why do I even bother going clothing shopping?”
“Shopping for clothes is the WORST.”
“I’m never coming back to the mall again.”
“I’m just going to stick to the old clothes that I’m comfortable with but maybe don’t really suit me anymore.”
Sound familiar?
How many of us have gone to a yoga class and felt like something must be wrong with us because we don’t look like everyone else/the shapes we’re in are uncomfortable (and not in the helpful way.)
What I’m proposing here is that maybe you DO buy the clothes.
And then you bring to them to a tailor and you get them custom fitted for YOUR BODY.
When the clothes fit well we feel much better about ourselves and are finally at ease in our own skin.
The same approach can be taken to your yoga practice or to how you lead your students where there’s an encouragement around tailoring and exploration that’s informed by the anatomy of the body.
If you’ve never brought your yoga practice to a “yoga tailor” (ahem… a yoga teacher with a lens on functional anatomy and physiology) I highly recommend you do. The breakthroughs you’ll have through those sessions will forever change your approach to practice.
Let’s throw out the blueprint model of one-size-fits-all and we encourage curiosity, education and really learning how the body works.
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