Don't let your wings droop!

Monday evening, JB and I worked out with CK. Not much to tell; as it mostly consisted of standing in place and making half a million minute adjustments to posture and alignment. We started with the feet and worked our way up. We didn't even get to the neck, we only had time to progress up to the shoulder blades. JB agreed with me that CK's posture/alignment workouts are more exhausting than any other workout we've done all month. CK exclaimed, "Awww... that's the nicest thing you could ever say to me!"

Although I could feel things settling into place, every little adjustment I made (beginning with the feet) tweaked that painful spot on my upper back. CK came over and poked at it, which made me yelp. She kept saying, "Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" as she probed around. She did comment that all of the muscles that she wanted to be engaged were engaging, which is stellar. Many of the adjustments she asks us to make involve moving individual obscure muscles that you just don't know how to move. You have to begin with an abstract concept. For instance, one of the ones I was using tonight in order to move certain back muscles was to imagine what muscles I would be engaging- and how- if I had heavy feathered wings on my back like an angel.

If you can get one of the targeted muscles to move, and you think, "Okay, that's something I have never felt before in my life," your next step is to get it to move a few more times so that you can pinpoint just what it is, where it is, how it feels when it moves, and how to *consciously* make it engage, relax, and move- in the way you WANT it to move.

Do you know how many muscles are in the human body? A LOT. The back is packed with them. Knotted around points of pain like clenched fists. Working with them will be ultimately beneficial, I know- but in the early stages, this exercise serves to draw my attention to a lot of pains that I tend to sorta shove under the rug and try to ignore.

We did a couple of reps of the short open-hands form and one rep of Catherine Dao.

(pic- These are the gals from my bracket who placed at the November Revolution.)