10 REASONS WHY YOU NEED ARM BALANCES IN YOUR LIFE

Ready to tap into your inner strength, courage and fearlessness?
Need to break free of things weighing you down?

If you’re lacking motivation lately to get stronger and work on your yoga and calisthenics arm balances then keep reading. It’s never too late to begin because your body will respond well to fitness challenges. You can even build muscle and bone mass in the later decades of life, and I’m no spring chicken myself!

Arm balances can be both intimidating and fun (plus many other things), and many yoga/fitness enthusiasts find it difficult to resist them. I can relate to that! The good news is that these postures come in a wide variety of styles and difficulty levels, so usually most people can find an arm balance that is within their reach. There are so many benefits to giving them a go, it just requires some strength and dedication.

Even though arm balances are hard for most people, there are many benefits if you accept the challenge and really work on them. Through hard work and detailed tips and tricks to work on in your practice you might make these arm balances a little easier.

So if you’re ready to get stronger, here’s 10 reasons why you need arm balances in your life…

1. Sharpen your mental discipline

Invigorate yourself by having a go at new things and put yourself in some interesting positions. While balancing in many shapes and angles it will be virtually impossible to think of anything else. Turn yourself into a human pretzel and see if you’re still distracted! There’s so much diversity in arm balances, you can get creative with many variations and build better self-awareness along the way.

Arm balances will challenge your mind and body to remain balanced. You can achieve this through the alignment of body awareness and focused attention. That’s the most important thing. Keeping your mind on your intention and in the moment gives your mind the clarity it needs, plus you can have a great time doing it!

Some of the most common yoga arm balances like crow, grasshopper, astavakrasana, firefly, and of course dolphin (forearm stand), can take quite a bit of effort to achieve. But there’s so much you can do now to find your way into these poses. There are planks, side planks and all kind of strength drills that you can do to build power in your body and focus your mind, so why wait?

2. Develop your core strength

Strong core muscles make it easier to do many activities. Weak or inflexible core muscles can impair how well your arms and legs function, and that saps power from many of the moves you make in yoga. Think of your core muscles as the sturdy central link in a chain connecting your upper and lower body. No matter where motion starts, it ripples upward and downward to adjoining links of the chain. Properly building up your core cranks up the power you need, like recharging a power station.

A strong core also enhances balance and stability, helping to prevent falls and injuries during any physical activities, particularly transitions between yoga postures. In fact, if you didn’t have a strong core then you wouldn’t have stability in any physical exercise. A strong core will help support your lower back and bring inner strength.

3. Face your fears and insecurities

Arm balances are empowering!

They give you permission to get past doubt and any limited mental belief systems. There are so many times yogis talk themselves out of arm balances because of mental blocks. But once you can figure out where your body is in space and how to balance your weight safely, there is nothing stopping you from achieving your goals. Through your practice and detailed understanding of arm balances you’ll train your mind to look past fear and embrace the evolution of your practice.

4. Keep your bones sturdy

As bipeds, people come to yoga relatively weak in the upper body. This weakness can be due to a lack of regular work with the arms, shoulders, chest, and abdomen. Unfortunately, this weakness usually progresses as the decades go by. Over many years, the lack of hard work that challenges your upper body muscles and bones contributes to a loss of mineralisation in those bones, and osteoporosis, which can be a serious health problem, begins.

The practice of poses that include weight bearing on your arms will build a strong and stable upper body. This will protect any vulnerable shoulder joints and strengthen the muscles and bones to prevent the onset of osteoporosis.

5. Improve your spacial awareness

In order to get into your arm balances you’ll need to understand where your body is in space and activate a variety of muscles to lift off. When we first move into arm balances, especially inverted ones, it’s often difficult to know where we are. We have no idea where the hips are in relation to the shoulders, and get confused about left and right, up and down. Thats understandable.

When you begin your arm balance journey, it can feel awkward and frustrating because you might be unsure of how to get in and out of them, especially because there are so many creative variations. Let this inspire you to develop a deeper understanding of your muscles and centre of balance. As you begin to weave arm balances into your practice, you’ll feel stronger and more self-aware. As awareness improves you deepen your capacity for balance and grace in any orientation.

6.  Strengthen your whole body

Many yoga and calisthenics arm balances strengthen and tone the entire body and prepare you for a multitude of other poses. When we try to lift our body up, every part of the body is engaged. Arm balances involve not only the arms but also the core, wrists, shoulders and legs. In fact, every part of the body needs to lift itself in order to take your feet off the ground.

By practicing arm balances, you effectively tone up your whole body and counter a more sedentary lifestyle. As you begin to work arm balances into your yoga practice, it’s important to get into the general shape of the pose and wherever you are, find your edge and build stamina by holding your position. There are so many tools and techniques to help you achieve your goals of finding strength and stability on your arms.

 7. Change your perspective

At the very least, an arm balance challenges us to get our faces unusually, and often uncomfortably, close to the ground. Inverted arm balances like headstands and handstands also turn our world upside down. By changing perspective, we can gain greater insights and gain deeper fulfilment. Often seeing something with fresh eyes and shaking up our ‘normal’ daily view has both physical and metaphorical benefits.

Start to notice the moment right before you want to give up on an arm balance. What’s your mind saying? Is it a pattern? As soon as you recognise your internal dialogue or identify your insecurity, turn it into a positive intention and develop a new belief system. If your focus is on something that you perceive to be negative in your life and you come at it from a different angle, then you can feel better about it. What’s more, you might even find that it helps you to perform better as a result. This approach is called reframing and is just one way in which you can derive benefits from gaining new perspectives.

8. Build your resilience

Resilience is the ability to ‘bounce back’ from stressful or challenging experiences. It involves being able to adapt to changes and approach negative sources of stress as constructively as possible. Your ability to cope with tough times or tough postures allows you to apply your inner and outer strength and engage what you know.

Arm balances are built on commitment and determination. Adding challenging arm balances into your practice can teach you a lot about discipline, but too much hardness in our efforts will get in the way. Learn to be strong, but at the same time supple. Find the steadiness and ease. As much as we need strength, most arm balances also require a great deal of flexibility to get into and hold. The trick is to keep returning to the arm-balancing practice without becoming frustrated or tense.

9. Stay calm in the challenge

Practicing arm balances also teaches us to stay calm in the midst of a challenging situation. Studies on the benefits of yoga show that, yes, yoga is relaxing, but the most significant changes that yoga can bring us, on a neurological level, is that we can learn to calm ourselves down and to keep the breath steady. We learn to relax the features of our face, to keep our thoughts kind even when things get rough. This is worth practicing. Living life from a place of calm response rather than frantic reaction. What we learn on the mat, we hopefully take off the mat and share with the world.

10. Learn to practice self-compassion and letting go

If at first you don’t succeed…

When the balance and lift-off hasn’t come, despite all the effort, this is also a beneficial lesson. So what if it hasn’t happened yet? Didn’t you enjoy having a go? It can be very difficult to not get what you want, to not achieve something you’re working so hard at. It’s easy to get down on yourself and start that all-too-familiar negative self-talk.

Are you able to let go of it all and say, so what? Can you keep yourself light of heart and mind and just keep stepping on your mat without worrying about what you will get out of it?

Arm balances are the perfect opportunity to practice persistence. They allow you to actively practice pushing past fear while building self-awareness and strength. Start with introducing one or two to your daily practice and embrace the changes happening within and throughout.

LOOKING TO FINE TUNE YOUR ARM BALANCES OR MAYBE READY FOR SOME INSPIRATION?

sign up for ARI’S ARM BALANCE ACADEMY - ARM BALANCES MADE EASIER - Saturday 15 October | 11am - 1pm here.

Source: http://ari.yoga/2021/08/24/10-reasons-why/

Interview: Exploring Fascia Release with Vicky Chapman

Vicky is our go-to yogi for all things fascia and connective tissue! Out of passion, she has cultivated her knowledge and skill in the area over several years and is a huge advocate for fascia release techniques. We interviewed Vicky on the benefits of fascia release - read more below!

For people who may be new to the concept of fascia release, can you give us a basic insight into what this is?

Fascia is our connective tissues, its job is to connect everything in the body. When we release the fascia with tools like self massage with balls/rollers and props, it helps us move more freely. It hydrates those tissues, making us feel less stiff. By using fascia release balls and props we can access the really hard to reach tight spots in the body and spend some time exploring to create more freedom in range of movement, better posture, more resilient tissues to help with injury treatment and prevention.

Can you explain to us why fascia release is beneficial to yoga practice?

Fascia release is for everybody, whether you do yoga, running, crossfit or nothing at all. It’s a tool you can use whenever you need to target and release your tight or problematic areas. It releases the stuck parts of the body, allowing you to move better, stand taller and be more comfortable. Incorporating it into my yoga practice has been life changing. I use my balls everyday somewhere on my body to prepare me for movement or release headaches or just create space where I’m feeling stuck. I take them everywhere with me.

What piqued your interest in working with fascia and connective tissue? Have you done extra training in this area? 

I’ve been teaching fascia release workshops with rollers for about 7 years now, but a few years ago my teacher Tiffany Cruikshank, founder of Yoga medicine, taught a 5 day training on all things fascia and it blew my mind…the way the chinese medicine Meridians blend beautifully into this practice compliments my yin yoga teaching. I learnt so much and have been teaching workshops with the balls instead now for the last few years as they’re a much more versatile tool.

I love learning and have done an additional fascia training this year, and will be doing another on fascia trains in August. The more I learn about connective tissue the more I’m fascinated in how it works.

Can we expect much discomfort as we work into the fascia? 

There will be parts of your body that individually you’ll feel A LOT, and there will be others that you barely notice. It’s the areas that are uncomfortable that usually need the attention so it’s our bodies way of telling us where to focus. I don’t believe harder is better, self-massage is how I think of it… if you like your massage firm or soft you do you :) I’ll always give you lots of options.

Do you incorporate any of these techniques into the yoga classes you teach?

Yes I incorporate fascia release into my yin yoga classes. In yin we are stressing the connective tissue and looking at finding full range of movement in the joints, so by releasing tight muscles with the balls & props, your body will be able to find it’s full range much easier. I also use them on my yoga retreats in every class like prepping the feet for standing poses or releasing the shoulders for Handstands. They can be added in everywhere to elevate your yoga practice but also these tools will help you off the mat, treating headaches, releasing tight necks from long days at the computer, softening overused quads after a long run/cycle. I take them everywhere and use them everyday, they’re the most versatile tool to have in your tool box.

Author: This is Yoga

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Moving Beyond Asana with Morgane Stroobant

Morgane TIY’s very own Bhakti Yogi. She has been practicing yoga for 15 years and shares her learnings and discoveries beautifully with her students. We sat down with Morgane to find out more about her practice and the passion behind it.

Can you tell us why this is an area you are passionate about and want to share with others? 

That could be written in a book, or many books. For me, although I need the physical practice to get into my body, the practice has never been just about the physical asana. So like everyone, I need the asana but I am not attached to it, I never really was so I don’t have this obsession that students can commonly have like ‘I need to nail this pose’, ‘I need to nail that pose’, ‘I need to go deeper’. 
I do the work and I do strong practices. I practice with Ari for that reason, because I need to get into my body and my breath and do a practice that makes sense and that actually allows you to go deeper into the asana practice, so you can let go of the asana practice. It’s one of the sutras - steady, effort, ease and surrender. We do the part that we need to do, we practice, we welcome all the limitations we face on our mat and we get excited about that. We encounter all the physical limitation in the asana but also the mental, emotional and spiritual limitations. These will present on your mat pretty obviously if you are open and curious, that is what I get excited about - how can we use the practice to welcome those limitations and beyond so we can live the yoga outside of the studio. That's where life happens, that's where pandemic happens, that's where losing jobs happen, relationship issues happen. So if we can’t take the practice beyond the mat and asana, we are not going to feel that peace and freedom when life gets messy, and it does all the time. I think finding tools to go beyond the asana, beyond the mat is how we find that peace. The asana is one tiny part of the picture so we can have all these tools in the box meaning we not only have the physical practice but we can also tune in to the breath, mantra and meditation at any time. Tune back in to that space of higher self - that inner wisdom, that internal landscape and when you're in a meeting with your boss, or driving, or dealing with drama/ trauma you're not going to break into an asana practice but you have these other tools ready to come and support and bring you back to peace, freedom and equanimity. You can use these in any situation and you can hopefully share that with others as well. There’s that ripple effect, like when you meet others who have this grace and wisdom, like Ari and some of my others teacher, they practice their yoga and they embody the yoga off the mat and practice what they teach, that’s what I try to do but it’s not easy, it’s difficult.

So many people can’t tap in to meditation and I wasn’t able to for a long time until I found mantra so it’s just giving people an awareness of what other tools are out there. I am excited to share what I love most and what works for me and to support the community and to help provide the tools to stay curious and work through stuff with strength and grace and wisdom. A lot of people feel they don’t have it but it’s there, we just need to tap into it.

For many, the physical asana practice is what draws them to yoga - as you touched on earlier. Why do you believe it is so important to grow beyond that?

For those who are attached to the physical practice, I think it is good to understand that as westerners, this helps us to find yoga because we need to move, it is important to move the body. When we move the body we can tap into the breath and it is much easier to breathe when sitting down than when the muscles start to shake or the mental constructs come into play e.g. I'm not flexible enough, I need to do more, I should push more, I'm not bendy enough, why is this person in a deeper backbend than me etc. So for those who love the asana practice, it is a great way to introduce you to yoga and then find out through that the tools that may lead you to something that is a bit more holistic.

It will still be a strong physical practice and we need to move, we need to be in our body and to get the breath and energy going, so that will be a big part of it. We’re not ignoring the physical part at all, we are just using it as our point of departure and then we see if we can go a little bit deeper, a little bit further than that.

Is tHIS PART OF THE PRACTICE SUITABLE FOR everyone?

Yes it is accessible to everyone, anyone with a curious mind. Whether you love a progressive class or you want a slow flow, there will be that, whether you have touched on meditation and mantra or not, there will be that as well. It’s worth mentioning that mantra is not religious, it is accessible to everyone, regardless of our background or culture. It was not religious the way I was taught it and that is how I teach it. We use mantra to transcend the mind, to go beyond the thinking mind, using sound to go back to that inner sound, that place of stillness and silence and equanimity. That is the mantra practice itself. They say it is the fastest journey to that space because we are using this practice that goes right deep in to the cells and parasympathetic nervous system, that’s why there's always silence after we sing or chant. That's what students have told me as well, for the 60 minute asana practice they have still been caught up in their head but then comes savasana and they hear me sing or chant and can just let go. So it is powerful but not religious. Pranayama is self explanatory, it's how to come to your breath. Meditation is the nectar, what happens after all of that. The asana practice should be accessible to everyone because I teach in a similar way to Ari, who is my teacher and mentor so we have a similar sequencing style in that you can choose if you want a more chilled practice or to spice it up.

What exactly is meant by ‘the higher self’?

The higher self is that space of, well, some people call it love, soul, spirit, higher consciousness. Something that is greater than the self, greater than the personality, the body, the meat suit in this lifetime and that is something that we try to connect to. That's the practice of yoga, the practice of connecting to oneness. Whatever we want to call it - soul, love, god, universe. We have our personality in this lifetime, our karma, our purpose, but we also have this place of oneness, connection to something greater. Something that is divine without being religious, if you get what I mean. So you don't have to be religious to understand that there is something a little greater, you may be connected to the earth, the ocean, just that place that is bigger than us and that we reconnect to, where we step out of our way and find a little peace. Once you connect to that space you find more freedom and equanimity and that's the space where there's no fear, anxiety, wishing, resentment, holding on to the good stuff. That's the higher self.

is there anything else you want to share?

As we know, the asana is only one tiny 8th of the yoga tree. I want students to gain the tools they can explore further and that have hopefully I made an impact on them to take their practice beyond the asana. Also understanding that the physical practice doesn't matter in the end, it's how you breathe and how you sit. The point is to come back to silence and that space in between where there is peace and freedom, which is definitely not relying on your level of asana practice or whether you can get into a handstand, do full splits or a deep back bend. It’s not about what you see on Instagram. It's about how we can bring the yoga into our lives when things get complicated. That's the yoga and hopefully these tools can support students in their lives and perhaps make them a little less asana obsessed in that if they can’t make it to their mat for whatever reason, they understand that there are still other ways they can practice yoga regardless.

Click here if you would like to learn more about Morgane!

Author: This is Yoga

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