Creating feedback

There's a constant juggle of tasks, ambitions and pressures being balanced in our heads, swallowing our concentration. Especially this time of year - shit's busy! While we know this isn't sustainable, we do it anyway, pushing through to the, 'when it calms down a bit,' that never comes. Thing is, when the mind is busy and occupied, we tend to live in the mind and loose some of the subtle awareness in our body. This is compounded further due to so many points of our lives being processed through digital platforms and screens. These days it's easier to have more awareness of your inbox, than the range of movement we have in our limbs. So we need to make an effort to notice what's going on.

Through yoga practice we're not only making fancy shapes that work various parts of the body, but we're actively trying to pay attention. Which side is tighter, what feels good, and what feels fucking miserable? Where is the limitation today, and how does that contrast with how it felt yesterday?

Through yoga we can help adaptation in the body as far as strength and movement is concerned, but we are also training the mind to pay attention, to notice. Whether you're in the full bind of a posture, or raised up on blocks, it's about stimulation of the nervous system, so that our body can read that feedback.

If the microphone is left too close to the speaker we are going to get feedback, right. But if the volume's turned down too low, we wont know, and the problem doesn't get fixed. It's the same with our body. We need just a little bit of feedback to figure out where we're at. We want just enough to notice where the boundaries currently are. Through practice, we then begin to move those boundaries - both in the mind and the physical body. In short, in practice this week, we want to think about whether or not we are getting any feedback, maybe we need to pay closer attention, or maybe we need to turn the volume up a little.