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Do you set your Flexibility goals?

Why is this so important?

 

Most of the time we set new goals or resolutions like losing weight, stop drinking stop smoking or eating more healthy

All this is fantastic but why do we expect to get more flexible only by stretching more.

We have the wrong idea that by stretching more and harder we’ll see improvements.

First of all, let’s review what does it mean flexibility?

Flexibility

“Flexibility is the range of motion in a joint or group of joints, or the ability to move joints effectively through a complete range of motion.”

Flexibility training includes:

  • Stretching exercises to lengthen the muscles
  • Strengthening exercises to have strong and stable joins that will support that range of motion.

Our flexibility normally varies from one joint to another, ex.; from shoulder to hip.

And for the most part, flexibility is influence by the health and structure of our muscles, tendons and ligaments.

  • Muscles: consist of bundles of long cells, called muscle fibres.
  • Tendons: connective tissue attaching muscle to the bone
  • Ligaments: tissue that connects bones to each other.

 

Improving your flexibility can help you move more comfortably throughout the day.

Read that 👆🏼 again
If you want to have the quality of movement in the daily activities you need to do something about it.
We are not getting any younger and staying strong flexible and mobile will guarantee a good quality of life as we are in that process of getting”wiser”
This could be anything, from picking up something from the fool without feeling that uncomfortable pain in the back of your knees to being able to do amazing splits in the aerial silks or pole dance.
Whatever it is to make it happen you need to take a few steps and make responsible actions.
Advice:
  • Focus on one thing at a time and start with something small.
  • Look for an expert in the field you want to work on
  • Look for an accountability partner you will work with
  • Plan it and make it happen 😉

If you would like to get serious about this I have a Free PDF Guided Form to help you set Your Flexibility goals

and this free video class can help as well.

Enjoy it!

 

 

 

 

3 Easier Yoga Postures to start your “inversion” journey

If you love being upside down- but you are scare because you believed that to be upside-down you need to know how to do headstand or handstand?

Are you getting influenced in a negative way by those Instagram photos where everyone is getting upside-down in super crazy ways with a big smile?

Please stop,

You can start practicing even if you don’t have any experience, yet..

If you would like to try to be upside-down but you are afraid you will “break” your neck.

Let me tell you my friend, we have all been there.

There is always a first step to take in order to begin and I will suggest starting with 3 inverted yoga poses.

 

Now…

I am not saying these poses are easy; that will depend on each person’s practice.

But yes I these 3 options are easier than a headstand or a handstand balance.

And there is a good way to start your inversion journey if:

  • You have never tried any upside-down balance posture before
  • You are afraid of “breaking” your neck
  • You have little experience in any arm balancing postures
  • you would like to prepare your body for more challenging postures to practice in the -no too far away- future
  • You know how to get upside-down but today you want to chill

 

These are the 3 easier yoga poses that will help you start your inversion journey

 

Downward Dog | Adho Mukha Svanasana

Sanskrit name

Adho = downward

Mukha = face

Svana = dog

Asana= pose

This is one of the most practiced postures in almost any yoga sequence.

A lot of us don’t know this is already an invention posture.

Every time the head is lower than the heart it is an inversion posture.

How should we practise this pose?

Ideally, we should have the and separate shoulder-distance apart, with our finger separated and pointing forward, elbow straight with the “eyes of the elbows facing each other and our shoulders pushing the ground.

Nice and elongated spine, relaxing the lower back, engaging your core 

As well as your legs muscles with the heels pressing down towards the mat.

But what happens if you can not do all this?

  • Is ok to bend your knees if needed it.
  • Is ok to lift your heels if you can’t reach the ground.
  • Is ok to take your breaks in the child pose

 

Now, let’s explore the benefits of practicing this pose.

  • Calms the brain and helps relieve stress and mild depression
  • Energizes the body
  • Stretches the shoulders, hamstrings, calves, arches, and hands
  • Strengthens the arms and legs
  • Relieves menstrual discomfort when done with head supported
  • Helps prevent osteoporosis
  • Improves digestion
  • Relieves headache, insomnia, back pain, and fatigue

 

You shouldn’t practice if have any of the following:

  • Carpal tunnel syndrome
  • Diarrhea
  • Pregnancy: Do not do this pose late-term.
  • High blood pressure or headache: Support your head on a bolster or block, ears level between the arms.

 

 

Plow Pose | Halasana

 

Sanskrit name:

Hala = plow

Asana= pose

I love this pose, and I teach it in almost all y aerial acrobatics classes.

This is such an important pose to help us keep our spine flexible.

But I understand not everyone is comfortable in this pose.

However, give yourself time to get used to and practice the variations when your neck is sore.

What is important to focus on here?

Shoulders far from your ears, think you are creating a triangular shape with your neck and shoulders and there is where the weight of your body should be distributed.

Elongate the neck, chin close to your chest.

The Breath is so important that here please breathe from your belly and try to relax the jaw.

If your feet can not touch the ground behind your head, the option will be:

  • To place a chair or a yoga block to rest your feet on, behind your head.
  • You can bend your knees
  • You can always support your spine with your hands holding at the level of your ribs.

Some of the benefits of the practice:

  • Calms the brain
  • Stimulates the abdominal organs and the thyroid gland
  • Stretches the shoulders and spine
  • Helps relieve the symptoms of menopause
  • Reduces stress and fatigue
  • Therapeutic for backache, headache, infertility, insomnia, sinusitis

Don’t practice if you have any of the following :

  • Diarrhea
  • Menstruation
  • Neck injury
  • Asthma & high blood pressure: Practice Halasana with the legs supported on props.
  • Pregnancy: If you are experienced with this pose, you can continue to practice it late into pregnancy. However, don’t take up the practice of Halasana after you become pregnant.

Shoulderstand | Shalamba Sarvangasana

Sanskrit name

salamba = with support (sa = with

alamba = support)

sarva = all

anga = limb.

asana= posture

 

This can be a more advanced posture for some of us.

However, there is always a variation you can adapt to your body.

How should we practice?

After practicing halasana pose, bend your knees close to your face and start lifting your legs towards to sky or the roof on to of you.

 

Keep your hand supporting your spine, spread your fingers at your ribs level.

Don’t forget to engage your legs, glutes and core 

Press with you elbow down and create that triangle space between your shoulders and neck.

a more advanced variation of the pose will be to interlace your fingers and keep your arms straight pressing down towards the mat, behind you.

These are the benefits of practicing shoulderstad:

  • Calms the brain and helps relieve stress and mild depression
  • Stimulates the thyroid and prostate glands and abdominal organs
  • Stretches the shoulders and neck
  • Tones the legs and buttocks
  • Improves digestion
  • Reduces fatigue and alleviates insomnia
  • Therapeutic for asthma and sinusitis

Don’t practice if you have any of the following:

  • Diarrhea
  • Headache
  • High blood pressure
  • Menstruation
  • Neck injury
  • Pregnancy: If you are experienced with this pose, you can continue to practice it late into pregnancy. However, don’t take up the practice of Sarvangasana after you become pregnant.

 

If you have injuries, please check with your physiotherapist or your qualified teacher before practicing.

Full Yoga Flow including these 3 poses

link in the image below

 

Why is so important to have a Strong Core?

Many times in my teachings I get the comment,

“You make it look so easy”

Yes, I do…  So I reply:

With practice and dedication, any of you could make it look easy.

“Some people move through yoga asanas or any acrobatics postures with grace and ease that is fluid gently, strong and very relaxed.

It is as if their strength of calmness permeates from the core of their bodies to the tips of their fingers, to the tips of their toes, and softly out of their bodies.” -Susi Hately Aldous-

To achieve this control and gracefulness in your movements is important to have a strong core but…

What is the Core?

A lot of us believe that a strong core is equal to  = 6-pack abdominal muscles popping out your belly.

Even I was making a mistake by referring to the abdominal muscles using the word “core” when I was researching what will be the proper term to use in English.

(I am original from Argentina, and in Argentina, we talk Spanish no Argentinean )

 

The core is not just the abdominal muscles.

I know I use the term pretty often in my classes but I am not sure if everyone understands what it means and why is so important.

In a few words, our core is the muscles in charge of keeping bodies able to perform simple tasks like to seat, walk, run, dance, climb or even more complex activities like yoga, acroyoga and to practice your inverted postures  (headstand, forearm balance or handstand)

Strong core muscles make it easier for you to perform in aerial acrobatics, pole dance, rock climbing or something as simple as getting up of your chair once you are done with your computer work.

 

These are the muscles included:

  • Pelvix floor muscles
  • Transversus abdominal,
  • Internal and external obliques
  • Rectus Abdominis
  • Erector of the spine
  • Transversuspinali
  • Diaphragm
  • Latissimus dorsi
  • Pelvic floor muscles
  • Gluteus

Core stability is a balance of strength and mobility- the balance of strong core muscles, found along the midline of the body from the base of the skull to the bottom of the feet, combined with the freedom of movement of the hip, shoulder and vertebral joints as well as the elbow, knee, wrist, and ankle joints.

Without this balance, the body will be either to rigid (too much strength with too little nobility) or limp and spiritless (too much mobility with too little strength).

How Yoga can help you?

Stability and strength are generated from relaxation.

Relaxation, is initiated by breathing easily, calmly and fluidly.

In a yoga practice, we focused on integrating or physical movements or postures with our breathing. Regardless of the type of yoga, we are practicing ( vinyasa, Hatha, restorative) during a yoga session your teacher should guide you through your physical practice and help you to bring your awareness to your breathing.

Sometimes focusing more on pranayama exercises ( breathing techniques) to increase our Prana  (energy) than others, that will depend on the class you are taking.

And if you have doubts reach to your teacher and ask.

So, in order to nurture and develop core stability, it is necessary to breathe easily, calmly and fluidly throughout our practice

I understand that some times we need a “push”, a motivation to keep the practice going, especially if you don’t like going to crowded studios.

So I prepare a free session to share

Click in the image below to have access to a free session on how you can get your Core Strong

 

 

Link to the class

 

 

“The body is like a boat in the water, where the body is the boat and the external stimulus is the water. Both are stable and able to respond to the inevitable wobbles, turns and shifts only when are balanced”

-Susi Hately-

 

 

Restorative yoga. Why you should practice?

Have you heard about restorative yoga?

Some people say this is an advanced practice. What do you think?

Restorative yoga involves spending from 3 to 8min in a “relatively” comfortable pose. The goal won’t be stretching, but it might be a consequence of the practice as long as no pain is involved.

Not all of us have the capacity to see the importance of taking quality downtime and allow your brain to stop controlling everything.

I used to think, that practicing restorative yoga or taking time to rest was a waste of time.

Yes, I always love training, and I used to push my self to the limits, most of the time
Maybe you are like me or maybe you have already a good understanding of how important is to take time to rest and recover

“Regardless of what are you training for, a good rest is essential to high-level performance, but many still overtrain and feel guilty when they take a day off. The body repairs and strengthens itself in the time between workouts, and continuous training can actually weaken the strongest athletes”.- Elizabeth Quinn- verywellfit.com

Rest days are critical to sports performance for a variety of reasons. Some are physiological and some are psychological.
Rest is physically necessary so that the muscles can repair, rebuild, and strengthen. For recreational athletes, building in rest days can help maintain a better balance between home, work, and fitness goals.

When your life is racing full-speed ahead, so is your mind. Restorative yoga helps provide that physical and mental balance to prevent stress and anxiety, through the use of props (blankets, yoga blocks or pillows) that allow you to hold poses longer, giving you all the benefits of deep, passive stretching.

Here are some of the benefits of practicing Restorative Yoga:

🧘🏻‍♀️ It allows your muscles to recover with gentle moves.

Is not about the quantity is about the quality of staying still and present when performing poses

🧘🏻‍♀️It helps us to slow down and cultivate the skill of conscious relaxation.

Depending on you lifestyle, most of us are programmed to “do” a lot—it keeps us engaged and makes us feel productive and in control. But our habit of running around, conquering our to-do lists, and fueling ourselves with coffee and ambition can often be a way we avoid deep discomforts and unwelcome feelings in the body and mind.

Restorative yoga asks us to stop engaging in all the doing and face what we really need to look at about ourselves. To learn about, befriend, and care for the whole of ourselves in a way we are not used to. This is an essential step for health and healing, for true renewal. A lot of people think relaxing is about letting go, but rather than throwing out, we are trying to make space for what’s uncomfortable and to allow more space for the full experience of who we are.

🧘🏻‍♀️ It helps us discover where we are holding tension.
Once you come to this realization, you can make small changes in your everyday life to reduce the stress and tension you allow to build up in your body.

🧘🏻‍♀️ Enhance the flexibility
All forms of yoga help make you bendier, but regular use of restorative poses leads you to a passive flexibility session
However, Restorative yoga is not a stretching class and there is no end goal involved, like being able to touch your toes after 10 sessions. You are exploring what happens when you release the tension your body habitually holds.

🧘🏻‍♀️The slower pace and deep breathing that you get in a restorative yoga practice triggers the parasympathetic nervous system and helps us to reduce the level of stress. Optimizing energy flow to the organs, tissue renewal, and reduced “fight or flight” response.

Little Note:
Restorative Yoga is not the same as Yin Yoga, we will talk more about it in the next post.

Here I am sharing a video tutorial I have created for yo to give it a try and practice at home.

 

 

If you practice aerial acrobatics , pole dance or you are curious about how yoga can help you stay flexible and strong join the private facebook group “Yoga for every Acrobat”..

Where I am sharing yoga tutorial specific for keeping our body strong flexible and mobil.

 

 

 

Yoga for Aerial Acrobats – How to get your spine more flexible?

Would you like to practice those pretty backbends in the silk and the aerial hoop? Or you are looking to increase your spine flexibility with a safe yoga practice at home?

Our spine is so delicate and so strong at the same time, is the one in charge of connecting our whole body, from our head, torso, arms, hands & fingers to our hips, legs, feet, and toes.

Some of us are born we the body more available to perform backends and torsions without a lot of effort and others need to work a little bit harder to get those pretty backbends.

Either or, it is true that if you don’t keep the good training and the practice going we will eventually feel stiffer and it will be harder to move.

As Kevin Kelly said “You are only as old as you spine is flexible”

The spine is a pivotal important part of our body.  Without it, we could not keep ourselves upright or even stand up.  It gives our body structure and support.  It enables us to move about freely and to bend with flexibility.  The spine is also designed to protect our spinal cord.  The spinal cord is a column of nerves that connects our brain with the rest of the body, allowing control of our movement and bodily function.  This is why keeping the spine flexible is vital for a healthy and active life and also important for an optimum nervous system function.

Today I am sharing 2 videos tutorials I uploaded in YouTube showing how to practice 2 basic but important yoga poses that will help you to build a solid foundation in your home practice and feel your spine more flexible and available in your daily activities

This is for you if you practice aerial circus acrobatics, pole dance and you want to get those pretty backbends but you don’t know where to start.

And this is also for you if you are following your yoga path and wish to understand better how to move in a safe way to increase your spine flexibility at home.

After your spine warm-up.
This is how we can practice cobra in a safe| proper way.
Take your time, be patient and always work in a progressive way.

Yoga Pose:

🐍 Cobra Pose or Bhujangasana

Benefits:
– Help us to keep our spine strong & flexible
– Help with our digestion
– Help us to reduce anxiety.
– Help us to balance our lower chakras.
– among other benefits…

 

 

Bring your yoga mat & 2 blocks.

We are going to practice:

🐪 Camel Pose or Ustrasana in Sanskrit

Benefits:
– It improves spinal flexibility.
– It helps to strengthen the back muscles.
– This pose creates space in the chest and lungs, increasing breathing capacity and helping to relieve respiratory ailments.
– Stimulates the kidneys, which improves digestion.

 

I truly hope this helps as guidance to start your home practice and increase your flexibility
Remember to consult your physiotherapist or personal instructor if your spine doesn’t feel good or you are suffering from any injuries.
Feel free to send me an email and ☝🏻Let me know how is your practice going. And join the private Facebook group:
“Yoga for every Acrobat” to connect with like-minded people who want to improve their aerial acrobatics performance by practicing specific yoga postures at home.
I share a video tutorial every week in the group, come to join us.
Don’t go without checking my free resource library, for more yoga tutorials to improve your flexibility.
Link Here 👈🏻

And let me know how you are your practice going

 

This is how you can reduce Stress & Anxiety during the Holidays.

During the holidays’ everyone tends to get a little bit crazy, lots of social events; dinners with friends, family, work, etc.

We tend to drink and eat a lot, a mean a lot.
When I was still living in Argentina, ( my home country) I remember exposing myself to a lot of friends and family reunions where the food wasn’t exactly the healthiest and t the moment I was quite a happy eating and drinking a lot. Holidays are the perfect excuse for this, right?
As time passed by, that kind of celebration stops having meaning to me.
I started to care more about weaking-up early on Christmas day and go for a run or a walk or watch the sunrise on the 1st day of the year and feel grateful for being alive.

Please don’t get me wrong I am not here to judge, I believe if everyone is happy with their life, each of us should live the life they want to.

Only when you are not happy with your lifestyle and you are just following the crowd behaving in a way that we “should behave” to fit in; is when you should know you have options.

I have been there my friend when choosing to eat and drink healthy during the holidays might be no acceptable among a certain group of people. Why do we choose to eat as if it would be the last dinner of our lives? Why do you choose to drink alcohol until our bodies can not take it anymore?

I guess it might be a way to hide or cover certain unhappiness going on.

Today I choose to take care of my self eating healthy, doing exercise going to sleep at a reasonable time .. yeap I might be getting older but I enjoy while I am taking care of my self.

I want to share with you a breathing technique you can practice at home that will help you to reduce stress and anxiety. Something I practice at home, especially in these holiday days

In the Yoga “language” we call Pranayama to the breathing exercises
which means “to control the prana”.
Prana is the subtle energy, the life force. Yoga teaches us how to use the lungs to the maximum capacity and how to control the breath with pranayama.

What is the difference between normal breathing and pranayama?
You might wonder…
Normal breathing is what keeps us alive, is automatic and most of the time we do have any awareness of our breathing.
The primary purpose of practicing Pranayama is to awake the prana, to maintain a healthy body and mind. It involves the complete mastery of the length, volume, flow, and quality of the breath. Ther are different breathing techniques and different types o pranayama.

Here I share with you how to practice Nadi Sodhana Pranayama.
Nadi means “energy channel”, sodhana means “to cleanse or purify”.
It is practiced by alternating the inhalation and exhalation between the left and the right nostril; controlling oscillations f the mind/body network and bringing balance and harmony through the system.

Click on the image below to watch the video tutorial.

This is my holiday Gift 🎁 .

Let me know how is your practice going

See you next year 😉 Happy Holidays! 🎄