Somewhere in this thinking is the notion that a hamstring has ‘become short’, a hip has ‘become stiff’ or the core has ‘become weak’, as if these areas have an independence from the rest of the human being and have decided to behave in an unhelpful way. This is nonsense. If an area of the body appears tight or weak or stiff, it is generally because

Longer legs enabled early mammals to move more easily over objects, and the up and down movements of the spine further developed. The diaphragm and soft belly developed firstly to enable respiration and movement to take place at the same time, and secondly to allow greater flexion and extension of the body – something necessary for swift movement

The postures are a concentration of mind and movement in which the breath undoes the stiffness and tensions of the body, strengthening its weaknesses and restoring health.

bending spine, extension is an inevitable consequence. This is because of something called ‘coupled motion

‘Bottom-up processing describes the way an organism responds to its environment through its senses.’

Information flows into us through our senses, is processed in our brains and then responded to through our muscles, cells and glands. How we process the information will vary from person to person and culture to culture. Consequently, our responses to information will also vary from person to person and culture to culture.

This might mean noticing the feeling of muscles stiffening as they take up the work of a posture, then releasing and softening

shut down the part of the brain that helps us make sense of internal feelings. In effect, we try to hide from our feelings. Although this may be useful in the short term, because those feelings may threaten to overwhelm us, in the long term it means we become unable to interpret our ‘gut feelings’ accurately.

There are three major components to our anatomy that are of particular interest to us as yoga teachers (and students): muscles, fascia/connective tissue and bones. In a very straightforward way we can say that muscles generate forces to move us, fascia resists tensile forces and shapes us, and bones transmit forces to take the burden off muscles.