Connect To Your Core: Core Anatomy, Integration, and Application

In Forrest Yoga, we do core work. If you’ve never encountered this in a yoga class before, your first thought might be WHY? A strong core is incredibly important. In our modern day, “weakness” comes not just from lack of tone, but also from too much tone, or tightness. Sitting at a desk all day confers both lack of tone in some parts (lower back, pelvic floor) and too much tone in others (psoas, rhomboids). In Forrest Yoga, core work builds tone and connection where it is lacking, and releases tension where hyper-tonicity is adding to weakness and disconnect.

Our core muscles protect the bones and organs of our trunk, hold our organs in our abdominal cavity, and connect our trunk to our legs. A healthy toned core, one that is neither flaccid nor rigid, provides the best support for our vital organs, and in particular our guts. It’s a new way of thinking that “toned core” means “healthy guts” more than “six-pack abs,” but this is what Forrest Yoga does: takes you far deeper into understanding your body, and also helps dismantle a lot of popular, but erroneous, ideas.

In this two-hour workshop, we’ll review the basic anatomy of the core, in particular the muscles most commonly used in our basic core moves. I’ll explain what the muscles do, then you’ll experience that (integrate the information) by doing the poses yourself. For regular practitioners, you’ll get a new level of detail in understanding your core work poses. For new folks to Forrest Yoga, you’ll get a crash course in knowing how this part of your body works. Doing the poses following the anatomy part of the workshop should help everyone feel more educated and aware about this part of our body that for many of us, is an area we’d rather not think about, or don’t really understand well.

Once we’ve talked about and experienced our core muscles, we’ll put it all together into a back-bending class (yup, you use you core in that too and the more intelligent you are about the application of your core muscles in back-bending, the more pleasure and the more results you’ll receive from your back-bending practice). You’ll feel the support of your core from, as Ana Forrest likes to say “crotch to crown” and that’s pretty exciting. My experience of core work is that it makes me feel really connected, really powerful, sexier, and more alive.

I hope you will join us on Friday, May 15th from 7-9pm at Yoga in the Heights, 317 Central Ave., in Jersey City, NJ. www.jcheightsyoga.com