Yoga Shoulder Basics: Exercises for Shoulder Flexibility and Scapular Awareness

Yoga for Shoulders teaches you how to feel your shoulders and stretch them.It takes you through a series of stretches and shoulder awareness exercises that can help you improve awareness and flexibility and strength. Exercises are organized so that it is easy to learn to feel your shoulder and so that you can apply that awareness to more effectively stretching your shoulders. The very first exercises are designed to help you become more aware of your ribcage and your neck and how to shape them so that they form a stable foundation. This forms a basis for moving the shoulders and stretching them.When stretching and improving awareness, one of the most important considerations is Tensegrity which is a contraction of the terms Tension and Integrity. Tension is what allows us to feel our body in general. While it is relatively easy to learn to feel muscular activity and the tension generated within the belly of a muscle when it is active, connective tissue tension is something we can learn to feel when muscles are relaxed.If we learn to feel this tension, and relaxed stretching is one way to learn to feel it, then we can not only improve body awareness, but also our ability to control our body and respond quickly, even instantaneously. One of the keys to learning to feel this tension is to move slowly and smoothly. But another key is to focus on isolated elements. After awareness (and control) is developed in isolation it can then be used in integrated "whole body" movements or postures.Many of the stretches are based on stretches that I first learned from Andrey Lappa, one of my most important yoga teachers. But I've also developed exercises based on my own experiences from studying Tai Ji and Kung fu and from teaching (and doing) yoga for the last 15 years. Read more