Practice Point #61 Shoulder Blades

/

I received a question from Julia from Australia. Their question is...

Do you have some tips on how to bring more attention to and activate my shoulder blades during downward dog?

I can give some tips for things to be mindful of and consider.

What is important to recognise with any posture is that we must change the way we practice the pose as our practice develops.

You can't continue to do downward-facing dog the same way as when you first started yoga. However, being sensitive to when we have to change the way we are doing the pose is not easy or obvious.

When you are in a class some instructions are for you, some are not. This is where we begin to learn this. Start to discern in a class if the instruction is really for you. If your armpits are open in downward facing dog and the teacher keeps giving the instruction to open the armpits can you see how this instruction is not for you and will potentially lead to you doing an injury?

This is why the practice of yoga must be a practice of both effort (Abhyasa) and surrender (Vairagya). Doing and observing.

Now for outer shoulder blade activation in downward facing dog here are my few points of observation.

  1. Why do you want to activate your outer shoulder blades? Is this an instruction you need to do more?

  2. What are your trapezius muscles (at the base of the neck and top of the shoulders doing) Often these muscles dominate and do all the heavy lifting taking the spotlight off the outer shoulder blades? If you can soften the trapezius muscles you will find your outer shoulder blades.

  3. Become physically familiar with your outer shoulder blades and how they move. It is one thing to visualise them. Touch them. Raise your arms above your head, now place one hand on the opposite shoulder blade, and as you move the arm above your head around feel the movement of your shoulder blade so it is more tangible.

I hope that gives you some insight.

If you would like to submit a question about home practice and receive the answer in these weekly Practice Points, you can below. Question related to specific injuries will not be answered.