February 21, 2023 • 28 mins
The Science Behind How New Movement Patterns are Actually Created | The Asana Academy Podcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
So one of the questions I gotfrom podcast episode I did a few
weeks back on training plateauswas specifically about movement
patterns and how we create them,and I figured this is actually a
really good opportunity.
To talk about how movementpatterns are created and like
(00:20):
the things that I dospecifically, with my clients to
help foster an environment wheresomeone can create new movement
patterns now.
So the thing with it, I think,and this is where a lot of
people struggle with, and maybethis is what you struggle with
your training.
Is that we, you can, we tend toget really good at doing certain
(00:43):
exercises, right?
Or if you practice yoga, youtend to get really good at doing
certain poses, whatever.
Whatever it is you're good at.
Standing poses.
Seated poses.
Or maybe you exercise in thegym, you're good at doing
pull-ups, or you're good atdoing something, and you build
the strength from those posesand you feel you feel in the
context of what you're doing,you feel really strong, but,
(01:06):
When you try to transfer thatstrength or you tend to apply
that strength to something else,then all of a sudden it doesn't
feel like you have any of it atall.
And one of the classic examplesof that is, and this is what I
see a lot, maybe you can bereally good at doing.
You have a routine you do foryour core, like core exercises
(01:26):
and you feel like I'm reallystrong.
I can do all sorts of differentmovements, but.
when I try to transfer that corestrength into, say, doing a
press handstand or maybesomething different like
swinging a tennis racket oranything else that requires
strength and stability in yourcore.
It's not there.
(01:47):
It's non-existent, right?
And it's a puzzling thing.
Like you see this a lot too,which is people can have really
strong cores, but really badbalance, right?
So why is that?
Why is it that you can have astrong core and.
Terrible balance when in realitycore is supposed to help your
balance.
And it all boils down tomovement patterns, right?
(02:08):
And this is where a lot ofpeople get stuck.
And so understanding how thisworks and understanding how you
can actually change your.
Through this process is the keyto understanding, right?
And this is one of the mainthings that we do with clients
in Body Breakthrough is we helpthem to change their movement
(02:33):
patterns and to create moreempowering patterns that help
them with their goals, right?
So like I've said, pressHandstand is just a series of
movement patterns that you'reputting together for your body
to execute the movement now.
Some people really struggle withthis, right?
They have deeply ingrainedhabits or patterns that their
(02:53):
body likes to replicate, andit's very hard to break hold of.
So there's a couple of things tokeep in mind, right?
And what's really interesting isif you study neuroplasticity and
you study how the brain canchange and you can study also
how the brain.
And the body are linkedtogether.
The science is very complex onit and it's always changing.
(03:16):
And even to this day, we don'tfully understand the link
between our brain, our thoughtprocess, and our muscles and the
way they work.
It's a very complex thing, buthumans, despite all that, are
able to create differentmovement patterns all the time.
So one of the things, one of thethings with movement patterns
specifically that are sopowerful is realizing.
(03:40):
The, there's a term, it's calledproprioception, right?
And proprioception is our body'sability to sense ourselves in
space.
It's our body's ability to beaware of our surroundings and to
be fluid and to be very, to bevery reactive and aware of our
environment of what's going on,right?
Real time changes.
And there are split second.
(04:04):
Changes that happen sometimes,if we're upside down or we're
balancing that being, having ahigh level of proprioception
allows someone to make thosechanges in real time.
Or like in a press handstand,for example.
If you're pressing into theground and there's too much, you
feel too, like you feel likeyour shoulders are taking over.
(04:26):
your, that proprioceptiveelement of your brain allows you
to click in literallymilliseconds switch from your
shoulders to say, Hey, I'm gonnamove outta my shoulders and I'm
gonna move into my lats.
Real time.
It's like a switch and it's likean awareness thing that starts
to happen and.
Developing proprioception anddeveloping body awareness like
(04:49):
that and reactionary speed torecognize something, to be aware
enough that a muscle is actingin a certain way, but you want
to flip that muscle off.
and flip on another one, but notnecessarily to turn the muscle
off since the muscles are neverreally truly off in some
movement.
Like your shoulders, forexample, is you wanna minimize
(05:10):
it.
Yeah.
You wanna realize, hey, insteadof 90% here, I want to be like
20% here and I wanna be 80% ofmy back and making that switch
almost in real time.
So that proprioceptive elementis really good.
And another way to understandproprioception is to.
Two, it's not just our bodyawareness, but it's our bodies.
It's the ability for our body tomove independent of our vision.
(05:34):
And what that means is a lot ofwhat we a lot of the time, the
reason we struggle withtechnical skill like press
handstand, is what's considereda tech a really highly
technically demanding skill isbecause most of the way.
Our balance, we've trained ourbalances to be very vision
(05:56):
dependent.
Meaning if you notice forexample, like our motor skills
will kick in, like if we'rewalking, imagine you're walking
down the street and you liketrip on a curb.
You're walking around yourneighborhood or you like trip on
a rock or something.
The way we regain our balance,Is and pay attention to this
next time you trip and fall.
The way we regain our balance iswe shift our vision, right?
(06:19):
So we tend to look in thedirection that we feel like
we're falling, and that is thetrigger for our foot to kind of
plant and stabilize ourselves,right?
So we're vision dependent on.
Balance and we tend to, withouteven realizing it, we utilize
our vision to create balance.
And that's and it's true too.
Like even if you're in a yogaclass, right?
(06:40):
And you're doing a pose andyou're balancing on one leg and
you start to lose your balance,you tend to look in the
direction that you feel likeyou're falling to regain
stability first, right?
So that's another, that's anexample of vision dependent
balance, which is, if I.
(07:01):
I'm going to fall.
I can have a reflexive movementin my head to train my eyes, to
look in the direction that I'mgonna fall to help myself
restabilize, right?
That's part of the restabilization process, or part
of the balancing process.
Now, what's tricky withinversions, and this is just the
(07:21):
way humans are designed, is ifwe lose our balance on our feet,
our head is free to swivel,right?
But if we lose our balance onour.
Our head is fixed.
We don't have that same level ofvision that we do and movement
when we are on our hands like apress Hansen, for example, is we
plant our hands into the ground.
Our head is fixed, our vision isfixed.
(07:43):
We can't just swivel our head180 degrees, move our body and
look behind us like we could ifwe're on our feet.
So we have a narrower scope of.
Which means that we don't havethat same luxury.
So that level of proprioceptionmeans coming in and learning to
use your muscles correctly, andlearning to build the internal
(08:05):
foundation and that connectionbetween your brain, the link
between your brain.
and the link between yourmuscles to actually work.
And this is all part of the mothe movement pattern building
process.
So one of the things like andthis is like another level of
plateaus, another area ofplateaus in practice, and this
may explain why, for example,like if you're stuck in your
(08:27):
practice and you're like inadvanced.
Yoga practitioner, you have areally good skillset of things,
but when, whenever you moveoutside of that skillset of
things you're good at, it's veryhard.
Or you feel like there's certainareas where you just don't make
progress.
So one of the things, and thisis, this is also if you're a
yoga teacher, this is also veryimportant to pay attention to.
(08:50):
is that there is an under.
There is an under.
People tend to underestimate thepower of a language and the
power of cues, right?
So one of the things that I haveworked very extensively to
develop, and this is somethingthat I really learned working
with clients, something Ilearned completely outside of
the classroom setting.
But a general observation ofmine is that different people
(09:13):
respond differently to differentcues and different language,
right?
And the downside, like forexample of yoga is a lot of
teachers use cookie cutter cuesor language that students hear
over and over again to wherethey tune.
And so I see a lot of the issuewith people who are stuck and
(09:37):
especially stuck with presshands down, is they have the
same, they're getting the samequeuing, right?
Which is press into your handslift like this, pull your hips
over this way.
And those familiar cues tend toshut off the brain to producing
a new movement.
So if you change the languageand working with different
(09:58):
clients with all sorts ofdifferent body types, I've
developed a large vocabulary ofdifferent ways to say things
that get people's muscles tofire differently and to work
differently.
And that's one of the advantagesof working with a coach and
someone who sees your practice,understands your body is.
This by far is a game changer,right?
(10:20):
Like I, I see this with people,especially more advanced
practitioners, which issometimes it's simple shifts in
language of the way they hearthings.
That is a trigger for their bodyto then do something different,
right?
Like you may say something inthe same way.
You may be used to hearing,engage your.
In a certain way, or to use yourarms in a certain way, but the
(10:43):
second you hear it in adifferent context, that's a cue,
right?
That's a cue that we first hearand we digest internally first,
right?
There's a moment where our brainhears the cue, and based on the
way our brain receives thatinformation and filters it.
There's then the trickle downeffect into the muscles, and the
muscle works in a certain way.
(11:06):
So the languaging side of it isreally important.
And so oftentimes you can createhuge changes in the human body
by simply giving them adifferent set of giving them a
different set of language.
Understanding.
And that's why too, part of theprocess is not just building,
building.
proprioception, but also increating a movement pattern in
(11:27):
helping clients to create newmovement patterns.
You help them to create thosenew patterns by giving them
different language.
And that's one of the thingsthat I do is it's one of the
first things I do with clientsis, I can snap them out of
whatever area they're stuck intheir practice by simply giving
them different language anddifferent cues around where
(11:50):
their body is stuck.
That helps them to overcome thatplateau, and that's why.
That's why sometimes too, if yougo, imagine you go, you have a
similar yoga class you go to,right?
And this is like a really goodexample.
Maybe like Ashtanga, a lot ofAshtanga teachers all say the
same thing in the same way,right?
Very similar variations ofthings.
(12:11):
But then you go to a differentteacher, a different style of
yoga, and you may do a posethat's in Ang.
outside of the sequence, out ofthe context, mixed into a flow.
Say it's a vinyasa class, you'redoing some ang pose in a vinyasa
class, different order,different teacher, different
setting, and the teacher says itin a completely different way.
Your body absorbs itdifferently, right?
(12:33):
Like your body will then absorbit differently.
Your brain hears and filters theinformation differently, and
then it trickles it down to yourmuscles differently and the
muscles react in a differentway, right?
That's a really powerful.
Powerful tool in creatingmovement patterns and the like.
The great thing is for example,so one of the, one of the
(12:54):
hurdles of press handen that Ithink a lot of people don't even
realize is a hurdle becausethere's so much stigma and focus
around the upper body, is thatthe hip flexors have to be
strong enough.
So mechanically to press handsdown, because our legs are off
the ground, our hip flexors haveto be strong enough to support
(13:16):
the weight of our legs, right?
And the role of the, like ourhip flexors for regular humans
traditionally is just when wewalk, right?
We just walk and when we bendthe knee and lift the leg up, we
need enough strength in the hipsto physically lift our leg off
the ground and take a stepforward.
Now, in a press handstand, weneed even more strength in the
hip flexors because our.
(13:37):
Are actually moving through theair.
They're moving from the groundup into a handstand, and as a
result, learning to engage yourhip flex.
Learning how the strength isimportant, but learning to
engage them correctly is what iskey to making them, is to making
the press happen, right?
(13:58):
You have to have that engagementin the hips to support the legs.
Through that process from theground up.
So that's like a queuing thing,right?
There's a big queuing thing anddifferent people hear hip cues
very differently, right?
And actually sometimesidentifying hip, identifying
(14:18):
different cues via differentmuscles in the hip.
all respond, people all responddifferent, but that's how you
can build a new movementpattern.
That's how you can createsomething that becomes long-term
pattern integrated into it.
So having that, like having thatability to.
(14:44):
use language to start to shiftor change in someone as a really
key part of the process.
Because building a movementpattern isn't just a building a
movement pattern just isn'tabout moving the body, but it's
how the brain filtersinformation that it hears to
(15:05):
then decipher that for themuscle to engage.
If you change the way the brainhears something, you're gonna
change the way the brainprocesses it.
And when you change the way thebrain processes it, the muscles
work differently.
So that is a very important parttoo.
The process is queuing is simplysaying, Hey, if I can take and
everyone's different on this,right?
Like a general set of queuingjust doesn't work for an entire
(15:29):
population every.
responds differently to adifferent set of queuing, right?
So if you've never actually hadthat, like that's one of the
things people ask all the timewhen, because I talk about
movement patterns, I really talkabout how I create the movement
patterns, but this is one of'em,which is through queuing, right?
And the message I got onInstagram the other day reminded
me, I'm like let me talk aboutactually how I create these
(15:50):
patterns.
So different language anddifferent queuing.
That's how you help people getthrough plateaus, which is let's
present things in a completelydifferent way and say things so
the language they hear isdifferent.
And then in turn sparks themuscle to respond in a different
way.
That's also another way to buildstrength when people get stuck
is this.
Give them a new cue.
Give them things they haven'theard before.
(16:10):
And then that's ultra powerful.
Now, another way that we create.
Movement patterns that's ultraimportant is through mirror
neurons.
So mirror neurons, if you're notfamiliar with these, they're
basically, it's like it's a typeof brain cell that flips on and
(16:34):
it performs actions based onwhen we see someone else doing
them, right?
And so this is one of thosethings where when you see
someone.
do something correctly, thebrain embodies it, right?
So sometimes like I so sometimesI hear, so one of the things
that I'm really big on is whenyou watch people do things the
(16:57):
right way, you can absorb theskill even quicker because your
body is, you, your, the mirrorneurons in your brain are
physically attuning themselvesto what they're.
and they help your body digestit quicker.
So like sometimes clients willsay, and I always remind them of
(17:19):
this, is they're like, when Idemonstrate the different
exercises and I demonstrate thethings that I'm doing, I have
like very specific videos intheir, like part of the training
is to watch the videos.
They're very short very short.
Clips that are just, secondslong, but they're me doing them
and I'm demonstrating them in aright way so that whoever the
(17:42):
client is watching these videoscan actually flip on their
mirror neurons, flip on andstart to copy it, which is why
sometimes if someone says can Isee a regular person?
doing these exercises, what aregular person looks like.
You don't wanna watch a regularperson do the exercises because
you're gonna train your mirrorneurons to replicate the wrong
(18:07):
movement.
And that's where the otherprocess of pat of patterning
comes into play.
And this, by the way, is why Idon't have the statistic like
off the top of my head, but Iremember reading this a while
back like if a parent.
If a child's parent was aprofessional athlete, they have
it was like a 42 times or 44.
(18:27):
So that's that is 4,000, 4200%or 4,000, 400% greater chance of
becoming a professional athletethan parents, than kids who have
parents that weren'tprofessional athletes.
And the reason that's true.
Is because if a child iswatching their parent swing a
(18:50):
golf club, for example, or kicka soccer ball, or throw a
football or swing a baseballbat, they're get they're
literally the hack there is thatthey're literally downloading
the.
Exact correct patterning intotheir brain to execute it.
So that's why if a child's dadwas a professional basketball
(19:11):
player, they're gonna becomeprofessional basketball player.
Look at LeBron James' kids,right?
They learn from him.
Look at Tiger Woods' son, right?
He learns to swing a golf clubfrom Tiger Woods, right?
So it's a really powerful tool.
The mirror neurons, when youhave the.
When you have the correctformat.
So that's why I, that's why Ilike, it's part of the process
(19:33):
and part of the training processis if you watch me do exercises
correctly, it accelerates theprogress because now your mirror
neurons have something correctto model, which then when you
combine that with language andwhen you combine that with
proprioception, you now aregiving your body an opportunity.
You're now setting your body upin a way which is primed to
(19:57):
create newer, more correctpatterns, right?
And these are all.
That these are all things thatare behind the surface.
These are things that likeYouTube videos and general stuff
can't teach you becauseeverybody's body is different.
And that's why you can see, andthis is why like you can look at
drills and they've got so manyvideos on YouTube and millions
(20:19):
and millions of hours, I'm sureof content on it, but it doesn't
work because these criticalelements.
Are not there, right?
Like they, they just aren'tthere.
And the queuing or the exercisesor what they're seeing is not
actually helping them to getthere.
(20:39):
So building strength is fine,but then putting those pieces
together is really powerful andyour body's ability, cuz
sometimes people tend to thinklike it's not possible for.
I'm, I'm too old or my body, Ihave such deep rooted patterns.
My body doesn't change.
And this is oftentimes peoplewith injuries that have had big
back injuries or shoulderinjuries, and they have not been
(21:05):
able to change their body in anymeaningful way.
They tend to say I'm stuck in myways.
But for example I'll give you areally great exercise, which if
you want to prove to your bodythe power, Of how new movement
patterns are created, like amore complex one.
If you have a basketball, forexample, you can take a
(21:27):
basketball and you can dribbleit in one hand and you have to
go to a wall.
So you need a basketball and youneed a tennis ball for this,
right?
Like you can take a basketballand you can throw the basketball
or dribble the basketball on onehand and then at the same time,
take the tennis.
Throw the tennis ball up againstthe wall and let it bounce on
(21:50):
the ground and catch it.
So simultaneously what you'redoing is you're dribbling a
basketball on one hand andyou're throwing a ball, a tennis
ball up against a wall with theother hand, and you're catching
the tennis ball while dribblingthe basketball at the same time.
So one thing is for sure, thefirst time that you try to do
that, it's gonna.
odd, you're gonna, you're gonnafeel completely tangled.
(22:11):
It's like your body's gonna feelso tangled to where it's I don't
know what to do.
This is really weird.
I can't do either, because nowI'm trying to put them together.
But doing them separate is fine.
But when I put them together,it's difficult.
And you can try that and you'llget better.
And the thing with it that'scrazy is you can get better at.
That's your body.
That's your body that's provingto your body that you can create
(22:34):
a new movement pattern, but thenyou can switch it.
And then once you learn it, putthe basketball in your other
hand and put the tennis ball inyour non-dominant throwing hand,
and then try it again.
And you'd be like, wow.
Now it's even more strange.
Now it's even more weird thatI'm having to go and relearn
this.
And that's very similar.
So that while that may seem likeit's in a completely different
(22:55):
realm that's very similar.
A press handstand in that thereare lots of things individually
that you can do.
Like you may have a strong core,you may be able to do an lsit,
you may have a strong back, youmay be able to do pull-ups and
different things, individualexercises.
(23:18):
But then when you try to combinethem all together into a press
handstand, now the body can't doit right then.
You can't make any.
On that, and that's very similarto this exercise with the tennis
ball and the basketball, is thatyou can probably dribble a
basketball on your own.
You can probably throw a tennisball up against a wall of some
sort on your own and do it.
(23:39):
But the second you combine them,it becomes exponentially more
difficult.
And then that's where you needthe tools and the skillset to
put them together.
It's a really powerful.
Tool to have in your toolkit torealize that's where progress
comes from, right?
(24:00):
That's where progress comes fromis being able to combine all of
these different ways to move andturn them into patterns, right?
It's to effectively turn theminto moving patterns.
And that's why like in theprocess of press handstand, it's
like the strength building isnot enough.
(24:20):
As much as the pattern buildingand being able to create these
new movement patterns is a verypowerful part of the process.
And so leveraging all of thosethings is ultimately how you
change, right?
like strength is just acatalyst.
(24:42):
Like for building for buildingmuscle.
But movement patterns are acatalyst for movements, right?
For new movements.
And so having to create thosethings, like that's that's like
part of the process, which issometimes people will say, cause
I know one of the biggestchallenges that people have is
they feel really strong incertain exercises.
(25:04):
It's kind of like I said at thebeginning of the.
Is that they feel really strongin certain exercises, but then
in others they feel completelyweak or they feel like the
strength is not transferable inany way.
Like this.
The transferrable, like I can,I'm really strong at core, but
I'm really bad at balance.
I'm really strong at core, buthandstand feel impossible to me
(25:24):
in that way.
Yeah, that's normal.
That's, there's a lot ofpatterning that has to go into
play and there's things that youhave to change in order to make
that actually happen.
So that's a really, that's areally key part of the process
cuz like people will ask thetestimonials and watch the
videos, what people say, they'reall over the place.
But what makes it reallydifferent is that the, there's a
(25:48):
really large focus on making.
Whoever is in front of me isbuilding the correct movement
patterns to succeed.
That's important.
That's what you need in order tomove forward.
So I hope that gives you alittle bit of insight.
like into the process of saying,okay, movement patterns is
something that's so powerful andI talk about creating movement
(26:09):
patterns, but these are some ofthe ways of how, right?
And these are things where youcan learn and you can develop,
and that's how you can start tolearn skills that you previously
weren't able to do.
Which is, and that's why whensomeone says I don't think I'm
capable.
I've got this body type or Xbody type, or I'm too old,
whatever.
It's all the same humans.
(26:30):
Movement patterns fundamentallyin the same way, the things that
they need to do to create thepatterns are different, right?
So everyone has a different theyhave a different trigger, right?
Which is different.
Humans respond to differenttriggers, which then signal the
brain to work the muscles in adifferent way.
And over time those just becomepatterns, right?
(26:52):
That's all I've got for you ontoday's show.
If you are interested in workingwith us and going through this
process, the links are all inthe show notes and you can
follow the details there.
And if you have questions, youcan also shoot me a message on
Instagram and one other thing,if this was beneficial for you
and you learn something, pleasedo tag me in a story and let me
(27:15):
know.
Let me know what you've.
my Instagram is all the detailsand everything is in the show
notes.
You can just go in there andclick the link and do that.
I would greatly appreciate that.
If you could also take some timeto leave a review for this
podcast and if you know anotheryogi or another practitioner who
is working on their presshandstand or just a yoga teacher
in general who is interested inthis kind of stuff and wants to
(27:37):
learn these kind of things,please do share this with them.
I would also greatly appreciatethat.
So that's all I've got for you.
Today's show.
Have a good rest of your day andI'll talk to you soon.
So one of the questions I gotfrom podcast episode I did a few
weeks back on training plateauswas specifically about movement
patterns and how we create them,and I figured this is actually a
really good opportunity.
To talk about how movementpatterns are created and like
(00:20):
the things that I dospecifically, with my clients to
help foster an environment wheresomeone can create new movement
patterns now.
So the thing with it, I think,and this is where a lot of
people struggle with, and maybethis is what you struggle with
your training.
Is that we, you can, we tend toget really good at doing certain
(00:43):
exercises, right?
Or if you practice yoga, youtend to get really good at doing
certain poses, whatever.
Whatever it is you're good at.
Standing poses.
Seated poses.
Or maybe you exercise in thegym, you're good at doing
pull-ups, or you're good atdoing something, and you build
the strength from those posesand you feel you feel in the
context of what you're doing,you feel really strong, but,
(01:06):
When you try to transfer thatstrength or you tend to apply
that strength to something else,then all of a sudden it doesn't
feel like you have any of it atall.
And one of the classic examplesof that is, and this is what I
see a lot, maybe you can bereally good at doing.
You have a routine you do foryour core, like core exercises
(01:26):
and you feel like I'm reallystrong.
I can do all sorts of differentmovements, but.
when I try to transfer that corestrength into, say, doing a
press handstand or maybesomething different like
swinging a tennis racket oranything else that requires
strength and stability in yourcore.
It's not there.
(01:47):
It's non-existent, right?
And it's a puzzling thing.
Like you see this a lot too,which is people can have really
strong cores, but really badbalance, right?
So why is that?
Why is it that you can have astrong core and.
Terrible balance when in realitycore is supposed to help your
balance.
And it all boils down tomovement patterns, right?
(02:08):
And this is where a lot ofpeople get stuck.
And so understanding how thisworks and understanding how you
can actually change your.
Through this process is the keyto understanding, right?
And this is one of the mainthings that we do with clients
in Body Breakthrough is we helpthem to change their movement
(02:33):
patterns and to create moreempowering patterns that help
them with their goals, right?
So like I've said, pressHandstand is just a series of
movement patterns that you'reputting together for your body
to execute the movement now.
Some people really struggle withthis, right?
They have deeply ingrainedhabits or patterns that their
(02:53):
body likes to replicate, andit's very hard to break hold of.
So there's a couple of things tokeep in mind, right?
And what's really interesting isif you study neuroplasticity and
you study how the brain canchange and you can study also
how the brain.
And the body are linkedtogether.
The science is very complex onit and it's always changing.
(03:16):
And even to this day, we don'tfully understand the link
between our brain, our thoughtprocess, and our muscles and the
way they work.
It's a very complex thing, buthumans, despite all that, are
able to create differentmovement patterns all the time.
So one of the things, one of thethings with movement patterns
specifically that are sopowerful is realizing.
(03:40):
The, there's a term, it's calledproprioception, right?
And proprioception is our body'sability to sense ourselves in
space.
It's our body's ability to beaware of our surroundings and to
be fluid and to be very, to bevery reactive and aware of our
environment of what's going on,right?
Real time changes.
And there are split second.
(04:04):
Changes that happen sometimes,if we're upside down or we're
balancing that being, having ahigh level of proprioception
allows someone to make thosechanges in real time.
Or like in a press handstand,for example.
If you're pressing into theground and there's too much, you
feel too, like you feel likeyour shoulders are taking over.
(04:26):
your, that proprioceptiveelement of your brain allows you
to click in literallymilliseconds switch from your
shoulders to say, Hey, I'm gonnamove outta my shoulders and I'm
gonna move into my lats.
Real time.
It's like a switch and it's likean awareness thing that starts
to happen and.
Developing proprioception anddeveloping body awareness like
(04:49):
that and reactionary speed torecognize something, to be aware
enough that a muscle is actingin a certain way, but you want
to flip that muscle off.
and flip on another one, but notnecessarily to turn the muscle
off since the muscles are neverreally truly off in some
movement.
Like your shoulders, forexample, is you wanna minimize
(05:10):
it.
Yeah.
You wanna realize, hey, insteadof 90% here, I want to be like
20% here and I wanna be 80% ofmy back and making that switch
almost in real time.
So that proprioceptive elementis really good.
And another way to understandproprioception is to.
Two, it's not just our bodyawareness, but it's our bodies.
It's the ability for our body tomove independent of our vision.
(05:34):
And what that means is a lot ofwhat we a lot of the time, the
reason we struggle withtechnical skill like press
handstand, is what's considereda tech a really highly
technically demanding skill isbecause most of the way.
Our balance, we've trained ourbalances to be very vision
(05:56):
dependent.
Meaning if you notice forexample, like our motor skills
will kick in, like if we'rewalking, imagine you're walking
down the street and you liketrip on a curb.
You're walking around yourneighborhood or you like trip on
a rock or something.
The way we regain our balance,Is and pay attention to this
next time you trip and fall.
The way we regain our balance iswe shift our vision, right?
(06:19):
So we tend to look in thedirection that we feel like
we're falling, and that is thetrigger for our foot to kind of
plant and stabilize ourselves,right?
So we're vision dependent on.
Balance and we tend to, withouteven realizing it, we utilize
our vision to create balance.
And that's and it's true too.
Like even if you're in a yogaclass, right?
(06:40):
And you're doing a pose andyou're balancing on one leg and
you start to lose your balance,you tend to look in the
direction that you feel likeyou're falling to regain
stability first, right?
So that's another, that's anexample of vision dependent
balance, which is, if I.
(07:01):
I'm going to fall.
I can have a reflexive movementin my head to train my eyes, to
look in the direction that I'mgonna fall to help myself
restabilize, right?
That's part of the restabilization process, or part
of the balancing process.
Now, what's tricky withinversions, and this is just the
(07:21):
way humans are designed, is ifwe lose our balance on our feet,
our head is free to swivel,right?
But if we lose our balance onour.
Our head is fixed.
We don't have that same level ofvision that we do and movement
when we are on our hands like apress Hansen, for example, is we
plant our hands into the ground.
Our head is fixed, our vision isfixed.
(07:43):
We can't just swivel our head180 degrees, move our body and
look behind us like we could ifwe're on our feet.
So we have a narrower scope of.
Which means that we don't havethat same luxury.
So that level of proprioceptionmeans coming in and learning to
use your muscles correctly, andlearning to build the internal
(08:05):
foundation and that connectionbetween your brain, the link
between your brain.
and the link between yourmuscles to actually work.
And this is all part of the mothe movement pattern building
process.
So one of the things like andthis is like another level of
plateaus, another area ofplateaus in practice, and this
may explain why, for example,like if you're stuck in your
(08:27):
practice and you're like inadvanced.
Yoga practitioner, you have areally good skillset of things,
but when, whenever you moveoutside of that skillset of
things you're good at, it's veryhard.
Or you feel like there's certainareas where you just don't make
progress.
So one of the things, and thisis, this is also if you're a
yoga teacher, this is also veryimportant to pay attention to.
(08:50):
is that there is an under.
There is an under.
People tend to underestimate thepower of a language and the
power of cues, right?
So one of the things that I haveworked very extensively to
develop, and this is somethingthat I really learned working
with clients, something Ilearned completely outside of
the classroom setting.
But a general observation ofmine is that different people
(09:13):
respond differently to differentcues and different language,
right?
And the downside, like forexample of yoga is a lot of
teachers use cookie cutter cuesor language that students hear
over and over again to wherethey tune.
And so I see a lot of the issuewith people who are stuck and
(09:37):
especially stuck with presshands down, is they have the
same, they're getting the samequeuing, right?
Which is press into your handslift like this, pull your hips
over this way.
And those familiar cues tend toshut off the brain to producing
a new movement.
So if you change the languageand working with different
(09:58):
clients with all sorts ofdifferent body types, I've
developed a large vocabulary ofdifferent ways to say things
that get people's muscles tofire differently and to work
differently.
And that's one of the advantagesof working with a coach and
someone who sees your practice,understands your body is.
This by far is a game changer,right?
(10:20):
Like I, I see this with people,especially more advanced
practitioners, which issometimes it's simple shifts in
language of the way they hearthings.
That is a trigger for their bodyto then do something different,
right?
Like you may say something inthe same way.
You may be used to hearing,engage your.
In a certain way, or to use yourarms in a certain way, but the
(10:43):
second you hear it in adifferent context, that's a cue,
right?
That's a cue that we first hearand we digest internally first,
right?
There's a moment where our brainhears the cue, and based on the
way our brain receives thatinformation and filters it.
There's then the trickle downeffect into the muscles, and the
muscle works in a certain way.
(11:06):
So the languaging side of it isreally important.
And so oftentimes you can createhuge changes in the human body
by simply giving them adifferent set of giving them a
different set of language.
Understanding.
And that's why too, part of theprocess is not just building,
building.
proprioception, but also increating a movement pattern in
(11:27):
helping clients to create newmovement patterns.
You help them to create thosenew patterns by giving them
different language.
And that's one of the thingsthat I do is it's one of the
first things I do with clientsis, I can snap them out of
whatever area they're stuck intheir practice by simply giving
them different language anddifferent cues around where
(11:50):
their body is stuck.
That helps them to overcome thatplateau, and that's why.
That's why sometimes too, if yougo, imagine you go, you have a
similar yoga class you go to,right?
And this is like a really goodexample.
Maybe like Ashtanga, a lot ofAshtanga teachers all say the
same thing in the same way,right?
Very similar variations ofthings.
(12:11):
But then you go to a differentteacher, a different style of
yoga, and you may do a posethat's in Ang.
outside of the sequence, out ofthe context, mixed into a flow.
Say it's a vinyasa class, you'redoing some ang pose in a vinyasa
class, different order,different teacher, different
setting, and the teacher says itin a completely different way.
Your body absorbs itdifferently, right?
(12:33):
Like your body will then absorbit differently.
Your brain hears and filters theinformation differently, and
then it trickles it down to yourmuscles differently and the
muscles react in a differentway, right?
That's a really powerful.
Powerful tool in creatingmovement patterns and the like.
The great thing is for example,so one of the, one of the
(12:54):
hurdles of press handen that Ithink a lot of people don't even
realize is a hurdle becausethere's so much stigma and focus
around the upper body, is thatthe hip flexors have to be
strong enough.
So mechanically to press handsdown, because our legs are off
the ground, our hip flexors haveto be strong enough to support
(13:16):
the weight of our legs, right?
And the role of the, like ourhip flexors for regular humans
traditionally is just when wewalk, right?
We just walk and when we bendthe knee and lift the leg up, we
need enough strength in the hipsto physically lift our leg off
the ground and take a stepforward.
Now, in a press handstand, weneed even more strength in the
hip flexors because our.
(13:37):
Are actually moving through theair.
They're moving from the groundup into a handstand, and as a
result, learning to engage yourhip flex.
Learning how the strength isimportant, but learning to
engage them correctly is what iskey to making them, is to making
the press happen, right?
(13:58):
You have to have that engagementin the hips to support the legs.
Through that process from theground up.
So that's like a queuing thing,right?
There's a big queuing thing anddifferent people hear hip cues
very differently, right?
And actually sometimesidentifying hip, identifying
(14:18):
different cues via differentmuscles in the hip.
all respond, people all responddifferent, but that's how you
can build a new movementpattern.
That's how you can createsomething that becomes long-term
pattern integrated into it.
So having that, like having thatability to.
(14:44):
use language to start to shiftor change in someone as a really
key part of the process.
Because building a movementpattern isn't just a building a
movement pattern just isn'tabout moving the body, but it's
how the brain filtersinformation that it hears to
(15:05):
then decipher that for themuscle to engage.
If you change the way the brainhears something, you're gonna
change the way the brainprocesses it.
And when you change the way thebrain processes it, the muscles
work differently.
So that is a very important parttoo.
The process is queuing is simplysaying, Hey, if I can take and
everyone's different on this,right?
Like a general set of queuingjust doesn't work for an entire
(15:29):
population every.
responds differently to adifferent set of queuing, right?
So if you've never actually hadthat, like that's one of the
things people ask all the timewhen, because I talk about
movement patterns, I really talkabout how I create the movement
patterns, but this is one of'em,which is through queuing, right?
And the message I got onInstagram the other day reminded
me, I'm like let me talk aboutactually how I create these
(15:50):
patterns.
So different language anddifferent queuing.
That's how you help people getthrough plateaus, which is let's
present things in a completelydifferent way and say things so
the language they hear isdifferent.
And then in turn sparks themuscle to respond in a different
way.
That's also another way to buildstrength when people get stuck
is this.
Give them a new cue.
Give them things they haven'theard before.
(16:10):
And then that's ultra powerful.
Now, another way that we create.
Movement patterns that's ultraimportant is through mirror
neurons.
So mirror neurons, if you're notfamiliar with these, they're
basically, it's like it's a typeof brain cell that flips on and
(16:34):
it performs actions based onwhen we see someone else doing
them, right?
And so this is one of thosethings where when you see
someone.
do something correctly, thebrain embodies it, right?
So sometimes like I so sometimesI hear, so one of the things
that I'm really big on is whenyou watch people do things the
(16:57):
right way, you can absorb theskill even quicker because your
body is, you, your, the mirrorneurons in your brain are
physically attuning themselvesto what they're.
and they help your body digestit quicker.
So like sometimes clients willsay, and I always remind them of
(17:19):
this, is they're like, when Idemonstrate the different
exercises and I demonstrate thethings that I'm doing, I have
like very specific videos intheir, like part of the training
is to watch the videos.
They're very short very short.
Clips that are just, secondslong, but they're me doing them
and I'm demonstrating them in aright way so that whoever the
(17:42):
client is watching these videoscan actually flip on their
mirror neurons, flip on andstart to copy it, which is why
sometimes if someone says can Isee a regular person?
doing these exercises, what aregular person looks like.
You don't wanna watch a regularperson do the exercises because
you're gonna train your mirrorneurons to replicate the wrong
(18:07):
movement.
And that's where the otherprocess of pat of patterning
comes into play.
And this, by the way, is why Idon't have the statistic like
off the top of my head, but Iremember reading this a while
back like if a parent.
If a child's parent was aprofessional athlete, they have
it was like a 42 times or 44.
(18:27):
So that's that is 4,000, 4200%or 4,000, 400% greater chance of
becoming a professional athletethan parents, than kids who have
parents that weren'tprofessional athletes.
And the reason that's true.
Is because if a child iswatching their parent swing a
(18:50):
golf club, for example, or kicka soccer ball, or throw a
football or swing a baseballbat, they're get they're
literally the hack there is thatthey're literally downloading
the.
Exact correct patterning intotheir brain to execute it.
So that's why if a child's dadwas a professional basketball
(19:11):
player, they're gonna becomeprofessional basketball player.
Look at LeBron James' kids,right?
They learn from him.
Look at Tiger Woods' son, right?
He learns to swing a golf clubfrom Tiger Woods, right?
So it's a really powerful tool.
The mirror neurons, when youhave the.
When you have the correctformat.
So that's why I, that's why Ilike, it's part of the process
(19:33):
and part of the training processis if you watch me do exercises
correctly, it accelerates theprogress because now your mirror
neurons have something correctto model, which then when you
combine that with language andwhen you combine that with
proprioception, you now aregiving your body an opportunity.
You're now setting your body upin a way which is primed to
(19:57):
create newer, more correctpatterns, right?
And these are all.
That these are all things thatare behind the surface.
These are things that likeYouTube videos and general stuff
can't teach you becauseeverybody's body is different.
And that's why you can see, andthis is why like you can look at
drills and they've got so manyvideos on YouTube and millions
(20:19):
and millions of hours, I'm sureof content on it, but it doesn't
work because these criticalelements.
Are not there, right?
Like they, they just aren'tthere.
And the queuing or the exercisesor what they're seeing is not
actually helping them to getthere.
(20:39):
So building strength is fine,but then putting those pieces
together is really powerful andyour body's ability, cuz
sometimes people tend to thinklike it's not possible for.
I'm, I'm too old or my body, Ihave such deep rooted patterns.
My body doesn't change.
And this is oftentimes peoplewith injuries that have had big
back injuries or shoulderinjuries, and they have not been
(21:05):
able to change their body in anymeaningful way.
They tend to say I'm stuck in myways.
But for example I'll give you areally great exercise, which if
you want to prove to your bodythe power, Of how new movement
patterns are created, like amore complex one.
If you have a basketball, forexample, you can take a
(21:27):
basketball and you can dribbleit in one hand and you have to
go to a wall.
So you need a basketball and youneed a tennis ball for this,
right?
Like you can take a basketballand you can throw the basketball
or dribble the basketball on onehand and then at the same time,
take the tennis.
Throw the tennis ball up againstthe wall and let it bounce on
(21:50):
the ground and catch it.
So simultaneously what you'redoing is you're dribbling a
basketball on one hand andyou're throwing a ball, a tennis
ball up against a wall with theother hand, and you're catching
the tennis ball while dribblingthe basketball at the same time.
So one thing is for sure, thefirst time that you try to do
that, it's gonna.
odd, you're gonna, you're gonnafeel completely tangled.
(22:11):
It's like your body's gonna feelso tangled to where it's I don't
know what to do.
This is really weird.
I can't do either, because nowI'm trying to put them together.
But doing them separate is fine.
But when I put them together,it's difficult.
And you can try that and you'llget better.
And the thing with it that'scrazy is you can get better at.
That's your body.
That's your body that's provingto your body that you can create
(22:34):
a new movement pattern, but thenyou can switch it.
And then once you learn it, putthe basketball in your other
hand and put the tennis ball inyour non-dominant throwing hand,
and then try it again.
And you'd be like, wow.
Now it's even more strange.
Now it's even more weird thatI'm having to go and relearn
this.
And that's very similar.
So that while that may seem likeit's in a completely different
(22:55):
realm that's very similar.
A press handstand in that thereare lots of things individually
that you can do.
Like you may have a strong core,you may be able to do an lsit,
you may have a strong back, youmay be able to do pull-ups and
different things, individualexercises.
(23:18):
But then when you try to combinethem all together into a press
handstand, now the body can't doit right then.
You can't make any.
On that, and that's very similarto this exercise with the tennis
ball and the basketball, is thatyou can probably dribble a
basketball on your own.
You can probably throw a tennisball up against a wall of some
sort on your own and do it.
(23:39):
But the second you combine them,it becomes exponentially more
difficult.
And then that's where you needthe tools and the skillset to
put them together.
It's a really powerful.
Tool to have in your toolkit torealize that's where progress
comes from, right?
(24:00):
That's where progress comes fromis being able to combine all of
these different ways to move andturn them into patterns, right?
It's to effectively turn theminto moving patterns.
And that's why like in theprocess of press handstand, it's
like the strength building isnot enough.
(24:20):
As much as the pattern buildingand being able to create these
new movement patterns is a verypowerful part of the process.
And so leveraging all of thosethings is ultimately how you
change, right?
like strength is just acatalyst.
(24:42):
Like for building for buildingmuscle.
But movement patterns are acatalyst for movements, right?
For new movements.
And so having to create thosethings, like that's that's like
part of the process, which issometimes people will say, cause
I know one of the biggestchallenges that people have is
they feel really strong incertain exercises.
(25:04):
It's kind of like I said at thebeginning of the.
Is that they feel really strongin certain exercises, but then
in others they feel completelyweak or they feel like the
strength is not transferable inany way.
Like this.
The transferrable, like I can,I'm really strong at core, but
I'm really bad at balance.
I'm really strong at core, buthandstand feel impossible to me
(25:24):
in that way.
Yeah, that's normal.
That's, there's a lot ofpatterning that has to go into
play and there's things that youhave to change in order to make
that actually happen.
So that's a really, that's areally key part of the process
cuz like people will ask thetestimonials and watch the
videos, what people say, they'reall over the place.
But what makes it reallydifferent is that the, there's a
(25:48):
really large focus on making.
Whoever is in front of me isbuilding the correct movement
patterns to succeed.
That's important.
That's what you need in order tomove forward.
So I hope that gives you alittle bit of insight.
like into the process of saying,okay, movement patterns is
something that's so powerful andI talk about creating movement
(26:09):
patterns, but these are some ofthe ways of how, right?
And these are things where youcan learn and you can develop,
and that's how you can start tolearn skills that you previously
weren't able to do.
Which is, and that's why whensomeone says I don't think I'm
capable.
I've got this body type or Xbody type, or I'm too old,
whatever.
It's all the same humans.
(26:30):
Movement patterns fundamentallyin the same way, the things that
they need to do to create thepatterns are different, right?
So everyone has a different theyhave a different trigger, right?
Which is different.
Humans respond to differenttriggers, which then signal the
brain to work the muscles in adifferent way.
And over time those just becomepatterns, right?
(26:52):
That's all I've got for you ontoday's show.
If you are interested in workingwith us and going through this
process, the links are all inthe show notes and you can
follow the details there.
And if you have questions, youcan also shoot me a message on
Instagram and one other thing,if this was beneficial for you
and you learn something, pleasedo tag me in a story and let me
(27:15):
know.
Let me know what you've.
my Instagram is all the detailsand everything is in the show
notes.
You can just go in there andclick the link and do that.
I would greatly appreciate that.
If you could also take some timeto leave a review for this
podcast and if you know anotheryogi or another practitioner who
is working on their presshandstand or just a yoga teacher
in general who is interested inthis kind of stuff and wants to
(27:37):
learn these kind of things,please do share this with them.
I would also greatly appreciatethat.
So that's all I've got for you.
Today's show.
Have a good rest of your day andI'll talk to you soon.
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