Backward To Go Forward

Progression doesn’t always have to mean moving forward.

Looking backward and returning to the basic order or even your fundamentals has advantages too and can in fact speed up progress.

If you’re flying solo I fully recommend returning to the basic work regularly.

Back to Basics

I love to push myself and enjoy an adventure into more advanced work, but the truth is that the key to unlock so much of the more advanced practice lies within the basic work anyways.

It’s also here that we can be more present and keep ourselves and our movement more honest.

Without another pair of eyes watching, following more accessible exercises allows us to feel the work deeper, correct ourselves and better re-pattern movements where we might otherwise be tempted to cheat or muscle through the work…

A Simple Challenge

So here’s a challenge for you whatever level of practice you are at.

Plan a session with a few chosen exercises that you already feel proficient with. Plan them into a sequence, or for the classical work, follow the basic or intro order. Take a short moment before to breathe, center, and prepare and then begin to work through them methodically, at a tempo that allows you to notice how you feel, how each new repetition evolves, and if you are working anything other than ideal.

Try and avoid judging yourself, but instead, simply notice and correct yourself gently as you go.

Maybe you favor one side more than the other or perhaps work using the global muscles through a particular movement or exercise. Perhaps you feel tighter through a particular muscle chain, or avoid squaring the hips or shoulders in certain stretches.

Strengthen our Foundation

All of these moments taken to be present and to self-correct within exercises that are easily attainable can really help to find those small cheats that we carry into more advanced work, and can really help to strengthen our foundation to truly take our practice forward.

I hope this helps, especially at this moment where many of us are working out solo from home.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this and if maybe this helped and if so, what exercises you really felt a better connection with or an improvement.

Keep in motion and keep life fluid and may you all have a wonderful practice and find that magical flow!