Why People Can Stretch For Years and See No Results? 🤔🧠

In my latest INSTAGRAM reel, Emma asks me a question and I answer.

[REEL]

The question is why people can stretch for so long and not see any results. BTW, I will upload the bloopers when I can. Emma only had 1 job 🤦🏾‍♂️

The answer is complicated, but in my opinion (driven by experience and science), beginners unfamiliar with what yoga is can do yoga as just glorified stretching - like at the end of a spin class. And the problem with that is that for most people, this method doesn't really work. Often, we think what we feel is stretching. Say standing forward bend: we reach for our toes and assume that pulling feeling in our hmstrings is stretching, when in beginners (and even more intermediate students), that feeling is actually resistance. Essentially, as I say in my well-acted reel, you are trying too hard. After some time you can and will feel the difference between stretching and resistance. And if you can't quite feel this in your muscles, you can feel this in your breathing. If your breathing feels rushed, the brain is feeling stressed and is resisting you. If you can calm your breathing and stay in control of your breathing (but you feel like you are putting in effort at the same time), your muscles are actually stretching 🤔💡

This is the whole of the physical yoga methodology: effort balanced with surrender. It's called sukha and dukha in yoga-spiel (pronounced Sook & Dhook).

So the next time you are on your mat, and if you have time, check in with what is happening. Just remember (I know I say this all the time): your muscles don't stretch because you do a pose or a shape. Once in the pose, you have to earn the stretch by finding that balance. As a wise man once said; "Don't stretch the truth about your limits. Your hamstrings will call your bluff every time. Find the sweet spot between 'I got this' and 'I'm forcing this,' and that's where the real flexibility happens.

That wise man was me, by the way 🫣

Namaskar

Zahir 👳🏾‍♂️

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