What Does Strength Look Like?
I have been exploring approaches to working on strength and balance which you could argue is more about coordination, patience, constancy and focus rather than building muscle bulk and sweating a lot.
I recently found the photo below and thought that for me, is the ULTIMATE in strength - learning to hold yourself up.
This is my son (he’s now 14) just after he had figured out how to hold himself up and rock back and forth to prepare to crawl forward.
What I love about this is it looks effortless. There is an absence of strain.
This is what I believe sustainable strength for the long term can look like.
As an adult when you are first learning to practice balance and strength, there is so much to coordinate.
The internal communication system is super busy and with practice gets quieter as you embody the patterns.
Below is a photo of me in Devon recently - the first time the mist lifted after 3 days of not being able to see anything!
What you can’t see is how much internal communication and coordination is going on to:
stay in my standing leg
maintain a full footprint when my toes want to scrunch up
avoid collapsing into the hip
finding length through the right inner thigh
softening my jaw
and maintain an easy, calm breath
**I have practiced a lot to be able to do this and keep practicing.
Often when I demonstrate something like this pose in the photo, there will be comments like “I’ll never be able to do that” or “my balance is rubbish”.
I take pride in offering and promoting movement modification to make positions and exercises as accessible as possible for whatever stage you are at in your body.
Please note, there are many modifications for this move eg a chair under the right foot.
By including this I don’t want anyone to feel they have failed in some way if they can’t access this position. I did acrobatics as a kid and have been teaching movement for 20 years.
My particular physical patterning allows me to do this. Movements like this can be broken down into a lot of smaller pieces, each of which is a challenge in itself.
We will be working on many balance variations, plus adding load and exploring strength in all classes in the coming months.