| Hi folks, I have a misaligned shoulder (higher and more forward than it should be) that I've been working on realigning in numerous ways, including regular chiropractic adjustments, "exercises" given to me by my chiropractor to gradually stretch the ligaments and tendons, other exercises given to me by my yoga teacher that I believe are actually Qi Xong (sp?) exercises, getting frequent adjustments to the position of my shoulders during mysore practice, and focusing my attention very closely on my shoulder and the muscles of the shoulder girdle (especially the sartorius muscle which seems to be quite lazy). While there used to be occassional ache in that trouble shoulder, all this messing around has increased the soreness.
Before anyone tells me to watch out for jump backs and jump throughs: jump backs create no pain whatsoever, and I've had my technique checked out by my teachers; I am not attempting jump "throughs" at all, as my former attempts frequently made me bonk my arm with my knee or foot and knock my shoulder out of line, which was not pleasant, so I simply jump forward to seated which creates no pain at all. Whatever is wrong with my shoulder causes "disfunctional movement" only when my arm is stretched out to the side - arm rotations with that position are very jerky and I can feel something is out of whack - moving the arm in the front to back plane (the one that the shoulder moves in during jump forward and back) is not a problem at all, and I have excellent (circus-freakish? ) range of motion in that plane.
OK, what's my point? I don't really think that I need any more exercises at this time... But I seem to recall reading somewhere on the forums about some sort of Iyengar contraption where there is a strap placed in some way or other around the shoulders to "restrain them" in the proper position and this strap can be used during asana practice or just during daily activities. I was wondering if anyone could instruct me properly on how to strap myself this way, so that I might try to feel what proper position and alignment would be like and apply it to my exercises...
Thanks for the help, sp |
| If you arrange the looped strap so that the tail is at the bottom of your back, you can slip it under the top part that's below your neck, and then pull the tail down to cinch it all tighter. I had a teacher who told us to try going a whole day wearing the strap that way, especially if you worked at the computer all day. Then again, this is the same teacher who told us that she watched TV in prasarita padasana (leg lifts)! |