The Sensitive Psoas and Its Substitutes
with Doug Keller (ZOOM)

You may have already heard lots about the psoas — but did you know that many of the psoas releases or stretches often run up against tighter psoas substitutes in the body, reducing their effectiveness? Knowing the distinction can fine-tune your practice and your understanding of yoga poses.

The psoas muscle has long been recognized as central to our posture and movement, and a source of back and hip pain. Yet the muscle is so deep, and involved in so much of our movement, including the breath, that we have to go through layers of muscle that support and replicate its function before we even get to it.

In this webinar, we’ll start with the sensitive psoas itself — its effects upon the body — particularly the low back and breath — as well as the idea of the aim in yoga of releasing its grip upon us, rather than simply ‘stretching’ it. How do we do that in our practice, and what is our approach?

When we DO feel a ‘stretch’ in the process, what we’re more often feeling are its substitutes. We’ll come to understand what these substitutes are, what their effect upon us is when they’re tight, and how certain poses and alignments address them directly, and open the doors to the psoas.

This webinar will give you news you can use, and an appreciation of just how much we are layered beings, in feeling and in movement — and how yoga helps us glide through these layers to the self that is our ‘core.’