What Does Alignment Mean to You?

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Here’s one thought. It’s how you go from being the stress-based version of yourself, to the ease-based version.

Let’s start with bones. But bones don’t move themselves, muscles are involved here too. So alignment is the position of our structure, our bones, and what our muscles do to create that.  Now for right alignment. And for this we might need some context, to say what’s right.

Whether it’s static, moving, or accomplishing something in a particular context, right alignment is the position requiring least amount of effort to be here, move there, get that. The least amount of effort to accomplish what you want in your life.

So maybe we can also say what it’s not. Squeezing, fidgeting, fixing, fussing, rotating, flexing, engaging, extending, in so many ways thinking our way, one disconnected part at a time, into some idea of an ideal shape. This is working as hard as possible, to do even something very simple. Like a yoga pose. Just a practice of working too hard, same as always. Which gives us a strategy for life of working very hard, to accomplish much less than our potential. This strategy of stress, struggle, too much thinking, too much disconnection, tension.

As soon as you pick one part of you, try to fix or fuss about it, things get very difficult. Alignment becomes difficult, with this disconnection. You lose the source. How all of you got here, all together. Now it’s a pileup of symptoms. This foot, this rib, that shoulder, that tailbone, each causing problems. This is needed, sometimes. Treating symptoms this way is needed if hit by a bus, we need to fix a broken arm. But mostly, treat the source.

It’s very difficult to practice disconnection, tension, pushing as a way to arrive at connection, ease, and peace.

So we need some different strategy, to accomplish something bigger. Some connection, balance, harmony, ease under challenge. So this is right alignment. Ease, the most ease possible, under any condition. We’re all trying to line up this way. The important part of the equation, more than just the line, is how we get there.

Have you heard the phrase signal to noise ratio? It fits here. Right alignment is how we get the strongest signal, the least noise interference. So we can increase the signal to noise ratio. Just stress, so much control, over-trying, over-doing, this creates a lot of noise, not so much signal. More ease, more ability to move in balanced connection with our whole self, in some good relationship with our whole self, then we have more signal. We sensitize, see, connect, to everything.

We become what we really are, here. Not the stress-based version of our selves, covered by so many layers, legacies, copies, habits. A different version. Unlayered. In alignment with your self, always. You become the ease-based version of your self. Creatively, breathtakingly, unique.

-Mike

 

About Strala Yoga Training

Strala combines the movement and healing wisdom of tai chi with the form vocabularies of yoga, tai chi, qigong, and Traditional Chinese and Japanese Medicine, to help people release stress, move easily through challenge, and live radiantly inspiring lives.

It begins with a mindset, that says our best way to get where we’re going is to feel good along the way. It also works miracles for whole health, helping us to find ease in our bodies and minds, and create the right conditions both for healing and optimal performance.

In our Strala Training Courses, you learn to shape your destiny on every level that counts, from your psychology, chemistry and neurology, to your chromosomes and even gene expression. The unique set of skills you develop – for connecting with yourself and others, unblocking your energy, healing what needs healing and accomplishing challenge with ease – uncovers your ability to create the life you want, and be an inspiring leader to the people around you.

Who’s What’s and When’s of Strala Yoga Training

 

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