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december 2018 / january 2019yogajournal.com.sgWhy Should We Understand the Planes?
In a word: proprioception. This refers to the body’s ability to sense
joint position and movement, enabling you to know where your
body is in space without having to look—and to know how much
force is needed to create movement. It helps us feel grounded and
balanced, and it allows us to move in and out of yoga poses safely.
Proprioception can be enhanced over time with mindful, repetitive
movements, such as asana.
One of the obstacles to healthy proprioception is chronic,
unconscious, habitual patterns in the body. Whether these patterns
arise from injury or overuse doesn’t matter; they affect your posture
and keep you moving in habitual ways. To wit: Take a moment to
think about your highly mobile shoulder joint, which is built to move
in many different directions. If you start to favor moving it just one
way—say, reaching your arms forward and up in the sagittal plane
and avoiding reaching them out to the sides in the coronal plane—
that pattern can create an imbalance in the joint, leading to chronic
pain and even injury.
One way to wake up from these unconscious patterns is to try
less familiar movements and shapes in the planes you tend to avoid,
which will help bring flexibility to stuck areas and strength to weak
ones. Exploring simple movements in all three planes, especially
your nondominant one(s), with an open, playful attitude—frustration
and shame are not helpful here!—can help you develop new
neuromuscular pathways and more balanced movement patterns.
Over time, there’s a good chance you’ll find this leads to more
efficient posture, improved balance, and healthier joints.
If you’re a yoga teacher, including poses and cues that take
your students through all three planes (whether you name them
or not) can help them develop healthy and balanced bodies.
What’s more, using the framework of the planes to see distortions
and imbalances in a yoga practitioner’s body can help you use
more effective cues.
As you try to understand and analyze how you move separately
in each of the planes, keep in mind that the goal isn’t to dissect the
body. After all, the body exists in all three planes at the same time.
The point of this work is to try to bring the body into balance in all
three planes, at all times, to create a feeling of wholeness. This, I
believe, is one of the keys to feeling more embodied, both on and
off the mat.
Put the planes
into practice
Want to get comfortable with these
anatomical planes and expand your
movement range (or teaching skills)? Start
here:
STEP 1Make lists of your 10 favorite, and 10
least favorite, poses. Consider which poses
you tend to practice at home and which
ones you avoid.
STEP 2 Determine the primary plane for
each of the poses on your lists.
STEP 3 Name the planes in which you
seem to be most and least comfortable.
STEP 4 Create a list of poses from your
least favorite plane, and plan to practice
these poses several times a week. Are
these poses challenging for you? Are they
easy? How do you feel when you practice
more from the plane in which you’re least
comfortable? Get curious.
STEP 5 After a couple weeks of practicing
your least favorite poses, go deeper with
your line of questioning: What has practicing
movements you’d been avoiding revealed?
(Yes, I am talking poses—and anything else
you tend to avoid in life.)
If you’re a teacher, take these same steps
when it comes to assessing your go-to
sequences: Look at the poses you teach
often, as well as the themes that you
choose for your classes. Which plane is
over-represented? Which one(s), if any, are
under-represented? Do you tend to teach
the plane that is your personal favorite and
avoid the one that’s your least favorite?
Finally, whether you’re teaching or simply
moving through your own home practices,
commit to creating sequences that include
poses that highlight yourleast utilized plane.
How do you feel when you practice (or
teach) them? How does your body feel after
a few weeks of moving in your less utilized
plane? Do you feel more embodied? Are
your movements more balanced in all three
planes? See if these simple inquiries help
you feel more awake and whole.TeacherAnnie Carpenteris a yoga teacher
and teacher trainer in San Francisco. She’s also the creator
of the SmartFLOW method, which she teaches in classes,
workshops, and her 200- and 500-hour teacher trainings
across the globe. Learn more atanniecarpenter.com.Model
Cynthia Sing is a yoga teacher, a rock climber, and a student
of Carpenter’s who lives in Boulder, Colorado.