Elbow Adjustments

We don't tend to give our elbows a lot of thought until we start doing a practice that demands a lot of effort from them, like a yoga and a practice. Our elbows show up in the room like every other joint in the body wildly different from one another. So not only do we appear to have a different carrying angle, so the angle between the inner wrist, inner elbow, kind of inner armpit area, a more narrow carrying angle or a wider carrying angle. But we have different amount of extension available. Some people, if you're like me, have hyper extension.

They can go beyond what the anatomy book says is a average 180 degrees. Some people might show up a little bit less than this 180 degrees. Because of this reason, I find it very challenging to give verbal cues to students, especially when their hands are already on the floor, of what to do with their inner elbows. Sometimes you hear spin the inner eyes of the elbows to one another or forward. I find that it doesn't suit all bodies.

Maybe take a look. When I come up onto my hands and knees, my hyper extension and my wide narrow carrying angles, my elbows can actually go kind of, they can do a little dance on their own, a little party. Sorry, this grosses a lot of people out, so turn away for a few seconds if you're grossed out. But I have been told in class, spin the inner elbows forward or back, really I think what teachers are trying to say is externally rotate the head of the humerus for down dog or any weight bearing where the hands are on the floor. That's really valuable.

But if you notice when I'm doing movement with my elbows, there's hardly any movement up at the attachment where the actual glenohumeral joint is. So I think a better bet is to adjust the hands for the new foundation, the new base of the posture, instead of working with the elbows or work from the top down. Another thing we need to observe in our practice, if you're hyper extended like me, it's very easy just to disengage all of the muscles and just kind of sit in the joint, kind of like you're hanging out in a hammock. Your muscles want to be working and supporting the joint, so the joint has more suka, more sweetness, more space. So sometimes you might hear a micro bend.

Now if you're a crazy hyperextender like me, micro bending will feel in my body like I'm bending my elbows, I'm really not. It's just a little micro bend so I confirm the muscles of my arms almost like you're rolling up a long pair of party gloves and this gives me a strong foundation if I want to begin to support weight and turn upside down.