Neck & Shoulder Alignment in Yoga

I had the pleasure of attending a class/workshop put on by Becca of Becca Kocher Yoga this weekend at The Yoga Room, a studio in the Little Italy neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. She hosted a 2-hour workshop on neck and shoulder alignment.

Neck Shoulder Alignment

Becca explained how our body should be aligned in certain poses. As someone who practices yoga often, I admit it’s easy to forget proper alignment or not even know it. While I enjoy the fast-paced vinyasa flow classes, often in those classes the instructor doesn’t take time to explain how our bodies should be aligned in each pose.

What happens, is that over time our muscles can start overcompensating for weaker muscles… causing alignment issues, according to Becca. This is exactly what happened to me with running in 2011. I began having pain in my toe when running. I thought something was wrong with my foot but instead the pain stemmed from my hips where I had misalignment and muscle weakness.

Neck Shoulder Alignment

The workshop was really informative. Becca described how different muscles in the body work, their locations and purpose and we took part in some hands on exercises to better understand how those muscles work. Of course, we also enjoyed a short flow practice to put into action what we learned.

Becca is passionate about yoga alignment and this is an area of focus for both her studio-taught classes and private sessions with clients. You can find out more about Becca on her website here. She also blogs!

Of course, any good yoga session needs to be balanced out with running so I took to the pavement Sunday and enjoyed the much warmer temps we had! My running endurance is seriously lacking because I’m really sore today from what was only a few miles. I ran “barefoot” in my Vibram FiveFingers. This is my first “post-run selfie” in ages. I forgot how to take one…