The power of imagination.
Once there was an experiment done with runners. Half of the runners were sent on a 5 mile run, and the other half were asked to imagine the process of going on a 5 mile run. Both groups were monitored for physical and mental signs of exercise, and showed the same results, except the imagination group didn't show fatigue.
This morning I got to use that trick in class. We were doing an ATM (Awareness Through Movement - group lesson) that involved a lot of movements that I can't do, things like lying on your back and bringing your knees toward your chest, and then a very strange one where you sat with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor and hooked your elbows under your knees so your feet came off the floor and you were balanced on your butt. Yeah, it looked just as weird as it sounds. Anyway, I don't have the strength/balance/rotation to be able to do those things, so I simply imagined doing about 2/3 of the lesson as I was watching the other students. When I stood up afterwards, it felt like there was more space and rotation available in my hip joints, especially my right one. The feeling is still there to a certain degree.
How the imagination thing works is amazing stuff. Remember the homonculus idea I wrote about last time? It's the image your brain has of what your body looks like based on how it functions. Anyway, when you imagine doing a movement with all the details that movement would include, your brain makes a map of what you imagined and can then translate that map into the illusion of physical movement.
This morning I got to use that trick in class. We were doing an ATM (Awareness Through Movement - group lesson) that involved a lot of movements that I can't do, things like lying on your back and bringing your knees toward your chest, and then a very strange one where you sat with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor and hooked your elbows under your knees so your feet came off the floor and you were balanced on your butt. Yeah, it looked just as weird as it sounds. Anyway, I don't have the strength/balance/rotation to be able to do those things, so I simply imagined doing about 2/3 of the lesson as I was watching the other students. When I stood up afterwards, it felt like there was more space and rotation available in my hip joints, especially my right one. The feeling is still there to a certain degree.
How the imagination thing works is amazing stuff. Remember the homonculus idea I wrote about last time? It's the image your brain has of what your body looks like based on how it functions. Anyway, when you imagine doing a movement with all the details that movement would include, your brain makes a map of what you imagined and can then translate that map into the illusion of physical movement.