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This week on the pod I’m talkin’ bands and I g

This week on the pod I’m talkin’ bands and I get straight to the nerdy details, per the usual.

Like how

👉Modern postural yoga utilizes bodyweight as a form of resistance, but within the context of modern postural yoga, bodyweight is likely not a sufficient load for building strength.

👉And adding resistance bands to the practice might still not make those loads sufficient either because the asana practice is not resistance training (it doesn’t apply the principles of overload or progression.)

🤯😱

We also discuss

💡How resistance bands lower the barrier for entry for people to start adding external load to their movement practice.

💡What research has to say about bands’ effectiveness for building strength and muscle mass, as well as some caveats to consider.

💡What the main limitations resistance bands present are when looking to build strength.

💡Why some people use free weights and bands together in the same exercise—what’s the point of that?

💡What constitutes a heavy weight versus a moderate weight versus a light weight and where resistance bands and bodyweight fall on this spectrum.

💡The difference between *resistance* training and *strength* training and how the goals of both can be different.

💡How strength endurance and strength are different variables we can train, and why both are important.

💡Why physical therapists might use resistance bands when rehabbing their patients.

💡How resistance bands are like other yoga props but with many unique (enormous) advantages.

💡How resistance bands can help hypermobile yoga practitioners, people in pain, or people who are just bored with their asana practice and looking to change things up.

💡Why resistance bands might not be necessary and why people might not like adding them to their yoga practice.

LISTEN VIA THE LINK IN MY BIO or search Movement Logic: Strong Opinions, Loosely Held wherever you get your podcats. 👀

Just a little peak at the Yoga with Resistance Ban

Just a little peak at the Yoga with Resistance Bands teacher training from this weekend in Quebec City, Canada. I’ll share more soon once I return to sweet home Alabama.

Thank you to my host and translator @mimiyogami. I slept and ate so well! You have a beautiful home and family. 🏡

And thank you as well to @julieyogami for your warm welcome and for translating, as well. 🗣💜

I could not have asked for a more wonderful group of students! Thank you to the 43 people who joined both in person and online!

Next stop…New Jersey! Stay tuned for dates. 😊

This week on the pod I got to speak to fellow mult

This week on the pod I got to speak to fellow multidisciplinary movement teacher, Rosalyn Mayse aka @RoztheDiva.

Roz shared her story about how she went from always being picked last in gym class to building a successful career as both a personal trainer and a pole dance instructor in New York City.

We discussed the often exclusionary industries both pole dancing and strength training occupy.

Here’s more of what we discussed:

The different yet complementary fitness cultures of pole-dancing and strength-training.

The positive impression it made on Roz when she got to see female athletes that looked like her.

The benefits of an artistic focus in a movement practice.

How pole dancing helped Roz overcome guilt and shame about her body and exercise agency, self-exploration, and self-expression.

The fact that people in bigger bodies have to be stronger to overcome more body weight than slender people.

How Roz defines the term athlete. Spoiler: more broadly than the mainstream.

How Roz connects with clients who are skeptical about exercise after negative mainstream exercise experiences.

What the general public thinks pole-dancing and strength training are vs reality.

CLICK THE LINK IN MY BIO TO LISTEN! 👀

Do ever reminisce on your phases? I forget about t

Do ever reminisce on your phases? I forget about the me then who created the me now. Here are 3 (or 5).

1st pic—

CAT PHASE. (Ongoing!) That’s Freddie Cat. I got him as my very own cat when I was 8. My mom named him because she liked the play on words of Fraidy Cat. He was anything but afraid, though. Freddy was a neutered male (like Mustardseed)—purrfect, cuddly, and calm. FYI, I’m not strangling him in this pic, I’m just making sure you see his beautiful kitty face.

MOM PICKS OUT MY OUTFITS PHASE 😬

The last day (I hope!)

MULLET PHASE

Also maybe tail end of that? 😉

I think I’m 11 in this picture. I was a late bloomer.

2nd pic—

LEGO PHASE

This was one of my stream of consciousness sculptures. The rule was don’t edit. Pick up a piece and put it the first place you think. No second guesses and absolutely no fixing anything.

I had a knack for the creative process from a young age. I’ve written over some of this great programming, unfortunately, but I manage to go back to it still.

Creativity and editing are opposites in many ways. If we’re making something special, it’s important that we don’t edit ourselves too soon.

My daughter is 3 so this Lego phase will resume soon. I want to get the Empire State Building kit. It looks tedious as hell.

Also, my dad loved ducks so much he’d decorate his house with them and shoot at them, too. 🤷‍♀️ 🦆 😬

3rd pic—

THEATRE PHASE

Sophomore year as a BFA at Ithaca College in Upstate NY, I played Lily Dale in Lily Dale by Horton Foote. It’s all about a spoiled Texan teen with daddy issues who reunites and bonds with her older brother. That tracks in many ways, but at the time, I had no idea why I was cast. I found this character so strange (not me!) but she came effortlessly for me—the movement, the voice, the emotional inner world that created both.

I never found a character as effortlessly again. Theatre is mysterious.

What are some phases you’ve documented? How did they shape who you are now?

If you post a Reel about it, tag me please. I love this stuff.

👂Do you like listening to things with your ears

👂Do you like listening to things with your ears?

🎧 We’ve got 15 episodes of the Movement Logic Podcast for you!

Sarah Court and I get into the nitty gritty of all things movement, yoga, strength, and teaching for you.

✋Got a topic you want us to cover? Comment below!

(Tiny brag: we’re up to 5000 downloads!)

#yogaclassesonline #onlineyogaclasses #mobilityclasses #bodynerd #yogatherapy #movementtherapy #liveonlineyoga #practiceyoga #movementlogic #pilatesinstructor #yogateacherconed #yogateacher #painrelief #movementteacher #physicaltherapist #strengthcoach #mobilitycoach #worksmarternotharder #movementlogicpodcast #laurelbeversdorf #sarahcourt

After 2.5 years of teaching entirely online, next

After 2.5 years of teaching entirely online, next week Saturday, I’m going to be in the room, in the flesh, at the convention center in Quebec City, Canada leading my Yoga with Resistance Bands Teacher Training.

(Students from all over the world including 🇫🇷 🇨🇦 🇺🇸 🌎 will join from online, as well.)

This is a hybrid training. It’s for both in-person and online students. It’s also the first of its kind I’ve taught, so I’m going to lean into my 15 years of teaching experience to help me juggle some extra balls there—teaching both in-person and online simultaneously while working with a French translator. 🇫🇷 🇨🇦

Teaching teachers lights me up. I can’t think of many other things I’d rather do than talk about and think about teaching with teachers. Creating content for our discovery—organizing learning in a way that shapes how teachers understand their work and helps them access new knowledge and skills to help their students—is the best.

If you’ve been on the fence about signing up, it’s time to make a decision!

Early bird discount ends at midnight EST tonight.

Literally the link will stop working. If you have trouble signing up, email assistance@diva-yoga.com for help before midnight to lock in the discounted rate.

LINK IN BIO 👀

We got you! It’s Episode 15 of the Movement Logi

We got you! It’s Episode 15 of the Movement Logic podcast, and this week, Sarah discusses the lima beans of learning: research.
🤓
But guess what? Reading research doesn’t have to feel like your brain in a washing machine on spin cycle, and the more you understand it, the more interesting it becomes.
😍
Cos here’s the thing: if you’re gonna quote research, you gotta make sure it’s the goods.
🤩
How to know? Give this ep a listen, and it will help you tell the difference between a good study and a bad one (remember that one about getting up from the floor without using your hands? And everyone went nuts for it? Sorry to break it to you, but it’s a pretty poor-quality study).
🤯
Here’s what you’re going to know once you listen:

➡️Three easy rules to follow for quoting research

➡️Why we get so excited about some studies - and why we need to pump the brakes

➡️How to know the quality - and thus the value - of the research you are reading

➡️Why it’s important that movement teachers quote research responsibly

➡️What can and does go wrong when studies are not good quality

🎧🎧🎧 We’re on Apple Podcasts! And Spotify! And the other ones! And there’s video on our website if you’d rather watch me talk to myself in a closet!

Eliana crossed the monkey bars for the first time

Eliana crossed the monkey bars for the first time all by herself. Then she wanted me to film her second try, which is what you’re seeing here.

Watching the video, I’m struck by our exchange.

“Woah”

“Oh, don’t panic.”

“Don’t panic.”

“There ya go.”

“Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah!”

“Whoo hoo hoo! That was awesome!”

“I got it!”

“You did it.”

“All by myself.”

“Sure did.”

“Wanna try again?”

“No.”

“Maybe rest a little.”

“Yeah.”

My exact inner dialogue during and after a hard set.

Can you relate?

The transition from a warrior 3 pelvis to a half m

The transition from a warrior 3 pelvis to a half moon pelvis and back again dynamically (AKA Airplanes) is challenging.

V1–this is typically called “fire hydrant” ewwww! Can’t say I love that name, buuut, it gets the point across. Here we horizontally abduct *both* hips. The pelvis horizontally abducts at the rooted knee’s hip and the aerial hip abducts at the pelvis. Can you see how this is a bilateral short-lever airplane variation, too?

The “big loop band” (tie a big loop in a band) wraps around 1 knee and whole pelvis. The band helps plug the aerial thigh ball into pelvic hip socket. It offloads some of the weight of the limb and constrains its movement.

V2&3–from short lever (big loop) to long lever (stirrup band, small loops tied into ends of long band and anchored to rooted foot, with center of band around entire rooted limb and pelvis.)

Here both versions and both band arrangements highlight *the pelvis* as the moving part. Everything else (attached to the pelvis) goes along for the ride—our aeriel foot’s toes, our trunk, our face rotate through space.

It’s tempting to think that movement originates at the aerial limb’s hip, but put the band on and *feel* the rooted limb’s hip working *more against resistance* and the pelvis rotating inside the band.

I LOVE bands for this exercise because the external elastic resistance clarifies via TENSION what is moving and not. It clarifies via TOUCH (like sticking a pin on the map) the pelvis’s location and rotation in space.

If you try this, lemme know what you think!

Early bird discount for my Yoga with Resistance Bands Teacher Training ends THURSDAY 9/15 . Save over $100 USD on enrollment. Link in bio 👀

MORE IN COMMENTS

Do you borrow from your elbow to pay your shoulder

Do you borrow from your elbow to pay your shoulder? #loanshark 🦈

Sometimes technique matters more than other times.

The bent over row is one of those times.

Technique can mean the difference between targeting the intended muscles (shoulder pulling muscles) or not (and instead sort of targeting the elbow flexors.)

In all fairness, it’s intuitive to pull the weight straight up away from the ground by bending the elbow. That’s the shortest path!

But that straight line from A to B bypasses the shoulder extension we wanna challenge.

Instead, the path of the weight should curve a little.

Pull the handle toward your pocket to load your shoulder extensors more.

Psssst! Big discount on annual membership to my Virtual Studio ends this Thursday.

Aaaand…Program Design Basics for Resistance Training (a 7-part workshop series to teach you how to develop your own strength training workout) starts this Wednesday. You must be a member the day of the workshop to attend and get the recording (each one is yours to review through the end of 2022.)

LINK IN BIO TO SIGN UP 👀

Resistance bands can make easy poses hard and hard

Resistance bands can make easy poses hard and hard poses easy. #resistanceandassistance

This supine sequence uses 1 large loop of medium resistance. The band is tied using the overhand loop knot and it measures 20 inches when you pull the loop long.

1️⃣—figure 8 wrap the band around your trunk and legs. This feedback squeezes around your rib cage and provides resistance for some supine crow pose action.

2️⃣—figure 8 wrap for feedback on trunk-leg connection and coordination in supine twist.

3️⃣—now for a big loop around the trunk to hand in supine twist. Excellent feedback for the core and shoulder connection.

4️⃣—let’s take that big loop around the trunk and foot now for a clear “plugging in” of the hip in some “corecentric”, hip-mobilizing work.

5️⃣—this notoriously difficult long-lever, anti-rotation pose jithara parivartonasana may have just gotten more accessible with a big loop from trunk to feet. Don’t worry, it’s not too easy, just more possible! 🔥

Wanna discover a whole bunch of (other) ways resistance bands can enhance your asana practice

👍 increase proprioception

👍 increase muscle engagement

😌 reduce pain

🥸 add novel loads (even if you’ve totally banished arm balances from your practice.)

Then 👇

My Yoga with Resistance Bands Teacher Training includes

The option to attend 3 ways 🎉 (God I love 2022!)

1. LIVE in-person (see you at the convention center in Quebec City, Canada!)

2. LIVE online. Yaaaas! My (current) wheelhouse. I only teach on Zoom right now.

3. WHENEVER YOU WANT online via the recordings of all live sessions and pre-recorded content (for a full year) which everyone else (described above) gets too!

+ A video catalog of 40 banded poses and exercises that solve specific problems.

A 100+ page PDF manual you keep forever.

5 pre-recorded video sequences that model simple, effective application of resistance bands in a short class.

Recordings of all of the live training content—4 3 hour sessions—so you can go back and review everything once the course is over.

Early bird pricing ends Sep. 15! Save $150 USD.

Link in bio 👀

Demonizing or evangelizing dosage on social media

Demonizing or evangelizing dosage on social media is impossible. You’d need a documentary or book for that.

Dosage is the day-in-and-day-out quantity of loads that almost immediately and simultaneously become an individual’s history of loading and also future capacity for loading.

This history/future determines what they can and cannot, should and should not do next.

But it’s not photographable. It’s not fit for a Reel.

❌ and ✅ hot takes on good/bad form and alignment work much better for eyes on.

This binary communication shapes binary thinking.

Meanwhile, what we’re actually seeing is what someone (often an expert) can demonstrate.

What we’re not seeing is their process to get there.

This hot take advice has nothing to say about the tundra of time we all must trudge across to learn, adapt, and change.

Instead, it focuses on the destination ✅ and paints everything that had to happen before it as ❌.

It tells you nothing about who (within their intended audience) is learning, and what their goal is.

At face value, it’s a teacher performing their preference.

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