With new fitness fads popping up every day, it’s easy to want to throw out the old and focus solely on the new. But as I learned in Quantum Leap with Sarah Court, it’s important that we “Keep Everything”.
I have been super busy lately and haven’t had the opportunity to take many trainings but when Quantum Leap was scheduled for my area, I knew I had to be there. Sarah Court is one of my most brilliant teachers and shares my nerdy love of anatomy and all things biomechanics. She developed Quantum Leap to help movement teachers “increase [their] teaching sophistication and become biomechanically brilliant”.
And while I do teach and train others in anatomy, it’s always a good idea to study with those who are even deeper into research and the practice. Sarah is in her 3rd year of a Doctorate of Physical Therapy program and I know she’s overflowing with anatomical knowledge bombs left, right and center.
One of the ground rules she laid down for the weekend was that we “keep everything”, which means that all things remain relevant. It’s so quick to jump on the bandwagon of the next trend or fad, that we sometimes want to throw things out completely, but it’s important to remember that no movement is illegal.
That’s not to say that you should start doing handstands on internally rotated shoulders or squats with your knees caving in, but there is a time and a place for every movement in your body. Just because I wouldn’t squat with my hips internally rotated and my knees caved in, doesn’t mean that I should never internally rotate my hips.
More important than throwing out a movement style or guideline is to try it out in your body – if it works for you, then keep it! When we keep everything, we simply expand our movement repertoire and toolbox to continue the progress of our body. This is way more interesting and exciting than only sticking to the same 3 or 4 things.
While I tend to write just about movement, this goes for many other things outside of the movement realm. Keep on eating your dark chocolate while drinking coffee and internally rotating your shoulders, but be sure to balance it all out sometime in the nearish future.
- November 5: Optimal Breathing for Performance (Torrance, CA)
- November 11-13: YTU Integrated Embodied Anatomy Training (Tarzana, CA)
- November 26: FREE Yoga Tune Up® Class at Athleta (Pasadena, CA)
- December 17: LA Yoga Expo (more details to follow)
- December 17: FREE Yoga Tune Up® Class at Athleta (Pasadena, CA)
- February 3-5: YTU Integrated Embodied Anatomy Training (Poulsbo, WA)
