Balance

Beside "my hamstrings are tight", the next most common comment from students is "I have bad balance".  What's with that?  Is it an aging thing?  Yes and no.  Is it something I can improve?  Definitely. Is having "good" balance important?  Absolutely.    Is it important to hold my tree pose longer than everyone else in class?  Not really.   

In the fitness biz, balance is often overlooked with emphasis being on strength and endurance.  Not so in yoga.  We balance on our butts, toes, fingers, and head.  All of our postures have an element of balance. The quintessential yoga balance pose is "tree pose" or vrksasana in Sanskrit.  Standing on one foot, the free leg is bent with the foot resting somewhere on the inner  side of the standing leg (except at the knee).  You may be asked to take your hands in prayer or overhead.  The longer held, the harder.  Try closing your eyes.  Try standing on a block.  Be playful.   

Balance is an amazing orchestration of lots of body systems, like the inner ear, movement and position receptors, the type of surface you're on, and the eyes (try standing on one foot and closing your eyes). Take the lower legs.  They continually send information to the brain about your position so the muscles can contract and keep you from doing a face plant. Just removing the visual input forces your body to rely on other receptors like the inner ear and legs for feedback.  

This orchestration is a beautiful thing.  But, if any of these elements are not participating, balance is going to be compromised.  The most serious is problems with the inner ear followed by injuries to the foot, ankle or knee  which skew the receptors and reduce the information to the brain.  Diabetes can cause nerve damage preventing transmission of the information.  Or, if you have imbalances in the back, hips , knees or feet due to injury or surgery, there will be asymmetries and a resultant loss of balance.  Treatment of the imbalances can lead to better balance.

You do not want to fall. For a young person, it's embarrassing. If you're old, it can be life threatening.   Among the elderly who break a hip, 80 percent die within a year. Common to seniors is the trip and fall, where they step forward and catch a toe. They aren't able to pick their leg up fast enough to stop their forward motion, and their toe hits before their foot.  Although this can be a slowing down of reaction time (there is a lag time between when the brain receives the information and the muscles react) it can be due to diminished leg strength.  Keeping the major leg muscles, like the quadriceps, strong is critical to save your fall..  

There are some tricks to help you balance.  While in tree pose (or any balancing pose for that matter) picture your standing leg like a steel beam to middle earth.*  Try it, It helps.  Studies have found improvement in Olympic gymnasts on using the rings or iron cross when picturing their arms extending like beams.  When balancing with your eyes closed, you no longer have reference points like 4 walls and a floor.  To help with your proprioception, try imagining yourself in a room.

* I heard this from a professor but can't find the research link,