It’s been almost a week since the conclusion
of our annual tennis tournament, the Babolat World Tennis Classic, which Ed and
I have been running for the past nine years. Ed does the majority of the work,
planning, scheduling, organizing sponsors and the like whereas I run the
tournament desk during the week of the event.
What
my role entails is to keep the courts full by sending matches on court at their
intended time. We use walkie-talkies to communicate with three roving umpires
across 15-17 courts. So, you can imagine that when we had a complete day of
rain on day six of eight, we had some catch up to do on day seven. Over 150
matches needed to be played on Saturday. To say it was non-stop would be
completely correct. I was like an octopus at the desk, needing to stay focused
(and calm) in order to make this run as smooth as possible. It’s like being an
air traffic controller at a tennis club.
What does this have to do with
yoga? One word…posture.
I found that towards the end of the week my
upper/middle back felt as though I had a hot spot…an electrical buzz. My
knees ached and my lower back felt stiff. Even with doing a short few yoga
poses after all of the morning matches were on court, taking a moment or two to
do a chest opener with blocks and bringing a shortened foam roller, I still
couldn’t get past how sore my body was from staying in the same posture for
hours on end.
Our bodies were built for movement. So anytime we hold
them in a sustained position such as sitting, standing or lying down, the body
begins to give us feedback. “OK, Jayne”, it might say…”time to move out of
this position into another one because I can’t take this much longer”.
Think of how many of us sit for hours at a computer. Stand for hours at
a job (chefs, retail, hair stylists) or if we’re ill, lay in bed until we’re
feeling good enough to get up.
Modernization has reeked havoc on our
posture. Our heads are out in front of our torso; our shoulders are rounded
forward; our chests are closed and tight; our back muscles overstretched and
weak.
This held posture beckons for us to return to some semblance
of balance and this is where yoga supports us. The practice is amazing at
offering our spines an opportunity to move in all of its ranges of
motion-forward, back, side-side and rotationally. When we undertake our yoga
practice, we recalibrate our skeletons back into their intended functional
patterns through lengthening and strengthening all that is tight and
weak.
In addition to yoga, walking is hugely beneficial to overall
health. Recent research on extended hours of sitting in office-based jobs has
shown how this posture negatively impacts our health. In fact, treadmill desks
and its associated research has grown in popularity. By simply walking at a
work tread desk, at one mph in bouts of 30-minutes walking, 30-minutes sitting,
the participants all lost weight. Overall health improved with total
cholesterol decreasing, plasma triglycerides dropping on average 37 percent in
total for all 18 study participants. No going to a gym…just going to
work.
My experience this past week has once again
reaffirmed how supportive my yoga practice can be. In addition, I might suggest
that we install a walking desk at the tournament desk next year! So after you
have finished reading this…stand up and stretch a bit, eh?
