Do you dream of easing into a front-to-back split worthy of the National Ballet of Canada’s principal dancer Jillian Vanstone? If so, why not start by preparing the muscles of your posterior leg with a little self-massage?
Kate Kernaghan, the National Ballet’s in-studio director, joined us at the Walter Carsen Centre to demonstrate a do-it-anywhere technique we like to call the Shin Squish.
1. Warm up your leg muscles with a walk, run or sun salutations before checking in with your right and left front splits. Use blocks or a stack of books under your hands to support yourself as necessary. Notice both the depth of your pose and the sensation it elicits in the body.
2. Then, move onto your hands and knees into a quadruped position. Lift your right lower leg off the ground, turn it out at the hip, and insert the right shin behind the fold of the opposite knee. Have the two shins meet as close to a right angle as possible.
3. Now sit back, with the support of your hands, until the right shin is panini-pressed by the left calf and hamstrings. Relax your legs, relax your face, and breathe. If you crave a deeper massage, sashay your hips from side-to-side as you sit back.
4. After a few breaths, open up the fold of the knee and move the right shin down a few centimetres towards the ankle and repeat the squish.
5. Continue along until you reach the Achilles tendon, just above the left heel.
6. Repeat the process on the other side before checking in with your front splits again. Notice whether the Shin Squish yielded a deeper or more comfortable pose.
Delicious Discomfort
At their very deepest, self-massage techniques should take you to the edge of delicious discomfort, but not beyond. Here are some tips for distinguishing between good, therapeutic pain and harmful, injurious pain.
Good pain recedes shortly after the exercise and is often replaced by a global feeling of well-being. If pain does not go away with rest, increases with time, disrupts sleep, or leads to weakness, tingling or lack of sensation, assume it is bad pain and consult your doctor.
YuMee Chung is a recovering lawyer who teaches yoga in Toronto. She is on the faculty of a number of yoga teacher training programs and leads international yoga retreats. Learn more about her at padmani.com
YuMee Chung is a recovering lawyer who teaches yoga in Toronto. She is on the faculty of a number of yoga teacher training programs and leads international yoga retreats. Learn more about her at padmani.com
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