|
 |
Intelligent Strength Solution
What is Perfect Form?
A few years ago, NAMASTA Member Tom Stafford and business partner Steve Patterson started working together in Durham, NC. With Tom's personal training experience as owner of Triangle Personal Training, and Steve's extensive work as a certified personal trainer specializing in rehabilitation, they developed a program that would assist people in achieving all the requirements of a fitness program.
What they saw necessary was a program that would develop physical strength without weights and would assist people in developing the ability to get into the "Flow State". Tom and Steve began in November of 2006 to create what they call "The Intelligent Strength Solution."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following article is contributed by Steve Patterson and describes the concept of "Perfect Form."
Perfect Form
What is perfect form? Is it a look? Is it an action done precisely? If you ask ten people you will probably get five who say it is a look and five who say it is an action done precisely. I am going to be the eleventh and the odd one out. I say perfect form is neither of the two but rather a feeling.
Let's take something I deal with every day, a yoga pose. What makes perfect form in yoga? It isn't what it looks like although many think that to be so. It isn't the precise way in which the pose is held either. The perfect yoga pose is the pose done to the degree in which the one doing the pose is challenged yet comfortable. Given this, the pose could look any and every which way. This is perfect form.
Perfect form is an individual assessment. I try real hard to convince my clients that when something feels challenging but comfortable at the same time then they are in perfect form. My downward dog doesn't look anything like the downward dog of the yoga instructors you see on the videos. Does this mean that I shouldn't do it? Does this mean that I am not getting the value out of doing it? Does this mean that I should wait until I can do the pose perfectly before I assist others? All it means is that I do the pose the best I can with challenge and comfort and get whatever there is to get out of it. I can only control how it feels to me, not how it looks to others.
Too often we are concerned about how we look to others and therefore limit what we do to what we already do well. I recently began doing some creative free flow dancing. I wanted people to move in every which way they could without feeling self-conscious. Freedom does have a price. One must be willing to give up feeling as though they look stupid.
I began sessions wanting everyone to see that perfect form could look like anything and everything. Whether your downward dog looks like downward dog or a urinating camel doesn't matter as long as you are being challenged within your comfort level. What people rarely notice is that the person doing the urinating camel is probably getting more value out of the pose than the one doing the perfect downward dog. The one doing the camel has to work much harder and overcome many more obstacles than the one able to do it with ease.
The only thing I can say about perfect form is that there is no perfect form. On the other hand perfect form exists for everyone willing to try.
NAMASTA thanks Tom and Steve for contributing this article.
Would you like to receive other articles like this one? Subscribe to the Free NAMASTA Newsletter.
We respect your privacy
|
|
