Strengthening the weak for tensegrity

I had a breakthrough with my right shoulder last week, which has been my tighter and less mobile shoulder for years. It felt for a long time that my right shoulder was much stronger, more massive (surely because of my right-handedness) and less flexible, especially when in external rotation. I would feel limited in poses like full kapotasana, pinchamayurasana, and urdhva dhanurasana... It's also the tighter shoulder for both the bottom and top arms in gomukasana. No matter how much I stretched that shoulder it wouldn't seem to let go or improve it's range of motion or it's comfortability. It never hurt or felt injured, and does have general openness relative to most humans, but after years of practice and rolfing had not found the same movement and freedom as the left shoulder.

On Tuesday I took an amazing class at the iyengar institute with james murphy. He taught some very detailed shoulder, arm and upper back activations and alignment principles-- I felt the muscles around my shoulders working very hard in new ways, new muscles being utilized... In some ways this work felt easier for my left shoulder, which I had previously labelled as weaker and more open-- but it was actually stronger in this particular way- which I feel is in the way of using deeper layers of muscles, or perhaps had to do with being able to differentiate muscles more easily and clearly. My right felt more stuck together and weaker with these particular alignment actions.

After the class and even moreso the next day, my right shoulder was moving and adjusting in an incredible way- popping into place in a way that I've been waiting years for-- had a lot to do with the relationship of the head of the humerus to the socket. I felt free and open in that right shoulder, had more range in the ways I was previously stuck. It became clear to me that waking up and bringing life and contraction to the weak and dormant muscles in my right shoulder created a more balanced joint: created a joint with more tensegrity, in which the joint has equal and balanced tension on it from surrounding muscles... (Rather than having lots of tension in one direction or at one layer and then little tension in the complementary direction or layer.) It is this balance in strength around the joint that pointed to, supported and
allowed flexibility and mobility. This equal tension created by strengthening the weak allowed the joint to sit in it's optimal position, therefore initiating optimal function.

I realized that it wasn't stretching that was ever going to "fix" or "open" my shoulder. The strengthening work-- not for power, but for balanced tension around joints-- is what will bring the openness we all want.

This is Rolfian for sure in concept: tensegrity, balancing flexors and extensors, balanced muscles around joints for mobility rather than valuing uncontextualized efforted power. But the method in structural integration is: as tension and twists in fascia dissapear and let muscles return to and unwind into their optimal positions, the intelligence of the body be invoked and will awaken the muscles that weren't working before.

In yoga, there is a different approach: actively align and adjust the body (which requires exercise and exertion), follow specific and scientific patterns of muscle activation to isolate and engage muscles, especially those that need it most... and this will balance tension around joints, which will help muscles and fascia to find a new and better positioning.

Both are valuable approaches, and most effective when one engages in both.