Where am I? Fitness helps us answer this question,
if not always the more existential Who Am I? As we move our bodies mindfully, we build up the neural
capacity to know where our bodies are in space. The fancy word for this is proprioception.
We see it at work when we try to
learn a new sport. Our coach or
teacher or friend keeps telling us to drop our shoulders or swing our legs or
move our knees out and we react with surprise; weren’t we already doing
that? We had no idea what our body
parts were doing.
One of the things that I like
about Pilates is that most of the movements are slow. This gives the body time to coordinate with the brain to
build up a fuller picture of where all the parts are. Yoga does the same kind of thing. Of course, we can bring mindfulness to whatever we are
doing, but sometimes it is useful to choose a practice that makes it easier.
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