Thank you for helping me “wake my body up”

Last week, one of my new students left a lovely comment on my blog saying thank you so much for helping me “wake my body up”. It stopped me in my tracks for a moment – such a beautiful phrase that immediately encapsulated one of the great powers of yoga.

Because so many of us are, in some way, asleep in our bodies. Not consciously or intentionally. But gradually — over years of busy lives, long hours at desks, endless driving, caring for children, supporting ageing parents, juggling work and home — our awareness narrows. We live from the neck up and our bodies become vehicles that carry us through the day rather than places we fully inhabit.

We sit more than we move.
We hunch more than we open.
We brace more than we breathe.

And slowly, subtly, the body adapts.

The cost of modern living

When we spend hours sitting, the hips remain in constant flexion. The chest collapses forward, the shoulders round, the head drifts in front of the spine. Over time:

• The muscles at the front of the body — particularly the chest and hip flexors — become short and tight.
• The back chain of the body — glutes, hamstrings, spinal muscles — becomes lengthened and underactive.
• Postural imbalances settle in and start to feel “normal.”

One common example of this is something often referred to as glute amnesia (sometimes called “dead butt syndrome”) which you’ll often hear me talk about in class. Glute amnesia isn’t a formal diagnosis, but a term used to describe what happens when the gluteal muscles stop activating properly. After prolonged sitting, the brain becomes less efficient at recruiting the glutes. Instead, other muscles — like the lower back, hip flexors or hamstrings — step in to compensate.

This can contribute to pelvic instability, lower back pain, knee issues and general hip discomfort. It’s not that the glutes are broken, they’ve just been forgotten. And this pattern doesn’t stop at the hips. When one area switches off, another grips tighter. The body becomes a series of compensations.

Then we come to yoga

When we come to yoga, suddenly, we’re asking the body to move; To fold forward, bend backward, twist, side bend, bear weight and balance – to move in all the directions the spine was designed to move. At first, it can feel confronting, tight and wobbly because we’re asking dormant muscles to participate again. We’re asking shortened tissues to lengthen and the nervous system to explore unfamiliar patterns. Of course it feels challenging sometimes because we are literally waking the body up.

Re-educating the body

Yoga isn’t just stretching, strengthening and balancing, we are re-educating the body. Through mindful movement and breath, we restore communication between brain and body. We remind the glutes how to fire, we strengthen the back chain, we gently open the front body, we re-balance the pelvis, we create space across the chest so we can breathe deep again.

We even out the imbalances that modern life has so quietly built without us even noticing. And perhaps most importantly, we begin to feel again…the legs trembling in a lunge, the new-found strength in a bridge, the grounding of the feet into the mat. This isn’t just waking up the body, the mind is waking up too and taking notice of what’s happening.

It’s not about perfection

Waking up the body isn’t about achieving advanced poses. It’s not about touching your toes or mastering handstands. It’s about awareness. It’s about noticing when you’re slumping at your desk and choosing to sit taller, feeling your glutes engage as you climb the stairs, recognising tension in your jaw and softening it. It may sound cheesy, but it’s about coming back into relationship with yourself.

The body is incredibly adaptable – it still functions despite the imbalances we create, which is amazing really! But it’s equally capable of adapting back with consistency and patience.

So every time you step onto your mat, remind yourself that you’re not just stretching and strengthening, you’re re-balancing, re-connecting and just like my student so beautifully said, re-awakening.

See you soon in the cabin!

Michelle x