To develop body awareness is a very important part of our yoga practice.
Body awareness is often described as the ability of our body to sense our relative position in space, be aware of its surroundings, and the sense in movement, the sense of effort, force and heaviness. Proprioception or “ our sixth sense”
The awareness of how we perceive our body can be quiet variable. It is mostly linked to the “external” signals to the body, such as how we look or touch our body acts in terms of biomechanical parameters.
But body awareness can also be perceived by how we feel our body from the inside.
Recently a ‘new’ concept of interoception has been proposed. Interoception is a sense of the physiological condition of the body. An information network to detect our body from within. It is the ability to detect subtle changes in bodily systems, including muscles, skin joints and viscera. It also includes a range of physiological sensations, warmth, coolness, pain, tickle, hunger, heartbeat, sensual touch etc.
Body Awareness relies on both, proprioceptive and interoceptive signals!
The Sensory receptors for interoception are free nerve endings, most of which are located in fascial tissues throughout the human body. It is helpful to understand that proprioception and interoception are organized differently in the human brain and that very different afferent pathways are involved in them.
Interesting is that the number of interoceptive receptors in muscular tissues by far out number the amount of proprioceptive endings. For every proprioceptive nerve ending in these tissues are more than 7 endings which could be interoceptive receptors
In competitive sports the focus is usually put on achieving an external goal and quit often the internal sensations of discomfort, pain and tiredness are ignored.
This in contrast to practices, such as yoga, tai chi, Qi Gong, Pilates, Feldenkreis, Body Mind Centering. These practices usually encourage to ‘view with the minds eye’ the finer sensations in one’s body.
In yoga this is however all depending on the focus of the individual teacher or respective school!
The internal perception is sometimes directed almost entirely towards proprioceptive refinement.
In our yoga practice or as a teacher it is important to also fine tune the students perception for interceptive sensations, for example through meditation, pranayama, ‘rebound’ moments, refining the internal listening skills!
Recent research has given indications for a close correlation between between disrupted interoception with many psycho-emotional disorders, such as irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorders. It is possible that refining the inner listening skills have a strong therapeutic potential.
So frequently alternate brief periods of active motor attention with subsequent periods of rest where the students pay attention to small interoceptive sensations within their body.
References
Interoception, some suggestions for Manual and Movement Therapies
By Robert Schleip