REMEMBERING NOT TO FALL

 Are you like me?  Do you get to the airport and see that escalator to ticketing and check-in,  thinking, "Well, I should probably take the elevator.  I've got two rolling suitcases and a heavy backpack and I'm a little off balance with my load, but where the heck is that elevator anyway?  I'm sure I'll be fine on the escalator…" Then comes that tense no-turning-back moment when indeed, you have two rolling suitcases suddenly deciding to roll in different directions!  But you've committed to this, so forward is the only option.  I've usually been successful.

But last year on our annual trip to Hawaii I met my match with an escalator that was out to get me.  We stay at a place that has an unusually long escalator to the lobby below street level. On the day we checked out to come home, we had all our bags corralled for the shuttle to the airport and headed for the escalator.  At the bottom, looking up, I hesitated, knowing this would be a challenge.  But my husband was already about half-way up and the people behind me were hot on my heels, so readied to step aboard.  I decided to push my suitcase on first and I followed.  Just as I did, my overloaded and unbalanced backpack slipped from my shoulders knocking into my suitcase which did a little 180 spin and tumbled down a step into my legs, which buckled ever so slightly as my suitcase began to tumble toward my feet.  In a flash I saw all of this happening and somehow kept my balance, made a little leap over the suitcase onto the next moving stair, grabbed the suitcase handle, righted the bag and proceeded up the escalator, unscathed.

I have no rational explanation for this.  I am not overly graceful, agile, or athletic.  In fact, in the midst of it all I was absolutely convinced serious injury awaited me at the bottom of the moving stairway where I was sure to end up in heap of limbs askew and baggage atop me, strangers rushing to my aid. There might even be blood.  But that didn't happen.  When I realized I was upright, and still in possession of my suitcase and backpack, and headed up the escalator, it felt like I'd just had some sort of out-of-body experience.  Only the shocked looked on my husband's face confirmed I'd nearly wiped out big time.  (He heard the commotion and turned to see the spectacle.)

I decided to immediately attribute my aversion of disaster to yoga.  I am convinced some muscle memory of balance and strength, maybe even an asana akin to tumbling down a stairway?, saved the day.  Can it be that the poses we assume with concentrated attention eventually become so ingrained that they are transferrable to everyday circumstances and come to our rescue without thought?

Yes!  "When you move, you activate sensors (called proprioceptors) in  your muscles, tendons, and joints that constantly give feedback to your central venous system about where your body is in space, so it knows what muscles to fire next, " says Adam Knight, Ph.D., an assistant professor of biomechanics at Mississippi State University.  It's a continuous feedback loop from your brain to your muscles and back.  "Your brain creates pathways through your central nervous system, and movements become automatic," adds Wayne Westcott, Ph.D., fitness research director at Quincy College in Massachusetts.  ("The Secret to Being Fit for Life: Muscle Memory", Women's Health, November 9, 2010).

This must be it!  My body has learned to right itself when off balance and which muscles to fire when strength is needed.  How else to explain the unexplainable outcome of a klutz who didn't wipe out when she most certainly could have!?!  I won't be regularly challenging my body to save me every time I make a questionable decision, but I am happy to know I've got this "yoga bonus" as back-up when I need it. ©

Namaste...donnajurene