Our sense of touch

Reading from Wednesday, May 25, 2016 yoga class


I love the website, Yoga for Healthy Aging!   This piece is from there.  Nina is writing about an article she read entitled "Feel Me" in a recent edition of "The New Yorker" by Adam Gopnik.  It is about how underrated our sense of touch is.

This is what Mr. Gopnik says:

"Our skin is no neutral envelope; it is a busily sensing organ that situates us in relation to others and the world."

"One strange thing about the unsung sense is that it has no songs.  Every other sense has an art to go with it; the eyes have art, the ears have music, even the nose and tongue have perfume and gastronomy.  But we don't train our hands to touch as we train our eyes to look or our ears to listen."

We think of hot and cold, or of textures, silk and cotton.  But some of the most important sensing we do with our fingers is to register incredibly minute differences in pressure... we know instantly, just by touching, whether to gently squeeze the toothpaste or crush the can.

So... Nina goes on to say that in yoga we use our tactile senses to feel our alignment in our poses. We use our skin to sense whether your weight is evenly distributed on your feet or hands, whether your top foot is in the right place in Tree Pose or Eagle Pose, or if you've actually grabbed your elbows or just your forearms when you take both arms behind your back and FINALLY made the clasp in Cow-Face Pose.

So... practicing yoga mindfully partly means training your skin to be more sensitive you tune into subtle all-over body sensations.  Might be the reason that practicing asanas can be such a beautiful experience, like music or art.