I’ve been noticing how differently people move in warm weather.

Warmth often allows muscles to soften. There can be a sense of languidness (a word that always makes me think of the slow movement of Summer from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons).

But we don’t always relax. Sometimes we tighten somewhere else instead.

If breathing feels a little harder in the humid air, we might tense around the front of the armpits, the corners of the mouth, or the jaw without ever noticing. The body is endlessly adapting.

It’s one of the reasons I’m not convinced we should think about movement in terms of isolated body parts.

Is Core Strength Enough?

We’ve become rather obsessed with the idea of “core strength”. Of course strength matters. But connection and flexibility matter just as much.

If we habitually hold the belly and back, we may feel taller or more stable, but we can also lose the relationship between the pelvis, ribs, breath and spine that allows support to travel through the whole body.

Sometimes the easiest way to feel more supported isn’t to brace more. It’s to discover what you can let go of.