The psoas has fascinated me since I started doing yoga and I can’t really say why. I’m not kidding when I say I was drawn to pictures of Hanuman in full splits from the start. Only after starting to study anatomy did I discover the psoas muscle and its relation to hanumanasana, my favorite pose.
The psoas, has been recounted on this blog many times, is the most important muscle in the body.
It creates the lumbar curve on our way up to stand as infants and helps to hold the spine upright once we are vertical.
It is the walking muscle, initiating every successful step that we take, though I don’t think many people are taking steps that serve them well.
Most importantly it is the trauma muscle warehousing the body’s unprocessed energy when the nervous system can’t handle an event such as a car accident or repeated exposure to fear and/or violence.
The psoas connects at six points—along the lumbar spine and the back half of the inner thigh—acting as one of only three muscles connecting the legs to the spine (piriformis and gluteus maximus are the others).
The Psoas Release Party! workshop was born about ten years ago and the first edition of the Psoas Release Party! book came out soon after.
Learning about the anatomy and function of the psoas along with release exercises to encourage freedom from chronic tension, pain and injury is well worth any effort you can make. The more you know about this astounding muscle the more readily you can heal your issues.
Over the years kind readers have pointed out one or two (or…) mistakes that I made in the original telling of the psoas story. This new edition is updated and expanded with 100 new pages of revisions, articles and blog posts.
A couple of weeks ago we offered the book along with the Psoas Release Party! DVD and now we are making it available at a reduced price as an eBook—for one day only.