Scott Sonnon – Forward Pressure: Yang of Yoga DVD

“Forward Pressure” is an example of Sonnon at his most informative and approachable. While most so-called “fitness gurus” specializing in bodyweight exercise recommend simply performing hundreds of reps of various pushups, Sonnon truly “sophisticates” bodyweight upper body exercise with a scalable, integrated set of floor movements that both challenge the body AND respect its natural frame of reference.
Let’s face it, most people can’t do 100’s of pushups every day without eventually injuring their shoulder/rotator cuff, no matter how many various kinds they perform (Hindus, Divebombers, one armed, Tigers, etc), and it becomes dull after a while. Sonnon, with his customary flare for “sophisticating” movement, gets around this by changing the “framing” of the exercises in such a manner that this difficulty is eliminated nearly totally. He demonstrates a scaled, progressive flow form that resembles much of the Hatha yoga “Sun Salute,” but with an emphasis on the upper body and in three dimensions and six directions. More significantly, he teaches “corrections” to the form, which are remedial exercises that will counterbalance any possible asymmetries generated from working FP. This is in stark contrast to most so-called “fitness programs,” which can frequently result in unforeseen imbalances in the soft tissues of the would-be fitness enthusiast. Because of their wide relevance to correcting the harm that years of imbalanced, slumped-shouldered life may create, these corrective exercises may be the greatest portion of the DVD.