Becoming more Imbalance?

Last week a girl came up to me after my last class asking me a question that i'd asked the same to myself some years back. ( i was so shy, i didn't have the same courage like her to ask the teach back then. Somehow i figured it out.)
She pointed out why does she feel her body becoming more imbalance than before, or than the way it should be? The muscles on one side which was already strong, got stronger; and the one on the left which was already more flexible got softer.

This is a very common issue with people who are generally quite flexible, and especially mobile in the lumber spin and the hip areas. It is very important for the student, to be very aware of their body movement and sensitive towards it; instead of solely dependent on the teachers' general instruction in a big class.

I told her to give me an example of the pose that she can pinpoint the feeling of imbalance. She assumed into a half- pigeon pose ( where the hip & knee are externally rotate). While waiting for her to get comfortable into the pose the way she thought it should be, i observed that she was shifting her hip around. Then later explained to me that she was searching for the that piece of muscles to stretch. In the end when she found it, her hips was already loop sided which her noticing it. She don't feel that though.

I went to her, lift her grabbed her hip bone firmly on both side, lift it up slightly and level it. Then slowly had her to sit into the pose on her own while am still locking her sides. Initially, she mentioned that she felt nothing; but later she felt a tightness at her back thigh lengthening ( the piece that she had not been stretching yet.)

(In case you don't get the pose, this was what we were working on.)

In any poses, we have a tendency to look for the feeling, instead of observing the actual condition of the body. Unless the student is on one-on-one with the teacher, it is essential that the students are independent in a big group.
With our skin nicely covers our whole body, we can't imagine how complicated the muscular system is. Like just our front thighs, there are 4 big pieces; and 3 major pieces at the hamstrings ( back thighs running down to the back of the knees)...etc.

Each little rotation of the hip joints will affect different angle and stretches different piece of muscle.

Of course, as the role of teacher, i used to point out  generally the muscles the student should feel when they are at certain postures. Which i thought its not too of a good idea right now, that they student will in turn search for the muscles in expectation drawn out by the teacher.

Instead of painting a picture in their mind, in turned, i would have them to voice out what they feel according to the signal their body gave them.

Just like any other skills, having a strong fundamental knowledge & technics, the positive feeling will slowly flow through the body naturally; you don't have to seek for it.