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Expert Yogi
Posts: 2479
  
Location: A Blue State | tourist - 2006-04-08 2:48 PM This is why Iyengar classes spend sooooo much time on tadasana and the standing poses. It is the identical action required in tadasana and if a student understands it, they move into back bending with little problem. Which is probably why I understand this action without every having spent much time on it. It was when [famous yogi x] told me to keep the pinky toes down in Ustrasana that it all came through with clarity --- and automatically extended into the rest of my backbending practice. The insight, for me, has grown from luminescence to incandescence -- it informs all my backbends, and my lumbar spine is a wholllle lot happier. |
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Location: London, England | Hi Bay Guy,
Forgive my Englishness-what are "pinky toes-"is that the little toe on the outside of the foot?
You and Tourist have both highlighted the functions of the gluteus maximus-but i don't understand how you appear to be agreeing with her, whilst saying that the the gluteals should be de-activated, and she is saying activate them. Are we all talking at cross-pinkies?
The answer seems to be to activate the gluteal musculature, but to use it to extend the hip-not externally rotate-I think I proposed this in my last post. let me volunteer some info which may help us clear up this dilemma! We actually have three gluteal muscles, the maximus, the minimus and the medius. To make it simple, they connect rather like a fan from the greater tuberosity on te femur and spread out to the iliac crest and the sacrum-this wide attachment means that the three muscles have a variety of functions, and these are functions which will change depending on body position and whether the foot is on the ground or moving.
It's a funny thing this gluteal question-it's easy to see why different teachers recommend de-actrivating it-but i believe this is due to them not understanding what is underneath the skin, nor its function-it's not just a slab of meat!
The other considerastion is this-what about backbends such as the one where you do lotus, lie face down, and then lift the torso, as in cobra-there's plenty of external hip rotation there-if we are not allowed to externally rotate the hips, then we can tear the pages out of all the yoga books which demonstrate postures like this (and lying on your back in lotus, etc).
I have also observed the following thing-I think that people protect their lower back by doing what bay guy suggests, but this then means that there is a lack of movement in lower back-its like it doesnt participate in the posture-this means that they avoid pain, at least for a while, but it's a dead end way of doing backbends-eventually the faulty technique will make its presence felt. What do you think?
Take care
Nick |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
 
| Nick - so I don't understand if you are agreeing or disagreeing either? I don't worry one bit about poses like those you describe because they are centuries away from entering my practice!  What I have been taught in my classes has always been applicable to more complicated poses so I trust that the system of building upon basic instructions will continue as I progress, no matter how glacially that may happen. For people new to backbends, learning to move the buttock flesh (and muscle, "yes, it is there," I always tell them  ) toward the floor and keep the lumbar area long (in ustrasana) is the key, number one most important idea to protect the back. Ideas such as keeping the shins and the pinky/baby/little toe pressed into the floor help transform the pose and take it to a new level, as Bay Guy says. It is also the kind of stuff that non-Iyengis think makes a just a tiny bit on the fussy side |
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Location: London, England | hi Tourist,
I was agreeing with you! As far as presiing the toes down, as long as it is done as a result of the pelvic tilt, then that is ok presumably. but if the student was to press down the feet down without the pelvic tilt, then they would simply push the hips forwards-compression of the lumbar would increase exponentially.
Take care
Nick |
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Expert Yogi
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Location: A Blue State | Tourist -- All agreed. Nick -- I'm reluctant even to answer, since you seem to be after a debate! The gluteal muscles (maximus in particular, I belive) are powerful external rotators of the legs. I think we can agree on this. I think that we can also agree that there are several gluteal muscles that can be used, or not, to different effect. External rotation can come from gripping with the gluteal muscles, it can also holds the pelvis in the *wrong* tilt for backbending, forcing a sharper backbend into the spine. So, what I am saying is do not externally rotate the legs in backbends like Ustrasana, Kapotasana, Urdhva Dhanurasana, etc. That's backbending 101 in the Iyengar system. Backbending via the lumbar alone (with a crunched up butt) seems easier to a point, but it's a needless strain on your back...usually considered to be bad form as well. Here's a link to a nice article on the subject by Julie Gudmestad, and she explains this all with lots of nice anatomical detail: http://www.yogajournal.com/practice/733_1.cfm ..... bg
The Gripping Truth Here's how to avoid tightening the buttocks in backbends, which can lead to compression and pain in the lower back. By Julie Gudmestad Page: 1 2 3 4 To grip the buttocks or not to grip the buttocks? That is the question. At least it's the question I hear most often when I teach backbends. Gripping the buttocks in backbends can lead to compression and pain in the lower back, yet you may feel you can barely get your hips off the ground if your buttocks aren't active. What's a student to do? .... |
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Expert Yogi
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| OK, we agree. Yes, the baby toe instruction is icing on the cake for someone who already understands the foundation of the pose. And yes, the thighs must rotate internally. Hence teh block work and the emphasis on this basic, basic action from Day 1 in Iyengar classes. |
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Location: London, England | Hi Bay Guy,
Thanks for answering-Debate with people like you and tourist is always good fun and informative.
The article by Julie Gudmestad-it seems to be pretty good, but can i just highlight the following mistakes?
A/"Extension is the position of the hips when you are standing fully upright"-If you look at the skeleton of a person from the side, you will see that the pelvis is actually in an anterior tilt-this is actually very important as it sets up the foundation for the curves of the spine.
B/"the tailbone drops down and the back waist lifts up"-I think she must have had an off-day because this doesnt make sense-the coccyx would lift along with the back of the pelvis, and the top of the pelvis at the front would drop down-I'm surprised they let that one get through at yoga journal, because it really lets the article down, and if anyone tried it, would end up being at risk of the back pain that the article adresses.
C/"the iliopsoas, an external rotator in addition to its better-known role as a hip flexor"-the role of psoas and iliacus (there is actually no such muscle as iliopsoas, according to current thinking), has been suggested to have a rotation function, but recent evidence suggests this is not true-fine wire needles inserted into the muscle show no activity during hip rotation.
My personal opinion is this-gluteus maximus is probably the largest muscle in the human body-the reason that there are so many legs, bums, and tums classes is that it is often weak and seems to display an urge to descend down to the knees as we get older! In being weak, other muscles then have to overwork to compensate-low back pain and tight hamstrings being two of the results of having weak gluteals-so you know you said "but it's a needless strain on your back"? I believe the reverse is true-there is more strain on the lower back from having weak gluteals. The gluteals, like i said in one of the posts, are large for a reason-evolution doesn't go to trouble to design something that isnt necessary.
As an aside, every article i've read by yoga journal is full of mistakes and misinformation-a bit unfortunate, as it is used by yoga teachers and students all over the world
Take care
Nick |
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As an aside, every article i've read by yoga journal is full of mistakes and misinformation-a bit unfortunate, as it is used by yoga teachers and students all over the world
How serious are the mistakes? Are they the usual typos, slight misinformation that isn't dangerous, or stuff that could cause injury? |
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Expert Yogi
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| Nick - I don't know if I have theenergy to debate these points but I will give it a shot.
Perhaps A/ should say "Extension SHOULD BE the position of the hips" because most of us do carry an anterior tilt. B/"the tailbone drops down and the back waist lifts up"- this makes sense to me, although again, I would word it differently. Bear in mind that I have not gone and reread the article. C/ I won't go into but I see you hae a personal opinion that differs and that happens, even in anatomy circles. |
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Location: London, England | Hi Greenjello,
Sorry for the delay in answering.
You asked:
'How serious are the mistakes? Are they the usual typos, slight misinformation that isn't dangerous, or stuff that could cause injury?'
I think I've seen all the types of mistakes that you mentioned, apart from typos. There is a problem in applying anatomy and physiology to yoga-most yoga teaching courses of any worth, at least in England, are about two years. This is not long enough to learn about A&P. Some would argue that its not long enough to learn about teaching yoga. I personally never tok a teaching qualification, by the way, because I hate the way the different schools denigrate each other. I also never met anyone who did a yoga course who was as into it as I was-practising up to 5 hours a day at home and that kind of stuff.
I often find that the people who claim to have some knowledge of Human anatomy in the yoga world are in fact sadly lacking. For instance, I was told that Paul Grilley had some great info on A&P-I looked at one of his teaching sites where he talked about the four movements available at the ankle-there are only two-flexion and extension. I read some of his other stuff and could see that he dropped out of the A&P course a bit too early, but not early enough to stop him embarking on his money making enterprise.
I tried to address one or two of the authors of the yoga journal articles, but they havent been gracious enough to reply-I dont know if this is magazine policy or personal choice.
As an aside, me and Tourist were discussing pelvic tilt. The yoga journal article was referring to the tailbone lifting in anterior tilt (but I think she made a typo). in actual fact, the pelvis and the coccyx are separate bones with a joint between them, partly synovial and partly cartilaginous. What the tailbone does when the pelvis tilts is anybody's guess. The sacrum itself is capable of nutation and counter-nutation, which you can think of as tilting like the pelvis. But this does not mean that when the pelvis tilts anteriorly, the sacrum nutates-it could counter-nutate. It may seem like I've got a bee in my bonnet, but i think that this is an example of what goes on in the yoga world. There just isnt the depth of knowledge to address these issues intelligently. So everyone think of the pelvis and sacrum/coccyx as a bowl which is kept level when standing (as the article said, the pelvis is in extension-wrong!). Because it's thought of as a bowl without joints, then good advice is not given to protect the lower back and the sacro-iliac joints.
By the way i dont wish to claim expertise in Anatomy and physiology-in fact, i find that with the learning that is required to answer a single question, a hundred more questions arise, so i fell like i know less and less each day-does that make sense? It's a good way for me to think of A&P, it is such a huge subject
Take care
Nick
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| Nick - 2006-04-11 3:02 AM
There is a problem in applying anatomy and physiology to yoga-most yoga teaching courses of any worth, at least in England, are about two years. This is not long enough to learn about A&P.
Well.... I would agree that it's difficult to learn a LOT about A & P in such a short time, but it's possible to learn SOMETHING. Let's face it, learning is not an all or nothing experience, more like a sliding scale. Yoga teachers just don't know enough A & P to be doctors, which I can respect, they're pretty busy learning a ton of other stuff. I think the big problem is the passing of misinformation. Then, not only are they not learning, they're wasting effort learning things that are wrong.
Some would argue that its not long enough to learn about teaching yoga.
Maybe, there's always something new to know. The question is whether it's good enough. The aim is to be impecable, not perfect.
I personally never tok a teaching qualification, by the way, because I hate the way the different schools denigrate each other.
It's a real problem. I remember Alan Watts once commenting on the way all the various gurus put each other down, and that he wasn't interested in playing that game. Sometimes it's a slipperly slope from offering a warning or constructive criticism, and denigrating somebody. I'm certainly a long way from avoiding it.
I read some of his other stuff and could see that he dropped out of the A&P course a bit too early, but not early enough to stop him embarking on his money making enterprise.
This seems to me to be a denigrating comment.
Because it's thought of as a bowl without joints, then good advice is not given to protect the lower back and the sacro-iliac joints.
I see what you're saying. Not having read the article, it does seem potentially dangerous. Use (or misuse) of terms doesn't really bother me, since I'm pretty guilty of it, but it's important to get the message right. |
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Location: London, England | Hi Greenjello,
I appreciate your point-but I think that the mediocre amount of anatomy and physiology that is taught does not allow the teachers to learn to the extent that they should. There is another important point. I was only able to apply the A&P from my chiropractic degree to my yoga practice because I already had about 13 years of yoga under my belt. I think that I would not have been able to see the trelvance of half of what was taugth to me if my eyes had not already been opened. The other problem is, if the teacher of the A&P on the yoga course has not done yoga, or doesnt know how to open their student's eyes so that they can apply A&P to making yoga safer, then the opportunity has been lost to use it successfully.
I think that various factors come into this, but without being too political, it is possible to go through any yoga magazine of go to many yoga classes and see or hear information, which if you didnt know better, and there's no reason why students should, will believe and act upon.
Another point that I've seen again and again is that teachers will often use their limited A&P knowledge to justify the practice of yoga-stretching is good for you, yoga helps you relax, having a straight spine, how to breathe, how to lift your arms above your head, shoulderstand is great for neck tension etc. When the foundation that support these statements is shaky, the rationale for practicing yoga has aslo been eroded.
I was once giving a workshop with two internationally famous yoga teachers, when one of them, who was lecturing on the knee in yoga poses, made the statement "the knee does not twist, it only bends" and then looked at me and said "isnt that right?" it was very embarrassing for me-I felt awful, but to just say yes would have been wrong. So infront of one hundred people, in a very quiet voice, I had to say no, that is not true. The book that she brought with her so she could check her terminology is called the muscle book by paul blakey, which I bought in the first week of my chiropractic course, but which was a waste of money, because by the end of the month, I already knew more than the book had to offer. I hate to show up my fellow teachers in this way, but I think that her actions belied a certain arrogance-it would have been quite possible for her to run a few facts before me or someone else, but she thought that she knew the truth, based on a few pages from a brilliant but limited book and a few hours at home reading it. As you can tell, I'm still traumatized, she probably hasnt given it a second thought. 
Nowadays, yoga courses often use the anatomy of yoga by david coulter-this is the most boring book I have ever read-I love A&P, but would rather walk over hot coals than try to read it again, so what it does to the students on these courses I dont know-I think he wrote it for his benefit rather than anyone else's. It's like waiting in a dentists waiting room for 50 years when someone nicked all the good magazines and only left you with cosmopolitan!
Take care
Nick |
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| I've been in those sorts of situations before, it's a really ugly thing to deal with. Either you surrender your integrity, or you end up causing somebody else pain and embarrashment. Sounds like you did the right thing. FWIW, being internationally famous isn't much of an indication of your worth as a yoga teacher, sometimes quite the opposite. Bikram's pretty famous, but I don't think I'd want to take a class with him. 
BTW, I'm confused does the knee have a natural range of motion besides back and forth? |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 5098
Location: Somewhere in the Mountains of Western NC | Yesterday I was fumbling through the pages of my new YJ. What really caught my attention was on page 64. It was the luminaries on Swami Kripalu.
I'll quote some of the article which I found to be totally interesting and *true* for me. "Legend has it that Swami Kripalu was taught just one yoga posture in his life. And yet, by practicing Kundalini breathing techniques for hours every day, he came to know dozens of poses." He believed yoga was encoded in our DNA, that yoga can be learned from the inside out. Kripalu taught that, more than instruction or precise alignment, yogis need to let their intuition guide their practice."
I found that to be so awesome, inspiring, breathtaking and a relief. I think that some, not all of this alignment stuff is BS and sometimes I think that injury can be a teacher in itself. Sure, it's nice to have teachers show us the path and the *proper* way to do the asana's, but sometimes its also nice to be able to tap into that stuff that is encoded deep inside of us...that's where I have received more benefit, just by tapping in. In fact, there are other views that support this, not only in Hatha Yoga, but also in Tibetan Buddhism, there are schools that teach this very same principal. As for the teachers that have guided me along that way....that also has been nice, but in the end, I make the final decision regarding the asana and how it relates to my body when I perform it and how I perform it. I don't think that is a bad thing and I don't think it leads to bad alignment..I think it is a way for us to allow us to think for ourselves and to do what is right for our bodies...therefore, it has the strong potential to have LESS injury.
I know this is going to open up a can of worms....
To further add...some of us are not into the technical mumbo jumbo and certainly am no scientists regarding the anatomy of the human body...some of us live by this code naturally without having to fill our heads up with unnecessary stuff. In fact, I would rather fill my head with more useful and intuitive things that have NEVER failed me....especially if the information is already there...why double my efforts, its a waste of time....and more of a justifyable means to keep certain yoga teachers and instructors in business with a job.
Edited by Cyndi 2006-04-12 10:19 AM
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| Cyndi - 2006-04-12 9:51 AM
I'll quote some of the article which I found to be totally interesting and *true* for me. "Legend has it that Swami Kripalu was taught just one yoga posture in his life. And yet, by practicing Kundalini breathing techniques for hours every day, he came to know dozens of poses." He believed yoga was encoded in our DNA, that yoga can be learned from the inside out. Kripalu taught that, more than instruction or precise alignment, yogis need to let their intuition guide their practice."
Stephen Cope, who was at Kripalu for 10 years, also talks about this in his book "Yoga and Quest for the True Self". Supposedly one of the renunciate teachers had a similar experience. He was taught one asana, and learned the rest via meditation. |
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Expert Yogi
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| Cyndi - I don't think you are opening a can o' worms. I think it is no surprise that Iyengar yoga, with what some consider an obsession with alignment, also stresses personal practice rather than reliance on always being in a studio with a teacher guiding you 6 or 7 days a week. Asana is an experiential practice and if one is always being led, there is less opportunity to go inward and have an authentic experience of the work.
OTOH, while your intuition may be finely honed (and I believe it is...) the average beginner (in the west, especially) has the intuition of a gold fish. Sorry folks, especially newbies, but it is true! I don't care for styles that suggest someone who doesn't know their adho mukha svanasana from their eka pada salamba sarvangasana (in English or Sanskrit!) should follow their intuition and do "what feels right." They are why our d@mn insurance rates are going sky high!  |
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Expert Yogi
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Location: Somewhere in the Mountains of Western NC | tourist - 2006-04-12 11:31 AM
Cyndi - I don't think you are opening a can o' worms.
Thank God, 
I think it is no surprise that Iyengar yoga, with what some consider an obsession with alignment, also stresses personal practice rather than reliance on always being in a studio with a teacher guiding you 6 or 7 days a week. Asana is an experiential practice and if one is always being led, there is less opportunity to go inward and have an authentic experience of the work.
OTOH, while your intuition may be finely honed (and I believe it is... ) the average beginner (in the west, especially ) has the intuition of a gold fish. Sorry folks, especially newbies, but it is true! I don't care for styles that suggest someone who doesn't know their adho mukha svanasana from their eka pada salamba sarvangasana (in English or Sanskrit! ) should follow their intuition and do "what feels right." They are why our d@mn insurance rates are going sky high!
Well, this is where I somewhat agree, well, mostly agree...especially in today's world. But, only because human beings have lost the sight and have leaned towards the outer rather than inner. This is so interesting...I love these kinds of conversations...its amazing what we are all really capable of isn't it??
Edited by Cyndi 2006-04-12 11:47 AM
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Location: London, England | Hi Greenjello,
The knee does have a range of motion besides back and forth (hereafter called flexion and extension). The poupular mistruth in yoga circles that it can only go back and forth comes from the fact that when the knee is in extension, there is no rotation available. As soon as the knee starts to flex, rotation becomes available-internal rotation is usually less than the external rotation, which is normally between 15-40 degrees, give or take. When people have screwed their knees up with lotus, you can often feel that the ligaments which prevent excessive rotation seem to be to lax-their support of the joint has been interfered with.
The rotation of the knee is an important component of yoga. For example, if you want to do lotus position, most people will simply pick up the foot and will often just pull the tibia sideways-there is scarcely any sideways movement in the knee, and it is no surprise therefore that lotus is associated with knee damage. In hospitals, this type of injury is often seen when people are hit by a car-obviously with greater damage. The lesson-the knee should not be stressed too much in this direction. by rotating the tibia externally instead, not only is the hip encouraged to open futher into external rotation, but the muscles which protect the knee (I'm guessing biceps femoris has a role in this) are turned on to create the external rotation. Try this slowly and you will find that gradually it will replace the way of entering lotus to which you are accustomed.
Just to prove that the knee is capable of rotation, try putting a kid's arrow with a sucker on the front of the thigh. With the knee straight, put another one on the front of the tibia. Now bend the knee and you should find that the dart on the lower leg turns outwards as you flex the knee. Proof!
FWIW, being internationally famous isn't much of an indication of your worth as a yoga teacher, sometimes quite the opposite. Bikram's pretty famous, but I don't think I'd want to take a class with him.
Too right!!!
Take care
Nick |
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Expert Yogi
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Location: A Blue State | Nick - 2006-04-10 3:16 AM A/"Extension is the position of the hips when you are standing fully upright"-If you look at the skeleton of a person from the side, you will see that the pelvis is actually in an anterior tilt-this is actually very important as it sets up the foundation for the curves of the spine. Taken in the context of the article, her statement is an accurate differentiation of extension from flexion. B/"the tailbone drops down and the back waist lifts up"-I think she must have had an off-day because this doesnt make sense-the coccyx would lift along with the back of the pelvis, and the top of the pelvis at the front would drop down-I'm surprised they let that one get through at yoga journal, because it really lets the article down, and if anyone tried it, would end up being at risk of the back pain that the article adresses. Sounds like an accurate description of creating length in the lumbar spine whilst further extending the hip joint. Guess it depends on where you place the "waist". C/"the iliopsoas, an external rotator in addition to its better-known role as a hip flexor"-the role of psoas and iliacus (there is actually no such muscle as iliopsoas, according to current thinking) That opinion leaves you pretty far out of the mainstream, I'd say. so you know you said "but it's a needless strain on your back"? I believe the reverse is true-there is more strain on the lower back from having weak gluteals. The gluteals, like i said in one of the posts, are large for a reason-evolution doesn't go to trouble to design something that isnt necessary. Well, this sounds to me like you didn't actually consider what the article said, or what I wrote. You've misquoted me several times, saying that I wrote something about "deactivitating the gluteal muscles". It's easy enough for anyone to scroll back up and read what I actually wrote. The Gudmestad piece says it all in further detail. And I will also wonder why you suddenly stopped discussing backbending and switched to vague attacks on the Yoga Journal and unnamed but "well-known" yogis. ..... bg |
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Location: London, England | Hi Bay Guy,
Sorry if i offended you, or misquoted you.
"You may find that this requires a bit of internal rotation from the inner thigh muscles. If you are instead squeezing your glutes"
I inferred from this statement that you did say something about gluteal activation being counter-productive.
"Sounds like an accurate description of creating length in the lumbar spine whilst further extending the hip joint. Guess it depends on where you place the "waist"."
But she is describing anterior tilt, which does not create length in the lumbar spine-it does the oppposite-no?
It is still traditional to talk about iliopsoas-but if you look at the muscles in a cadaver you would see that they are in fact separate-the psoas comes from the lumbar spine, the iliacus from the pelvis-just because out-dated textbooks still refer to them as one muscle, doesnt mean we can't say this is wrong and let our understanding evolve.
"And I will also wonder why you suddenly stopped discussing backbending and switched to vague attacks on the Yoga Journal and unnamed but "well-known" yogis."
I kept the comments vague-they aren't attacks, otherwise I would have stated the target-because I have no wish to land anyone in trouble, legally or proffessionally. i don't think that the mistakes that are made are done on purpose-most teachers are well-meaning souls who have the interests of their students at heart, and i don't think they should be penalized. but it should be possible to abandon myths which endanger students of yoga in favour of a better understanding of the human body, the hatha yoga student's tool of meditation.
Take care
Nick
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Expert Yogi
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| I think some of the statements such as "the knee only bends" are teh sort of true-ish statements made to keep people from making gross mistakes with their bodies. Anyone watch Stephen Colbert? He calls it "truthiness" Not true, but sounds good enough so that people go around repreating it as though it was true. It needs to be preceded by "generally speaking" or "for our purposes at the moment" or words to that effect and later clarified. As far as I know, most of the joints *can* move all sorts of directions, but many of them will cause injuries.
As far as the minute details of anatomy go, most students could care less and really don't need to know the distinction between the illiacus and the psoas. I actually had someone ask where the quads were in class recently - there's one I thought everyone knew! And we are trained to teach not only both common and Latin names, but to point and say "these are the quadriceps/thigh muscles" so there is no confusion. A story from our senior teacher: She had a student who, for months of beginner classes, would make all kinds of strange adjustments and movements when told to move the sternum or sacrum. Turns out, she had the terms backwards! |
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Location: London, England | Hi Tourist,
I think what you say is true-another thing that may have happened with the knee is that people read an anatomy book which says the knee is only capable of flexion/extension-which is true when, and only when, the knee is straight.
I aslo agree with you regarding the psoas/iliacus point. Just to add some credibility to my pointing out that they are separate: "the psoas and the iliacus are two separate muscles, functionally, architecturally, and neurally. There is no such thing as an iliopsoas muscle!" (McGill S. Low Back Disorders, Human Kinetics).
McGill goes on to say that psoas is used to reduce shaer forces on the spine when the is a hip flexor torque. This means that if iliacus is used to flex the hip, then psoas activates to minimize shear forces on the lumbar spine. In other words, it prevents the lower back from going into too much extension-interesting with regards to the camel pose! This means that we can use psoas to flatten the lower back even as we stretch iliopsoas in the camel pose. Thats food for thought, isn't it! This means that we can surely offer our students better advice if we know that psoas and iliacus are separate-I'm not saying take them through the science, but perhaps this knowledge helps us develop better analogies or instructions with regards movement and posture.
Funny story about sternum and sacrum!
Take care
Nick |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 2479
Location: A Blue State | Nick - 2006-04-13 3:50 AM Hi Bay Guy, Sorry if i offended you, or misquoted you. "You may find that this requires a bit of internal rotation from the inner thigh muscles. If you are instead squeezing your glutes" I inferred from this statement that you did say something about gluteal activation being counter-productive. Nick -- I'm not offended, I just dislike debating things that I did not write. Yes, I mean that too much (as in clenching) is not good, but I never wrote "deactivate." The Gudmestad piece goes into more detail on the need to balance the use of the glutes... "Sounds like an accurate description of creating length in the lumbar spine whilst further extending the hip joint. Guess it depends on where you place the "waist"." But she is describing anterior tilt, which does not create length in the lumbar spine-it does the oppposite-no? It is still traditional to talk about iliopsoas-but if you look at the muscles in a cadaver you would see that they are in fact separate-the psoas comes from the lumbar spine, the iliacus from the pelvis-just because out-dated textbooks still refer to them as one muscle, doesnt mean we can't say this is wrong and let our understanding evolve. Oh dear, is that what you meant? I thought you were saying the muscles weren't there --- they are as thick as one's wrist (and palpable if you stick your finger into your gut). Yes, I agree that there's current interpretation that separates the iliopsoas into two separate bits. "And I will also wonder why you suddenly stopped discussing backbending and switched to vague attacks on the Yoga Journal and unnamed but "well-known" yogis." I kept the comments vague-they aren't attacks, otherwise I would have stated the target-because I have no wish to land anyone in trouble, legally or proffessionally. i don't think that the mistakes that are made are done on purpose-most teachers are well-meaning souls who have the interests of their students at heart, and i don't think they should be penalized. but it should be possible to abandon myths which endanger students of yoga in favour of a better understanding of the human body, the hatha yoga student's tool of meditation. Take care Nick Yes, of course. I also try to be circumspect about what I say about well-known people (more so the longer I have been on this board). But the question is about backbending, not famous yogis. I spend a great deal of time on backbends, and I do practice very deep backbends, so my endorsement of Gudmestad's thesis is based more on my practical experience than on simply reading her YJ article (and, as I've posted in the past, I also find YJ to be a variable product). You might do the following experiment: * first, kneel with your knees about three to four fists apart. Holding that separation, do Kapotasana (heels to ears or as close as you can manage). * second, kneel with your knees less than two fists apart, perhaps touching (belt your thighs if necessary). Now do Kapotasana (heels to ears or as close as you can manage). *consider the difference in the distribution of curvature and stress along your spine, and the distribution of muscular effort. For me, the first transfers the bend heavily into the lumbar spine. I myself get a much less stressful backbend the second way, and a much less effortful one. It does demand more flexibility in places other than the lower back to practice this way, but the progress that this alignment has gained me, in this and deeper backbends, is tremendous. Cheers, bg |
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Location: London, England | Hi Bay Guy,
Intersting points, thank you for your answer-as is often the case on this board, I think much of the misunderstanding comes from the medium. You obviously are very knowledgeable.
The experiment that you recommend in kapotasana is interesting. I'm suppose the knees being closer together(assuming the feet are also closer together) would mean that the adductor muscles(which are often involved in increased low back curvature) would not interfere so quickly with our movement into the posture. Tight adductors would mean that the lower back is going to extend much earlier in the movement, and having the knees closer together would help with this.
Take care
Nick |
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Strange question
