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 Utthita hasta padangusthasanaModerators: Moderators Jump to page : 1 2 Now viewing page 2 [25 messages per page] | View previous thread :: View next thread |
| Yoga -> Ashtanga Yoga | Message format |
slowpie6 |
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It's nice to know there isn't anything sinister about my body, and I guess I'd rather be hypermobile than immobile, that would make it harder still to do yoga... You said: "Basically, a teacher can do the most for a hypermobile student by encouraging them to perform optimum posture-not by allowing them to fall towards the extremes of flexibility in each pose." Do you feel that my teacher's instructions about janu sirsasana is an example of this? I think that overall, the type of adjustments I am receiving qualify as aimed at helping me develop optimum posture - although I would say that the master yogi I study under tends to encourage me to push the limits of my flexibility (as compared to my other two instructors who just adjust alignment), he is not doing so in poses where I'm already flopping around. He generally pushes me deeper when it comes to spinal lengthening and flexibility, like in ahdo mukha svanasana. I'm not sure what you mean when you say "you are basically telling them that they have wasted their time in practicing yoga" - are you referring to the gains in flexibility having been a waste of time, or just yoga in general having been a waste of time? I don't get it... if you could please clarify? About my trapped nerve in the hip... I say it is the hip (and not the lumbar area) because it was diagnosed as such by my doctors, which I believe because it wouldn't always be markedly noticeable, but if I put pressure on the front of my hip (like if I lay down on my stomach), I would completely lose sensation... But either way, it's been resolved for so long that I'm not going to harp on about that. My feet, on the other hand, were subjected to extensive following by doctors throughout my youth. It's a family trait, although much less pronounced in me (you should see my brother's feet, his footprints form a sort of pentagon!). I've never heard of hyper-pronation, but over-pronation is flat feet in my understanding, so is that not the same? I've got pictures of my feet, actually, that I took last week so that I can compare in a few months to see if the work I am doing on my arches will yield any results... Hm, I think I'll try to post them in another reply, to scare the children away... | |||
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| slowpie6 |
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| Nick |
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    Location: London, England | Hi SP, No, over- (or hyper) pronation is not the same as pes planus (flat feet). "I guess I'd rather be hypermobile than immobile, that would make it harder still to do yoga..." That's exactly what I mean-hyper-mobile people always think that-but you know what-it's harder to get the over-flexible to do a good posture than it is for stiff people-the hypermobile students don't just stop when they get to good posture, but always over-shoot it-they cannot arrest their movement, or choose not to-when you are tight, your movmeent is arrested by tight muscles-then your teacher can tell you when you have stretched enough to form good posture. I cannot comment on teacher's adjustmnets in janu sirsa or down dog-but I'll tell you one thing teachers love to adjust the hypermobile-I bet that teacher was pressing on the middle (or lower)of your back in down dog? Maybe not, but it's an educated (I've been there) guess. I'd say the gains in flexibility and the yoga have been a waste of time if you haven't learnt better posture, strictly speaking, and I'm probably being too strict  The nerve to the hip comes from the LI-L3 part of the lumbar spine-you might want to see an osteopath to gauge whether the problem comes from there-they are much more highly trained at this than a doctor is. Are the adjustments in janu sirsasana correct? Maybe-but in my opinion, may just add to the hyper-mobility-after all, you are simply flattening the lumbar curve-this may add to the muscle imbalance. You need to find the weak muscles, not the tight ones. In my experience, this is often the hip flexors, calf muscles, thighs, chest and neck. This is just a generalization, but I'm willing to bet you have tightness in one or more of these areas-then again, so would most of the population-it's just that the hypermobile have an extra capactiy for holding excessive tension in these areas-remember, the human body is a closed unit-you cannot get rid of tension, only move it around, aprt form with surgery-even so, surgery done to relax tension will often have the effect of simply shiftng the tension elsewhere-for instance, cutting the fibrous band across the wrist to relieve carpal tunnel does not mean that the muscle is not as tight-just means it doesnt rub on the band any more. Nick Edited by Nick 2007-01-15 3:46 AM | ||
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| slowpie6 |
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| Hm... I always understood that there was only one condition (over-pronation) that flattened the arch, and I was certain that in laymen's terms it was called flat feet. This website http://www.foot.com/info/info_cond.html only list this one condition too. Anyways, what I have is over-pronation. As for my comment on immobility, it was a joke, I was referring to complete immobility... But I understand what you mean now about the "wasted time" if my practice didn't include good posture. Certainly, while I was practicing without teachers, I would say that I did not learn proper form, at least in some asanas... I wouldn't qualify that time as wasted, because it took me to where I am today. I'm still at the "embryogic" state when it comes to practice, and I don't feel frustration if I'm guided to pull back in a pose in order to find good form and learn it well before attempting to go deeper. One of my teacher's is constantly repeating in class that we need to take a step back in the posture, to find proper alignment and not go as deep until we have retrained our bodies, so I feel that my studio has the right mentality about that. I overheard him instruct a student, who's form in urdhva dhanurasana must have been particularly problematic, to go back to very basic back bends (like cobra with bent elbows) and abstain from other back bends until she found the right alignment. And this was not in a beginner class. In the case of the adjustments I am getting in downdog, actually the teachers are always "pulling" on my middle back, not pushing, because there is some collapse in my upper body. I keep too much weight on my arms, I think. In an attempt to demonstrate the "feeling" I should be getting, after pulling my back into proper alignment, the teacher then pushed my sacrum to highlight how my hips need to move upwards, and kept pushing til I had to scuffle back on my hands and I sort of "flew" out of the pose. He said I should feel like that, like I'm trying to float backwards towards standing by the strength of my legs. I attend beginner classes as well as more advanced classes, and when I am in the former, I follow all the steps and modifications that are designed to help the students find good posture. I don't move into the full pose simply because I think I can do it. When I find a weekness this way, I practice the modified versions in the more advanced class too. The difference for me is that in the advanced classes we practice more asanas from the primary series, and most of it is in vinyasa, so I get correction on these extra poses and spend more time focusing on the flow of my breath. I don't think that this medium is very well suited to describe in words what my form is or the exact nature of the adjustments I am getting. Sometimes I may well be explaining it badly because I've misunderstood what I was told - which is not a good thing for me but doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the way I am being instructed. Suffice it to say that I have full trust and deference to the expertise of my teachers (ok, I have to admit a small degree of hesitation with one of my profs, she is less experienced and her instruction has been confusing - salabhasana remember?), I believe I have found an excellent studio with very competent teachers who live and breath yoga in the way I want to learn it. You sound a bit skeptical about the quality of instruction given by other teachers, probably from having encountered a few too many mis-guided teachers, but let me assure you that my teachers (in particular the master teacher who is one of only 26 certified Ashtanga teachers worldwide) have impeccable credentials and excellent teaching methods for me. We have a reputable Iyengar teacher in town too, so one of these days I might just go on over to his studio and take a class or two for futher attention to my posture by someone from a different tradition, but I continue to think I'm getting the right sort of guidance at my studio. As for where my weaknesses or tightnesses are, I'm still learning to find them. It'll probably be a long time until I fully understand my body, but I'm taking baby steps towards it. I'll be going in for a thai yoga massage sometime this week or next, so perhaps that will shed some light on some of the spots of tension. As a "chiro-nonpractor"  , would you think that I would benefit from seeing a chiro? Is there any sort of thing that they could tell me about non-skeletal body by adjusting my bones? I don't know much about chiros (and I'll admit a little fear at the idea of someone messing around with my spine), but have been considering seeing one... Humbly yours, sp - the Embryogi | |||
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| slowpie6 |
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| Nick |
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Location: London, England | Hi SP, First of all, I owuld be the first to acknowledge that the methods I use to teach astanga yoga are very divergent-sometimes, when the rest of the world says one thing, I appear to be doing another-my defence is, that I have been trained to optimize an individual's performance and function by addressing abnormalities or dysfunction in any part of the neuro-musclulo-skeletal system-and I would say that where I appear the most contradictory, is probably where I feel most strongly that the traditional methods of perofrming asana are misguided in terms of helping a student fulfil their function through otpimization of their structure. For instance, I have been adjusted many times in the way you described, before I knew what was going on, I accepted it as a good adjustment-now I know that it is probably not-so if anyone puts their hands on my sacrum, I know straight away if they are knowledgeable in anatomy and physiology. As your sacrum was pushed back, you would have tensed your upper trapezius and levator scapulae to lift your shoulders-no two ways about it really, otherwise the hands would have got pulled with the movment. So the adjustment is teaching you to do the posture by tensing your shoulders up around your ears-not good. It is also teaching you to do the movement without bandha-which should pull you into the posture, leaving the shoulders free to stretch, rather than lift up. In down dog, the bandha should pull the pelvis into flexion-too often, the hand on the sacrum prevents or impedes this action. In fact, very often, the hand is used to lengthen the lower spine, as I read happening to you-this is absolutely wrong-you should be encouraging a little lumbar curve, in other words head towards a neutral spine. I'm glad you used this an example, because it is a classic case of attempting to improve a yoga posture, with the result that life outside of the class also becomes an exhibition of bad spinal curvature. Getting back to bandha, if you use bandha properly, then the lower spine would not be flattened-in fact, bandha should compress the spinal joints whilst you are moving towards neutral, so the idea is to encourage good posture, not bend the spine into all sorts of shapes. So in fact your teacher is destroying bandha by adjusting you like this-or yuo could say that the bandha you use is a bandha that will give bad spinal posture. I feel a bit bad for ranting, but you did ask, and if you don't ask, you don't get I would like to assure you that the techniques that I use are built on sound principles, and I am not being difficult-but when something is glaringly obvious, then it would be a sin for me to say nothing-so I often feel like I'm being put in a witness box with no desire to testify against the plaintiff I believe one of the problems in the yoga world is that the western biomechanicists do not understand why the yoga crowd would want to do something which is bad for them, and the yoga crowd don't understand the scepticism of the western medics. If they knew what the medics do, then they would be equally sceptical, and then the way yoga is taught would be changed for the better, then everyone would be more optimistic Nick | ||
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Location: London, England | Hi SP, Preferred style? Astanga-but not as we know it Nick | ||
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| Nick |
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Location: London, England | Pps, that web site is wrong!! flat feet are not pronated feet! Just went and saw the title-flat feet are when the three arches of the foot collapse-over pronation is a tri-planar movement, eversion, dorsiflexion, and abduction-it's actually very interesting, and very pertinent to the practice of yoga-if you know how the body imparts forces to the ground, you can use yoga to improve the way in which forces are imaprted to the ground, and therefore, as those forces are sent back into the body (ground reaction force), then you can choose where and how the forces are applied-on a good day! Nick | ||
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| slowpie6 |
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| DownwardDog |
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| slowpie6 |
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| Nick |
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Location: London, England | |||
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| slowpie6 |
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| I think what I really need to do is try to kidnap a family physician (they are impossible to come by around here!) and get a full check up, get references to various specialists who can help me get a better understanding of the specifics of my body and anatomy, and follow up on the effects of yoga on my body. I don't think much can be achieved by attempting to describe the oddities of my body to you over the internet, because regardless of your credentials, you simply can't diagnose me as hyper-mobile, or determine whether I have flat feet or over-pronation or whatever (I know you know this already, I'm just stating the obvious). Whatever possible risks that are posed by certain yoga poses or methods or adjustment, none of that will convince me to give it up. I've never felt better. But I think that an awareness that some practices may be detrimental to a particular body would be beneficial to anyone, and so regular evaluations are probably in order. I'd say it's the case for any form of exercise. So I think that is what I should do. However, beyond the already monumental difficulties I have had trying to find a generalist that will take me on as a patient, I think that not just any doctor would do. Seems to me that it would take a doctor familiar with yoga to really get an informed assessment of how it is affecting my body. Maybe I'm wrong, and they can completely independently assess things, but I hardly think they could tell me that I shouldn't be practicing Asana X or that I should be flexing my Bodypart Y in order to prevent some bad thing from happening... On an other note, if you feel that the problem with Ashtanga is at the root, then what exactly makes you say that you practice and teach Ashtanga? If you disagree with the original teachings, with the methods of the forefather of the style, with the traditions in general, then how can you be identifying yourself as a representative of the style? That sounds to me like claiming you are a Catholic when you don't believe Jesus lived and you think the Pope is an incarnation of Santa Claus. I'm not trying to be confrontational, I hope I don't come off that way... but how is your approach and practice consistent with Ashtanga? I'd be interested to hear your take on this. sp | |||
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| DownwardDog |
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| Nick |
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Location: London, England | Hi SP and Downdog, As I said, no offence against PJ. The only time I ever offend people, is when they insist on hurting others, and I expose the techniques they use as having a rationale based on their imagination, rather than fact. Unfortunately, this is endemic in all forms of yoga, so I get to question tradition quite a lot But if the yoga works for you, and you can still do it into old age, then that's fine by me, and I'm sure it's fine by me. I would like to say, though, that the modern interpretation of astanga yoga that I teach is based on getting you into old age-if it seems different to what you do now, sit up and take notice-otherwise you will regret it over time, I'm afraid to say. But, whatever makes you happy, that'sthe main thing, isn't it? Nick | ||
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| tourist |
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Expert Yogi Posts: 8442   | |||
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| Nick |
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Location: London, England | Hi Glenda, Don't you start Nick | ||
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| slowpie6 |
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| Hey DownwardDog, thanks for the suggestion on the physio. I really wasn't sure which way to go, I was toying between the idea of a chiro and a physio, but I've never consulted either, and don't know much about what they can do, so I really couldn't make up my mind. In the meantime, I've decided to have a thai yoga massage and see how that feels. But whatever effects that might have, I don't think it is designed to serve as a pseudo-medical evaluation of your anatomy. So I still wanted to find a doctor. I realize that a general practitioner would have superficial things to say, but I see them as vital in that they can make a more global assessment of all the medical issues that a person deals with. I feel like a good GP should be able to make a synthesis of a person's conditions and general health, and direct you to the right specialists to help you. There role is very important, in my mind, so much so that if I had chosen the medical field, I think that would be my chosen branch. Beyond the "summary assessment" they can offer, I also think that GPs can (and should, in an ideal world) offer the patient a feeling of having one doctor that is concerned about their general well-being and can be consulted for any form of ailment with full knowledge of all aspects of their medical history. I think specialists are lacking in this respect as they are "hyper-focused" on their area of expertise... Even if your cardiologist has been trained to make general assessments of digestive troubles or spinal alignment (the knowledge of a GP is shared by all doctors, after all), he's not going to care much about hearing about your non-cardiac troubles. So I still feel that I need a good GP. Nick, it sounds as though short of moving to London and studying under you, I will have to cope with these "endemic" problems you speak of... So hopefully careful following by doctors will shed light on any problematic aspects of my yoga practice so that I can adjust my methods according to my body's needs. I'm way off from concerns of old age at this point, and I hope that practicing with a growing awareness of my body will serve me positively in the end. I have trouble accepting the notion that I'd be better off not doing yoga at all then to do it in the traditional way, and I don't think you would say that to me either. Besides, any and every form of physical activities has certain negative effects on the body - runners wreak havoc on their knees, tennis players have hell to pay for the impact on their elbows and shoulders, swimmers... hm, can't come up with a problem with swimming, other than the fact that I despise it. But yoga, to me, is the absolute best, all around form of physical activity, with its attention to the whole body in more than just its muscular form, and especially with the spiritual, emotional, and existential aspects that simply do not figure in the vast majority of other activities (except maybe martial arts, generally speaking). And yes, it's making me happier than I've ever been, so I feel like a winner. Now, if you ever catch me attempting this, I implore you to please kidnap me and enlist me in some form of yoga detox, because this cannot be good for a spine unless it's made of elastics: Attachments ----------------  WHAT THE BLEEP.jpe (51KB - 59 downloads) CRACK.jpe (57KB - 63 downloads) | |||
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| Nick |
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Location: London, England | Hi SP, Never really pictured you in that position, you'll be glad to know Will definitely set you straight if I find you like this. Nick | ||
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