Location: London, England | Hi Ellie,
Sorry for delay in answering-not been coming here very much.
Very difficult to give an answer, for the following reasons.
It may be that you are perfoming your backbends very well, encouraging your lumbar spine to resist hyper-extension, and therefore producing an environment for your lumbar spine which encourages the compression which must exist on the discs to be spread over the entire surface of the joint. If the compression is concentrated on a specfic part of the disc by faulty spine postion, then the force is also greatly increased, with a much greater likelyhood of disc herniation.
On the other hand, people with bad backs can often feel that the nervous messages which are relayed to them by performing a posture are a sign that they are performing that posture correctly. This is often not true. The nervous impulses may be a sign to stop performing that posture, but the faulty biomechanics of the individual student have led to a faulty nervous system and a faulty appreciation of what the messages mean or what to do about them.
It may also be that the postures are 'working' simply because you are supplying the spinal cord with messages from different receptors than the ones which are being stimulated by your normal (faulty) spinal position. The new impulses drown out the old ones as they try to enter the spinal cord, like too many people trying to go through a doorway at the same time (the pain gate theory).
Scoliosis makes the spine even more complex, with each case bringing new challenges. Generally, I emphasise tightening the muscles on the convexity of the curvature, and lengthening the muscles on the concave side of the curve. You probably already know stuff like this, sorry to state the obvious if that's so.
Nick |