Lauren Cahn's Question About SthiraSukham Asanam Post and My Response

In response to SthiraSukham Asanam Lauren Cahn aka Yoga Chickie wrote: How do Ashtangis, with their strong adjustments past the point of comfort oftentimes, fit within this framework?

My response: As always, Lauren, you have an insightful and probing mind and come up with complex questions that present a wonderful challenge.

My first answer to this question is actually already presented in my piece on hands on adjustments. One would have to read that entry to parse out my perspective though, so in a few moments I will present my perspective in a way that will more directly address your question.

My second answer to this question is presented in my quote from Osho. In truth I don’t think there is a need for more of an answer than this but, since I like thoroughness, I will answer directly instead of obtusely.

For the purpose of what yoga would call viveka (incisive clarity or discernment) I want to explain a few things. When you are being adjusted while performing a yoga pose, the adjustment itself is not the yoga pose, and what your body is brought into, since it is brought into a position by external means, is not necessarily a yoga pose either. It might be, but it might not be. And if someone else is bringing you into a posture then it is not exactly YOU doing yoga. However, this still may be okay. Lets look at what is at play first to see if we can decide when this might be okay and when it might be not as useful.

I will deal with the idea of adjustments to start. When I am explaining to a teacher or someone wanting to learn to teach, about physical adjustments, at some point I usually explain the difference between active and passive range of motion. I like using movements of the thumb to explain this. The thumb has a variety of movements available to it. It is the only finger that has as free a range of motion in what is anatomically referred to as circumduction. You can get your thumb to create a circular movement that combines abduction, adduction, flexion and extension with very small amounts of rotation occurring. These movements could be called part of your thumb’s active range of motion.

Now if you took your thumb and it was straight and you took your other hand and rotated the thumb, twisting it gently, you could get your thumb to rotate on its axis. This is a movement that your thumb will never be able to do of its own volition. It needs external aid to create this movement. This would be an example of a passive range of movement. The movement is possible. There is nothing wrong with your body being brought through a certain amount of this passive range of movement but it is not something that the muscles of the hand and thumb could create without help from an outside source to generate the movement.

There are other examples of passive range of movement that are worth noting as well. If you extended your fingers as far as you could, many people can extend their fingers past straight, you would reach the end of your active range of motion for your fingers in the direction of extension. Then if you take your other hand and bring your fingers back farther into extension, you can push your fingers back considerably farther than they were able to go just by the action of the muscles within the forearm, hand and fingers. This would be a passive range of motion. If you brought those fingers as far as they could go before injury would occur, this would be referred to, anatomically, as end range of motion, which means as far as you can go.

You can take this information and apply it to almost any joint in the body.

Hopefully this is self explanatory enough that I don’t have to connect the rest of the dots on that subject. Now I am going to talk about different kinds of adjustments from fields other than Yoga for a few moments.

In physical therapy, often a therapist will use certain kinds of joint manipulations that are designed to remove stress or tension or stretch connective tissue that is obstructing free range of movement in a joint. Some of these techniques are glide, traction or thrust techniques. Chiropractors use certain kinds of manual adjustments that can also free up movement in joints. Many of the most commonly thought of techniques that a chiropractor is known for are thrust techniques where a sharp, short movement creates a joint manipulation where, if the technique is successful, you can here a popping or cracking sound in the joint. But chiropractors have other kinds of techniques that are not as aggressive. An osteopath sometimes uses similar types of bone and joint manipulations as well. And then there are things like Rolfing or Structural Integration where some of the techniques used are about manipulating the fascia around the joint including the ligaments, tendons and joint capsules. Some of this is to lengthen the fascia being manipulated itself, to get it to unbind and create more freedom of movement in the joint; but some of this is to affect the golgi tendon organs which can be stimulated to create a relaxation response in the muscles; some of this manipulation can be used to affect the muscle spindles which are sort of like the mind of the muscle (a muscle spindle is a proprioceptor in a muscle, part of the nervous system, which helps tell the muscle when and how much to contract) which, when given certain stimulation, can cause a muscle to tighten or release and open.

While these kinds of manual manipulations might not be the yoga, intelligently applied, these kinds of adjustments or body work can free up movement and make a person capable of moving through increased ranges of motion that were previously not possible, and they don’t always feel that good while they are being applied.

Now the truth of the matter is that there are yoga teachers of all levels out there and I am not going to make value judgments about things I have not seen or people I do not know. I have watched Eddie Stern teach and he has a great deal of skill in applying adjustments that are powerful and yet thoughtful. A friend of mine who practices at his studio once said to me, “he always knows just how far to go. His adjustments are firm but he never pushes me past my limits.” I have watched David Swenson teach as well and his adjustments are amazingly thoughtful while being powerful as well. If these kinds of adjustments free up space in joints and help a practitioner achieve something that was previously not possible they might be quite useful. But the adjustments themselves are not the Yoga, at least not for the person being adjusted.

There are some great teachers out there with a lot going on. There are some teachers out there who know some if not all of the stuff I mentioned above and seamlessly slip these kinds of techniques into their adjustments so that a person’s range of motion is increased without them even fully realizing exactly how such a change occurred. Personally, I usually don’t do stuff that is all that flashy when I adjust and when I am doing a joint manipulation on a practitioner I don’t necessarily let them know exactly what I am doing that is freeing up the space in their body. For my part, I want the practitioner to feel good without thinking that I did something too special. I do use adjustments that, in my opinion, are pretty simple and I try to be as non-invasive as possible, so I don’t usually use thrust techniques or try to get bones to crack. Sometimes those kinds of things happen naturally but that is different. Or, once in a while, when someone really needs an adjustment for their neck or back and something that is simpler is not effective enough, I might use a deeper adjustment. In the end, I want people practicing in my classes to be empowered to do as much of the work from within themselves as possible so they don’t feel they need me in an unhealthy way. But I see nothing wrong with someone who knows some of the techniques I was referring to above, using them to help his/her clients. And thrust techniques and fascial release techniques can feel pretty intense and uncomfortable but the end results when performed by someone who knows what they are doing can be quite beneficial.

This might not be exactly what Lauren was asking about but the issue is how do intense adjustments fit with my explanation of asana as defined by the Yoga Sutras.

Now even the best of teachers can make a mistake in adjusting a student. Hopefully with the more skilled teachers that happens less frequently, but then there are other teachers who don’t know as much but saw a teacher they admire do something and are trying to emulate that teacher without having the full knowledge base that was behind the adjustments that they are attempting to duplicate. And that can create some problems. I would still say, for a teacher in that category, it is worth attempting to learn and help their students. Usually part of learning and growing as a teacher occurs through the direct relationship between student and teacher and if you don’t put yourself into your work, make yourself vulnerable and take some risks where you are open to making a few mistakes, the maturation process will probably not progress quite as fast, which might be okay, but there is nothing wrong with trying to increase your rate of learning either.

Caring, wanting the best for your students and doing your best not to cause harm within this process would be the best formula I can come up with for how to minimize those mistakes and the problems that might arise from them. Second to that, good solid anatomy and kinesiology training is the only other thing I can think of to help keep students safe. The better you understand how the body works and moves, the more capable you will be in adjusting your students and the more capable you will be in using your own body during your own practice.

Where do strong adjustments fit in with the information that the Yoga Sutras presents that what a yoga posture is, is a combination of strong and soft, powerfully and enjoyable, stable and comfortable, alert and relaxed? An adjustment that increases your range of motion could make it so you could ultimately go farther into a pose while maintaining those qualities. But inappropriately applied, applied to enthusiastically by someone who might not be as experienced, who might be trying to compensate for a lack of experience with intensity, an adjustment that is seemingly the same could cause injury. In the end I would rather not judge, but if I had to I would judge by the results. If, in the long run, which can best be gauged over the next thirty to fifty years…if over an extended period of time the results of the adjustments are beneficial then they were probably helpful to that person, on the other hand, if adjustments that are too aggressive cause injuries that end up harming the person and his/her practice then it is worth looking hard and questioning their appropriateness. And an adjustment that might be extremely beneficial to one person might be damaging to another and an adjustment that might be beneficial to a person at one point in time might cause damage to that same person at another point in time.

I think I will mention a quote from David Swenson here since he is really my favorite ashtanga teacher. I remember a student once asking him if he had ever been injured practicing yoga and his answer was, “I have never injured myself.” His implication was that he had been injured but not by his own practice, by an adjustment from someone else.

I would also ask teachers, practitioners and readers to question whether farther is always necessary. There is this huge impulse in our methods of practicing that are about going farther and increasing range of motion. There are times when this is useful. But further is not always deeper and increased range of motion is not always what a practitioner needs. In my opinion the practice should be based on the actual needs of the practitioner. I can find support for this perspective from within the Yoga Sutras. There are several Sutras that appear to be about this including Sutra 1.12 (practice without attachment to the results) 2.1 (yoga practice is the discipline to practice consistently, self observation while practicing and the understanding that there are things that are beyond your control and so surrendering to this understanding, in other words practice should not be driven by the imposition of the conscious will or the ego which is what practicing for range of motion can sometimes become), and Sutra 3.6 Tasya Bhumishu Viniyogah (practice needs to be adapted to the current circumstances of the individual, the practitioner needs to start from where he/she is). In my opinion the goals of the practitioner ought to be continually reassessed and respected but it is also worth helping a practitioner put his/her goals in line with his/her needs and abilities because sometimes these are not exactly aligned.

And then I will ask you to think about that quote from Osho and its meaning and I will add my own thoughts. The techniques are simply techniques. If they help that is great. If they make things worse you might need to start questioning how you are doing things. The practice of Yoga is for you, for your life, for each of you individually. It is to help make you integrated and whole. It is to help calm the incessant and erratic actions of the mind, which cause us to become fragmented, so that we can become unified, centered, whole. If learning to increase your range of motion so that you can manipulate your body into a pretzel helps then that is great. If deep adjustments ultimately end up causing you to have that depth of internal stillness that can come from practice then they might be useful. Usually injury causes a person’s mind to become overactive in a disconcerting way and if this occurs then the techniques probably did not have the desired results. And if the techniques you are using are not having the desired affects for you, then there are always other ways of becoming whole. The practice is for you, the practitioner, not the other way around.

Peace.