Marichyansana A; Another Angle on Opening from the Hips to the Lower Back to Reduce Tension

This pose, like all poses, has to be adapted to your current needs. If this is done, you get a nice angle from your pelvic structure into your lower back in this pose and the asymmetrical quality of the pose, like with Janusirsasna, causes you to get a nice release in the tension from the pelvic structure to the lower back.

The First Principle of Therapeutic Yoga

The first and most important principle of working therapeutically with a yoga practitioner is not to cause harm, not to make things worse. Part of what you need to do to do this is to find out what will potentially cause damage and what is causing the damage in the first place. What makes this complicated is that it could be any number of things. It could be something the person is doing while practicing. It could be something the person does while they are sleeping or during any other daily activity. If all you do, in working with someone who has an injury, is help that person remove the source of the problem you have done something really monumental in leading that person towards the direction of health. With most injuries, if the source of the problem is removed then the person’s body will heal itself over time. If you figure out what is creating a problem, understand what that is, and change the patterns that are causing the damage, replacing them with something that will not cause harm, something positive, things will usually just get better.

Therapeutic work in yoga is usually more complicated than just the simple physical level of things, but this is really a good place to start. And it is interesting that sometimes this works with deeper emotional stuff as well. Finding your way to the root of a problem, understanding it, and replacing damaging patterns of behavior with useful ones can do amazing things.

Knowing what exercises will make a physical problem better without addressing the root cause of the problem can really end up being like putting a band-aid on a cut that needs stitches.

Of course this is my opinion but.... :)

Peace.

UpSideDownCarl

Yoga of Heart: A 5-Day Workshop to Advance Your Practice with Mark Whitwell

This is a workshop from July 1st through July 6th at the Omega Institute. Here is where to go to find out full details on the workshop: http://www.eomega.org/omega/workshops/60d21e455fa4babfbfa9be115c974525/

Mark is a wonderful teachers and I have learned more from him than any other yoga teacher I can think of. And I cannot really think of anything that would be better than to be someplace beautiful like the Omega Institute for five days with a gifted and inspiring teacher like Mark.

Mark has decades of experience teaching and practicing and has a unique skill of getting practitioners to put the practice in a real and authentic perspective. Mark helps you go deep into your own understanding of practice in a way that few teachers will ever understand how to duplicate. I cannot recommend this workshop highly enough.

Peace.