YogaUOnline Free Downloads: Recent Episodes
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We live in a time when we are constantly exposed to both environmental toxins as well as the internal buildup of toxins from excessive stress or mental worry, notes Kristine Kaoverii Weber in this free download.
Both yoga and Ayurveda have a rich tradition of ways to facilitate natural detoxification notes Kristine. A central tenet of yogic wisdom is that for the body to function properly, we must support the body's inbuilt detoxification processes. A buildup of toxins - known in Ayurveda as ama - is thought to lie at the root of numerous diseases. Adding yoga routines and daily self care routines for proper cleansing is one of the most important tools we have available for supporting our longterm health and well-being.
However, we can't just think about detoxification on the level of the body, Kristine notes. The ancient yogis described us a multidimensional beings, and true detoxification must take place on all levels of mind and body. Kristine discusses detoxification in light of the five koshas - the multiple sheaths of our being - and gives examples of different techniques that will facilitate clearing out debris and letting go of thought patterns that don't serve us as part of purifying the extended mind-body.
When we think about subtle yoga anatomy, usually the first thing that comes to mind are the chakras – the energy centers of the body. However, the body actually has numerous subtle aspects, says renowned yoga teacher Tias Little in this free download.
The subtle body doesn’t have to be something abstract, notes Tias. We can learn to sense aspects of subtle functions in yoga practice as we begin to sense how yoga poses affect our body and mind, e.g. the pathway of nerves through the fascia or the neurovascular changes that unfold in different yoga poses.
The whole idea of the subtle is used in many of the spiritual teachings as a guide towards the infinite or the spaciousness, says Tias. The ancient yogis knew that in order to contact this boundless awareness, one had to move very slowly and really attune to the most sensitive, vibratory rhythms that reverberate inside. The more one attunes to these subtle shifts in one’s own physiology, the more one can approach spirit.
A concept of subtle yoga anatomy that has a strong parallel in Western physiology, says Tias, is the yogic and Ayurvedic concept of the nadis. There are tens of thousands of nadis in the body; in fact, Hatha Yoga Pradipika describes 72,000 nadis, and some yogic texts describe even more.
In Western physiology, these channels are described as e.g. the blood arteries and veins, the lymphatic channels, and the nerves that transmit signals from the brain to all parts of the body. The nadis, from a yogic point of view, are really rivers of energy, which the ancient yogis mapped out in a very detailed way, notes Tias. Connecting to these little rivers throughout the body is something we do in the subtle body.
The biggest river to connect to is the river of the breath, says Tias. But underneath the breath, there are many, many layers. There are many pulses. There are many different rhythms that one can connect to. And the beauty of practicing yoga is starting to really sense some power and to sense and feel the aliveness of this pulsatory flow inside.
If the information flows freely through the Nadis, if the subtle energy flows through the Nadis, we enjoy good health. But when the nadis get clogged, it affects our health, as well as our mental and emotional well-being. This is particularly paralleled in the Western concept of the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system has a dual role. It functions both as a vehicle for the immune system as well as a system of detoxification. The lymphatic vessels remove waste products left over from the cellular environment and return them to the blood stream. As such, the lymphatic system is critical for our health and well-being.
It’s very much like keeping the plumbing in your house below your sink free, notes Tias. The lymphatic system is really all about purification. The yogis placed great emphasis on purification, and left us numerous practices to tone the lymphatic system. Tias further talks about how the lymphatic system is a sister system to the circulatory system, and why it’s so important to our overall health.
You may also enjoy Tias's course, Yoga for Lymphatic Health: Building Physical and Psychic Immunity.
It is said that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. When it comes to keeping the back healthy and avoid back pain, this is particularly true.
The problem is that while we know a lot about how to eat the right foods and get enough exercise, few people know what is involved in keeping the spine strong and balanced to maintain the health and integrity of the back.
In this free download, yoga therapist and physical therapist Marlysa Sullivan talks about the key elements involved in maintaining spinal stability throughout life. One of the common elements thought to undermine the health of the back are musculoskeletal imbalances. Marlysa discusses the role these in the development of back pain.
Most people have heard that core strength is important to prevent or overcome back problems. While this is correct, Marlysa notes, most people exercise only a limited set of core muscles, where instead we need to work the whole cylinder of the core.
This means not just focusing on the superficial core muscles, but the deep muscles of the core as well as the diaphragm and the pelvic floor. These make up the top and the bottom of the core, and they are particularly key to preserving spinal stability. Marlysa discusses the role of the bandhas and yogic breathing in creating this core stability and integrity.
Core work doesn’t affect the physical body, Marlysa notes. A strong core is deeply integral to our mental-emotional strength. She shares stories of the personal transformation she has witnessed in some of her clients, as they being to cultivate greater integrity of the full cylinder of the core.
The psoas muscle often assumes almost mythical properties within the yoga and bodywork communities. The psoas is often referenced as a muscle vital not just for our structural well-being and for back pain prevention, but for our psychological and emotional well-being as well.
So, what the real story? Are these claims exaggerated, or, is the psoas muscle really one of the most important muscles in the body, which plays a key regulating function in the body? And if so, how and why?
Claims of the many roles of the psoas are indeed based in actual facts about the functions of the two psoas muscles, notes yoga therapist, physical therapist, and assistant professor at Maryland University of Integrative Health Marlysa Sullivan, P.T. in this free download.
The psoas muscles are the main hip flexors that connect the torso and the legs, and as such, they are involved in pretty much any movement involving the legs and/or low back, explains Marlysa.
Much more than that, however, the psoas muscles play a key role in postural alignment and spinal stability. They also supports our internal organs and play an important role in maintaining both steady breath and emotional regulation.
Because of its key importance to so many bodily functions, it’s important to keep the psoas healthy and resilient, notes Marlysa.
The psoas and the surrounding internal organs are linked via the fascial structures in the body. Because of this connection, a tight psoas results in restrictions throughout the abdominal region, thereby limiting the mobility and motility in the abdominal organs and potentially decreasing the flow of lymphatic fluids, Marlysa explains.
In addition, a psoas that is chronically short or tight can result in an increased lumbar curve, compression in the spine and decreased activation of the deeper abdominals, and even the pelvic floor, Marlysa states. This can contribute to back pain, pelvic pain, abdominal pain, and even irritable bowel syndrome.
Marlysa further details how the psoas also influences emotional balance via its close link to breathing. The diaphragm and the psoas are connected via the fascial network, so if one becomes tight or dysfunctional, the other will be affected. When we are stressed or startled, the psoas is activated, triggering the fight-or-flight response. This makes perfect sense since one of its main tasks is flexing the hip for running or fighting. However, with repeated stress, the psoas can become chronically tight, trapping us in a chronic state hyperdrive.
Marlysa further gives examples of how we can learn to assess a tight psoas and ways to release it using various yoga techniques (hint: stretching is not enough). She gives examples of a few yoga practices to release the psoas and induce parasympathetic functioning to help both mind and body settle down and let go.
Have you heard the phrase “Seventy is the new sixty”? As a society, we are enjoying longer life spans, thanks to increased health awareness, better medical interventions, and proactive preventative measures.
However, even though we may live longer, we may not enjoy our later years, unless we take steps to ensure that we stay functional enough to engage in all the activities that make life worth living.
Why do we lose mobility over time, and how can we counteract this tendency? In this free download, renowned yoga teacher Doug Keller, a leading expert on the structural and therapeutic aspects of yoga, talks about ways yoga can help support health and mobility throughout the entirety of our lives.
Many of the physical limitations that emerge with aging, Doug explains, result because the constant pull of gravity causes a narrowing of the spaces in the body, between the bones, and in the joints. The result over time is structural wear and tear in the fascia, ligaments, and bones, which leads to inflammatory issues such as osteoarthritis and joint pain.
This sets up a vicious cycle: When movement becomes painful, we move less, but that only further compounds the problem.
“Avoiding movement short-circuits the process by which the body heals itself. Once we start moving less, the problems of pain increase and we get caught in a vicious cycle,” says Doug. “So, you have to find ways to maintain movement in the body and not just movement per se, but a wide variety of movement to keep the joints healthy.”
One thing that makes yoga an ideal component of healthy aging, Doug notes, is that yoga takes the body through every plane and variety of motion, while avoiding extreme ranges that may cause more harm.
Movement has numerous beneficial effects: It promotes healthy range-of-motion in the joints, insures proper hydration and resilience in the fascial system, and helps us to cultivate the correct balance between strength and length in our muscles sufficient to keep the space between the bones and reduce those problems of osteoarthritis and basic joint deteriorations that come with age.
What makes yoga ideal for counteracting the aging process is that regular yoga practice enables us to become more attuned to the cues of the body, so we can better adjust our movement practices to the body’s needs and capacity.
“Yoga is a practice in which you listen more closely to the body,” says Doug. “You learn from the body and learn to move in a way that makes you feel more healthy and alive, to experience well-being.”
Doug further discusses common causes of specific joint issues in the knees and how we can use yoga to counterbalance these.
The body has not just one diaphragm, but three, notes yoga therapist Ginger Garner, DPT in this free download. And these are not independent structures, rather they are part of a broader system that affects our health and well-being in numerous ways.
The notion that the pelvic floor is a second diaphragm in addition to the respiratory diaphragm is familiar to many people. Ginger describes why the vocal complex constitutes a third diaphragm, the thoracic diaphragm, and why it’s so important to health and well-being.
“The voice really is the telltale sign of health in a person,” notes Ginger. “To me, it’s a new bio-marker for health, all the way across the lifespan. If women and men want to learn to take control of their health, we need to learn to take some very basic pieces. And the 3 diaphragms are one that will take you a very long way.”
Ginger discusses how the three diaphragms relate to the bandhas in yoga and how they function to regulate the balance between the diaphragm and intraabdominal pressure.
If we learn how to work with the three diaphragms as a wholeness, we can trigger powerful healing benefits in the body as a whole, notes Ginger. In particular, the vagus nerve interfaces with the respiratory diaphragm as well as the soft tissues of the jaw, fascial structures and vocal complex. This is one of the reasons that the 3D system has such a powerful effect on our well-being.
“You can improve your sense of well-being by working with the close connection between the diaphragm, fascial, vocal complex, and jaw with the vagus nerve,” notes Ginger.
The vagus nerve runs through both the vocal complex and the diaphragm, which also means that the movement of those structures around the vagus nerve can help stimulate the parasympathetic response.
This makes it a powerful way to calm the nervous system. The parasympathetic response is involuntary, so we can only influence the system indirectly.
Stress is a driving factor for most health issues. Because of the close connection with the vagus nerve and the stimulation of the parasympathetic response, the complex of the three diaphragms is one of the most powerful ways to affect the parasympathetic response, Ginger notes.
“As opposed to stretching or working out, the movement of Yoga is sacred. It embodies a holistic blending of our physical bodies, emotions, minds and souls.” ~Judith Hanson Lasater
When life gets hectic, yoga can provide refuge and relief. But to really tap into yoga’s transformative power, notes renowned yoga teacher Judith Hanson Lasater in this free download, the intention we bring to the mat is every bit as important as what we take away.
“The way we do asana is the way we do our life,” says Judith. “Are we aggressive? Are we halfway doing it? Are we resenting it? Are we loving it? Are we using it as an escape? Are we using it to manipulate ourselves away and call that discipline? It’s a mirror. The practice is neutral. The poses are neutral. And what they do is show us who we are.”
Judith further talks about how, in times that drive our nervous systems into hypervigilance, it’s important to find stillness, and give ourselves space to deepen into quiet. Without these precious times, tension creeps into our bodies, disrupts our digestion and sleep, and leaves our minds churning incessantly.
In 40+ years of teaching, writing, and exploring yoga as a scholar of Eastern Philosophy, Judith has helped thousands of students find peace and repose from within. A pioneer in the area of Restorative Yoga, creating practices that evoke stillness and calm the nervous system, she has bucked the trend in modern postural yoga that in some ways mirrors the relentless pace of modern life with challenging Vinyasa flows and face-paced classes.
However we practice, though, Judith invites us to challenge ourselves to ask not only what we can get from our Yoga practice, but what we are willing to give to it. She asks us to consider that the intentions, attitudes, hopefulness and love we bring to the mat determine the benefit we will gain.
Judith explains how the practice of Yoga really explores what it means to be a human being by inviting us to show up to our mats fully present and open to receiving whatever appears. “As opposed to stretching or working out, the movement of Yoga is sacred. It embodies a holistic blending of our physical bodies, emotions, minds and souls,” she says.
Judith shows how even in the simplest asana practice, whatever possibility we are seeking we’ll find, because everything is there. “If you just want to get strong and flexible, that’s there. If you want to cultivate a deeper practice, that’s there. The variable is not the practice; It’s not the pose, the breath, the meditation technique, or the mat,” she says.
“The variable is you and me when we choose what and how to practice. We take it through our own systems–our memories, genetics, languages, our lives. That’s when it’s transformed, when it roots in us. We are each
The pelvic floor is literally our foundation, says yoga therapist Leslie Howard in this free download. It forms the bottom of the core musculature, and it plays an important role in our overall postural and functional health. When the pelvic floor is not working probably, our true foundation is not supporting us throughout the day.
Unfortunately, as we get older, the muscles of the pelvic floor get weaker, and as a result, disorders related to the pelvic floor become increasingly common, including incontinence, prolapse, pelvic pain, and much more. Generally most people think that pelvic floor issues arise when the pelvic floor muscles get too lax. But pelvic floor muscles can also be too tight, causing another, but related set of problems as weak pelvic floor muscles. Leslie talks about why Kegel exercises often are done wrong and, as a result, can be counterproductive.
She discusses common pelvic floor issues resulting from loss of muscle tone or excessive tightness, and the role of yoga in addressing these imbalances. In the general public, incontinence is the most common issue; 38 percent of women and 17 percent of men suffer from different types of incontinence. Leslie further discusses other common pelvic floor issues like pelvic pain and prolapse.
She also shares results from recent research on the benefits of yoga for incontinence based on a protocol of yoga practices she and Judith Hanson Lasater created together, and discusses which typs of yoga poses are best suited for different types of pelvic floor problems.
According to recent data, approximately 21.5 million American adults (aged 12 and older) have battled a Substance Abuse Disorder (SUD) within the past two years. The devastating effects of these complicated diseases touch individuals, families, communities and society as a whole.
The road to recovery can be slow, difficult, and uncomfortable. The good news is that Yoga is increasingly being recognized by treatment professionals as an effective and empowering part of a whole-person healing strategy.
In this free download, Celeste Mendelsohn, a certified Yoga Therapist who works with people in recovery from SUDs, discusses some of the challenges of recovery and how yoga can help and ease symptoms and promote healing at each stage of the process. She also describes her approach, in which she merges the wisdom of ancient yogic philosophies with more modern approaches, such as 12-step programs.
Celeste points out that in addition to a wide spectrum of techniques, whether movement, breath-based, or more inner-focused practices, weaving together ancient yogic philosophies, such as the system of restraints and practices called the Yamas and Niyamas, with the modern language of recovery can contribute to a powerful, healing experience.
Do you suffer from neck or shoulder tension? If so, you’re not alone. Chronic neck and shoulder pain affect millions of people, notes yoga therapist Robin Rothenberg, founder of Essential Yoga Therapy in this free download. And it’s not just an issue of chronic pain. It can also affect us systemically in terms of lower energy and reduced well-being.
Oftentimes, the problem may not really originate in the muscles of the neck and shoulders. Rather, what is most commonly at issue is loss of integration between the abdominal core and what Robin refers to as the mid-back core.
The center point of the body is the lower ribcage and the diaphragm, notes Robin. The upper and lower part of the body are linked through what Anatomy Trains author Tom Myers refers to as the deep front line, i.e. the deep inner core line that starts from the inner arches and runs up through the pelvic floor, the iliopsoas, the transverse abdominis, and into the diaphragm, and pericardium.
The deep core line is similar to what the ancient yogis referred to as the Bandhas. With neck and shoulder problems, issues with the muscles involved in Jalandhara Bandha are often involved. To have a healthy yoga practice, it is important that we include that essential understanding of how to stabilize first and mobilize from that very strong stable center.
Robin Rothenberg has been teaching yoga therapeutically for more than thirty years. She specializes in utilizing adaptive asana and breathing practices to break chronic pain patterns and reset the body to move with greater stability and freedom.
Increasingly, Robin notes, she has become aware of the key role that breathing plays in musculoskeletal issues.
“Functional breathing and functional movement go together,” Robin explains. “Functional breathing is very much about the core being engaged appropriately so that the abdominals are always sinking and oscillating with the diaphragm.”
When we sit in our computer slumped position, we effectively cut off the abdominals from the diaphragm so the abdominals become flaccid. As a result, the diaphragm is no longer doing what it needs to do to breathe well.
Once this happens, the accessory muscles of the chest start to be used as primary breathers; people breathe up instead of out. When we do this 20,000-30,000 times a day (which is how many times we breathe), the result is a tremendous strain on the musculature in the neck and shoulders.
This in turn creates chronic tension all the way up through the jaw. That can create headache and tension in the head, TMD, joint pain, tension in the eyes. We’re not getting the full range of the diaphragm, which means our Prana is affected, because we cannot breathe effectively and fully in that slumped position.
Robin further goes into detail of why the newest trend in rehabilitation science is to look at the breath as a possible precursor to chronic musculoskeletal pain. It is important for yoga teachers that we really get people breathing functionally, she notes. We need to use asana practices to help people to sync the diaphragm back up with the abdominals to alleviate upper back and neck and shoulder tension and to stabilize and support the lower back.
Yoga offers a wonderful tool for fostering asana-breath integration and greater mindful awareness. This can be an amazing tool for transformation, if yoga teachers have the education and training to know how to do it effectively.
The role of chronic inflammation in the development of disease is receiving increasing attention from the medical community.
Not unlike high blood pressure, it is increasingly looked to as the one factor we might be able to influence, which in turn could help us avoid a wide range of ailments ranging from cancer and heart disease to Alzheimer’s, diabetes, thyroid issues, arthritis, and so on.
In this free download, Dr. Baxter Bell discusses why inflammation plays such an important role in the development of disease and the role yoga can play in preventing or reducing chronic inflammation.
Age itself is a risk factor for developing chronic inflammation, Baxter notes. And, while we can’t change the fact that we’re getting older, we can influence other factors that trigger chronic inflammation.
Baxter further talks about some of the mechanics of how chronic inflammation causes the systems of the body to go haywire and trigger chronic diseases. Inflammation also appears to impact the gene expression, affecting which genes turn on and off, which again can accelerate the aging process or trigger a disease process.
Baxter goes into which factors increase and decrease inflammation in our body, and how our yoga practices can support choices that can help impact the levels of bodily inflammation.
Many people live low chronic inflammation without being aware of it, Baxter notes. It really requires a savvy health practitioner that you work with to become more aware of the presence of chronic inflammation and to do the necessary tests.
Working to reduce inflammation, he notes, is in many ways similar to Dean Ornish’s approach to reducing heart disease. You are not using drugs or surgical intervention, you’re learning how to use life-style options to self-regulate your health.
Yoga teachers, he notes, have a great repertoire that they can use to empower others. So, the hope is that this spreads not only from those of us that have the information we’re sharing, but also more evenly throughout the community.
Baxter further touches on research that shows that yoga appears to be a good tool to help lower systemic inflammation on a chronic basis. One study, for example, found that experienced yoga practitioners had much lower levels of inflammatory markers than novice practitioners. In fact, studies indicate that yoga asana practice, Pranayama, and meditation all offer useful tools that can be consistently used when studying yoga’s effect on inflammation.
Does one of your legs appear to be shorter than the other? Or, is your pelvis tilted, so one hip bone appears higher than the other? Or is one of your hip bones rotated slightly forward compared to the other?
These could be signs of pelvic asymmetry. Structural asymmetries in the pelvis have long been linked to low back pain or joint problems. Asymmetry of the pelvis can set up a kinetic chain of compensations in the body, creating a negative effect on your hip joints, knees and feet, and in the upper body, affecting the vertebral discs and trunk balance.
In this free download, certified yoga therapist and back care specialist Lillah Schwartz explains why asymmetry in the pelvis can be the hidden source of chronic pain and structural imbalance throughout the body.
Understanding the mechanics of pelvic asymmetry is particularly important for yoga practitioners, Lillah notes. Yoga practitioners with a tilted or rotated pelvis may be unknowingly stretching too deeply into asymmetrical poses in Power Yoga and Vinyasa Yoga classes, and this could result in pain and even long-term damage.
It’s easy to misunderstand the signals our bodies are sending.
Lillah explains that when one side of the body is more stable and the other side feels like it’s more “stretchy” it’s easy to interpret the signal that the looser side has more flexibility and capacity to lengthen, when in fact the muscles are actually weaker.
“You may be thinking that being looser on one side means you can stretch much further,” she explains. “So you take a pattern that is already out of balance and make it even more out of balance by taking the stretch too far. When there’s pain involved you may think stretching more is the answer, but in fact the painful muscle is always the weaker muscle. Rather than stretching, addressing that foundational imbalance is where you should begin. You may actually need to ease back on that side and stretch the other side.”
The first step in achieving balance, says LIllah, is to study the “map” of the pelvis, observing balance in simple movements and even looking at the wear pattern of your shoes. She offers some simple assessment tools, including using the imagery of a clock face to study the position of the hip points. That way you can begin to understand where misalignment lies, which muscles are actually tight and which may be overstretched.
Once imbalances have been identified, the job is to cultivate fluidity and ease, connect to breath, and open and release restricted connective tissue. Only then does Lillah advise beginning to work on toning what’s weak. Weakness can come from a variety of sources, including the deep hip flexors, the core or gluteal muscles, or the pelvic floor.
Ever wished you had an easy shortcut to analyze and teach each yoga pose to students at any level?
Yoga teachers constantly strive to create practices for that are safe, sustainable, and appropriate for every body in every class. But as any yoga teacher knows, it’s not always easy to know how to achieve that goal.
In this free download, yoga therapist Shy Sayer, founder and director of the Tantravaya School of Yoga and Ayurveda, shares Eight Universal Principles of Alignment. He maintains that using them will provide yoga teachers with all the tools they need to observe where students are at and teach effectively to students at any level.
In the talk, Shy shares the philosophy behind his methodology, as well as the evolution in his thinking. Starting initially with thirteen actions, he simplified and refined his ideas over time.
“Little by little, I was beginning to see them in a more three-dimensional way. I understood that they could all be defined as eight actions,” He explains. “Those eight opposite actions were then organized into four pairs of oppositional productively antagonistic actions. Ultimately, I was even able to see that the two pairs in the lower body are mirrored perfectly by the two pairs in the upper body. As above so below, as it were.”
Shy realized that his ideas could be helpful to others. “I wanted to give practitioners a reliable, consistent, easy-to-remember and understand pair of principles, a pair of oppositional actions. If we just keep those in mind, no matter what we’re doing in asana or any physical gesture we move with safety. We have a direction in which to apply right effort that’s proved to be tremendously helpful, not only for my yoga students but also for the teachers that I’m training,” he says.
The result is a concise set of underlying principles based on harmonious alignment in every sense of the word. Regardless of the pose, Shy says, the principles can bring every body safely and effectively to every physical gesture, while at the same time honoring individual differences.
Shy starts with the basics in teacher trainings: “We spend five or six days learning how to stand,” he explains. “By the next day, we’ve done Standing Backbends, Standing Forward Bends, Chair Pose, Twisting Chair, Chaturanga, Cobra, Up Dog, Down Dog, Kneeling Lunge, High Lunge, Warrior I, Warrior II and all their variations. It’s an accelerating system. Because everything that’s in these four pairs of principles–two pairs of lower body and two pairs of upper body that mirror each other–is in Tadasana.”
Curious as to what the principles look like in action? Here’s Shy’s description of Tadasana:
“Stand with your feet parallel under the sit bones. Press into the roots of the big toes while lifting the inner thighs up and away from each other.
Draw the upper thighs back and reach the sit bones down. Lift the lower belly and from that lift, follow and lift all the way through the back of the head or the bones behind the ears while keeping the floating ribs in the back body.
“With the palms facing the sides of the body, press as though into a resistance so that without actually changing the wrist, when you spiral the upper arms out, the chest opens and blossoms. This happens without the actual heart leaning forward. The heart rests in the back and the ribs rest in the back body, creating a free and peaceful flow of energy with strength and stability in the body.”
The work is strongly grounded in the yogic Kosha model, starting with the physical or flesh body, the Annamaya Kosha. Getting a sense of how the pose feels in the other Koshas, Shy says, grows from this starting point and is a useful way to tune into the innate wisdom of each practitioner’s body.
“When you do something in your physical body, then check what it did to your breath, how deep in your body is your breath, how even between right and left, how even between front and back. Then Pranamaya Kosha will reveal to you a gesture or an action that’s taking you in a right direction for yoga.”
Sacroiliac joint pain is extremely common in yoga practitioners, notes renowned yoga teacher and author Donna Farhi in this free download. One of the most common issues she sees when teaching workshops worldwide is people complaining of pain radiating from the sacroiliac joints.
In her own practice, Donna notes, she began developing SI joint problems early on when she began practicing yoga many hours a day. It took her years to learn how to create greater stability and ease in her own sacroiliac joint. This in turn laid the foundation for her work helping yoga students avoid SI joint issues or resolving issues that have already developed.
SI joint problems are increasingly common in modern day yoga practices, because the repertoire of movements generally used is not functionally balanced, Donna notes. Flow practices can be a particular problem, because they combine a lot asymmetrical movement done very quickly and often by relatively inexperienced practitioners, who do not have understanding of alignment or correct transitioning from pose to pose. With this, you have a situation where people are flinging themselves around in extreme ranges of motion without proper alignment, which in turn erodes the stability of the SI joint
Donna further talks about the other major contributor to SI joint problems, i.e. a misunderstanding of how the pelvis and the hip joints function in relationship to each other and how that manifests in standing poses and in supine work. One of the most potentially harmful instructions, she notes, is to tell students to square the hips to the front in wide-legged asymmetrical standing postures. She explains just how this creates problems, not just for the SI joint, but for knees and for hip joint as well.
She further notes that one of the things that we tend to not be conscious about in the yoga community is the origin of yoga postures. Many yoga styles were developed for a specific group of people with specific physical characteristics, e.g. young teenage boys in the case of Ashtanga Yoga. But in today’s yoga environment, we often forget that there are anatomical differences and that you can't teach yoga the same way to every person.
If people are given the tools to feel proper alignment in a posture, they're quite capable of adjusting their postures for themselves, says Donna. Once people get a felt sense of that, they just have to be encouraged to trust it.
She also discusses the importance of core strengthening, not just isolated core work but as global body integrated core strength. Most yogis need to do a great deal more strengthening work and focus less on flexibility, Donna explains.
The good news is that there are millions of people worldwide who are looking for competent yoga teachers who emphasize accessibility and practical relevance for the everyday person in their teaching. There's no shortage of students for teachers who learn how to teach in a way that works for every body.
Do you or someone you know live with back pain? No matter the cause of your condition, a yoga practice that helps restore balance to your spine may help bring relief!
In this free download, Certified Yoga Therapist Deborah Wolk, founder of the Samamkaya Yoga Back Care & Scoliosis Collective in New York City, shares her first-hand experience with how yoga helped her to improve her muscular balance, bring her spine into a more neutral state, and reduce her chronic back pain. She now helps her students achieve similar results.
In 17+ years of teaching, Deborah has helped people with back pain conditions of every stripe find relief through yoga via a strong focus on functional alignment. In this free download, she talks about how yoga can help with pretty much any musculoskeletal issue, by finding space in the joints throughout the body.
Deborah discusses the characteristics of a healthy spine, as well as her own experiences using yoga to help balance a scoliotic curve in her own spine. We all have asymmetrical patterns in our body, she notes, and a key to relieving back issues is to learn how to develop a healthy balance between the spinal curves, and to elongate and neutralize the areas that are overly curved.
She further talks about the principles for working with back issues with a special focus on working with scoliosis. She discusses why it’s important to create length and balance before moving on to strengthening.
Yoga is a wonderful tool to address spinal imbalances, she notes, but you have to learn how to address them. The goal of practice is to look for that. Not to correct it, necessarily, but to sense the imbalance and move into a more centered place.
Low back pain is the single leading cause of disability worldwide and the second most common reason for doctors’ visits in the US.
Numerous studies now indicate that yoga can be a powerful tool in the treatment and ongoing management of low back pain.
But how exactly can yoga help relieve back pain? In this free download, yoga therapist Lillah Schwartz, author of Healing Our Backs with Yoga, talks about the various musculoskeletal factors that contribute to back pain and how and why yoga often can help.
One key is to help people with low back pain harmonize the structures in their bodies and come to a place of greater functioning, Lillah notes.
“The beauty of yoga is that it connects one part of the body to another,” she states. “You can discover in your practice, not only is your big toe mound connected to your inner groin, but it’s also connected to the origin of the psoas muscle at T12. Now when you expand your arms, they also connect at the psoas. It’s the beauty of how yoga can lead us to those connections in our body. The fluidity can be brought back in to how we move through our life.”
Over 30 plus years of practice, teaching and working with hundreds of clients, Lillah has merged her strong Iyengar background with a thorough grounding in anatomy, kinesiology, and functional movement.
Her greatest teacher, however, was her own experience with chronic pain after a horseback riding accident, which caused asymmetry in her pelvis and SI joint, and dysfunctional movement.
After years of experimenting with yoga postures geared to restore alignment in her body, Lillah developed a method for relieving her own back pain. This, in turn, became the basis of her life’s work: Helping people suffering from low back pain.
A well-crafted yoga practice can be the mechanism for increasing spinal strength and stability, and cultivating length and space in the spine, Lillah notes.
But you have to know what you’re doing: “If I perform my yoga this way, I can be really strong and pain free,” Lillah notes. “But I have to be careful not to do it that way.’”
Lillah further discusses the methods she has developed for facilitating increased functioning and reduced pain. A key is to start from the ground up:
“If someone doesn’t know their body and how it works, you start with baby steps. You start with basic alignment, basic connections. You teach them how to use the breath, a simple sequence of poses that is anatomically balanced. And once they have the fundamentals you can lead people to the broader, bigger connections.”
What Every Yoga Teacher Should Know About Trauma
According to the most recent CDC data, as much as 23.5% of the general population has experienced at least one form of traumatic experience in their lives.
Also known as Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE), traumatic experiences are defined as stressful or traumatic events, which include not just physical events but emotional abuse and neglect. ACEs may also include household dysfunction or growing up with family members with substance use disorders.
Research has found that ACEs are strongly related to the development of numerous health problems throughout a person’s lifespan, including those associated with substance misuse.
The ramification of this statistic is that in a drop-in yoga class with 15 students, as many as 3-4 participants could have some degree of trauma etched into their tissues, notes IAYT-certified yoga therapist Celeste Mendelsohn in this free download.
As a consequence, she notes, it’s important for yoga teachers to understand the effects of trauma on body and mind. Celeste discusses the importance of building safety and trauma awareness into every yoga class and for all students, not just the ones who inform teachers of past troubles.
A specialist in working with people recovering from trauma and substance use disorder, Celeste points out that students don’t always share their histories.
“Generally, I would ask a new student coming to my yoga class if they had any issues that I needed to be aware of. I may get an answer about a sore rotator cuff or a lower back injury. But they’re not likely to tell me, ‘Yes, I witnessed my mother being beaten when I was five.’ We won’t always get the whole story–even with our regular students who walk into our class weekly or multiple times a week,” she says.
Celeste further discusses how yoga can help address the long-term effects of having lived through a traumatic event or childhood, provided teachers cultivate an extra level of sensitivity. She shares useful tools for teaching a trauma aware class. These include developing mindfulness of the cues we use, the intonations in our voices, and how we stand and move about the room to avoid disconcerting students with trauma issues. Sometimes something as innocuous as creative imagery or flowery language can cause students who are already doing their best to stay present to zone out.
“When you start talking about the beautiful energy that’s flowing up the spine and blossoming in your head, it sounds lovely,” says Celeste. “But if I have PTSD or I’m a trauma survivor and you said that to me in a class, dissociation is likely. My mind is gone and I’m going to miss the next several instructions.” This can elicit in that student shame and a feeling of being an outsider who can’t keep up with other class members.
Although we don’t always get the whole story, there are some clues to watch for when working with new students. These include gravitating to the back of the room, avoiding eye contact, or looking down when spoken to directly. But feelings of discomfort aside, the very act of making it into the room and onto the mat is a feat of heroic proportions for some. Yoga teachers can encourage them by developing the sensitivity to meet all of their students where they are.
How to begin? Celeste suggests finding a middle path vocally, speaking in a clear voice that allows a teacher to be heard without strain. She also advises, “Keep your voice level and be compassionate; Speak to them in front of them, never walk up beside them or from behind. Be in their vision when you come up to talk to them.”
Cueing should be concrete, using language that facilitates body awareness: “If you’re bringing your students into a Warrior II pose, instead of something flowery, say something like, “Press down through the back heel. Notice the sensations in your foot, in your leg. Press down through the ball of your right foot and find your body’s balance in the middle between the two.”
As children, we love to wiggle, dance and move with unselfconscious abandon. Sadly, once we hit school age our movements become much more repetitive and our bodies lose flexibility and become gradually more and more rigid as a result. So says Anita Boser, Hellerwork Practitioner and Yoga teacher, whose clients include people who live with a variety of chronic pain conditions such as Fibromyalgia, Scoliosis, and Arthritis.
In this interview, Anita describes how making space in our lives for subtle, fluid, and less structured movements can increase flexibility and release tension in a way that stretching doesn’t. The idea is to reintroduce fluid, untethered movement to regain freedom and body awareness.
Within the body resides a wealth of knowledge and wisdom if we learn to pay attention to it, she explains. Allowing the body to move in intuitive and non-linear ways is one way to access that wisdom. This technique, which Anita refers to as undulation, helped her to overcome chronic pain in her own body. She now shares it with her clients and students as a way to relieve pain, break habitual patterns, and tap into their own healing potential.
“One of the things about subtle movement is that learning to pay attention to slow and small-subtle movement helps us gain that wisdom where if we’re just living in our heads, we don’t even know it’s happening,” she says. “Our upbringing, unfortunately, teaches us to ignore our bodies, starting when we’re in kindergarten. You go to school and you want to run around and wiggle and the teacher says, “Sit still, we all need to be doing this together. The older we get, the less variety we have on our movement, the more we tend to get stuck in a rut.”
Eventually, we adopt habitual patterns for everything from sitting at the computer to driving the car, to reading the kids a story. Our bodies settle into physical routines and adopt to stillness. Even when we do eke out time to exercise, we tend toward the same repetitive patterns. Connective tissue starts to adapt itself to how we use the body and repetition tends to encourage more repetition.
While yoga practice is an effective way to open up the movements of the body, we can also fall into a rut in the way we move into and out of poses. Making space for fluid, non-repetitive movement, both on and off the mat, refreshes the body and counters the repetition. Movements can be big and flowy or small and subtle, but the bottom line is that by breaking patterns, we unleash movement potential and allow the body’s wisdom to flourish.
To get a taste of how this fluid movement can feel. Anita takes us through one exercise we can do sitting at our desks. And she reminds us again of those carefree movements of childhood.
“If you think about when you were four years old, you could do anything you wanted. You didn’t complain. You just had a good time, and your spine was very flexible. You didn’t get caught up or have stiffness or rigidity. You were very fluid and supple. And then as we get older… Do we get older just because of age? Or are we getting older because of that rigidity we build into our lives?”
Our knowledge of the hip joint has progressed tremendously over the past ten years, notes yoga therapist and physical therapist Dr. Ginger Garner in this free download.
This progress is particularly great news for the numerous people whose hips are structurally “unique,” who until now had little recourse other than a hip replacement as the joint wore out. We now know that in many cases, hip replacement can be avoided through early intervention, including physical therapy.
However, what has not changed, notes Ginger, is the way we use movement for fitness, including yoga. People with different hip structure or other congenital or developmental changes require a different approach to movement and fitness.
Yoga practitioners with a different hip structure are at higher risk for permanent damage to the hip if their yoga practice does not modify activities according to their unique structure. This applies not just to yoga, but to any type of exercise that is repetitive or emphasizes end range of motion.
Most yoga postures are biased toward hip flexion, abduction, and external rotation. This means yoga postures, as they historically stand and are currently taught, are inherently imbalanced. Unless this changes and modifications are made to accommodate all types of hip joints, yoga injuries of the hip will inevitably be on the rise, Ginger notes.
Ginger points to the need to take more steps to protect the hip in our yoga practice and teaching. “Many of my patients and colleagues have suffered from unnecessary hip injuries, from labral tears, all types of impingement, and compounding secondary diagnoses such as torn hamstrings, sports hernias, gluteal tendinopathy, to pelvic pain, all due to yoga practice,” she notes.
She goes on to discuss some of the steps we can take to introduce greater safety in our yoga practice, including learning observational skills that will enable yoga teachers to spot students who may be at risk.
It is also important, she notes, to modify our language to avoid phrases like “hip opening,” which implicitly encourages pushing against the end range of the hip joint. Hip safety in yoga is entirely possible, she notes, but more education is needed in light of the increased understanding we now have of the hip joints and the mechanics of injury.
For people living with the chronic pain, strain, or even experiencing stressful times, it can be easy to lose sight of the world beyond tension and physical discomfort.
Stress and strain can have a narrowing effect on our focus, notes Donna Brooks, a Yoga Therapist and ISMETA registered Somatic Movement Educator and therapist. In this free download, Donna talks about how Somatic Yoga can offer a powerful path to healing by restoring fluidity and freedom in the extended mind-body.
We all have some degree of tension and restriction in the body. Wilhelm Reich, one of the founding psychologists, referred to it as our ‘body armor,’ i.e. that which holds us back from a full, free expression in mind and body, and hence in life.
What somatics can help us do is peel away layers of chronic strain and tension to allow the natural intelligence of the body to emerge and flourish, notes Donna.
Having a sense of fluidity in the body can make a difference for everyone. Particularly for people with chronic pain, Donna notes, it can make a world of difference. People in chronic pain often engage in protective movement patterns and may even be inhibited in their breath.
Finding fluidity creates a place of support for movement, as well as an allowance to move intuitively in a fully embodied way. When you find a freedom of expression of movement in your body, such as the flow of reaching out and moving back in, feeling the flow of it happening guides you into where you need to be in asana. This is what Brooks calls, “The delight of your body.”
Donna also describes her work with clients who live with serious conditions like chronic pain, MS, Parkinson’s and other pain-related conditions. To help them create a bigger picture, Brooks employs the practice of Somatic Yoga. “In some cases, it’s not that we can erase pain,” she says. “In some cases, it’s about really being able to have a broader experience of your body than just the pain.”
To understand the difference in approach between a traditional yoga class and a somatic approach, it’s helpful to consider somatics pioneer Thomas Hanna’s distinction between the experience body vs. the objectified body, Donna notes. An objective approach to a yoga pose might be to rotate the right foot at a 45-degree angle and the left at 90 degrees, toward a very directive and specific shape. A somatic approach instead encourages an exploration of the experience of moving into and out of the range of the pose, promoting an internal, interoceptive awareness of your body.
But giving up one kind of structural approach does not diminish the importance of structures in the body. Rather, it recognizes the multiple layers of structure in a three-dimensional body, another key component of the study of somatics. “In my experience, people often think of free and fluid as having no structure,” says Brooks. “And what my experience of that is instead is that there are a lot of different structures in our body. There are developmental movement patterns, there are flows of fluid, there are ways of organizing through the nerves. They all have a kind of rationale to them. There’s a truth of their experience.”
Looking at the different layers and levels can reveal habits and patterns that control us–an important aspect of helping to free the body and releasing tension patterns at the root of chronic pain. Says Brooks, “We have all these habits. … And when we can unwind these habits there’s a richer palette of movement potential. And as that movement potential arises, you just feel freer. And you find support from more places.”
Thanks to our not-so-smart smart phone habits, forward head posture has become nearly ubiquitous in modern society, notes yoga therapist Olga Kabel in this free download. And while this may not seem like a big deal, forward head posture can wreak havoc on the structural balance of the body and lay the foundation for shoulder and neck tension, headaches, jaw and back pain.
The further forward the head gets displaced, the bigger load on the muscles of the neck. In other words, our posture doesn’t just affect how we are perceived by others, but how our bodies function in the day to day life, and how they feel as well.
Research shows that the way we carry our body affects our mood, how we perceive ourselves, and how we perceive life in general. If you’re walking with your head held high, Olga explains, you usually would be more inclined to have a more optimistic outlook on life. But if you’re constantly slouching or looking down, then you’re more likely to feel vulnerable and have a more pessimistic outlook.
Olga also shares insights from ancient yogic wisdom into the importance of our habitual posture, as e.g. stated in the model of the Koshas and emphasis on facilitating the free movement of Kundalini energy along the spine.
For energy to flow properly in the body, Olga explains, the spinal curves need to be properly aligned—i.e. stacked on top of each other. Otherwise, Olga notes, the effect on our energy is similar to what happens when you step on the garden hose: the water stops flowing. And, from a purely physical standpoint, spinal alignment in postures can impact our sympathetic/parasympathetic responses as well (the fight or flight and the rest and digest modes of the nervous system).
Olga outlines common postural compensation/over-correction patterns, and explains which key yoga poses she employs the most in helping practitioners create a balanced, supported elongation of the spine. She explores why so many of us get shorter as we age, and how to counteract the process of disk dehydration and other contributing factors in order to cultivate a strong, long spine.
Anatomy is a useful tool, but it becomes truly powerful when we begin to use it not just mentally, but experientially. Experiential anatomy, Leila Stuart explains in this talk, is a non-intellectual “felt” experience processed by different parts of the brain. With experiential anatomy as a guide, yoga becomes a therapeutic practice: People understand the limitations of their individual structure and they know how to work with their abilities.
Experiential anatomy has numerous applications off the mat as well. In our modern society, Leila points out, we tend to be divorced from our body and all the important signals it is constantly sending us. Learning experiential anatomy offers a pathway to learn to tune into the body and our inner somatic wisdom.
Every part of the body, Leila notes, is associated with some particular aspect of being human. The arms and the shoulders, for example, are about giving and receiving. They tie into the experience of reaching out, or not being able to reach out; of wanting to punch someone and not doing that so that impulse gets frozen. The legs and feet have to do with grounding, our sense of support in life, and our ability to be present.
The way that we meet the ground is through feet patterns, which determine what happens in the rest of our body, Leila explains. If there’s a lack of support from below, the body has to go through all sorts of compensations in order to keep the eyes level with the horizon. This in turn often will distort the body (the spine, the pelvis, all different parts) in numerous ways.
Leila also discusses the fundamentals of good foot alignment, and how the weight of the upper body is transferred into the ground through three points in the foot, i.e. the “foot triangle.” She notes that the “foot triangles” are powerful centers to help us anchor our psychological footing and gain the ability to remain present and vital in the face of challenges.
High blood pressure is often known as ‘the silent killer,’ says Dr. Baxter Bell in this free download. There are no symptoms associated with high blood pressure, so many people don’t even know they have it. However, when left unaddressed, high blood pressure leads to numerous serious health issues, including heart disease, stroke, kidney issues, eye problems, and more.
Many people hesitate to take blood pressure medication, and wonder if yoga can help either prevent or regulate high blood pressure. Increasingly, doctors are trying out lifestyle recommendations, including yoga, before resorting to medications, Baxter notes.
Some of the causative factors for high blood pressure include chronic stress and chronic anxiety, both of which are known to be positively affected by yoga. Yoga also leads to more effective self-regulation, another factor that has been shown to be helpful in making positive lifestyle choices.
He finally talks about what to pay attention to when practicing yoga with high blood pressure. Yoga is generally safe, but there are special considerations for people with Stage I or Stage II high blood pressure.
Baxter talks about specific yoga poses to avoid if you have high blood pressure and which poses can be practiced safely be everyone.
Osteoarthritis affects some 30 million people in the US alone, many of whom are forced to live with chronic pain and limited mobility.
Is osteoarthritis an inevitable part of aging, or do we have options for preventing it, or at least control over its progression? And, can yoga help prevent osteoarthritis, or are there situations where it can be a risk factor for arthritis?
In this free download, Dr. Loren Fishman and Ellen Saltonstall discuss these questions and offer insights into the progression of arthritis. Osteoarthritis used to be thought of as a condition caused by ‘wear and tear’ on the joints, but there is much more at play, Loren and Ellen says.
We now know that inflammatory processes play a large role in the gradual deterioration of joints. And this is one area where movement in general and yoga in particular can make a big difference. They discuss the mechanics of joint health and the factors that could potentially slow deterioration of cartilage.
Yoga, they note, induces some of the body's most powerful natural anti-inflammatory substances and enhances its natural means of repairing and rejuvenating tissues affected by arthritic processes.
They further discuss the issue of hypermobility and why that may at times predispose a person to arthritis. Finally, Dr. Fishman shares his experience with the different types of stem cell therapy now increasingly used as a form of regenerative medicine as an alternative to joint replacement.
One of the common problems facing yoga teachers, says Julie Gudmestad in this free download, are students coming to class with health issues that require individual attention. This is especially the case now that the health benefits of yoga are becoming more widely known.
However, while yoga has numerous health benefits, incorrectly practiced yoga can lead to muscle strain or injuries. Even for students without health issues, beginners often push themselves inappropriately and attempt to do poses beyond their ability.
A main area of concern, Julie notes, are women who come to yoga with low upper body strength. The shoulder is very mobile, which allows us to do a variety of yoga poses with the arms in a variety of positions. However, because the shoulder is so mobile, it sacrifices stability.
As a consequence, the shoulder is very dependent on soft tissue to stabilize the ball in the socket and to stabilize the shoulder blade, which forms the socket.
Julie discusses the best ways to build up the strength to safely practice common weight- bearing yoga poses on the arms. She further talks about the rotator cuff and why rotator cuff injuries are so common. According to Julie, keeping the rotator cuff strong, whatever your age, is the best way to avoid rotator cuff injuries, and this is where yoga has much to offer. Certain poses in the right alignment can do an excellent job of working the rotator cuff.
Perfect alignment in yoga poses used to be the Holy Grail of yoga practice. Today, however, the concept of alignment has come under fire in the yoga community for attempting to fit people into “one size fits all” expressions of the pose.
There’s more to the concept of alignment than that, however, says yoga therapist Olga Kabel, founder of Sequence Wiz.
We all come to yoga with baggage of past experiences and habits, which influence how we sit, how we stand, how we walk, and so on. So, when we practice yoga, our body will assume it’s usual movement patterns. This will cause us to avoid working in certain areas that are weak, and instead transfer the demands of the pose into another area of the body.
This is what is often referred to as release valves, or movement compensations, and it is the origin of most common misalignments in yoga poses.
For each directional movement of the spine, Olga explains, there is a list of pretty typical release valves. It’s important for yoga teachers and students to learn these, so you will know what can potentially happen with your neck or lower back, so you can check yourself or your students to make sure that you’re not falling into those habitual movement patterns. Hear Olga explain how we can self-identify these release valves and correct them so you can enjoy all the benefits of backbending while avoiding the drawbacks.
Olga Kabel is a founder and managing director of Sequence Wiz - a web-based yoga sequence builder that assists yoga teachers and yoga therapists in creating and organizing yoga practices.
An in interview with the yoga therapist behind the yoga program at Duke Integrative Medicine
It is now increasingly recognized that the fundamental connective biological matrix of the body, the fascia, is far more than the inert wrapping material, it was previously believed to be. In fact, says Anatomy Trains author Tom Myers in this interview, fascia is now recognized as an independent regulatory system in the body.
And while the nervous system performs its regulatory function via neurons and connecting nerves, the language of the fascia is movement. New discoveries highlight how the tensional patterns within the fascial matrix communicates instantly and effortless what happens throughout the whole system.
Tom discusses how new discoveries in fascia research holds tremendous implications for changing not just human form but also behavior and emotional patterns. He also discusses why the emerging understanding of the central role played by the fascia in bodily health puts new emphasis on the role of movement therapies in healing. He predicts a medicine of the future in which the emphasis on movement as therapy will play a central role. He also discusses why new discoveries in fascia research imply that traditional approaches to exercise are counter-productive, and why more holistic movement forms like yoga is far more useful for training the fascia.
Tom Myers is the originator of the concept of Anatomy Trains, which maps the body as an interconnected network of whole-body fascial and myofascial linkages.
Backbends are an extremely important group of yoga postures, says Judith Hanson Lasater in this free download. In order to maintain a balanced orchestra of movement and keep the spine healthy, we need to be able to move in all directions.
However, backbends get increasingly important as people get older. With age, the spine tends to gradually curve into a forward stoop—a phenomenon that is also becoming common in younger populations in today’s sedentary society.
This causes a number of problem, Judith notes. If the pectoralis muscles and the intercostal muscles between the ribs are tight, it will impede the movement of the ribcage and therefore respiration. But we know that being able to breathe well and fully is tantamount to being able to live well and fully.
Backbends are incredibly important to stop this tendency. They stretch the pectoralis muscles, the shoulder girdle, the abdomen and the chest, and help create opening and lengthening in the front line of the body. There are even studies that indicate the backbends can help slow the progression of osteoporosis.
At the same time, for many people, backbends are the group of postures we most love to hate. Being beautiful and attention-grabbing poses, backbends are often used in photos around yoga to depict the beauty of the yoga asana. As a result, people think of backbends as too difficult and too extreme. Judith discussed the mechanics of healthy backbends and how and why backbends really can be accessible to anybody.
Also be sure to check out Judith's upcoming course on YogaUOnline:
Bending Over Backwards: The Why and How of Practicing and Teaching Backbends
In this free download, Dr. Baxter Bell discusses metabolic syndrome, which is the leading precursor of three of the top 7 killers of our time: heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.
What is metabolic syndrome? And can you determine if you might have it? And, most importantly, can it be reversed and can yoga help play a role in preventing the clusters of symptoms that make up metabolic syndrome? In this free talk, Dr. Baxter Bell answers these questions and more. Also check out Baxter's course on YogaUOnline:
Yoga and Metabolic Syndrome: The Positive Possibilities!
Most people come to yoga with preexisting musculoskeletal imbalances. This in turn can limit our practice and the alignment in yoga postures in many important ways.
To progress in our practice, rather than perpetuating bodily patterns that don’t serve us, it is important to understand these imbalances and how they affect alignment in yoga postures, notes physical therapist and yoga therapist Marlysa Sullivan in this free talk. Also, check out Marlysa's course on YogaUOnline: Teaching Yoga to Common Musculoskeletal Imbalances: Neck and Shoulders