Category: Yoga

i.e., Salamba Sarvangasana
We get to protect these curves with yoga!

Recently a student approached me to say that she would like me to re-introduce inversions, specifically a shoulder-stand in the class. I tend to always opt for reducing the risks of any injury by playing it safe since I don’t recall any liability release signed by the student at these classes offered at gyms and clubs … at least at yoga studios, each student signs a release so there’s comfort in knowing that when some riskier asana may be weaved into a sequence.

I would normally instruct the harmless but effective bridge pose and then tell students that if they regularly practice shoulder-stands, they are welcome to sequence into that. In a public class with a wide range of ages and abilities, I allow the student to make the call based on their home practice or regularity to which they practice yoga. While I am certainly willing to instruct play by play on the how-to’s, with utmost attention to safety, I tend to be conservative and avoid some poses. But here’s a request and I am happy to oblige of course. This lovely student is always curious and eager to challenge herself. She does look so much better than when she first made her appearance to my class nervous with darting eyes … now her eyes are shiny and reflective like surface of deep clear lake and her energy level calm but revitalized – yes : ) Yoga’s working! This is an old article but relevant as ever since our body remains the same – just a little older – lol – The writer is an instructor who teaches in E. Bay …right after Richard Rosen’s class which I sometimes attend when I want to hear someone who non-stop talks and seemingly incessantly instructs. He doesn’t lecture about monkey mind, yak, yak, pop spirituality – he basically does not “lecture”. Rather he really instructs one tissue, one joint, one cartilage at a time. That works better for my focus than being lectured about monkey mind because it’s all about the dynamic “process” not this static state, unattainable as we are told to cleared it of thoughts, here likened to a monkey jumping from a tree to trea. A thought arises – how irritating it is to be talked down to cultivate it. Then judgement and critiquing enters this mind, & it’s over – that peace is lost, more thoughts take over. SOS.

Good article to be aware of the strain on the neck if it feels funny or beyond funny – in pain! Check out this article written quite a while ago but still holds true as our anatomy hasn’t changed – in fact there are probably more people suffering from straight neck (loss of that c-curve) than ever before as more of us are always checking our cell phones and constantly looking down to tablets and all other forms of electronic gadgets.

So rather than hand-stands and head-stands, shoulder-stands seem much more accessible with the benefit lacking in the former mentioned inversions. There are many benefits but which benefit am I referring to exactly?

So

The reason this student wanted to practice the shoulder-stand had nothing to do with straight neck vs. C-curve neck. It’s what all of us can related to as we make our way into impending holiday season – first comes the candies, the treats of Halloween; then Thanksgiving and … the holiday season and what does all these have in common? Yes, all the eating that goes along with celebrations. Love it : ) Apparently, Americans on average gain 5lbs during the holiday season and if you don’t lose that 5 lbs after the holiday season, in 2 years, that accumulates to 10 lbs, then next year, 15 lbs and so on – scary, indeed very scary, lol.

While I don’t think there’s a direct link to weight loss as this student appears to have read somewhere by doing shoulder stands, it is said that the pose helps with thyroid balance and that thyroid balance does contribute to better metabolism. It is believed that under-active thyroid means low basal metabolic rate which causes weight gain and difficulty losing that extra weight. Same tends to hold true for an overactive thyroid with messed up metabolism which causes a weight gain and difficulty with weight loss.

Safe methods are best taught by near-PT-level trained yoga teacher/therapist or Iyengar influenced or educated teachers when it comes to inversions – yes, we don’t just throw ourselves up unless you were a gymnast in past training. It’s also lovely if you can partner with someone so there’s an assist to set up the form – spotting the lift – so in this respect, I love Judith’s inversions – in which risks are reduced but as effective. You can stay in it for as long as you’d like – With proper guidance, we can do it with ease and comfort; not with strain and force.