Beliefs about the body? Teaching yoga

Last week I joined a yoga class at my local gym. Five types of themes kept coming back many times during the session. As I left the studio, I reflected about what kind of beliefs about my body the practice created and how I should move, think and breath. 

“Pull your shoulder blades back and down”

“Protect your spine. Be careful about the back as you exit the pose” 

“Keep your hips and shoulders square. Maintain the hips parallel” “Keep your hands parallel and even” “All ten toes should face forward”

“Feel it in your hamstrings” “Feel a nice juicy stretch in the back” “Feel the muscles between the shoulder blades”

“Don’t forget to breath”, “Breath deep and slow”, “Inhale for 5 and exhale for 5”

These instructions might be relevant for some specific content and context, but if it’s presented as something generic that always should be applied no matter what, I wonder how will it affect the perception about my body, how my body should move and what I should be careful about?  

What do we know about the body and the brain?

1. If we always should pull the shoulder blades back and down it’s going to be very hard to move the shoulder joint. Shoulder blades down and back is only one of many other directions the joint can express. Wouldn’t it be good to practice all directions?   

2. If we always must protect the spine, we wouldn’t be able to think about other things in life. If we always should be careful whilst moving the spine it would generate fear. Fear of movement isn’t very helpful and can be very negative for pain, function, and physical activity. The spine is designed to move in many directions and the structure is very robust.   

3. The idea about parallel alignment and that everything should face forward might be a pedagogical tool, but it’s important to understand that there’s nothing bad or wrong if we deviate from the desired line. Most of the instructions in yoga is rooted in aesthetically ideas (nothing wrong with that) but it’s not correlated with less pain or won’t prevent injuries).

If the hips and shoulders always should be parallel it would be very hard to create rotations around the torso. Eg walking would be problematic.

4. Where and how we feel a position/a movement is our own personal experience. Telling someone else where and how they should feel is tricky and most of the times impossible. 

5. Why is holding the breath something bad? A common technique in pranayama is holding the breath. Why is holding the breath bad in one situation and good in another? Why should we ALWAYS breath deep (volume) and slow (frequency) no matter what? Isn’t there a difference between situations (internal and external factors) such as lying supine in relaxation, standing up with muscle contractions or if we practice an intensive sequence in a heated yoga room?

Why should 5 seconds breathing in and out be the optimal duration and ratio for a breathing cycle? How about individual variations such as size of the body, age, heart rate and previous experience?     

Here are some helpful ideas for your teaching: 

■ How can we teach in a way that supports our participant to connect with their OWN body and and help them to navigate from their OWN individual space?  

■ How can we teach movement and breathing that is rooted in anatomy, physiology, and movement science? How can you integrate movement variability in your existing yoga sequence?   

■ How can we minimize fear of movement when we teach?  

■ If you teach certain ideas about breathing (such as frequency, timing and ratio) can you integrate principles for individual variations? We can breath in, out and hold the breath no matter how we move. With that information how can you integrate breathing variability in your teaching?

■ How can we encourage movement/exercise/yoga… as a valuable tool to experience our bodies and the world around us? Can we embody movement optimism in our teaching?

■ What we feel when we practice is our own personal experience. No one else can or should dictate what another person should feel.

An invitation of possibilities.

/Magnus Ringberg 

#yogaoptimist #movementoptimist