Category Archives: yoga

Tips for Preventing Yoga Injuries

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I found this discussion on Yoga Alliance’s LinkedIn group. It draws on one of my favorite Sutras—one I use regularly when starting to teach a new class.

Stephen Parker • The most important point about prevention of injury is that you never push your capacity. In Yoga Sutras II.46 & 47 Patanjali describes asana as “steady and comfortable” and that comfort is achieved through prayatna-shaithilya, “relaxation of effort” and anantya-samapatti, “coalescence with infinitude,” a phrase implying entry into samadhi. (Samapatti is essentially synonymous with samadhi in the Samadhi-pada.) By practicing in a meditative and contemplative way, always remaining two steps short of your capacity, you never have to push your body; it’s capacity will naturally expand before your efforts without pushing. Needless to say, this model doesn’t well fit a class where one is trying to get through 15 postures in 60 minutes. Two postures is more like it.

In the early 1970’s my master, Swami Rama, said, “American yoga is all ha- yoga (energetic solar force). There is no -tha (contemplative lunar force)!” He made it his mission to try to put the -tha back in hatha, but, unfortunately, American hatha-yoga practice has continued to move in the other direction, away from meditative depth.

Balance Is a Temporary Success

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Although this quote is about yoga and skiing, its insights on balance are equally true for all of the balances we maintain in our lives.

“Balance is not something you achieve and hold on to. It’s more ephemeral; it’s a string of temporary successes, held momentarily, lost, and then discovered again.

But it’s not permanent. When you lose it, you just have to have faith that you’ll come back to it.”

Wroth, Carmel. “Cold Play,” Yoga Journal, December 2010 (Issue 234), p.89.

Balance vs. Balanced

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Several incidents came together recently to remind me of the difference between  “balance” and “balanced.”

1. Reading Yoga for Multiple Sclerosis

“… there are three systems that people use to maintain balance: (1) the inner ear gives a sense of acceleration in any dimension,  (2) cutaneous and proprioceptive* information relating to floor forces come from the feet and ankles, and (3) visual data reveals our position and any chnage in it relative to our environment.”

2. Teaching an osteoporosis prevention class where all participants (and instructors) are required to wear shoes.

Although I was able to do the balance poses while wearing shoes – a new experience – I felt like I was missing a lot of crucial data. I was substituting equipment for actual balance.

3. Explaining to a student why yoga is done barefoot.

4. Overhearing a student (not mine) say that he likes to do Tree Pose wearing heavy work boots.

Thoughts

  • A child’s stack of blocks may be “balanced” but the block are not actively doing the balancing.
  • Removing sensory (proprioceptive) input, wearing boots or shoes, may make it easier to be balanced but harder to balance.
  • Keeping your balance requires active practice.

* Proprioception – meaning “one’s own” and perception, is the of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body. (Wikipedia.org)

For additional information on proprioception: