In this interview with Judith Hanson Lasater, a longtime Iyengar Yoga teacher, Eva Norlyk Smith of Yoga U Online discusses the recent debate on yoga injuries and the challenges and opportunities created by the growing popularity of yoga. The entire interview is available as a free download on Yoga U Online.

Also, check out Judith's upcoming webinar:
Teaching Yoga to Beginners

Eva Norlyk Smith: As we know, there has been a lot of debate about yoga injuries over the last month. When you look at the actual rate of yoga injuries, it’s actually comparatively low—yoga, for example, has about one tenth the injury rate of golf. So, what is your take? Do we have an epidemic of yoga injuries in this country or is this all a tempest in a teacup?

Judith Hanson Lasater: I think it’s a little more complicated than that. There is likely some increase in yoga injuries, because there are just so many people practicing yoga now. You can say that the more people driving cars, the more car accidents there will be. But the amount of serious injuries that happen with yoga are so low compared to virtually every other physical activity that I’ve ever seen the statistics for.

There’s risk in all physical activities, of course. Getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom at night, you can get hurt. So there is always going to be some risk.

That being said, I think it’s very, very important in this discussion to be aware of how much more training we all need to have as yoga teachers. It’s one thing to practice on your own, but it’s another thing to, in a way, practice on other people. While asana is just a small part of yoga, I think it behooves us as teachers to take the chiding that has recently come forth about our profession and see what we can learn from that and how we can raise the training level of our profession so that we train people in a number of specific areas, which will, by their very nature, keep people safe.

Eva Norlyk Smith: That’s a beautiful point, particularly in view of the aging population and the growing number of baby boomers flocking to yoga. But before we get into that discussion, I’m just curious, has the way yoga is taught changed over the 30-40 years? And if so, how has it evolved over time?

Judith Hanson Lasater: When I began teaching in 1971, yoga was still rather unusual and the approach was different than most classes are now. It was much more integrated, the asana with the breathing, the mediation, the chanting – all the aspects of the practice were there, and there wasn’t such an emphasis on asana. In addition, we often would practice a pose and then rest in between each pose. There was a lot more emphasis on how it felt. And because there were no teacher training programs outside of a few isolated ashrams in the US, the way most people taught was very simple. If someone had pain or difficulty, we just said, “Don’t do it.” That, in and of itself, was protective. The rooms tended to be darkened. We wore loose yoga clothes. The whole emphasis was on letting go, relaxing, slowing down, cooling down.

Now, there are more styles of yoga readily available to the average person. And some of them as we know are quite vigorous and of course, there’s nothing wrong with that. But the key is matching the person to the style. That’s the number one key. Obviously, a 25 year-old gymnast in good shape will have the ability to do more things physically. If not, you have to know your own limits.

Secondly, we need to be aware that our needs might change from decade to decade, year to year, even from day to day. Like today, you might feel really tired. And so, you might want to do a quiet practice. And tomorrow, you might feel very vigorous and you might want to do a more active practice. So to me, we’re not training our students to be more selective in the style that they study and making sure that that suits them.

The other thing that happens is that many yoga teachers are leading yoga classes instead of teaching them. The belief seems to be to work people out, to put them through the paces. And when you have an attitude like that, no matter who walks into the class, they’re all getting exactly the same thing. And that’s not always appropriate.

I like to think of a yoga class as, yes, in part giving people an experience of the practice. But additionally, I think it’s very important that classes teach people how to practice, so they are aware of basic safety ideas, as well as how to sequence poses, how to pace themselves, how to use the breath, and how to be aware of any signs that their body is giving them to do less. I like to say to my students, “I want to teach you in such a way that you can go to any class in any system and keep yourself safe. And I think that’s one place where we are falling down as teachers. We’re not training our students how to practice.

To me, an experienced practitioner is one who has his or her own home practice and only comes to class as a way to refine or get fresh info or be inspired. But increasingly, people don’t have a home practice, they go to a lot of different yoga teachers, depending on what is convenient and nearby, just to get the workout. So they are not incorporating what they learned in class on their own mat at home, and from there understanding and filtering what works best for them.

Eva Norlyk Smith: Yes, even if people have practiced for a number of years, you can’t assume that they have been taught to increase body awareness and tune into the body, which is probably the most protective skill to have when it comes to avoiding injuries in any kind of activity.

Judith Hanson Lasater: Yes, and I also have a different time line perspective. To be an intermediate or more advanced student, you need to have a home practice almost every day of the week. A beginner is someone, no matter how proficient, who just comes once a week or twice a week to a class and hasn’t incorporated it into their own home practice. So I have a much longer term view of this as a serious practice.

You can make an analogy to playing a musical instrument. When you have your lesson, that’s not your practice, that’s your lesson. The work is when you leave your lesson, you go home. And the next day, what do you do the next day? Do you practice what you learned? Do you try the new techniques? Do you make the corrections that were suggested? Do you pay attention? That’s when you really learn, when you make it your own. And that only comes from a willingness to commit to your home practice.

Eva Norlyk Smith: Good point. Now, increasingly, many new people coming to yoga studios are not just young, fit people 20 to 30 year-olds, but people in their 40’s and 50’s who have more physical limitations and may also be more injury-prone. It’s a trend that would appear to create some wonderful opportunities for yoga teaching as a profession, and also tremendous challenges. It often makes me wonder if the original standards for yoga teaching, i.e. the 200-hour basic yoga training, are sufficient to give teachers the knowledge and skills they need to deal with the kind of challenges that yoga teachers are facing today.

Judith Hanson Lasater: Yes, there are so many factors to be taken into account when teaching yoga. I think we need to look towards creating perhaps the equivalent of a Bachelor of Science degree in this training at some point in the future. Understanding anatomy and knowing that the thigh bone is called a femur is not enough, teachers

 increasingly need to understand how the body works: What is the normal range of motion of the hip joint? What are the normal movements of the shoulder joint? What would I see in someone who didn’t have that? What would those symptoms look like and what should I do in a case like that?

So there’s understanding the anatomical and kinesiological foundations.  And then there’s a huge piece of the student-teacher relationship: How do I deal with a student who won’t limit themselves and throws themselves into everything? How do I deal with a student who doesn’t want to try anything new? How do I speak to a student in a way that both inspires and perhaps invites them to step a little bit out of their comfort zone, while doing it in such a way that they feel safe choosing that themselves? This is a really big distinction.

So an important part of the student-teacher relationship is about understanding the interpersonal dynamics and understanding who you’re teaching. You’re not teaching a class. You’re teaching a human being. And understanding how to speak to them with their language, how to touch them with respect after asking permission, and how to use your touch and your words to encourage them to grow at their own speed, those are key skills of a yoga teacher.

So it’s not about pushing students physically. It’s about reflecting back to students where they’re holding on mentally, and encourage them to let go of some of those mental limitations that may or may not have a physical expression—if and when they feel ready. It’s more important to me that we help people understand that they’re prisoners of their thoughts, not of their hamstrings.

Many wise teachers have told us that we are the prisoners of our thoughts, and to help people live a full, rich, and happy life, free from the mercy of your thoughts and beliefs—that, to me, is our job as teachers. The way I actually say this to the teachers I train is, “The job of a yoga teacher is to reflect back the inherent radiance and inner goodness of each person.” And of course, the only way you can do that is to find it in yourself.

That’s what we’re really doing on the mat. That doesn’t have anything to do with dog pose. Dog pose is fun. Dog pose is a technique that slows us down. It’s like a speed bump that slows us down so we can become aware of how we’re holding, how we’re resisting, how we’re breathing. And those skills, those skills which come from the residue of awareness, are life skills that we can carry with us everywhere, until our whole world becomes our yoga mat, every moment becomes an asana. Because every moment, we’re aware of what thoughts are ruling us, what position we’ve been holding too long, what misalignment in our back we’re maintaining, because we’re tense or we’re stressed. And that, to me, is what we as yoga teachers are about. And the asana is really not the yoga. It is the residue the asana leaves in our minds and bodies and hearts that is the yoga.

So if we teach from that perspective, we teach with kindness. We teach with respect. We teach with empathy. And when you have kindness, respect, and empathy, there’s another word for that which is compassion.

Listen to Judith's entire interview on Yoga U Online.

By Eva Norlyk Smith, Ph.D., RYT-500

Judith Hanson Lasater, in a recent teleclass on Yoga U Online Trainings commented, “People often ask me if it’s necessary to practice yoga every day. I tell them, no, not at all. Just practice whenever you want to feel good!"

Most of us relish our yoga practice exactly for that simple reason—it makes us feel good! But the long-term benefits of a regular yoga practice go far beyond that—and they are encapsulated, of course, in that worn-out adage: Use it or lose it!

You’ve heard that phrase many times. But to truly appreciate its significance, it's useful to take a look at where it derives from.

One of the early studies that alerted medical researchers to the importance of exercise for physical health was the so-called Dallas bed rest study, performed back in 1966. The researchers took a group of five healthy 20 year-old men, measured their cardiovascular fitness on a series of parameters, and then put them to bed for three weeks. The five 20 year-olds weren’t even allowed to go to the bathroom without using a wheel chair!

After three weeks, the men were measured again. At the time, what the researchers found was revolutionary: In just three weeks, all five had experienced a dramatic loss in cardiovascular health and exercise capacity on all parameters measured; the equivalent of about 1% loss of capacity per day of bed rest.

The five men were then put on an intensive aerobic training program, and within an eight-week period were able to regain, and in some cases, exceed, their previous level of physical fitness.

This was one of the original use-it-or-lose-it studies. It alerted medical professionals to the fact that prolonged bed rest might not be the best way to recover from surgery or other illnesses. And, it changed our understanding of the importance of movement and exercise forever.

But that’s not all. After 30 years, the researchers took another look at the aerobic and cardiovascular fitness levels of the original five men in the study, now 50 and 51 years old. What they found was truly astounding.

In terms of cardiovascular fitness and physical work capacity, the men had been more weakened after three weeks of bed rest 30 years earlier than the three decades of aging they had undergone since then! In other words, the completely sedentary lifestyle of bed rest had put them through a time machine, and caused them to age 30 years in terms of key cardiovascular health parameters in just three short weeks.

The men were then put on a six-month endurance training program, including walking, jogging and spinning. The intensity of their workout was gradually increased until they were exercising four or five times a week for a total of about 4-1/2 hours at the end of six months.

As the end of the six months, one hundred percent of the age-related decline in aerobic power among these five middle-aged men occurring over 30 years was reversed.

Obviously, the study has numerous limitations, in particular the fact that it was done one so few subjects. Nonetheless, it speaks volumes about the importance of physical activity to maintain and improve our functional capacity at all ages of life.

The study is a sobering reminder of the risks of a sedentary lifestyle. Even though few people are sedentary to the point of being virtually at bed rest, the general principle holds: Lack of exercise will lead to significant deterioration on numerous markers of health, including cardiovascular fitness.

The good news is that, just as a sedentary lifestyle will make you decades older than you really are, regular exercise can make you look and feel, literally, decades younger. And while the Dallas bed rest study and its follow-up studies focused primarily on cardiovascular health, other studies show similar results on other markers of healty aging, including muscle strength, flexibility, core strength, balance and coordination, and so on.

So the answer to the question: 'How often should I do yoga?" is both about how you want to feel in the short term—and how you want to feel in the long term. The Dallas bed rest study is another reminder that each time you hit your yoga mat, you don't just benefit your mental and emotional well-being in the present. You make a significant investment in your long-term, future health and well-being as well.

For more inspiration for your yoga practice from Judith Hanson Lasater, check out our Yoga U Download Library, which contains numerous wonderful talks in which Judith shares her insights and wisdom about how to deepen your yoga asanas practice and teaching.

By Deane Juhan - 

We have been educated to think of language as spoken and written words, even educated to believe that no creatures but humans can properly be said to acquire and to use “language.” But organisms have been communicating among themselves and with their environment from the very beginnings of life, or life could never have succeeded and evolved.

With these thoughts in mind, then, I want to suggest some of the dimensions of the languages that our bodies speak.

In a recent class I had quoted one of my teachers, Milton Trager: “My work is directed towards reaching the mind of the client. Every contact, every move, every thought communicates how the tissue should feel when everything is right. The mind is the whole thing. That is all I am interested in.” The next day a participant raised her hand and asked, “What do you mean my reaching the mind?” The following is a summary of my attempt to answer her question.

The Language of the Connective Tissue Matrix

Just underneath the skin--in fact an integral part of it--begins the intimately interwoven web of our connective tissue. Once regarded as an inert, sort of nylon-like wrapping that divided our bones, muscles, organs, circulatory systems and neural pathways into separate functional entities, this web is now appreciated as an extraordinarily sensitive and energetic matrix that in fact connects all of our internal structures and processes, down to our innermost microscopic cellular interiors.

Far from being inert, our connective tissue matrix is a sensitive conductor of electromagnetic currents. And it is a conductor of a special class, called piezo-electric. “Piezo” is a Greek derivative, meaning in this usage “self-generating.” Every movement, every pressure, every distortion through movement, every vibration creates polarizations within this matrix, and between the polarities flow currents of electricity that surround and penetrate all six trillion living cells in our bodies, carrying not only energy but also information to their membranes and to their interiors that help to both fuel and to orchestrate many of their inner activities, and harmonize them with one another.

In these energetic and informational roles, our connective tissue matrix was the precursor to our nervous systems in both evolutionary and embryological development, animating and coordinating organisms before the first neurons arrived on the scene. And it continues to supply an exquisitely sensitive (responding to vibrations below neural thresholds of stimulation) and rapid (traveling at the speed of electron streams, not action potentials) source of vitality and organization both within us and between us.

The Language of Nerves and Muscles

Nerves and muscles share a common language in their communications and responses: the rhythms of action potentials that ripple along their membranes and orchestrate their collective activities. All these cells are tightly linked at many levels of our neuromuscular systems, and are constantly interacting with one another. It is impossible to experience a sensation, a feeling or a thought without stimulating a muscular reaction--large or small, conscious or unconscious. And it is equally impossible to experience a movement without changing the landscapes of our perceptions, our sensations, feelings and thoughts. No muscle can create any movement without neural stimulations, and no movement can occur without consequent changes in the stream of these stimulations. And further, all of these stimulations and movements are ultimately nothing less than the summary of the totality of all of our sixty trillion cells activities and their myriad and complex interactions--the activities of our entire landscape of perceptions and responses that are translated into our behaviors of all kinds and on all levels. “Mind” is vastly more extensive than “brain.” Mind involves the whole of our landscape, and all of the internal and external ecological processes that are fused into those mysteries and miracles that we call life and consciousness. We are moved by all levels of our feelings, ideas and beliefs, our current assessments, needs and intentions, and by all of the countless processes that underlie them.

These are the dimensions of the language of sensations, feelings, thoughts and movements in our lives. The vocabulary, grammar and syntax of this language are the stuff of all of our motor experience and development--all functional skills and all dysfunctional blocks, all successful adaptations and all persistent limitations, all habituated repetitions and all new possibilities. This is another domain into which we can enter and positively affect through our touch, if we can learn to speak its language.

To read part two, The Persistance of Memory and the Precipitation of Novelty, click here.

Excerpted from Deane Juhan: Reaching the Mind with Touch with permission of the author.