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Building Functional Core Strength with Yoga Asanas

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Yoga for Core Strength - Julie Gudmestad

 

 

Julie Gudmestad is a long-term Iyengar Yoga teacher and founder of Gudmestad Yoga in Portland, Oregon. She is a licensed physical therapist and widely known for her Anatomy of a Yogi column that she wrote for Yoga Journal for nearly a decade. In this interview, she discusses the importance of core strengthening, why traditional crunches won't work, and how a regular practice of yoga asana can help build true, functional core strength.


YogaUOnline: Core strengthening has long been a buzzword in the fitness world, and there is great emphasis particularly on abdominal strengthening in most fitness programs. Why is core strengthening considered to be so important?

Julie Gudmestad: Core strengthening has to do with building proper support for the pelvis and the spine. In thirty-five years of working with people with back, pelvis, and hip problems I’ve repeatedly observed the importance of strengthening the muscles that are supposed to be supporting the spine and pelvis. Countless studies too have shown that core strengthening is an important component in relieving and pain and restoring healthy movement.  I could relate dozens of cases with people whose sometimes chronic, severe back pain was greatly improved or even eliminated by strengthening the support system of the core, including the abs.

YogaUOnline: Does yoga strengthen the core and if so, how do yoga postures are best at accomplishing that?

Julie Gudmestad: There’s a great variety of core strengthening that we do in yoga poses. In yoga, the strengthening comes from supporting the weight of our body parts in various orientations to gravity. Sometimes we’re standing, sometimes we’re upside down, sometimes we’re sideways, sometimes we’re face down on the floor, sometimes face up on the floor. Lifting different body parts, be it arm, leg, torso, and so on, in these different positions is going to strengthen a huge variety of muscle groups, according to how gravity is pulling on the body part. 

That is how a lot of abdominal strengthening happens in yoga, and people aren’t even aware of it.yoga for core strength Standing poses are a great example. In the sideways standing poses, like Triangle, Extended Side Angle pose, and Half Moon pose, your torso muscles including the obliques and the transversus abdominus are contracting to hold up the weight of your torso, which is parallel to the floor. The side abdomen flank muscles are contracting to hold up the weight of your torso. 

If you also are rotating your torso, which we are doing in those sideways poses, you get a double whammy. It’s fabulous strengthening of the obliques in particular, as they hold up the weight of the body as you go sideways and rotating the torso at the same time. 

One of the things that I love about core strengthening in yoga is that we’re training muscle patterns. Lots of times, when you go to the weight room, you’re isolating a particular muscle. If you’re sitting in a machine and everything is supported and you’re isolating one muscle, e.g. the biceps, that’s fine if you lack strength in that muscle and you’re trying to build it up towards normal strength. But in yoga, we’re actually training muscles to work together in functional patterns, which is really valuable for basically, life on this planet! 

If you just have an extremely strong, but isolated bicep, you haven’t necessarily strengthened the other muscles that you need to strengthen, that is, the muscles that stabilize the scapula and the spine. So you’ve got this big, strong bicep but the rest of the muscle patterning that you need to actually do a functional activity isn’t there. I’ve seen a fair number of injuries in weight lifters, because they had isolated certain muscles and gotten them really strong, but not the rest of the team. 


YogaUOnline: When most people do core strengthening, they focus on crunches and abdominal work. But you have been saying in your writings that excessive abdominal strengthening can actually be counterproductive?

Julie Gudmestad: Yes, it can be counterproductive on a couple of important fronts. Firstly, if you strengthen the front, you also need to strengthen the back. If you only focus on working the front of the body, the abdominals and the chest get shorter and shorter, and at the same time, the back muscles get weak and overstretched. The result is often that the person gets pulled over by short abdominals into a slumped position.
 
The action of the abdominals is to flex the spine or forward bend the spine, and if they get overly short and tight, the person gets permanent trapped in this flexed position. And that creates all sorts of problems. Some people get neck pain, headaches, or jaw problems, because if you’re slumped forward you end up with a forward head posture, which puts a lot of stress on the neck and the muscles that support the neck. When people get rounded over, it also limits the movement of the diaphragm, and that has implications for your ability to breathe normally and take a full breath, which of course has huge health implications. 

An overly flexed position can also contribute to low back problems as well, because it can take the normal curve out of the low back. This flattening of the normal lumbar curve can contribute to disc injuries, because the person’s movement patterns are organized around that rounded-over flat back position. And that puts pressure on the intervertebral discs and sets the stage for serious disc injuries. 

So one of the first things that you have to do with many of those people is train them how to lengthen the front body to help restore the normal curve of the low back and allow the back to heal.

YogaUOnline: So people don’t get chronically locked in that position?

Julie Gudmestad: No, they can definitely reverse it. That’s the message that I find myself saying often to people. Even you’ve had a serious injury, you can restore normal alignment, unless the bones are fused. But you have to work at it. You have to change your movement habits. You have to change your muscle balance. It doesn’t have to be odious, but you have to be persistent and work at it regularly. I’ve seen tremendous changes in thirty-five years of working with people with these kinds of issues. That’s the good news.

YogaUOnline: What about our yoga practice, do overly tight abs impact our practice?

Julie Gudmestad: Yes, if the abs are tight, it will limit your ability to do any kind of back bending poses. The most obvious example is when the mid-back, the thoracic spine is stuck in flexion. If a person with a flexed upper back is trying to do Bridge Pose, he or she just can’t get their back lifted up very much off the floor. 

Similarly, if a student like that tries to lift up to do a Cobra pose, he or she won’t be able to come up very high off the floor, because the front body is short and holds the chest close to the pelvis in the front. So they can’t go into any or very much extension at all. 

YogaUOnline: How can teachers spot these people in class?

Julie Gudmestad: If you line up people on hands and knees and look at how much the spine can move  in a simple Cat-Cow pose, you can see which people have very little extension of the spine. Extension is supposed to be a normal movement of the spine, but if they’re very short in the front body, even on hands and knees, they won’t have very much extension.

It can and will change over time, but there are a lot of layers of muscle in the abdomen and in the chest, including the pectorals and the intercostals, the muscles between the ribs. If that’s all short in the front, it won’t change overnight. It takes time.


YogaUOnline: Right. Very interesting. You have a course coming up on Yoga U Online called “Freeing the Breath: Keys to Releasing and Retraining the Abdominals.” Could you tell us about that and you will be covering?

Julie Gudmestad: Well, the focus is on balancing the abdominal muscles, but I will be placing almost as much focus on the breathing muscles, and especially the diaphragm. We will look at how overly short and tight and strong abdominals can affect our breathing negatively. And breathing, of course, is the central part of yoga practice. 

We will learn some simple ways of strengthening the abdominals, because they do need to be strong. But I will show how to set up your practice to help keep the abdominals strong, without having a negative impact on breathing. You will learn how to assess whether if there are limitations in terms of abdominal tightening in your own body and for yoga teachers, how to observe it in your yoga students. We will then look at how people, who already have too short or tight abs, can open them back up and restore more normal breathing patterns. 

For more information, see also Julie Gudmestad's 2-part online yoga course:

 

 

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Cleansing for Health: User-Friendly Yoga Techniques for Detoxification

In this interview, Kristine Kaoverii Weber, founder of Subtle yoga and author of Self-Healing Massage, discusses the yogic approach to detoxification and ways to open the subtle channels in the body to facilittate the flow of Prana, or life force.

YogaUOnline: Many of us think detoxification as something you do when you’re sick and you may go on a lengthy fast. But you seem to have a different idea of what detoxification is and why it’s necessary. Could you talk a bit about that?


Kaoverii Weber: Well, yoga, as well as the numerous Ayurvedic cleansing practices, focus on cleansing the Nadis, or rather, removing the sediments and toxins from the Nadis. The Nadis is the Sanskrit term for all the channels that run through our body. This includes all the well-known passage ways of the body – the intestines, the veins, the arteries and nerves. But it also includes all the subtle energy flows in the body.

Cleansing is considered important in the yogic tradition, because the ancient yogis understood that if the body is toxic, it’s difficult to meditate, it’s difficult to do deep practices, it’s difficult to achieve self-realization. So, cleansing and detoxification sometimes precedes some of the deeper meditation practices. But it’s an important step for everybody.

In the West, when we think of yoga and detoxification, we tend to think of a hot, sweaty, power Vinyasa practice. And yes, anything that makes you sweat, without a doubt, is useful for detoxifying. However, the yoga tradition has also provided us with very specific practices that help to detoxify the digestive organs and to cleanse and stimulate the organs of digestion in many, many other ways. There are other practices you can do that are really helpful, and which are not so time-consuming.

It’s also important to distinguish between cleansing and detoxification. Longer fasting detoxification practices are very powerful and very useful, when you’re dealing with a specific illness or you’re dealing with a long history of inappropriate eating, or even substance abuse. But there are many practices that are more applicable for all of us in daily life, which facilitates daily cleansing, without the hardship of long fasts and more intense detoxification. Such daily cleansing practices are important, because they can keep us feeling well, feeling healthy, and able to live with greater energy, more happiness, and a greater feeling of aliveness.

YogaUOnline: Most of us think of detoxification as something that’s needed because in modern society, we’re exposed to so many environmental toxins. However, that was not the case for the ancient yogis. Why would the ancient yogis think that including cleansing procedures as part of your daily routine was important?

Kaoverii Weber: Well, the body is aging. As we age, the system starts to break down, and we increasingly need practices that help us to retain some of our vitality, so that we can age gracefully, retain energy, and still enjoy life!

According to the ancient yogis, if impurities or sediments are allowed to accumulate in the Nadis, our health gradually deteriorates. And it’s not just about cleansing on the level of the body.  Even if we only ate high quality, nutritious, organic food, if the mind has any kind of heaviness or stress, our mental state also produces toxins.

That is often overlooked in our Western culture. We think, “If we can only find that magic bullet, if we can only find that perfect food, then we would be completely healthy. But you can eat completely healthy foods and still be toxic, because the mind is converting the foods and anything else in your experience into toxicity.

So this is a really important piece. How do we shift what’s going on in the mind, so that whatever we take in is converted into nourishment as opposed to into toxicity?  Eating healthy foods is not enough, we need to also take time to self-nurture, do meditation practices, the things that help that food then to be converted into essence, into vital nutrition as opposed to into toxicity.

YogaUOnline: Yes. It sounds like what you’re talking about is the Ayurvedic concept of Ama. Ayurveda describes Ama as a sticky, metabolic residue, and it doesn’t just result from the digestion of foods, but from mental and emotional stress or, for lack of a better term,  ‘stuck-ness.

Kaoverii Weber: Yes, exactly. If we’re not vigilant about our state of mind, it doesn’t matter how many wonderful vitamins and nutrients we take in. The mind is going to convert that stuff into toxicity. That piece has offered me so much solace over the years, just the understanding that I don’t have to be perfect. My diet doesn’t have to be perfect. It can be good and it should be good. But what’s just as important is my state of mind.

If we are hyper-focused on what we eat and drink, we’re not necessarily looking in the right direction. The yogic model tells us to look up into who you are instead of just looking down to the ground for your answers, that it’s not just about nutrition, vitamins and minerals. Instead, the yoga tradition prompts you to look up into who you are and find your source of strength from that direction. Then your life will not necessarily have to be so measured out and so careful.

Ultimately, all the yogic cleaning practices are important and useful, but the most important way to cleanse the body, from a yoga perspective, is to look into our spiritual source, look to what fills us with light, what fills us with happiness, what fills us with contentment and peacefulness. Then what we take into our body is much more likely to be converted into healthful nutrition, as opposed to toxins.

YogaUOnline: What are some of the symptoms of toxicity that might indicate that you have too much Ama, too many toxins in your body—whether it be mental toxins or just metabolic residue of incomplete digestion?

Kaoverii Weber: Well, fatigue, lack of energy or zest for live is one typical sign. Incomplete digestion is another big sign that something isn’t right, either constipation, loose stools, or undigested food or mucus in the stool. Also, skin issues are a sign that detoxification would be a good idea. Headaches often are another indication.

These are early warning signs that the body’s internal balance is disturbed. But before it gets to the point of disease, we can work with cleansing practices that can help us bring the body back to balance. And with this, there are things we can do that are very manageable and gentle, and don’t involve intense detoxification.

But it’s important to pay attention to the signs we’re getting from our bodies, and to work with the cleansing practices a little more strongly, if we need to in order to help prevent later stages of disease.

YogaUOnline: When we think of cleansing and detoxification, we think about preventing disease and pave the way for healthy aging. However, for the ancient yogis, keeping the Nadis open and clear was really a matter of facilitating the flow of vital energy, or Prana. So, from that perspective, cleansing practices are really a preparation for spiritual deepening and spiritual experience. Could you talk about the Nadi system and how that relates to spiritual efforts? I think, according to the Indian tradition, there is said to be seventy-two thousand Nadis in the body.

Kaoverii Weber: Yes, it’s fascinating, isn’t it? When we in the West think about detoxification, we think about the gross organs, the liver, the kidneys, the digestive tract. But clearly, there is a flow through the entire body, and that gets stuck on other levels as well.

Certainly, that’s how acupuncture works, the idea is to release blocks in the subtle energy flow. That principle is common in all the oriental, the Asian medicines: If  we can unblock the flow of energy in the subtle body, it will affect the gross body in a deeper way, than if we were to go in the other direction.

This is exactly what I was talking about with toxicity, or mental and emotional ama, being on the level of both the mind and the body. There are the deep Samskara patterns that all of us have and all of us need to work with. If we can release energy from the blockages of the mind, it can then flow into the gross body. And the gross body will benefit greatly from shifts that we make in the way that we think.

So it’s a two-way street. The body fixes the mind, the mind fixes the body. In our culture, we tend to overemphasize the body. We tend to think that if we fix everything with the body, everything else will be alright, the mind will be alright. That comes from a materialistic reductionist worldview that we have long embraced in the West.

The yogic system gives us a much bigger picture and offers a different perspective on how we can influence the body and the mind. It offers a bigger perspective, that there are other ways we can do this.

Also check out Kaoverii's course on Yoga U Online:
Yoga Detox Practices for Long -Term Health

Kristine Kaoverii Weber is is the director of the Subtle Yoga Teacher Training and Personal Transformation Program, which offers a 200-hr. teacher training for social workers. She is also the author of Self-Healing Massage. Kaoverii has been teaching yoga since 1996, and has a background in Viniyoga, Iyengar, and Anusara Yoga. In her yoga teaching, her focus is to assist students in discovering optimal alignment and flow of Prana in their practice as well as to help students experience their yoga practice as a vehicle for self-transformation.

Also check out Kaoverii's online course:

Yoga Detox Practices for Long-term Health

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A Teacher of Teachers—Iyengar Yoga Teacher Karin O-Bannon and the Moment that Changed My Life

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By Christie Hall

In this blog post, writer Christie Hall portrays her first meeting with her teacher Karin O'Bannon, and how it forever changed the trajectory of her life. Karin O’Bannon became an Iyengar Senior Intermediate 3 teacher in 1996. She influenced students across the globe, from Los Angeles to Louisiana and Georgia to Taiwan to Rishikesh. She died June 10, 2013. She had been a yoga teacher for more than 30 years. 

For some yoga students, the act of walking into a yoga class is a leap of faith.  It’s true for many of my students, who bring woes ranging from gout to bulging vertebral discs to post-traumatic stress disorder.

That I am standing in front of them teaching yoga is an act of faith as well. I must constantly draw on the words of the teacher who taught me to teach, Karin O’Bannon, Iyengar yoga teacher and teacher of teachers.

She asked me on my third day of yoga teacher training if I was teaching anywhere. I stammered, that, no, I wasn’t.

Was she crazy? Here I was with all these people who were actually GOOD at the poses. And she addressed me while I was struggling my way into Ardha Chandrasana, my elevated leg mere inches from the floor, restricted by such impacted hip joints that two years later I would have them both replaced. My back was to the wall, and my hand was on a chair seat.

“You should be.”

I was shocked. I was there because my teacher at a health club had urged me to get some training so I could sub for her.  After my first day of class that June day in 1997, I was sure I could never teach, but I was there to get more of the learning Karin provided, which had immediately taken hold of my heart.

I struggled with more than my utter inability to do the poses with even 10 percent of the quality of my fellow students.

I struggled with the concept of ishwara pranidhana, surrender to God. As an atheist, I didn’t even know how to begin to deal with this. A few weeks later, though, Karin gave me something to hold on to. In response to an assignment, I had written that at the end of a yoga class, I felt that the possibilities of all the individuals within the class were magnified far beyond the strength of any imagining. She had written: “For some, this is God.”

When I started teaching later that year, it was with her faith in me.

Over the years, perhaps encouraged by my own limitations, students came to me with problems and encouraged friends to come, too. Their courage inspired me. Over time they learned to have faith in yoga. When they thanked me, I had to point out that they were the ones doing the heavy hauling, that it was the yoga and their work that they should thank.

One day in 2010, a 30-something student came to my class who was in such immense mental pain that I felt overwhelmed. I was so frightened of doing her harm. I contacted one teacher by e-mail. She told me to trust my instincts. I realized later that what I came to trust was the student’s determination to heal herself and the ability of the yoga itself.

A few months later, I was able to see my teacher Karin and ask her directly for advice. (She had moved to India a few years earlier and then had moved back to Louisiana.) She said the same thing, to trust my instincts. Then she looked me straight in the eye and said: “And know that she is a gift.” I had no idea what she meant at the time.

Her workshop that evening touched on Sutra 2.15, that it was the “axial aphorism” for the entire text.

“The wise man knows that owing to fluctuations, the qualities of nature, and subliminal impressions, even pleasant experiences are tinged with sorrow, and he keeps aloof from them.  (Translation: Edwin F. Bryant.)”

Eventually our discussion went to ishwara pranidhana, my old nemesis, as she knew. And she said it might also refer to surrender to “absolute truth.” As a former journalist, I found the idea of an absolute truth perhaps even more difficult to grasp than the concept of a supreme soul.

The 30-something woman and I attended the Iyengar yoga conference in Washington, D.C., in May 2012, in large part to be able to study again with Karin. We also attended Professor Fred Smith’s discussion of the Yoga Sutras. Here I came across another explanation of the niyama: surrender to the “lord of yoga”, to trust in the act, the doing of yoga.

I thought I had come to that point, teaching as an act of faith in yoga. Then, in April 2013, I learned my teacher Karin is terminally ill, and I realized that, no, I was still teaching from her faith in me. Without her, how could I find the courage to keep teaching?

Student by student, the answer has come. Sometimes from someone who knows I am quavering, but as often not. Over the past weeks, many students have told me that I am an inspiration and that is why they have found healing in yoga. Rather like when I heard my teacher Karin, I have no idea what they mean. I am so very ordinary. But I find that I must accept their faith if I am to keep on teaching.

And so the gift I have wanted to give my students, faith in yoga, has come rebounding back, multiplied many times over.

Christie Hall became a full-time yoga teacher in 2004 after asking Karin’s advice and receiving her encouragement to do so. 

Christie Hall began studying yoga in 1995 to cope with crippling back pain. Her home practice started with the book, Yoga: The Iyengar Way. She started teaching in 1997 after studying with Iyengar teacher Karin O'Bannon and she has studied as student and as teacher exclusively with Iyengar teachers, including BKS Iyengar in Colorado in 2005 and Geeta Iyengar in 2007. More of her writings can be found on her blog: www.pratipaksha.com. Her Web site is www.christieyoga.com.


 

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Study: Yoga Offers Encouraging Mental Health Benefits

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Mental illness is a significant health concern worldwide, in spite of increasing improvements in treatment modalities and access to care. And, while the number of medications that are available for mental health disorders has been increasing, drugs are often very expensive, have significant side effects, and don’t necessarily offer the desired results.

In this environment, it is generally recognized that there is a need for safe, cost-effective forms of treatment for mental illness. A number of studies looking at the effects of yoga for people with mental health issues have shown promising preliminary results. But does the cumulative evidence across studies support the use of yoga to help offer relief for depression and other forms of mental illness? 

This was the question asked by a group of researchers at Duke University, who set out to examine the evidence across a number of studies for the usefulness of yoga for mental health disorders. 

To answer the question, the researchers conducted a review of studies on the mental health benefits of yoga. They initially looked at a pool of 124 studies, but only 16 studies met the rigorous criteria for final inclusion in the review. Specifically included were studies on the effects of yoga on depression, schizophrenia, ADHD, sleep complaints, eating disorders, and cognition problems. The study was published in the January 2013 issue of Frontiers of Psychiatry.

Across multiple studies, the review found, there is cumulative evidence for the usefulness of yoga as an adjunct modality in the treatment several mental health issues.

In particular, studies have consistently shown potential benefit for depression and for schizophrenia (as an adjunct to drugs treatments), as well as for sleep complaints and for children with ADHD.
 
The review also found that yoga may balance biochemical markers thought to play a role in mental health. One of the studies included indicated that a regular yoga asana practice affects neurotransmitters as well as markers of inflammation, oxidative stress, lipids, and growth factors. Other significant benefits noted above drug therapy were the absence of side effects, the low cost of practicing the postures, good accessibility, and general improvement of the patients’ level of fitness. 
 
Still, while results are promising, more rigorous research with larger groups is required, the researchers concluded. The studies revealed conflicting results for cognitive and eating disorders, and none of the existing studies looked at issues around primary and relapse prevention, or compared the effectiveness of yoga therapies versus drug therapies.
 
 
Source
Yoga on Our Minds: A Systematic Review of Yoga for Neuropsychiatric Disorders
Meera Balasubramaniam, Shirley Telles, and P. Murali Doraiswamy
Front Psychiatry. 2012; 3: 117. Published online 2013 January 25. 

 

 

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New Documentary Portrays the Work of B.K.S. Iyengar

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B.K.S. Iyengar

 




“One cannot begin work on a sculpture without courage.
The nature of a stone is that it is strong;
To transform it into a sculpture, and see the God within it,
Requires immense strength.
If one gives up or is daunted by the strength of the stone or injuries,
the sculpture will never come to life.”

An Indian stone carver, in Sadhaka: The Yoga of BKS Iyengar 
 
Courage, transformation, strength. These are among the many qualities described in a new documentary called Sadhaka: The Yoga of BKS Iyengar by director Jake Clennell and executive producer and senior Iyengar teacher Lindsey Clennell.  
 
B.K.S. Iyengar is known worldwide as a preeminent yoga teacher, and a leading force in bringing yoga to the U.S. The books of Mr. Iyengar have been published worldwide, and his resources support schools and a hospital in his native village in Southern India. 
 
Born a crippled child, yoga strengthened him and transformed his body. Mr. Iyengar’s own physical limitations led him to develop his own unique yoga style that he has taught to multitudes. His contributions to bringing yoga to the masses led Time magazine to recognize him on its list of the world’s most influential people, and he has been awarded the equivalent of a knighthood by the Indian government. At 94 years old, Mr. Iyengar is still active in his own yoga practice. 
 
The documentary highlights the life and teachings of Mr. Iyengar to give viewers a chance to learn about this great man and get a sense of the style of yoga he has developed. To Mr. Iyengar, ‘the body is the temple, and yoga asanas are the prayers.’ 
 
In his own life, he has exemplified the transformative power of yoga for body, mind, and spirit. Through his extensive and creative use of props, Mr. Iyengar has made yoga accessible to everyone, no matter which physical limitations they may bring to the practice.
 
The documentary also demonstrates the powerful effects of yoga on drug addicts and orphans, helping those living confused and painful lives to align with deeper parts of themselves.
 
Crowd-Funding Efforts Offer 22-Minute Preview of Iyengar Documentary
To capture an extended excerpt of the movie, check out the 22-minute trailer at the crow-funding website Indigogo. And should you feel inspired to do so, contribute to help move the documentary into the post-production phase.
 
The first three years of making this film were funded by the director and producer, and the intent now is to raise enough money to take the documentary through post-production. Supporters will receive recognition for their contributions based on the size of their gifts. Once this film is completed, proceeds from the sales and screenings will go to the B.K.S. Iyengar Foundation in support of Bellur Village schools and the local hospital there.
 
 

 

 

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Yoga May Decrease Health Complications of Diabetes

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The number of people affected with type 2 diabetes has reached epidemic proportions worldwide, with the highest level of increase yearly seen among seniors aged 65 and above. Diabetes often carries with it numerous adverse complications in those suffering from the condition, and people with diabetes are at higher risk for heart disease, bone and joint issues, and skin disorders.

A recent study conducted in India may offer preliminary evidence that yoga may have preventive and protective effects for this people with diabetes by reducing stress and improving the antioxidant defense system. 
 
This study included 143 people between the ages of 60 and 70 with Type 2 Diabetes. Each had a five to ten year history of Type 2 diabetes with poor glycemic control. Participants were all middle class, literate, living with their families, and they continued with their conventional medications without changing any dosages. 

During the study, half the participants were assigned to a study group, which practiced yoga under the guidance of an experienced yoga teacher for 90 minutes daily for three months. The control group participated in a comparable control session. 

Blood work was conducted for both groups (glucose, lipid profile, cortisol, and others) at the beginning of the study and on day 90. At the end of the three months, the yoga group showed a decrease in fasting glucose, total cholesterol, triglyceride, LDL-cholesterol, T.chol/HDL ratio and a significant increase in good HDL – cholesterol. 

In addition, yoga participants also showed significantly decreased levels of the stress hormone cortisol, while participants in the control group had increased cortisol levels. Stress is thought to aggravate diabetes; studies have shown that cortisol level tends to increase along with the severity of the condition. Increasing cortisol have been strongly associated with increasing pathophysiology in people suffering from diabetes.
Several markers of oxidative stress also improved in the study group, another encouraging finding, as oxidative stress also plays a major role in the development of health complications in people suffering from type 2 diabetes mellitus. 

The slow rhythmic movements of yoga postures stimulate organs and glands with easy bending and extensions, whereas aerobic exercise can be less effective for older population groups, because of the strenuousness of the movements required.  

Although yoga won’t offer a cure for diabetes, study results indicate that the ancient practice of hatha yoga can help keep the symptoms of diabetics under control and to protect against long-term complications. As such, a regular yoga practice may be a useful complement to other lifestyle changes that can help manage the condition and reduce long-term health complications.

 
Source
Yogic practice and diabetes mellitus in geriatric patients by Rani K Beena and E Sreekumaran
International Journal of Yoga. 2013 Jan-Jun; 6(1): 47–54.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3573543/?report=reader
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3573543/?report=reader#!po=3.57143

 

 

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Yoga in the Era of the Rock Star Yoga Teacher

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By Carol Horton, Ph.D.

I used to assume that the reason that famous yoga teachers were famous was because they were better at yoga than others. After all, every field has its exceptional geniuses: there's lot of rock musicians out there, but a John Lennon doesn't come along too often. So when I thought about famous yoga teachers, I fit them into this paradigm, e.g.: B.K.S. Iyengar is to yoga as the Beatles were to rock. 

Certainly, in the case of Mr. Iyengar (and some others), I still think this is true. But in the past 15 years, yoga has become a multi-billion dollar "industry” and the number of famous “rock star” yoga teachers has grown proportionately. You no longer have to be a genius, who has profoundly influenced the development of modern yoga in order to achieve fame. Today, with so many yoga classes, studios, students, retreats, and products on the market, it's a whole different ball game.

Given the enormous influence that yoga teachers can have on their students, it’s useful to reflect on the qualities that can vault a yoga teacher to prominence today. 

The Rock Star Yoga Teacher: What Does It Take?

What does it take for a yoga teacher to become a famous teacher in the U.S. today? Off the top of my head, I'd suggest the following: 
  
1) Kick-Ass Asana Chops. Teachers who can do amazing things with their bodies wow students. It's impressive, exciting, and can be inspiring. Also, because so many Americans assume that yoga is asanas, pure and simple, being able to do advanced poses is taken to mean being “good at yoga” as a whole.

2) Good Looks. Our society places a huge premium on physical attractiveness. Particularly for women, fitting into mainstream standards of what's considered beautiful generates attention and admiration. While men have a bit more leeway, it certainly doesn’t hurt them to be good looking, either.

3) Charisma. While harder to identify than beauty or asana chops, charisma is actually much more important. Max Weber classically defined charisma as "a certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities . . . not accessible to the ordinary person." Powerful in any field, charisma is a particularly good fit with yoga, where students are primed to search for a guru, teacher, or leader who can guide them toward the transformation that more powerful forms of the practice can provide.

4) Business Savvy. As the yoga industry, like American society in general, has become more competitive, business savvy has become increasingly important. Yoga teachers need to make a living, too. But with zillions of recent yoga teacher training grads, not to mention Pilates, Zumba, spinning, and other popular fitness options competing for the potential yoga student’s time and money, how does the individual teacher stand out from the crowd? It’s not easy. Having a good head for business helps. 

Is That It?

Am I suggesting that all famous yoga teachers are simply charismatic, attractive gymnasts with a strong business sense? No. I myself have studied with several famous yoga teachers who were famous for good reasons – e.g., they had a depth of knowledge about yoga and ability to communicate it to students that was simply exceptional.

I do think, however, that in today’s environment, these are the qualities that will help someone become “successful” in the sense of being able to attract big numbers of students to their classes, teach nationally or even internationally, sell DVDs or other tie-ins, etc. The qualities of exceptional athleticism, good looks, charisma, and business savvy dovetail with what American culture values more generally. 

I’ve experienced this directly myself. About 18 months ago, I stopped attending the yoga class I’d been going to for years and spent a few months experimenting with new classes. What I saw made a big impression on me. 

I remember going to one class with maybe 80 students packed in mat-to-mat. The teacher bounced in like a radiant cheerleader: pretty, confident, eye-catching, smiling, bestowing good vibes on the crowd. She led us through a nice workout that left me feeling like I’d had some exercise, but not done any yoga. Aside from a brief New Age-y reading at the beginning and end of class, there wasn’t anything that distinguished it from a “normal” exercise class – no work with the breath, no attention to mental focus, and no meditative dimension.

Soon after that, I went to a class led by a woman who’d been teaching in the Chicago area for well over a decade. Her hair was streaked with grey and she had a quiet manner. She was not charismatic. I knew that she’d travelled to India and New York multiple times for intensive study with renowned yoga teachers. Her class had had incredible focus, energy, and depth. It had six people in it. 

As I left the studio, I thought: Wow. She’s been teaching in this city for as long as I can remember and she only has six students in her class? And it was a great class! I found this surprising, and disheartening.
Ethical Ambiguity
 
Of course, someone can have asana chops, good looks, charisma, and business savvy in spades, and also be an incredible yoga teacher.

The problem, however, is that our culture holds these qualities up as an indicator of what’s valuable, aspirational, and admirable. We assume that someone who can float from Crow to Handstand in the middle of the room is “better” at yoga than the rest of us, who can’t imagine accomplishing such a feat.

In fact, however, the ability to perform such a pose is ethically neutral. The person who achieves it may have the personal qualities of a saint, an a-hole, or anything in between.

Similarly, we tend to see physical attractiveness as worthy of admiration in ways that it doesn’t merit at all. Particularly in the yoga world, which has a strong aesthetic sense, we tend to feel that a teacher’s beauty imbues her with other qualities that she may or may not really have: equanimity, compassion, understanding, etc.

Charisma poses the trickiest issue, because it is the most invisible yet the most powerful attribute contributing to fame. While charisma can be harnessed to truly effective teaching, it can also be used to manipulate, dominate, and disempower. All of the cult leaders who have eventually fallen from the weight of years of abuse inflicted on their students were powerfully charismatic. Charismatic leaders can twist meanings so effectively that their followers become completely out of touch with reality. This can be extremely dangerous.

Similarly, business savvy is an ethically neutral talent. It’s possible to be in business and be visionary, responsible, and positive. It’s equally possible to be reactionary, manipulative, and negative. You can succeed financially either way. Sure, it’s probably harder to stay on the high road. But it’s certainly not impossible.

Bottom Line

The bottom line is that I no longer assume that more “successful” yoga teachers are somehow “better” at yoga than those who aren’t. I don’t hold their fame against them. But I don’t consider it a guarantee of anything that I value, either.

Conversely, I don’t assume that because a teacher has only a small number of students in her class that she’s lacking something important. (In fact, the one class that I make an effort to go to regularly is quite small.) A teacher may have small classes, because she is new, inexperienced, and not capable of leading stellar classes. But it may just as well be because she is seasoned, knowledgeable, and committed to teaching classes that are true to her practice and don’t cater to mass market tastes.

The American yoga world is changing fast. As such, it’s a particularly important time to reflect on just how ambiguous the relationship between market success and ethical substance really is. We need to think carefully into the dynamics of what makes one particular method or teacher more popular than others. Most of all, we need to question the commonly assumption that “successful” necessarily means “better.” It doesn’t.
Share Your Thoughts! Has yoga become a mile wide and an inch deep, as Judith Hanson Lasater once put it? Or is the teaching of yoga just right? Share your thoughts below (comments are moderate to avoid spam, so it may take a short while for comments to appear).

An earlier version of this article was originally posted on Think Body Electric

Carol Horton, Ph.D., is the author of Yoga PhD: Integrating the Life of the Mind and the Wisdom of the Body (Kleio Books, 2012); and Race and the Making of American Liberalism (Oxford University Press, 2005). She is also the co-editor (with Roseanne Harvey) of 21st Century Yoga: Culture, Politics and Practice (Kleio Books, 2012). Carol holds a doctorate in Political Science from the University of Chicago, served on the faculty at Macalester College, and has extensive experience as a research consultant specializing in issues affecting low-income children and families. A Certified Forrest Yoga teacher, Carol teaches yoga to women in the Cook County Jail with Yoga for Recovery, and at Chaturanga Holistic Fitness in Chicago. To learn more, visit her website at carolhortonphd.com.

 

 

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Artist Robert Sturman on Yoga and The Poetry of the Body

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Robert Sturman

 



Robert Sturman, an artist from Santa Monica, Calif., recently traveled to Kenya to document the work of the Africa Yoga Project, a nonprofit organization that teaches and employs more than 70 local yoga teachers and conducts up to 300 free yoga classes for more than 5,000 people weekly in orphanages, prisons and other locales throughout the country. 

The result? A series of stunning photos that capture just how universal a language yoga has become.
 
“Yoga is a beautiful, poetic expression of the body,” Sturman tells the New York Times in this interview, which also displays a sampling of his stunning photos. “I wanted to go to Africa to celebrate human beings aspiring to reach their full potential.” 
 
More than perhaps any artist before him, Sturman has made it his mission in life to capture the poetry of the body via yoga asanas.
 
"It is the study of yoga that has triggered one of the most creative periods of Sturman's career, resulting in a series of stunning portraits that capture the beauty and poetry of asana, the repertory of postures included in the practice of yoga." says Tara Parker-Pope in The New York Times.
 
The visit to document the wok of the Africa Yoga Project proved memorable. Sturman traveled to orphanages, prisons, and remote villages.

“Visiting the Kenyan prison brought me unexpected joy,” says Sturman to The New York Times. The inmates, some of whom are H.I.V.-positive, told me that yoga has become a rare source of happiness in their daily lives. After a yoga class, I looked at the people in the class and I saw the hope in their eyes that they could become a part of something positive."
 
For more on Sturman and his beautiful photography of yoga asana, visit his website at RobertSturmanStudio.com

 

 

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Yoga in Encinitas Schools – Trial on Hold till Late June

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The trial challenging the teaching of yoga in the PE program of the Encinitas Union School District has been put on hold till June 24, pending the testimony of more witnesses before closing arguments.

“This is 21st century P.E. (physical education) for our schools. It’s physical. It’s strength-building. It increases flexibility but it also deals with stress reduction and focusing, which kickball doesn't do,” says Superintendent of EUSD, Timothy Baird, who testified at the trial. 
At the heart of the issue is the attempt to define yoga narrowly as either religious or not. 
 
As author Philip Goldberg points out in a blog post on Huffpost, entitled, The Encinitas Yoga Case: Yoga Is Religious, Only It's Not.
 
“Yoga" means different things to different people, has a broad spectrum of applications and can legitimately be presented in a variety of formats, contexts and rubrics. In fact, its adaptability is among its greatest strengths.
 
If yoga is interpreted as religious, it must be the most nonsectarian, nondenominational, trans-traditional, interspiritual, universal expression of religion imaginable. It would also be the least religious of religions, since it demands neither allegiance to a specific tradition, nor faith, nor the acceptance of any doctrine. Few Americans for whom yoga is central to their spiritual lives call themselves religious, and even fewer think of themselves as Hindus. Indeed, none of the gurus and yoga masters who brought yoga to the West ever asked anyone to convert or to accept their teachings on faith. To them, yoga is a practical science that has value for people of any religion.
 
As blogger Carol Horton points out in this blog post on the Encinitas yoga law suit, the basic issue with the case is trying to narrowly define yoga as either religious or not. Yoga as taught in the U.S. today is a varied as the American culture itself. If we try to box it into concepts narrowly defined by prevailing culture wars, everyone loses out. 
 
Watch a brief recap of the case here and stay tuned for more updates when the trial resumes in June:
 

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No More Excuses—The Gift of Yoga

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Reasons people give saying they can’t do yoga:

–I’m too stiff.
–I have arthritis.
–I’m overweight.
–I have a bad back.
–I’m too old.
–I’m a guy.
 
Let me describe the people in one of my recent classes: 
-Their ages range from 42 to 82. 
-One is blind. 
-One has scoliosis and deals with chronic pain from post-polio syndrome. One has fibromyalgia. 
-One’s a guy. 
-Half of them can’t touch their toes. 
 
Let me describe their teacher:
I am 54. I took my first yoga class in 1995, shortly after I learned I had advanced osteoarthritis in my left hip. I had been told at age 25 that I suffered from early-onset joint and disc degeneration and that I had the knees of an 80-year-old. I had my first joint surgery a few months later. It left me more crippled in the knees than before. I had suffered from crippling back pain since I was 18.
 
By the time I took that first yoga class, I could walk about a quarter mile. I could go up and down stairs only with assistance. I had to use my hands to move my feet onto the gas pedal and brake to drive to that first class. I sat on the floor and burst into tears from the pain. My teacher gave me a stack of towels to sit on and I could stop crying. 
 
An hour and 15 minutes later, the back pain was gone.
 
I began studying how to teach and then began teaching yoga in 1997.  Fifteen months later, I had to have that left hip replaced. The doctor told me I would have been there much sooner if it hadn’t been for the yoga. Three months later, I had the second hip replaced. 
 
My recovery period: five weeks. At week four after each replacement, I was walking up and down Mt. Rubidoux, a 3.5-mile round trip on a big hill in my hometown. My doctor also attributed that recovery pace to the yoga. The doctor also noted that my entire spine was degenerating, as were all my joints.
 
In 2004, although my back pain was mostly gone, I was aware that damage existed and I had sharp pain in my neck. I had X-rays and then an MRI done. The lowest disc in my spine was completely gone; next one up was half gone; I had ground bone away from my lowest vertebra; I had bulging discs and bone spurs in my neck. I set to work on the neck problems in my yoga practice, and the pain was gone in about two weeks.
 
When I started practicing yoga, and for years after I started teaching, I couldn’t come anywhere close to touching my toes. I couldn’t do backbends, I couldn’t do forward bends, my standing poses were narrow and wobbly. Even as a teacher, I felt frightened in most poses all the time. I still do.
 
What got me going in yoga: pain.
 
What kept me there: Hope. Hope and inspiration, deriving from the constant, small, but steady progress in dealing with the challenges I have been dealt in life. And ultimately, this is the gift of yoga, and this is what keeps us all coming back to the mat again and again.


 
Christie Hall began studying yoga in 1995 to cope with crippling back pain. Her home practice started with the book, Yoga: The Iyengar Way. She started teaching in 1997 after studying with Iyengar teacher Karin O'Bannon and she has studied as student and as teacher exclusively with Iyengar teachers, including BKS Iyengar in Colorado in 2005 and Geeta Iyengar in 2007. More of her writings can be found on her blog: www.pratipaksha.com. Her Web site is www.christieyoga.com.


 

 

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