Teaching Yoga Classes that Expand Self-Love: Supported Backbends

By: Virginia Iversen, M.Ed 

In a few days, the annual celebration of Valentine's Day will be in full swing. Almost every store is displaying romantic gift items, imported chocolates, iridescent Valentine's Day cards, and even occasionally large teddy bears with hearts decoratively hung around their necks. If you are in a relationship that is mutually satisfying and engaging, these romantic gift items will be appealing and fanciful. However, if you have just left a relationship or you have lost somebody you love, these romantic gifts may generate more pain than happiness.

Much of the time, we are focused on securing our love from the outside. From the time most of us are very young, we are taught that securing an idyllic romantic relationship should be at the top of our priority list. Unfortunately, this unrelenting focus on securing love outside of us tends to create dependency on other people. Of course, when the people to whom we are attached and dependent on for love and support love us in turn, this external dependency is not quite as problematic as when a relationship is not as mutual or beneficial as we would like. 

In addition, when we continually strive and struggle to secure another person's love, we often forget to rest in the spaciousness and kindness of own heart. As a certified Yoga teacher, you have the ability and the opportunity to help your students to reconnect with the love in their own hearts. One of the most effective physical ways of supporting your students in the process of connecting with the love in their own hearts is to guide them through the practice of a series of supported back bending postures. Back bending Yoga postures help to release constriction and tension throughout the front of the chest area, which often becomes closed down when we experience heartbreak and disappointment. 

If you are regularly teaching Yoga classes during the month of February, you may want to creatively sequence your classes to focus on expanding your students' self-love. When your students get in touch with the love in their own hearts, their dependency on romantic relationships will be lessened. By weaving in a number of supported back bending postures into your Yoga classes, you will help your students to release the constriction around the heart and throat chakras, as they replenish their prana or vital life force energy. 

Supported Reclining Goddess Pose is a wonderfully restorative pose that easily lends itself to the generation of self-love and is very approachable for most levels of Yoga students. This expanding back bending posture is usually practiced towards the end of a Yoga class and either in lieu of, or just prior to, the practice of Shavasana. Supported Reclining Goddess Pose is optimally practiced with a number of props. If you are planning on using props during your class, it is advisable to have your students place the props near their Yoga mats at the beginning of class, so the flow of the class is not disrupted when you guide them into supported postures. 

Your students will benefit most optimally from the practice of Supported Reclining Goddess Pose when their legs are supported by rolled blankets or Yoga bolsters and their thoracic spine is supported by a small rolled blanket, placed just under the shoulder blades. It is also lovely to offer your students an eye pillow to place over their eyes for deeper rest and relaxation. As your students rest in this supported back bending Yoga posture, you may wish to gently lead them in the practice of offering loving kindness to those around them. The practice of offering love and kindness to others helps to open the heart, which will increase their awareness of the love that resides in their own being at all times.

Virginia Iversen, M.Ed, has been practicing and studying the art of Yoga for over twenty years. She lives in Woodstock, New York, where she works as a writer and an academic support specialist. She is currently accepting Yoga and health-related writing orders and may be contacted at: enchantress108@gmail.com.

© Copyright 2016 – Virginia Iversen / Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

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Yoga Training for Optimum Spinal Health

By Sangeetha Saran

As most are aware, practicing yoga regularly contributes to the body’s well being. Yoga can strengthen, but can also inform of weakness; if the encounter is with back or neck pain, yogic methods can be beneficial in creating a healthy spine.

Common Complaints

Soreness, stiffness, and achiness, are misalignment signals. The body can easily become imbalanced by everyday factors. Some are: stress, repetitive motion (in the workplace or in a sport), carrying a purse on the same arm, sitting improperly in a chair, poor mattress and pillow, and bad shoes (heels as well as flip-flops).

Serious Complaints

Neck and back pain can be results of true injury or illness. Whiplash, arthritis, nerve degeneration, herniated discs, and sciatica are some causes of spinal discomfort and/or disability. As with most ailments, proper diet and exercise can relieve many symptoms and promote healing. Exercise, specifically applicable to spinal complaints, would be stretching and yoga.

Yoga Application

The vertebral column is categorized into three sections. The lower portion of the back is called the Lumbar. The middle is identified as the thoracic, and the upper, the neck, is the cervical region. Professionals will refer to discs as C2 (cervical 2) or L3 (lumbar 3), for example, when discussing specific backbones. As an instructor and one who practices yoga, it is important to choose poses that emphasize each spinal area.

Poses for the Spine

The Hero Pose (Virasana) is a great posture for aligning the upper back. Kneeling, reaching the torso up, out—pressing the shoulder-blades back. Breathing in deeply, chin up, exhaling, holding the proud posture. Another advantageous position is the Cow Face Pose.

The Half-Moon Pose (Ardha-Chandrasana) is super for stretching the middle back. Lie face down, straight legs, tops of feet flat touching floor, heels touching each other. Palms at side of chest. The move pushes with arms to lift the chest off the ground, head back, chin up, inhaling, and holding. Exhale, slowly releasing chest back to floor.

The Child’s Pose is a perfect lower back stretcher. Kneeling, buttocks down, head down, arms straight, extended, palms on floor. Reaching fingertips way out in front adds to the stretch.

Conclusion

There are virtually hundreds of poses that could benefit spinal relief, promote healing, and strengthen the backbone. Maintaining a steady, yoga training is the key to overall optimum health.

© Copyright 2016 – Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

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Developmental Movement Patterns in Yoga – Healing Strategies

By Kathryn Boland

All individuals have separate levels of quality of life, as well as adaptive functioning in their unique situations. Verified research is continuing to demonstrate how our bodies – including our physical tendencies, strengths, and growth areas - play a central role in those dynamics. Yoga is a body-mind practice that is based in connecting body, mind, and spirit in ways that empower individuals to reach closer to all that they can be. Awareness of how we optimally integrate our bodies through these patterns can lead practitioners and instructors to build and maintain the practices (for ourselves or for our students) that are most true to our bodies.

In less ideal situations, some individuals experience developmental traumas that hinder their abilities to execute certain movement patterns in that sequence. For instance, people could experience significant physical injury or emotional abuse at the age when they were learning how to execute body-half or core-distal movements (as described in the prior article). Those unfortunate instances can cause “gaps”, so to speak, in one’s movement abilities. The results, unsurprisingly enough, can be awkward and/or uncontrolled movement characteristics corresponding with that pattern (difficulty turning in a certain direction with complications in the cross-lateral pattern, for example).

Furthermore, the typical developmental movement sequence builds upon each prior ability (just as children must learn how to add and subtract before we can expect them to succeed in algebra). One “gap” could therefore cause one’s overall movement style to be disintegrated, lacking of flow, and physically unpleasant for that individual. He or she could be completely unaware of how much more enjoyable physical experience could be, however, never having known anything different and most likely just having become accustomed to his/her habitual way of being in his/her body.  We involved with yoga already largely understand that the body and mind are connected in powerful ways. Because of that powerful connection, disrupted developmental movement sequences can affect more than just one’s physical experience; the results can be reductions in functioning and quality of life in emotional, social, intellectual, and spiritual realms.

For instance, one has difficulty balancing because he or she experienced emotional trauma at the age at which he/she was beginning to fine-tune his/her vestibular system (the last step in the developmental movement sequence, as described in the last post). Yoga theory explains how balancing postures are more than about staying still when standing on one leg; they additionally promote our abilities to focus, calm mental “chatter”, and reach feelings of inner stability. It would therefore not be surprising to learn that the described individual has difficulties focusing, making effective plans and staying with them, and remaining calm and collected in challenging situations. The result for him/her could be strained relationships, occupational difficulties, and decreased potential for peaceful life experience. In another example, another individual is uncomfortable with touch, most likely from life-threatening illness in the infancy stage when he/she would normally be learning the pleasures of touch. The unfortunate results for the individual are difficulties with body image, lack of mental flexibility in matters that involve the body, and even strains on intimate relationships.

All of that considered, how could yoga help such individuals correct imbalances and interruptions in their developmental movement sequences? As the prior posts described, yoga has an incredible amount of available tools that can access the tendencies, skills, and growth areas related to those developmentally acquired movement patterns. Take our individual with balancing troubles, for instance. Working specifically on balancing, taking “baby-steps” to new breakthroughs and skills, could help the individual get stronger in that physical ability that he/she could not gain at an earlier time in life.

Instruction on balancing also most often comes with guidance on working towards greater inner focus and calm (as it is indeed necessary for one’s ability to physically balance). The individual would therefore also have a safe space to work towards those skills, in his/her own timing. The result could be not only a more stable and secure experience of life in her or her body, but the same in other aspects of life. Considering our second individual, he or she could work on postures that involve touch – such as Lion Posture (Simhasana), binds, and mudras – in that same gentle and progressive “baby-step” manner as his/her comfort with touch grows. He/she could then, over time, likely become more comfortable with body-related matters and physical intimacy.  Through that the individual could gain an overall enhanced quality of life.

Here I have described how specific approaches in yoga might lead individuals with particular obstacles to their highest possible well being. Many (if not most) yoga instructors guide others in the practice in group – rather than one-on-one – formats, however. It may therefore be useful to also look at how we can use this knowledge of developmental movement patterning to guide a group of diverse individuals - with various strengths and growth areas in body, mind and spirit – to greater holistic well being. Stay tuned for the next, and last, post in this series that will focus on that consideration. Namaste!

© Copyright 2016 – Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

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Spring into Action with Yoga: Sun Salutations

By: Virginia Iversen, M.Ed

As the sun is beginning to peak through the high clouds, we are all reminded that spring really is on its way, albeit quite slowly this year. It is a few days after the spring equinox, and the rays of the sun are just beginning to exude their usual warmth. Slowly, the ice and snow that has lain steady all winter, is beginning to melt and enliven the seedlings in the earth. In this same way, you may be feeling the exuberance of new life and energy stirring within you during this time of the year. 

Many dedicated Yoga students and teachers begin new undertakings during the spring, as they set into motion the steps necessary to accomplishing their goals in the months to come. This sense of power, direction and self-esteem are all related to the solar plexus, which is the location of the Manipura Chakra, in the Yogic understanding of the human energy body. The solar plexus is also known as the Third Chakra. It is associated with the glowing, yellow of the energizing rays of the sun as it moves towards its zenith point during the summer solstice. 

This inner sun can be enlivened and stoked by a regular practice of Yoga postures, breathing exercises and visualization practices. This is particularly true of flowing, vigorous Yoga poses that increase the flow of energy and fresh oxygen throughout the body-mind complex. It is not uncommon for our vital life force energy to be dampened during the cold, winter months, particularly if you live in a temperate geographical area that receives abundant snow and has single digit temperatures for much of the winter! 

By regularly practicing a series of flowing Yoga postures, such as the Sun Salutation, you will stimulate the flow of new energy and vitality for the warm spring and summer months ahead. If you regularly practice a series of Yoga postures, heating pranayama exercises and empowering visualizations, you will truly be ready to spring into action in the coming months. As many Yoga practitioners begin to transition from the internal focus of winter to the more active, outgoing energy of summer, engaging in a balanced flow of asanas and breathing exercises will help to generate new energy and enthusiasm for building the life of your dreams. 

The Sun Salutation, or Surya Namaskar, are a series of twelve Yoga postures that are linked together by the breath and with the vinyasa of linking the poses together by flowing in and out of Downward Facing Dog and Urdhva Mukha Svanasana, or Upward Facing Dog. This series of Yoga postures enlivens the entire body, both through the postures themselves and by riding the wave of the breath, as each postures flows into the next. If you would like a detailed description of each posture of the Sun Salutation, please refer to a reputable Yoga website or manual that outlines the full flow of this ancient practice. You may also wish to take some classes with a certified Yoga teacher in your neighborhood, in order to learn the correct flow and alignment of the postures. 

A very holistic way to support your body and mind in the process of transitioning from the internal, quieter season of winter to the more active, energetic seasons of spring and summer, is to engage in a Yoga practice that is balanced between an active sequence of flowing, standing postures, including Surya Namaskar A and B, with the more internally-focused practice of Yin Yoga poses. Yin Yoga poses are deeply effective at releasing tension that resides in the connective tissueand fascia of the body. These slower moving postures are a wonderful balance to the more active flowing sequences, which heat the body and prepare you to spring into action in the sun-drenched months ahead.

Virginia Iversen, M.Ed, has been practicing and studying the art of Yoga for over twenty years. She lives in Woodstock, New York; where she specializes in writing customized, search engine-optimized articles that are 100% unique. She is currently accepting Yoga and health-related writing orders and may be contacted at: enchantress108@gmail.com. 

© Copyright 2015 – Virginia Iversen / Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

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