Neck-Loading Asana

Dear Yogis.

I’m returning to the  subject covered last week, the thoughts of  David Williams who gave a talk promoting his memoir  My Search For Yoga. This week I want to offer you his thoughts on Shoulder Stand and Headstand. He referred to an old article in Yoga International: Headstand and Shoulder Stand: King and Queen No More. David said he had concluded a while ago that they were not noble postures and that they cause damage.

David says  The Yoga Institute of India, over 100 years old, was telling yogis in the 1920s not to do headstand’. For David, at this stage in his life, his upside down time is when he does Savasana… he’ll put his legs up a wall. This is his time for having his feet above heart. This is how he has evolved the practice to serve him best. He said yoga has always been there to support his life; to make it better.

Here’s the problem, though; people feel nice and a sense of achievement with these royal postures. And because of that sense of triumph, it’s likely that many people ignore the  contraindications for this posture, and the particular needs of their body and the distinctive shape of their spine, and go upside-down anyway!

I hear that many gyms and studios in the US don’t teach Headstand and Shoulder Stand for fear of being sued. In this mobile phone age there is widespread forward head carriage and constant neck loading and the cervical spine isn’t what it was. Anyway, make your own decision but the main thing is to live in your body, love life, enjoy yoga practice and develop confidence, not fear, of being in your body.

Zoom Classes 

I’ve been adding something to class that I saw on daytime TV. It’s  the Hand Walkouts, starting on all fours. The feedback has been… mostly grimaces but I think they were joyful grimaces!  Come and have a go today at 4.30.  

Yoga in the news 

Arab News has:  What We Are Reading Today: Psychology of Yoga and Meditation.   ... Here for the first time are Jung's illuminating lectures on the psychology of yoga and meditation, delivered between 1938 and 1940. Jung discusses the psychological technique of active imagination, seeking to find parallels with the meditative practices of different yogic and Buddhist traditions.

The Houston Chronicle has:  House votes to lift old yoga ban, but don't say Namaste Yoga done in school would be limited to poses and stretches. The bill says the use of chanting, mantras and teaching the greeting “Namaste” would be forbidden.

Times of India has:  What is a yoga butt and how can you fix it? Yoga butt is also known as "dead butt syndrome". The phenomenon is referred to as high hamstrings tendinopathy, where the proximal portion of hamstring muscles gets irritated causing pain in the 'sit bones' region.