A few weeks ago, when I was commuting, I noticed a blind man in the metro station walking in an insecure manner. He almost lost his balance when he stepped onto the elevator. He did have a cane but seemed unsure how to probe the surroundings with it. I grabbed his arm and helped him down the elevator, then to the carriage and finally to his destination which luckily was very close to mine. While sitting in the carriage, we had a chat about life and things and I asked him what he had been listening to with his wireless earphones when I met him looking lost in the metro station. He said that he had been listening to an application to induce delta brain waves. Perhaps, I suggested the man politely, this was not a good idea. Delta waves are the ones which are most dominant during our deep dreamless sleep and in deep meditation. But how safe is for someone who lacks one sense – seeing – to trick the mind into the state of complete relaxation and rest while walking busy places, filled with people, moving objects and uneven ground?

Brainwaves are a fascinating topic. Scientifically they came to the picture in the early 20^th century when electroencephalography (EEG) enabled to start measuring electric activities in the brains of humans. A lot regarding the function of different brainwaves is still a guesswork so be careful with what to read and believe, including the below.

Yoga, as one of its ground principles according to the Bible of Yoga – Yoga Sutras of Patanjali – goes, can reduce modifications/fluctuations/waves (vritti in Sanskrit) of mind. 2^nd principle of yoga: Yogas citta vrtti nirodah. Reducing fluctuations of mind does not sound very scientific but there are 5 vrittis (modifications/fluctuations) as there are 5 primary brainwaves. Even more interestingly – dominance or lack or activity of certain brainwaves affects cognition, knowledge, imagination, sleep and memory (the 5 vrittis).  When scientifically observed and measured, practicing yoga teaches the mind to activate lower frequency brainwaves. The dominance of lower frequency brainwaves enables the body to relax and the mind to become calmer. Reducing the frequency helps turning senses inward, to focus, to memorize better. Running on lower frequencies also helps relieving anxiety, fears, misconceptions.

While I am writing this, a lot is still guessed about the purpose of the brain waves and how they affect the consciousness. The waves are the result of electrical activity in the brain, the wave like change in the electric current (oscillations) of neurons. Those waves exist in all mammals, humans are not exceptional. But let’s go through those five waves and what is known about them. Note that the waves are measured in Hertz (cycle per second).

• Delta is a slow brainwave 0.1-4HZ that becomes dominant in deep sleep. Delta activity is big in babies and children and subdued in the elderly. If impaired, the lack of delta activity can cause insomnia and block healing (growing in children). There is a clear connection between delta wave disorders (low activity in deep sleep or too little sleep) and sleeping disorders. During active delta, the metabolism slows down.
• Theta is also a slow brainwave, about 4-8HZ. It is active in sleep (with dreams) and during meditation. Its function is associated with memory as theta activity seems to increase during tasks which require memory and special navigation.
• Alpha is a little faster brain wave, about 7-12 HZ. Alpha waves first appear when we turn about 3 years old. It is active during wakeful relaxation, especially with eyes closed. As soon as we open them, beta waves will activate.
• Beta wave is even faster, about 12-38 HZ. It is active when we are awake, conscious and making decisions, solving problems, logical tasks, learning new things. It is overactive when we are stressed and the wave gets more active as we age. Active beta is never a relaxed state of mind for the mind nor the body. Beta running on the higher end of the frequency is associated with stress, excessive production of adrenaline, continuous signals to the sympathetic nervous system – the flight-and-flight mode.
• Gamma waves are the fastest – 25-100 HZ, the “normal” frequency at 40 HZ. The function of this wave is disputed over but as this wave sweeps about 40 times per second from the back of the brain to the front, it seems to create our self-awareness or cognitive awareness, perception. This idea is supported by the fact that this wave stops with people in coma or anesthesia. Gamma waves are also related to the binding problem – combining separate associations and memories into single experience. It is also associated with shared experiences or being on the same “wave length” with other people. It is assumed that gamma waves are to do with creating the experiences/associations/feelings of love and compassion. It has also been observed that some synchronizing of gamma waves occurs with people who are present in the same location, especially during meditation.

How are those waves connected to yoga practice? Well, each time electrodes are put around the scalp of experienced yogis or monks who practice meditation, it has been observed that they have more control of their brain wave activity. They relax easier and are sometimes able to have delta activity during meditation, not only in deep sleep.  And by controlling their brain waves they have shown that they have a better control over their bodies. Sometimes to the level of extraordinary.

Often people practice yoga because they wish to become more flexible. But yoga is first and foremost an exercise of the mind. Taming your brain waves could be one of the reasons to step on the yoga mat.

Kairi

More reading:
Wikipedia on brain waves
http://upliftconnect.com/brainwaves/
http://www.brainworksneurotherapy.com/what-are-brainwaves

Yoga is yoking and purification. One famous yoga teacher, T.K.V. Desikachar, once said that yoga is 90% waste removal. But some things are ugly about the people and gurus who practice yoga. If you want to keep your rose-tinted glasses on, do not read further. Because from now on I will focus on drawing apart the golden show-off curtains which hide some ugly stuff behind them.

Take the name I mentioned – T.K.V. Desikaschar. His son, who continued his father’s yoga legacy and whose waste obviously was not removed – was accused of psychopathic misuse of power and sexual harassment in 2012. He was cleared of all the charges (by European women) but he is not alone. Sexual harassment, even rape is common in India. To sexually harass female spiritual travelers in yoga sanctuaries is not uncommon. But many women choose not to speak about it in the public. During their stay in India they get to hear that the police is so corrupt that to press charges against a famous yoga guru is useless as he can easily buy silence. Yes, of course it is complicated as India stinks of corruption.

I have never tried to purify my spirit with slimy yoga gurus in ashrams in India. This just does not suit my philosophy about yoga which should not be associated with one nation, religions and one, assertedly holy language (Sanskrit). I feel rather happy with what I have managed to pick up from masters outside India. But the stories I have heard from devastated women who went to find themselves and came back more lost than ever are sad and have made me wonder why. Here are some reasons.

Rape is one of the most common crimes against women in India according to the people who know the statistics but only 5-6% of cases are reported. In Dehli in 2015 there were on average 6 reported rapes and 15 molestations of women each day. If only 6% gets reported there were in fact 250 rapes and 550 molestations a day. Horrible numbers!

Cases where women have traveled back to Europe from their yoga retreats and spoken about experiencing sexual harassment, have increased. Lately, an article shared by Ulrica Norberg, one of my yoga teachers who is among the best in Scandinavia, caught my eye. It was about an American woman who was raped by a famous yoga teacher in a famous yoga studio in India in 2013 but had extreme difficulties convincing the authorities and Yoga Alliance to take action. In 2017 (4 years later!!!) she finally succeeded. Many would have given up.

I am supporting a project called “Invisible Girl” which wants to stop gendercide in India. Women still have a lower ranking regardless of the caste they belong to. If you are a female Dalit – the untouchable, the “oppressed” in Sanskrit – you are less than the particle of dirt. Yoga gurus in India can make fun of you, most of you treat you like you do not exist. As a Dalit which represents almost 20% of the total population in India (which is locked out of yoga rooms) you may be entitled to clean the toilets in an ashram but not to learn yoga from a guru.

Women have kept themselves hiding in the shadows and let male yoga gurus show off in the limelight.  But discriminating female yoga gurus happens even outside India. Type “yoga guru” in google search and you will not see women on the front seat. And even when they come to the spotlight, many good female yogis still prefer to attach themselves to male gurus. It is like buying an unnecessary insurance to protect against the lack of self-confidence and societal prejudice which has a preconceived idea that you are not good enough if you have not learnt from a male yoga master.

But in India, the cradle of yoga, discriminating women, lessening their worth and making their life miserable, continues. Please take in some figures – five million to seven million sex-selective abortions are carried out in India every year. And it is getting worse – in 2001, India’s census recorded a child sex ratio of around 93 girls to every 100 boys. By 2016, according to the World Economic Forum, the ratio was closer to 89.

There are many Hindu deities which according to old legends and religious texts have raped women. Hindu gods are of course not alone, other religions have similar stories – Zeus (Greek) and Odin (Scandinavian) were also famous for seducing women. But you do not chant Zeus or Odin’s name during your yoga practice. In many different yoga forms, mantras are used. Most of the mantras contain the name(s) of (a) Hindu god(s). Or their nicknames and they have many. What if you chant earnestly an alternative name of a god who entertained himself by raping women? Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma, etc, etc – they all did. What an unnecessary mantra. Given personally to you by your male yoga guru, namaste!

Back to “the future”. BBC in April 11, 2016: “A Hindu religious leader who said last year that allowing women into a shrine devoted to Lord Shani will increase rapes has drawn criticism. /../ He said: “The women are worshipping Shani in the temple. By doing so, Shani’s eyes would fall on women and this would result in increase of rape incidents.” The quote sounds like big nonsense but in the country with extremely half-hearted attempts to liberate women, this is serious stuff.

As soon as yoga is mixed with religion, it discriminates, like any faith does, women. When this happens in India, multiply the discrimination by 1000. But India is not alone. There are many countries in the world which, due to the location on the ruins of previously almighty civilizations, boast of a cultural inheritance that the nation living there in the modern era can only exploit, not to cultivate. And exploit they do, based on the existing value (or caste) systems, traditions (kill girls, rape women) and beliefs (women are subject to men).

Yoga is claimed to be over 4000 years old physical and spiritual practice but little is known about how it was practiced a couple of thousands of years ago. There is no doubt however that the yoga we practice today is not how yoga was practiced in the past. In India yoga has for centuries been a practice for the privileged elite, the Brahmins, Khsatriyas and Vayshnas. Like education and clean water, yoga was not available for the masses. It still isn’t.

During the 19^th century yoga was popularized in the Western world. Today many women practice it in Europe, Scandinavia, Americas. Remember the cradle of yoga, India and Indian women when you practice yoga. Do not pick up the yoga path mixed with Indian religions and superstitions. As a woman, do not make yourself a partner in crime which is directed against you as the weaker sex. Do not rape yoga.

Kairi

Read the previous blog post – Why women still continue to be the weaker sex

More reading:

• Invisible Girl Project president interviewed by CNN
• Update: Sad Details of Kausthub Desikachar’s Psychopathic Abuse of Power, Sexual Misconduct and the Preserving of His Family’s Legacy
• The shadows of spirituality – I was raped by my yoga teacher in India
• India Hindu Leader: “Women in Shani temple will increase rapes”
• 2015: Average of 6 rapes, 15 molestations each day
• India’s rape capital: 140 rapes, over 200 molestation cases in Delhi in January
• What is Really behind India’s rape crises
• Wikipedia: Rape of victims from ancient history and mythology
• Year 2016 in Youtube (sic! and also sick)  – a clip on why Dalits should be able to become yoga teachers

I will always remember this recording: 1938 in Sweden. The first female voice had just finished reading the news in the radio and the phone line of Radio Service was congested with angry people. A woman should not read news! This is outrageous! A woman is not capable of reading the news! Let men read the news! Can you guess the sex of almost half of those furious people? You are right, they were women.

Almost 80 years later one can still conclude that the main obstacle to why women don’t have equal rights with men is the same. It is a faulty assumption to expect equal treatment from men whilst women, who outnumber men in the world, continue discriminating other women. To say that the world is man-tilted is to focus on the wrong end of the same problem. Where do these men grow up? Most of them surely have mothers. Do you believe that the way mothers raise their children has no influence over how their sons and daughters treat women? Think again.

“Girls do not need math,” said my female math teacher to all the pupils in my class when I started in high school. “The new head of unit X is Mr Y”, announces a female manager who has several much more competent women in her team than Mr Y. “What did you cook for your husband today?” my mother keeps asking even though she knows that we take turns and I dislike this question. “Let him do it”, my female colleague points at a male colleague when I ask her to make a presentation on a topic she is the best expert in.

Expecting men to do what women should do themselves is holding “the weaker sex” back from boards, political posts, equal pay, it keeps them being treated as a property, raped, circumcised and objectized. I have for a long time been disturbed by the way women let themselves to be exploited in the music industry, either due to their ignorance, limited understanding or complacency. Would you like to look like a hooker, walk with nipples and clitoris almost revealed and spend most of your time hurling your hips? Well, in music industry you do regardless of whether you say you are a feminist (Beyonce, Zara Larsson, etc) or not. And the male star of the same caliber is, as a rule carefully wrapped in, no penis in sight. As a male singer, you do not have to pretend on the stage that you are on the verge of an orgasm.  Madonna, Rihanna, Kylie, Mariah Carey etc, etc do – the list is endless and the quality of the voice plays no role whatsoever. Of course, there are some rebels – Sia, Adele to name a few – but those are exceptions.  In the oversexualised pop music world, full of nauseating stereotypes, there is no equality between the two sexes. Poor teenagers who consume music not only by listening but watching – their role models provide them with images of gender equality which date back to the middle ages!

Why do women let so reluctantly go of habits and traditions which are not in their interest? Why do we lack solidarity? I guess the things that once upon the time gave us an evolutional advantage do not work so well during the smartphone and social media era. Being constantly pregnant during the fertile age is not anymore necessary in most of the developed world where infant mortality is extremely low. The biological relics which we have inherited from our ancestors don’t fit into birth-controlled societies where time can be spent on issues much higher up in the Maslow pyramid than ensuring survival. But the biological evolution has not had the time to adjust to the necessities of the modern society. Girls and boys can reproduce at a very young age. Today there is no advantage in carrying a child as a child. It only adds to the misery of young girls in the countries where they are forced into marriages at an early age. Mind you, forced by mothers as much as fathers.

Remember the moral code 100 years ago in Europe, still potent in some countries? It was a disaster to lose virginity and become pregnant before one got married. There were not many options – some committed suicide, some tried to get rid of the baby. Some died in the hands of incompetent midwives or due to complications after the abortion. Some kept the baby and endured psychological and sometimes even physical terror from the local community. Single women with children were ridiculed, their parents were ashamed, sometimes they openly banished their daughters. But there was one particular group of opinion leaders which invariably exercised their power to augment the suffering and humiliation of the poor “girl with a child” –  old ladies in the community.

Yes, for centuries women have been living in a patriarchal world where their primary meaning of life has been to attract a more or less intelligent and potent partner and become his property, produce many children, raise them and take care of the household. But these times are over although we ourselves are not over them. Collaborating is not easy when you regard other women as competitors who need to be neutralised. Research has proven that women judge other women harsher and find faults that they never see in men. Sorry if you are an exception. I am not. My brains are too washed and I discover myself discriminating when I least expect it (perhaps even now…).

Take Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump. I don’t know what was going on in the heads of the women who voted for Trump. I guess it is best not to know. But it would be an interesting experiment to analyse the latest US presidential election from the gender perspective.  At least one thing is sure – Hillary was discriminated by both men and women when they judged her capabilities, looks, temper, voice, conduct, experience and intelligence to be inferior to Trump’s. Otherwise the outcome of the presidential election had been different.

I don’t really agree with the definition of man-made norms. Every time the norms that discriminate women have been in the making – women have contributed to them either passively or actively. It is a well-known fact that in the developed world women are more educated than men. With educational enlightenment comes also the responsibility to make use of one’s knowledge. After all, it is not the strongest that survive but the smartest.

Women have greater possibilities than ever before but we are still clinging to values with make us our own biggest enemy. The day we stop doing this, the world will become a much better place. Until then…. well, it is what it is…

I will continue the topic of gender equality in my next blog, this time from the yoga and energy angle, stay tuned!

Kairi

 

This Article is now also available in Axelsons Friskvårdsmagasinet – online magazine

It all began when I started to look for a course to deepen my knowledge in anatomy and/or chemistry and widen my perspectives in teaching yoga. Every course that came close to this wish would have meant full time studies with much more in the list and this was not an option. One day, thanks to a Facebook post by a friend, I found a course organised by Axelssons Institute. Yogamassage, very interesting, I thought. What is this? When I read the course description, I knew that this was it! Ayurvedic yoga massage. A technique which works with breath, stretching and warming up the muscle tissue at the same time. A technique which combines ancient knowledge of yoga and Ayurveda and contemporary knowledge of the human body. From a master who has learnt from the Master.

Kusum Modak, the creator of this yogamassage technique, has been the pupil of one of the greatest yoga masters – B.K Iyengar. I am not a very big guru idolizer (guru means remover of darkness in Sanskrit but not all gurus remove darkness, quite the contrary) but Iyengar is a real guru who has inspired and helped many people. Iyengar proved his teacher was wrong when he initially underestimated the undernourished and sickly boy who later became an international phenomenon.

Iyengar yoga is known for using props and this, among many other things that I like about Iyengar yoga, really resonates with me – if the body cannot do an advanced pose, use a prop for alignment – put a block under your hand or use a blanket where appropriate. Because each time we go over the limit, the body will compensate somewhere even if your mind does not realize it there and then. The more we go over the limit, the more compensating patterns develop. The aim of Iyengar yoga is to balance, not to tip the balance.

I have been enjoying every single moment of this yogamassage course. Half a year and 190 hours of theory and practice behind me, after about ca 50 yoga massage treatments to different people, I have learnt more about the human body than I ever could if I had read anatomy from books. I am awed by the humbleness of the teachers and and have deepest respect for Vandana whose wisdom and mastery of yogamassage technique is extraordinary.

Yogamassage, unlike ayurvedic massage in general, is not very widely known and popularized in the world. In Sweden there are around 200 yogamassage therapists. I will not join their ranks as I had another ambition level with the course. But the tools we acquired are really powerful. What’s more, if you think about how the body works, yogamassage principles make a lot of sense:

• Always massage/treat the whole body. Tensions create chain reactions and travel from one place to another. Focusing only on the problem area is not effective, we may get away from the root cause not close to it.
• Sometimes it is not possible to find the origin to a tension/pain but when the whole body is treated, the relief will still come.
• Combining breathing with massage and stretches gives a miraculous effect – each time we exhale, the body relaxes and exhaling in the right moment (yogamassage therapist knows and instructs when) can induce the effect of a stretch.
• Working with physical body will have a tremendous impact on the mental body. Some people get emotional, some people confused, some experience great relaxation. Nobody remains indifferent. The best way to find balance if tipped for whatever reason is to accept.
• Using also feet for massaging (we do not put full weight on the person but distribute it by leaning on a chair) is extremely good way to give a deeper massage and stimulate the blood circulation and connective tissue – works wonders with athletes and everyone else who does not have a high blood pressure or other contraindications
• Most yogamassage stretches are unlike any other stretches you may have experienced with other massage techniques. At first I was surprised and curious. After testing them out I was amazed.
• How often do you have your stomach massaged, intercostal muscles stretched and your diaphragm stimulated during a massage treatment? Well, in yogamassage you do. Has a wonderful effect on anyone, helps with stomach problems which can range from IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) to breathing issues.

This course has also been a journey of my personal growth. I certainly have developed a different and more qualitative relationship to human body including my own. I notice tensions and compensation patterns in people that I was not aware of before. I have also become much better in receiving treatments.

For control freaks this is the most difficult thing – to be able to let go. But when you receive a massage treatment from someone, reciprocal relationship is required. The person who is treating has to give and the person who is treated has to receive. Being able to let go when receiving will multiply the effect of the treatment. Reading the body and adjusting the treatment and stretches to each individual will increase the value of giving. But those skills – listening, relaxing, trusting, giving and receiving require practicing.

One thing is sure though – if one can relax on the mattress (a special mattress, not a massage table), one can also apply those skills in other circumstances. Like everything in the human body is interconnected so is everything we do, think and say. Learning and giving yogamassage has proven once again how true this is. Thank you, Vandana-Johan and course teammates for an experience I will never forget!

Kairi

Yoga is not an escape. Yes, you are bound to feel nicer and calmer on the mat. But you do not switch between several different realities – they are all part of you and you carry them along regardless of the time and place. Unless and until you can embrace the better part of yourself and there is no worse. A journey where you turn from a variable into a constant.

Yes, this post is about backbends even though you may have started to wonder. Backbends are the ultimate test of the balance of the body and mind. It is easy to deceive the body in the backbends, to listen to the mind instead. So hard to embrace what I HAVE, not to turn into what I WANT to have. I speak from my personal experience.  All I have ever lied to myself while pushing myself into Urdhva Dhanurasana – the Wheel – about the range, the tone of my spine and the alignment has come back to haunt me, sometimes years later. This pose has taught me how futile lying is. It has proved that no deception may add positive value in the long run.

Backbends are challenging. The trouble with this pose is that it is often recklessly practiced by people who sacrifice the content for the form. Like me when I started with yoga and like many others who still do it.

Rule number one. There is the healthy range of the spine (I wrote about it last year in August the blog) which is good to be aware of. On average the spine can healthily extend up to 135⁰ but surprisingly, the biggest range and extension in the backbend comes from the cervical spine – the neck – which has the range of ca 70⁰. Those two spinal curves – the lumbar and the cervical are connected and if the neck is not relaxed, the lower back spine will get too much tear and wear in this pose. A healthy range for lumbar spine would be ca 35⁰, half the range of the neck. And for the thoracic spine which is less bendy due to the ribcage, the range is only about 25⁰. In addition to the spine, there is the hip joint and the shoulders and their mobility to think about. And when practicing the wheel, it is also the feet and the hands and the weight distribution.

Why are backbends good?

If practiced with caution and care, they are extremely therapeutic for the back because:

• They improve the posture
• They increase self-confidence – they open up the heart and make the practitioner more emphatic
• They stimulate the anterior longitudinal ligament to retain its plasticity – the anterior longitudinal ligament starts in the base of the skull along and goes all the way down until the sacrum. Its role is to resist the neck and lower back from overextending. Gymnasts, extreme yoga practitioners and also acrobats unfortunately overextend this ligament so that it does not provide the spine the required stability any longer. Google backbends and you see many photos with people killing their health in those poses. Only form and no content whatsoever.
• Backbends require a good mobility in the hips and sacroiliac joint but it needs to be built as a prerequisite before going into deep backbends not in conjunction with them like it is mostly done
• If practiced right, backbends keep the tightest part of the spine, the thoracic spine in agood and healthy mobility
• They maintain the health of the shoulder joint and all the muscles that need to shorten during countless forward bends such as pectoralis and deltoids and frontal neck muscles.

Backbends are many – Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana) which is a prep pose for the Wheel, Cobra (Bhujangasana) which is part of Sun Salutation, Camel (Ustrasana), Bow (Dhanurasana). Before you try the Wheel, ensure that you are comfortable with all the previously mentioned poses. If any of them poses a difficulty, work with it and when the mission is successfully completed, test the Wheel (Urdhva Dhanurasana). I have linked the names of the poses to illustrative photos in yogajournal but unfortunately I was not able to link to the Wheel pose in this journal because the person in the photo is standing with feet and palms too close to each other which makes her to compensate with an overextentson in the lower back. This is not a good example of the Wheel and there are many similar or even worse examples out there in the World Wide Web. But like I said in the beginning – it is sometimes hard to distinguish between the the truth and an illusion of the truth.

Below, however, are quite good cues for the Wheel pose for an experienced practitioner:

The Wheel pose should be practiced really slowly and always with ujjayi. If ujjayi leaves you, you go too deep and too fast. Integrity matters:)

Good luck!

Kairi

Useful links:

https://yogainternational.com/article/view/the-easiest-mistake-to-make-in-backbends
http://embodyphysicaltherapy.com/bending-over-backwards-stay-safe-in-your-yoga-practice/

The Pelvis in Backbends

https://yogainternational.com/article/view/5-steps-to-safer-backbends
http://www.yogajournal.com/article/practice-section/the-max-factor/

What you give
will create a chain reaction
one day it will come back to you,
it will knock on the door and say:
“Hi, it’s time for us to meet again.”
And you, clueless, ask:
Have I seen you before?

What you create
one day will turn
into ashes
to give birth to something
new again.
There is no circle of life,
continuum has no form.
This is why people cry at funerals
– to deny the obvious and behave like an anorectic.

When you love
include yourself
in the equation
among the people who need to be loved.
Love has no measurable dimension
only unconditional attachment
beyond the material.
“I love you” is selfish
Love is not selfish,
no strings attached
unless you attach them yourself.

What you desire
is usually unnecessary,
you already have all you need.
Unless someone has taken the things
that s/he desired away from you by a force
believing that s/he had more right to own them
than you.

I say “you”
But I am talking to myself.
An inner dialogue
to explain what can’t be helped.

Yin is a concept known from the philosophical, spiritual, religious practice called Taoism (also known as Daoism) which emerged during the 4 century BC in China. Tao means the path  or the way. We all have at least once in a lifetime seen the yin-yang symbol – a circle where the left side is white and the right side is black and there are two dots in the middle *.

Yin and yang are two opposites which emphasize the duality. Yin being the shady, the feminine, the Moon, the passive. Yang being the light, the Sun, the masculine, the active. According to Taoism these opposites are not in a contradiction and absolute, but they have a relative relationship. They balance and complement each other. By embracing the Tao or “your way” you embrace the balance between yin and yang. This thinking somewhat clashes with the Western “all or nothing” understanding.  Already the Bible (or the people who wrote the Bible) separated the good and the evil and imposed the understanding that we are “either or”, never “and”. You either go to hell or to heaven. And this is not the way how Taoism works.

Yin yoga as it is taught and interpreted today in Europe and Americas and possibly also other parts of the world is quite new and contradicts to the Taoist principle of harmony. Before the 80s both active and passive poses were used during the same class to complement each other. But like many other novelties, we have the US to thank for keeping yoga students holding their poses for 3-4 minutes throughout the whole class.  A man called Paul Griley and a woman called Sarah Powers developed the yin yoga we know today because they got inspired by a Kung Fu master Paulie Zink. Paulie taught yin elements in this Taoist Yoga classes. Paulie did not however only use passive long holds but a mix of active and passive asanas during his classes. This mix is usually called hatha (the sun – ha and the moon – tha) yoga. Paul and Sarah in their turn took the passive elements and put them together into about 100 or more yin poses and called it yin yoga.

If you have never participated in a Yin Yoga class, here is a quick summary:

Yin yoga is a slower, more meditative yoga where the primary object of attention is the connective tissue in the body called fascia surrounding muscles, connecting joints and tissues, separating inner organs:

• Poses will be hold 3-4 minutes, slight discomfort is OK, enduring pain not OK
• Holding poses for a long time targets the connective tissue and makes it more elastic
• Yin yoga, if practiced with caution and care, will release tensions in muscles which in its turn will lead to releasing emotional tensions and thought patterns
• Yin is practiced in aerobic mode of breathing – the breath should be flowing unobstructed and preferably inhale and exhale equal length
• Coming in and out of poses should be done slowly and carefully

Enduring pain is counterproductive because muscles lose their elasticity as soon as they understand that their owner is stretching them over the point they can handle (this notifies the brain that the body is in a physical stress which in its turn triggers mental stress).

I am a great supporter of Taoist thinking which embraces both yin and yang elements during one class.  But I understand why the yin known and practiced today is so popular. At times when we are supposed to consume information in milliseconds and children’s cartoons have an ever-shortening duration of episodes to increase action, movement and thrill per minute, stillness is a deficit. This makes yin yoga attractive –  it is a legitimate way to be still.

The crux is that yin yoga poses precondition a healthy body and a very good knowledge of one’s physical condition. Some anatomical knowledge wouldn’t hurt either. Take a stressed office worker with higher adrenaline and cortisol levels, put her/him on the yin yoga mat and the outcome will not be that good. During stress, the stop-signals coming from the muscles are dampened with the two hormones which act like painkillers. This person is bound to go too deep in slow yin poses and hurt his/her ligaments which, unlike other connective tissue and muscle tissue, do not need a deep stretch. Ligaments are there to connect bone to bone, to protect the joints from overextention and to stabilize them. If you ever have sprained your ankle, you know that this can happen easier next time because after the injury the ligaments of the ankle will not shrink back to their original size. Whichever joint ligaments connect, if overstretched, they do not protect the joints efficiently anymore, sometimes inflammations develop as the result.

There are quite many undiscussed issues with yin yoga, especially because yin poses mainly target the most important joint in the body for stability – the hip joint area. Yin requires careful consideration, among other things:

• A warm place to practice, preferably no less than 24 degrees. A cold room is like a stressed person – muscles will not turn elastic enough for yin unless have proper blood circulation
• Warming up of the body with some more active asanas is required in the beginning of the class regardless of the room temperature. Muscles need to create heat (contract-release) before they are forced into still poses. The nerves that fire signals of contract/release need some time to become fully operational in their firing work. This in its turn means that the muscle fiber becomes toned and elastic to do stretching over a time, not immediately in the beginning of the yin class
• Each yin pose requires a counter-pose. Otherwise yin yoga turns into a caricature of office work, like sitting behind the computer. Similar compensations patterns emerge on the yoga mat. Think of a 5-minute-long seated forward bend for example. You need to stretch your anterior longitudinal ligament after you have stretched your posterior longitudinal ligament. Both need equal attention. Unfortunately the principle with counterposes is ever though often not respected by yin yoga teachers.
• With any discomfort in the lower back or sacroiliac joint area it would be wiser to do reclined alternatives of yin poses where instead of putting the body weight on top of the hip joint, you can lie with your sacrum and back against the mat. Legs weigh less and hip openings cause less tear and wear on the ligaments and joints this way.
• Yin yoga injuries are sly. Discomfort or overdoing in yin can manifest itself several days after the class. This makes it sometimes hard to connect the oversensitivity with yin practice and blame something else – bad chair in the office, bad posture, intensive work-out, etc. When one experiences any pain after yin practice on the same day, it means that this was doing yin yoga with a yang mind. This is actually very common – to enter yin classes with yang mind and keep it there until the end.
• All women who have given birth and breastfed their baby the first year should avoid yin yoga up to 2 years after giving birth. Otherwise they can overstretch their ligaments which are more elastic due to a hormone called relaxin during this period. Lax ligaments do not need more relaxing but rather stabilizing. By the way, ovulating women should be careful during and around their period with yin practice because this is the time when the levels of relaxin are also higher and ligaments softer.

Hope this information helps you next time you practice yin yoga.

Kairi

Useful links:

http://yogatrainingguide.com/yin-yoga/

http://www.yinyoga.com/ys1_1.0_history.php

https://www.reference.com/science/function-relaxin-hormone-7dffbe36e1ef6785

* You may come across other orientations of color as well but the one above symbolizes not only yin and yang but also the Tao philosophy – how the light becomes dark and heavy and the summer turns into autumn and winter clockwise.

Physiotherapists and chiropracticioners assert that the number of people who end up in their treatment rooms with injuries from practicing yoga is increasing. It is a great responsibility to guide other people’s body and mind on the yoga mat. Interest in anatomy and biomechanics is a great advantage. Both for the yoga student and the teacher.

When a teacher gives too few cues, the following things often go wrong in the alignment – twisted joints in Warrior poses; Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Facing Dog) with the weight not evenly distributed between the back and the front but carried mainly by the hands thus putting the back and shoulders under an unnecessary tension; slack Tadasanas (Mountain Pose) without arched and active feet, engaged quadriceps and active abdominal muscles to straighten the back and somewhat flatten the natural curves of the spine; backbends pushed mainly from the lower back (ouch!); rotations from the lower back (ouch, ouch!) and finally the Pidgeon Pose – Eka Padda Rajakapotasana with a lot of unnecessary and harmful pressure in the last vertebrae L5 which is the biggest unfused vertebra right above the sacrum’s S1 (ouch, ouch, ouch!).

Yoga poses are sometimes held for a long time, especially in Yin yoga. With correct alignment and ujjayi breath this is not a problem. But there are things to consider. Two very common poses need special attention to sustain the health of the joints. Warrior I (Virabhadrasana) and II (Virabhadrasana II) poses are tricky for knees and hips for the reason that it is very easy to open the back foot 90⁰ to the side whilst the kneecap is turned 60⁰ or even less because there is not enough flexibility in the hips to make the external rotation of the hips to match the foot. And this is what many people do – feet are pointing in one direction and the knee and hip-bone in the other.

What is the problem? Let’s use ballet to illustrate this. To stand in some ballet poses (positions 1-5) you need an external rotation both in the legs and hips to turn your feet pointing to the side while standing. Some people just don’t have this flexibility due to various reasons – can be due to the angle how the femur (thigh) bone sits in the acetabulum and/or some other anatomical constraints of the pelvis. Whatever, unless the kneecap is not pointing in the same direction as your toes, this means that there is an unhealthy twist in your knee. If you were to keep doing this pose extensively and pursue a career as a ballet dancer you would end up with several knee operations.

You can test your external rotation yourself – stand upright and point your toes so that they are turned to the side as much as you can. Now take a look at your knees – are the kneecaps pointing in the same direction? If yes, you are blessed with extremely good external rotation of the hip area. If not, you have created an unhealthy twist in your legs which, if forced on the joints regularly, can make your knees sensitive. When you stand in the Warrior poses and hold this twist for a long time, your joints will grumble and their discomfort gets bigger over time.

You can check the alignment of the toes and kneecap while you stand, ensure that they point in the same direction and if they don’t, adjust the pose so they do. In the beginning of the class, when the muscles are not yet warmed up, your range may be different so unless you are extremely well aware of your limitations, check the alignment even as the class proceeds. But there is one more thing to be aware of – different teachers give different cues – you may be required to turn your back foot anything between 60-90 degrees to the side. But the direction of the knee is never mentioned.

In Warrior I pose the rotation of the hip to the side is somewhat blocked because your torso is turned to face the front, not sideways. This immediately reduces the range of the external rotation of the hip to the side. What I am actually saying now goes against what many yoga teachers do which is they instruct to go from Warrior I directly to Warrior II and vice versa. Anatomically speaking this is not a very good idea.

For Warrior II and for the proper hip opening in this pose you need a wider space between the front and the back leg than is healthy for Warrior I. I t will sacrifice the toe-kneecap alignment and create a twist in the joints (kneecap-toes of the back foot pointing in different directions). What’s more – in Warrior I the back foot should not be pointing 90⁰ to the side because your knee cannot follow this angle when your torso is facing the front not turned to the side like in Warrior II.

Warrior I pose is also tricky because of the rotation required from the spine. As explained in the previous blog, the lumbar spine does not have much flexibility in rotations, only about 5⁰. So when you turn your torso to face the front, rotate from thoracic and cervical spine rather than push from the lumbar spine.

Stressing one’s joints over the healthy limit is sometimes hard to detect because discomfort may only emerge a few days later. By that time, we have forgotten what we did on the yoga mat and suspect something else as the root cause.

Another pose which can be challenging to many yoga students is the Pidgeon Pose (Eka Pada Rajakapotasana). It is often practiced in the second half of the class. Runners use this pose, too, because it stretches the IT (iliotibial) band.

The Pidgeon pose has different variations for the torso – it is either upright, in a slight backbend or in forward bend. Usually one leg stretched back, the other leg is bend forward into an L-shape. Many people are not flexible enough to keep the sit bone on the side of the L-shaped leg on the mat while back leg is extended backwards on the mat and hips squared. This pose creates a slight rotation in the pelvis anyway although the practitioner should strive to have hips same level and same direction.

Often the forward bend is forced and the weight carried by the side where the leg is bent forward. When hips are not squared and level and a forward bend is required, this puts a lot of unnecessary pressure on the lower back, especially the L5 area. Reclined/supine version of the Pidgeon Pose is much better for the health of less bendy yoga students. When you lie with your back on the mat, you only use the weight and strength of your legs (and gravity) but the weight of your torso is eliminated and will not push your legs and hips to stressful angles.

There are many things to consider during the yoga practice. Next time I’ll write about backbends and/or challenges with Yin yoga. Stay tuned!

Kairi

When I started to do yoga, my teachers very rarely mentioned the role of the spine in asanas although it is equally important to breathing. There are 31 pairs of spinal nerves originating from the spinal cord. These nerves are like communication channels or vessels between organs and the brain, part of the autonomous nervous system. Yoga poses move the spine it in different directions to keep vertebrae and discs between them healthy so that there is enough space between the adjacent vertebrae for the nerves to emerge without any impingement.

But the vertebral column is not an elastic band that can be forced in all directions without any concern of the range. Many things can go wrong if one does not know what is the average amount one can twist and turn from the cervical spine (7 topmost vertebrae) the thoracic spine (12 mid back vertebrae) and the lumbar spine (5 lower back vertebrae).

A very common mistake is to overexploit the part of the spine that is most flexible. It often tends to be the lower back, which develops when babies start to walk. The cervical (develops when the baby starts to lift the head) and thoracic (develops already in the womb) spine have already got their curves by then. The lower back is not propped with the rib-cage unlike the mid back and it is therefore more flexible and exposed to overexploitation.

*The below table illustrates the approximate range of a healthy upper, mid and lower back. If you are a ballet dancer, your range is more. If you are an office worker, your range is less. When you move your spine, you tend to use other parts of the body as well. For example, when bow forward, you usually bend from the hips, too. Please note therefore that the below table shows the spinal range only.

Part of the spine	Flexion (forward-bend)	Extension (back-bend)	Rotation (twist)	Lateral flexion (side-bend)
Cervical (7 top-most vertebrae)	45⁰	75⁰	50⁰	35⁰
Thoracic (12 mid-back vertebrae)	40⁰	25⁰	35⁰	25⁰
Lumbar (5 lower back vertebrae)	60⁰	35⁰	5⁰	15⁰
Total range (approximate)*	145⁰	135⁰	90⁰	75⁰

Source: Various sources – books and internet – consulted

Why are those numbers important?

Take the rotations such as Ardha Matsyendrasana (Half Lord of the Fishes Pose) or Supine spinal rotation Supta Matsyendrasana. Even though the lower back is flexible both in the back and forward bends, it has a very little range in rotations, only about 5⁰.  But often yoga students force the rotation from the lower spine forgetting that most of the 90⁰ comes from the cervical spine (50⁰) and the thoracic spine (35⁰). How would you feel if someone were forcing you to put your leg behind your neck when you know that you cannot? This is how your lumbar spine feels like in rotations where you force it to do more than it can.

In standing rotations such as Parivrtta Parsvakonasana (Revolved Side Angle) or Parvirtta Utkatasana (Revolved Chair Pose) the same rule applies – rotate from the upper and mid back rather than lower back. Think of distributing your weight equally between the back and front and keep your hips level. This coaxes the thoracic and cervical spine into performing the rotation. When you ignore your biomechanical range the compensation patterns which initially are just physical, will gradually evolve into mental tensions. Usually we focus on the reverse – mental turning into physical – but unawareness of proper alignment can do as much harm in the long term. And office people tend to have sensitive lower backs so why do more harm than sitting wrong?

Another important issue often neglected in yoga practice is to observe and respect (or correct) the pelvic tilt in our bodies. Seemingly simple seated hip opening such as Siddhasana, Sukhasana and Padmanasana (Lotus Pose) can pose a great challenge to many people. The reason being that we are office people and rarely practice external hip rotations which means that most grown-ups have become tight from the hips. Due to a lot of sitting on chairs the angle of the pelvis is often out of the healthy range. There can be multiple reasons for excessive pelvic tilt – we may have slack abdominal muscles or erector spinae or there could be a tight group of muscles called iliopsoas which joins the upper and lower body and hinders sitting with the right angle.

If if you add tightness in the muscles supporting hip opening, you notice yoga students sitting on the mat with hunched shoulders and kyphotic back. With a wrong posture it is not possible to meditate or relax in seated hip openings. When the spine is well-balanced and somewhat lengthened above the pelvis, you are saved from overly tight back and neck muscles which compensate for an unequal distribution of the weight in seated poses. When the bone- lifts-the-bone ergonomics takes over from muscle-lift-the-bone it will ease the mind. In addition, the back rejoices over the feeling of release as the body can hold itself upright with minimum exertion.

There are lots of yoga poses where you have to be propped up with dozens of things to get the pose right. Fortunately for the pelvic tilt it can be easily corrected – you just need a blanket or two under your sit bones. But for some reason I keep seeing many hunched shoulders and kyphotic backs on the yoga mat …and no blankets.

Next time I will continue with explaining how one can harm the health of joints with torque (for example in Warrior I and II poses) and what are the dangers with a pose often used to challenge yoga students and stretch the IT (iliotibial) band – the Pidgeon pose.

Stay tuned!

Kairi

 

More reading:
https://letsbands.com/en/blog/pelvic-tilt-hollow-back-back-pain/
http://www.mbmyoskeletal.com/learning/pelvic-tilt/ (Manchester-Bedford Myosceletal)
http://khourychiropractic.com.au/uncategorized/hips-dont-lie/
Twisting the spine in yoga and in life http://corewalking.com/twisting-the-spine-in-yoga-and-in-life/

Everything about tantra is in a way a speculation. It is not a religion, yet, there are deities, especially Mother Goddess, worshipped as part of some tantric rituals; it is not a cult, yet there are some sect-like rituals and initiations overseen by a “spiritual leader” or shaman. Say the word tantra to an average European or American and I bet that s/he has heard the word in connexion with some sexual rituals.

Is tantra a sect, religion, shamanism or groupies?

Unfortunately all of it and more. Like any other physical and spiritual practice, tantra has been used as an excuse to control others (such as dictators and authoritarian rulers in a less sectarian world) or focus narrowly on giving vent to one’s carnal desires (such as polygamy advocated even by prophet Muhammed) in a “holy” intercourse. Sounds familiar even in other religions or shamanistic rituals, doesn’t it?

Some “tantric” spiritual leaders expect everyone or every female to sleep with them. Even I have received an invite from a “spiritual leader” once upon a time. Did I accept it? Of course not, I’m not stupid. But there are many male “tantric gurus” around telling women what is right and how they should succumb and surrender to men. Others introduce practitioners to strange rituals to connect the microcosm with the macrocosm, usually in the darkness or by the fire (hopefully not in the fire). Like the Christian church used religion as an excuse during crusades, people have also used tantra to be partners in crime.

According to Wikipedia (Sanskrit meanings in brackets): Because it elaborates (tan) copious and profound matters, especially relating to the principles of reality (tattva) and sacred mantras, and because it provides liberation (tra), it is called a tantra.

I rather subscribe to the definition that tantra is an accumulation of practices and ideas. So true and yet so difficult to comprehend. Moreover, tantra originates from a land where Hinduism and Buddhism were widely practiced and certain beliefs and deities and rituals/ceremonies are borrowed to/from each other. Today, about 1800 years after tantra’s birth, it is too late to ask who borrowed from whom.

A long intro to a complex topic but I I’d like to stress that in the wider world of tantra, it is NOT a sexual practice. Otherwise I would not have my 200 hr Teacher Certificate in ISHTA yoga, ISHTA being an acronym for Integrated Science of Hatha, Tantra and Ayurveda. I am sorry to see the meaning of tantra often disgraced and it does not help to have so many different interpretations. In the end of the day tantra boils down to using and channelling one’s energy in the best possible way to balance the body and mind.

I have picked up the following “tantric” things for my yoga practice – visualisation, using mantras and some physical yoga techniques supporting my female organs (tantric knowledge is as a rule passed from a woman to woman and in a very sexist India until up-to-date this has probably been the most liberating practice for women). In tantra a woman is equal or superior to a man because of her ability do give birth to life. But after giving birth several times, some muscles need special attention. In gender neutral yoga practice men and women are treated with gender neutral yoga poses. But being able to adjust a class so that our physiological differences are taken into account, will greatly benefit both. Just an example – due to women’s pelvis being proportionally bigger, the centre of gravity for women is located somewhat lower from men’s. And when a woman flexes her hip, the hip rotates inward but this is not the case for men (noticeable in the lounge pose for example). For a yoga teacher this means that you may need to give different cues to men and women to make adjustments. This is very rarely done, mind you. Alignment taught in “gender-neutral” yoga poses tends to honor men’s body more than women’s.

But back to visualisation, vibrations and mantras. What are they?

If you are to meet a teacher who uses tantric tools which are not only about working with sexual energy but just energy, you could use different sounds during the class do a practice where the vibrations of sound together with different asanas help release tensions in the body. Sound is a powerful ally. You could also experience a class where shaking body or limbs extensively or swaying/swinging movements are used. Or moving some limb or the whole body back and forth repetitively together with a mantra/sound. You could also experience a class with different visualisation techniques – from flames and energy pillars to hindu gods or Buddha.

At worst, you could end up in a ritual with black magic and occult practices or ritualized sexual practices. Again, remember that tantra originates from a country where it was practiced by both higher and lower social classes or castes and the less educated they were, the more magic and occult it turned to be.

And now about mantras. Mantras are sacred words, messages or sounds if translated from Sanskrit (or just words or sounds) believed to have spiritual or healing powers. Some gurus assign special mantras to specific students and ask them to repeat those sounds during yoga practice or before meditation. Mantras are essential in tantra because the sound guides the energy paths. There are countless words/syllables regarded as mantras, mostly the Sanskrit languagw is used though. And what makes it even more complicated, in some practices the word kriya is used instead of mantra.

Kriya means “action, deed” in Sanskrit. There is one quite well-known kriya or mantra called “Sa-hum” or “Soham” (meaning “I am that” in Sanskrit). Or hamsa – an amulet symbolising the hand of God; or the sound of inhale and exhale respectively. Whatever, it is a tantric breathing technique which complements asanas (physical practice) with visualisation-breathing techniques. During ISHTA 200 Teacher Training we learnt to use “Sa-hum” both with inhale and exhale changing the order depending on what resonates during the yoga practise with the individual spirit.

Think “sa” when you inhale and let the awareness travel from the head all the way down to the sacrum or pubic bone (more advanced students down to Mula Bandha) and with an exhale think “Hum” and let the awareness radiate through the body like sunbeams; or travel with your awareness from your pubic bone back to the head.

The aim of mantras is to aid holding focus and awareness in the body and in the present moment. Sometimes mantras also aid in selecting a bodily range which is potentially less ambitions to the yoga student who wants to go too deep in poses (thanks to focusing on the present, the breath and the body). And then comes the more sophisticated part related to working with the energetic body. Or the carnal one, depending on what tantra school one happens to embrace.

Think of mantras as a language you use every day. We all describe ourselves and our actions and thoughts with certain words. The frequency of thinking/uttering “I must”, “I hate” or “I love”, “I like” can have more influence over your mind than the mantras in a language you usually do not understand (Sanskrit) during a yoga class. Your greatest mantras are your “darling expressions” which follow you everywhere and influence how you perceive the world. When you change your mantras, the world around you changes, too. This is the prosaic side of tantra, the art of accumulated practices and ideas intended not to clog the mind and reduce the visibility. But every time it turns into a sect-like practice, there is no visibility and there is no clarity.

Kairi

More reading:
Tantra (Wikipedia)
Female lower back has evolved to accommodate the strain of pregnancy (Harvardgazette Dec 12, 2007)
Women’s Health and Fitness Guide, Michele Kettles, Colette L. Cole, Brenda S. Wright
Olympic differences in the way men and women move (Huffington Post, Dr. Douglas Field 8 May 2012)