I’m now old enough to have experienced the waxing and waning of passion and love in many of my steady relationships.
This includes my relationship to people, movement/exercise, life-long learning, spiritual practice, and my yoga practice.
These particular relationships are all very long term for me, and very dear.
Let’s get something straight … the common denominator in this waxing and waning relationship thing is me.
None of the things I am in relationship with are really to blame for the wax and wane. I’m probably not to blame, either, although it’s important to be open to looking at my part in any relationship I have.
For me, it’s important to learn from both ends of that wax/wane continuum – there’s no end…
I do fall in love over and over again with the vital and important things I am invested in having relationships with.
And recently I realized that I have fallen in love, once again, with my yoga asana practice.
If you’ll bear with me, let me go back a few years and set the stage for my waning passion away from yoga asana practice and how I waxed back onto the mat.
Some years before I started my masters work in kinesiology, I began to question the way yoga asana was being taught.
I wondered why certain actions/movements were being cued the way they were, why such a strong insistence that postures be performed a certain way even if someone was uncomfortable for whatever reason, why did this practice seem so dogmatic, and was there any evidence-based science to back up many of the claims made in yoga classes about all sorts of things most of us have no business making those claims about.
And, really, what constituted the “classical” yoga asana practice anyway?
- What did it really look like?
- Could it look different and still be considered “yoga”?
- Was there a place for that?
- And, was there a place for me to work differently as a yoga practitioner and teacher and still be accepted, still have a student base, still make a living?
During this time, I stopped attending public classes because time on the mat, for me, needed to be more of a personal movement practice and less of a guided activity.
Additionally, I was contending (for years!) with a really yucky place on my left lower pelvis that felt yanked and tugged and unable to do most of the things I was asking it to do.
And, really, if I never did shoulderstand again I would be just fine.
And, per my personality, which tends to lean towards defense and anger, I sort of made the whole kit and kaboodle “bad”.
Have you ever noticed if you make something “bad” or “wrong” that it seems easier to disregard it or walk away from it? (or take responsibility for the change in your relationship to it?).
Cue waning soundtrack music…..
Then I went to graduate school and while I learned a crap ton of stuff about human movement, I also learned to think more critically and question things from a place of less defense and more curiosity.
“Why does this work a particular way” rather than “why is this right or wrong?”
I spent a lot of time looking at evidence-based studies and how the authors of these studies came up with their conclusions. It was clear that not everything was entirely about “right” or “wrong”, so my perspective needed to change.
By the time I had my MS diploma in hand, I’d say I was still wondering whether I was a yoga teacher or a movement teacher.
In this last year, after finishing graduate school, some really big puzzle pieces have fallen into place for me about my life, my work, and yes, my relationship with yoga asana.
PODCASTS
First, I found podcasts (because I can’t listen to the news on the car radio for too long before I absolutely lose it).
I know, late to the party regarding podcasts, right?
While listening to them, I heard folks like me questioning whether they were a yoga or movement teacher, how the practice served them, looking for answers, trying to make sense of how to teach yoga and/or movement to modern day human beings.
But they didn’t seem defensive or like they felt they were wrong to consider and challenge their former beliefs.
That was a “BFO” (bright flash of the obvious) for me – oh, you can question this stuff, Laurie, and you’re not right or wrong, you’re just questioning it.
And, look, other people are doing some of the interesting “roga” things in their classes, too!
READING
Secondly, I read. Copiously! (And I still do – super nerdy shit, like studies of cadaver hamstring attachments).
THE TRAVELING KINESIOLOGIST LEARNS FROM HER CLIENTS
Then I built a private business over this last year, what I call the “Traveling Kinesiologist”, and I started working one-on-one with lots of clients and their movement “issues”.
I learned quickly that listening is the main skill here – listening to the story around pain, fear, and the “problems” that people feel they are having with their body.
And listening to what folks really want to be able to do with their bodies.
I heard that we tend to blame our bodies, as though they are wrong and use language like “this is my bad knee.”
This created a shift for me about the way I use language about my own body, about your body, about how I teach and to really acknowledge that there is seldom a “right or wrong”, but always a “different” or “unique”.
EVIDENCE-BASED PAIN SCIENCE
The fourth thing that happened was I attended an evidence-based pain science course that kind of blew my mind.
It changed my approach to the way I think about movement once again by challenging some of my long held beliefs about “normal”, how pain manifests, and working with a body experiencing pain.
What I learned in the orthopedic rehabilitation courses in graduate school began to take on a deeper meaning as I came to a clearer understanding of human variation, that “normal” isn’t really a thing, and how we each move in unique ways and have unique responses to pain stimulus.
Human movement has what we call variable motor patterns – this means that purposeful movement is not the same for you as it is for me. Just as what you feel in any movement is different from what I will feel in that movement.
That’s natural. It means you will do triangle differently than me and we will pick up different sensations and respond in our own unique ways, but neither of us is “right”.
The pain science course helped me recognize that there is not one way (the right way) to do something, and in fact, I serve myself and my students better if I offer choices, modifications, and what is called novel approaches to movement patterns.
My graduate work and the pain science course paved the way for understanding that our physical tissues (bones, fascia, muscles, tendons, cartilage, ligaments…) need to be loaded, need to deal with both internal and external forces, even when we feel injured or in pain.
In order to adapt, we need to move.
It’s finding the balance of load, how much, how often, and just how that can be different for each of us.
I began to think more about my approach to practice, teaching, and my own physical “owies”.
For instance, I’m working on not catastrophizing about my own body when it hurts, but trusting that after being in this body for 57 years things will change if I continue to listen to it, move it, play outdoors, play on the mat, and challenge the option to simply stop.
Additionally, I’ve changed the way I sequence movement progressions in my classes so that enough modifications are available to get as many of my students involved with loading their bodies in a way that allows them to feel their own capacity, adapt and change, and not do too much too soon.
Because you know what? I’m expert in my field of study, but I am not an expert in your body or experience.
The pain science course took me further into super nerdy reading that allowed me to touch the surface of neuroscience and the way the brain reads pain signals given by the peripheral nervous system. MIND BLOWN by what the mind and body discuss every moment of every day.
INSTAGRAM, WHAT?????
After my mind was blown by the pain science course, I had the opportunity to participate in an 84 day yoga posture Instagram challenge run by my college roommate’s studio, Breathe Together Yoga.
I know, really? An Instagram Challenge somehow changed your relationship with yoga, Laurie?
Yep.
The Instagram challenge allowed me to spend time each day exploring postures that had been assigned via the challenge, some very familiar and some I had never seen before (nor thought I could ever do).
Each day I photographed or videoed myself exploring that day’s assigned posture. And I actually posted them on Instagram. Here are a few of my photos from that challenge:
I got to see myself in photos and videos for almost 3 months straight and it was an amazing learning experience. I was sometimes enraptured by how my body tried to cooperate and I was sometimes stymied by why I couldn’t actually feel what the photos/videos were showing me – my knees rarely fully extend, I tilt my head, one shoulder definitely higher than the other…
I also realized that my body is amazing – and so is yours, by the way!
I have so much capacity as a human mover – and so do you!
ORGANIZING AND TEACHING TEACHERS
My love affair with yoga continued to re-blossom as I spent the month of October preparing to teach my first anatomy and human movement module for the Embodied Insight Teacher Training being presented by my colleague, Dawn Hayes.
I was tasked with covering a HUGE spectrum of material. I learned so much as I read, organized, designed powerpoint presentations, explored my asana movement practice, created experiential activities for the teacher trainees, and delved even further into exploring how many of the yoga practices affect our nervous system in such a positive way (there is lots of evidence about this part of how yoga practice can affect us).
And, I moved into really owning deeply my ability, my intelligence, my capacity, and moved really far away from “imposter syndrome”.
So, I kinda fell in love again with my yoga practice as I explored and learned a lot of really important things this last year.
Here are a few of the nuggets I learned and answers to the questions I asked earlier in this post:
- Yoga asana is not “bad”, “good”, “right”, or “wrong”. Sometimes the approach to yoga asana, like anything in life, should probably be questioned.
- I don’t need to make things “bad” in order to question them. Questioning simply allows me to explore and expand my understanding.
- It doesn’t really matter what a “classical” yoga practice looks like and I don’t need to get caught up trying to define that.
- Yes, yoga asana practice can look different and will look different depending on who is presenting it and who is practicing it.
- Yes there is a place for “different” and I continue making it different in my own practice and classes due to a strong education of evidence-based science and the need to explore and play. I don’t want a cookie cutter yoga asana practice.
- Really importantly, I need to work the way I work as a yoga practitioner and teacher and those who feel simpatico will practice with me and those who need something else will practice with someone else. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if I call myself a movement educator or a yoga teacher.
- Stop getting caught up in “bad/good” or “right/wrong”. Just stop. You will suffer less, Laurie. And, evidence points to variable movement being of utmost importance to our human bodies.
- Finally, after more than 30 years of teaching movement, it’s time to trust that this has been the right path. The Universe obviously keeps giving me lots of opportunity to increase my awareness, my learning, my exploring, my sharing, and even my bank account.
I write this with such gratitude in my heart for the willingness to keep showing up, to keep questioning, to keep growing, to share authentically, and to have access to so many amazing things that allow me to do all of these things. It’s about evolving…..
In gratitude,
Laurie BB
