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How many ways can an asana be done? Depending upon your experience, your muscular structure, your skeleton, your flexibility, and your range of motion--there are many, many ways to perform an asana. Taking a pose to the "max" or taking a first, tiny step depends upon you. It's not about being a contortionist--it's about your personal range of motion.
Some basics to consider:
Yoga and pilates are two types of exercise that work your muscles, ligaments, and joints through complete range of motion exercises.
Daily chores such as housework, gardening, and climbing stairs are good exercise, but don't take your body through a complete range of motion.
Like strength training, range of motion training is sensitive to schedule. Just a few weeks away from your routine practice can make a difference in your flexibility.
Range of motion diminishes as we age, so it's important to keep challenging our joints and muscles to move.
If your joints or muscles are swollen or painful, move them very gently through their range of motion.When you feel resistance, STOP!
Proper technique and alignment are necessary to get the greatest benefit from any exercise, particularly those that challenge your joints. It's counterproductive to force your body into a pose. Never sacrifice alignment at the expense of moving deeper.
The regular, gentle stretching that is done in yoga is active stretching. No one "assists" you by pulling, shoving, or correcting. You are in charge of how far your body needs to go.
Many newcomers to yoga are under the impression that yoga is all about flexibility. Nope! Yoga is about taking your body to its resistance that day and no more. Those whippet-thin and hyper-flexible yoga practitioners make apparently impossible poses look effortless. Actually, they have developed such a large range of motion that to get the benefit of a pose, their limbs must move into ever-more extreme positions.
If you were in class today, we had a great "clinic" as to how range of motion affects the variation of an asana. As we did Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (bridge pose), some of us kept the soles of our feet flat on the floor and our shoulders on the mat. Some of us moved our hands to assist our hips off the mat. Others moved their shoulders closer together and grasped their hands under their backs. And, some took their entire body off the mat and rested their entire body weight on their hands and feet, turning their bridge pose into wheel.
And who got the greatest benefit from their asana? Everyone who challenged their bodies to their personal range of motion. The super-flexible class members felt no more lift in their chests and in their lower bodies than those who struggled to keep their hips up and their knees heading straight. That's the beauty of doing yoga. It can work its magic for every single body type and physical condition.
Interspersed throughout the blog are photographs of variations of Setu Bandha Sarvangasana. They illustrate many different "flavors" of the asana, from restorative (and oh so comfy!) to challenging (yowza!). Depending on your energy level, flexibility, confidence, strength and experience, you can move along a very wide continuum.
Yoga's stretching, pulling, breathing, and resisting assist in joint lubrication, bone density, balance and stability, better posture, and self-confidence. It's not about how you look while doing yoga, it's about how you feel.
Namaste,
Nancy
