Over the last couple of years or so I have started to incorporate some Yoga into my daily exercise practice and I thought it would be interesting to get some perspectives from you guys.
I did Iyengar Yoga with an instructor years ago and then forgot about it as I got back into martial arts and more combative type training. However in recent years as I have changed my Tai Chi practice to be more about profoundly ‘opening the body’ - see my previous post #542815 I realised that Yoga postures could be incredibly useful.
My teacher said to a group of us while we were sitting on the grass in Hyde Park London Summer 2019 ‘you really need to get deeper into the body guys’ while he demonstrated a stretch.
He was talking about not just lengthening the muscles but going much deeper with the mind and awareness using intention (Yi), Song and Ting as well as changing up the angles that we were using. His approach was to spend much longer in each position and to progressively release deeper into the posture. This can be painful but the benefit of practising like this is that it teaches us stability of awareness, discipline and release under pressure.
Later this got me thinking about Yoga postures as I realised that they could aid the ‘going deeper’ that my teacher was talking about. What practising Tai Chi was bringing about was an increased awareness of where my body was tight.
So for example I remember becoming aware that I couldn’t really feel my calves in much detail almost like there was a block in my awareness of my lower legs. So I started to use Yoga postures that would help stretch and get into my calves for example the ‘downward dog’ exercise.
The other example that I must share is regarding my neck and shoulders. Honestly they have been screwed up for years! A combination of hours sitting hunched at a desk, incorrect weight training and even surfing did a real number on my posture and led to increasing pain in my neck.
As my awareness grew of the problem and how it had arisen I realised again that certain Yoga postures would be useful and I’m happy to say that after working on this using various back bends, I am slowly reversing the damage, bringing back my flexibility and the pain is lessening with every practice session.
So to wrap up I don’t usually advocate combining different methods for reasons that I will perhaps discuss in a future post however lately this has proven to be beneficial and to bolster the healing process.
If any of you practice Yoga I would be fascinated to hear your experiences around health and healing. Thanks. 🙏