Yoga Articles
- The Core - David Emerson
- A Review of the recent Kripalu program: Focusing Yoga for Therapeutic Results: a Symposium- Dana Moore
- What to Expect from a Trauma Center Yoga Class- David Emerson
- Thoughts on Breathing -David Emerson
- Heal Life's Trauma -Denise Kersten Wills
THE CORE
By: David Emerson
INTRODUCTION
When we talk about “the core,” two separate but deeply related ideas come up: core strength, and an actual, physical center in the body. It is important to understand both concepts if one is to teach trauma sensitive yoga effectively. Core Strength involves the musculature from the knees to the solar plexus (bottom of the sternum/breastbone). This “field” makes up more than half of the body! In yoga, we are interested in cultivating strength in this part of the body on the front, back and sides. Having a strong core supports the lower back and stabilizes the knees. Being strong and stable at the core allows one to relax muscles in the neck and shoulders, which often compensate for a weak core and try to “hold up the spine.” One key shift is to learn to support the spine from the base, the root and to not try to hold up the spine with the neck and shoulders (which is often our default). Holding up the spine with the neck and shoulders is very stressful and often leads to tension in the neck and upper back; the breath gets stuck up in the chest, which in turn taxes the nervous system.
PRACTICE
For a moment, try holding up the spine with the neck and shoulders. Feel the shoulders pull up toward the ears and the muscles futilely contract all the way around to the throat. Feel how the muscles strain, sensing that the mechanics here are actually impossible – do you notice anxiety rise up? Can you feel the breath get choppy and erratic, no longer integrated in the muscular effort but perhaps working against it? Now relax. Pause. Come back to the breath.
Let’s begin to find the physical center. Here, while we are engaging strength in the whole field from knees to solar plexus there is a particular emphasis at the center of gravity, the core of the pelvis, located about two inches below the navel and in toward the spine. Sit in your chair preferably toward the front of the chair so the sits bones can be firmly established but if this is painful in the back for now, you may sit back in the chair. Bring your feet to the floor hip width or a little wider. Feel your feet making contact with the floor. Feel the sits bones rooting down through the chair. Take a moment to Get Centered (Gentle movements side to side and forward to back may help. Notice, as you gently move, abdominal muscles beginning to wake up/brighten/engage.) As you come back to the upright, Seated Mountain Pose hug the lower belly in toward the spine. Gently but firmly draw the lower belly in toward a mid point at the core of the pelvis. As you keep the center engaged at the same time allow the lower back to release – a letting go in the lower back. Allow the tailbone to gently lengthen down toward the chair.
CONCLUSION
When you have established this physical center, you will have a more stable place from which to experience life. Trauma knocks a person off a stable center and this is a big part of the problem. Without a stable center sensations, information etc. coming at you from all directions are very likely to bring you down. When a traumatized individual learns to maintain a center in the midst even of intense sensation they have gained an invaluable tool to help them along the healing process. Yoga, this practice right in the body, can help with exactly this.
A REVIEW OF THE RECENT KRIPALU PROGRAM: FOCUSING YOGA FOR THERAPEUTIC RESULTS: A SYMPOSIUM
By: Dana Moore
What a week! There were 12 presenters and over 50 participants eager to learn how yoga can be focused for therapeutic results. I was fortunate to have been a part of this program’s debut. As a Kripalu yoga teacher, mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) teacher, and nascent psychotherapist working with trauma survivors, I had a keen interest in the topic of this symposium.
Don Stapleton, a senior Kripalu yoga teacher, YTT instructor, and dean of Yoga Education at Kripalu, opened the symposium with his endearing charisma and open-heartedness. With a warm smile and enthusiastic “Jai Bhagwan!!,” he welcomed participants from various backgrounds to the week’s events. (For those of you unfamiliar with a “symposium,” it is an event consisting of multiple individuals presenting complementary perspectives on a common topic). Most attendees were yoga teachers, although psychotherapists, nurses, bodyworkers and other professions were also represented. I was not alone leaving the week inspired and eager to continue learning about how yoga can serve the needs of those with serious health conditions.
In addition to encouraging you not to miss this new and very relevant Kripalu program the next time around, I also hope my reflections offer a potentially useful framework for viewing the emerging field of “yoga therapy.” Thinking back to the various presentations I see them fitting into two broad categories, that overlap, but yet contain distinctive approaches. In one category, traditional yoga practices are taught, with specific modifications and with an empathic presentation, to individuals with serious health conditions such as heart disease and cancer, but not as a specific treatment for the health conditions themselves. In the other category, specific yoga exercises are selected and presented as a treatment for specific health conditions such as depression and anxiety. While the yoga being taught in the first category is not intended to treat the health condition itself improvement in that condition would be welcomed. The intention the yoga practice is meant to fulfill differentiates the two categories and is what I want to briefly explore in this brief review.
In the first category, the intention is to provide a yoga class to individuals suffering from a major health condition such as cancer or heart disease for whom a regular yoga class at their local studio is not a good fit. Their special limitations, needs, and sensitivities must be taken into account so as not to exacerbate their health condition and to make it an enjoyable experience for them. Some of them, in the midst of a long-term hospital stay, cannot even make it to a studio even if they wanted to. Yoga has to be brought to them. Nischala Joy Devi and Priti Robyn Ross, two of the symposium presenters, are deeply involved in teaching yoga in this way and are eager to share their work and train others in their approach. Both of them firmly believe that yoga practice should be available to everyone, no matter the state of their health. Yoga can be adapted to meet anyone’s needs regardless of limitations in movement or ability to handle physical stress. Participants in these kinds of yoga classes are not doing the yoga as a means of treating or curing their cancer or heart disease, for example, but for all the other incredible benefits in spirit, mind, and body yoga has to offer. How wonderful for someone dealing with the incredibly challenging experiences of a major health condition to practice yoga!
The second category was represented by the work of Joseph Lepage, Bo Forbes, and Amy Weintraub, among others. These gifted teachers are pioneers in using yoga in more specific and intentionally therapeutic ways. They are enthusiastically stepping into the community of mainstream health professionals as treatment providers for the most common mental health disorders in our society today: depression and anxiety.
Like Nischala and Priti, they too carefully select asanas, pranayama, mudras, and other yoga practices they believe will be particularly helpful for people with depression and anxiety. All three of them have worked with many individuals and groups over the years and report very encouraging results. What makes them different from Nishala and Priti, however, is that they offer their yoga practice as a specific treatment modality for mental health conditions. For this reason, I feel their work can be described as “yoga therapy” in contrast to the approach taken in the first category that does not claim to be a specific treatment option.
Amy’s groundbreaking book, Yoga for Depression, is a clear example of using yoga for a specific therapeutic effect. Bo Forbes developed Elemental Yoga Therapeutics as her approach to treating depression and anxiety. She frequently provides yoga treatment to patients referred by local physicians and mental health therapists. Joseph Lepage, the founder of Integrated Yoga Therapy, also offers yoga practices for specific health conditions such as high blood pressure at his yoga center in Brazil. He receives requests from people around the country seeking an alternative and holistic way of managing their high blood pressure rather than relying exclusively on what western medicine has to offer.
Physicians and other health care providers we communicate with will want to know exactly what we are intending to accomplish by teaching yoga to people suffering from serious health conditions in body and mind. If we are engaged in the kind of work Nishala and Priti are doing, we must be clear we are teaching yoga as yoga to people with special needs and not intending the yoga to be an alternative or complementary (though it might be a complementary) treatment for their health condition. On the other hand, if we intend our presentation of yoga to be an alternative or complementary treatment for conditions such as depression and anxiety as Amy, Bo, and Joseph, are doing we must be explicit about that as well. The merging of yoga and mainstream health care is in its infancy. It is too early to make certain claims about the specific therapeutic effects yoga may have. My intention in writing this piece is to provide some orienting generalizations that help get us in the ballpark.
The potential for yoga to improve the quality of life of people suffering from serious health crises is immense and has only begun to be tapped. I hope many yoga teachers, especially Kripalu yoga teachers, choose to dedicate their teaching vocation to working with people in such need.
