Insights on Yoga Practice
In the world of yoga, the advice to “listen to your body” is often emphasized. It's sound and practical advice. Recognizing and adhering to your body's boundaries is vital when engaging in any physical activity. Being in tune with your body's signals during yoga sessions is crucial not only for your physical health but also for the advancement of your practice. After all, how else can you truly gauge the impact of an asana?
As yoga instructors, we cannot fully understand what another person is experiencing in their body. Therefore, fostering body awareness among students is essential. While listening to your body is critical, it sometimes falls short of ensuring your safety.
3 Reasons Why Listening to Your Body Might Not Be Sufficient
1. Body Awareness Varies Among Individuals
People come to yoga with varying degrees of body awareness. Some may have a keen sense of their physical sensations, while others might struggle to interpret even the most obvious signals. This difference could stem from prior physical activities or a lack thereof. Additionally, those who have endured physical or emotional trauma might either be hypersensitive to physical sensations or have learned to suppress extreme feelings. Consequently, not every student in your yoga class will possess the same level of body awareness initially. This is where an experienced teacher, skilled in assessing alignment, becomes invaluable. Remember, correct alignment looks different for everyone—humans aren’t made from cookie cutters.
2. Ligament Pain Can Be Delayed
Even with refined body awareness, you might sometimes harm yourself unknowingly. A pose might feel fine at the moment, but the pain could be delayed. For instance, overstretched ligaments might not cause discomfort until the next day. Unfortunately, once ligaments are overstretched, they don’t revert to their original length. Over time, consistently overstretching ligaments can destabilize your joints. Avoiding the urge to push to your absolute limit is a wise, healthy practice for both your ligaments and cartilage (more on this next!).
3. Joint Damage Often Goes Unnoticed—Until It Doesn’t
A more complex, long-term issue is the potential for joint damage, particularly in the hip joints. The acetabula (hip sockets) are lined with a cartilage surface called the “labrum,” and the heads of the femur bones are also covered with cartilage. This cartilage allows for smooth and free articulation of the ball and socket. However, cartilage lacks nerve endings, so we can’t feel the interaction between the ball and socket. Habitually pushing or collapsing into our joints—especially for those who are more flexible—can tear or wear down the cartilage over time. We might not feel cartilage damage until it’s too late. Although hip replacement surgeries have significantly advanced, it’s better to avoid overstretching our joints in the first place.
How Can Yoga Teachers Assist?
As instructors, we should encourage students to listen to their bodies and understand that pain and discomfort are signals to ease up, not push further. We also need to train ourselves to recognize when someone is collapsing into a joint. Poses where people commonly collapse or push into their hip joints include extreme hip openers like Kapotasana (Pigeon), Hanumanasana (splits), Anjaneyasana (lunges), and Yoga Nidrasana (ankle behind the head). (Is it really necessary to put your ankle behind your head to live gracefully?)
Backbends can also be problematic due to the tendency to push into the hip joints for extra height. Additionally, the common instruction to keep your pelvis squared in standing poses should be reconsidered. Allow the hip of your back leg to rotate inward to maintain continuity between the legs and pelvis. This advice applies to twists as well.
Listening to your body is crucial. You can prevent a lot of present and future discomfort by paying attention. However, remember that just because everything feels fine now, it might not be in the long term. Understand what a normal range of motion is for your joints. And remember: No yoga text advocates pushing past your limits as good practice.