Tag: yoga classes

Practicing Yoga When You Have Chronic Pain

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Untitled-5People are often surprised that I have chronic pain, because I am a yoga teacher and the two are somehow supposed to cancel each other out. If only it were so simple! In my life, it’s been a more nuanced relationship—I got into yoga because of chronic back 

pain (and a whole host of attendant emotional and psychosocial issues), and my practice has, over the years, both helped me and hindered me in coping with pain and injury. When it’s helped me, it’s been because it has helped me to relax, centre, clear away my mental chatter, calm my nerves, and teach me to tune in to my body’s needs and capacities on any given day. When it’s hindered me, it’s been because of a combination of my own unrealistic expectations of myself and a culture of yoga classes that emphasizes fast and hard yoga asana practice, rather than slowness, deliberation and boundaries. Overall, though there have definitely been bumps along the way, yoga (and all different types of yoga, including yoga asanas, yoga nidra, hatha yoga, vinyasa yoga, pranayama and meditation) has helped me enormously.

I picked up some tips along the way, and would like to share them with other people who have pain, limited mobility or (dis)ability issues. This is what I have learned about practicing yoga with chronic pain—I hope it’s helpful to you and good luck on creating a style of yoga that fits and nurtures you.

Select Your Teachers Carefully
Unfortunately, many yoga teachers aren’t actually trained in the kinds of modification and adjustment you might need. This isn’t their fault—it’s because the standard of training (the 200h training that most teachers have) doesn’t address injury and limited mobility adequately. Someone with a 500h training may have more knowledge, but may also not. The best thing is to find a teacher who, through their own practice and teaching, has had injuries themselves or has made it a priority to learn about injury. Look for a teacher with a lot of experience; it’s also great if they are trained as a physiotherapist, massage therapist or other bodyworker, or if they have connections to such practitioners that they can recommend to you. Such a person might also not be working in a yoga studio, but rather giving yoga classes in a different setting. (This is because studios are often run on a very specific profit-maximizing and class-stuffing business model, and people who’ve been teaching for many years are often not compatible with it!) Most important of all is to find a teacher who puts you firmly in the driver’s seat, who gives you the information and then allows you to decide how far to go with it.

Select Your Style Thoughtfully
There are many different types of yoga. I would encourage you to try a few different styles, and then select what you need on any given day or week. Yoga benefits you in many different ways. For example, if you are having a pain flare, you might find restorative yoga or some other gentle yoga to be most helpful. If you’re feeling anxious, you might want something with more movement, or more meditation. I would suggest starting with slower styles—like Hatha Yoga or Classical Yoga. Chair yoga is also a great option for people with limited mobility. When you feel that you know your own body’s preferences and limits, you can try a more dynamic style (like Vinyasa Yoga or Ashtanga Yoga). Be careful with hot yoga, or with very fast-paced yoga classes; they can be a lot of fun, but it’s often challenging to listen to your own boundaries in such environments. It’s easy to overdo it and aggravate pre-existing problems.

Do Your Research
Don’t rely on a teacher to know what your body needs or shouldn’t do; It’s great if s/he can inform you, but it’s ultimately your responsibility. You’ll feel more empowered if you actively search for information, and then can make better decisions. If, for example, you have hyper-mobile shoulder joints or a slipped disc, it’s a good idea to ask your other healthcare practitioners about particular movements that might be dangerous for you. Of course, ask your yoga teacher, too—but don’t rely solely on their opinion.

If You Need To, Do Your Own Thing In Class
So, let’s say you have some disc issues in your lower back. And let’s say your teacher is teaching a lot of forward bends on a particular day, because other students are interested in learning them. And let’s say that, due to your research, you know that forward bends are something with which you should be careful. You can start by modifying the postures (and asking the teacher for ideas about how to do so). But, you know what? If you modify and it still hurts or feels like too much, just don’t do it. Feel free to rest in Savasana until the sequence is over, or do some other asana or pranayama while the other students are bending forward. A good teacher will support you in this, and won’t take it personally. Remember, it’s your time and your practice—do what’s best for you.

Practice Alone—It Will Help You Learn Your Boundaries Honestly
We’re social animals and we all like to feel part of the group. Unfortunately, when the group is moving in a specific way and you can’t follow, it’s very common to try and push and see if maybe you can get there today. Everyone with chronic pain or disability issues knows these thoughts. If they come up for you in yoga classes (and they often will, even in very gentle yoga or yoga for beginners classes), the best way to counter them is to balance your yoga studio practice with home practice. Then, with time and space, you can figure out what works for you, and you can come to a class prepared to respect and love your body’s limits.

Share Your Feelings About It
When you feel isolated, frustrated, invisible, hurt—find a way to let it out. Part of the journey of dealing with pain is learning to share it, verbalise or otherwise express it. Pain is often a silencing and isolating experience, and making it a social experience lessens the burden drastically. You might want to let your teachers know. You might not. It’s entirely up to you, how and with whom you share your emotions, but that you do share in some way is a very important part of learning to cope with your body’s limitations, negotiate this in relationships and celebrate what you do have and how great it is.

If you are looking for injury-, pain- and disability-aware yoga in Berlin, please don’t hesitate to contact us or drop into a class. We offer yoga nidra, hatha yoga, vinyasa yoga and classical yoga, in small classes with experienced teachers. You can see our yoga Berlin Kreuzberg schedule here.

 

Steps to Creating A Personal Yoga Practice

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For many people in the West, yoga is something that happens in classes, at a yoga studio, with a teacher who they don’t particularly know, in a room full of people who are more or less strangers. This is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of yoga, and this model of teaching and learning yoga asana, pranayama and meditation is basically an outgrowth of the economy of fitness, physiotherapy, massage and other wellness modalities in the West. The class/studio model has some benefits: most notably, some studio owners have found it very lucrative, and the commercialization of yoga has also lead to its legitimization in some people’s eyes. It’s not, however, a teaching model that is necessarily the most effective for either students or teachers. It’s also a model that raises some serious concerns about commercialism, capitalism and cultural appropriation. And, on an individual level, relying on classes alone can be expensive, disheartening or frustrating and often is just not feasible over the long-run.

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This is why, as most teachers will tell you, creating a personal yoga practice—one that you do at home, alone, with yourself as the teacher and perhaps some resources to guide you—is an important step to take. Often students are intimidated by this idea, but integrating yoga into daily life a lot easier than one might think. In this article, I’d like to offer some easy tips for starting a Home Practice that reflects you, your schedule, your family/work/community responsibilities and your needs.

1. Go Slow

By which I mean, start off with a modest goal: for example, 10 minutes of sun salutations in the morning, or 10 minutes breathing deeply in child’s pose. You will probably need to build your own confidence and your own commitment to the idea. You might also need to get people in your life (like children, roommates or partners) used to the idea of you taking time for yourself at home. Like all habits, It’s a lot easier to do this slowly and incrementally. When you feel ready, you can expand your sessions to 20 or 30min. If you get to an hour one day—well, hats off to you! But if you don’t—don’t stress about it. Yoga benefits you after just 10minutes of practice, and rigidity and guilt aren’t attitudes that will help you in the long run.

2. Reward Yourself

Look, it’s hard work. Even the so-called yoga basics (breathing, awareness and movement) require a high level of attention, commitment and self-love. If you’re like most yogis (advanced, as well as beginner yogis!), you’re probably facing up against a bunch of internal chatter, anxiety, worry and negativity. So, when you meet your modest goal, reward yourself! Cook yourself a lovely meal; make a coffee date with a friend; visit a museum or a botanical garden. Do something nice for yourself, and be proud of yourself.

3. Experiment and Have Fun

Because of the way most of us were educated (in classrooms, in schools and other institutions), we tend to subconsciously associate experimentation with the risk of messing up, ‘doing it wrong’ or getting in trouble. From a spiritual perspective, these kinds of risks are absolutely essential to take; if you don’t let yourself be vulnerable, you can’t grow. And, in your yoga practice, not only are risks essential, but they can also be a lot of fun! You can close the door while you practice—and then let yourself fall over, dance, move in uncontrolled ways that feel good, make noise, whatever works for you! Don’t be constrained by what you know of yoga asanas; feel free to integrate freestyle movement, or influences from other movement modalities, like martial arts or dance. Your yoga practice doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s, and it’s not anyone else’s business what you do or how you do it.

4. Make Your Place

This can be tricky, because you probably share living space. But all it really requires is good communication; tell your people that, when you close the door to the bedroom and hang a red ribbon on the door, it means 30minutes of personal time. Or choose a time of day where everyone else is out of the house. Or go up onto the roof. Or into the garden. Or organize a time with where you all come together into the living room, and do your individual practices alone. Be creative and, again, take it slow; it might take some time for people to get used to it. And, finally, it’s a great idea to spend 1 or 2 minutes clearing up the space in which you plan to practice; if you’re down on the ground, you will see all of the dirt and dust at close-range! It’s easier to focus when you’ve already swept it away.

5. Take Classes To Give Yourself New Ideas/Find A Good Teacher

This is where classes can be really great. Let’s say you’ve been doing 30min of yoga asana and pranayama every morning, and you’re feeling pretty good about it, but you feel a bit stuck with how to go develop further; maybe you feel you don’t have the knowledge or experience, or maybe you just don’t have the inspiration or the motivation. Maybe you would like to learn more about less-widely-taught parts of yoga: Yoga Nidra, Tratak, the Yamas and Niyamas or the Shatkarma. Well, this is where a good teacher comes in handy. Find a teacher who supports your home practice/exploration and attend classes or workshops occasionally with this person; someone with experience and empathy, who can support you and point you in the right direction, but who believes firmly that you are your own teacher and that their role is to develop your contact to this inner teacher.

6. Finally, Make It Your Own

Many of us have rather rigid ideas about ‘what yoga is’ or ‘how to do yoga’. Well, as you have probably heard about a million times, yoga means ‘union’—unifying your mind, body, heart and soul (and, I would add, creating connections between yourself, your community and the ecology that supports you) is the only ‘goal’. If you decide that your home practice will include 30minutes of journaling, because this helps you bring yourself into unity—wonderful. If you want to dance, sing, massage yourself, pray, draw, have orgasms, garden, laugh, cry, clean your room, take a shower—all of those can be part of your yoga practice. As long as you’re doing it with love, attention, awareness and intention, it’s yoga. Your home practice is your DIY spiritual practice, and it should be as unique as you are.

Good luck! Please feel free to let me know how your home practice is developing, either by contacting me or coming by an english yoga class in at our Berlin yoga studio in Kreuzberg.

Shiatsu for Yoga and Self-Massage

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Shiatsu (which means, literally, ‘finger pressure’) is a Japanese preventative manual therapy technique. In Shiatsu massage, vertical pressure (usually from the fingertips or palms) is applied to various points on the body—found using both anatomical knowledge and meridian knowledge—to produce wellness and ‘flow’ within the body’s energy systems. Pressure is usually applied, in order to guide energy through the body and clear blocked channels.

Many of us use these points unconsciously: when people feel pain in their bodies, they often naturally squeeze, massage and apply pressure to the area. This stimulates blood circulation, increases awareness (and thereby ability to respond to pain) and supports the metabolism of healing in the affected area. Shiatsu is especially successful in treating things like neck pain, but can also be used to deal with allergies, headaches,  chronic pain, exhaustion and all sorts of other problems you might have. Plus, it just feels really nice.

image taken from shiatsu-brighton.com

Learning a few Shiatsu points on your own body is a wonderful way to add a special level of care and support to your yoga practice. You can practice Shiatsu points regularly, and then use them in stressful situations as part of emotional first aid! In our English yoga classes at English Yoga Berlin, we integrate this teaching, step by step, so that students can slowly begin to learn their own bodies areas of strength and weakness, and thereby develop a highly personalized practice that meets their own health needs. Here is a blog discussing how Shiatsu and Yoga can complement each other, from a student’s perspective.

Two very useful points that relieve anxiety, exhaustion, sore eyes, neck tension, jaw ache and shoulder pain are Heavenly Pillar and Heavenly Rejuvenation. Heavenly Pillar is located on both sides of the neck, about one finger-width below the base of the skull and about one finger width on either side of the neck. Heavenly Rejuvenation is located on the shoulders, midway between the base of the neck and the outside of the shoulders, about 2cm below the top of the shoulders. Here is a graphic that shows both points.

The most important part of self massage is listening to your own body, so breathe deeply while you try finding these points and, when you find a point that feels good, stay there and apply gentle pressure. You might feel the point radiating outwards, into the muscles surrounding it. That’s a good sign. You don’t want to hurt yourself, so only press as firmly as you need to in order to feel a nice sensation. It’s recommended to press for about 1 minute—but feel free to stay longer if it feels good!

Audio Relaxations: Free, Online, Accessible. Enjoy!

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Enlish Yoga in Berlin

As yoga teachers, we see a lot of stressed out people, and we have the privilege of watching the profound transformation that can be brought about by an hour or two of practicing yoga. People leave our Berlin yoga classes with brighter eyes, straighter posture, deeper breathing, an easy smile and a calm, clear mind. Guiding people through this transformation is one the best things about teaching Yoga.

One of our goals, as teachers, is to offer students tools that they can use throughout their daily lives–not just in classes or on the yoga mat. We believe that intentional relaxation tools can be learned in classes and then practiced regularly at home, to the great benefit of the practitioners and everyone around them! Once we have learned the skills, we need to practice them, just like a new language or musical instrument. The more we practice, the easier it gets, and the more you practice intentional relaxation techniques, the more you will notice subtle but powerful changes in your everyday life and in your body.

To this end, we have developed an online library of audio recordings that you can use in the privacy of your own home, to practice your intentional relaxation skills. The recordings are taped copies of 20 minute relaxation sessions that we give at the end of our English-language yoga classes in Berlin. Each recording consists of a short introduction, a progressive relaxation exercise, a visualization exercise and some aural stimuli. Every recording is different and they are all the products of our own creative processes, dreams, lives and yoga practices. They are anti-copyrighted: you are welcome to share them, but please do not make money off of them—a lot of personal energy and time has gone into each visualization and we’d like to keep them separate from the money economy!

The first page contains 5 free recordings and is available to everyone online, free of charge.

After that, if you are interested to have more, send us an email and we’ll send you the password to the password-protected page, where you can access the entire library. If you are a regular English Yoga Berlin student, then you are automatically entitled to access the library: listen out for the monthly password after your next class!

Berlin Yoga: Terminology Tuesday

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As a Hatha Yoga instructor in Berlin, I often use Sanskrit words during my yoga classes.  Sometimes I even like to take a pause after the sanskrit yoga word, and see if the older students know what I am talking about or if they are just waiting for the English translation.

In order to learn about yoga properly I find it important to aknowledge its roots in the Indian culture and the Sanskrit language. Taking the time to understand these words and their meanings makes your yoga practice a more complete experience and adds to the understanding of yoga and it’s origins.  That is why I started Berlin Yoga: Terminology Tuesday, a post where I explain the basic sankrit words used in my yoga classes. So in this blog I would like to explain the meaning of the word kapalabhati, a breathing technique we often use in the yoga class.

Kapalabhati –  is a form of Pranayama, or breathing technique. Kapala means “skull”  and bhati means “shiny” or “illuminated”. So Kapalabhati means “shiny skull”. It is a breathing technique we use to increase our Prana and clean out the air passageways before doing more advanced pranayama.