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This article challenges the “no-flexion” rule for osteoporosis, arguing that gradual, cyclic movement is safer and more effective for building bone resilience than total avoidance in yoga practice.
Trauma isn’t stored in the body — not in the muscles, the fascia, or the nervous system. That might sound pedantic, but it matters, because how we think about trauma shapes how we meet it.
Trauma can be understood as an experience that overwhelms our capacity to respond — when what happens feels too much for the resources we have at the time. The causes vary widely: the death of someone close, a physical assault, or the loss of a home. Whatever the event, it brings a wave of distress, fear, or helplessness. Later, situations that echo the original experience can re-awaken similar feelings. Because these sensations seem to rise up from the body itself, it can feel as though the trauma has been “stored” there, waiting to be released. But something subtler is taking place.
This article explores the modern evolution of yoga, emphasizing its role as a means of reducing suffering rather than a form of exercise or performance.
Stomachs don’t eat lunch, mouths don’t talk and eyes don’t see… We would never use this kind of language because we know it doesn’t really make sense. However it is not unusual in an anatomy class to be told that a bicep flexes the elbow. These parts play a role in the functions described but they can’t elicit these actions on their own. This kind of thinking falls prey to the ‘mereological fallacy’, yet it runs deep in our study of anatomy – and nowhere is it more evident than in yoga anatomy books; often beautifully illustrated books showing exactly which muscle does what action, on a perfectly clean skeleton. Just in case there is any doubt, the origin, insertion, innervation and function are usually described on the same page.
There’s no shortage of opinions in yoga about what constitutes safe practice for people with disc problems, particularly in the lumbar spine. To make sense of these differing views, it helps to look again at the anatomy of the intervertebral disc and the history of ideas about what causes disc injury.
Most yoga practitioners are familiar with the broad picture: each spinal disc has a tough outer ring (annulus fibrosus) surrounding a gel-like inner centre the nucleus pulposus). The annulus consists of concentric layers of collagen fibres, each angled alternately to the next. This architecture makes it exceptionally resilient to both internal pressure and external stress.
Continue reading Thinking about disc problems and their relationship to yoga practice
The balance between life and death is a fragile one, and the ability to maintain a life is frankly astonishing. It is an interesting exercise to reflect on how it is done.
It’s an interesting thing, the structural model – or what is sometimes called the biomechanical model. It’s neat and clean and full of satisfying solutions. It works really well with machines, such as cars…
Bodies respond to the way they are used; more than anything, they are adaptive.
Some useful things to help navigate the often disconcerting situations we can find ourselves in teaching people who are in pain.
An article I wrote to support a lecture I give on movement.