Do you know, an Anonymous Someone had found my wallet, and handed it to security. Untampered-with. In crime-ridden Johannesburg! Amazing. Thank you, Anonymous Someone. I wish I knew who you were, so I could thank you properly.
And my back hurts. Well, my sacro-iliac joint on the right side hurts, actually. Right about the same place as this elephant's muladhara (root) chakra:
Is this not an awesome picture? Anyway, I am off to the chiropractor tomorrow to be put to rights, but thought I would share with you what this article on yogajournal.com has to say about root chakra deficiency (it's actually worth reading the whole article):
Circumstances that pull up our roots and cause a first chakra deficiency ... include traveling, relocation, feeling fearful, and big changes in our body, family, finances, and business. Some people, often those with busy minds and active imaginations, don't need special challenges to become deficient in this chakra; they feel ungrounded most of the time, living more in the head than in the body.We experience deficiencies in this chakra as "survival crises." However mild or severe—whether you've been evicted, gone bankrupt, or just have the flu-these crises usually demand a lot of immediate attention. On the other hand, signs of excessiveness in the first chakra include greed, hoarding of possessions or money, or attempting to ground yourself by gaining a lot of excess weight.
Hmmm. Wonder why my back hurts? Good thing I know a little about how to go about correcting it. Yes, bring on the standing poses. And the standing balances: if you haven't already, check out the results of the balance pose poll here.
My arms are not strong enough to do shoulderstand (although I wish they were!) and my teacher never pushed me to do it. I tried it anyway once and also made my neck sore.
It is a student's responsibility also to know their limitations. Any teacher who insists and insists upon them doing what they know they can't isn't a good teacher.
People should listen to their bodies and teachers should respect and know that and never push.
xo,
Karen Beth :)
"This means I have been remiss in my teacherly duties"
not necessarily, nadine. more likely your students don't "have the bones" to do shoulderstand comfortably. as Paul Grilley says, "yoga is all in the bones."
when I train with him and he wants to show examples of the "winners and losers" (and you have to know him to know that he really doesn't mean you're a loser!) we line up for certain poses and he looks at our bone structure. someone with "winner" bones can do a pose easily, the "losers" can't. the angle of the neck determines who can do a shoulderstand comfortably.
for shoulderstand, he has us drop our chins to our upper chest. now take a ruler or stick, place it on the back of your student's neck going up the back of the head and look at the angle. less of an angle (i.e., the more upright the stick is) the more uncomfortable; more of an angle (in other words, the top of the stick is lower), the more comfortable the student will be in shoulderstand, neck-wise.
and if someone never does shoulderstand, what's the big deal? we're so attached to our bodies, to the "forms" that we are "supposed" to do. why?
"The catch is that after class, Mary is a judgemental and mean person."
sounds like those 30 years of yoga study really hasn't done much at all...have they?
all the technical knowledge doesn't mean anything if it doesn't evolve the heart.
Nadine,
I can completly relate to your concerns and questions -- is it appropriate to even introduce certain poses? The issue I find is in most classes there is a wide range of abilities. I don't introduce shoulderstand, handstand, headstand, or hand balances in a beginning class, because even if someone is flexible and strong it's the "awareness" that I stress when starting Yoga (and always). However, in one of my classes that's been going on for a while, we do shoulderstand sometimes--because their are folks really ready for it. In that same class there are folks really not ready. Ah, the dilema! I tell them what to look for (such as the Paul Grilley suggestion for the neck angle) to be sure they are ready. However, I do not play the parent. I literally say, "I'm not going to make you do or not do anything. If you want my recommendation, I will offer it, but I'm not going to make you come down." (I've only insisted once that a woman not go up--she has major neck issues. Regardless she says she does it all the time at home....)
This might not be the best approach, but it's the one I've taken to. Point is, I want to offer more challenging poses to people that can really benefit from them. At the same time, I offer info and guidance. But in the end, people will do what they want. "You can lead the horse to water, but you can't make them drink it." You offered alternatives (legs on wall), but you can't make someone not take it. Perhaps allowing each student to back off (and maybe bruise the ego a bit) 'on their own' is a lesson in and of itself.
Hope I'm not rambling too much....