II was excited to begin YogaRenew's Restorative Yoga teacher training last week, especially since my back injury flared up, and I felt very good about practicing some long savasana variations while absorbing lots of information about calming the neuromuscular system and what we call "the calm cascade," a release of hormones and other metabolic chemicals in our bodies that occurs when our mind & body are given a chance to rest and relax. 

These metabolic materials support so many aspects of healing on the cellular level. 

I will likely finish this and then do a Yin Yoga certification.  Yoga therapy is a big part of Integrated Positional Therapy, and that's the modality I'm using the most these days when I'm not doing head/neck/shoulder NMT. 

I've been practicing yoga for 20+ years, but it's nice to formalize this with some good teacher training.  I prefer restorative and yin yoga these days, saving deeper stretch techniques for use in the context of my mobility and corrective exercise workouts. 

There's some debate but it was brought to light in a New York Times article some time ago that deep static stretching doesn't have much benefit, and some advanced yoga poses are downright dangerous.  Gentle stretching has amazing benefits, as does contract/relax variations.  And as a body weight exercise system, yoga is great training for neuromuscular control and basic strength. 

But some deep static poses just don't make sense. 

Why aspire for range of motion that puts you in the category of hypermobility?  Much muscle pain relates to hypermobile joints - joints need stability.  Furthermore, ligaments need to be taught and supple to do their job of hold bone to bone with slight movement.  If we are in deep, high-sensation stretches past normal range of motion, there's a chance we are stretching ligaments, not just muscle and fascia.   

I have been hurt in pigeon pose by overstretching ligaments made vulnerable by pregnancy.  My right rotator cuff will never be the same from power yoga chaturanga.  I avoided yoga classes for many years and took a Pilates and corrective exercise path of teacher training for this reason. 

Lee Albert's positional therapy system got me back into yoga, because the gentle restorative poses he recommends are exercise gold for balancing problem areas and overall posture.  And healthy breathing patterns are a big part of pain management.  Yoga tends to focus a lot on the breath, another plus for the practice. 

There is so much benefit from that "calm cascade" that yoga lets us access in the safe framework of a restorative class.  I'm looking forward to bringing these benefits to my practice, and to help my clients. 

What I really want is a masters degree in Health Psychology, and a mental health counseling license.  In the mean time, I'll add to my wellness certifications, and start the process of yoga teacher training.  One bucket list item I have is to study yoga therapy at the Kripalu Center, and this is step one. 

Along with ad-hoc asanas before/during/after my strength training routines, my yoga practice has consisted of one simple routine, the Joint Freeing Series from the book Structural Yoga Therapy by Mukunda Stiles.  During the pandemic, I decided to use this flow as my daily practice.  Since the poses are single-joint range of motion movements, I created an assess-and-practice routine to track progress on movement restrictions, weakness and pain. 

Repeating the same flow, at least occasionally, and tracking results, has helped me come a long way with multiple small nagging musculoskeletal problems.  A little wrist pain; a clicking elbow; neck tension; shoulder weakness.  I have very mild hip arthritis and I discovered some hip joint weakness that I've been able to keep track of, and also improve. 

I've become a believer in assess/treat routines.  I'm just really happy with the yoga therapy model of practice. 

I have some imposter syndrome around yoga teacher training before I've even begun!  Only a fraction of yoga is asana... and I'm concerning myself with mostly pranayama (breathing practice), asana (posture practice), and mindfulness practice.   Doesn't yoga involve a deep understanding of the Bhagvad Gita, chakras, mudras, etc.?  And when it comes to asana, I have been injured by poses I've come to understand as problematic (for me, and more broadly).  So to see teachers in deep bends and think I have to learn to teach this... well that's just a mind dump on why I've been hesitating to do this. 

But my first hours of study were this past Friday night.  I jumped to the end of the syllabus and heard a lecture on the four traditional paths of yoga.  In the end, philosophy is one of my hobbies.  There is a lot of overlap in the ancient wisdom I've studied over the years.  I was so happy to find myself curious to get back into yoga philosophy.  Not every path is for everyone; feeling "less-than" because I'll feel I won't live the Bhagavad Gita 100%?  I can drop that. 

Practice was three different short sitting meditations, and a video on adapting sitting poses with props.  I'm committing to 5 minutes a day of seated meditation.  I did that twice yesterday, and this morning.  I'm just taking small steps, and trying to build a few practices into daily habits.