Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Searching For The Origins Of My Practice In Post-Lineage Yoga


by Patrice Priya Wagner


Several years after I completed basic teacher training and was teaching yoga to people with disabilities, I started to question what I was doing. When I told my students that the poses we did were thousands of years old, I wondered, was this factually correct? When I searched for information online, I found a variety of differing accounts about the evolution of yoga. 

Most of what I taught was from a 200-hour Accessible Yoga training offered through Integral Yoga, which I combined with an Iyengar-like alignment awareness to safely modify poses. I had no trouble learning about the origins of Integral and Iyengar practices from books about their founders, Sri Swami Satchidananda and B.K.S. Iyengar, respectively. But there's so much more to the history of yoga in India than any 200-hour training can provide––and I needed to find out more about the origins of the poses and practices. 


My search to discover exactly how the poses and subtle practices came into existence made significant progress when I took an online course in 2018 offered by YogicStudies.com. I learned that according to the textual evidence that we currently have, yoga as a mind/body/breath practice began about 2,500 years ago in India and South Asia. The practice was not called yoga and, at that time, involved meditation for the most part; the Sanskrit word for pose (asana) was used mainly to refer to your sitting position for practicing meditation.

Around 500 BCE, Alexander the Great traveled to India where he wrote about seeing local people performing headstands or standing on one leg similar to Vrksasana (Tree Pose) for an extended time. We have written records of his encounters with these ascetics who were doing what may look like modern-day poses but which, at that time, were done in an attempt to transcend the mind and body. Also around that time in India, the word "yoga" is found in the sacred Katha Upanishad (6.10-6.11), where the word is used not to refer to poses but to signify steadfast control of the senses. I have a daily meditation practice and was humbled by the fact that meditating has been going on in India for millennia.

A second online course I took, "An Introduction to Yoga History and Philosophy," was great. It opened my eyes to the academic perspective on the ancient traditions and revealed what we know about yoga's beginnings which is derived from textual evidence. Texts in India and South Asia, before paper became widely available, were written on dried palm leaves that easily disintegrated in the damp local climate or became a tasty meal for insects. Fortunately, many of these texts have survived and Indologists who are given access to them for research are helping preserve the teachings for future generations by taking digital photos of the palm leaf pages. But some facts about yoga's origins took the magic and mystery from my practice and I felt disenchanted for a short while.

In that second course I learned about Tirumalai Krishnamacharya who was commissioned in the early twentieth century to teach boys at the royal palace in Mysore, India, where he developed a version of asana practice for the students. The yoga taught by Krishnamacharya included poses and practices he learned from his elders but, for a variety of historic and cultural reasons, was also heavily influenced by Scandinavian gymnastics and body building exercises with an overlay of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras philosophy.

The asana practice originating in the Middle Ages as an element of Hatha Yoga greatly influenced what we practice today, and Krishnamacharya played a crucial role as well by developing a methodology suited to twentieth century interests. And the many students he taught who brought his teaching method to the West also brought along their own innovations. These individuals included B.K.S. Iyengar, T.K.V. Desikachar, Indra Devi, and Pattabhi Jois, among others.

Although I felt elated to find out so much about the origins of the poses I do, the truth came with thorns attached. I realized that as a female, had I lived earlier, I would have been left out of yoga practice until the early twentieth century with rare exception. Although I had heard that before, it only became crystal clear while reading about the different historical stages of yoga’s evolution that occurred through the leadership of exclusively men.

However, in 21st century yoga, women are treated as equals to men––in fact, today far more women practice and teach in the West than men. With this new information, I've come to accept the truth about yoga's origins and am pleased to be able to participate in this day and age.

In addition, sometime in the midst of my studies, the magic and mystery returned to my yoga practice revealing itself to me slowly and subtly. Now it wasn't based on anecdotes or ancestral stories that I had accepted without questioning as a teacher trainee. It came from knowing the background of what I was doing on my yoga mat, which ushered in moments of clarity and serenity there. Factual evidence about the ancient yogic teachings reassured my mind to accept the benefits of a practice that has been enjoyed by many for thousands of years.

I'm so glad I spent the time and effort to inform myself about the roots of yoga––for my students' benefit as well as my own. Now I can tell students which of the poses and practices are ancient and which are modern. When providing information, I'm extra careful to be accurate or admit when I'm not exactly sure. Knowing the origins of what I teach has made me feel like I'm living an authentic life and can share my practice joyfully with my students.


 Patrice Priya Wagner, RYT 500, C-IAYT, teaches yoga to people with disabilities in Oakland, California, and has been published in New Mobility Magazine, Works and Conversations, Artweek, and Kitchen Sink. She is Managing Editor of the Accessible Yoga Blog and a founding member of the Accessible Yoga Board of Directors.



This post was edited by Nina Zolotow, Editor in Chief of the Accessible Yoga blog.

° FOLLOW Accessible Yoga on FacebookTwitterInstagram, and YouTube

° REGISTER here for our next conference. 

° DONATE here to help us bring yoga to people who don't have access or have been underserved, such as people with disabilities, chronic illnesses, children with special needs, and anyone who doesn't feel comfortable in a regular yoga class.


To preorder Jivana Heyman's forthcoming book Accessible Yoga in the U.S., go to Shambhala PublicationsAmazonBarnes and NobleIndie Bound (for independent bookstores), or your local bookstore. People in other countries who want the order the book see How to Order "Accessible Yoga" from Countries Outside the U.S.

Monday, October 28, 2019

Ask The Yoga Doctor: Is Yoga Safe If You've Got Osteoporosis?

Some doctors advise people with the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis to avoid practicing yoga. Does this advice make sense? What are the risks? How can you practice yoga safely if your bone-mineral density is less than normal? Dr. Timothy McCall offers some guidance.


If you want to submit a question to Timothy, email it to AskTheYogaDoctor@gmail.com.



Timothy McCall, MD is a board-certified internist, Yoga Journal's medical editor since 2002 and the author of the Amazon #1 bestseller Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing. He practiced medicine in the Boston area for a dozen years before devoting himself full-time in the late 1990s to yoga therapy. He has studied with many of the world's leading yoga teachers, including BKS Iyengar and TKV Desikachar. In 2005, Timothy began his studies with a traditional Ayurvedic doctor, Chandukutty Vaidyar, and spent more than a year at his clinic in Kerala, India. His latest book is Saving My Neck: A Doctor’s East/West Journey through Cancer. For more information see DrMcCall.com.

This post was edited by Nina Zolotow, Editor in Chief of the Accessible Yoga blog.


° FOLLOW Accessible Yoga on FacebookTwitterInstagram, and YouTube

° REGISTER here for our next conference. 

° DONATE here to help us bring yoga to people who don't have access or have been underserved, such as people with disabilities, chronic illnesses, children with special needs, and anyone who doesn't feel comfortable in a regular yoga class.

To preorder Jivana Heyman's forthcoming book Accessible Yoga in the U.S., go to Shambhala PublicationsAmazonBarnes and NobleIndie Bound (for independent bookstores), or your local bookstore.

Friday, October 25, 2019

The Big Wheel Keeps On Turning: How We Live With Change

The Sun at His Eastern Gate by William Blake
by Nina Zolotow

“From the world of the senses, Arjuna, comes heat and comes cold, and pleasure and pain. They come and they go: they are transient. Arise above them, strong soul.” —Bhagavad Gita II. 14, translated by Juan Mascaro

Because we were in Cambridge, England and not in the U.S., when our first child was born she was not immediately whisked away from us to be weighed, measured, and cleaned. Instead, the mid-wife simply handed her to me, wrapped in a blanket, saying she would leave the two of us alone with our baby for a bit. She left the labor room briefly and then returned bearing two ceramic cups and saucers. She said, “Here’s some tea for the new mum and dad—with lots of sugar for mum after all she’s been through.” Then she left the room and closed the door. 

So that is how we had some quiet time together to contemplate the huge change we had just gone through—it had happened so suddenly after I had gone into labor in the middle of the night a whole month early—and now there was new human being alive in the world—and to talk about how we had been changed ourselves by our experience. Brad said that when they handed him the baby just after they cut the cord, he had been so overwhelmed with emotion—he realized that he would kill to protect this child—that he almost fainted. I said that when they first put the baby on my bare chest, thrashing and squalling and covered with blood and that white goo, whatever it was called, I, too, felt an intense rush of feeling, a new kind of love that I had never felt before. Then we paused and took a few sips of tea—mine was so sweet it was almost undrinkable—and I turned to look out of the window for the first time since I had come into that labor room in the maternity hospital. It was morning, the sky was a clear robin’s-egg blue, and warm sunlight was streaming in through the glass. 

I said, “It looks like maybe spring is finally here!” 

“Yes,” Brad said. “It’s about time—it’s mid-April after all—this winter seems like it has gone on forever.”

“I’ve been watching for signs of spring, and I did see the forsythias blooming, the same way they always did in Boston, and then some crocuses. Maybe masses of daffodils on Mid-Summer Common will be next….”

In the distance, across a flat, wide field, I saw a train heading south.

“Is that the same train we always take to London?” I asked.

“Yes, I believe it is.”

“How strange,” I mused. “All those times we passed by this very window without having any idea of what goes on in this room.”

“It’s Friday morning,” Brad said. “And everyone out there is just going about their everyday lives. And speaking of that, I have a lot to do today. No one even knows yet that the baby was born—it is still the middle of the night in L.A.—so I have some phone calls to make and then I’ve got some shopping to do for all those baby things we didn’t get yet….”

Then the midwife and nurse came back in the room with a scale and a tub of water, and gently took the baby from me. They weighed the baby and cleaned her up, dressing her in a “nappy” and tiny shirt and then wrapped her up again in a clean blanket. Then the mid-wife gave the baby back to me and showed me how to help her “latch on” for her first feeding. 

This was 35 years ago but I was remembering it lately because I was thinking about change. It seems to me during that special time Brad and I both had a sense not only of change, of how life begins and ends time after time, but also of that which endures. As the earth turns on its axis, morning follows night and the sun rises in the east, and as the earth circles the sun, the seasons will unfold, one after the other.

Yoga teachers—along with Buddhist teachers—tell us that meditating on our breath teaches about change and impermanence. Just like heat and cold, pleasure and pain, a single breath is an ephemeral thing, arising and then falling away. And if we pay attention, we see that every breath—like every snowflake—is different than the one before it. That is one of the main reasons we are taught to meditate on our breath.

But I’ve also found that meditating on the breath can teach us about what remains constant. As we practice, whether we sit or recline, gravity tethers our bodies to our planet, the Earth. With every breath, our world turns on its axis and circles around our sun, and we move forward through time. And after every exhalation, an inhalation will follow, as long as we live. 

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna describes the person who is ready for liberation as: 

“Who unperturbed by changing conditions sits apart and watches and says “the powers of nature go round”, and remains firm and shakes not.” —Bhagavad Gita, XIV.23, translated by Juan Mascaro

Nina Zolotow is Editor in Chief of the Accessible Yoga blog. Formerly, the Editor in Chief of the Yoga for Healthy Aging blog, Nina is a yoga writer as well as a certified yoga teacher and a long-time yoga practitioner. She is the co-author with Baxter Bell of Yoga for Healthy Aging: A Guide to Lifelong Well-Being and co-author with Rodney Yee of Yoga: The Poetry of the Body (with its companion 50 Card Practice Deck) and Moving Toward Balance. She is also the author of numerous articles on yoga and alternative medicine.

This post was edited by Priya Wagner, Managing Editor of the Accessible Yoga blog.

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° DONATE here to help us bring yoga to people who don't have access or have been underserved, such as people with disabilities, chronic illnesses, children with special needs, and anyone who doesn't feel comfortable in a regular yoga class.

To preorder Jivana Heyman's forthcoming book Accessible Yoga in the U.S., go to Shambhala Publications, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indie Bound (for independent bookstores), or your local bookstore. People in other countries who want the order the book see How to Order "Accessible Yoga" from Countries Outside the U.S.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Racial Bias in Yoga Media: Nicole Cardoza's Accessible Yoga Conference Keynote Speech, NYC 2019


Nicole Cardoza, yoga teacher and entrepreneur who strives to make wellness more accessible through yoga classes for school children, and coordinates grant funding for underestimated entrepreneurs, delivered a keynote speech at the Accessible Yoga Conference in New York on Oct. 11, 2019. Here is some of what was said, edited for clarity:


Jivana Heyman introduced Nicole with these words:

"I feel it's really important in the yoga world to know what's going on and the changes because of people like her (Nicole). Briefly, Yoga Journal had offered Nicole a cover, which is exciting, and then they did some kind of weird market survey thing where they posted pictures of Nicole from a cover shoot they did with a white yoga teacher, and asked people to vote on which cover they wanted and it was just unnecessary, racist garbage basically. Just to put that out there, especially when they had already told her that she was the cover. And they had made that contract with her, it was really messy. And the reason I'm really excited about this is to say I was amazed by what Nicole did. She turned this really painful situation into a learning opportunity for all of us and Yoga Journal. She handled it so beautifully and we all learned from what she was teaching us. And we're grateful for her being here tonight."

Nicole:

I'm really honored to be here. I've talked about this magazine cover a lot but I haven't had the chance to talk about it with a bunch of people who are supportive. I'm so grateful to be in a space where people recognize and honor and understand that story, because we're all in that work.

When that situation happened, the first thing I did was feel incredibly ashamed. They didn't tell me they were going to do any kind of survey involved. It was actually ironic because they were coming on tour with my non-profit (Yoga Foster) that brings yoga and mindfulness to schools. A lot of what we do is reclamation, like how do we leverage the resources in the inaccessible yoga community and bring it into schools that need it most? We're really excited about having a big media partner to be able to help with that. They (Yoga Journal) did a feature on Yoga Foster, they were going to do a feature on me, and it was a natural progression to be on the cover. So what an honor to be able to be on the cover because of that work.

So you can imagine how shameful it was to be told that the work was great and the story about the work was great, it was just my body and my skin and my hair, or whatever else they saw in the photos that they chose to take, that wasn't good enough for the cover. And making yoga accessible in my life is deciding what I will no longer tolerate. For me it was no longer tolerating not being comfortable in my own skin. This practice has made me feel at home in my body.

So what started for me was shame because I wore my hair natural––because I've worn it with a relaxer or weaves for most of my life. I shouldn't have been in such a casual pose. It felt like it was my fault. That's something that happens not just in this yoga community and that's the way that the inaccessible yoga space is packaged, that's what we're taught by systemic oppression, that's what we're taught by white supremacy, that's what we're taught because that's how capitalism thrives.

Then I got hella mad. Hella mad. We deserve to be angry black women or however you show up in your work. And we deserve to be hella mad collectively. So I emailed Yoga Journal and when I didn't get a response, the next thing for me was to have this conversation with people who need to know about it, right? Because this happens to all of us all the time. This stuff happens behind the scenes every day, all the time. It's rare that it happens as publicly and blatantly and disrespectfully as Yoga Journal.

The reason why Yoga Journal listened isn't just because of what I posted. It's because of every single person who came to my defense on Instagram––so a big shout out if you do follow me on Instagram because they wouldn't have listened if so many of us did not decide that we were no longer going to take this anymore. So, thank you.

One way that we need to change this is by giving people access to resources so that our work can thrive without having to play that game. Without having to feel like we have to shrink in order to be successful. And my small contribution to that is starting Reclamation Ventures, as Jivana mentioned, which is a fund which is investing in other entrepreneurs that are consistently underestimated in this space, that are doing work to make yoga accessible, or to make yoga "yoga." And I want to continue to support people who are doing this incredible work so that maybe, next year, this isn't the Accessible Yoga Conference but just the Yoga Conference.

Nicole Cardoza is passionate about the reclamation of wellness. She’s the founder and Executive Director of Yoga Foster, a national nonprofit that empowers educators with yoga and mindfulness resources for the classroom. She’s also the founder of Reclamation Ventures, a venture fund investing in underestimated entrepreneurs making wellness more accessible. Nicole’s work has been featured in Forbes, Yoga Journal, Wanderlust, Family Circle Magazine, SELF Magazine, Paper Magazine, Mind Body Green, and Well + Good. She’s a seasoned speaker, consultant, teacher and coach.

This post was transcribed by Patrice Priya Wagner, co-editor of Accessible Yoga blog and member of the Board of Directors.

° FOLLOW Accessible Yoga on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube

° REGISTER here for our next conference. 

° DONATE here to help us bring yoga to people who don't have access or have been underserved, such as people with disabilities, chronic illnesses, children with special needs, and anyone who doesn't feel comfortable in a regular yoga class.


To preorder Jivana Heyman's forthcoming book Accessible Yoga in the U.S., go to Shambhala Publications, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indie Bound (for independent bookstores), or your local bookstore. People in other countries who want the order the book see How to Order "Accessible Yoga" from Countries Outside the U.S.

Monday, October 21, 2019

Ask the Yoga Doctor: Is Locking Your Knees a Bad Idea?

To lock or not to lock, that is the question. In this video, Dr. Timothy McCall, MD and yoga therapist, weighs in on this controversial topic.
If you want to submit a question to Timothy, email it to AskTheYogaDoctor@gmail.com.


Timothy McCall, MD is a board-certified internist, Yoga Journal's medical editor since 2002 and the author of the Amazon #1 bestseller Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing. He practiced medicine in the Boston area for a dozen years before devoting himself full-time in the late 1990s to yoga therapy. He has studied with many of the world's leading yoga teachers, including BKS Iyengar and TKV Desikachar. In 2005, Timothy began his studies with a traditional Ayurvedic doctor, Chandukutty Vaidyar, and spent more than a year at his clinic in Kerala, India. His latest book is Saving My Neck: A Doctor’s East/West Journey through Cancer. For more information see DrMcCall.com.

This post was edited by Nina Zolotow, co-editor of the Accessible Yoga blog.


° FOLLOW Accessible Yoga on FacebookTwitterInstagram, and YouTube

° REGISTER here for our next conference. 

° DONATE here to help us bring yoga to people who don't have access or have been underserved, such as people with disabilities, chronic illnesses, children with special needs, and anyone who doesn't feel comfortable in a regular yoga class.

To preorder Jivana Heyman's forthcoming book Accessible Yoga in the U.S., go to Shambhala PublicationsAmazonBarnes and NobleIndie Bound (for independent bookstores), or your local bookstore.

Friday, October 18, 2019

Featured Video: Amber Karnes Demonstrating Vinyasas Using a Chair

We love this video of Amber Karnes demonstrating how to do Sun Salutations and other vinyasas using a chair, which makes these asanas accessible to those who can't get up and down from the floor or to anyone who can't do the classic versions for any reason. Moving with your breath is not only uplifting but it also helps improve strength, balance, and agility as well as focus and mindfulness. —Nina




Amber Karnes is the founder of Body Positive Yoga and the creator of the Body Positive Clubhouse. She works with humans who want to make peace with their bodies and build unshakable confidence. For her, yoga has been an integral part of a decade-long journey toward self-acceptance and body positivity—a journey of making peace with my body and helping others to do the same. See bodypositiveyoga.com for more information.

This post was edited by Nina Zolotow, co-editor of the Accessible Yoga blog and Editor in Chief of Yoga for Healthy Aging.

° FOLLOW Accessible Yoga on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube

° REGISTER here for our next conference. 

° DONATE here to help us bring yoga to people who don't have access or have been underserved, such as people with disabilities, chronic illnesses, children with special needs, and anyone who doesn't feel comfortable in a regular yoga class.

To preorder Jivana Heyman's forthcoming book Accessible Yoga in the U.S., go to Shambhala PublicationsAmazonBarnes and NobleIndie Bound (for independent bookstores), or your local bookstore. People in other countries who want the order the book see How to Order "Accessible Yoga" from Countries Outside the U.S.

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Interview with Nanci Winterhalter on Yoga for Breast Cancer Survivors


Nanci Winterhalter responded to our call for interviewees and what follows is our discussion about the important yoga for breast cancer survivors classes that she teaches.

Priya: Tell us a bit about your yoga training and experience teaching yoga.

Nanci: My yoga training was at Maha Yoga in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, with a wonderful teacher, Diane Lagadec, from 2015-2017. I am now studying to be a yoga therapist at the Himalayan Institute.

In 1987, I graduated from Columbia University as a physical therapist and have been practicing PT for over 30 years. My PT training, yoga training has guided my transition into teaching yoga to people who may not feel they could fit into a “regular” yoga class. For example, I teach Yoga for people with Parkinson’s, Yoga for Breast Cancer Survivors, Senior Yoga, Chair Yoga, Yoga for Baby Boomers (and their friends), Yoga for adults who attend an urban medical day care program, and a series called Happy Posture/Healthy Bones for people with low bone density issues.

Most of my classes are offered at my local Council on Aging's Multi Purpose Center so they are very low cost or sometimes free (grant funded). I also teach on a rotating basis at a community program offered free by the New Bedford Wellness Initiative at The New Bedford Boys and Girls Club. That’s a lot of yoga! I consider myself privileged to share this ancient practice to anyone who is interested!

Priya: You've been working with diverse populations and I'm particularly interested in your experience teaching breast cancer survivors. How did you get started with that?

Nanci: Like so many people, my family’s life has been personally touched by cancer. Also, as a physical therapist working for a home health agency, I had the opportunity to work with many people living with cancer over the years. Dealing with the conditions and the treatments is so challenging and I could see how simple movements, breathing exercises, and relaxation from yoga could be so powerful. I started to bring the wonderful practices of yoga into our sessions and the clients embraced it.

In 2018, I decided to study with Tari Prinster to become certified as a Y4C (Yoga for Cancer) teacher. When I came home, I was discussing the training with the owner of a lovely studio nearby and she had recently lost her best friend to breast cancer. She offered me the use of the studio for a weekly class and it has been going ever since. It’s been a great experience and one of the best things about it is the community it provides---where people can feel comfortable and share their journey with others who understand.

Priya: Can you share with us some of the specific poses, language, or techniques that you use in classes for breast cancer survivors, and please explain why they are appropriate for this practice?

Nanci: Tari’s Yoga for Cancer is a specialized yoga methodology that is tailored to address the specific physical and emotional needs left by cancer and its treatments. Tari’s philosophy is that “true compassion comes through knowledge and understanding.” To help survivors heal as a “whole person,” this methodology seeks to strengthen all systems of the body through the use of gravity, movement, compression, and restriction, resistance, and relaxation. Carefully selected and utilized practices of yoga can do just that. For example, the use of mindful breathing and restorative poses, such as restorative Cobbler, can be used to reduce the anxiety, fear, and stress that come with a cancer diagnosis and its treatments.

Students may benefit from carefully selected supported inversions which use the effect of gravity to assist the flow of lymph from the legs. The use of a person’s body weight as resistance in carefully selected asanas, such as Chair pose with hands on hips or Warrior 2, can safely build muscle and bone strength over time without harmful pressure on weakened areas of the body.

Yoga can make movement easier in a slow and gentle fashion as students learn about their own bodies and the healing process, as well as enhance immunity and promote general wellness. Through the practice within the group of people with similar concerns, students find community. Tari’s program utilizes a vinyasa style of yoga, linking movement with breath and using props to make poses and transitions safe and accessible. Though the class I currently teach is for survivors of breast cancer, the Y4C methodology could be utilized for a person with any type of cancer.

Priya: Before we end the interview, is there anything else you'd like to share with us about working with students who have survived cancer?

Nanci: Working with students who have survived cancer is very challenging and gratifying. The whole person must be considered during different phases of each student's personal journey. As a teacher, you have to stay on your toes…carefully attending to your students as their condition and spirit changes. From a knowledge perspective, you have to remain a student yourself and stay up to date on the various treatments while offering mindful modifications to the practice.

These changes include fluctuations in strength and energy, edema issues, soft tissue restrictions related to treatments, bone density and balance changes, pain issues as well as the significant psycho-emotional-spiritual challenges that a cancer diagnosis, its treatments, and its uncertainties can pose.

The community that forms within the class can be very powerful as well as the one-to-one support fellow students provide for each other. I feel privileged to combine the ancient practice of yoga supported by the knowledge of working with people with a cancer diagnosis in this unique yoga for cancer class.

Nanci Winterhalter has an MS in Physical Therapy from Columbia University, New York and practiced as a PT in acute care hospital, rehabilitation hospital, and then home-care until 2017. Her yoga training includes a 200-hour yoga teacher training at Maha Yoga Center and a yoga for cancer certification with Tari Prinster. In 2019, she began a 800-hour yoga therapy certification program (IAYT) at the Himalayan Institute. She has been teaching since 2017, including: Yoga for Baby Boomers and Friends, Strong and Steady (a class for people with balance issues), Chair Yoga for Seniors, Yoga for People with Parkinson’s, yoga for people with various chronic conditions, Yoga for Breast Cancer Survivors, and Happy Posture/Healthy Bones (for people with low bone density).


This post was edited by Patrice Priya Wagner, co-editor of Accessible Yoga blog and member of the Board of Directors.

° FOLLOW Accessible Yoga on FacebookTwitterInstagram, and YouTube

° REGISTER here for our next conference. 

° DONATE here to help us bring yoga to people who don't have access or have been underserved, such as people with disabilities, chronic illnesses, children with special needs, and anyone who doesn't feel comfortable in a regular yoga class.


To preorder Jivana Heyman's forthcoming book Accessible Yoga in the U.S., go to Shambhala PublicationsAmazonBarnes and NobleIndie Bound (for independent bookstores), or your local bookstore. People in other countries who want the order the book see How to Order "Accessible Yoga" from Countries Outside the U.S.

Monday, October 14, 2019

Ask the Yoga Doctor: What Can I Do About Wrist Pain in Dog Pose?

Many practitioners find that poses like Downward-Facing Dog, Handstand, Side Plank pose, and many arm balances cause wrist pain. In this video, Dr. Timothy McCall explains the relevant anatomy and offers suggestions.



If you want to submit a question to Timothy, email it to AskTheYogaDoctor@gmail.com.


Timothy McCall, MD is a board-certified internist, Yoga Journal's medical editor since 2002 and the author of the Amazon #1 bestseller Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing. He practiced medicine in the Boston area for a dozen years before devoting himself full-time in the late 1990s to yoga therapy. He has studied with many of the world's leading yoga teachers, including BKS Iyengar and TKV Desikachar. In 2005, Timothy began his studies with a traditional Ayurvedic doctor, Chandukutty Vaidyar, and spent more than a year at his clinic in Kerala, India. His latest book is Saving My Neck: A Doctor’s East/West Journey through Cancer. For more information see DrMcCall.com.


This post was edited by Nina Zolotow, co-editor of the Accessible Yoga blog.


° FOLLOW Accessible Yoga on FacebookTwitterInstagram, and YouTube

° REGISTER here for our next conference. 

° DONATE here to help us bring yoga to people who don't have access or have been underserved, such as people with disabilities, chronic illnesses, children with special needs, and anyone who doesn't feel comfortable in a regular yoga class.



To preorder Jivana Heyman's forthcoming book Accessible Yoga in the U.S., go to Shambhala PublicationsAmazonBarnes and NobleIndie Bound (for independent bookstores), or your local bookstore.

Friday, October 11, 2019

Does the Pharmaceutical Industry Really Withhold Cures?

Goya Attended by Doctor Arrieta by Francisco Goya
by Nina Zolotow

I’m tackling this subject today because frankly I’m a little upset about it. Recently I saw more than one person from the yoga community on Facebook share a link to an article that claims pharmaceutical companies already have a cure for cancer but are withholding it because they can make so much more money selling treatments for cancer. Also, I know that our readership includes people who have chronic and/or serious diseases, both common and rare, for which there is no cure as well as people who teach these populations. So I thought it would be worthwhile for me write a post that describes how and why pharmaceutical companies (and research institutes) conduct their research on cures for diseases. 

This is a hot-button issue for me because I happen to be married to a medical researcher who spent 31 years working in academia and who now does drug discovery research for a biopharmaceutical company that is currently working on cancer, among other serious diseases. My husband is Dr. Brad Gibson (he will be contributing to this article) and he works for Amgen, and I can assure you he would be thrilled to participate in a cure for cancer (Nobel Prize here we come!) and his company would shower him with praise and bonuses if he did because their stock prices and annual revenue would go through the roof. And, even more importantly, Brad would know that his efforts saved lives and improved the quality of life of untold number of patients and their families. In addition, through my husband, I know a large number of other medical researchers who work on trying to find cures for all types of diseases. For example, Brad’s friend Bob worked on Huntington’s disease for many years, and was extremely frustrated by the lack of progress. Not only is he sad about having done so much work that didn’t end in success, but he also has lots of friends in the HD community who are suffering and who he so badly wanted to help. The truth is that human biology is extremely complicated, and there are many things scientists still don’t understand. This is as true about our bodies as it is about the universe. Here’s to all the scientists who spend their lives studying these complex problems, most who are unrecognized and who make only incremental contributions. 

But since I’m in a myth-busting mood, I want to acknowledge that there are some serious problems related to the issue of how medical research is funded. One is that while no pharmaceutical company will withhold an effective treatment, it is true in the US that if the treatment is for a rare disease, the company might sell the drug for very high prices in order to earn back the money it spent to research and test the drug (something that is very costly). And the price might be so high that some people might even be priced out. That’s a terrible problem in our health system that definitely needs addressing. 

The other is the issue of which diseases pharmaceutical companies and research institutes focus their research on and which receive little or no funding. This is a serious issue because while common first-world diseases (cancer, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, etc.) get lots of funding, many common third-world diseases (such as malaria and parasitic diseases) do not. Finally, there is the problem of rare diseases (which they call orphan diseases), for which the number of potential patients is very low. 

To understand how drug companies and research institutes chose what to work on and what not to work on, we need to look at them separately. 

Pharmaceutical companies are for-profit companies. So when choosing where to focus their research, they definitely take into account whether the money they can charge for the potential drug will result in enough income to allow them to recoup what they invested and make a profit as well. Otherwise, they would go broke. That means they tend to focus on common, first world diseases. So the problem here is a result of capitalism and economics.

Research institutes on the other hand allow medical researchers to work on anything they want as long as they can get funding from the government to do this (in the US via the National Institutes of Health). So in academic environments, scientists can not only work on finding cures for diseases without worrying about profits, they can also study basic biology questions in the hopes that it will lead to a better understanding of disease mechanisms and potential therapeutic intervention strategies. And in the US, the government does fund some research into third-world diseases and into rare ones. However, when there are tax cuts and funding for the medical research is reduced, not everyone can get funding for the work they are inspired to do. This, frankly, is a problem of politics and funding priorities. 

There are many private foundations that fund research into third-world diseases (the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funds research on malaria, for example) or into rare diseases (Bob did much of his research on Huntington’s disease for the Hereditary Disease Foundation and the CHDI Foundation). So if you have a particular disease you’re concerned about, you can help support the appropriate foundation. 

But the bottom line is that there is no world-wide medical conspiracy to withhold cures from us. There are, however, economic and political constraints that result in inequality in the way research into particular diseases is funded and that cause pricing problems for treatments for rare diseases. Solving these problems is complex to be sure. But while it is certainly frustrating to see a loved one suffer or to suffer yourself from a disease for which there is not yet a cure, passing around false accusations about scientists and drug companies is only going to make things worse. This encourages distrust of the scientific community, which in turn will lead to further lack of funding.

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Accessible is Advanced: Yoga as a Universal Practice


By Jivana Heyman


Anyone who wants to can practice yoga. Anybody can breathe; therefore anybody can practice yoga. But no one can practice every kind of yoga. It has to be the right yoga for the person.
––––T.K.V. Desikachar. 

The idea that each of us has our own unique yoga speaks to the universality of the practice. Modern Postural Yoga (MPY) is not one-size-fits-all, and it’s not something you only do when you’re young and fit. Yoga is there for the entirety of our lives, from birth to death, through tension headaches, and utter exhaustion. Yoga offers universal spiritual teachings that invite us to reconnect to our heart through movement and stillness. The power of the practice lies in its simplicity and groundedness. Yoga begins by recognizing the power of the body. Instead of denying our physicality, as many spiritual traditions tend to do, yoga celebrates the body as the vehicle for this life.

In fact, the body is more than just a vehicle for the energy of our lives. The body is a microcosm of the cosmos that it is created from, and the field for our practice. The challenge arises when celebration of the body turns into adulation, and we obsess over a physically “advanced" practice. Or the opposite––self-criticism and rejection of a body that has failed us in some way. As someone creeping toward my mid-fifties, I can feel the age in my body for the first time in my life. I can also feel disappointment around asanas that I can longer do, or that I avoid because they’ve injured me in the past.

Yesterday, I made the mistake of looking at a few Instagram accounts of celebrity yoga teachers with millions of followers, and even though the captions were often profound, the images speak for themselves. They show yoga as a combination of advanced gymnastics and modeling. The images are beautiful, and I celebrate the bodies that can do those complicated poses. But that’s not yoga to me. Yoga isn’t something we can see from outside. Instead, yoga is the subtlest shift in consciousness, joining thought and movement together through the glue of the breath. Patanjali offered just three sutras on asana:

Posture should be steady and comfortable. 2.46

(Such posture should be attained) by the relaxation of effort and by absorption in the infinite. 2.47

From this, one is not afflicted by the dualities of the opposites. 2.48

(Bryant, Edwin F. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, A New Edition, Translation and Commentary, North Point Press, New York: 2009

I’m particularly interested in Sutra 2.47, which tells us how to practice asana: through relaxation and absorption in the infinite. These are such useful tools in approaching yoga because they highlight the inner work of the practice. It’s about what’s happening in the mind and not the external appearance of the body.

Luckily, things are changing in yoga, and we’re moving away from the body obsession of the commercial yoga industry. I can feel a groundswell of awareness around the universality of yoga, and the importance of equity in practice. On Instagram, I also noticed something amazing––the hashtag #accessibleyoga has been used almost 40,000 times! There is a shift happening through the hard work and dedication of thousands of yoga teachers and practitioners around the world who understand the depth of a practice that can’t be limited, packaged, or commercialized. There is a renewed interest in the fullness of yoga beyond the physical.

Accessible Yoga is often perceived as a practice for a niche market. The idea of adapting yoga to people with disabilities and other marginalized communities. But that’s just part of the story. To me, Accessible Yoga is about accessing the depth and breadth of yoga. It’s about expanding your awareness to embrace all humanity through our practice. Or, as Matthew Sanford would say, “It’s humanity disguised as yoga.”

This idea is described powerfully in a speech Matthew Remski gave at our Accessible Yoga Conference in Toronto last year: “So one of the most precious things I believe Accessible Yoga points to is that we can reach through the display and armoring of privilege to find a place where the gifts of yoga can be shared. The world might be seduced by spectacles of racial, class-based, gendered, and ableist oppression, but parallel to that spectacle––backstage, off stage even ––there might be a simpler place where yoga isn’t some hybrid of physics and engineering, Crossfit, and a glamour shoot. It’s a plain, everyday room where experience is simple, internal, and shared.”

In other words, if spirit is a universal principal, how can we have a spiritual practice that is limited to only certain people with certain bodies? That’s why I say that accessible yoga is the most advanced yoga that there is. It represents a broad understanding and approach to yoga that is grounded in the ability to accept differences and diversity and still stay rooted in connection. Otherwise, we are caught up and distracted by physical perfection. I would go even further to say that if your practice and teaching is not accessible, then it’s not yoga.


Jivana Heyman is the founder of Accessible Yoga, co-owner of the Santa Barbara Yoga Center and an Integral Yoga Minister. With over twenty years of training and teaching in a traditional yoga lineage, Jivana has specialized in teaching the subtle practices of yoga: pranayama, meditation, as well as sharing yoga philosophy. His passion is making Yoga accessible to everyone. Accessible Yoga has grown into an international advocacy and education organization, and now offers two Conferences per year, trainings around the world, an ambassador program and online Network. Jivana has taught with the Dean Ornish Heart Disease Reversal Program through UCSF, California Pacific Medical Center’s Institute of Health and Healing, and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. He has led over 40 Yoga teacher training programs over the past 16 years, and created the Accessible Yoga Training program in 2007. On December 3rd, 2015, Jivana taught Accessible Yoga at the United Nations in Geneva for their International Day of Persons with Disabilities. Jivana’s strengths are sharing esoteric and complex teaching in a readily accessible way, and applying the ancient teachings of Yoga to our day-to-day lives.


This post was edited by Patrice Priya Wagner, co-editor of Accessible Yoga blog and member of the Board of Directors.

° FOLLOW Accessible Yoga on FacebookTwitterInstagram, and YouTube

° REGISTER here for our next conference. 

° DONATE here to help us bring yoga to people who don't have access or have been underserved, such as people with disabilities, chronic illnesses, children with special needs, and anyone who doesn't feel comfortable in a regular yoga class.

To preorder Jivana Heyman's forthcoming book Accessible Yoga in the U.S., go to Shambhala PublicationsAmazonBarnes and NobleIndie Bound (for independent bookstores), or your local bookstore. People in other countries who want the order the book see How to Order "Accessible Yoga" from Countries Outside the U.S.

Monday, October 7, 2019

Ask The Yoga Doctor Timothy McCall, MD

We have something different for you today! In this video, Dr. Timothy McCall, author of Yoga As Medicine and Saving My Neck and medical editor of Yoga Journal magazine, answers the question: Are really short yoga practices effective?



Recently I was excited to learn that Timothy has created a new YouTube channel where he will answer questions asked by you, the general public. With his permission, I'm going to be posting these videos regularly right here on the Accessible Yoga blog every Monday. So stay tuned! And if you want to submit a question, email it to AskTheYogaDoctor@gmail.com—Nina

This post was edited by Nina Zolotow, co-editor of the Accessible Yoga blog.

° FOLLOW Accessible Yoga on FacebookTwitterInstagram, and YouTube

° REGISTER here for our next conference. 

° DONATE here to help us bring yoga to people who don't have access or have been underserved, such as people with disabilities, chronic illnesses, children with special needs, and anyone who doesn't feel comfortable in a regular yoga class.

To preorder Jivana Heyman's forthcoming book Accessible Yoga in the U.S., go to Shambhala PublicationsAmazonBarnes and NobleIndie Bound (for independent bookstores), or your local bookstore.

Thursday, October 3, 2019

Featured Video: Chair Mini Sun Salutation by Carey Sims


In this very short video, yoga teacher Carey Sims demonstrates an accessible version of the mini Sun Salutation that includes both sitting and standing. Because it is so important for those who can stand at all to maintain the ability to continue to stand up from and sit back down on a chair, this vinyasa is especially valuable as it allows practitioners to repeat this important movement while they experience the other many benefits of a Sun Salutation.  —Nina


This post was edited by Nina Zolotow, co-editor of the Accessible Yoga blog and Editor in Chief of Yoga for Healthy Aging.

° FOLLOW Accessible Yoga on FacebookTwitterInstagram, and YouTube

° REGISTER here for our next conference. 

° DONATE here to help us bring yoga to people who don't have access or have been underserved, such as people with disabilities, chronic illnesses, children with special needs, and anyone who doesn't feel comfortable in a regular yoga class.

To preorder Jivana Heyman's forthcoming book Accessible Yoga in the U.S., go to Shambhala PublicationsAmazonBarnes and NobleIndie Bound (for independent bookstores), or your local bookstore.