Don’t Miss Your Bliss

By Paige Greenfield

Why do you teach ISHTA yoga?
ISHTA yoga is safe and extremely accessible to all ages and abilities.  It is non-dogmatic and through the emphasis of regular practice, including meditation, it empowers you to explore your true self and brings freedom, joy, and wisdom to your life.  It fits everyone's individual needs.    What do you say to the man or woman who says he/she is too stiff to do yoga?
That's why you need it!  Yoga is for everyone.  If we don’t start to move into the stiffness, as we age it gets worse and we experience more and more pain. That's the reality. 

If someone is just starting yoga, what advice do you have for her to get the most out of her practice?
Don’t worry if what you’re doing is right or wrong. Just do the best you can do in each pose, without strain. Keep in mind that you didn’t stiffen overnight and be patient with your body. If you can do 10 to 20 minutes a day at home that would be more beneficial than the sporadic class. The body loves regularity and you will notice more strength and opening with a regular practice.

If someone suffers from low-back pain are there certain poses they should definitely do and certain ones they should avoid?
For someone suffering from low-back pain they should practice poses that keep the spine long and free (instead of crunched over). Anything reclining along the floor will help to do this effortlessly (like Lying Big Toe and Knees to Chest).  Standing poses like Mountain Pose and Tree are great, and gentle backbends like Cobra can help. Poses to avoid are seated forward bending poses (like Seated Head to Knee), unless supervised, because it is very hard to keep the spine’s curves neutral.  

How do you know when you’ve found the right type of yoga for you?
You know when you have found the right type of yoga for you when everything in the rest of your life seems to improve. When you can focus better and think more clearly in your job, your golf game, tennis swing, mile time, or any other activity improves, and you have and overall sense of ease in life, in body, breath and mind. When you’ve found the right type of yoga for you, life’s irritations seem less irritating.   

Inversions make many people nervous. Why are they beneficial and what can someone do to get over their fear?
Inversions are scary because there are disorienting. But think about it: There are many poses in yoga that are inverted without totally going upside down, like Down Dog and standing forward bends of all varieties, and we can get the benefits of inversions in these poses without being scared. The strength that we need to take us into the more active inversions (like Headstand and Handstand) and out of them safely as well as hold them for an extended period comes mainly from the abdominal muscles.  Flexibility in the shoulders and upper back is also very important. The reason why inversions are so great is because they help with venous blood return (the blood lower than the heart--like in your legs and feet--comes to the heart). They help the lymphatic system and circulatory system, increase blood pressure in the head, which helps memory retention as well as alertness.

On a physiological level, inversions aid digestion and elimination and can help to cleanse all of the organs below the navel. On a mental level they are empowering.  Sometimes when a teacher says, “now we're going to practice the handstand” the “I can't” mechanism starts bubbling up. But when we eventually “can,” that enables us to move beyond what we feel we aren't capable of, which helps us to do the same thing in life and to break out of the box we put ourselves in. Inversions are so powerful because they eventually enable us to move beyond the mind and its limitations to experience our fullest potential as well what we never thought we could achieve.   

What advice do you have when it comes to starting a practice at home?
Start small. A few minutes a day can go a long way. When you feel like you need 40 minutes you may end up doing nothing at all.  So give yourself five minutes. Like taking a shower or brushing your teeth, make it part of your daily routine and then you can feel good about having done your practice and can go about the rest of your day.  The hardest part is unrolling the mat. So designate a space in your home, it can be as tiny as a corner, and leave a mat there.

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