Joint-Wise Yoga

Learn how to lengthen and align the spine and move well in the three planes of motion. How you bend and twist make a big difference in how much wear and tear your joints bear.

Practicing the healthy movement patterns in the three planes of motion is important as old habits die hard--including our well-worn habits of positioning and moving. Be good to your joints by gently practicing lesson 1 often.

See home practice reminder page in downloadable materials section. You may wish to print it out and refer to it when you practice. Look for a practice page after the practice videos in subsequent lessons as well.

Distinguishing Healthy  Vs Unhealthy Breathing and Movement Patterns.

Knowing the difference between healthy patterns and the not-so-healthy patterns will empower you to care for your joints.

Be sure to practice exhaling with bends and twists. It will help your movement patterns and cause you to not strain as much with movement. During the day practice allowing your exhale to be a bit longer. It will help you with stress and anxiety. Letting the shoulders and chest down a bit more with exhalations helps!

See downloadable home practice page.

The effects of prolonged sitting have been shown to be quite harmful to human health. It is well known that sitting daily for long periods is associated with weight gain, heart disease and diabetes. But too much sitting also has a profound effect on the musculoskeletal system. The muscles around the hips tighten and the posture becomes altered. This lesson offers movements and postures to help reversing the effects of sitting. If you work at a computer consider setting up a standing work station to use for at least part of the day.

Don't let the effects of sitting alter your posture and set in motion a gradual decline of function in your body. These poses when performed with a stable spine will do the trick.

If spine motion substitutes for hip motion, your joints are in for trouble.

To protect the joints of the body--especially the spine--it is important to learn how to maintain a neutral spine position while at the same time mobilizing and strengthening the hips. In other words keep the back as still as you can when stretching the hips. You already practice this idea a bit in chair pose and warrior 1 for example, but you should be especially alert to holding the neutral spine position in balancing table top pose.

In tree pose, on the other hand, you will practice a strong, stable hip position as you balance on one leg. A weak hip often leads to hip problems and adds stress to the spine above it and to the knee below it.

We will also practice going a little deeper this time into relaxation. Who doesn't need to work on that! Hope it helps you feel at peace.

Enjoy this short review of lesson 4 poses. Stay conscious of the idea of stabilization during the active portion.

When you practice relaxing you are simply coaching the mind and body to do the exact opposite of what happens when we are stressed. Instead of breathing high and rapid, you practice breathing low and slow. There is a lot of research to back this up. It works! With practice you will get even better at calming your mind and body in stressful situations. Stress is a reoccurring part of life of course, but our physiological response to it can be controlled. The breathing practices have helped me deal with stress. I hope they do help you as well.

In addition to the hips becoming tight in the hip flexors and weak in the extensors, there is also a tendency for the hips to become tight in the internal rotator (the muscles that role the thighs inward) and weak in the external rotators (more muscles located in the buttock). Warrior 2 and the Goddess pose are two powerful ways to conquer this problem.

Oh boy! Time to put the poses together into a regular practice. Enjoy!

In lesson 5 we reviewed and practiced the 12 poses. In our final session we will review the principles of healthy alignment and movement as well as the 5 breathing practices. How much of these can you integrate into your yoga practice and into your lifestyle?