Sunday, February 3, 2013

Q & A with Heather Morton Part 2: Backbending Yoga

This is the second question from a student and teacher of yoga whose question was, 'How do I protect my lower back in a deeper backbend of yoga?'

Here's the post on Hello Yoga: Japan's Yoga Community. I have broken done the elements of this question into five essential components. Before we talk about anything it is important to define what is backbending. In other words, I am confident the word "backbend" brings up many different ideas and images for everyone. Understanding the full practice of backbends, which really is a lot more than just bending backward is helpful to moving forward into the practice. It dismantles many of our assumptions, fears and misconceptions about backbends.


The second part is about your personal practice. Here, I suggest ways to develop a practice that works for you by accessing both your strengths and weaknesses. The third section is about the counter postures of yoga, which are a fundamental part of backbends. In the fourth section, I talk more specifically about self-preservation or what we can also call fear. There are many tangible ways to work with this during your practice. The final part is a recommendation and a reminder that Yoga is not just about your body. It has been said many times that we are using the body to work on the mind. Backbends offer this great opportunity to focus more on breathing as they bring to the surface in a real way how much we tend to think of bending and breathing rather than breathing and bending.


Enjoy. Send a message on facebook, write a comment here and/or watch one of my videos featuring the sun salutations of backbending yoga. 

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