3 Levels of Movement Coach

Posted on May 20, 2015 by B Gourley

I.) New teachers and coaches often over-rely on their personal experience. In other words, one may think that the skills that came easily for one will be a piece of cake for one’s students as well. Conversely, such a teacher tends to be more sympathetic and lax when it comes to skills that kicked his or her own ass. This may work for some students, but it’ll be way off the mark for others. There’s a risk of pushing students too hard on skills that may be dangerous for them, and / or not helping them achieve a breakthrough that they are capable of because of one’s own baggage.

II.) The next level of coach recognizes that there are different body types. Such teachers put this knowledge to use in determining what skills present greater or lesser risk for a student given the strength, power, speed, flexibility, etc. associated with such a body. This coach will recommend modifications and capacity building exercises based on the student’s body type.

III.) Then there is the coach or teacher who can see the individual idiosyncrasies of a given student’s body and make recommendations based the unique conditions, strengths, and weaknesses of a particular person.

BOOK REVIEW: Becoming Batman by E. Paul Zehr

Posted on May 15, 2015 by B Gourley

Becoming Batman: The Possibility of a Superhero by E. Paul Zehr

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon page

[Note: This book is about sport and exercise science, particularly as they pertain to the martial arts. If you’re a martial artist or are interested in fitness and movement arts at the extremes of human capacity, you’re in the right place. If you’re interested in the comics and an overview of topics including how many billions Bruce Wayne needs and what technologies Batman must master, those aren’t questions addressed in this book. Such readers may find the book delving into depths they aren’t interested in on biological science. There are articles on the web that deal with topics like the “Cost of being Batman.”]

Next summer an eagerly awaited movie entitled Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice hits theaters. Who knows how much screen time will involve the fight between the titular characters, but the same battle has played out a number of times in the comics, and its appeal is clear. What are the limits of human capability given training, technology, and sufficient smarts? Can a man really defeat an alien that’s faster than a bullet and more powerful than a locomotive? A popular fanboy mantra is, “I like Batman, because I could be Batman. Batman has no superpowers.” So, yes, if you were a billionaire, genius, with the physique of a Greek god, and knew 127 martial arts, you too could be Batman. Or could you? That question is at the heart of Zehr’s book.

Becoming Batman is arranged into sixteen chapters divided among five parts. It begins logically with the question of whether Bruce Wayne needs to begin at any particular point to achieve success in transforming himself into Batman? (At the extreme, one probably can’t imagine Bruce Wayne becoming Batman if he was born with one leg a foot longer than the other and with a Quasimodo hump, but given a Bruce who is starting out “average,” what are his limitations.) In other words, how much does genetics come into play. In the first part, Zehr introduces a character, Bob Wayne, who doesn’t appear in the comics. Bob is Bruce’s twin, and is used throughout the book for comparison purposes, i.e. to convey what Bruce Wayne would look like if he didn’t train fanatically to be Batman. The question of how much of Batman is innate and how much is painstaking built by exercise and training is critical to determining how many of those fanboys really could be Batman.

There a series of chapters explaining the mechanism by which stressors result in a stronger, faster, more powerful, and more resilient Batman. The idea is that Mother Nature doesn’t over-engineer. The only way one gets stronger muscles is by overloading them, which triggers a process of rebuilding them bigger and better than before. Wolff’s Law defines the same concept for bones, i.e. bone density increases in response to increased loading. (Incidentally, the same is true of the mind. A more agile mind is achieved only by working it, and zoning out in front of the television results in a dumbening.)

The next section shifts from generic exercise science to questions of Batman’s martial arts training. What kind of martial arts (or arts) would Batman practice? There is an often quoted statement in the comics to the effect that Batman had mastered 127 martial arts. (This is ridiculous, but it does spur the intriguing question of how many systems does Batman need to learn to have a well-rounded skill-base without being a dabbler? Many will say one art—the right one–is enough, others will say that–given the varied cast of villains he must defeat–Batman needs a broader skill-set than any existing art provides.) More to the point, how many hours does one need to practice a technique to ingrain the movements into one (e.g. neurologically it takes repetition to optimize efficiency.) This is among the questions discussed in this book.

The fourth section deals with the ravages of being Batman, and how much any human could be expected to endure. In this section, one will learn about the cumulative toll of concussions, the likelihood of Batman avoiding broken bones and other injuries that would necessarily sideline his crime fighting, and the effect that working the night shift would have. (The latter might seem trivial in comparison to the former two topics, but—in fact—it’s not. It’s well established that night workers have higher incidence of some cancers and other ailments. Furthermore, as Bruce Wayne has to keep appearances up, it means not only fighting circadian rhythm issues, but also frequent sleep deprivation—the hazards of which are even clearer and occur in short order.)

There are a number of interesting topic that aren’t don’t pertain to the core question per se, but which are interesting for fans of the Batman canon and the character’s mythos. Famously, Batman doesn’t use guns or lethal force. This raises the question of how realistic it is to regularly fight hardened knaves and miscreants without killing them. One can only knock out so many of Gotham’s baddies before one doesn’t get up.

There’s a chapter about what a fight between Batman and Batgirl would be like. While strength would definitely be to Batman’s advantage, there are advantages that an equally skilled female fighter might bring to the fight? How would Batgirl (or Catwoman) need to fight to put those advantages to use? Finally, for those of us who are no longer spring chicks, there are chapters about how Batman could expect to age, and how long he could keep performing at a level at which he could defeat his enemies.

I enjoyed this book and found it both educational and interesting. It should be clear that Batman is just a teaching tool used to explore the limitations of the human body and its ability to endure a life of fighting. That said, references to the Batman comic books and movies makes for a readable text. Perhaps what I like most about this book is that most of the books that address these subjects are textbooks that are sold on the textbook pricing model (i.e. we have a limited but captive audience so let’s make them pay top dollar.) This is one of the few books that takes on these topics at the readability and pricing model of a popular science book.

I recommend it for those interested in the science of performance, martial arts, and injury.

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9 Lessons Learned During Children’s Yoga Teacher Training

Posted on May 13, 2015 by B Gourley

I recently finished the course requirements for Registered Children’s Yoga Teacher (RCYT) training at a1000 Yoga in Bangalore. (As of this writing, I still have a kid-specific teaching requirement to meet before I can add this to my Yoga Alliance certification portfolio.) When I did my seva (charitable teaching) requirement for RYT-200 at an orphanage, I discovered that teaching kids was a different monster. That’s what led me to take up this specialization, and I thought I’d share some of what I learned.

1. Eight is [soon] enough: The traditional age for introducing children to a practice of yoga is eight. This doesn’t mean that kids aren’t taught postures (asana) or other yogic techniques earlier, but for younger kids it’s typically done as play. Traditionally, surya namaskara (sun salutation), nadi shodhana (alternate nostril breathing), and Gayatri mantra (a particular chant) serve as the core of the child’s practice.

Why eight? It has to do with a number of physical and mental development factors including lung development, the state of the pineal gland, and the arrival of abstract reasoning capacity.

2.) There are no youth-related contraindicated postures: I expected to spend a fair amount of the course learning what postures one shouldn’t teach children and why. However, instead we were told that kids could be exposed to any Hatha yoga postures.

Of course, this is predicated on: a.) the fact that one is dealing with a child eight and up; b.) one recognizes that the strengths and weaknesses of children will need to be taken into account and modifications or capacity building may be necessary in some cases. (For example, the flexibility of kids may allow them to achieve postures that few adults can, but at the same time their lack of strength and balance may be limiting factors for some postures.); c.) obviously, one needs to take into account that kids may have contraindicated conditions that aren’t age-related but are due to their particular physical condition.

It should also be noted that children are typically not taught breath retention (khumbaka) as part of their (breath exercise) practice. So it’s not true to say that there are no contraindicated practices.

3.) In stillness, your results may vary: One of the nice things about a yoga practice for kids is that it acknowledges that most kids, by nature, don’t want to be still. As opposed to mainstream education, which attempts to force stillness upon them, yoga offers a mixture of activity and stillness. However, it was interesting to see the range of abilities to remain motionless during yoganidra (“yoga sleep,” i.e. a hypnogogic state) practice. There is, of course, an age component to this. That is, young kids have a harder time staying still than older kids. However, that isn’t all there is to it. A few of the older kids couldn’t stay still in savasana (corpse pose) for five seconds, but a few of the young seemed able to be still for as long as required–not necessarily awake, but still.

the exception

4.) Balance isn’t in a child’s wheelhouse: I knew that strength was ill-developed in prepubescent children, but I didn’t realize how challenging kids would find even simple balance postures. They’re a little like drunks in this regard.

Obviously, kids tend to be freakishly bendy, and so it’s not a surprise that most of them could learn to do chakrasana (wheel pose, i.e. a full back bridge) from a standing position in short order. In fact, the challenge for those who had one was more likely to be confidence with not falling on one’s head than with a lack of back-bending flexibility.

The moral of the story is that one must recognize that children are a little like senior citizens in this one domain. That is, consideration must be given to the risk that they will fall down during balancing poses. Unlike seniors, they don’t have too far to fall, and they’ll heal lickety-split if they do, but–still–they’ll fall like a drunken sailor.

5.) Teaching kids’ partner yoga requires a different approach: The usual advice is that one should teach kids from “inside the circle.” That is, one shouldn’t set oneself off at the head of a class like one would usually do with an adult class. One sits with with the kids and does the class with them. (You probably won’t be doing 6 classes a day that way.)

I had the opportunity to teach a pairs yoga class and found that an entirely different approach was needed. First let me say that pairs (partner) yoga is a great approach for teaching kids. Many kids will enjoy the interaction, and they can learn about teamwork and (in some cases) take advantage of the stabilization of additional limbs / grounded surface area. However, because it requires so much attention to be focused on the partner, it’s best not to teach it from inside the circle. One won’t necessarily be able to see what one’s students are doing, and that can be dangerous.

6.) There’s a yoga for special needs children: Among our guest speakers, we had a yoga teacher from Prafull Oorja, which is an organization that teaches special needs children using yoga, dance, and various other methods. These approaches are used to increase bodily awareness, which is a common problem across many different afflictions. We learned about the range of challenges faced by such children and how the usual approach is varied to adapt to their needs.

The course included information about several non-yogic methods that could be used to complement yoga practice to achieve the objectives of a yoga course. I write this by way of explanation as to why the last few lessons seem to have little to do with yoga.

7.) Stories must be physical, animated, and repetitive for small kids: These features serve to help adjust to the child’s limited vocabulary, while helping them to build vocabulary. We had a speaker from Kathalaya (House of Stories) who offered a great deal of insight into story-telling for kids.

Lest one think that story-telling is just filler in the yoga context, I’ve been learning a great deal about how our minds need stories, and am inclined to believe that one’s insight into the mind will be limited if one doesn’t understand story and why stories appeal to our minds. I recommend the book Wired for Story by Lisa Cron.

8.) Games used in theater can go hand-in-hand with yoga practice: I was completely new to the idea of theater games before this course, but we had someone teach us a number of these games, and the logic behind building our own. Games which aren’t too cerebral can go help build some of the same skills that are sought in a course of yoga. Such games include practices that help develop one’s voice and physical expressiveness. These games can also help bring some kids out of their shells so that they are more ready to actively participate in a yoga class.

9.) We need mental hygiene as much as dental hygiene: This actually comes from a quote by Sir Bat Khalsa, a Harvard Neurologist who studies the effects of yoga. When I was doing research for my final presentation, I ran across said quote, which goes:

“There’s no preventive maintenance. We know how to prevent cavities. But we don’t teach children how to be resilient, how to cope with stress on a daily basis… We’ve done dental hygiene but not mental hygiene.”

BOOK REVIEW: Yoga Body by Mark Singleton

Posted on February 23, 2015 by B Gourley

Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice by Mark Singleton

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Amazon page

I was excited to stumble across this book because it proposed fresh insights into the history and development of posture-centric yoga. Singleton’s premise is that yoga as it’s practiced in studios around the world today (i.e. practices focused heavily on asana, or postures) has almost nothing to do with historic yogic traditions and is to a large extent European (or Western) fitness practices fed back to the world with a patina of Indian-ness instilled by a few Indian fitness teachers (e.g. T. Krishnamacharya and students.) This is a bold and stunning hypothesis. The problem is that Singleton leaves plenty of room to doubt his thesis. I’m not saying that I’m certain Singleton is wrong, but after reading the book I’m no more inclined to believe his hypothesis than when I first read the book blurb.

The book consists of nine chapters:
1.) A Brief Overview of Yoga in the Indian Tradition
2.) Fakirs, Yogins, Europeans
3.) Popular Portrayals of the Yogin
4.) India and the International Physical Culture Movement
5.) Modern Indian Physical Culture: Degeneracy and Experimentation
6.) Yoga as Physical Culture I: Strength and Vigor
7.) Yoga as Physical Culture II: Harmonial Gymnastics and Esoteric Dance
8.) The Medium and the Message: Visual Reproduction and the Asana Revival
9.) T. Krishnamacharya and the Mysore Asana Revival

One can see the flow of the book in this chapter listing. It begins by describing the ancient yogic traditions (e.g. Jnana yoga, Bhakti yoga, and Karma yoga.) Singleton then goes on to put immense weight on very few voices that were speaking globally about yoga in the late 19th century—largely European but notably including Swami Vivekananda. (This, by the way, is where I noticed the most glaring weaknesses of the book. There seems to be an assumption that what the most vocal people were saying during this time was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.) One will note that the late 19th century is an arbitrary point to make the critical juncture for a study of yoga—this era’s sole importance seems to be in that that’s when Europeans started entering the scene (and documenting it in English and Western languages to a large extent.) I understand that there may have been a dearth of information previously; however, I’m also skeptical of equating the sum of truth with the sum of what is documented.

The book then shifts into the early 20th century when Singleton proposes the proto-postural yoga is beginning to coalesce with both Western and indigenous Indian influences. Singleton writes extensively about this period, and presents what he believes is the path by which postural practice evolved over a short time into modern yoga as we know it. The book ends in the mid-20th century with an extensive discussion of T. Krishnamacharya and his pack of brilliant students (i.e. B.K.S. Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois, T.V.K. Desikachar, and Indira Devi) who are responsible for a lot of how yoga is practiced today (for virtually all of modern yoga by Singleton’s reckoning.)

It should be noted that this book is put out by an academic press, Oxford University Press, and there’s all the front and post matter that one would expect of a scholarly press publication. This includes an introduction, notes, and a bibliography.

So, you might be wondering how I could have so much doubt about the veracity of the book’s central claim—a book written by a Cambridge educated scholar and published by Oxford University Press. It’s, after all, chocked full of facts that are designed to bolster Singleton’s argument. I’m certainly not suggesting that Singleton lied or presented false facts (however, I have–and will further–argue that he frames facts throughout the book to diminish those statements and facts that run counter to his argument while wholeheartedly accepting statements that validate his argument—even when the people whose statements he leaves unchallenged would seem to have their own agendas. I don’t know, perhaps T. Krishnamacharya was—as Singleton intimates though never explicitly accuses—lying when he claimed to have received his sequence and approach from a scripture he was taught by a Himalayan master. However, interestingly, he would be lying to minimize his role in the development of yoga rather than to increase his fame. This stands in contrast with the European authors who Singleton readily accepts who were seeking to build their bona fides as experts in the esoteric systems of India and the Himalaya, who arguably had a lot to gain from being seen as having a full understanding of these systems.)

The best way to understand the root of my skepticism is to tell a make-believe story. Imagine a race of aliens came down to Earth. For whatever reason, they want to understand (presumably among many other things) the Roman Catholic Church. One astute alien scholar notes that, after having reviewed not only the entire Bible but a vast canon of theologian discourse, there is scant mention of sitting or kneeling. However, when cameras came around, there came to be clear evidence of pews and kneelers in the church. The aliens conclude that Catholics had always stood during worship, but with the advent of the camera they began to sit and kneel. The aliens, having big and bulbous butts, conclude that the Catholics have become concerned that their own big, bulbous butts will be captured for posterity (pun intended) by the cameras and have, thus, opted to adopt postures that would more adequately provide cover. In the present day, sitting and kneeling are the bulk of what Catholics do with their bodies when [overtly] practicing their religion, and so it must be those postures–rather than abstract notions like achieving “grace” are now the most critical part of the practice. (Besides, the earliest photos of kneelers came from Protestant churches, so perhaps Anglicans taught Catholics how to kneel.)

If you haven’t figured it out, in my little scenario, the late 19th century Europeans who were writing the English language tracts that formed the heart of Singleton’s research material are the aliens with big, bulbous butts. I would propose that the Europeans aren’t viewing yoga completely objectively but through the lens of their own experience and desires. Furthermore, they are also only giving weight to what they see and hear (which may or may not be a full picture.) I would further argue that just like Catholics don’t devote much text to discussing sitting and kneeling in the documents of the Vatican library doesn’t mean there isn’t a long history of those practices. Postural practice is:

a.) not the critical end result that everyone is concerned with even if it takes up the bulk of one’s time in [overt] practice. It’s certainly true that there are a vast number of yoga practitioners whose only interest is in the fitness aspect of the practice. However, there are also many who spend most of their yoga reading time learning from Vedas and reading yogic philosophy even though the bulk of their practice time is asana.
b.) extremely difficult to convey via text but readily conveyed through demonstration and hands-on teaching. If you were a Catholic and wanted to teach someone kneeling, would you write them a three paragraph text description of the process, or would you just demonstrate how to kneel and correct any glaring (albeit unlikely) deficiencies in form.

At no point does Singleton get into the postural details of individual asana. He mentions another scholar that supposedly has done some of that work, but Singleton feels it’s not critical. However, it’s very hard to prove what he’s trying to prove without getting into that level of detail. Yes, there will be similarities between various systems of stretching because of the nature of the body. For example, European stretching systems had a forward bend that looks reminiscent of paschimottanasana (the body folds that way and stretching the hamstrings is one of the most important functions in any stretching regimen), and it shouldn’t be surprising or revealing if the first photograph of this posture was in a European gym (the fact that Scandinavians had cameras before Himalayan yogis isn’t a sound basis to conclude that Himalayan yogi’s learned to bend forward from Scandinavians.) A there are a lot of postures that two systems might reasonably independently discover, but one also can’t rule out that the Indian yogi taught the Europeans and not the other way around. (I know it’s hard to comprehend in the era of FaceBook, but failure to be documented does not equal failure to be true. The farther one goes into the past, the less of what happened is going to be documented, and some cultures are going to be more likely to document events than others. e.g. Would our aliens be right or wrong if they concluded that 85% of humans are females between the age of 12 and 24 years old because 85% of the selfies posted on the internet are among that group. )

Singleton’s book does have some graphics. They didn’t always help his case, however. I was struck by how few of the fine details of the European postures correspond to practice as we know them, while some of the very old paintings look almost exactly like present day asana. (If one accepts that the fact that they didn’t have the greatest grasp of capturing perspective back then isn’t indicative of how flat the postures and people were back then.) I’ll readily admit that I wouldn’t definitively count Singleton wrong on my subjective observation of the pictures, but it does leave me with a lot of room for doubt.

I suppose the next question is why I didn’t completely pan the book. Three stars isn’t a tragic rating. I thought the book contained a lot of good information and food for thought (even if it fell far short of proving its central hypothesis.) I particularly enjoyed the chapter on T. Krishnamacharya and his now-famous student body. I’ll also say that part of why I came away from the book with such a muddled perception of this history is that Singleton doesn’t hide facts that are damning to his case, but rather presents them and then tries to marginalize them. A prime example would be the Hatha Yoga Pridipika (HYP), a 15th century text that mentions a number of the asana considered classic yoga postures today (some of which form the core of a Hata practice)—though admittedly HYP emphasizes the importance of only four seated postures.

I can’t say that Singleton didn’t help give me pause to wonder about the truth of the received understanding of yoga’s evolution. I’ve practiced yoga in places as varied as India, the U.S., Thailand, and Hungary, and I found it shocking how similar the practice is around the world. This bodes well for the argument that yoga as it’s practiced today has coalesced recently. By way of contrast, there are many myths about how one martial art is the ancestor of another but the two systems often look nothing alike. (e.g. I’ve studied Kalaripayattu, which many believe was the ancestor art taken to China by Bodhidharma through Southeast Asia, but which today looks nothing like Kung fu or Muay Thai. Furthermore, Kung fu styles usually look quite unlike the Korean and Japanese martial arts that they are said to have inspired.) If the latter among these martial arts did come from the earlier, they evolved apart quickly. While the evolution into different martial art forms is quite possible, it raises the question of why yoga should be so similar internationally. A skilled yoga teacher would likely give a given student the same alignment adjustments for, say, Warrior I, regardless of whether the teacher was in Prague, Manila, Tokyo, or San Diego.

I can’t say that I’d endorse Singleton’s argument. It would take much more precise information for me to buy it (and it’s likely that said detailed historical information doesn’t exist.) However, if you’re interested in the history of yoga, you might want to check out this book. Your conclusions may differ from mine, but even if they don’t I suspect you’ll learn a thing or two of interest. Yoga Body was reasonably priced as a Kindle book when I bought it.

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BOOK REVIEW: Zen Mind, Strong Body by Al Kavadlo

Posted on February 16, 2015 by B Gourley

Zen Mind, Strong Body: How To Cultivate Advanced Calisthenic Strength–Using The Power Of “Beginner’s Mind” by Al Kavadlo

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Amazon page

This book discusses issues related to a calisthenics-centric approach to fitness. The first thing that one should be aware of is that the book has no such unifying theme as would be suggested by the title. Really, this is a sort of “best of” collection of Al Kavadlo’s blog posts, but—of course—that makes for a really unsalable title. The title is a take-off on Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, which is quoted in the front matter. Don’t expect Zen or the mind to formally enter the picture in a major way. I will say that Kavadlo has a Zen approach in that he emphasizes simplicity and paying attention to what one is doing throughout (so many people try to drown out their workouts with music or entertainment.)

I had mixed feelings about this book. On the pro side, Kavadlo is clearly knowledgeable and has a sound and pragmatic approach to fitness. Not only is he not trying to sell you on supplements and fitness fads, he tries to discourage such profit-driven nonsense. You’ll get some good information and sound advice from reading this book. You’ll find out why Kavadlo eschews dietary supplements, how he prepared for a marathon and a triathlon, what advantages calisthenics hold over other strength building activities, and how to avoid injuries.

So what’s the problem with the book? The first problem is rooted in the fact that I paid full price for the book soon after it came out, and–at said price—it’s overpriced for what it is—a rehash of blog posts. It looks like Amazon has dropped the Kindle price. As I said above, I respect Kavadlo’s approach to fitness, and think that he offers some useful insights, but the question is whether you couldn’t get the same insights for less–I think you can. At half the price I paid for this book, I would have been much happier with it. Alternatively, if they had beefed it up a bit—particularly with useful graphics—I might have found it a good buy at the price I paid. The bottom line is it’s a thin book of blog quality material.

My second problem is that they waste too much space with pictures of Kavadlo standing around shirtless in front of random minor NYC landmarks. I understand that a cut, muscular body is the ultimate resume for a personal trainer. However, I suspect that even the ladies and gay men will at some point say, “Enough with the standing around shirtless photos, Al.” For us heterosexual males, the number of these shots is way over the top.

Now, I’m not saying that the number of photos is excessive. They could have used some of that photo space for instructional photos of how to better do the exercises, or to build up to the more challenging exercises. Kavadlo has an excellent YouTube channel, so I know it would be possible to get more photos of him actually doing exercises. (They do have some pics exercise pics, particularly in the sample workout section at the back.)

The book’s 26 chapters are arranged in four parts that deal with background information, calisthenics, cardiovascular workouts, and diet respectively. There is a section at the back that presents a series of sample workouts divided into beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels.

As for my recommendation, I’d say that if you are interested in fitness and see this book at a price of around $4, buy it. However, if it’s at $10, it’s overpriced for what it is. Of course, your views of a fair price may vary. (I should note that I purchased it in Kindle e-book format.)

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Vinyāsa: A Few Thoughts

Posted on January 29, 2015 by B Gourley

I attended a Vinyāsa Workshop this weekend at a1000Yoga in Bangalore. The workshop was taught by Bharath Shetty, who is the founder of the IndeaYoga Shala in Mysore, and who was a student of–among others–B.K.S. Iyengar.

The word vinyāsa has multiple meanings, but most commonly–and in this case–it refers to a style of yoga in which postures are linked together through transitional movements. (And, importantly, these transitioning movements establish a flow of breathing throughout the practice.) Vinyāsa practices tend to be vigorous and challenging because one keeps moving when one isn’t holding a posture (i.e. there’s no down time), and the transitions require a lot of lifting oneself up, which necessitates a strong core and reasonably strong arms / shoulders.

Vinyāsa practices can have fixed-sequences (the same asana, or poses, are always done in the same order) or not have a fixed-sequence (the details of the practice will very from one session to the next.) There’s a great argument for the practice of a fixed-sequence. That is, one can get beyond focusing on crude alignment details and put one’s mind on fine details of breath, drishti (focal point), and keeping a slight tension in the perineum. Such facts can slip away when one is struggling to get the sequence and postural details down pat.

However, there’s a great counter-argument against fixed-sequence programs. The counter-argument goes like this, “If you get so bored out of your wits that you quit, you will also never get to the part where you focus on higher level details.” My advice would be “know thyself.” In other words, if you can keep to a fixed-sequence, you should. However, if your practice will peter out without constant fresh challenges, don’t force yourself into a fixed-sequence box. It’s better to take longer to get to a higher level of practice than to quit.

The most famous fixed-sequence vinyāsa style is the Ashtanga Vinyāsa system handed down by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. (Note: some people call this system Ashtanga Yoga, and others don’t like that name because it implies that this system is heir apparent to Patanjali’s yoga as described in The Yoga Sutras. [In other words, there’s an argument that that name was already taken.] Furthermore, Jois’s system isn’t really any more of an Ashtanga Yoga [in the Patanjalian sense] than any other Hatha yoga style because it focuses on only a few of the limbs (i.e. asana, pranayama, etc.) at least until one gets to very advanced stages of practice.

The most famous vinyāsa style without a fixed sequence is probably Power Yoga, although many people practice classic Hatha asana in a vinyāsa. Power Yoga emphasizes core strength building, and was originally developed by Ashtanga vinyāsa practitioners to give one the workout of Ashtanga vinyāsa without its monotony.

This was my first experienced with a fix-sequence vinyāsa program other than Ashtanga Vinyāsa, so I didn’t know what to expect. This was the second workshop I’d attended by Bharath Shetty, so I knew that he was a skilled and knowledgeable teacher. However, I didn’t know what Indea Vinyasa, itself, would be like.

It turned out to be much like Ashtanga Vinyāsa. The general organization is identical. That is, there are two versions of Surya Namaskara, a standing sequence, a floor sequence, and a finishing sequence. Note: I’ve only been taught the first series of each of these systems, and so I can’t say how they vary at more advanced levels.

The Surya Namaskaras of Indea Vinyāsa mirror those of Ashtanga Vinyāsa, but they aren’t identical. The Indea Vinyāsa Surya Namaskara-A is slightly more involved, and includes an Utkatasana. The Indea Surya Namaskara-B, like Ashtanga Vinyāsa, features Warrior I, but doesn’t include Utkatasana (chair pose.)

The standing sequences of the two systems are identical. However, the floor sequence is very different. The Ashtanga Vinyāsa preliminary series (as mentioned above, both systems have multiple series) focuses heavily on forward bends, but the Indea Vinyāsa preliminary series is more balanced between forward and back bends. The finishing sequence is also quite similar between the two styles. The sarvangasana-halasana-karnapidasana-matsyasana sequence is the core of both finishing sequences.

Learning to Leap: Why?

Posted on December 16, 2014 by B Gourley

Leaping maneuvers are ever-present in martial arts movies and in some martial arts (e.g. Indian Kalaripayattu and some forms of Kung fu). However, these acrobatic techniques are rarely seen–and are even less often successful–in combative encounters (neither in sport nor in the real world–excepting those sports that highly reward such maneuvers and create rules that make them feasible for entertainment value.)

Why leaping, spinning wildness is popular in movies is easy. We thrill to see extremely demanding action that draws ooohs and ahhhhs. It’s the same reason one wants to watch a parkour runner vault over a car (presuming it’s not one’s car), even when it would be infinitely more practical to walk around it. It’s why we want to see gymnasts tumbling and flipping through the air even though walking across the floor is both easier on the joints and less hazardous.

However, the question of why martial arts that aren’t purely for entertainment practice leaping maneuvers. Even a few of the quintessentially pragmatic Japanese martial arts, which follow the motto “eliminate the extraneous” have some leaping techniques. One of the schools I’ve studied, Kotō-ryū Koppōjutsu has a scroll devoted to leaping techniques, despite the fact that it’s otherwise a grounded system–both literally and figuratively. Muay Thai, which also values tried and true winning basics over snazziness, also has leaping knee strikes in its repertoire, though one doesn’t see them a lot in fights. It’s true that the arts that emphasize practicality but have leaping and spinning techniques tend to have a different approach to them. The Kotō-ryū Hichōjutsu (that school’s leaping techniques) emphasize eliminating big wind-ups, and going straight into the leap from a natural posture. This gives one less air, but is much less obvious. It’s particularly useful if you don’t really want air, but you just want to leap as much as you must. But why leap at all?

Creating this kind of spring loading of the legs may not fly.

This kind of windup would be anathema to schools.

This kind of windup would be anathema to some schools

There are a number answers to this question. First, while it’s hard to make aerial techniques work, when they work, they can be devastatingly effective. There are few ways to put more power into a strike than to literally put all of one’s body-weight in motion under the force of gravity. There’s understandably something unsatisfying about this explanation. I think it mostly has to do with the dearth of second chances in combative encounters. Few second chances make one want to have the highest likelihood of success on the first go.

Second, while tried-and-true, go-to techniques work because they are hard to defeat and /or they minimize one’s risk of a fight-ending counter, some techniques work because they catch the opponent off-guard. Such techniques work because the opponent can’t believe one is actually trying something so wild on them. However, failing to anticipate the unusual, the opponent hasn’t trained a response into themselves. This answer gets us somewhere in cases where either the situation is dire or one knows something about the opponent.

Third–and I would argue most importantly–these techniques produce explosively powerful legs that are beneficial to a martial artist even when he stays on the ground. In other words, maybe they are more important in the role of capacity building than they are as actual techniques to be emulated.

The split kick allows one to kick two opponents at once–as long as they aren’t moving and are perfectly spaced. However, it does require a multidimensional fitness that’s beneficial for martial artists. (Which is why I can’t do it well.)

Finally, there’s one more reason that is important but was last because I didn’t even learn this lesson until I was reviewing the photos for this post, and that’s that these techniques require a whole new level of bodily awareness and control. I would generally be considered to have pretty good bodily awareness. I’ve been doing martial arts a long time, have practiced various kinds of yoga and chi gong, and have done my share of other physical training. Still, when I looked at my photos I found that I often had body parts jutting every which way. While one may argue that one doesn’t need that brand of bodily awareness if one is not using that kind of motion, I think that it probably helps with one’s awareness at high-speed in general and that many arts don’t adequately prepare one for keeping one’s body under control when there are those extra forces (e.g. centripetal & centrifugal, and gravity) acting upon it.

In my mind this looked completely different. I didn’t have my arms out to the side like I was on a cross and my heel standing leg heel was still up near my buttock.

One aspect of bodily awareness that is particularly important for these maneuvers is control of the eyes. In the arts I’ve studied, there has always been emphasis on the placement of the eyes. However, given all the little details one had to keep in mind, it was a reality easy aspect to half-ass. However, when one is leaping, and particularly if there is a spinning component, wandering eyes translates to crash and burn.

Entering the spin.

Mid spin / mid kick. I have no idea why my right index finger is pointed down.

I’m not built for leaping. It’s not so much the leaping, but–in the immortal words of Tom Petty–“Coming down is the hardest thing.” I figured that getting to the level of Kalaripayattu training that involves a lot of leaping would be the end of that art for me. As I mentioned, there are some leaping techniques in the martial art I studied, but I was never particularly good at them. When I was young and had the proper body for it, I didn’t have the right mindset, and when I got older I was lacking the physical capacity for them. However, I’ve learned quite a bit about my body through the practice of these techniques, and I’m interested to see what level I can take it to.

Rewiring the Brain about Pain: All That Isn’t Pleasure Isn’t Pain

Posted on December 15, 2014 by B Gourley

I see people staring at the railing on which they will stretch their hamstrings just like they would look at a side-by-side refrigerator unit that they have to move down a flight of stairs, psyching themselves up for the stretch. Or maybe they are weighing the question of whether they really need to stretch as one might ponder whether it would be better to get an engine overhaul or replace a car altogether. The point is that there seems to be an element of anxiety or dread associated with actions like stretching that aren’t necessarily pleasurable.

I have a theory about why this is the case.

First, people falsely equate discomfort with pain.

Second, the entire point of true pain is to tell one how not to move so as to avoid exacerbating an injury.

Third, this results in a desire to avoid pursuits that cause such physical discomfort.

Fourth, people create a self-fulfilling prophecy in which they tense muscles in the area of the stretch to counteract the aching stretch, but this just increases the discomfort level.

Your body has a clever little device called the myotatic reflex arc (MRA.) That’s when a muscle tenses to avoid injury because the muscle seems to be stretching too fast for comfort. However, that reflex is only relevant to dynamic movement and the fact that it’s a reflex arc means that the signals don’t go through the brain–thus–aren’t consciously controlled. The MRA is different from the tension one holds in a slow and controlled stretch. It’s fun to see people who’ve been encouraged to breath and relax into the stretch realizing that the stretch isn’t as bad as it seems.

Of course, many intense physical activities that cause discomfort may also result in a sufficient endorphin (natural painkillers) inflow and adrenaline / cortisol (stress hormones) outflow to result in net feelings of pleasure. While stretching results in endorphin release, the action of holding the muscle stretched may be too much for our natural painkillers to counteract, particularly when one is breathing easily and thus the body is not under the level of whole-body stress that might encourage the big endorphin dumps desired.

The problem is that one can’t achieve flexibility without pressing against one’s limits any more than one can make strength gains without lifting more or by employing more repetitions. If one just goes to the point at which one is no longer comfortable, you may be able to prevent losing flexibility, but you’re not going to make gains.

Another part of the problem is that people often go into stretching cold, and thus maximize their discomfort. Doing warm-ups and joint articulations before any kind of intense stretching is a good practice. These warm-ups should not test the fullest range of motion, but should move with sufficient quickness to get the muscles and the synovial fluid in the joints warmed up.

The problem with seeing stretching as painful is that it discourages it. Some individuals fail to stretch altogether, and others focus only on the major muscle groups (hamstrings and quads) and miss muscles that adduct, abduct, rotate, and generally stabilize and support the primary agonist or antagonist muscle pairing. The most common injury in the Japanese martial art that I study is a knee injury attributable in part to insufficiently flexible external rotators and abductors and the inability to keep the knee in line with the toes–thus putting too much torque on the joint and too much load on the ligaments.

Wrong: knee is not pointing over toes

Martial artists, in particular, need to avoid equating discomfort with pain. When discomfort becomes pain, pain becomes agony, and agony become intolerable. There are many factors that can determine the outcome of a combative event, including technical proficiency, physical fitness, and the ability to persevere. The last one may mean the ability to take a licking and keep on ticking as the Timex people used to say.

The good news is that it’s possible to rewire one’s brain to avoid equating the discomfort of stretching with pain.

Step 1: Get a yoga face. In the martial arts, we talk about having a warrior face, which is an expression that conveys one’s intensity and seriousness. For yoga and stretching one should ditch the agony face and replace it with a serene face. My personal recommendation is that you aim to emulate the faces on the Bayon at Angkor.

Yoga face as seen on the Bayon at Angkor

Step 2: Keep your mind on your breath, and away from the sensation of the stretch. There’s a reason yoga teachers harp on breath, it will help one reduce one’s overall tension.

Step 3: Stop using the word pain (in your own mind or when speaking out loud) to refer to the feeling of a stretched muscle. You may not be able to replace the word “pain” with something as euphemistic as “stretch bliss,” but try to avoid giving it a name with a negative connotation. It’s simply the sensation of a stretched muscle

Step 4: When you find yourself wearing an agony face and squeezing out the protective muscular tension, ease off the stretch until it’s comfortable. Then ease back into the stretch, keeping the surrounding muscles relaxed and the breath even and deep. You can visualize expelling the tension with one’s exhalation if that helps.

Step 5: When you experience real pain, have no guilt about heeding it and giving that part of the body time to heal. Of course, this requires an ability to differentiate stretch sensation from true pain.

Now I’ll segue into a discussion of actual pain. When I was having a lot of problems with my lower back–eventually diagnosed as arthritis–I had a bizarro interaction with my healthcare provider. When I first went to the doctor, I faced this unsubtle wall of suspicion because back injuries are a common fraud device for persons addicted to painkillers. That’s because there are many forms of back injury that are hard to witness externally. However, when they x-rayed my back they could see clear indication that something was wrong. Then they were surprised when they tried to foist painkillers on me, and I wasn’t interested.

Here is how I look at painkillers. Imagine the “check-engine” light came on in your car, and you took the vehicle to the mechanic. The mechanic has your car for a brief time and comes back to you with a nominal bill. At first you are thrilled, and then you ask the inevitable question, “So what was the problem?” Your mechanic then says, “Oh, I have no idea, I just disconnected the light. That light won’t be giving you any more trouble.” Needless to say, you are decidedly less thrilled. You wanted the underlying problem fixed.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that there’s no place for pain-killing medication. If one has pain that is so severe that one cannot rest, one’s body won’t be able to heal itself properly.

However, if you pop painkillers to do away with bodily aches, you should reconsider. Those aches are what being alive feels like, and if they come from exercise or labor they should be welcomed and not be framed in a negative light. If they are an indication of a postural misalignment or some sort of systemic problem, you should look into fixing the underlying problem.

[To be fair to my aforementioned doctor, I think people aren’t conditioned to the notion that they are the key participant in their own healthcare and that fixing problems will often require hard work on their part. So a part of the problem in some places–most notably America–is that healthcare isn’t profitable unless they are pushing surgery or expensive medications. However, another part of the problem is that people just want to go to the doctor and have the expert fix them without requiring the personal effort of fixing postural deficiencies or cutting weight. I can understand why doctors are a bit fed up with suggesting people do the work only to get no response. I saw a statistic recently that only 1 in 8 people threatened with a lethal illness would make a behavioral change recommended by a doctor to reduce the threat of the ailment–e.g. stop smoking, stop drinking, cut weight, etc.]

DAILY PHOTO: Kalari Kids

Posted on September 30, 2014 by B Gourley

These are a few more pics from the Kalari Gurukulam‘s demonstration on Sunday night. These are a few of the kids from the youth classes.

Yesterday, I posted a few of the adult senior students here.

Thai Yoga & Hatha Yoga: Compare and Contrast

Posted on September 24, 2014 by B Gourley

During my recent trip to Thailand, I attended Thai Yoga (a.k.a. Rusie Dutton, i.e. “ascetic exercises”) classes at the Wat Po Temple. As a yoga practitioner, I took note of the similarities and differences between Thai yoga and the Hatha Yoga of India. It’s no surprise that Thai Yoga would display the influence of India. Indian influence from olden times can be seen throughout Thailand. The roots of Thai Massage (a.k.a. Thai Yoga Bodywork or Nuad Bo Rarn) itself are attributed to Shivago (also, written/pronounced Chivako), a north Indian doctor in the Buddha’s community of followers.

One can plainly see the influence of Hatha yogasana (postures) in these Thai exercises, but the details vary. I’m interested in how movement systems (e.g. martial arts) with a common ancestry diverge over time in response to the unique needs of a different culture. I believe that not only the new system evolves, but there’s also a continuing evolution in the original line. One can, therefore, end up with systems that look little alike over the course of several generations.

The degree to which the Thai Yoga poses vary from Hatha Yogasana varies. In the Thai Yoga class we did a simple lateral bend with interlocked fingers that was identical to a Sivinanda Yoga pose named tiryaka tadasana.

Lateral Bend (tiryaka tadasana)

Balancing poses made up much of the Wat Po Thai Yoga sequence. This makes sense as the course was aimed at practitioners of Thai Massage and balance is important in this massage system because there are techniques that involve standing on one foot as one applies pressure with the other fort or in which one must stand to apply stretches. (Obviously, it’s bad for business to step on the recipient in an uncontrolled fashion or to topple onto them.) There were poses that were reminiscent of Natarajasana (Shiva’s Dancer pose), Vrksasana (tree pose), and Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana (hand to big toe pose). Each of these varied in the details. The most prevalent Thai variation was bending the support leg to lower one’s center-of-gravity. In Hatha Yoga, it’s usually taught to keep the support leg as straight as one can manage (this both contributes to the stretch and can prevent loading the tendons.)

NATARAJASANA: There were two variants of this pose practiced at Wat Po. Both folded the torso more forward than one would typically see in Hatha Yoga, as well as bending the support leg more. The first version (palm on front knee) is as such:

Version 1 from Thai Yoga (Palm on Knee)

The second version has the front hand up in a manner similar to the Hatha version, but the torso isn’t kept upright and the support leg is deeply bent.

Thai Version 2 (hand out front)

In contrast, the Hatha version is more upright.

Natarajasana

VRKSASANA: There are two variants of tree pose in the Thai Yoga. In both the ankle is kept on top of the thigh and the support leg is bent. Version one is as follows:

Version 1 begins and ends in Pranamasana (hands in prayer pose) With hands out to the side in between.

Version 1 begins and ends in Pranamasana (hands in prayer pose) but hands are taken out to the side in between

Version 2 includes a wrist stretch with the balance pose. One puts fingers on thigh facing upward and the squat folds the wrist back.

Version 2 with wrist stretch

The Indian version:

UTTHITA HASTA PADANGUSTHASANA: There are also two variations of this pose. Note the bending of the support knee. Version 1 holds the foot with the same side hand and places the opposite palm on the knee.

Version 1 from front

Version 1 from side

Version two holds the extended foot with both hands.

Version 1 from the front

Version 1 from the side

For comparison, the Hatha Yoga version:

Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana from side

UTKATA KONASANA: There are three variants of a pose that is usually called Goddess pose or Utkata Konasana. The difference here primarily deals with how the hands are positioned, but given the many variants within Hatha Yoga for hand position, this can be seen as a virtually identical pose.

Thai version 1 of Goddess pose

Thai version 2 of Goddess pose

Thai version 3 of Goddess pose

Goddess pose with hands in Chin mudra.

VIRABHADRASANA: There is a series of five lunge poses that are reminiscent of the Virabhadrasana (Warrior). I’ve dropped the first one because it requires a photo taken from a back angle becuas it involves pulling one’s wrist behind one’s back.

Thai Version 2 hand on front knee

Thai version 3 twist

Thai version 4 looking back

Thai version 5 taking aim

Virabhadrasana I

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DAILY PHOTO: Kalari Kids

Thai Yoga & Hatha Yoga: Compare and Contrast

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