Striving4Zen

Just as every snowflake is different, each of us has our own unique bone structure and therefore will experience yoga differently. In order to avoid painful bone-on-bone compression, it is important not to force our bodies into rigid positions, warns Paul Grilley, who has been teaching yoga for 28 years with a specialty in the instruction of anatomy. The angles and rotations of our bones and joints affect how we are able to safely interpret each pose, he explains.
Every bone has natural differences in proportion and orientation. For instance, a petite female and a tall male can both model the twisting triangle pose "correctly" but because of natural anatomical differences in their bone structures, the woman's femur to torso angle might be 45 degree, while the man's might be 65 degrees.
Another example is the ankle flexion differences that can be noticed in a downward facing dog position. One person's heels may touch the ground in the pose while another's are at a 45-degree angle. This does not mean that the person whose heels are flat is performing the pose better than the other person. Both are listening to their bodies and making the necessary adjustments in the pose. Rather than being frustrated by his inability to touch his heel to the ground, the second yogi would have a better experience if he understood that skeletal variations affect our yoga practices.
"A yoga practice is about being content with our bodies, not about competition," Grilley explains. "Don't push beyond what your body can handle without pain and ask your yoga teacher for individual attention if you have a question about how to customize a pose for your body's alignment. People training for sports on any level, from amateur to competitive, could benefit from a greater understanding of their anatomy to improve their performance and reduce the risk of injury."

Labels: individualized health, yoga