I’m sure if you are a well practiced yogi or yogini, you know as well as I do that Yoga is so much more than just stretching! All you have to do is look at a yogi’s body and see how fantastically shaped their bodies are. Long, lean and generally beautiful, right? So, if it looks pretty obvious, then why is it that so many people think Yoga is just a good stretch?!
My experience as a Yoga teacher
I’ve been teaching for 5 years now and the majority of my students started out as complete beginners. That was always such a wonder to me because I had been led to believe that on beginning my journey as a Yoga teacher I would generally have people coming to class that had practiced yoga for years. Now I realise that it’s down to my style. I don’t really view my style of teaching as ‘straight Yoga’ (whatever that is anyway!) I see it more as a means to learning how to move properly and function well as a moving, living, breathing human being. So, because I have had so many beginners come to me, I have heard the same statement from them over and over again; “Wow, I thought Yoga was supposed to be just stretching, but that was hard!” I don’t know where people have got this idea from and I apologise now to anyone who is reading this and thinking they were going to try out a yoga class because they just wanted a ‘good stretch.’
It’s not that I’m saying Yoga doesn’t stretch you out or make you flexible because of course, it does, but to gain it, you have to do more than just stretch.
Why am I telling you all this?
Just so you understand why I decided to write this post I’m going to explain where my inspiration came from. It came from two things. Firstly, my fiancé, who, over the weekend asked me if I could stretch him out but made a very strong request for me to not hurt him. This statement of his makes me laugh a lot because he’s come to a few of my classes and I’ve taught him privately on a few occasions and every time he says “why do you have to make me work so hard?!” Well, I’m sorry to say it but to get flexible and gain a ‘good stretch’ you must work hard first, I’ll explain why in a minute. The second reason is because the new company, Inspirer, that Dr Elena Voyce created and I manage, have been asked by a trampoline group to teach them how to stretch and so I have been thinking about how to teach it.
So, why is Yoga more than stretching?
If you have been to a Yoga class, then you should know how most lessons are structured, for those of you who haven’t, I’ll explain very quickly. First, you ‘awaken the body’ and every teacher and style does this differently, some in ways I don’t agree with, but I won’t get into that so much. Secondly, you start to warm up and do a whole load of poses that strengthen the body and you do this so that lastly, you can get into some crazy flexible positions.
now let’s think about the gym and your typical fitness classes. They all talk about warming up before you start and at the end you stretch. You do the same in dance, you do a dynamic, warming stretch, you dance for an hour or so and then you stretch. Notice the pattern…. Warm up, strengthen THEN stretch.
This pattern is so incredibly important and that’s because society today barely move. Our muscles and joints are cold. Think of your muscles as an elastic band for a second. Imagine if you picked up a cold elastic band (it’s unlikely you would J but let’s pretend) what do you think would happen if you tried to stretch it? It would most likely snap, or wouldn’t stretch at all. Our muscles are the same. This is why yoga gives you so much more than a stretch. It is an ancient and clever practice, that retrains the body and takes it to its full potential! However, like I said before, not every style of yoga does this in the best of ways, I’m sorry to say that, because I do truly love all styles of Yoga, but some are not made for the modern body and I only say this from my own experience. Some styles go too quickly into the strengthening portion when the joints and muscles are still tight and they’re not ready to move in such a way and so many people are living with injuries and pains these days that you really do have to be careful about how you train the body. If you do it cleverly you can truly make changes. I changed mine completely. I used to have terrible lordosis and ribs that didn’t function properly, legs that barely did any work, basically, I was all over the place! And just with clever movement I have completely changed the shape of my spine and body and have next to no pains these days. It’s great!!
How to stretch properly
The method I use in my teaching comes from Dr Elena Voyce, my teacher, friend and life saver! She taught me that to gain flexibility you must make the muscles function properly and to do that you should put them in the right place first. Yes, I am talking about alignment, which thankfully lots of people are talking about nowadays! For this post, I am just going to talk about stretching the hamstrings.
Let’s think about society… most people sit down for the majority of their day, so because of this, their hamstrings are constantly over stretched and therefore, tight. Most people sit incorrectly, so their pelvis and hip flexors are not functioning properly. So, what can we do about this? Re-train them! Unfortunately, I could probably write a massive book on how to properly stretch the hamstrings, but I can’t really do that here J so instead I just want to give you a little thing to try and to help you understand why yoga is more than stretching.
Stand up, as you normally do with your legs straight. Now roll down and try and touch the floor without bending your knees. As you do this I want you to notice what happens to your feet, and how you roll down, i.e. do you roll smoothly through the spine or do you get stuck somewhere in the back. Don’t worry about what you notice just remember and see how far you down you get comfortably.
2. Now try this: stand with your feet hip-distance apart, parallel and slightly pigeon-toed (so your big toes come slightly towards each other, watch that your knees don’t come together.) Now bend your knees and bring your body weight into your heels. Ground your heels and your feet into the floor and try to pull back through your ankles, like you’re skiing. You should now be able to feel your hamstrings and sitting bones engage a little. Now bow your head, breathe deeply into your back and ask your ribs to move back. Try to relax your pelvis a little and allow your hip bones to lift up and back slightly as if lifting them and creating space in the belly, which in turn allows your tailbone to relax. Without losing the connection to your feet or the space in the belly roll all the way down with your legs bent. Once all the way down keep that connection to the feet and ankles and the lift in the hips. Now pressing down through your heels can you start to straighten your legs from your heels to your sitting bones, as if pushing your thigh bones up to the ceiling and keep your hands on the floor. Only go as far as you can without feeling like you’re pulling the muscle at your sitting bones. Does this feel different? Do you feel more of a stretch, but gain some heat in the body? Hopefully the answer is yes and hopefully, you now see that what Yoga poses should do, is create strength and heat as well as a stretch, when you get this, you’re going to start stretching in a much more efficient way!
For a better understanding of how this all works come to one of our upcoming Back to Back classes (website coming soon).
By Amy Waring
You may also like
The SASSY Method For Teens From Compassion To Cr...
You, Your Gut, Your Movement Practice - Live-onl...
The best course I have ever done. I enjoyed every minute of it! Loved the teachers who taught us and the students whom I trained with. Thank you to all the teachers, they were all amazing!
The course is demanding - that's why the teach yoga diploma it's so highly regarded. I really enjoyed the homework. You make it a priority, I found the training weekends were brilliant immersions. A step away and a focus on how you wish to grow. You learn what you need when you need it. I still go back to my training manuals over and over - brilliant material to compliment the course
That moment might change a life, as it did for me. I came to you - 'When the student is ready, the teacher comes'. You picked me up and the rest you know.
Doing the majority of the Teacher Training online enabled me to access a course that I would have otherwise struggled to attend as I live almost an hour and 30 minutes away. The course was taught at the weekends which enabled me to continue working in my day job as a doctor. I learnt a great deal of information, with the help form additional home study as set by the well thought out homework that was set and was surprised how easy it was to gain knowledge over zoom. The layout of the course was clear and methodical and provided an excellent framework to learn from. We were adjusted over zoom effectively and I felt that the teachers were extremely experienced and knowledgeable and were able to adapt their teaching style to the group whilst on zoom. All questions and queries about the course were answered thoroughly and I can confidently say that I feel ready to start my journey as a Yoga teacher. I felt encouraged and inspired to learn more and explore other aspects of Yoga. I would like to thank everyone at Teach Yoga for providing me with a new avenue to explore in my career. I will certainly be applying to do further training with Teach Yoga.
The whole course was an incredible experience. I learnt so much both about my body, about yoga practice and about teaching. The teachers were knowledgeable, were happy to share their knowledge and cared about us. During the practicum sessions, the feedback was constructive and helped us improve. The homework gave structure which allowed me to spend time purposefully each week....The zoom recordings were also very valuable...I liked the strong focus that the course put on body awakening. I knew little about this and it's been a revelation to me.The course was very organized and my questions were answered in a timely and precise manner.