Who: Laurie Blekeney

When: November 6, 2023

Transcript

• ELIZABETH SMITH: Hi. This is Elizabeth and Amy and in this episode AADL Talks to Laurie Blakeney, founder of the Ann Arbor School of Yoga. Laurie came to Ann Arbor in 1971 to study at the University of Michigan. Intent on running her own business, she was a piano technician and tuner for 25 years and during that period she also studied and taught yoga. Laurie has studied with B.K.S. Iyengar and has brought the Iyengar method to thousands of students over the years. Thank you so much for coming, Laurie.
• LAURIE BLAKENEY: You’re welcome.
• ES: We usually like to just ask right off the bat, what brought you to Ann Arbor?
• LB: I came to Ann Arbor to attend the University of Michigan Residential College in 1971. Having been born in Pontiac, MI, it wasn’t much of a trip to come to Ann Arbor.
• ES: What did you study at the Residential College?
• LB: In the 70s, so we studied a lot of stuff at the College. [LAUGHTER]
• AMY CANTU: I was there in the 80s, so I understand what you mean.
• ES: You were doing piano tuning then, is that correct?
• LB: No, what happened was after my first year at the Residential College. I didn’t know what I wanted to major-in ,and all of that. I just stopped going to the College, and I stayed in Ann Arbor. At first, I waited tables for seven years.
• AC: Oh, where?
• LB: The Gandy Dancer.
• AC: Oh, ok. Good tips!
• LB: It was at the time the biggest fanciest restaurant in town. I eventually decided I wanted to be my own boss. I had already started taking yoga classes. Since I had always played piano as a kid, I thought maybe I could be a piano technician and run my own business, run my own schedule. I enrolled in a piano technology course in Cleveland, Ohio, and then came back when finished.
• ES: How long did you work as a piano tuner?
• LB: 25 or 30 years. It was a long time.
• AC: You were doing it simultaneous with…
• LB: At first. I was tuning pianos and also working on them. I had a rebuilding shop, so I would collect old pianos, tear them down, refurbish them, and sell them. There was a place on Washington called 16 Hands. I was in there with that collective of craftsmen.
• AC: Really? Did you have a shop in there then or…?
• LB: I had a workshop in there.
• AC: I remember 16 Hands.
• LB: They had a storefront, but before that, they had a collective of just workspaces that people used.
• AC: You did that for, you say 25 years. What was it like having your own business at that time in Ann Arbor?
• LB: There were a lot of pianos. They need tuning once, or twice a year, and there were not that many piano tuners in Ann Arbor at the time. And certainly there were no women. It wasn’t big money, but I had a skill that I could market, and control of my own schedule.
• AC: Eventually, you were attracted to studying yoga. Can you tell us how you became involved with yoga?
• LB: When I came back to Ann Arbor, after my freshman year — I probably went home for the summer. I don’t really remember what I did that summer — all my friends were in school still. I had lots of free time during the day because I worked nights. I happened to live a couple blocks from the Ann Arbor Y, and looked over their class offerings. The Y were just starting the Iyengar yoga program in the early 70s. I just took classes two, three times a week during the day.
• AC: Tell us a little bit about the history of Iyengar yoga in Ann Arbor. Can you talk about B.K.S. Iyengar’s visit and how you became acquainted with it?
• LB: Well, there was yoga teacher at the Y who was planning to move, or retire,… She decided that two of her students, these mature ladies who were professor wives, should take over the yoga program. And said, “By the way, here’s a new book. It’s called ‘Light on Yoga.’ You should just teach from this book.” They were 15-20 years older than me. I wasn’t too involved in the initial invitation and all of that. As requested the two women started teaching out of ‘Light on Yoga’, and one of them — a very famous lady, Mary Palmer; lived in the Frank Lloyd Wright house. She commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to do her house.
• AC: We don’t all get to do that.
• LB: People don’t all get to do that. So Mary Palmer decided to write the guy who wrote this book she was teaching from, and ask him if she could become his student. He said, “Well, I’m going to be teaching in the UK. If you want to come over and meet me then, you can do that.” She had the resources to do so. This part is hearsay — I was around, but I wasn’t privy. She went and then came back. The report was that he liked her as a student. She had asked him, “Can you come teach our group?” The first couple of times — he came like three or four times before he started going everywhere else — the first couple of times I wasn’t included because I was just the small hippie who was a college dropout. One of the times he taught a bunch of classes at the VFW hall, in the basement of what used to be Seva, and now is Jerusalem Garden. I was part of that group of students. They group started to accept me because I kept coming. It worked out great. Then, Mr. Iyengar became world famous. There were big conventions, and I started going to India in 1983 to study with him.
• AC: You first met him in, what would you say roughly, what would be the year?
• LB: Maybe ’72 or ’73.
• AC: Were you immediately taken with him? What was he like?
• LB: The reason I was interested in yoga was I had read ‘Siddhartha’ in high school. And read ‘The Autobiography of a Yogi’. And John Lennon did yoga, and so did George Harrison, my favorite. So I thought, OK, I’ll try yoga. Mr. Iyengar was very energetic, very charismatic, pretty proper, formal gentleman, and very articulate in his teaching. Really precise, even though English was his fourth language, not his native tongue at all. But he was really invested in getting people interested in yoga. He was full of fire.
• ES: When did you begin to teach? What was the transition like from student to teacher for you?
• LB: There was another woman who was part of that initial group. There were about four of them at the Ann Arbor Y, and this woman’s name was Barbara Linderman*. She taught her own small program in the basement of the Friends Center, on Hill Street. I was her student, but also a student at the Y. I just went wherever I could afford. Later, someone at the Ann Arbor Continuing Ed program wanted a yoga teacher, and they called Barbara. Barbara said, I have a student I think would be good. When she asked me, I said to her, “I can’t do that. I’m not a teacher. I don’t want to do that.” She responded, “Well if you don’t do it, somebody with less talent will.”
• AC: Ok. That’s motivation.
• LB: I said, “Will you help me?” She responded, “Whatever you need.” For a long time, I just did taught Continuing Ed classes at Clague Junior High for six, seven years, a couple of nights a week.
• AC: Did you take to it right away?
• LB: Well, people kept coming, so…
• AC: You knew you were doing something right.
• LB: I believe that it’s a very mechanical, and precise, subject. If you understand the technicalities, and have good communication skills, you would — I don’t know why they kept coming. I don’t know. [LAUGHTER]
• AC: Just to be clear did you practice a different type of yoga before Iyengar, or was your introduction to yoga right at the same time? I wasn’t entirely clear on that.
• LB: I never really had much of a practice in another method, but because I didn’t have much money, I did look around for whatever was available. Once I did take some classes — you know where a Big City, Small World bakery is? Is that how it is?
• AC: Yeah.
• LB: Or is it a Big World, Small City?
• AC: It’s Big City, Small World.
• LB: There was a yoga school there, and it was not Iyengar Yoga. I went once or twice and thought, “No, thank you. I like what they do with at the Y. I’m going to stick with that.” It was pretty immediate. It was luck, just chance.
• AC: Right place at the right time.
• ES: Did you feel like there was a cultural movement in Ann Arbor towards yoga, or was it a new thing? Was it everywhere? What was the mindset like at the time?
• LB: Well, I don’t know that I had a good pulse on the city. I was pretty young, and I was jin my own age group. But I don’t think that it was hugely popular. I think that it was the beginning of Mr. Iyengar coming to the US, and being credited for popularizing yoga. Again, this brilliant woman was Priscilla Neel and her friend Mary Palmer who hooked up with B. K. S. Iyengar because they just wrote him and asked, “Can we become your students?”
• AC: That’s really something. It’s interesting, too that you’ve mentioned a couple of times you were the hippie girl, and you were in the Residential College. Ann Arbor had that reputation at the time.
• LB: That was definitely there — it was definitely an alternative… I mean, I came from a factory city. I wasn’t even going to college and still wanted to live here.
• AC: That says something, but Mary Palmer was not part of that particular culture.
• LB: No. She was the professor’s wife, a sophisticated lady. There was a lot to that that I probably didn’t know much about.
• ES: When did you get your own yoga studio?
• LB: It was a long time comming. The same woman, Barbara Linderman, who recruited me for the Parks and Rec or Continuing Ed program, was about to take a Sabbatical. She had her own program at the Friends Center and said,” Will you cover me while I’m gone?” I responded, “It’s a lot of work and time. She then said, “Yeah, and you get paid per student, instead of per hour.” At the time I was probably making eight dollars an hour or so. She said, “I’m quite sure you could use the pay.” She was quite convincing, and kept pushing me through. So when she returned home, she asked, “What are you going to do now?” I answered, “I don’t know what I’ll do.” She then asked, “Well why don’t you look around for a school, or a church basement, to rent and run your own program?” That was early ’80s, maybe late ’70s.
• AC: At that time were you still tuning pianos?
• LB: Primarily.
• AC: Did you tune all day long?
• LB: All day long and as many appointments as I could get.
• AC: Then did you teach mostly at night?
• LB: Always late, late afternoon and night.
• AC: Only at night.
• LB: Then after Barbara returned home and took back her program, I began teaching at the Rudolf Steiner School, on Newport Road and was there for a decade. Tuesday and Thursday nights, and one Saturday a month they rented me their gym.
• ES: How did your approach to teaching change throughout your time teaching, and how did it evolve?
• LB: Well, I evolved. As I grew and , it meaning different things to me. Making more sense. I can’t say any big thing happened. However, there was an Indian teacher from California who was also in the group in the UK. His name was Ramanand Patel and he came to Ann Arbor frequently to teach us. We became friends, and he helped push me along,. Then I began traveling to India to study at the Institute, and that’s when things really changed. I have ben traveling there once a year ever since ’83 ’till COVID.
• ES: Has it resumed at all, since COVID or is it still on pause?
• LB: No, it resumed last year. It changed. Teaching yoga over Zoom is what COVID brought to us all.
• AC: How’s it working? How do you like that?
• LB: Well, I’m really grateful for all the students who are not in town, and still want to take class on Zoom with me. But I prefer having actual bodies in the room with me. It’s easier to see what they’re doing. It’s easier to read what they’re receiving. You can see their eyes, and hear their breath. On Zoom, they’re a inside postage stamp on my laptop.
• AC: That’d be hard.
• LB: It’s harder.
• AC: So I have a question for you. I’m curious about how Iyengar yoga has changed over the years. Is it your perspective that you have continued to refine basic principles or do you feel that it has evolved and you’ve been able to bring your own perspective to it? How do you view that?
• LB: I think there are hundreds of people around the world,thousands teaching Iyengar Yoga. We have a standardized method. The use of props, and the use of precision, and some other things that are recognizable. But they’re all individual people teaching their students. What is particular to me, is the use of metaphor. I use a lot of imagery. I finally did go back to college, and received a degree in comparative religion. The spiritual aspect of it started to evolve more and more for me, but it started from “Siddhartha”, in high school. Not everybody has quite that same bent. Some people are much more interested in the therapy aspects of it, and some people are much more athletic than I. But we all age and keep growing. It feels to me that Ann Arbor, as a whole, was always interested in the philosophy of yoga. Before Mr. Iyengar wrote any of his books on philosophy, he had taught us here in Ann Arbor, and recommended yoga philosophy books for us to study. We then formed a group in order to study beyond just doing postures. We did that at the Y. Sat in a little conference room at the Y, and we read philosophy books and discussed them with each other. Don’t believe that was there in the beginning at some other communities around the country.
• AC: You’ve actually helped students become teachers, and you’ve seen a lot of teachers over the course of your career. What would you say is something that you bring specifically to the practice? Do you bring music? Does the piano factor in?
• LB: I don’t bring a piano into the school [LAUGHTER], but I do think about rhythm and I do think about harmony, and I do think about people trying to have a melodic flow with themselves, and not be too jerky.
• LB: You have to practice. I’m an amateur classical piano player, and you got to play your scales, and you got to practice your technique before you have much music. There’s a lot of opportunity to draw parallels between the practice of any art form. I consider yoga an art form more than a physical activity.
• ES: Can you talk a little bit about the different locations where your studio was over the years?
• LB: I taught in the basement of the Friends Center ,when Barbara was on Sabbatical. Then I taught in the gym of the Rudolf Steiner School for a long time. They then had a change and they wanted their gym back.So I rented a place for another decade or so on Fourth Avenue. Then I rented my place on West Huron. But I also taught other places. I taught at Wayne State University driving over to Detroit 2-3 days a week. I had other classes, as well, at the Gross Pointe War Memorial.and the Senior Citizens home in downtown Detroit. There’s been a bunch of places.
• AC: How many students do you believe you’ve had over the course of your career?
• LB: When I was on Fourth Avenue other types of yoga hadn’t quite arrived in Ann Arbor. So I had a lot of students. There were seven Iyengar studios in town then, but people had a lot of students. Then when other styles of yoga became equally popular, the Iyengar studios lost new people. Because people would land somewhere else and like where they landed. I think still now I’m probably seeing 100 people a week. Earlier, it might have been more 150 or 175 people a week.
• AC: Wow!
• LB: Most weeks of the year.
• ES: You’ve had two businesses? How has owning a business in Ann Arbor changed over the years?
• LB: Well, I miss the Ann Arbor News. That was always a way to connect with the community. I’ve always found advertising to be weird. I’m not much for social media, but that is where advertising has fallen. I tend to rely on word of mouth. I also have a website. If folks Google yoga, they’re going to find me. But it used to be that you could advertise yourself, and people would learn about you that way. I don’t think it’s just Ann Arbor. I believe everybody gets business off their website.
• AC: You have a couple of other teachers that work with you. Do you have help in the studio with social media, and some other forms of communication?
• LB: Well, I have a guy who helps me with the website occasionally, but he hasn’t done much for a long time. The school is not on social media at all. Because I don’t want to bother with it.
• AC: Don’t want to deal with it?
• LB: The other two teachers I have are both certified. There’s a national certification, or global certification process in Iyengar yoga. The two people who also teach at my school are certified. But I do all the gardening, the cleaning, the accounting, and all the website stuff. It’s all me.
• AC: Can you talk a little bit about the national conventions?
• LB: Well, there was one — in ’93, I’m pretty sure — and I was instrumental in it being held in Ann Arbor… We had a really good team of people organize it. Most of the classes were held at the athletic campus, the near one. Where Fingerle’s used to be. Then we did a wonderful performance at the Power Center, called “Warrior in the Moon.” Also a local storyteller tell mythology, a group of Indian dancers – – beautiful girls with their gestures, their dresses, and all. And a group of yogis who were doing choreographic demonstrations. It was really quite a beautiful program. Mr. Iyengar sat in the front row, and he got up on stage afterwards, then said, “You should take it on the road!”
• LB: So we had a great time hosting him There were probably 1,000 people attending the convention.
• AC: Wow! This was in the 90s?
• LB: ’93, I think.
• ES: Ann Arbor has changed a lot in the past 50 years. Architecture, politics, social changes. Does anything stand out to you?
• LB: It’s way more chi-chi then when I first moved here. Then, it was the funky place to go, and that’s not true anymore.
• AC: How do you feel about that? It’s hard to afford to live here for one thing.
• LB: It’s horrible that people can’t afford to live here. I live near downtown. I rented a house for a long time, and then bought it from my landlords, and paid it off in the early 90s. So I’m really lucky. But that’s sad to me that people who don’t have extreme means can’t really afford to be residents in our city.
• AC: What are you most proud of?
• LB: I’m most proud of facilitating people having yoga in their life. It’s a thing that’s important to people. So whenever I get a little tired, or start thinking it’s close to retirement, I see these people really enjoy coming to their yoga school. I’m proud of that. I believe it’s an important thing to have in your life, and I’ve introduced it to a lot of people.
• AC: You don’t plan to retire anytime soon, do you?
• LB: I turned 70, this year, so I should think about it. [LAUGHTER] It’s expensive to run my school, the lease is very high, although I have a great landlord who is very responsible. I don’t have any complaints about that. But he’s a businessman, and it’s a prime piece of real estate. Currently, it’s not really a money-maker.
• AC: It’s for the love of it.
• LB: I enjoy my job, and I’ve spent a lot of effort creating it. I’ve always wanted to be my own boss. I always have been my own boss. If I continue tol want to work, I want to work there. It’s beautiful. It’s really a lovely yoga school.
• AC: It’s a really nice studio.
• LB: It feels as though we’re doing something spiritual in that room. We’re doing something necessary for ourselves. We’re exploring who we are, and there’s a community of people doing it. Now I’m offering all the classes on Zoom, so people can see the recordings. I’m still in the classroom, but people are out in the hallway chatting up each other, enjoying each other’s company, and that’s nice. It’s the fellowship of any spiritual activity. People enjoy it with other people. Although you’re supposed to practice a lot on your own, I wish they did so, and I think many do. But it’s so fun to do it with a teacher, with other people, and recognize you’re not alone in it.
• ES: Thank you, Laurie.
• LB: You’re welcome.
• AC: Thank you very much for coming in.
• LB: My pleasure. [MUSIC]
• AC: AADL Talks two is a production of the Ann Arbor District Library.

* Barbara Linderman was my first yoga instructor. Laurie then became my instructor while Barbara was on sabbatical.

Understanding how exercise affects the body

At a Glance

• A study of endurance training in rats found molecular changes throughout the body that could help explain the beneficial effects of exercise on health.
• Large differences were seen between male and female rats, highlighting the need to include both women and men in exercise studies.

Exercise is one of the most beneficial activities that people can engage in. Regular exercise reduces the risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and other health problems. It can even help people with many mental health conditions feel better.

But exactly how exercise exerts its positive effects hasn’t been well understood. And different people’s bodies can respond very differently to certain types of exercise, such as aerobic exercise or strength training.

Understanding how exercise impacts different organs at the molecular level could help health care providers better personalize exercise recommendations. It might also lead to drug therapies that could stimulate some of the beneficial effects of a workout for people who are physically unable to exercise.

To this end, researchers in the large, NIH-funded Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC) have been studying how endurance exercise and strength training affect both people and animals. The team is examining gene activity, protein alterations, immune cell function, metabolite levels, and numerous other measures of cell and tissue function. The first results, from rat studies of endurance exercise, were published on May 2, 2024, in Nature and several related journals.

Both male and female rats underwent progressive exercise training on a treadmill over an 8-week period. By the end of training, male rats had increased their aerobic capacity by 18%, and females by 16%. Tissue samples were collected from 18 different organs, plus the blood, during the training period and two days after the final bout of exercise. This let the researchers study the longer-term adaptations of the body to exercise.

Changes in gene activity, immune cell function, metabolism, and other cellular processes were seen in all the tissues studied, including those not previously known to be affected by exercise. The types of changes differed from tissue to tissue.

Many of the observed changes hinted at how exercise might protect certain organs against disease. For example, in the small intestines, exercise decreased the activity of certain genes associated with inflammatory bowel disease and reduced signs of inflammation in the gut. In the liver, exercise boosted molecular changes associated with improved tissue health and regeneration.

Some of the effects differed substantially between male and female rats. For example, in male rats, the eight weeks of endurance training reduced the amount of a type of body fat called subcutaneous white adipose tissue (scWAT). The same amount of exercise didn’t reduce the amount of scWAT in female rats. Instead, endurance exercise caused scWAT in female rats to alter its energy usage in ways that are beneficial to health. These and other results highlight the importance of including both women and men in exercise studies.

The researchers also compared gene activity changes in the rat studies with those from human samples taken from previous studies and found substantial overlap. They identified thousands of genes tied to human disease that were affected by endurance exercise. These analyses show how the MoTrPAC results from rats can be used to help guide future research in people.

“This is the first whole-organism map looking at the effects of training in multiple different organs,” says Dr. Steve Carr, a MoTrPAC investigator from the Broad Institute. “The resource produced will be enormously valuable, and has already produced many potentially novel biological insights for further exploration.”

Human trials are expected in the next few years. Information on participating can be found here.

—by Sharon Reynolds

Don’t let tight quadriceps keep you from one of yoga’s most relaxing poses.
By Julie Gudmestad

Supta virāsana (Reclining Hero Pose) is a passive backbend and a wonderful chest opener that’s extremely relaxing and restorative. It’s the perfect antidote to an overstressed life—as long as your knees and lower back aren’t screaming in agony. Why do some students experience such pleasure and others pure pain in this pose?

It’s likely that it has to do with the length in the muscles of your front body. Supta virāsana is a classic front-opening pose. As you sit between your heels, it stretches the fronts of your ankles and lower legs. As you lie back, your quadriceps and abdominal muscles lengthen and open. Extending your arms overhead adds a shoulder and chest stretch. All in all, it’s a wonderful position for spacious, relaxed breathing.

But sometimes your lower body doesn’t cooperate. If you have knee and back pain in this pose, the culprit is often tightness in your quadriceps, specifically the rectus femoris (RF). I recommend working on this muscle if you’re having difficulties in Supta virāsana. One caveat, though: If you have persistent pain in your lower back or knees in the pose, consult your health care provider to rule out structural problems or injuries, then find an experienced teacher for guidance. If you’re uncomfortable doing the pose even with skilled supervision, substitute another supported backbend, like Supta baddha koṇāsana (Reclining Bound Angle Pose) or supported Setubandha sarvāṅgāsana (Bridge Pose).

The RF is one of the four muscles that form the quadriceps on the front of the thigh. It sits directly under the skin, running right down the center of the thigh between hip and knee. This muscle originates on the front pelvis above the hip socket, and then crosses the front of the hip to join the other three quads: the vastus lateralis, v. intermedius, and v. medialis. The three vastus muscles originate on the femur, and all four quadriceps converge into a common tendon, which attaches to the kneecap. This tendon then extends down past the knee, becoming the patellar ligament, which inserts on the shinbone. All four muscles contract to extend (straighten) the knee. Because RF crosses the hip, it also acts to flex (bend) the hip when the thigh and torso are pulled toward each other.

Long and Strong
The joint a muscle is connected to must oppose the lengthening action in order to stretch any muscle. In this case, because the quads extend the knee when they contract, you must flex the knee to lengthen and stretch them. And since RF is connected to two joint muscles, you have to position both joints properly to fully lengthen it. That means you’ll have to simultaneously flex (bend) the knee and extend the hip (bring the thighbone in line with or behind the torso). This position describes Supta virāsana perfectly: When you sit between your heels, your knees are deeply flexed, and when you lay your torso back on the floor, your hips are fully extended.

The trouble usually arises when RF doesn’t lengthen enough to allow the knees and hips their full range of motion. Often the muscle is too short and hasn’t been stretched enough. Perhaps it’s been worked hard or you’ve spent long periods sitting in a chair with hips and knees both at 90-degree angles. And if you’re like most yoga practitioners, you probably spend much more time stretching the backs of your thighs than the fronts. In any case, if all four quadriceps are short and tight, they will prevent the knee from flexing fully, and you will have trouble lowering your hips toward your heels— never mind sitting between them.

Trying to force your pelvis down between your heels before the quads are long enough is counterproductive and painful, and can injure your knees. Instead, sit in Virāsana on a block or other firm prop for a few minutes each day, and all four parts of the quads will gradually stretch out. Over time, you’ll be able to reduce the size of your prop until eventually you’ll be able to sit comfortably on the floor between your heels.

To further protect your knees, make sure your feet and toes point straight back behind you and not out to the sides. Also, while you’re kneeling before you sit, dig the fingertips of each hand deep into the back of the knee, pull and hold the flesh of the calf straight back toward the heel, and then move your fingers out as you sit down. Some people find it helpful to gently pull the calf flesh slightly out toward the little-toe side as they pull it back. This rearranging of the calf seems to open a little more space inside the knee and helps avoid undue twisting of the joint.

A tight RF can also cause problems for the lower back by limiting full extension at the hips. If your RF is tight and short, even sitting down on a block near your heels takes up any slack the muscle has to offer. As you move to lie back, the muscle can’t lengthen any more, and your pelvis will be stuck in a forward tilt. That places your lower back in an exaggerated and uncomfortable arch. Worse still, if one RF is shorter than the other, just one side of the pelvis will tilt forward, causing the pelvis to twist in relation to the spine and knees. This can strain the knees, sacroiliac joints, and lower back.

Body Balance
A good solution is to balance your stretching between the fronts and backs of your legs. If you’re the proud owner of tight, short RF muscles, be sure to stretch them just as frequently as you do your hamstrings. You’ll stretch the RF most effectively if you work on one side at a time, because the muscle is tough (containing lots of gristly connective tissue) and potentially strong. When you try to stretch the left and right together in poses like Supta virāsana, or Bhekāsana (Frog Pose), they will—like two mischievous kids—simply overpower the stretch, causing your back to overarch.

To get an effective RF stretch, you’ll need to flex the knee while you extend the hip in a position you can hold for one to two minutes. Ardha bhekāsana (Half Frog Pose) is a good way to stretch the RFs one at a time. Lie face-down with your shoulders in line with your hips and your knees three to four inches apart, bend your right knee and lift your right foot toward your buttocks. Use your hand or a strap to catch your foot, and before you pull on the foot, press your pubic bone into the floor, eliminating any gap between the front of your hip and the floor. Then, maintaining the three- to four- inch spread between your knees, gradually pull your heel toward the outer edge of your buttock (not the tailbone). Repeat on the other side. Remember, don’t force: Pain in your knee or lower back is never a good thing, and muscle pain can cause the muscle to contract and resist the stretch.

You can also work on your RF muscles at a wall. Start on your hands and knees facing away from the wall, with your feet touching it. Place one shin on the wall, perpendicular to the floor, foot pointing up, and the knee within two to three inches of the wall with plenty of padding beneath it. Now bring the other foot forward to stand flat on the floor a couple of feet from the wall, and you’ll be in a modified lunge.

Next, put your hands on two yoga blocks or a chair seat to support yourself as you gradually move your tailbone down and away from the wall and into a deeper lunge. As the RF stretches and gradually lengthens, gently and slowly lift the hips, chest, and torso back toward the wall. If your lower back starts to hurt, ease off.

As you work over the weeks and months to lengthen the fronts of your thighs, come back to Supta virāsana from time to time to see whether you’re ready to practice it comfortably. You may find that it helps to start with a bolster or stack of folded blankets under your back and head. In the meantime, you’ll have an opportunity to bring yoga philosophy to life: By practicing patience and compassion, you’ll learn to breathe and relax into resistance and to persist in the face of a challenge that can’t be instantly resolved.

Julie Gudmestad is an Iyengar Yoga teacher and physical therapist in Portland, Oregon. She cannot respond to requests for personal health advice. Return to http://www.yogajournal.com/practice/2607/

Part 2**

Low bak pain can be many kinds and cause, from simple fatigue to more serious causes which need medical attention. Whenever low back pain persists, or one experiences persistent referred pain in other areas of the lower body (it is of course hard to know whether pain is referred — except that one cannot pinpoint the cause of the pain), it is well worth having it checked out by a medical professional.

1. Nerve Root Compression: This refers to the half-inch of a nerve as it exits the spine. The ‘sleeve’ that protects the nerve is sensitive to pain, and compression on the nerve — and this ‘dural sleeve’ compression is caused by a herniated or protruding intervertebral disc that is pinching it. This can cause ‘referred pain’ to the buttock, thigh, lower leg, or foot.
2. Spinal Stenosis: A narrowing of the spinal canal through which the spinal cord runs, or a narrowing of the openings through which the nerves branch out from the spine. Usually found in the elderly, and develops slowly over a long period of time. The narrowing of the space puts pressure on the nerves, and the symptoms are a gradually increasing numbness, weakness, and pain in the low back and legs.
3. Bone Spurs — Osteophytic Root Pain: A type of nerve root pain caused by compression on the nerve from the growth of a bone spur. Often there is no pain, but only decreasing sensation in the leg, or weakness in the leg or foot.
4. Spondylolistheses: A congenital condition in which two adjoining vertebra are misaligned (listless means ‘to slip’). A vertebra may be one quarter to one half inch out of alignment, whether anteriorly or posteriorly. The stress from this misalignment can make one or more vulnerable to injuries. Thi scondition occurs most frequently in the low back.
5. Cancer at the Spine: Cancer in various parts of the body can sometimes spread to the spine. The most common symptoms of this is pain, which may be localized in the spine, may be more generalized, or may resemble the kind of referred pain to the buttock, thigh, lower leg, or foot, that is typical of nerve root compression. The pain caused by cancer tends to be constant, worse at night, and not relieved by rest. It gets worse with strenuous activity. Nerve compression from cancer can cause weakness in the legs and feet, difficulty walking, and urinary problems leading to incontinence. Spinal fractures due to rumor growth are also quite possible.

** Any symptoms resulting from the above should be explored by medical professionals for proper diagnosis and treatment.

Experts Explain the Science-backed Benefits
by Stephanie Watson / Dec 31, 2023 / 5:00 AM*

Apple cider vinegar does have certain healthful properties,
which are largely due to its acetic acid content.
Apple cider vinegar has long been a pantry staple, thanks to its versatility as an ingredient in everything from salad dressings to sauces and stews. More recently, this vinegar made from fermented apple juice has also gained a reputation for its medicinal properties. The tart-tasting liquid has been promoted for accelerating weight loss, lowering blood sugar and cholesterol levels, and boosting energy. Which of the claims are backed up by science? Fortune asked two nutritional experts to dig into the evidence surrounding apple cider vinegar’s potential benefits.

The health benefits of apple cider vinegar
Apple cider vinegar does have certain healthful properties, which are largely due to its acetic acid content. “Acetic acid is a really important metabolite in our bodies, and the only dietary source of acetic acid is vinegar,” Carol Johnston, Ph.D., professor of nutrition and associate dean in the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University, tells Fortune. But as a cure-all, apple cider vinegar doesn’t hold up to scientific scrutiny. “We don’t have evidence to back up a lot of the claims,” says Johnston. She should know, since she’s been studying vinegar—and not just the apple cider variety—for decades.

Apple cider vinegar and blood sugar
The most “robust” evidence is for apple cider vinegar’s effects on blood sugar, Johnston says. In a 2021 review of nine studies published in BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, apple cider vinegar lowered fasting blood sugar and HbA1c (an average of blood sugar levels over three months) in people with type 2 diabetes. It also brought down their total cholesterol.

How might apple cider vinegar lower blood sugar? Three mechanisms are likely involved, says Johnston:
• One is by slowing stomach emptying after a meal, which delays the movement of glucose (sugar) into the bloodstream
• The second is by blocking the breakdown of starch into glucose.
• And the third is by increasing the amount of glucose muscle cells take in.

“The result is you have less glucose in your blood,” Johnston says.

Apple cider vinegar and weight loss
Some studies have suggested that apple cider vinegar can boost weight loss by increasing feelings of fullness after a meal. But any weight loss it might bring about is minimal—a pound or two per month.

“If you are already implementing diet and lifestyle changes, apple cider vinegar may be able to give you a slight advantage by helping you control your hunger while you eat less food. The scientific evidence falls short of indicating that apple cider vinegar is a magic bullet to produce weight loss on its own,” Kristine Dilley, a registered dietitian at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, tells Fortune.

Apple cider vinegar’s potential benefit
Other potential applications are intriguing, but the research is still preliminary. For instance, vinegar might have a future role in treating depression because of its effects on brain metabolism. It’s also a good source of polyphenols, plant-based antioxidants with anti-inflammatory properties.

Johnston sees the potential. “I think there’s going to be a lot more that we’re going to learn from vinegar in the future,” she says. She also notes that vinegar doesn’t need to be of the apple cider variety. Any vinegar with a concentration of at least 5% acetic acid should offer the same benefits—including red wine and balsamic vinegar.

How much apple cider vinegar should you take?
Our experts recommend taking 1 to 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar daily—and no more than 4 tablespoons in total. “The easiest and safest way to consume apple cider vinegar is to work it into your daily diet by adding it to foods you already consume,” Dilley suggests. Apple cider vinegar makes a good addition to salad dressings, marinades for chicken or fish, pickled vegetables, soups, and stews.

If you want to take it on its own, Dilley recommends diluting it with 8 to 12 ounces of water. Apple cider vinegar is highly acidic. Drinking it straight as a “shot” could irritate the lining of your mouth or damage your tooth enamel. Dilley doesn’t recommend using apple cider vinegar capsules or gummies, which aren’t regulated by the FDA. These supplements may not contain the amount of vinegar listed on the label.

Check with your doctor before you take apple cider vinegar, because it can interact with certain medications—especially drugs that lower blood sugar or potassium, Dilley says. Cooking with it shouldn’t pose a problem with your medications.

Who shouldn’t use apple cider vinegar?
Avoid apple cider vinegar if you have gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) because it can irritate sores in the lining of your esophagus, advises Johnston.

Vinegar also isn’t recommended for people with slow stomach emptying called gastroparesis. Because vinegar also slows stomach emptying, it could make the condition worse.

The bottom line on apple cider vinegar
For now, the best-researched health benefit of apple cider vinegar is for lowering blood sugar. Still, Johnston considers vinegar a worthwhile addition to the medicine chest. After all, it’s been part of medicine since Hippocrates used it for treating wounds. “Anything that has been in the medicinal world for 2,000 years has to have some legitimacy,” she says.

* Posting in Apple News, from Fortune Magazine
**There is evidence that 2 Tblsp of diluted acetic acid lowers inflammation. But it must be well diluted, or it could cause other problems.

by Nina Mel, Elephant Journal, March 28, 2013

Exploring the connection between our intention & our yoga practice. For a long time scientists believed that 98% of our DNA ‘text’ is not used in the coding of proteins and enzymes. Since it is not responsible for constructing our basic physical form, its purpose remained unknown for 15 years, and scientists called it ‘Junk DNA.’ But recent breakthrough revealed that this ‘junk’ is in fact crucial to the way our genome works.

This great result was achieved by researchers from the International project ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements). 442 scientists, situated in 32 institutes around the world, including Britain, USA, Spain, Singapore, and Japan, began to work on this project in 2003. They used 300 years of computer time and five years in the lab to get their results.

Their main purpose was to deeply study the human genome, and they now declare that DNA is more active and multifunctional than was previously believed. As one of the participants of ENCODE, Bernie Evan from Cambridge says: “…the term ‘junk DNA’ can now be sent to the trash.”

But even in late 1990s, a team of Russian linguists led by Dr. Peter Gariaev discovered that the genetic code in ‘junk’ DNA follows uniform grammar and usage rules virtually identical to those of human language. It turns out that the ‘junk’ was laden with the intimations of intelligence, purpose, and meaning.

One of the basic assumptions made by Dr. Gariaev’s team is that “the genome has a capacity for quasi-consciousness so that DNA ‘words’ produce and help in recognition of semantically meaningful phrases.” Because the structures of DNA base pairs and that of language are so similar, we can alter our own genetics by simply using words and sentences, as has been experimentally proven.

This finally explains why affirmations, hypnosis, conscious commands, and intention have such strong effects on humans, their bodies, and minds. Another scientist, cell biologist Dr. Glenn Rein, discovered experimentally that people with coherent electrocardiograms could wind or unwind DNA samples at will, while those with incoherent heart energy could not. In these experiments, simply feeling positive, love-based emotions was not enough to affect the DNA samples: “the intent to alter them had to be present.”

“Love-based emotions stimulate DNA to decompress so that messenger RNA can access codes for healing. Joy, gratitude and love accompanied with intention unwind or decompress DNA exposed to them.” Negative emotional states—anger, fear and similar emotions have the power to contract DNA molecules, compressing the DNA helix, “severely limiting access to genetic information necessary for healing, as well as evolution.”

The effects of focused intention have nonetheless been studied using both physical (Jahn and Dunne, 1986) and biological systems (Braud, 1989). A parallel investigation of conscious intention on biological systems falls under the auspices of healing research where investigators have demonstrated that various types of healers who use intention can produce biological effect (Benor, 1990).

The experiments conducted by Rein in 1992 were intended to study and compare the biological effects of different images, thoughts and intentions. The healer, Leonard Laskow, M.D., attained different states of consciousness working with intention. These various experiments showed that under the same experimental conditions some intentions were more biologically active than others.

These results indicate that focused human intention can influence the DNA synthesis. It was also demonstrated that intention was a critical component of the states of consciousness which produced biological effects.

There are different ways we can consciously use the benefits of working with intention in our everyday lives. One of them is yogāsana practice. Encoding the DNA with intention has been used by yogis of ancient times in order to achieve higher states of consciousness, but this skill had been lost for centuries. When yoga was brought to the West, many versions lacked intention, therefore it changed a spiritual practice capable of truly transforming the mind and consciousness into a fitness-like physical practice without ‘spiritual core.’

As western medicine has divided the human body into separate parts, and as science has divided knowledge into physics, mathematics, philosophy, psychology, astronomy, and so forth, the yogic knowledge has also been divided into āsanas, prāṇāyāma, dhyāna, ayurveda, vastu… So Yoga became fragmented and could not reflect its very own nature, which is to connect. The link that connects this seemingly multi-faceted practice is intention, which will allow penetration into each of the fragmented parts and ‘connect’ them to the one.

N-Code Yoga, shows how to use intention in yogāsana practice and how to align it with āsana, śvasāyāma, and related movement in order to change DNA patterns, consciously releasing energy blockages, speed-up spiritual, physical, and psychological development, thereby distinguishing it from the conventional [modern] ways of practicing yoga.

Using intention, especially when it is manifested in words and visualization during yoga practice, chakra get easily activated, energy meridians get cleansed, healing and detoxication processes are enhanced. Thus, intention deeply affects yoga practice and the practitioner on all levels: physical, mental and spiritual. A yoga practitioner can use intention to move her/his body, and mind, from one āsana to another, can breathe intention in and out, encoding it into every cell, so that this intention can be transmitted into the Universe, which begins to manifest itself in everyday life.

Practice for the sake of practice has no value, this can even be unsafe and dangerous because the new energy generated in the body during the practice without conscious direction can not be used in constructive ways. Since the undirected energy leaks out with daily emotional ups and downs, it is wasted and the practitioner’s energy level returns to its previous level or even less.

When energy is not directed consciously, it goes to its usual ‘neuro-pattern,’ strengthening the weak ‘points’ and negative patterns of the mind that have already been formed during past times. That is why the energy that is built during unconscious practice, a practice without intention becomes destructive.

Therefore intention encodes and dedicates one’s practice to a higher purpose, thus becoming a higher spiritual practice—a prayer, a gratitude, a vector of attention—all at the same time. Intention becomes a linking part of all aspects of yoga— yama, niyama, āsana, prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, dhāraṇā, and dhyāna. Intention reprograms the old ways of functioning, decompressing DNA, and awakening its dormant 98%, bringing the possibility of revealing and manifesting the full human potential ever closer [which makes the impossible, possible; the possible, attainable; and the attainable, graceful].

by Richard Jonas

Home Practice: Starting Now
Home Practice is the core of yogāsana. Class is great – but there is more, much more to it. Practicing on your own is too important to miss out. When beginning a practice at home, one really learns, really experiences the transformative effects of each āsana – on body, mind, and spirit.

How can one get a Home Practice? Get up tomorrow – practice – then do it every day after that (take Sundays off). If that sounds daunting, here are some hints that might help one get started and stay with it.

Start slow:
Students tend to set the bar too high when starting a Home Practice. If it doesn’t resemble an hour of perfectly sequenced poses, they are disappointed and give up. Instead, do a few poses that are familiar and feel confident with. When finished, lie down for a five to eight minute Śavāsana. Fifteen minutes later, you have a Home Practice!

Be disciplined:
Make Home Practice a priority. Do it every day. Keep with it for two weeks, then note how better you feel, physically and mentally. It gets easier. Soon your 15-minute Home Practice will grow to a 30-minute one. Give this practice a dedicated time and space, and it will make room for itself in one’s life.

Time and Place:
Choose a time of day, and a place where there is a low probability of being disturbed. Ideally, keep that same time each day. First thing in the morning works well; waiting until later might interfere with your schedule. The body may be stiff in the morning, but the mind is quiet and receptive – something very important. If afternoons, or evenings, work better, then practice then.

Do what you know:
Start with a few simple, familiar āsana like Adho mukha śvānāsana (Downward-facing dog) and Adho mukha vīrāsana (Daownward-facing hero). Follow with a few standing poses: Utthita trikoṇāsana (Extended triangle), Utthita parśvakoṇāsana (Extended side angle), and Vīrabhadrāsana II (the second Warrior). Finish with a seated forward extension, say Paśchimottānāsana (Deliberate stretch of the west), or lie down with your legs up the wall (Ūrdhva Prasārita Pādāsana). Then rest fort several minutes – even when short on time, always practice Śavāsana (Corpse).

Cultivate the Voice:
Maybe at first you’ll hear your class teacher’s voice reminding you to engage ‘here’, and ‘not there’). Eventually, you’ll cultivate your own teacher inside. If you’re not sure about something, ask your teacher later. Remember, that if it doesn’t feel right, then you probably ought not to be doing it. Also, remember to refrain from doing āsana you are not confident doing; save those for class when someone else can supervise.

Work by the Book:
B.K.S. Iyengar’s Yoga The Path to Holistic Health is abundant with information. One whole section details how to, and which props to use in the different āsana. As well as listing the Benefits and Cautions. Another section is devoted to sequences for particular ailments. Dr. Geet Iyengar’s Preliminary Course has detail, step-by-step instructions and drawings to assist in executing the poses. Metha’s How to Use Yoga, and Yoga the Iyengar Way, both have large photos to further guide you.

When you’ve been self-practicing for a while, try to remember the poses taught. Then write them down, in order, right after class. If you don’t remember the names, describe them or draw a little stick figure sketch. The more you do this the easier it becomes. Next day, recreate the sequence – or part of it – at home on your own. Try to recall the points the teacher made. When you do poses a second, third time, etc. – when you become your own teacher – the learning deepens; the experience becomes more profound, and more truly your very own.

Props:
Buy a mat and three blankets (you’ll need them for Sālamba sarvāṅgāsana I (the first Supported shoulder stand), which is vital to one’s practice. Also, a belt and a block or two are very useful. A timer will help you understand your tolerance in the different poses. Meaning, check the time after each to keep track of your progress (do not force anything, at any time).

Sequencing the Postures:
As a rule, Downward-facing dog and/or Downward-facing hero are good ‘warm-up’ poses. Follow-up with a standing postures, onto an inversions, a back extension, a twists, and a forward extension. Often, Sālamba sarvāṅgāsana I (the first Supported shoulder stand) is done near the end of your practice. However, as a rule, if you practice Sālamba śīrṣāsana I (the first Supported headbalnce), do so close the the beginning of your practice (say after Downdog). Headstand must be followed with Shouderstand later in the sequence, or another pose (say Setubandha sarvāṅgāsana) which creates the Jalandhara bandha, or conjunction between the chin and the top of the sternum.

Do the Pose Everyway:
Try the pose many different ways. For example, one day do Utthita trikoṇāsana with your front foot up the wall. Another day, with your back heel at the wall. Or with your back to the wall. The goal isn’t to find the way that works best for you, so you can repeat it that way every time. The goal is to experience the pose from every angle, to learn all about it. Become as familiar with these poses, as you are with your room (where you can walk around in the dark without bumping into furniture). In time, the poses become templates used to explore the mind, the senses, the emotions, …our place in the world, and our relationship to the Higher Power.

Richard Jonas is a faculty member of the Iyengar Yoga Association of Greater New York.

By WedMD Editorial Contributors; July 7, 2023

Fascia is a layer of connective tissue below the skin.‌

Surgeons used to think that fascia is a tissue that just covered organs, muscles, and bones. Now the medical world knows that the body’s fascia also makes up some tendons, ligaments, and other structures. Some researchers believe that it connects all parts of the body.

Body Fascia. Body fascia is multi-layered, and it plays an active role in the body. It supports tissues and organs, lessens friction, eases muscle tension, and tightens up reflexively. It also helps your bloodstream, bone tissue, and skeletal muscles.‌

When it’s healthy, your fascia is slippery and smooth, and it stretches with you as you move. If it’s not doing well, it can get thicker, stickier, drier, and tighter. Because fascia is so important to your body’s functions, problems with it can cause you a lot of pain.

Layers of Fascia. Your fascia can be broken down into four main layers: superficial, deep, visceral, and parietal. These layers have nerves that make your fascia almost as sensitive as your skin.‌

Superficial fascia. This layer is right under your skin. It’s thicker in the main part of your body (your stomach, chest, etc.), and it gets thinner in places further away from your center — i.e., your hands and feet. Superficial fascia can include muscle fibers that make up many different structures in your body.‌

Deep fascia. Your deep fascia covers bones, muscles, nerves, and blood vessels. It can be broken into two subtypes:

• aponeurotic fascia — which is thicker and separates more easily from muscles
• epimysial fascia — which is thinner and more tightly connected to muscles‌

Visceral fascia. The visceral layer goes around certain organs that settle into your body’s open spaces, including the lungs, heart, and stomach.‌

Parietal fascia. Tissues that line a body cavity are called parietal fascia. For example, your pelvis is lined by parietal fascia.

Fascial Pain. Between layers of body fascia, a substance called hyaluronan helps the layers work smoothly with each other. When the hyaluronan dries up, your body fascia can seize up around muscles, make it harder to move, or get uncomfortable knots. Dried-out fascia — called fascial adhesions — can happen because of:

• A lifestyle without enough physical activity
• Activity that uses the same part of your body over and over
• Surgery or injury that causes damage to one part of your body‌

Pain in your fascia is commonly mistaken for muscle pain or joint pain. The biggest difference is that muscle and joint pain worsens as you keep moving, while fascial pain gets better with movement and heat.‌

Fascia adhesions can be temporarily fixed, but they can also get worse as time goes on. If you leave your fascial pain untreated, your fascia will draw tighter around your muscles and can create very sensitive knots in your muscles, called trigger points. ‌

Myofascial pain syndrome and plantar fasciitis are common conditions that can affect your fascia.‌

Myofascial pain syndrome. Myofascial pain happens when the same muscle is tightened and released over and over again from repeated motion or tension from stress. Symptoms can include deep muscle pain that doesn’t go away, sensitive knots in your muscle, and inability to sleep because of the pain. It’s different from muscle tension pain because it gets worse over time.‌

Plantar fasciitis. There is a thick section of fascia on the bottom of your foot called the plantar fascia. When it gets inflamed, it causes intense heel pain. You’re most likely to feel plantar fasciitis when you walk in the morning after a night of being off your feet or when you stand up after sitting for a long time.

The medical world doesn’t know what causes plantar fasciitis, but people who are older, are heavier, spend a lot of time on their feet, or do repetitive exercises like running have higher chances of getting it.

Keeping Your Fascia Healthy. Do your best to keep your fascia well stretched. The more flexible it is, the less likely it is to cause you pain. Move around, stretch frequently, and try to keep good posture if you do a lot of sitting or standing. This helps relieve fascial adhesions.‌

If you have fascia pain that isn’t going away with stretching, try to loosen trigger points by trying the following:

• Heat therapy. Take a hot shower or bath or place a heat source on the uncomfortable area.
• Yoga. Consult a yoga therapist for yoga poses that focus on relieving pain in your affected fascia.
• Using a roller. Give yourself a very gentle massage by using a foam, or harder roller to help your body get rid of tension.
• Massage therapy. Get a series of massages that can release pressure from trigger points.
• Acupuncture. Get acupuncture from an acupuncturist, who’ll place needles in your affected fascia can help connective tissue relax.
• Dry Needling. Similarly as above, certain chiropractors can place needles to help tense, adhered, muscles release.

of better yoga with props

by Anthony Carroccio
(July/August 1998, Healing Retreats & Spas)

The fiery Indian genius of the yoga posture is considered the father of ‘props.’
I have been practicing yoga for thirty years, and like every good student of yoga, I want to continue to learn and improve. Having really good yoga instruction is definitely a plus—and so is taking advantage of yoga-gear called ‘props.’ Props can be anything from found objects to state-of-the-art yoga equipment. Thirty years ago (1958), B.K.S. Iyengar, the internationally renowned yoga master, referred to his then-little-know props as ‘helpers,’ ‘supporters,’ and ‘weight bearers.’ Later he would call them “guides for self learning.” Now, many years later, props are well known and used in every continent.

Iyengar, author of Light on Yoga, Light on Prāṇāyāma, and The Tree of Life, developed and introduced a method of teaching that is precise and vigorous. In a seventieth birthday tribute (1988), Iyengar’s students offered a fond and descriptive thank you to their teacher: “For you to have the merry mischief of a schoolboy, the enthusiasm and virility of youth, and the mature judgment of old age… [you are] the salt of the earth… If salt is present, can pepper be far behind? You always keep your pupils on their toes, lest you raise your expressive eyebrows and unleash your peppery temper against them and their lack of total attention and inefficient participation.“

This fiery Indian genius of the yoga posture is considered the father of props. Most every use or manifestation of yoga gear has descended through the sphere of his influence. He does mention his guru using rings and rope, but Iyengar alone is responsible for introducing the use of chairs, bricks, slanting planks, bolsters, boxes, belts, walls, and more.

Using the Limbs of My Body
When he began teaching in India in 1938, Iyengar noticed that his pupils had difficulty doing the postures, “I realized that raw students or patients [referred by medical professionals] could not derive maximum advantage. In the beginning, I used to attend each individual using the limbs of my body to support, to teach the pupils to get the effect of an āsana.” Iyengar relates how in the beginning , “I used to pick up sticks and bricks lying in the roads and use them to make progress in my mastery of āsana [yoga postures]. Though crude, they were helping me get a grip on the āsana.” He understood early in his career the significance of his ‘helpers.’

Necessity is the ‘father’ of invention. In a 1988 interview, Iyengar recalled an experience with his very first pupil [who required propping]: “In 1938, the ex-principal of Fergusson College, Professor Rajawade, was 85 years old. He was suffering from dysentery, and was not even able to walk. At the insistence of Dr. V.B. Gokhale, I began teaching him.“

“He became my guru for inventing methods for teaching invalids. My first innovation came on account of this principal, Rajawade. Just as one lies down to do Śavāsana [corpse pose], I made him do Supta trikoṇāsana [triangle pose in a supine position]. First, I separated his legs. Second, I moved the trunk to one side, and then, stretched his hands sideways, as one does in standing trikoṇāsana… This original thinking to find new ways continues even now, to help both healthy and unhealthy people.“

Here, were it not for using the floor as a prop, the benefits of yoga would have been beyond the grasp of one in dire need. Yet, for all his insight and diligence in using props to teach students more effectively, he received the unflattering nickname of “The Furniture Yogi” from the fussy (though perhaps less precise) yoga establishment. Iyengar’s intense personality combined with such criticism probably helped speed the presence of props into the world of yoga. No doubt the challenge likely made him more persistent.

On this point, Iyengar recounts, “Some of the schools do not recommend this kind of assistance. The teachers stand away from pupils and guide theoretically. But I use [props] to assist the [students] physically, subjectively, directly.” In only a few decades (a remarkably short period of time, given the 4,000-year history of yoga*), Iyengar’s innovative approach has profoundly influenced the way haṭha yoga is taught, practiced, and understood.

Today it is virtually impossible to see yoga postures being taught without the presence of at least one yoga prop—the ‘sticky mat.’ Iyengar’s profound insight into the fundamentals of yoga postures dictated the need for a firm, nonslip surface on which to develop stable, anatomically correct form. The sticky mat is now considered an essential prop**.

Taking It to the Next Level
For years I practiced without props because that is all I knew. Although yoga was an important part of my life, my progress was slow, and I was often frustrated by the lack of improvement. Even after twenty years, my yoga shtick remained pretty much the same. This all changed when I took a six-week class in 1988. It was a great class because there were only ten students—more intimate than most. Occasionally, we would meet outside class to practice together. A fellow student invited me to her house. One bedroom was her yoga room. I was amazed: I never imagined that such yoga stuff existed. She had bolsters, benches, a pelvic swing, sandbags, the works. She showed me ways to modify the postures to focus on strength, extension, and alignment***. I realized that it was possible to improve aspects of a posture without creating other bad habits at the same time.

New yoga students today may start out with a sticky mat, a six-foot belt, and a pair of foam or wooden blocks. When they get more serious, they find a wealth of Iyengar inspired gear available to further their yoga practice, everything from folded blankets, shoulderstand lifts, and back-bending benches, to new and exciting props that take Iyengar’s ‘helpers’ to the next level in their evolution.

A Rich and Tangible Process
Recently, I asked Frederic Ferri, a yoga teacher and the developer of the YogaPro system of props, for his western perspective. “Iyengar’s contribution to teaching and learning yoga postures accomplished several important things all at once,” says Ferri. “It gave students a direct way to connect with each posture as a rich and tangible process not just a routine or fixed goal.” Ferri also believes that Iyengar clearly demonstrated the effectiveness of starting at the beginning and working with the anatomical principles that comprise all yoga postures. This helped to take emphasis off of trying to mimic other people’s model postures.

Iyengar himself recounts his early days teaching yoga in India. “I compared a lot of āsana in books. The śīrṣāsana [headstand] of one person was different from that of another. Each āsana was illustrated differently. I thought that the practitioners must be presenting them according to their whims and fancies. Doubts and confusion led me to experiment with all their presentations to find out, by trial and error, which were the wrong, which were the right ways.“

Iyengar’s props gave every yoga teacher and student an immediate means of realizing and working with the precision of their own bodies. Starting with an objective and logical approach to the postures makes learning yogāsana more accessible, meaningful, and manageable. Says Ferri, “Iyengar brought yoga from a distant and mystical India and placed its vast potential squarely on our doorstep.“

Learning to Swim While Looking Toward the Shore
Learning yogāsana in the absence of props could be compared to learning to swim while looking toward the shore, watching someone demonstrate their best stroke, versus having a teacher or a float in the water with you, supporting you and helping you precisely when and where you need it. Ferri explains, “All yoga postures are made up of the same basic components. Bodies have the same parts and the same agency and manner of movement. We interact precisely with the laws of gravity, physics, and biomechanics. Learning position, balance, and movement is so much easier if these natural laws are available to assist us rather than control us.” And props, in the water or on dry land, helps us do just that.

A current prejudice about props from the purists’ point of view is that you need nothing external to do yogāsana and prāṇāyāma. Perhaps they suspect the external props would somehow interfere with the inward journey. However, a change in consciousness is not dependent on the absence of external stimuli. I find my awareness is enhanced by using props. External assistance can increase the quality of internal awareness and magnify consciousness.

Use of Props and Cheating
For others, a question still lingers—is using props cheating? In fact, the opposite is more often the case. One of the prominent features of props is that they disallow cheating. The body will cheat all by itself, without our having any awareness of it. It prefers its old ways. But props focus attention on form, which in turn helps us discover and use parts of our bodies that haven’t been participating.

The physical precision with which yogāsana are practiced produces many of the nonphysical benefits that arise: calm, focus, tolerance, discipline, wisdom, and spiritual strength. Props provide the form and feedback that help bring about these results. Yogāsana and prāṇāyāma, like most things, are both challenging and more rewarding when done correctly.

While all roads ultimately lead to Rome, the paths do vary. Some are smooth, some are rocky—some take the longer way, others are more direct. If learning haṭha yoga is where you’re heading, props are an excellent way to go.

* Iyengar and the Invention of Yoga

** The History of Yoga Mats

*** Iyengar Method

It’s the body’s information superhighway that tells your organs how to rest.
By Haley Bennett

What is the vagus nerve?
Your brain is connected to your body through a set of 12 crucial nerve networks that descend through your spine and branch out into your body. Of these, the vagus nerve is probably one of the most important. Its tendrils influence digestion, your heart, your reflexes and your breathing.

So you can see why scientists are so interested in what the vagus nerve does—especially when you consider how all of the above affects your mood. You could call it a superhighway between our brains and bodies.

Vagus nerve function
In contrast to the rapid ‘fight, flight, or freeze’ responses that are under the control of the sympathetic arm of the nervous system, the vagus nerve is responsible for many of the slower,’rest, digest, and repair’ responses that we collectively call the parasympathetic arm. The nerve itself is actually two thick bundles of individual neurons [nerve cells] that originate in the brain and pass out to the rest of the body through left-sided and right-sided openings at the bottom of the skull.

Most of the individual neurons that make up the vagus nerve are sensory ones—about 100,000 on each side of the body in humans—which pass messages from the organs to the brain, and are activated by sensory input from the environment. The remainder are motor neurons, which send messages in the opposite direction, from the brain to organs, and directly control all of our muscle movements.

Why is the vagus nerve so important?
The vagus nerve is a sort of polymath of the parasympathetic nervous system, getting involved in everything from breathing, heart rate, swallowing, sneezing, digestion, appetite, immune responses and even orgasm.

The vagus nerve’s wide-ranging skill set comes from having a diverse array of neuron cell types at its disposal. These allow the nerves to pick up different types of sensory signals from different organs. Some, for instance, sense chemical signals like oxygen levels in the blood or the secretions of bacteria in the intestine, while others sense mechanical signals like stretching of the blood vessels and gut.

Therefore, the neurons in the vagus nerve mostly give the brain information about what is going on in the rest of the body. The brain interprets this information and acts upon it to help maintain the internal status quo. But there are also important functions associated with the less numerous neurons that send signals the opposite way, including in communications between the brain and gut, and in select muscles in the mouth and throat that are responsible for speech and the gag reflex.

The long and winding nerve
The word, ‘vagus’ means ‘wandering’ in Latin, and the vagus nerve truly is. The nerve bundles reach as far as the base of the spine and colon, branching off to the vital organs, including the heart, lungs, liver and gut, along the way.

As the longest cranial nerve in the body, it’s the main component of the parasympathetic nervous system, which controls automatic bodily functions such as digestion, when the body is at rest. Historically, the vagus nerve was known as the pneumogastric nerve, because it supplies both the lungs and stomach with nerves.

The functions of the vagus nerve are so numerous and varied that it’s very likely there are roles that we have yet to uncover. We do know, however, how we can tap into it. Doctors sometimes prescribe ‘valsalva manoeuvres‘ to activate the vagus nerve and slow a fast-beating heart or calm heart palpitations. These might involve activities like coughing, straining like you’re on the toilet or, perhaps most bizarrely, doing a handstand.

The vagus nerve and the heart
One key metric that is often used is heart rate variability—the variation in the gaps between consecutive heartbeats. A healthy heartbeat is slightly more chaotic in its rhythm, so low variation is said to be associated with a jacked-up sympathetic system, where the body is in constant fight or flight mode, with the vagus nerve and parasympathetic response struggling to keep up.

Despite its widespread use, however, there are still some questions about how useful heart rate variability can be as an indicator of balance between the parasympathetic and sympathetic systems. Although heart rate monitors can give us this information, we shouldn’t obsess about the numbers.

What happens if the vagus nerve is damaged?
In the past, stomach ulcers were often treated by cutting the fibres of the vagus nerve below the rib cage. The thinking was that the vagus nerve plays a central role in producing the stomach acid that causes the sores. With modern drugs, the need for this type of surgery has decreased, but it demonstrates what can happen when a nerve with so many branches is compromised.

Indeed, ‘vagatomies’ cut off the vagal nerve supply to the stomach, pancreas, small intestine and part of the colon, meaning that without further surgery to the gut, the patient may be unable to pass solid waste. People with gastroparesis suffer from a similar problem, but in this case, the symptoms are usually due to vagus nerve damage caused by diabetes, drugs, or infection.

However, when the vagus nerve is damaged higher up, the effects can be completely different. The chickenpox virus, for example, attacks the nervous system and though rare, it has been known for the virus to cause vagus nerve lesions that result in a patient losing their ability to swallow—they may also get a headache and an inflamed ear. Early data collected by Spanish researchers also suggests that some of the symptoms of long COVID may be related to vagus nerve damage, including breathing, voice and bowel issues.

Do I need to get myself a vagus nerve stimulator?
The evidence we have so far suggests devices for vagus nerve stimulation are safe. However, researchers are still concerned about the increase in at-home use of nerve stimulators, which may come with risks that we’re not yet aware of.

Those who prefer mindfulness to being hooked up to machines are turning to activities such as yoga, meditation, hypnotherapy and deep breathing, all of which are thought to boost the functioning of the parasympathetic nervous system and vagus nerve. There is also evidence to suggest that cold water swimming or bathing, or even just splashing your face with cold water, can stimulate the vagus nerve and activate the parasympathetic system.

Of course, buying a cheap device to attach to your ear, or signing up to take part in yoga retreat, may seem like an appealing fix when you’re not feeling quite right, but it’s always best to get serious health complaints checked by a doctor.

What is vagus nerve stimulation?
The concept of vagus nerve stimulation goes back as far as the late 19th Century, when the neurologist James Leonard Corning developed an electrical stimulator to treat epileptic patients. Although it was discarded as a treatment back then, over 100,000 people have now had vagus nerve stimulation—by implant in the chest or, less often, brain—to treat epilepsy when the drugs they’ve tried haven’t worked.

Some people are able to get as much as a 75% reduction in their seizures with an implant, with multiple studies showing the benefits increase the longer the implant has been installed. An implantable device made by the US medical technology company Cyberonics is also approved for severe depression and headaches.

Nerve stimulation doesn’t have to mean surgery, though. It’s possible to access the vagus nerve through its branches in the ear and neck, for example, using devices similar to the inexpensive TENS machines more commonly used for quelling labour pain. Ear clips are widely sold as TENS attachments, while companies like Nurosym make stylish neuromodulators targeted at people who want to try the approach for anxiety, depression, or fatigue.

Scientific research on vagus nerve stimulation is exploding currently, with trials covering burns, obesity, high blood pressure, rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer’s, tinnitus, …the list goes on. Due to the close connection between the vagus nerve and gut function, it’s also touted as a potential treatment for common bowel disorders like IBS. Although, as with other conditions, the process of gathering evidence from trials to support its use will take time.

Five facts you need to know about the vagus nerve

• It’s the longest cranial nerve, running from the brain to the large intestine, and sends signals in both directions via neurotransmitters and gut hormones.
• The fibres of the vagus nerve contain 200,000 sensory nerve cells. Our ears are the only place where sensory vagus nerve fibres reach the surface of our bodies.
• A vagus nerve ‘bypass’ that carries impulses directly between the uterus and brain is thought to allow women with spinal cord injuries to have orgasms.
• Vagus nerve stimulation affects the gamma-aminobutyric acid neurotransmitter associated with ADHD, leading scientists to propose it as a potential treatment.
• The scientific name for fainting is vasovagal syncope, which occurs when the vagus nerve is overstimulated, causing a sudden drop in heart rate, and blood pressure.