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Hello, everyone! I hope my US readers had an enjoyable holiday weekend. We had a hurricane passing by the islands and plenty of rain, so we weren't able to get out as much as we'd have liked. We still had fun, though, because we discovered this awesome YouTube channel and have been making cool steam punk props out of craft foam!
Speaking of YouTube channels...I really enjoyed filming this week's yoga practice with gentle backbends, and I hope you enjoy doing it! There are so many back-bending asanas, but they can create anxiety, frustration, and even injury. People don't like to talk about yoga injuries and the possibility of being injured while practicing yoga, but it can happen. One of the big ways people receive yoga injuries is through extreme backbends, especially when forcing their way into one. That's why this week's video is all about preparatory, gentle backbends to help develop the strength, patience, and kindness necessary to safely execute backbends. Yes, I do mean kindness! When practicing backbends, it is so important to be kind to your body and listen to it. Ease out of a pose if you ever feel sharp, pinching sensations. Set the ego aside and tune into your inner self; honor your body for what it can do and what it isn't ready to do today.
The rainy weekend meant that it was really dark in our apartment, even during the day. I'm sorry that this video has a lot of "noise" from the high ISO needed to film in the low light conditions! Hopefully it will be brighter out when I film next week's video and everything will be a bit more crisp. =) Also, sorry if my super pale skin blinds anyone, even in the low light conditions! With the backbending practice, I found that my usual flowy gym shirts obscured what was going on too much.
Please leave a comment letting me know what type of practice you'd like to see next!
D. Renée Wilson
Great gentle approach!!! Many years of yoga and that's what continually gets me about most teachers, a disrespect for student's spines. I cringe every time they tell practitioners to bring knees to chest and roll into a ball directly after upward bow. You really have a nice compassionate teaching approach , Natasha. <3
Natashalh
Thank you!!
I think a lot of people don't even realize the potential for damage. It frequently seems like the message sent is 'practice correct alignment and nothing bad can happen,' which is, of course, untrue! Listening to talks by Alexandria Crow of Yoga Physics helped me realize that you really need to stop and ask yourself the "why" of something. If you're going from one extreme backbend to the absolute opposite direction simply that's because how you saw it done as a student, that isn't a good enough "why."