Healthy Living Club

Until about seven years ago, Baxter Bell competed regularly in 5K and 10K running events and biathlons, and occasionally in triathlons. Then he discovered climbing and turned his focus to scaling rock walls. A few years later, he began hiking more and climbing less. As he switched from one sport to another, his body underwent a posture metamorphosis. “When I was doing competitive triathlons, my legs were huge,” says Bell, a family physician and medical acupuncturist in Oakland, California. “When I switched to climbing, my upper body became bigger. I strengthened my arms but it was difficult to straighten them, and my shoulders rounded forward like a Neanderthal’s.” His body changed again when he began a regular yoga practice. “Suddenly, everything got more balanced between my upper and lower body,” says Bell, who has since become a certified yoga instructor. “I was able to re-create a more natural, upright position with a lifted open chest and more lengthening in my arms and legs.” Any athletic activity can overdevelop certain muscles, leaving them strong yet tight. At the same time, other muscles may become comparatively underdeveloped–they may be flexible, but they’re also weak. The resulting imbalance leads not only to poor posture but often to injuries. “The athletes who have good posture are few and far between,” says Joseph Guettler, an orthopedic surgeon and sports-medicine physician at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan. “The normal function of the spine and joints relies on an appropriate balance of strength and flexibility.” The lower back and shoulders tend to suffer the most when posture deteriorates. For example, overly arching the lower back can result in stiff, sometimes painful muscles there. And a rounded upper back and internally rotated shoulders don’t let the shoulder blades rest in the proper position; this creates tightness and sometimes pain in the shoulder joint and restricts the muscles that move and lift the arms. Good posture does more than prevent aches and pains, however. It can also increase endurance by improving oxygen intake. Athletes with correct posture, who lift the breastbone and open the chest, can take fuller and deeper breaths, thus getting more oxygen into the body. In certain sports, proper posture can even help improve performance in other ways: A lifted breastbone and an open chest allow swimmers to move through the water more efficiently, for instance, while a flexible pelvis that shifts easily with the rest of the spine gives cyclists more power. Though each type of physical activity affects the body differently, you can benefit by focusing your attention on three key goals: stretching the chest and hip flexors and strengthening the abdomen. More flexible chest muscles allow you to lift your breastbone and lengthen your upper spine. Longer, suppler hip flexors make it easier to keep your pelvis in the proper position. Strong abdominal muscles support your lower spine and keep your pelvis aligned.

We experience our lives through our bodies, whether we are aware of it or not. Yet we are usually so mesmerized by our ideas about the world that we miss out on much of our direct sensory experience. Even when we are aware of feeling a strong breeze, the sound of rain on the roof, a fragrance in the air, we rarely remain with the experience long enough to inhabit it fully. In most moments, an overlay of inner dialogue comments on what is happening and plans what we might do next. We might greet a friend with a hug, but our moments of physical contact become blurred by our computations about how long to embrace or what we’re going to say when we’re done. We rush through the hug, not fully present.

Many people are so accustomed to being out of touch with the body that they live entirely in a mental world. The fact that the body and mind are interconnected might even be hard for them to believe. Unless feelings are painfully intrusive or, as with sex, extremely pleasant or intense, physical sensations can seem elusive and be difficult to recognize. Often we are in a trance–only partially present to our experience of the moment.

Over the Waterfall

The buddha called our persistent emotional and mental reactivity “the waterfall,” because we are so easily carried away from the experience of the present moment by its compelling force. Both Buddhist and Western psychologies tell us how this happens: The mind instantly and unconsciously assesses whatever we experience as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. When pleasant sensations arise, our reflex is to grasp after them and try to hold on to them. We often do this through planning, and with the emotional energies of excitement and yearning. When we experience unpleasant sensations, we contract, trying to avoid them. Again, the process is the same–we worry and strategize; we feel fear, irritation. Neutral is our signal to disengage and turn our attention elsewhere, which usually means to an experience that is more intense or stimulating.

All of these reactions–to people, to situations, to thoughts in our minds–are actually reactions to the kinds of sensations that are arising in the body. When we become riveted on someone’s ineptness and are bursting with impatience, we are reacting to our own unpleasant sensations; when we are attracted to someone and filled with longing and fantasy, we are reacting to pleasant sensations. Our entire swirl of reactive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors springs from this ground of sensations. When these sensations are unrecognized, our lives are lost in the waterfall of reactivity–we disconnect from living presence, from full awareness, from our hearts.

In order to awaken from this trance, the Buddha recommended “mindfulness centered on the body.” In fact, he called physical sensations the first foundation of mindfulness, because they are intrinsic to feelings and thoughts and are the base of the very process of consciousness. Because our pleasant or unpleasant sensations so quickly trigger a chain reaction of emotions and mental stories, a central part of our training is to recognize the arising of thoughts and return over and over to our immediate sensory experience. We might feel discomfort in the lower back and hear a worried inner voice saying, “How long will this last? How can I make it go away?” Or we might feel a pleasant tingling, a relaxed openness in the chest, and eagerly wonder, “What did I do to arrive in this state? I hope I can do that again.”

Meditation is widely known to reduce stress and anxiety, but now science has proven that it may even help prevent illness. In a study at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, researchers found that mindfulness meditation produced lasting positive changes in both the brain and the immune system.

Mindfulness meditation is designed to teach people to be present with full awareness in the moment, intentionally and nonjudgmentally, explains Katherine Bonus, meditation instructor and manager of mindfulness programs in the integrative medicine program at the UW–Madison Hospital and Clinics.

Often recommended to ease the stress and pain of chronic disease, it can help practitioners accept thoughts and feelings as they occur and deepen awareness of positive emotions, such as compassion.

The research team, led by Richard Davidson, professor of psychology and psychiatry at UW–Madison, found that mindfulness meditation produced biological effects that improved the subjects’ resiliency. The experimental group, composed of 25 participants, received meditation training from Jon Kabat-Zinn, who developed a mindfulness-based stress-reduction program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. They attended weekly meditation classes as well as one seven-hour retreat during the study; they also practiced at home for an hour a day, six days a week. Those in the control group didn’t meditate during the course of the study.

The researchers then measured electrical activity in the front parts of both groups’ brains, the area that corresponds to emotion. Previous research has shown that the left side of this area becomes more active than the right side when a positive emotion is experienced, a pattern also associated with optimism. The study showed increased activity in the left side among meditators, significantly more than was seen in the control group.

Those meditating also demonstrated stronger immune function than those in the control group. All the participants received a flu vaccine at the end of the eight-week study period. Then, at four and eight weeks after the shot was given, their blood was tested to measure the levels of antibodies they had produced against the vaccine.

While everyone who participated in the study had an increased number of antibodies, the meditators had a significantly greater increase than the control group. “The changes were subtle, but statistically it was significant,” says Dan Muller, M.D., head of the immunology core of UW–Madison’s Mind-Body Center, which conducted the study’s blood analysis. “It was startling that such a short intervention could produce a change.” Plans for more research on the impact of meditation are under way. Davidson and his team are currently working with a group of people who have been practicing meditation for more than 30 years; they are also preparing to conduct a study on the impact of mindfulness meditation on people with specific health conditions.

Duality exists so we can understand unity; without duality, oneness would have no meaning. As in the universe, so in our bodies. Our work in yoga is to understand the dualities inside us and bring them together to create a harmonious, integrated whole.

In the performance of asana, we create unity only by first creating duality. It is only when we have two movements each opposing the other that we can create a synergistic third that unites the two in a whole far greater than the sum of its parts. Like a rubber band, a muscle does not stretch when we push both its ends in the same direction, but it does when we pull them away from each other. Similarly, when the two ends of the body (the head and the tailbone) move in the same direction, there isn’t a stretch but rather a collapse. When they move in opposite directions, however, we experience a sense of lifting and expanding.

In sitting postures, for example, the intentional rooting of the sitting bones is what allows the recoil of the energy of the perineum upward. In standing poses, the pressing of the mounds of the toes and the heels into the earth is what allows the upward recoil of the arches and the inner legs. In inversions, when we lift without simultaneously descending earthward, we become either light-headed or wobbly, especially in Sirsasana (Headstand). And in Sarvangasana (Shoulderstand), if we try to lift the spine without simultaneously dropping the shoulders, we become very tense, the neck and throat become hard, and we forgo the benefits to the nervous system the pose can offer.

In any of these poses, trying to lift without the opposing action of grounding gives us little effect; indeed, it may drain our energy reserves. To receive the effects of the pose, we must consciously move in opposite ways simultaneously. And to accomplish this, we must bring our consciousness fully into the present, creating mindfulness.

Indeed, the duality of action is precisely what helps us achieve such a singular state of mind: To rise to the challenge of doing two opposing things at once, we are forced to be focused and unified–yet creative, perhaps moving in ways we have never moved in before. As we work in an asana, we may think, “If I do this, I cannot do that simultaneously.” Yet that is precisely what yoga asks of us. We need to both open ourselves and draw ourselves together to create the music of asana. This work is similar to Zen koan meditation, in which students seek to awaken by focusing on seemingly irreconcilable paradoxes (”What is the sound of one hand clapping?”).

Harnessing Duality

In Vamadevasana II (Pose Dedicated to the Sage Vamadeva II), this inner process of harnessing duality to achieve unity clearly manifests itself. We use one side of the body to pull the pelvis forward and the other side to pull it back in this pose, challenging ourselves to find the still center where we tip in neither direction, where the duality is perfectly balanced.

Duality takes on another guise in the practice of asana. Just as a bird must alternately open and close its wings to stay aloft, we must learn to both expand and contract our energy to stay balanced in any posture. Like the bird spreading its wings, we open our bodies out so we can feel the expansion that is the energy of asana. And like the bird gathering in its wings, we must then pull our awareness into our core so we can feel the stability and centeredness of the posture.

The dull aching on the right side of my mid-back was familiar. Sitting at my desk all day working on income taxes was not only dulling my mind, it was creating a pain in my body that I could no longer ignore. So I got up and headed for the kitchen. Stuffing my face was always a quick solution for the pains and problems of life.As I grabbed for the food, it occurred to me, “Not only am I in pain, I’m downright depressed! “Though I knew taxes were not always an enlightening task, I hadn’t realized that my whole psyche was besieged by negativity. Was my negative attitude affecting my already vulnerable back or was it the other way around? Either way, eating was not going to solve the problem.

I knew of only one solution for my spasmed back and negative attitude. For years, only yoga had helped me cope with the pain I had lived with almost all my life. At 16 months, I had fallen down a steep flight of basement stairs. Initially, the family physician thought I had only broken my nose. Years later, I found out that my ribs had been knocked out of position from the accident, which gradually created a lateral curvature of the spine called a scoliosis.

What is Scoliosis?

Perhaps the most dramatic of spinal aberrations, scoliosis appears in cave paintings of prehistoric man and was first treated with braces by the Creek physician Hippocrates in the fourth century B.C, Not only does it create spinal deformity and rib displacement, it twists the shoulders and hips and shifts the body’s center of gravity. Its most obvious symptoms are cosmetic, but pain and cardiopulmonary complications (due to compression of the heart and lungs) are also common. The word “scoliosis” is derived from the Greek word skol, which means twists and turns. In scoliosis, the spine forms an S curve (or reversed S) from side to side down the back, and at the same time the back of the spine rotates toward the concave side of the S, twisting the rib cage and making the sides of the back uneven. (To observe this effect, bend a hose into an S shape and observe how it rotates at the same time.) Particularly when this curvature occurs in the mid-back region, the ribs compress on the concave side of the spine and spread apart on the convex side. On the concave side, the attached ribs are pushed sideways and forward, while on the convex side, they collapse toward the spine and move back, thus forming the characteristic rotation of the rib cage. The ribs on the convex side often protrude posteriorly, and over this protrusion there frequently develops a tense, painful mass of muscle tissue.

Four Major Scoliosis Curves

Curvature can take place anywhere in the spinal column but generally follows four common patterns. In a right thoracic scoliosis, the major scoliosis is concentrated in the thoracic (mid-back) region, and the spine curves to the right. (There may also be a counter curve to the left in the lumbar region, but this curve is less severe.) In a left lumbar scoliosis, the major curve is to the left and is concentrated in the lumbar (lower back) region, though, as shown in the diagram, there may be a less extreme counter curve to the right in the thoracic region. A third type of scoliosis is the right thoraco-lumbar, where the major curve is to the right in the thoracic and lumbar region. The last type of curvature is the right thoracic-left lumbar combined curve, where the major curve is to the right in the thoracic region, with an equal counter curve to the left in the lumbar region. For unknown reasons, 90 percent of thoracic and double curves are right convexity (curve to the right); 80 percent of the thoraco-lumbar curves also are right convexity; and 70 percent of the lumbar curves are left convexity. Seven times as many women as men have scoliosis.

Structural and Functional Scoliosis

Scoliosis can be either structural or functional. The structural variety is much more serious and develops as a result of unequal growth of the two sides of the vertebral bodies. It usually appears during adolescence, and its causes are not well understood–approximately 70 percent of all structural scoliosis are idiopathic, meaning doctors do not know why they develop. Functional scoliosis only affects the back muscles and does not structurally alter the body. It can result from such things as poor posture or repeated unbalanced activity, such as always carrying books on one side. It is much more common than structural scoliosis, usually much less noticeable since the degree of curvature is less, and almost always reversible.

To determine whether a scoliosis is functional or structural, bend forward from the hips. If a lateral (side to side) curve visible in standing disappears in this position, the scoliosis is functional; if the curve remains, it is built into the ribs and spine, and the scoliosis is structural.

Yoga or Surgery?

When I was 15, my family physician informed me that I had a severe structural right thoracic scoliosis. He recommended a brace and threatened me with a possible fusion of the spine, an operation in which metal rods are inserted next to the spinal column to prevent the curvature from growing worse. Appalled, I consulted a top orthopedic surgeon, who suggested that instead I try a regimen of exercise and stretching.

I exercised regularly throughout high school and college, but although 1 experienced little discomfort, I noticed that my posture was becoming worse. I was rounding my shoulders, particularly on the right side; and when I wore a bathing suit, I noticed that the right side of my back protruded more than the left. After graduation, while working with the Peace Corps in Brazil, I began to experience spasms and acute pain in my back. Guided by a fellow Peace Corps volunteer, I turned to hatha yoga.

When I stretched in the yoga poses, the numbness on the right side of my, back went away, and the pain started to dissolve. To explore this path further, I returned to the United States, where I studied at the Integral Yoga Institute with Swami Satchidananda and learned about the importance of love, service, and balance in life and yoga practice. Then I turned to the Iyengar system to explore in depth the way the therapeutic use of yoga postures could help my scoliosis.

Since that time, I have been exploring and healing my body through the practice of yoga. By teaching students with scoliosis, I have learned how to assist others with their own explorations. I have found that although every scoliosis is different, there are certain philosophical guidelines and practical yoga postures that can be helpful to yoga students with scoliosis.

The decision to do yoga to remediate a scoliosis entails a lifetime commitment to a process of self-discovery and growth. For many people, this kind of commitment is intimidating. It’s tempting to turn instead to an orthopedic surgeon, who will “fix” a back by fusing it and get rid of the pain forever. Unfortunately, this operation results in a virtually immobile spine and frequently fails to alleviate the pain. I taught one teenage student with an extreme scoliosis who, weary of struggling with her yoga practice, gave up and had her back fused. To her dismay, her pain persisted, and she had even less mobility than before. When the rod in her back broke, she had it removed rather than replaced, and she returned to her yoga practice with a renewed and deeper commitment.

Choosing the path of self-discovery rather than surgery requires not only commitment but inner awareness. Guidance from a competent teacher is helpful, but awareness of our own bodies is crucial–no famous guru can fix our backs for us, any more than an orthopedic surgeon can. Only through our own constant awareness and loving attention can we transform our discomfort into a guide that helps us to get in touch with our bodies.

The goal of yoga practice should not be to straighten our backs; we must learn to accept them as they are, not deny them or judge them. Instead, we must work to understand our backs and to relate to them with sensitivity and awareness. Healing is much more than straightening a scoliosis, or curing a disease. It is learning to love and nurture ourselves and trust our inner knowing to guide us to a vibrant state of being.

When beginning to practice yoga, the most important movement is lengthening the spine. This movement will create more evenness in the spine and ribs and release tension in the muscles of the back.

Cat/Cow Pose. At the start of a practice period, loosening the spine with the breath is important to prevent injury, particularly at the apex of the scoliosis. Kneel with the hands below the shoulders and the knees below the hips. Inhaling, lift the head and tailbone, making the lower back concave. Exhale and tuck the tailbone, rounding the back and releasing the neck. Repeat at least 10 times.

Vajrasana (Child’s Pose). After completing the exhalation in the Cat/Cow Pose, stretch the hands out in front. Inhale deeply into the back, particularly the concave side where the ribs are compressed. Exhale and move the buttocks back halfway toward the heels. Inhale, and stretch the arms and the pelvis away from each other, with the upper back following the arms and the lower back following the pelvis. Breathe into this position, feeling the intercostal muscles stretching between the ribs and the spine and back muscles lengthening. To help stretch the compressed ribs on the concave side, move the arms toward the convex side, keeping the arms shoulder-width apart. Notice how this movement makes the back more even. Mter breathing into this position for a minute, move the buttocks all the way back to the heels and relax the arms by your side. Relax the entire body.

Three-Part Bar Stretch. This pose may be done at a dance bar or at home on a porch railing, sink, or wherever you can grab onto something and pull.

1. Grab onto the bar with hands shoulder-distance apart and walk the feet back until the spine is parallel to the floor and the feet are directly under the hips. Now bring the heels forward to the position where the toes were and hang backwards, bending from the hips and stretching the buttocks away from the bar. Keep the neck in line with the spine, not allowing the chin to lift up. Feel the entire spine being lengthened by the pull.
2. Bring the feet in a few inches toward the bar and bend the knees into a right angle, with the thighs parallel to the floor and the knees directly above the heels. Continue to stretch the buttocks down and backwards. This particularly stretches the mid-back below and to the sides of the shoulder blades.
3. Walk the feet forward a few inches farther to allow the heels to remain on the floor. Let the buttocks move down toward the floor in a squat. Now pull back, keeping the buttocks down, and feel the lower spine being stretched.

Standing Poses

Trikonasana (Triangle Pose). In Triangle Pose, the feet are separated while the torso stretches to the side. Because of the scoliosis, your emphasis should be different when you stretch to each side. When stretching toward the side of the concavity, emphasize lengthening the spine to open up the compressed ribs on the underside of the body and decrease the protrusion of the ribs on the opposite side. When stretching to the convex side, emphasize twisting to create more evenness on the sides of the back.

For example, someone with a right thoracic scoliosis would stretch to the left to create length in the spine. Separate the feet about one leg’s length. Turn the left toes out to 90 degrees and the right toes in to 45 degrees, and stretch the torso to the left, bending from the hips and stretching the arms away from each other. Placing your left hand on the back of a chair helps to spread out the ribs on the concave side. Drop the right ribs in medially towards the spine so both sides of the body are parallel to the floor. Notice how dropping the right ribs spreads out the compressed left ribs. You can also press the right outer heel of the foot into a wall to give stability and strength from which to stretch. If you are practicing in a studio that has wall ropes, a rope attached to the wall and wrapped around the right thigh is an excellent way to create this stability, particularly for someone with a lumbar scoliosis.

It is also important to stretch to the opposite side to decrease the bulge in the back on the convex side of the spine. Place the left outer heel at the wall or use a rope attached around the left leg. Lengthen out from the hip as you did on the left side. Place the right hand on the leg and bring the left heel of the hand to the sacrum. Inhale and draw the base of the right shoulder blade down from the ears and into the body, opening the chest. Exhale and twist from the navel, drawing the left elbow back to align the shoulders with each other. Let the neck and head follow.

Virabhadrasana I (Warrior Pose). This pose strengthens and stretches the legs, psoas, and back muscles. For students with scoliosis, this pose is best practiced with the support of a doorjamb or pillar, to keep the torso upright and balanced. Bring the back groin to the edge of the door jamb with the front heel about two feet ahead and the front leg hugging the side of the wall. Place the back toes about two feet behind the left hip. Square the two hips so they are parallel to each other and point the tailbone to the floor, lengthening the sacrum.

Inhale and bring the arms overhead parallel to the shoulders, palms facing toward each other, and lift from the upper back, lengthening the ribs and spine out of the pelvis. Exhale and bend the right leg, creating a right angle, with the thigh parallel to the floor and the shinbone perpendicular to the floor. The right knee should be directly over the right heel, with the left leg fully extended and the left heel descending to the floor. Keep lifting the spine and at the same time press into the floor with the back leg. If you have difficulty bringing the back heel to the floor, place a sandbag under the heel for balance. Pressing it back and down to the floor helps to penetrate the deep psoas muscle.

For additional standing poses helpful for scoliosis, consult B.K.S. Iyengar’s Light on Yoga (Shocken Books, 1971). Utthita Parsvakonasana (Lateral Angle Pose) , Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon Pose), Parighasana (Cross Beam of a Gate Pose) are three excellent lateral stretches to do for scoliosis that follow the same guidelines as Trikonasana. Parivrtta Trikonasana (Revolved Triangle Pose) , and Parivrtta Parsvakonasana (Revolved Lateral Angle Pose), two twisting standing poses, are highly recommended for intermediate yoga students.

Many years ago, when I was new to meditation, I asked an Indian swami how to handle the swarm of negative thoughts that crowded my mind. The swami’s answer, delivered with an eye roll and a knowing giggle, discouraged me profoundly. “In the end,” he said, “there’s nothing to do but sit quietly and watch your mind.”

In one sense, of course, he was right. But I couldn’t take his advice. In those days, my mind was so unruly that all I could do was cling to a mantra and pray for relief. In fact, I don’t know what I would have done to get some space inside my mind if my guru, Swami Muktananda, had not given a lecture one day on the true nature of thought.

The teaching came from the Shaiva Tantras, a group of sophisticated and relatively modern yogic texts that appeared in Northern India around the ninth century and remained relatively secret until about 50 years ago. The concept is simple: Everything that appears in your mind is made of consciousness, or, if you like, mind energy. Your thoughts and feelings–the difficult, negative, passionate ones as well as the peaceful and clever ones–are all made of the same subtle, invisible, highly dynamic “stuff.” Mind energy is so evanescent that it can dissolve in a moment, yet so powerful that it can create an inner reality that runs you for a lifetime. The secret revealed by the Tantric sages is that if you can recognize thoughts for what they are–if you can see that they are nothing but mind energy–they will stop troubling you.

Now on one level, this conclusion is obvious. Yet the fact is that most of us never pay attention to the substance of our thoughts. We are much too caught up in their content, which we implicitly believe is important and real. In fact, thought content is simply the passing form that thought energy happens to be taking at any given moment. There’s an energetic dance going on inside everyone’s mind, but rather than seeing the dance itself, we get caught up in its story line.

The Tantras invite us instead to turn our gaze around and investigate the energetic material inside a thought. To do this, we need to take our attention away from the content of the thought, to stop following where it leads, and instead look into the energy that the thought is made of, the actual substance of the thought itself.

Charged Thoughts

You might want to try this now. Close your eyes and observe the thoughts going through your mind. Thoughts get shy when you stare at them, so your stream of consciousness might suddenly come to a halt at this point. If that happens, you will need to create a thought. For now, let it be a sweet thought: a beach, say, or the name of someone you like.

Hold the thought for a few seconds. Now, focus on the thought’s substance. Notice the energetic space the thought creates inside your mind. If you like, you can formally label the thought “energy” or “thought stuff”–just the way if you were practicing mindfulness meditation, you might label it “thinking.”

The next step in this process is to investigate the underlying energy, the feeling space created by the thought. Every single thought or particle of thought has its own energetic signature; the energy in thoughts is what gives them their power. The meaning of words in our mind is what engages us, but what causes thoughts to change our inner state is actually the energy inside those thoughts.

Midway through her first yoga class, Kay Erdwinn wanted desperately to disappear.

Erdwinn had come to the class, not far from her Southern California neighborhood, in search of a noncompetitive, inwardly focused way to exercise. Instead, she found a teacher who demanded that she upend her five-foot-two-inch, 260-pound body into Halasana (Plow Pose).

The teacher hunkered down beside her on his hands and knees, egging her on like an overadrenalized sports coach: “Come on, come on, you can do it,” he barked. Each yell made her feel more inadequate and humiliated. Erdwinn, then 23, didn’t have enough self-confidence to gently tell the teacher what she was thinking: “I know you want me to do these asanas really well, but I am not here to compete and get really aggressive.” She fumbled though the class as best as she could, then ran for the nearest door and never came back. “The whole thing scared me away,” she recalls.

But Erdwinn didn’t stay scared. She still wanted to find a meditative movement practice. In addition, she had fibromyalgia and had read that yoga might help relieve the muscle pain, sleep disturbances, and chronic fatigue that accompanied it. Erdwinn tried practicing from a book, checked out a few classes in nearby health clubs, and finally, years later, found the class her instincts had always told her must exist.

Unlike her first experience, this class was small and warm and welcoming. The instructor, trained in Ananda Yoga, began each session with meditation, offered advice gently without singling anyone out, and routinely told her students that if any asana didn’t feel possible, they should feel free to explore ways they could make it work for them.

Erdwinn felt as if she’d come home. The classes offered her the meditative, spiritual atmosphere she’d been hoping to find. As she practiced, she grew stronger, more flexible, and less easily winded. She didn’t lose weight, but she felt much healthier. And, she says, yoga has put her in much better touch with her body. “Being very aware of my body has been a tremendous gift,” she observes, noting that this awareness has grounded her, emotionally and physically, and provided a number of benefits in her everyday life, including greater relaxation and better posture.

Today, Erdwinn, who has recently completed medical school and will soon begin a residency in psychiatry, practices yoga regularly and sometimes teaches Ananda Yoga classes she designs specifically to welcome all body types. She is among a growing number of yogis with expansive bodies who are twisting, balancing, and bending. They’re exploring this ancient tradition and making it their own.

They are learning that yoga is an equal-opportunity pleasure. The ease, relaxation, power, and joy of settling into a pose are all available to people of every size. Once a few special issues are addressed–some personal and some cultural–large yogis can get the same benefits from a physical yoga practice as anyone else: flexibility, balance, strength, stress reduction, increased awareness, and a better link between mind and body. With 64 percent of Americans now labeled either overweight or obese by doctors, this message has never been more needed. And it is a message that is increasingly being heard.

Fat and Fit

For large folks interested in exploring yoga, it can be helpful to explode the myth that good health comes only in thin packages. Body size is far less critical to overall health than even many doctors realize, says Glenn Gaesser, director of the kinesiology program at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and author of Big Fat Lies: The Truth About Your Weight and Your Health (Gurze, 2002).

In analyzing numerous medical studies, Gaesser found that inactivity and a bad diet contribute more to poor health than weight itself, and that it is possible for large people to lead fit, healthy, and long lives. “The benefits of weight loss have been kind of oversold,” he says. It is much easier for a large person to be (or become) fit than to become slim, and the health payoff is likely to be greater, Gaesser adds.

Weight itself–separate from the issue of a sedentary lifestyle–puts relatively few limits on a yoga practice. A heavy yogi’s joints will be under more stress and so should be treated more gently. Some asanas may need to be modified to allow for big bellies, backsides, thighs, and upper arms. Finally, for safety reasons, inversions may need to be omitted. In terms of general cautions for heavy yogis, that’s pretty much it. Other modifications differ from individual to individual; large people, just like thin ones, vary enormously. They run the gamut from fit to deconditioned, strong to weak, and flexible to stiff.

In fact, many of the preliminary steps on the road toward a personal yoga practice apply to everyone–young or old, big or small. If you’re a newcomer, it’s important to first determine what you want. Do you mostly want relaxation and help meditating? Do you want to bring increased movement into your life gently, or would you prefer a rigorous, athletic workout? Would you like a tool to help you lose weight, or would you rather accept and value yourself exactly as you are, without any expectation that your weight should change?

It’s also important to honestly assess how fit and healthy you really are. When starting any new fitness regime, people should know their health issues so they can practice safely. Erdwinn thinks everyone older than 40 should see a doctor before taking up yoga. In addition, she says, “large people tend to avoid health care, because they hate to get hassled about their weight, so there is a greater risk that they have undiagnosed problems.”

Also, people who don’t exercise or eat well might have certain health conditions that should be considered when deciding what to include in a yoga practice. Uncontrolled high blood pressure can make positions with the head placed below the heart–including some backbends, some forward bends, and inversions–dangerous. Diabetes can hamper the sense of balance. Holding the breath while inverting can be dangerous for anyone with a history of heart disease.

In addition, those starting a yoga practice should take stock of any existing joint or muscle issues and be aware of potential weaknesses. Carrying a lot of weight puts a great deal of stress on the feet, ankles, and knees. And someone with a big belly might need to modify certain asanas to protect the lower back.

After assessing health, it’s time to consider fitness–probably the biggest physical factor in choosing which type of yoga to pursue. Unless you already exercise often and strenuously, you should avoid yoga traditions that stress jumping into and out of poses, because the rapid moves increase the risk of injury. At least in the beginning, you may also want to rule out yoga styles that stick to a set of predetermined asanas, such as Bikram Yoga and Ashtanga Yoga. Larry Payne, director of the International Association of Yoga Therapists and coauthor of Yoga for Dummies (For Dummies, 1999), says that “a canned, one-size-fits-all approach” can be inappropriate for people who would benefit more from a practice that puts greater emphasis on modifying poses to suit each individual.

Going within–exploring the hidden chambers of the heart to find one’s true Self–is really the first step in yoga. Continuing from that step, we can take the next one: bringing forth the latent divinity that we discover within, so that we may fully serve our individual dharma, or life purpose.

Although I began watching my parents practice with B.K.S. Iyengar when I was three, and joined them at age seven, it took me years to fully absorb this basic lesson. For the first 13 years of my yoga practice, my effort was directed at physically mastering pose after ever-more-difficult pose. In my late teens, I often practiced seven hours a day, many days in a row. Staying half an hour in Headstand and an hour in Shoulderstand would leave my neck so stiff that I could not even turn it the next day! In some sessions, I would perform 150 or more Viparita Chakrasanas (Reversed Wheel Poses), starting in Urdhva Dhanurasana (Upward-Facing Bow Pose), walking my feet up a wall, and then kicking over to land in Uttanasana (Standing Forward Bend). By age 20, I had a repertoire of hundreds of poses, including high-risk asanas rarely seen and almost never taught. I brought enormous energy to my practice, but it was more in service to my ambition and ego than to a higher or deeper purpose.

Then, helping a friend lift some crates, I ruptured two disks in my lower back. For what seemed like an eternity, I was unable to sit, stand, or walk without experiencing excruciating pain. When I could finally do asana again, I had to start from the beginning. The muscles around my pelvis, legs, and spine had seized up to protect my back, and I was stiffer than most beginners. This whole experience was a great lesson in humility, and it began the transformation of my asana practice to the much more heart-centered approach that is now the core of my teaching.

The second catalytic experience that transformed my practice was when my wife, Mirra, developed a critical illness. Three times I saw her almost die and be revived. I was once again forced to search for the deeper meanings of my life and the place my daily asana practice had in it. Watching the woman who mattered so much to me struggle for life made me question the haughty attachment I had to my body and the asanas it could do.

Assisted by the penetrating and often astonishing insights my wife had gained through her trials, I began to discover what was for me an entirely new approach to yoga practice, an approach that included yet transcended my old one. My teachers and several ancient texts had already introduced me to this kind of practice, but I suppose I was unable to heed their guidance until experience had softened my heart. And the heart was at the core of this new approach: the surrender of the brain to the heart as well as the lifting of the pelvic energy to the heart. Mirra explained to me, time and time again, the importance of opening the heart center. Speaking from the depths of her own inner experience, she reminded me that it was the heart that held the secrets to self-knowledge and the heart that was the portal to the universe within.

Last summers mars hovered close to the earth, power blackouts darkened the Northeast, and car bombers wreaked havoc in Baghdadveryone I met was talking about how intense their lives were becoming. There seemed to be too much of everything: arguments, explosive feelings, weird dreams, and intrusive thoughts. I received scores of e-mail messages about how to handle the accelerating energies. More meditation and self-inquiry, some advised. Time for political action, others said. Connecting with one another through the heart was the thing to do, according to one Web site; another suggested we gather water supplies and start growing our own vegetables.

In the midst of all of this, I kept remembering a verse from the Vijnana Bhairava, a meditation manual in the Shaivite tradition. The verse says that pure consciousnesshe heart-stopping brilliance that composes the core of realitys especially close to us in moments of emotional intensity, even though those moments might seem like the very opposite of peaceful. The text goes on to give examples: “When you’re angry, or overjoyed, or at an impasse reflecting what to do, or running for your life, find within that state the perfect condition of the primordial energy.”

This is a deep clue about how to practice in our speeded-up times. It’s no secret that strong feelings and experiences carry a lot of energy. Why else would people go to raves, become war correspondents, or provoke their lovers into screaming matches? But there’s a big difference between using strong energy to feel more alive or to get high, and consciously using it to move deeper into our own essence. That movement is what the inner life is all about.

And it’s the radical truth behind the Vijnana Bhairava verse: If we choose to practice with our strong energies, they can lead us into the very source of our own power. Entering a strong feeling is like splitting an atom, except that the energy released from the core of that feeling is essentially that of brahman, the “vast expanse” itself.

Peeling Away the Layers of the Heart

Linda has been meditating for several years, doing retreats with one of the hard-core Indian teachers of the older generation. Her basic M.O. was always the straight, classical, citta-vritti-eroding yogic approach of stilling the mind.

Recently, however, she went to Mexico on vacation, met a guy, and fell in love. Her heart flung open; detachment melted. There was, as she put it, “big soul-mate energy” between them. They were together for a while, then it was over. She found herself on a plane back home, roiling around in an emotional stewpot of feelings. The pain was extreme. But Linda decided to dive in, to bring her practice-honed attention into the pain itself and look into her own heart space.

She said it was like peeling an onion. Layers of boggy sadness. Layers of hurt pride and bitterness. A big, thick shell of indifference. More sadness. Then she dropped into a huge, open stillness: One minute her heart was an emotional swamp; the next, it was pure spaciousness. She told me that once she had tapped into that spacious heart energy, it stayed available. Ever since, her basic practice has been “sitting” inside her own heart space.