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Part 1: Yoga for Back and Neck Care: A Holistic Approach Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Yoga in Daily Life at the Śrī Devpurījī Āśram in Dungog, Australia. This morning’s practice will be a class focused on yoga against back and neck pain, and I have been asked to speak a little about yoga for back and neck care as well. Let us begin by sitting comfortably, as we would for any program. We will sing Oṃ together three times and the Nārāyaṇa Kāraṇa Mantra. Take a deep inhalation. Oṃ... Nā'haṃ kartā prabhuḥ kartā mahāprabhuḥ kartā he kevalam. Oṃ Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ... Once more, welcome to this morning’s practice. I would like to discuss the major back problems people often have when they first come to yoga, and then we will do a practice together. As we practice, I will also explain the benefits of the postures and what we may encounter when teaching or using these practices to support our own backs and spines. Many of us, as yoga teachers, encounter students who come to yoga for the first time with neck and back problems. I am sure many of us also initially took up yoga due to injuries or issues we had. Before starting yoga, we found its various aspects beneficial in helping us manage, strengthen, and get back on track. The Yoga in Daily Life system begins with Sarva-hita Āsanas, which are gentle postures that help develop strength and flexibility for those beginning yoga. However, Yoga in Daily Life also has a separate system called "Yoga Against Back and Neck Pain." It comprises six levels of practice, starting very gently and therapeutically for people with major problems such as prolapsed discs, spinal injuries, issues following spinal surgery, or back surgery. The shape of the spine is a major influence in causing and developing back problems. Understanding the spine's natural shapes and how to maintain an optimum spinal alignment can help develop strength and bring the spine back into balance. While developing physical strength and flexibility is very good, it is also important to consider yoga's other practices that help bring us back to optimum health. Practices such as relaxation, especially the muscle tensing and releasing techniques in yoga, are excellent for back and neck care. Our Kārya Praṇāma or flowing sequences are good for developing strength and flexibility in all the body's muscles. Prāṇāyāma, or breathing exercises, are also a great way to develop an understanding of energy flow through the body. In yoga physiology, we understand that when the spine is in correct alignment, energy flows more optimally. As energy flows better, it promotes better health, improves circulation to aid healing, allows the nervous system to align and balance, and lets all the body's organs sit comfortably. Thus, our prāṇāyāma practices, though they may seem like simple breathing exercises, have a deep effect on all the body's systems. Therefore, when considering neck and back care in yoga, we think holistically—not only of postures and movements but also of our other practices: relaxation, prāṇāyāma, and meditation. Meditation can be a great way to help deal with pain. If we are suffering, meditation calms the mind, helps us step back from the pain, and improves our ability to cope. Meditation can also help us understand our thoughts around injuries, pains, and problems, and can aid in understanding the body's alignment. Most spinal problems arise from poor alignment. Let me talk a little about the spine. Could I have a volunteer? Thank you, Chandra. If you could come here and turn around... Thank you. Now face the back of the room, and then turn to the side. Great, you can swap places with me. If we look at Chandra's spine, it is very nice—she is a yoga teacher. You can see a slight lordotic curve in the lower back, a slight upper curve, and a very nice lordotic curve in the upper spine. Notice how Chandra is standing quite evenly on both feet, demonstrating good body alignment. However, many people come to yoga with different problems. For instance, a common issue is excessive kyphosis, a rounding of the upper back, often caused by tight chest muscles and weak upper back muscles. This creates tension, tightness, and pain, along with slackness in the chest muscles. When these muscles are tight, it doesn't take much to cause pain and problems. Another major spinal problem is scoliosis, a lateral curvature. Many people have a slight, natural scoliosis that can be managed through regular yoga practice. However, some have a very accentuated scoliosis. If you could demonstrate an accentuated curve... Thank you. You can often notice scoliosis immediately by a slope in the shoulders and one hip being higher than the other. When one hip is higher, muscles on one side shorten while those on the other lengthen, creating an imbalance throughout the body. With tight muscles and such an imbalance, it doesn't take much—like bending over or turning—for the spine to cause problems. We have a naturally curved spine. These natural curves are optimal for balance and shock absorption when we walk, jump, or lift. The spine in its natural curves helps us perform all these activities. But as soon as we fall out of balance, problems arise. Many people come to yoga with these issues. Thank you, Chandra. You can see it doesn't take much for the spine to get out of alignment. We can even notice this in ourselves when standing relaxed—observing where our body goes. Often, we spend more time on one foot than the other. Even in our daily lives as practitioners, we may find ourselves favouring one side or becoming slightly unbalanced. Yoga can bring us back into balance. For the first part of our practice this morning, I would like to focus on the lower back, the lordotic curve. We will explore how to understand if we are holding tension or tightness there and how to bring flexibility into the lower back. We will then use a tensing method to strengthen the muscles around the abdominal area and the lower back—tightening to build tension and strength, then softening to release and relax. We will start with pelvic tilting to create movement in the lower back and for each of us to notice how much movement we have there. This is a good way to detect if we hold tension or tightness in our lower back. Then, we will do a nice tensing movement to help release that tension—a very useful movement whenever you feel discomfort in the lower back. Please lie on your back with your knees bent and hands beside your body. Now, try to tuck your tailbone under, as if rolling the bottom of your hips up toward the sky. You will feel your lower back flatten into the ground. Then, roll the hips the other way, as if rolling your tailbone down. Repeat this a few times. After these movements, keep your knees bent, take some deep breaths, and notice how your lower back feels. Even if there was a little tension, this movement can stimulate circulation and the nervous system in the lower back. Next, for tensing and relaxing: bend your right knee toward your chest. Use your left hand and place it against the knee. Create a counter-tension by trying to draw the knee toward your body while using the palm of your hand to push the knee away. The knee draws in, the hand pushes out. Take a deep in-breath, push strongly, and feel what happens around your lower back, hips, and belly. As you breathe out, relax. Place the foot back on the ground. Change sides: bend the left knee toward your chest and place the right hand flat against the knee or thigh. Push the knee away as you press the knee toward you, finding a counterbalance. Tuck your chin slightly toward your chest to keep the spine long. Keep pushing away with the hand while bringing the knee toward the body. Feel the tension around the hip and lower back. Take a deep in-breath, tense a little more, and exhale to release. Place the feet on the ground and take a deep breath. Notice how the whole area around the lower back, belly, and hips feels. We will now move to the whole spine. There are many twists and movements in yoga to bring flexibility, strength, and balance. We will do a twist from the neck and back care series. Bring your arms out to the sides. Cross your left leg over the right as if your legs are crossed. Do not force or push; allow gravity to do most of the work. Breathe into the centre. Move twice more with your own breathing rhythm, keeping your awareness on the movement around the hips, lower back, and into the middle spine. Bring your awareness to any differences between each side of your body. Practice slowly, in coordination with your breath. Keep the knees bent and turn your head to look toward your left hand. Inhale and start to lift your left arm into the air, bringing it across your body. Follow the movement with your eyes. Let the left arm rest on the right. As you inhale again, take the left arm back over, stretching across the front of your chest, turning your head to look over the left arm. Repeat the same movement: lift the left arm off the ground, take it across the body, follow with the head and eyes, then inhale as you return to the starting position. Complete one more round with slow, steady movement. Now, we will go to the other side, bringing the right arm over to the left. You may notice tension, tightness, or restriction in the movement of your back and shoulder. After completing three rounds total, return to the starting position with arms out to the sides and knees bent. We will now work a little deeper. Let your knees fall toward the ground on the right side. Bring your left arm over to rest on the right. Your right arm is above your head; follow the movement with your head. Then, bring the arm back across the body to rest on the left arm. Inhale deeply as you raise the arm up and look out over the hand. Complete one more round, keeping your awareness on the movement in your spine and any imbalances on this side. After completing that round, come back to the centre, knees bent and arms out to the sides. Next, we will work progressively deeper into the upper back, especially around the shoulders. Let your knees fall to the ground on the right side. Bring your left arm over to rest on the right arm and turn your head. This time, make a big circle by raising the left arm up above your head. Let it circle around until you return to the starting position. Then, bring the arm across the body once more. As you raise the arm above your head this time, follow the movement with your head. Inhale as you raise the right arm above the head, trying to follow with your head and eyes. Bring the arm back, then repeat for a second round. Use your inhalation as you raise the arm. Follow the movement with your eyes. The eyes are at the top of the nervous system; by encouraging eye movement, we also stretch the nerves at the very top of the spine. Complete one more round. After completing that round, bring your knees back to the middle. Straighten your legs and bring your hands to your sides into Ānanda Āsana, the Relaxation Posture. Take some easy, slow, deep inhalations and exhalations. Notice the effects of these first movements through your body. Observe any release from tension or tightness in the lower back and abdomen, through the middle back, the upper back and shoulders, and through the neck. Part 2: Observing the Effects of Movement and Exploring Spinal Health You might feel some extra warmth in the body, and that would mean that the circulation in your body has been stimulated. You might find a specific part of your body feels a little bit warmer. That means that there has been some tightness or tension, and the blood is flowing more rapidly through that part of the body. Just notice the effect of your movements on your breathing, and if the breathing is a little more smooth and even, then it can mean that you’ve aligned your posture more. And then notice the effect on our minds through concentrating on the movements and the breathing. It’s feeling more relaxed and more comfortable. And then, slowly bending the left knee and placing the left foot on the ground, push off from your foot, roll onto your right side, and stay there. Then, using your hands and arms on the ground to help support the back muscles, help yourself up. If we just come back to thinking about the natural curves in the spine and those three natural curves, the main problem that most people encounter is that as soon as we come into a sitting posture, either cross-legged or sitting in a chair, those three curves in the spine turn into one big curve. And if you can imagine that people who are working at computers or working at desk jobs can spend up to six to eight hours sitting at a desk without too much movement, and just having that one long curve through the spine, you can imagine that there’s a lot of tension created through the back. We probably know from our own experience, as soon as we have been sitting for a long while and we feel a bit hunched over, as soon as we stand up we want to open up the chest and open up the back to bring some strength and some stretching through the front of the back. And some relaxation through the muscles of the back. In yoga, the postures that can bring good flexibility and movement through the whole of the spine are the Marjari, the cat series of postures. In the yoga book, Against Back Pain, there’s a whole series of Marjari āsanas, and I’d like us to do some of those this morning, just to get an idea of the different variations and how they work on the different parts of the back and spine. So, let’s come to sit on our heels at the back of our mat. And we’ll do a variation of Marjariāsana where we stretch diagonally through the body. So, let’s come up onto the knees with the hands out in front, and then come forward. Now, try to find an even balance through the body, because the arms are directly under the shoulders and the knees are directly under the hips, and you can have a little bit of space between the knees. Have the fingers spread as widely as you can, as though you’re creating a wider support for your body. Look down towards the ground and just feel your spine here. And then stretch the right arm out in front. Have the right palm facing inwards, and then take the left leg behind. As you take the left leg behind, see if you can tuck your tailbone under and lengthen through the spine. Stretch down to your heel and out to your fingertips, and then bring the hand back onto the ground and the knee to the mat. And then we’ll go to the other side, stretching the left arm out and then the right leg. And here, try to find an even balance diagonally across the body, and then lower the arm. We’ll do one more round. Stretch the right arm out, look down towards the ground, and the left leg back. That feels tight around the neck and shoulder. Have the arm a little bit wider. Look down to the ground to keep the tension out of the neck and shoulders, and then lower the arm and leg. And then one more to the other side. Left arm and right leg, stretch out long through the side of the body. Try to keep the hips square, so one hip isn’t tilting up to the ground. Find a symmetry across the body, and then bring the hand back down. Come up onto the knees, and using the muscles around your buttocks, thighs, and belly, lower yourself slowly back down onto the heels. Then, bring the hands onto the thighs and take a deep breath. Let’s come to the classic Marjaryāsana. We’ll bring the arms up to shoulder height, coming up onto the knees, and then bringing the hands under the shoulders. And start with the spine in a neutral position. Arms are wide enough that the shoulders are not tense or tight. And the knees have a little bit of space, so you can get good movement around the hip area. And then here, start the movement from the base of your spine. Tuck the tailbone under, arch through the lower back, arch through the middle back, and then arch through the very top of the spine by tucking the chin towards the chest. And then go the same way, concaving the back by rolling the tailbone. So, not overarching or over-concaving into the most flexible part of your spine, and try not to avoid the most tight part of your back. Try to get the gentlest stretch you can through the tight part of your back, coming... Back to a neutral position when you finish that last round, then come up onto the hands and knees, and then lower back down onto the ground. Get into the right position to start, and get an even weight through the body. You may even notice that one side of your body works very differently from the other side. Move as slowly and as smoothly as you can with your breathing, to help bring awareness to the parts of the body that are making the movement. Just notice here if you tend to skip over a part of the spine. Then, coming back into neutral position, lifting up onto the knees, hands in front, and lowering back down. Nice deep breath. So, by working through from the base of the spine to the top and from the top of the spine to the base, we get a chance to develop an idea or a sense of where the flexible and inflexible parts of our back are. We’ll do one final round, working the whole spine as one and trying to bring a balance to the movement through the spine. We’ll come up onto the hands and knees, and then bring the hands under the shoulders. Look for a balance to start. And then this time, tuck the chin towards the chest and the tailbone down at the same time. As though you’re moving your... Find a neutral spine, coming up onto the knees, hands in front, and exhale, coming back down. Just take a deep breath. We’ll do another cat stretch variation that works much deeper into the upper part of the spine. It takes a little bit more strength to bring movement through the spine. We’ll come up onto the hands and knees again and bring the hands under the shoulders. And then, exactly where your hands are, bring your elbow points to the mat. So we are going to start with the first one. We are going to start with the first one. We are... In most instances, when people have injuries or problems through the lower part of the back, you can pretty much guarantee that there’s a weakness in the abdominal muscles. So let’s do something to just begin to strengthen the abdominal muscles, and it’s called grinding. So not only does it work the abdominal muscles through the front of the body, but it also works the side abdominal muscles. And then, the most important abdominal muscles, the sheath of abdominal muscle that wraps around the whole front of the body, like a supporting girdle. And this thin sheath of abdominal muscle is the most important abdominal muscle for maintaining correct spinal position in the lower part of the back. It’s good to have a balance through all the abdominal muscles, but often times there tends to be an emphasis on the front abdominal muscles. So in yoga, as always, we work holistically and in a balanced way, working through all three major sets of abdominal muscles. So let’s do grinding and just see how that works on those muscles. We’ll bring the hands out in front, and if you’re working with any problems through the lower part of the back, you always can have the knees bent through this movement. So if you’re just beginning or you’re taking it easy through developing strength through the abdomen, the knees can be bent. We’ll straighten the arms out, and then, as you make a big turn to the right side of your body, just turn and feel the side abdominal stretch. Kumbha Melā, Jadān, Oṁ Śrī Alakh Purījī, Śrī Madhvānanda Purījī, Śrī Madhvānanda... And bring your awareness to the effects from that last movement. Awareness on your body, muscles, joints, the awareness of the stimulation of the circulation through the different parts of the body. And then notice the effect on your breathing, and then the effects on your concentration and awareness. Start by having the arms out in front. We’ll do one more round: breathing in, coming up, breathing out, down. Pushing to the ground with your hands, push back up onto the knees, and then sit back onto the heels, with the forehead on the ground, and relax in śaśāṅkāsana, the hare posture. And again, deep breaths into the abdomen, feeling your back move as you breathe, and then slowly coming up. We’ve been working all the muscles of the back, developing strength and flexibility along the spine. And mostly in forward and backward bending movements. To bring some balance through all the muscles of the back, side-bending postures would follow. So there’s a huge range of side-bending postures throughout the Yoga Against Neck and Back Pain book. We’ll do just a few, and we’ll come into standing. We’ll do a simple side bend. Have the feet about as wide apart as your yoga mat. If you’re working with any problems through the lower back or any tension or tightness, having the legs a little bit wider can make a huge difference through the muscles of the back. We’ll clasp the fingers together behind the head, and then try to stand tall and relax the shoulders. Take a deep in-breath, and as you breathe out, tilt over to the right side. And as you tilt over, try to keep both sides of your body long. Use the strength in your legs to help support your back muscles here. Get a feeling that your legs are lifting you up. Take a deep in-breath back to the middle, and then breathe out to the other side. Deep in-breath, back to the centre, and breathing out, just coming back to the middle. Then continue from side to side, bringing your awareness to the differences on each side of your body. Try to mainly keep a balance through both legs. So just move the upper part of the body. And we’ll complete one more round. And when you’re back to the centre, bring the arms to the side of the body. Just find a still, standing position and come back to your breathing. You can feel the stretch on each side of the body, and as we move progressively through our walk, we come to trikoṇāsana, the triangle posture. So then, stand with the legs much wider apart, bring the arms up to shoulder height, and look for a balance through the body. So, look over each arm and just see where each arm is. Then, from our pelvic tilting movements this morning, tuck your tailbone under and just feel your lower back lengthen. Feel the whole spine lengthen. Then take a deep in-breath, and as you breathe out, tilt over to the right side. Bring the left arm up above so it sits on the top of your shoulder, and then very gently begin to tilt your left hip up towards the sky. Purījī, Siddha Purījī, Siddha... And as you exhale, slide the right hand down along your thigh, allowing the left arm to just float over the top of your head. Gently roll the shoulders back, bringing the chest forward. Breathing in, coming back up to the centre. And then, breathing out again, sliding down. Deep in, breath coming up, and then one more round. Coming back to the middle, we’re lowering the arm and bringing both knees together. So we’ll sit back down onto the heels, take a deep breath, and then we’ll go to the other side, coming up onto the knees and stepping the left leg out to the side. Look for a good alignment where the leg comes straight out from the hip and the hips stay square. We’ll have the left hand on the left thigh, and then raise the right arm into the air. Try to lengthen through the side of the body, take a deep in-breath, and as you breathe out, slide the hand down along the thigh. Hands on the thighs, closing the eyes, and just noticing the effects from those side bends. Noticing how they got progressively stronger, the effect on your body, muscles, and joints, the effects on your breathing, on the energy of the body. On the prāṇa through the body, and then the effects on your concentration and awareness. We’ll go through a round of kārtu praṇām. And kartu praṇām is a whole sequence of postures, of forward and backward bending postures. Being a dynamic sequence, it stimulates the circulation of the blood and stimulates the breathing. And stretches all the muscles of the body. So, in a steady breathing rhythm, we’ll inhale and raise the arms above the head, bring the hands together, and look up. Just feel the stretch along the length of your spine. Breathing out, bringing the hands apart and rolling forward into Śaśāṅkāsana, hare posture, allowing the whole of your back to relax. Lift the hips off the ground. This is a spiritual lecture about Yoga in the Indian tradition. Siddha Purījī, Siddha Purījī,... We’ve been lifting the upper body, raising the arms above the head, hands together, look up, bringing the hands apart and back onto the thighs. Let’s take a deep inhalation and a long exhalation. And we’ll move through another round as we breathe in, raising the arms up, looking up, breathing out, rolling forward. Breathing in, coming up onto the knees, sliding into a caterpillar, and with the next in breath, coming up into an easy cobra. Pura, breathing out, back into mountain. Look between the hands, and as you breathe in, left foot forward and sitting up into the hips. With your next out breath, come forward, and then step into an easy forward bend, keeping your knees bent if you have any. Back or problems? Breathing in, raising the arms and upper body, hands together, look up. Hands apart, breathing out, rolling forward. You breathe in, step the left foot back, raising the arms above the head. With your next out-breath, bring the hands back beside the body. Step back into now.