TV Channel

Welcome, everyone. Our topic once again is back pain and yoga in daily life for the health of your spine. First, I would like to illustrate a common problem. What happens to the back if you do not stabilize it? Please stand up. The duty of the back, when you bend forward, is to remain stabilized so the movement originates from your hips. Often, people do this incorrectly when picking up an object from the floor. They bend the spine. Let's see the correct way: step forward, stabilize your back, and now there is little to no weight on your lumbar spine. The movement comes from the hips. We practice this movement in yoga for daily life. You perform it more than a hundred times a day, starting in the morning while brushing your teeth and washing, using postures like Śaśāṅkāsana and its variations. Please come into Vajrāsana. We begin with a straight, long spine. Visualize a fine thread pulling your neck upward, lengthening it. A second fine thread pulls your sacrum gently downward. To pull the sacrum down, you engage the muscles at the base of your pelvis and your abdomen. As you bend forward, keep your neck long, meaning your chin stays close to your throat. Use your arms to support your back muscles as you learn this important movement. Keep the spine long. The next step, as we do in Yoga in Daily Life, is Yoga Mudrā. Inhale while holding your forearms. Your spine is straight and supported by your hands. Your shoulder blades move slightly together, and your chest is extended. Inhale into your stomach and chest. While exhaling, slowly move forward, step by step, keeping the spine straight. This is crucial and requires practice: the ability to keep the back straight while bending forward in various postures. When you reach a horizontal position, you can relax, allowing your back to round and your head to rest on the floor. You can support this extension and relaxation by breathing consciously, directing your breath toward your back. Inhale and feel your back widen; exhale and feel the relaxation. The next, more challenging step is Śaśāṅkāsana. This posture is difficult for people with spinal instability. In Śaśāṅkāsana, inhale and lift your arms upward. Breathe normally in this position. When you bring your arms in line with your back, avoid creating a hyperextension. Remember this principle whenever you lift your arms, whether standing or sitting. When stretching the arms up, do not use excessive force. Protect your lumbar curve (lordosis) by activating your stomach muscles, and let your arms align with your shoulders. So, inhale, raise the arms, activate the stomach muscles to protect the lumbar spine from hyperlordosis. While exhaling, slowly come forward. This forward movement is challenging for the lumbar area and hips because the arms are in front. Practicing Śaśāṅkāsana trains you for the movement of bending forward while holding an object, which adds more weight. Now, how do you return from a forward bend, as when lifting something? We also practiced this yesterday. Start with the easier variation, Yoga Mudrā. Inhale and hold your forearms. To come back, the first movement is to lift your head, keeping the neck long so the chin stays close to the throat. Visualize that fine thread gently lengthening your neck. Then, engage your hip muscles to rise. This trains you to come up correctly. Inhale, lift the head, keep the lumbar spine long, lift the chest, and slowly come up. With Śaśāṅkāsana, it is more difficult. Again, inhale, raise the arms, activate the stomach muscles to lengthen the lumbar spine. Exhaling, move slowly forward, keeping the spine very long. Then relax and breathe consciously into your back for a few breaths. Inhale to come up again with a straight back. Exhale and lower. Do this once more in your own breathing rhythm. Constantly feel the stretch and extension of your spine. Then inhale, lift your head and arms, stretch upward from the hips, and exhale deeply. The next movement from daily life involves moving the upper body and spine backward with stabilization to avoid harming the lumbar area. We practice this through an āsana called the Boat (Naukāsana), starting with a variation suitable for those with instability or minor back issues. The topic is how to lean the upper body backward while keeping the spine straight and well-stabilized. You can feel the difference: if you lean back without stabilization, you don't engage your stomach muscles, using the weight of your head and arms instead. If you stabilize, you must activate your neck and stomach muscles. Simply doing this movement is excellent training for the abdominal muscles. In yoga and daily life, we train this through several āsanas, such as the Boat. First, I will show the classical version from Yoga in Daily Life, then an easier variation. Sit with a straight spine. Extend your arms forward and interlock your fingers, keeping them straight. This is the movement: you lean back and lift both legs. Slowly come back. This trains the front muscles. However, you cannot do this if you have back pain, as too much weight hangs on the lumbar spine. So we do it differently. Bend your legs. First, try to make your back as straight as possible. We begin with the support of our arms and hands. While inhaling, straighten your back by pulling it forward with your arms. While exhaling, bend again. Continue this for some time: inhale to lengthen, exhale to bend. Now, inhale and lengthen your back again. Stay in this position. This is the key point: you can either remove both hands and hold the position, or remove one hand at a time. Then come back. Again, inhale, straighten, and stay. Now, remove your hands and hold. This is a perfect, supported training for your back. If you can do this well, we progress to the movement of the Boat. Again, make your back straight and shift your weight backward until your feet lift from the floor. Stay straight. If possible on this surface, bend left and right. This movement requires all the muscles that stabilize your back—front, back, and rotational—as well as the neck and throat. Then relax. If you can do this, we call it the small boat. Then you can try the bigger boat. Now, extend your arms forward and interlock your fingers. The back is straight. We straighten the spine. Lean backward, and again, bend left and right. More weight is now on the lumbar spine, requiring greater stabilization. If you do this well, you can gradually straighten your legs more and more. Let's do it once more with almost straight legs, shoulders down, knees still slightly bent. It is not easy. If you can do it correctly, then you can attempt the full pose with legs fully stretched. Now you have learned how to stabilize your back by sitting straight, by leaning back, and by stabilizing your spine even with the full weight of your legs upon it. You have also learned to move side to side. Afterwards, lie on your back and relax your stomach muscles while practicing the full yogic breath. Place one hand on your stomach, the other on your chest. Feel the full yogic breath like a wave: while inhaling, the wave moves from the pelvis toward the chest; while exhaling, it moves from the chest back toward the pelvis. This is the healthiest way to breathe, promoting good metabolism and all its benefits. Now, place your arms back. You can support this breathing and its effects. While inhaling, move your arms upward along the ground above your head. Stretch your whole body, and while exhaling, bring your arms back. Do this twice. While stretching, remember to stabilize your lumbar spine. These were two examples to train and improve spinal stability. Spinal instability is a very frequent problem for many people. Therefore, it is important to practice āsanas that improve both flexibility and stability. We must practice in a way that deepens flexibility while simultaneously strengthening the muscle systems that provide stabilization. Now, move your arms high above your shoulders and come onto your knees with a straight back. Exhaling, place your hands under your shoulders and arch your spine so it becomes very round. Continue the movement: inhale as you move your whole spine downward, including the thoracic spine; exhale as you make your spine very rounded again, looking toward your navel. Do this twice more, feeling your whole spine. After moving in both directions twice, come up on an exhalation. With an inhalation, come up onto your knees; with an exhalation, return to a straight back in Vajrāsana. We will do this once more, but I will demonstrate first to avoid a lengthy translation. We can do it with a variation of breath awareness. Instead of focusing your awareness on the breath in the front of your body (stomach and chest), direct it to your back. We will pay attention and concentrate the breath on the front side but lead it to the back area. Now I will show you. Puri Jī, Siddha Puri Jī... In this variant, we have turned our breath so that we can intensively activate the spinal zone. That means with our breath, we bow down and feel the stretching of the entire spine, and with our breath, we bend over. Now you can do it with us. Inhale, create the background. Exhale. Now come in the other direction. Once more, inhale. Come up again onto your knees, and while exhaling, come back. Place your hands on your thighs and breathe deeply in and out. Swāmījī is coming now. I am happy to give him the floor. The other variation is for the chest, for the thoracic spine. Inhale, move the arms forward with a straight back. While exhaling, place the hands on the floor, then lower your forearms to the floor. You can coordinate the breath as you like. Now exhale, arch your back, and look toward your navel. While inhaling, extend your spine, paying special attention to the chest area. Between your shoulder blades, look upward. Again, exhaling, round your back. Now, inhaling, come up onto your knees again. Exhaling, come into Vajrāsana and place your hands on your thighs. I have shown some āsanas for the stability and flexibility of the spine, Swāmījī, and so I have completed my part. Thank you very much. We thank you, our Hemlata, Ms. Bucher. In German, it's Bucher, not Butcher, okay? Thank you very much. I am sure many friends watching the webcast received beautiful advice and exercises for back problems. Tomorrow's session will be about knee problems, at the same time. It depends on the weather; if it's good, we will be again in this Śiva garden or the Rāma garden. If you have questions concerning back, neck, or shoulder problems, please feel free to write to our website. We will be happy to answer. With this, we have finished today's webcast. We have an interval now for one and a half hours. Then, at eight o'clock our Czech time—European time—there will be another webcast with satsaṅg. So, in one and a half hours, at eight o'clock. All the best, Hari Om. I wish all of you here a good appetite. Today is Guruvar, the day of Gurudev, and you must definitely be hungry, having fasted all day. Therefore, I will not take more of your time and will let you go seven minutes earlier. Go and enjoy your meal. See you in one and a half hours. Dīp nam bhagvārne kī, Dev Purīśamā Devakī, Dharm Sambhār Satguru Swāmī Madhvaranjī Bhagvārne kī.