Bodywork support for yoga practice

The case for maintenance

You can’t fix a broken device with maintenance. Intervention is required. It is also way more difficult to heal a poorly maintained system; a regularly maintained system responds much better to treatment.

Yoga is often not enough

Yoga sure helps to maintain the bodymind system (physical, mental and emotional complex), but we seldom do enough of the quanity and quality yoga practice required to be completely self-sufficient. And we simply have so many blind spots or weak areas where problems can creep up on us.

We need help

For the same reason that we need expert coaches, council from friends, specialist in any field we wish to achieve a high level of proficiency. In the long run a therapy treatment as an additional aspect of a yoga program to address a specific situation (for example chronic condition, illness or injury) is an excellent choice. The pursuit of excellence inevitably requires external input, objectivity, perspective, and so on. Survival – not going down, or getting up after going down, usually demands for us to get help.

An energy based system requires energy

Since our bodymind is an energy system – yoga refers simplistically to the universe/consciousness as Prana, and the body mind as prana. I trust, from a yoga perspective, that energy based support for the bodymind is top choice. For me there is no doubt whatsoever that to remove energetic blockages – be it caused by poor lifestyle, or emotional trauma, large or small, physical trauma, be it major injuries or accidents, or subtle, insidious situations such as ongoing, hidden low level stress or anxiety – is essential to a healthy system. The expert or therapist we seek does not fix us but rather assists our bodymind to heal itself.

What does not work

No one can fix you without your effort of self-maintnance. And you can’t fix everything yourself. Receiving bodywork without an own bodywork practice is likely to fail, perhaps even more so than trying get along with a self-help program without external input/support. Talking, cognitive therapy without bodywork makes even less sense to me. The mind and emotions express through the body, addressing the body holistically is of primary importance.

Bodywork that does work

For me the golden rule is to choose bodywork that re-instates our natural healing capacity, by helping energy to flow into the body mind, and circulate within it.
There are various bodywork modalities that “heals holistically, by making whole, balancing and connecting the broken bits and pieces with the greater, natural life force”, and many, many gifted therapists that can help bring us back from the brink or the blink. My list below includes only a few practioners that has helped me in once piece the last five years since moving to Muizenberg.

Sandra Smit
Cranio Sacral
084700690
(Why yoga and cranio goes together so well) at the 24 Beach Road Studio)

Robyn Lewis
Shaitsu/reflexology
0832605567/021-7881101

Dale Simpson
Body Stress Release
0832617498

Terry Greig
Body Talk
0812707244

Natasha Wrightford
Neurosoma Myotherapist
0823033150

It’s often not only the modality that matters, also the practioner. Consider recommendations from like minded friends or colleagues, and consider kinesiology, reflexology, deep tissue massage, holistic chiropractic, Rolfing. Bear in mind that you are a unique individual, and the main thing remains that the practitioner must help your body, on an energetic level, with a physical intervention that re-instates, or help maintain the energy flow into, and within it.

Wishing you happy maintenance and ongoing recoveries.

Johann,
Yoga in Muizenberg, Cape Town
18 June 2016

Yoga life lesson

I surprised students today and yesterday by greeting them on crutches. Basically I messed up an ancient knee injury by risking too deep a stretch, then made a very fast recovery according to the advice of this blog, messed it up again in an instance of poor judgement, and am again experiencing rapid recovery by following my own advice. So we learn. This is what I learn from yoga.

Fluidity

There is a tendancy to slack off, give up or barge through when there are obstacles to our path. Effortless effort is the way of flowing around obstacles, rather than annihilating opposition water finds its way around, or through, the hardest of substances. Fluidity is the quality of adaptive power that provides a dynamic system, such a a human being, its vitality. Its not a case of  “when the going gets tough the tough get’s going”, rather when there is apperently nowhere to go, be fluid. Flexible. Inventive. Intuitive. Pragmatic. Hold back, wait, practice patience. Perhaps a transformation is required – ultimately the lesson is about the intelligent capacity of water.