Click “Ashtanga Yoga road” above to subscribe! Pain is an unfortunate occurrence, but pain is a part of life and is likely to be the presentation of some karma in our practice.
If pain is not experienced in the body, it will mostly be experienced in the mind and emotion; If you have never experienced any pain in yoga practice, there is no guarantee that you will not experience any pain in the future.
In the inheritance of Ashtanga Yoga, there are many statements about how to deal with pain in practice; But I’m safe to say that every ashtanga yoga practitioner needs a forerunner as a teacher.
One of the reasons is that such a teacher must have some experience in this field and can guide and help students through pain in a healthy way.
This article does not encourage blind practice and practice without fear of pain; I also hope that every practitioner can practice in a reasonable way, get proper guidance…
And practice safely.
The theme of this article is about what kind of attitude and how to face if an practitioner experiences pain.
I think if the pain comes, you must remember that it is a messenger who brings an important message about your life.
What should you do with this messenger and message at this time? You can’t escape, you can’t ignore You have to listen, you have to get this message.
So I encourage you to keep your practice; At the physical level, keeping practicing can make prana energy and blood flow well, and can make breathing flow better to the injured space, so that you can recover faster than simply resting.
However, I don’t encourage you to practice hard and painful, and I don’t encourage you to continue to hurt your body; Don’t be superman.
What I encourage is to practice step down intelligently.
In fact, the practice of reducing order is not always a bad thing; Whether there is pain or not, phased step-down practice is actually excellent; Mr.
David Garrigues calls this “deep digging” a sequence, that is, you go back in your sequence or use a simpler incomplete version of posture in order to experience the subtlety of more posture, which can help you make faster progress in the later sequence in the future.
When pain occurs, it is a good time to go back and re experience the position you think you have mastered and done well.
Especially when you have advanced to the more difficult postures in the back, with more awareness that has been developed, you will make many new discoveries in these relatively simple postures in the front.
So keep your practice and use painless variants when you need them.
If you stop and don’t practice, your pain will recover more slowly; Moreover, sometimes you have some “karma” that needs to be cleared, and the pain may be just a “good fate”.
If you miss it – it will appear again until you can clear this karma.
You hide from the first day of junior high school and the fifteenth day of junior high school, but this portable karma may follow you to the afterlife.
For an ashtanga yoga practitioner, this practice is long-term or even lifelong.
As I said in the interview with two predecessors a few days ago (click here to review), in such a long practice journey, a dedicated practitioner will inevitably encounter obstacles on the way of practice; This obstacle is likely to be the pain in your body, and it is at this time that you can often get an insight into life; If you don’t escape, but step back and look bravely at the pain and the occurrence of the pain, you are likely to get this insight.
In particular, when astonga practice has reached a more in-depth stage, when there is little initial joy left, and at this time, the practitioner has to face his own uncomfortable space on the body or the deep dark place on the emotional and psychological level, the painful experience will rise in the body and psychology, and human nature is to escape…
Escape the painful experience, but it is at such a moment, It is the moment when the practitioner is most likely to change; It is also at such a moment that it is so important to have a teacher from the past around to guide and help.
In such a moment, escape is not the answer.
Escaping pain and discomfort can only exacerbate the cycle of karma.
At such times, you have a god given opportunity to make some changes, such as changing an unhealthy habit of using your body or the way you exercise, The change of life attitude, even some spiritual consciousness So when a practitioner experiences physical, emotional and spiritual pain, slow down and take a deep breath…
Remind yourself that this is an opportunity and don’t waste this opportunity to make life changes.
When there is pain, in addition to the reduced posture practice, you can also pay more attention to the following points in the practice: the idea of adjusting the practice, the tacit idea of astonga yoga practice is to practice correctly according to the Vinyasa count in a fixed sequence, but it is very necessary for the body without pain; If you have physical pain, you don’t have to follow the sequence mechanically, but find a practice method suitable for physical therapy and rehabilitation.
Adjust the intention of the exercise.
The intention of the exercise during the pain period should be to avoid further aggravating the physical injury and create an environment for the body to heal the pain quickly.
This requires very quiet listening to the subtle feelings of the body, such as what range of motion will not stimulate the body and aggravate the body’s inflammatory response.
This requires a lot of practice experience or the guidance of experienced teachers.
When practicing patiently, you can only relax and breathe normally and smoothly to the position of the injured part; When entering and exiting posture, increase the number of breaths if necessary.
Encourage the use of aids such as yoga bricks, pillows and cushions to help create more space near the injured parts, so that the posture can be more relaxed and breathing will be better.
Don’t worry, believe that the body has the ability to heal itself.
Concentration is interesting.
I personally feel that when there is pain, some aspects of yoga practice can be practiced better.
The most prominent thing is that the practice of concentration can be strengthened.
At every moment, you can learn to accept, mindfully respond to your physical feelings and avoid being too deep in position.
You can explore the boundaries of discomfort and pain.
Realize that with every breath, the body has a natural tendency to tighten in order to protect the injured parts.
Only when you are very alert can you perceive the natural inertia of the body and relax consciously.
No matter what your pain is, the basic elements of yoga posture Asana can be called in practice: concentration, breathing and movement with breathing, these asana elements are not necessarily discounted due to pain.
Meditation and introspection I also encourage you to sit still, live in harmony with your physical pain, accept it, feel it, breathe it, and put it down in your breath.
When you allow it to appear in your consciousness, you can do letitgo, put it down, exhale letitgo Sit quietly, don’t struggle and resist, you will notice you…
This feeling is not your pain, it’s just a temporary feeling that doesn’t participate in defining who you are.
If you can feel this quietly, your consciousness will soar.
Your pain will be treated gently, forgiveness will appear, and self acceptance will come Pain will degenerate into love; At this moment, love…
Replaces fear and becomes your driving force..
