Restorative Yoga Therapy. Leeann Carey

restorative side of yoga understands what lies beneath what’s so obvious in a practice — that timing is valued over timeliness and process is valued over progress. These are just some of the rich lessons I have learned from my teachers.

      You, too, can be this kind of teacher. The more you educate yourself on how to work individually with your students, the more yoga they will experience and the less ego they will fuel. Observing your students without yoga prop support paints a picture of where they can build and let go. Using yoga props to guide your students is a path to work within their limitations and safely maximize the benefits of a pose. This style of teaching clears the way for reconciling differences — yoga’s ultimate path to freedom.

      UNIQUE NEEDS

      Weekend Warriors and Professional Athletes

      More and more sport enthusiasts and professional athletes are integrating yoga into their fitness routine. Weekend warriors and professional athletes require considerable active recovery to balance the effects of intense workouts. Unfortunately, they don’t always welcome a quieter practice. What is required after an intense workout is a slowing down from sweating and endorphin chasing, as well as a kind of mind that seeks stillness from doing nothing except feeling and breathing. Achieving this stillness is difficult for most of us but promising for all.

      The BEING poses are particularly helpful to stretch, lengthen, and open areas that are typically overworked. A yoga practice that includes BEING poses promotes flexibility, an important element of injury prevention. Flexibility helps you to tap into your strength. Strength and flexibility go hand in hand. One without the other is like a table missing a leg — simply out of balance. In addition, a pranayama practice is an extremely helpful tool that fosters a stable, calm, and present state of mind and can translate into improving your athletic performance and sharpening your ability to focus.

      Yoga Practitioners with Injuries

      An intelligent yoga practice can address a host of physical, emotional, and spiritual concerns. Ancient yoga philosophy states that each of us is made of five koshas (sheaths): physicality, energy (breath or life force), mind (intellect), perception (intuition, wisdom), and spirit (innate joy, peace, and harmony). My yoga practice has proved to me that these layers are connected much as the anklebone is connected to the hip bone. Although the two bones may not be directly connected, if one is affected the other may likely be as well. Since yoga therapists are not doctors, treating any chronic condition with certainty can be risky; however, yogic principles and therapies that have proved successful can be applied wisely using a basic tried-and-true balanced approach, including most or all of the following:

      • Relaxation

      • Traction (if there is compression)

      • Mobilization

      • Stabilization and strengthening

      For decades I have used this simple approach with yoga students to help them manage and recover from injuries. It doesn’t mean that students with severe issues can avoid necessary surgery. However, I have prescribed many combinations of these yoga therapies using this approach, which can include both DOING and BEING poses or one or the other, all practiced with yoga prop support, to prepare students for presurgery and to speed up the recovery time postsurgery. Again, I can’t stress enough how important it is to link all “layers” for holistic healing and productive injury management.

      Massage Therapists

      If you are a massage therapist, you may already be stretching your clients. In my opinion, integrating massage with a few targeted BEING poses that address your clients’ habitual holding patterns is a perfect recipe for deep letting-go. Being supported in a passive yoga pose by both gravity and strategically placed yoga props is a unique experience. It always encourages a deep level of relaxation that may otherwise be difficult to access through assisted stretching. Here, there is nothing to do and nowhere to go. Your clients can be suspended in the experience of a yoga prop–supported stretch while breathing, feeling, sensing, and letting go. Sounds good, right?

CHAPTER 2

       MEET YOUR YOGA PROPS

       That which I seek finds me, embraces me, and knows me. It lives inside me.

      Each of the yoga props listed in this chapter (except for the eye pillow) can be used in practice in all classifications of yoga poses — standing, seated, back bending, twisting, inverting, and forward bending — whether they are DOING or BEING poses. I have my personal prop preferences in style, size, material, and manufacturer. If you are a budget-minded yogi, however, the expense of yoga props shouldn’t deter you from creating an ample prop inventory. When I first started teaching, I used books for blocks, towels for blankets, couch cushions for bolsters, dining room chairs for support, fabric remnants sewed together for belts (trust me, I am not a seamstress!), and a kitchen sink and door jams for leverage (yes, even a kitchen sink!). All is possible. All the time. Always. Think outside the box.

      Yoga Mat

      Yoga mat manufacturers produce mats in various thicknesses. For ample support, whether the mat requires folding or rolling, it should measure no more than 3/16 inch deep, and I prefer a nonskid mat for sufficient stickiness. This guarantees the holding in place of other yoga props that may be used in combination with the mat. Check out local yoga studios that may be replacing old mats. You might be able to purchase used mats for a buck or two. Just clean the you-know-what out of them, and use them for props. Consider reaching out to your yoga buddies to see if they have an extra mat they no longer use because they don’t like it. The plethora of mats I’ve collected over the years includes expensive mats people have purchased but didn’t like for one reason or another. If I can’t use the entire mat as a prop, I cut it up into various-sized square sheets and use them as pads for bony body parts and lifts for feet. Get creative!

      HOW TO USE: Yoga mats can cushion bony body parts; hold blocks, blankets, bolsters, and chairs in place; or be rolled up into tubes as a substitute for blankets or bolsters. The best yoga mats for use as props are quite sticky, can easily roll, and are not too thick. The wonderful thick mats that are now on the market are great for lying and practicing, but they are often far too thick to use as props.

      Blocks

      I prefer cork blocks because of their unique combination of stability, weight, and ability to slide against the floor when necessary. Some practitioners prefer foam blocks, which are lightweight and easy to carry and provide more cushioning. I like foam blocks for cushioning, but they are not stable. Therefore, I don’t recommend them for supporting standing poses or some back bends. Yoga blocks come in several sizes. I like the standard size, which is 4 x 6 x 9 inches. Having a few different sizes, however, is convenient. Sometimes a student needs a 4 x 6 x 9-inch block and another block half that thick. Blocks can be placed in three different ways, resulting in three possible heights: they can be laid flat (lowest height), placed on edge (middle height), or stood on end (tallest height). If you don’t have a block, consider using a book, preferably one you’ve already read so you don’t get distracted.

      HOW TO USE: Blocks can be used to bring the floor to you to assist with flexibility or to wake up dull areas of your body. They also help to “reduce the reach,” access core stability, and provide unique leverage in far-reaching forward bends. Blocks are very versatile, and you will love them.

      Bolster

      Bolsters come in all sizes and shapes. Finding the right-sized bolster for you is important. If you are petite like me, a bolster that is half your body size doesn’t always work. Too much support isn’t helpful, and not enough doesn’t serve the purpose.