Yoga Anatomy and Yoga Safety

Posted by Alicia King Dec 4, 2007

I know, with the Holidays fast approaching it’s hard to concentrate at all, especially when we’re still giggling about Yoga Blunders!

It is never the wrong time to get serious about safety.

In my article Five Safety Tips for Yoga Class, I note that we should all pay attention to the guidance from our own bodies.

In order to truly understand what our bodies may be telling us, it can be useful to delve more deeply into the muscles and bones that we are using for various poses and functions. In my review of the book “Yoga Anatomy” by Leslie Kaminoff, we explore what it means to look at a pose from a new angle: literally upside-down and inside out. I have also begun exploring certain key areas of the human anatomy, and how these areas of the body relate to our yoga practice.

Several Suite 101 writers have discussed the relationship between yoga and the breath because it is the most important part of a mind-body practice like Yoga or Pilates. For further exploration, we also have an overview of the involuntary and voluntary muscle that controls breathing: the diaphragm, the concepts of Yin Yoga and breathing into pain, and the pros and cons of Bikram Yoga.

The most important skeletal structure for every yogi is the spine, so there are several new articles about Spine Safety, and detailed articles about the three portions of the spine: Cervical, Thoracic and Lumbar. Each includes notes about which Yoga poses students should be careful when practicing.

Outside of the Yoga / Pilates topic, I’ve also introduced some Common Yoga Injuries to the folks in health & sports medicine.