Adaptive Yoga Teacher Training Reflections

Affirmed… that is the word I used to sum up my experience with Matthew Sanford’s Adaptive Yoga Teacher Training with Mind Body Solutions in Minnesota. Matthew Sanford, author of Waking and a paraplegic himself was every bit as genuine as his memoir suggested. The program he has created sprouting out of his own life experience with disability, our Western medical system, and yoga along with his practical application is exactly what the disability community is in need of and the able bodied community can learn so much from in ways more than any physical asana practice can accomplish. Together with Andy and Julie a finely crafted training has emerged based on a practical experience of “making s@#* up” (within the principles of alignment of course). Thank you…

What can those living in the midst to disability teach the rest of us as we power through asana (physical poses) practice? I believe a sense of total connectedness by utilizing the flow of prana (breath). “Prana follows consciousness,” Matthew continued to remind us. What does that mean? To me the able bodied practitioner, it is cultivating the ability to be fully present in my body and all the sensations of body and mind with complete acceptance and full awareness. Matthew has managed to give a language to what happens if we are fully present and paying attention in our yoga practice, able bodied or not, “Prana follows consciousness.”

Take any asana, Tadasana for example, as we are rooted in Tadasana a new sense of grounding and being connected to our base is realized. A connection I had previously felt sometimes but often ignored. To be connected with completed awareness allowed me to fully feel the inner sensations of pushing down to lift up. As my awareness to my base became a focal point for my mind, the realization of prana flowing up through my legs through my spine and straight up toward the heavens was experienced. It was like a light shining bright traveling both up and down. Push down to lift up. The spine is an amazing prana line. Through the awareness of the prana traveling along the vertical line of the spine, a sensation of prana spreading throughout the container we call the human body is realized.

How to create this prana filled container for those whose bodies have experienced breaks in the line or unnatural twists and turns because of trauma, genetic condition, illness, or lack of body awareness, that was the focus of this teacher training and in that purpose I was not disappointed. The principles of yoga are universal regardless of the container people show up with. I will be forever grateful to Matthew, Andy, Julie, Mind Body Solutions and more importantly those students who showed up to the practice to allow us to observe, touch, move, and even gawk at them in their practice. I now understand in new ways the concept of being fully embodied.

Focus on... Perspective

Perspective, “The means of attaining cessation is the unceasing vision of discernment” – Yoga Sutra 2:26 This yoga teaching implies several things. First whatever we need to see is right in front of us. In a yoga posture especially a difficult one, it can be impossible to think of anything else but the particular asana (pose) we are in, what is happening right now. We gain a perspective on how we hold our arms, legs, feet, every aspect of our physical being if we are paying attention. Second, the power of discrimination helps us to better understand the nature of reality. In other words we can maintain perspective about what is happening, right here, right now: Where am I holding on? Where can I let go in order to bring comfort? Is my heart open, my jaw loose, my thigh steady?
Yoga practice will continue to challenge us, just as the events of day to day life can be challenging. When we learn to pay attention to the challenges, the workings of the physical body and the thoughts that accompany the mind, we learn how to be fully grounded in reality, what is happening in the present. Often a yoga teacher will guide us to open our hearts. Off the mat this can translate to transformation. When we commit to living with an open heart in all the day to day details of our lives we are indeed transformed. No longer is life happening to us, it is just happening. We become deeply invested in ourselves, our relationships, and our community because we are guided by the clarity of discernment. We are then fully able to meet whatever challenge with the love and forgiveness that accompany a heart opening. The path, the outcome is already determined; our job then becomes full participation in movement toward the inevitable outcome. So much of what we call wisdom is really just clarity of perspective. In contrast so much of what we call suffering is linked to effort and to reactions that are tied to iron-clad perspective. How easy this is to see when we hold on, the lips press together, the jaw tightens, the back stiffens… Only through cessation, release of the lips, jaw or back are we able to find steadiness and comfort.