Do you see students practicing backbends in similar potentially dangerous ways? Do you have strategies for working against this - proactively and/or retroactively? Backbending has incredible benefits- contributing to strength-building, stretching out various muscles, and offering energy boosts. We're dealing with the spine, however, so the potential for significant damage is very real.
Let's look at four common misalignments in back-bending, and how we can help students avoid them (both proactively and retroactively). This accomplished, your students can enjoy the benefits of these poses without the dangers. As part of balanced yoga practice, the results can turn around one's day, one's week, and even one's life, for the better. Om Shanti, dear instructor colleagues!
*Note: Ideally, we prevent our students practicing poses potentially dangerous ways, but the truth is that will happen, and it's best to have strategies for those cases as well - a "plan B", if you will.
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1) Going back before lengthening the spine upwards or outwards.
Seen in: backbends from standing poses, Camel Pose (Ustrasana), and Bow Pose.
Proactive cues: for standing pose backbends and Camel Pose, "Before letting your head and shoulders go backwards, lift up from your bottom ribs all the way up through your torso."; for Bow, enter the pose from Locust Pose (Salabhasana) and guide students to keep the same length and lift (emphasis on the former) of Locust throughout the practice of the pose.
Retroactive cue (for all the above cases): inform students that practicing this way might very well lead to back pain, so please come down, then guide them through properly lifting upwards or outwards (depending upon the pose) for a second attempt at the pose.
2) Losing the pose's anchor.
Seen in: hips shifting backwards in Camel Pose; releasing necessary abdominal engagement in Bow Pose; losing the grounding of the feet and stability of legs in standing backbends.
Proactive cues: In Camel Pose guide students to engage the front of the thighs to keep the hips from moving backwards; in Bow Pose instruct students to pull their bellies into their spines, up and away from their mats; in standing pose backbends remind students of Mountain Pose feet and the outer thighs wrapping outwards (away from each other) yet the inner thighs squeezing in towards each other.
-Retroactive cues: all of these cues can be offered, and their effects created, at any point, and thus solve the aforementioned potential dangerous action in these backbends.
3) Progressing more deeply than the body indicates is safe for it.
Seen in: reaching back to touch the heels in Camel Pose, despite pinching feeling in the low back; the same with raising the legs and/or touching the big toes in Locust pose or taking full Bow, or reaching for the ankles rather than the tops of the feet in the pose; going from Bridge (a perfectly effective backbend) into full Wheel and remaining there even with pinching in low back and a struggle to stay up in the pose (leading to potential strain or a dangerous fall) *mostly evident to instructors only in students' sudden shortening of breath, grimacing facial expression, muscles tensing up, misalignments, and other similar non-verbal cues.
Proactive cues: in Camel Pose cueing students to keep blocks by their sides and/or dig in their toes to raise their heels, which are closer reaches than all the way to the heels with the feet flat; guiding students to progress into those further steps in Locust, Bow, or full Wheel only if there's no pain or significant struggle, to think honestly about how they're feeling and if it's best for their bodies on this particular day
Retroactive cues: guiding prop use, digging toes under, lowering legs in Locust or Bow (or reaching for tops of feet rather than ankles in Bow), or coming back down to Bridge Pose from full Wheel with any notice of struggle (look for any shaking or misalignments, observe quality of breath and facial expression)
4) Letting associated joints move into unsafe alignment.
Seen in: knees going wider than hips in Bow and Bridge poses; front knee going past same-side ankle in standing backbends.
Proactive cues: have students place a block in between their inner-upper thighs in Bridge Pose, imagining they're doing so in Bow Pose (in a private lesson or very small class, you could place a block there for students, but it's very cumbersome for students to attempt doing so themselves); asking students to make sure their front knee doesn't go past their ankles in standing backbends.
Retroactive cues: squeeze inner thighs towards each other to draw the knees to hips-distance apart in Bridge and Bow; have students lessen their deep bend into the front knee in standing backbends (options to help with is to lengthen stance or take the grounded version of the pose, dropping back knee and untucking the toes).
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