Teaching Yoga Classes that Dissolve Anger: Relaxation Breath

By Virginia Iversen, M.Ed

Although it is snowing today, the spring season is a few months away and with the advent of a new season; many Yoga practitioners and teachers will be starting new projects, courses and various training programs. As the pace of life begins to shift from season to season, many of us can easily become overwhelmed with the increased number of items on our to-do list. As anxiety levels begin to escalate with the increased pace of life and number of daily obligations, irritation and even angry feelings may begin to arise.

When this happens, many people find that they are holding quite a bit of stress and tension in their bodies, including breathing in a shallow manner. By offering your Yoga students a balanced and comprehensive practice of postures, breathing exercises and relaxation techniques, you will help them to maintain an inner state of equilibrium. The more physically challenging and vigorous forms of Yoga is wonderful for relieving stress and tension from the body and increasing the flow of vital life force energy throughout the entire body-mind complex.

Some of the more vigorous forms of asanas that help to wring deeply held muscular tension out of the body are the Ashtanga and Power Yoga systems. These systems are based on linking the postures together by continually flowing through a series of Sun Salutations.

This long, dance-like flow, which usually that lasts up to an hour or longer, leaves little room in the body or mind for holding onto physical tension or focusing on distressing thoughts in the mind. Flowing, vinyasa-based Yoga practices are especially powerful when they are performed in conjunction with pranayama exercises.

During the physically active portion of a power or vinyasa Yoga class, the postures are usually performed in tandem with Ujjayi Pranayama. This ocean-sounding breath is both energizing and relaxing. It also effectively stokes the inner fire that nourishes our vital life force energy. At the end of a Yoga class, a very effective breathing exercise for promoting deep rest is the Relaxation Breath.  Essentially, the Relaxation Breath shifts the body from being propelled by the sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic nervous system.

The sympathetic nervous system is also known as the fight or flight nervous system. Yoga practitioners as high levels of adrenalin and intense activity often experience this. For instance, imagine that you have just enjoyed a double espresso at your favorite coffee shop. As you start to feel the caffeine elevate your mood and your energy level, you probably feel like you could take on the world! This is the more positive side of the sympathetic nervous system. However, this heightened level of energy can also quickly swing into impatience, irritation and anger, which is the less attractive aspect of the “double-edge sword” of the sympathetic nervous system.

In order to balance the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems during the course of your classes, it is important to guide your students through a comprehensive practice of both active and relaxing Yoga postures, as well a few well-placed breathing exercises. The Relaxation Breath is a very simple breathing exercise that is optimally practiced during the final portion of a Yoga class.

Practicing this calming pranayama technique is a wonderful way to lead your students into a deeply restorative Shavasana. When you are ready to teach Relaxation Breath, ask your students to sit in a comfortable seated position or to lie down in Shavasana.

You may wish to offer your students Yoga bolsters to place underneath their knees if they are resting in Corpse Pose. This additional support will help to relieve any accumulated tension in the lower back. When your students are ready, have them breath in for a count of four and exhale for a count of eight. Continue the practice of Relaxation Breath for several minutes in a continuous fashion. By elongating the exhalation, the body naturally shifts from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic nervous system, which will allow anxiety, impatience and anger to naturally dissolve from the body and mind.

© Copyright – Virginia Iversen / Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

Related Resources:

Cooling Down Your Classroom (Using yoga, relaxation and breathing strategies to help students learn to keep their cool)

The Sivananda Companion to Yoga: A Complete Guide to the Physical Postures, Breathing Exercises, Diet, Relaxation, and Meditation Techniques of Yoga

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Working with Yoga Students Who Have Hip Replacements

By Bhavan Kumar 

Any posture has some degree of risk. The picture of Virasana brings to mind the contraindications regarding knees and pre-existing knee conditions. What does this have to do with hip replacements? Just getting to the floor after a hip replacement presents some degree of risk and physicians  may differ regarding postures they approve.

During the times when you have your students, as a teacher, it's your job to care for them in a way that supports their physical health. Many students attend yoga for benefits far beyond the physical. However, the physical benefits can't be denied. If you have a student who has dealt with a hip replacement surgery, it's important to handle them with care. Remember the following points when a student walks into your studio with a hip replacement. 

Length of Time 

When a yoga student comes in and tells you that they've had a hip replacement, one of the first questions, you need to find out how long ago the hip replacement surgery was. The difference in length of time is major. If they had hip replacement surgery two months prior, they'll have a different experience than they would if the surgery happened six months prior. Typically, it's not the greatest idea to begin a yoga practice within six months of surgery. It also depends on the type of hip replacement surgery they had. Once you gain clarity on how long it's bee since they had the surgery, you'll be able to get a better assessment of how to move forward. 

Doctor's Orders

When a student has walked into your studio and tells you they've had a hip replacement surgery, it's also important to find out if they've received their doctor's permission. You have to think about it from a business perspective as well. You don't want to be held liable for an injury you could've helped to prevent. If you're not familiar with the details of hip replacement surgeries, it's also a good idea to establish a certain precedent. 

If a student wants to practice and they've had surgery, they need to bring a doctor's note that gives them clearance to go ahead and participate in the class. If they don't have clearance, they can't join in. When it comes to insurance and liabilities, you don't want to get yourself in trouble. It's wise to lean more on the safe side and see a note from a doctor's office. Even when you get the doctor's note, it's still important to be careful throughout the practice. 

Pose Modifications 

One of the best ways to be careful involves pose modifications. Some of the poses a student might've loved doing are impossible shortly after a hip surgery. This isn't to say that those poses will remain impossible. It's just important to remember that it'll take some time and practice to find a new normal within the body. A simple pose like Child's Pose is very comforting for most. However, someone with a hip replacement can dislocate their hip with this move. For child's pose, a student sits on their knees and feet. They lean their body forward toward the floor. 

That process of moving the upper body to the floor can be catastrophic. In this case, the proper modification involves sitting upright and staying there. Eagle Pose is another popular pose in a yoga practice. With this pose, a student stands up and wraps one leg around the other while the knees are slightly bent. After a hip replacement surgery, this move can be quite challenging and painful to execute. Instead, provide a modification where the student doesn't rotate their leg around at the usual angle. They can still do the move, but not at the full rotation. 

Educational Research

Since you're a yoga teacher, it's very important to educate yourself on the types of injuries your students can potentially deal with. When you're knowledgeable, you can confidently help your students experience the restoration they desire as they ease back into their beloved yoga practice. Read books, attend seminars and keep a few medical professionals on speed dial for those times when you have questions. The more you know, the more powerful you'll be in the studio.

© Copyright – Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

Please feel free to share our posts with your friends, colleagues, and favorite social media networks. 

Related Resources:

YOGA Anatomy Second Edition 

by Leslie Kaminoff and Amy Matthews

The YOGA MIND: 

52 Essential Principles of Yoga Philosophy to Deepen your Practice 

by Rina Jakubowicz.

RESTORATIVE YOGA FOR LIFE: 

A Relaxing Way to De-stress, Re-energize, and Find Balance

by: Gail Boorstein Grossman.

YOGA: THE PATH TO HOLISTIC HEALTH

by B.K.S. Iyengar

TEACHING YOGA: Essential Foundations and Techniques

By Mark Stephens

Holding Space Through Yoga During Tense Times

By Kathryn Boland 

Do you hear students talking about the news? Do they seem tense, tenser than usual? Does it seem like they’re coming to yoga to find tension release from all the craziness? No matter what side of the political divide people fall, we all feel - and likely internalize - the enormous amount of partisanship and tribal fighting currently happening in America. 

There are also existential threats that (at least should) transcend partisanship - such as the interference of autocratic Russia in democratic politics and the nuclear threat of North Korea. The news also seems unrelenting - new revelations, new rulings, new leaks, new “tweets”, new controversies coming out by the hour. The advent of widespread social media use, and subsequent sharing of news over social media, is inarguably a lot for the human system to handle - arguably more than we were designed to take in. 

Add on increasing responsibilities at work, with family and friends, with other miscellaneous obligations, and it can certainly be - at the very least - far more than we’re used to handling. “Mindfulness” is a term that’s spread through modern culture far beyond yoga. Yet it can understandably feel out of reach for many people, caught up in all those stimuli as they may be. Some may still come to yoga for a great workout or other physical health benefits, or perhaps to be in community. 

Yet, and I want to emphasize that I don’t know this, I wouldn't be surprised to hear proof that more people than ever are coming to yoga for a place of calm amidst a socioemotional, sociopolitical storm. I hear the need for that respite far and wide - in media, on the street, on public transit lines. It seems a natural progression that yoga practitioners - more or less regular people out there in the world - are looking to practice to satisfy this need for calm. Should this need change our teaching? 

I would only say that, as teachers, we should do our best to serve the needs that we observe. Perhaps teaching as we always teach  will do that. We can, however, be more intentional than ever about holding space. One way that we can do this is to stay fully focused on yoga and avoid conversation on controversial socio-political topics in yoga spaces. 

In my view, we can engage if students bring up such topics, and we can’t frame or prohibit their speech - being clients and autonomous adults. If studio owners might want to set in place some sort of disincentive for such speech in their spaces, that’s perhaps another discussion. What we can do is perhaps shift conversations away from these matters. 

We can do what we can to help preserve yoga spaces as neutral, peaceful, and sacred space away from all the external commotion. That offers people a place to go to escape it. There are plenty of other spaces for valuable discourse, activism, organizing, and learning. In having a calm, centered demeanor as a teacher, we can be part of that holding space. 

A concrete example of benefiting from this holding of space was when I recently took a Hands-on Restorative Assisting Training. We learned about important concepts in safety, consent, principles of empowering touch, the nature of trauma, and trigger symptoms. No one brought up the news. I didn’t look at my phone. As (admittedly) a staunch Progressive, a small piece of the back of my mind was likely still concerned about the direction of the Supreme Court (given recent news) and what it will propel in this country. 
        
Yet that piece was silent quite quickly. I felt held and supported in this space of learning and sharing. In a community of like-minded individuals, all supporting one another and growing together, any external threats that I'd been empathically perceiving (as a person of relative privilege) didn’t have to matter. This seems like a context that any yoga class could become, with the teacher effectively holding space for this communal support and growth. 

At the same time, yoga is in the world, and should act like it. In addition, seva - or selfless service - is a yoga practice. There are ways we can beneficially engage in current events, taking into consideration the studio community and local community. An example of this was a benefit class at a studio where I teach, for RAICES - a legal defense fund for immigrants. 

While I wasn't available to attend the class, promotional materials and discussion about the event seemed focus on compassion and connection - very much yogic values - rather than any political specifics. The class was also a values statement from the studio. In the Progressive community surrounding the studio, and within the studio itself, this statement would seem to be well-received. 

This might not be the case in communities with a different worldview. All of that aside, the class offered space for people distressed about current events (again, in the worldview of these external and internal communities) and to feel as if they were doing something to help. At the same time, the studio practiced seva by offering this space. There’s no right or wrong way to do that, only effective or less effective for any given context. I’m sending peace in your efforts to hold space in these tense times. 

© Copyright – Aura Wellness Center – Publications Division

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