Jivana Heyman 00:00:01
(INTRO) Hi, I'm Jivana Heyman, and my pronouns are he and him. Thank you for joining me for the Teacher's Guide To Accessible Yoga Podcast. This is a series of conversations that I had with an incredible group of Yoga teachers as I was researching my new book, A Teacher's Guide To Accessible Yoga, and I wanted to share these conversations with you in their fullness. Rather than just pulling quotes for the book, I wanted you to get a chance to hear everything these teachers had to say. So I hope you enjoy these conversations. Thanks for being here.
Jivana Heyman 00:00:41
Hi, everyone, welcome back. Happy to be here with Avery. Hi Avery.
Avery Kalapa 00:00:45
Hello, I'm so delighted to be here with you.
Jivana Heyman 00:00:49
Thank you. So what I wanted to talk to you about was Asana, in particular. And I'm really excited to talk to you about it because I know that, you know, I Iyengar has a very specific way of teaching and a different approach to Asana than I usually take. And I have studied a bit of Iyengar, but I would love to get some of your thoughts on it. And the main question and focus for this part of this book is, you know, what do yoga teachers need to do or to know, in order to make Asana more accessible for their students? So I wonder what you think?
Avery Kalapa 00:01:22
Yeah, it's a wonderful question. And I do teach Iyengar Yoga. And I will say, within Iyengar Yoga, there's a very broad palette. Some people who are sort of the older original generation that studied with Iyengar went to learn advanced poses, and some went, because they couldn't walk and they were in the medical classes. And so some people have a very therapeutic approach. Some people, you know, there's a very wide range. And it's to me, one of the beautiful things about that lineage is yeah, there's, there's a very broad palette of ways.
Jivana Heyman 00:01:56
That's true, I know that he really was the first one in a way to be known for that to making it therapeutic.
Avery Kalapa 00:02:02
Yeah, so many of the props that we're familiar with now, for that purpose. Okay, if someone can't do a standing pose, let's lay them on the floor, have their feet at the wall, and they can do Virabhadrasana two. And so my main teacher for about 15 years was a teacher, Kim Schwartz, who was very influenced by Iyengar Yoga, but was actually never certified. And so a lot of what I learned in terms of creating access, and everything about how I think about Asana, is because of Kim and his teacher, Ramanan Patel, who I also love, who is a major student and Iyengar Yoga teacher and a student of Guruji for a long time. And so the way Kim taught Asana was really that it was about the organization of energy, and the organization of how the body is able to breathe. He said, if we forgot everything about Asana, all the shapes, all the actions, if everything was forgotten, except that it was about the liberation of breath, then it would all be remembered. Because all those shapes, the purpose of all the ways we're lengthening or engaging, or reorganizing, is ultimately to free the body's ability to breathe. Which of course, then affects consciousness and our relationship to parusha. And so his approach was very based on stability and working with the functional design of the body. And he taught Asana in a way that always was pointing back to not disturbing, and to actually accentuating and helping the body. In its in its sort of sacred design. And so things like protecting the curves of the spine, there's all sorts of different ideas that people have. And a lot of them are informed by fitness stuff like oh, you should like, tuck the pelvis, engage your abs all the time and flatten the back. Kim was really against that. And I also am somewhat against that, it's not a good idea, because we need the lumbar curve to distribute force through the spine. In fact, if there's no curves in a spine, just the act of walking would be enough for us to fracture the bones. So the curves are very important. So doing Asana in a way that accentuates and distributes and helps build the curves of the spine, that helps anchor the thigh bone into the hip socket or the humeral bone into the scapula, these are frameworks that then if you understand them, you can address an Asana in a lot of different ways, but in a way that will help whoever is in front of you. So for instance, say a post like partial Uttanasana, it's a forward bend where one foot is forward one foot his back, sometimes it's called pyramid pose, you fold forward. Sometimes we would back that pose up, say if someone has bulging discs, or really tight hamstrings. And I know the viewers won't be able to see the demo, but just so you can see might do the pose this way where one foot is forward, one foot is back and you're just reaching up the wall and until the action of the pelvis.
Jivana Heyman 00:05:14
So I can describe that what you're doing maybe if that's okay, because this might just be audio only.
Avery Kalapa 00:05:19
I wasn't expecting to do a demo, but so I'm standing with one foot, my right foot is in front of me and my toes are up the wall and my left foot is behind at an angle. My legs are straight, my pelvis is squared forward, and then I'm just walking I fingertips up the wall. And so that alone getting that extension in the front spine, getting the legs to be able to straighten, that is a functional Parsva Uttanasana for many people, whereas folding forward, they would compress the front spine, or lose the stability and then it may look, quote unquote, more like a yoga pose.
Jivana Heyman 00:06:02
I mean, if I can, if I can say, what I saw you doing there is kind of something that I teach which is sometimes break it down into parts and just practice one part at a time. And it's like, you're, you're basically practicing the lower body part in a way, like focusing on that position and keeping the upper body relatively neutral, even though it made a beautiful line actually, still, so you're still working with energy, I can see in that variation, it was beautiful. You people couldn't see it, or listening just to this. But there was like a really beautiful line from your back heel all the way up through your spine through your arms, like that was one long line. So that was something you didn't even talk about. But, if we just forget that for a moment, I could see that the leg position is like you're teaching that first. It's almost like, is that right? I mean, so you're kind of focusing on like a part.
Avery Kalapa 00:06:48
And then also students, even if they don't have much range of motion, or they're unstable, they can also learn the action of the anterior rotation of the pelvis, so the pelvis moving forward, and then the spine follows versus bending from the spine, which is a common thing that can happen, that can create injury in a forward bend.
Jivana Heyman 00:07:10
That happened to me.
Avery Kalapa 00:07:11
Definitely breaking, sort of looking at the ingredients of a pose and looking at what gift are those different actions or ingredients giving, I think, is a really fun way that yoga teachers can also work on sequencing. It's sort of like if you have a posture of what are all the ingredients of the pose, you could look at all of those ingredients in different poses, put it all together. And then at the end of the class, the student has a felt sense of all the different actions that then can be combined into some sort of final pose.
Jivana Heyman 00:07:45
Can I just stop you? That's interesting, because sometimes people talk about a peak pose, and I find that frustrating, but I could see the way you just described, it makes so much more sense. Because you're not talking about necessarily achieving some, I mean, it could be I guess, but not necessarily some very complex pose, but rather something like a pyramid pose that's relatively straightforward, but still working on it slowly through a bunch of kind of preparatory positions. That helps the body learn it in easier little bite sized pieces.
Avery Kalapa 00:08:16
Definitely.
Jivana Heyman 00:08:17
That's interesting.
Avery Kalapa 00:08:18
Yeah, it's kind of a reverse engineering. And then it's useful to say the peak pose is downward dog, right? Or something, or Tadasana. It's exciting, I think, for students to explore different poses, and then feel whatever that baseline pose is changed. They can get a direct experience of oh, I'm starting to feel different and better. I'm experiencing my body in a different and hopefully more harmonious or more subtle way from the beginning to the end.
Jivana Heyman 00:08:51
I love that reverse engineering phrase, that is perfect. I hadn't thought of it that way. Yeah.
Avery Kalapa 00:08:59
So yeah, I think if we know the purpose of the asana, you know, speaking of downward dog, that's another pose where a lot of times, people will say, prioritize bringing the heels down, but then if the pelvis is taught, and the spine rounds, and then the shoulders are loaded. To me, like what's the point of that pose? Ultimately, the point is elongation of the spine. And so if you need to lift the heels, or bend the knees, or raise the hands on a chair, or do a million other things, if it's going to help decompress and bring the neutral curves of the spine, then great. So knowing what the priority is, which Kim would usually say is whatever is closest to the center of the body. So we would often work with hands and feet, and these sort of peripheral parts, but ultimately, it's always referring back to what is closest to the spinal cord and brain because those are special parts, right? And so if you're bringing the heels down, but sacrificing the spine, like, oh, maybe it's the wrong priorities.
Jivana Heyman 00:10:04
And the breath I assume you mentioned that he would talk about that right as the goal. So I would think part of that connection to the spine and the brain is actually so that the breath can move more easily. Right?
Avery Kalapa 00:10:18
Yeah, absolutely.
Jivana Heyman 00:10:18
And that's another actually working with the availability of breath is another. Asana is so powerful because most of the poses will sort of gift some part of the body to open but contract or challenge another part of the body say like side angle pose, Utthita Parsvakonasana, where the legs are, say like kind of in warrior two, and then you bring one hand down, reach over that type of pose. Or Trikonasana, one upper rib will be more open, that lung will be able to breathe easier, the bottom rib will probably be closed. But if you can organize the pose in such a way that you're creating length, in the part that is being constricted, that's a really special thing. Because then when you sort of come out of the pose, you're in neutral, maybe moving on through your day, the part that was constricted, but that learned how to have space, even with constriction, will then be able to breathe and open up more when you're in neutral. And so that is another beautiful thing to think about in terms of accessibility, where all right, if we're addressing Asana, you could look at any pose and see what is being restricted, or where's the challenge. And if you can create space or work with that part of the body, ultimately, then very powerful work will happen to shift out of the patterns of compression, that are probably there all the time. Like on a simple level, you could think of it like, all right, if you could relax and breathe well, if you're in a pretzel shape, then you'll probably be able to relax and breathe well, when you're just standing or sitting.
Jivana Heyman 00:12:01
But it seems like one of the challenges that I often come up against with students is the I mean, I'll say it's ego. You know, it's like thinking, I have to do it, I have to make it look like this, I have to push. And I just wondered how you address that. I mean, you did talk already about maybe offering kind of stages or something or like some reverse engineering the pose, helping them build it, but I find people tend to go too far. And so I just wondered about that piece. How do you deal with that?
Avery Kalapa 00:12:30
Yeah, this is a really, I think, important job for us, as yoga teachers is to educate, like, what is Asana? And why are we doing this, because most people come in with an idea that you should go to your maximum range of motion and flexibility is the main goal. And then maybe some kind of random toning, because they've heard some fitness stuff, right. And so as a very mobile person, who has struggled with a lot of joint instability, and nerve pain and various issues, because of that, I really cherish the work of stability, over mobility. And again, the the way that and I also feel like this is a way to really offer and to help our students offer dignity to the body and care where it's not that we're imposing something on to the body, but rather, we're wanting to be in maybe a loving or healthy relationship with the body, right? And so if we define the asana, not based on deepest range of motion, but on organization and stability, which honors the design of the body, it changes the whole point of the pose. So an example I often will give is Supta Padangusthasana. So if someone is say laying on the ground, and then one leg is up to hamstring stretch, maybe they have a belt around the foot. That's a common pose where it feels so much better for the ego, to pull the foot towards you. Even if the belly is gripped the femurs are sort of pushed out of the hip sockets, the knees are bent, but I'm bringing my foot to my face. Instead, if we take a lot of belt and prioritize straightening the legs, having the spine neutral, pressing the lower leg down, and ultimately keeping the body organized, the bones organized and in a structural position that honors sort of how the joints are meant to function. Not only will it be a safer pose, a more accessible pose, will also be much more effective. However, it is it takes some time for students to sort of get on board with, oh, my leg moving away from me is actually a deeper pose than if I yank the leg towards me without any sort of alignment. But if it's all about structural organization as the goal versus some sort of depth of range of motion.
Jivana Heyman 00:12:34
I like how you use the word structural organization in place of alignment because I do think that word alignment has basically lost meaning, you know? It's like overused and argued about so much and so I hear you using other, like basically finding other ways to say that. You know, which is really nice. And organizing the body is a nice one. That does feel more effective to me. Because alignment, I think, I think the problem with alignment is this idea of external, you know, view or something. When I know that's not what we're talking about, you know, so I think it's getting a bad name. When I think it's really about safety, right, like you said, it's about safety. So, I appreciate that.
Avery Kalapa 00:16:01
Yeah safety, and also when we are working with something like alignment, or structural organization, or however you want to say it. It opens up doorways to feel our body, to bring the mind consciousness into embodiment in a different way. To feel what we were not able to feel before. Which is also just a huge focus in the Iyengar method is how to penetrate and feel subtler and more deep layers of the inner body. Which is why there's, in some ways, these sort of weird, quote, unquote, "advanced, complex poses." Because if you've been doing Trikonasana for 20 years, there may, there's a lot there, you can explore always, and adding in more complex actions, gives the mind an awareness, new challenges for how to feel what we couldn't feel before. And so when we're working with alignment, it is about keeping the body safe and avoiding injury and honoring sort of the design of the body, but also gives an opportunity for awareness to go in and feel and experience the body in a way that it hasn't before, which is huge if we're interested in re-patterning the nervous system of sort of shifting out of our old patterns of reaction in the nervous system and the mind. That is where the asana relates to something, say like freedom or liberation, because we're actually changing the way consciousness is interacting with Prakrti or with our embodied reality, right? So for me, the alignment is so juicy, because it's a really tangible way to shift the patterns in the subtler parts of us that are much more abstract. You could say, oh, I'm going to change this pattern in my thoughts. But good luck, right? But with our body, we can see it we can tell "Oh, my arm," we can see what's going on. And so it's actually this really tangible, practical way to go about something like transformation. Because we have feedback. We can like, you know, it's physical.
Jivana Heyman 00:18:16
Physical, I know, I always say like, āsana is simultaneously really accessible and really inaccessible. You know, it's both because it's so like, accessible to us, right? And we can move the body often, not everyone can, but they can usually make a shape with their body and like, quote, "do yoga," you know what I'm saying? At the same time, so much of Asana, I mean, so much of yoga asana is shown as the inaccessible, you know, like these pretzel like poses, like you said. So then it kind of puts people off, like, can't do yoga, but it's like, there's so much tension there for me. That's why I love āsana so much. And also, it's like, ahhh. You know we're teaching it in such a way. I mean, at least contemporary yoga world, I feel like is presenting it in a way that's just not accessible.
Jivana Heyman 00:19:06
Yeah, it's, it's really sad that the flashy gymnastics stuff has sort of taken over, because so much of that is about the external form, and not the inward journey, which is what yoga is really about. But the beautiful thing is working with a alignment, and if it is about learning how to feel what we were not able to feel before how to, oh, I can turn, I can externally rotate my arm from the shoulder joint instead of the elbow, that might be an aha moment for someone. And then that transformation in awareness is happening. And it doesn't require the fancy poses, someone can go in and feel inside their body and explore taking an action, you know, on a chair or laying down or even in bed. And if we understand that, it's about this process of space, reorganization, plus awareness and working with awareness to feel inside the body, then it's a very wide range. So many, so many people can can practice I think, actually everyone can practice asana. If it's about that.
Jivana Heyman 00:20:17
Yeah. So how so for yoga teachers listening, what would be your advice to do that? Like what is it that they could do or how could they, is it education? Maybe that's it, see themselves as educators more? Or is there some specific language or something that would help?
Avery Kalapa 00:20:37
Yeah, I think that intention of what what are we about when we're teaching a class? Are we trying to make someone feel like they had a workout? Or are we educating about what and why do we do Asana? And I think it can be very empowering to study some really basic felt sense. Looking at a book is not so great. But to understand some basics of functional anatomy is a great help. Because then when you see someone in front of you, a student, you can see their body. Being able to see our students is such a gift. And people I think, like to be seen, it helps them maybe trust us as teachers, if we say, "Oh, I noticed this knee rolls out. And then that arches collapsed. Is that the knee where you have pain? Oh, yes, I always have knee pain there." So as we start to understand just a bit about sort of functional anatomy, I think that can be really empowering. Because then we can look at a pose and say, well, if the point of this pose is to open the back body and bring breath to the adrenal glands, which someone can't do say it was like Paschimottanasana where they're sitting with their legs straight and front folding forward, that's a very challenging pose. It takes a lot of hamstring length. So if your goal is to open the back body and bring breath to the back body, oh, maybe you would do it sitting on a chair and leaning forward on another chair. Your spine is getting the same action. Or if the point of that pose is that you're wanting to extend the leg and open the hamstring. Oh, maybe they do that over here. But having a sense of like, why are you teaching that pose? And then how can people get that in other ways that are more accessible? I think that's a useful way. And I want to name something about the functional anatomy that I think some people, you mentioned earlier they have this idea, like, oh, is alignment trying to look perfect from the outside? Isn't that sort of unhealthy or trying to like make everybody conform to one thing, and it's, it's really not about that. I think actually, some of that is rooted in eugenics. And this idea that there's one sort of perfect human form, which of course, was like these very binary gendered white bodies was that whole historical moment. And the functional anatomy piece is really not about that. Some bodies have deeper curves in their spine, some bodies have more shallow joints. Through an Ayurvedic lens, some bodies may be very Vata versus a Kapha body will have a different shape and different form. But, we all will have the same general neutral curves. So it's not about conforming, it's just understanding, oh, what is the design of the body? And how is our modern world and all of our patterns or karma or however you want to look at it compromising that? And then what do I need to do in Asana to bring balance? So if I tend to compress, and if my chest is really collapsed forward, and I don't have strength in my back, and I'm experiencing back pain, it's sort of useful to know, okay, maybe I need to build more back strength, decompress in the chest, and then my pain is reduced. But there is sort of a practical method to the madness. Learning a bit about just the learning. Learning, like the shape of the hip joint. Wow, it's such a beautiful deep ball and socket, different from the knee joint, which is a hinge. Starting to have more of a relationship to the body. It's just Yeah, I think very empowering and, and a good thing for us to take on.
Jivana Heyman 00:20:38
I love that. Thank you. Anything else you want to share about this? I know it's an endless Topic.
Avery Kalapa 00:24:36
Such an endless topic. I'm just so happy to get to explore it with you so much. Yeah.
Jivana Heyman 00:24:43
Well, I love that. It's funny because I start this chapter talking about find the why. And I feel like that's really what you're focused on. You know, it was like, in a slightly different language, but I feel like we're kind of sharing the same main message. So that feels good.
Avery Kalapa 00:24:58
Well, I guess that would be it's useful to know the why. Because the what is not necessarily easy. It's actually pretty vulnerable and confrontational, to go in and be in your body and start to open up things that have been very guarded and start to feel things that we have been, maybe for a good reason trying not to feel. But if you understand the why that there is ease and freedom and transformation, actually tangibly available. They can give us a lot of courage, I think, and I want my students to have courage to go in to feel what they have not felt before and to face the unknown.
Jivana Heyman 00:25:39
And that's, would you say that's what Asana is for? I mean, I just wondered if you had, like, I love that. Like, I just want to say because I feel like what you're basically describing is like a whole new definition of Asana.
Avery Kalapa 00:25:53
Yeah. Well, that really is, I mean, again, this is this is sort of a pillar of the Iyengar method. But this, you know, some people think Iyengar Yoga is just all about asana and the physical, but it's not. There's such a deep, rich philosophical and esoteric element. B.K.S. Iyengar really was passionate that he didn't want people to just be in an intellectual fascination with it. He really wanted people to feel for themselves on an experiential, embodied level, what the philosophy and what all this sort of what might be considered more esoteric yoga stuff was about. And so I think all the aspects can be explored through the lens of Asana. We're doing Asana with the body, but it's not for the body, it's for all these other amazing things that are happening. The body is this incredible gateway through which we can affect our mind, our emotions, our energy, our prana. And eventually, maybe even access a tangible experience of the soul. And so if we approach Asana that way, that oh, it's not some thing we're just doing to maybe help us relax or as some stepping stone to what's going to be even cooler in the future, once we're in the more advanced yogic limbs or whatever. It really is this field that we can explore all of it in. And I think it's infinitely rich and also a very generous practice. Like if you really get into Asana. It just gives us so much so much more than we could ever realize.
Jivana Heyman 00:27:41
It's great. All right. Well, thank you so much.
Avery Kalapa 00:27:45
You are so welcome. I love this is my favorite thing to talk about. So thank you so much for having me.
Jivana Heyman 00:27:53
Well, thanks for sharing with us. All right, see you later.
Jivana Heyman 00:27:53
(OUTRO) Thanks, again for being here. I really appreciate your support. And I hope you'll consider getting my book, The Teacher's Guide To Accessible Yoga. It's available wherever you buy books. My hope is that the book will provide additional support for you in your teaching journey. For me, I always need to have a community of teachers around me to learn from to inspire me to keep me in check. And I hope we can do that for each other. So thanks again for being here. All right, take care. Bye.
