Thoughts about Paul Grilley's anatomy work or individual differences in yoga?

[yogapam]

Originally Posted by toaster

Pam, it's cool to hear that Grilley's Yin DVD is the only one that you have kept (do you have just his 2-DVD practice set, or do you have the non-practice "Yoga for Anatomy" too?).

I've never been a fan of vinyasa, and it's not something I teach. I do enjoy classes with a flow aspect IF I like the teacher, someone I can trust to go at a moderate pace and focus on the experience in the body, not rushing through the poses. But my home practice is virtually all therapeutic, yin, and restorative.

I have the yin set and chakra theory dvd.

And my practice is similar to yours. I've gravitated to yin, Jill Miller, and I love Katy Bowman's Alignment snacks.

[Eibhinn]

I found Grilley's Anatomy DVD really compelling for introducing the idea of anatomical (really only skeletal) difference, but for me it was more of a foundation, lacking in further application. What I mean is that in watching it a few times, I definitely became convinced that individual anatomical differences will limit/shape the full expression of a pose for each person, and aware of some of the forms these limitations will take. But I didn't feel I got to the next step of really knowing what to do with that information. Beyond already being incredibly flexible, like the yoga teachers he used as examples, I didn't really get the sense of how to determine whether difficulties in a pose were due to muscular tension versus bone-on-bone compression. So his point that trying to fight past bone-on-bone compression is harmful is sort of useless to me if I have no way to figure out whether I'm trying to increase flexibility/reduce muscular tension, or if my limitations are caused by my anatomy. Nor was it clear to me, once you realized your anatomy is limiting you, how you modify the pose. I bought it because I've struggled for years with limitations in my ability to do wide-legged forward bends. Yoga teachers haven't been able to explain why, my own studies of anatomy haven't been able to explain why, and watching Anatomy for Yoga didn't bring me any closer to understanding the issue.

But I say all of this as a home yoga practitioner who is not a trained teacher. I think the info in that DVD is probably much more useful in the context of having a whole lot of other training - it's just one piece, and I found just hammered home one point over and over again - and isn't really very helpful as a stand-alone resource. After I'd watched it a few times I felt I'd got the point and got rid of it. That would not necessarily have been true if I was a yoga teacher.

[toaster]

Eibhinn, thanks so much for that post! It's actually very helpful to me. Although as I mentioned, I haven't tried any of Grilley's DVDs at this point, how you felt about his Anatomy one is quite similar to how I felt about the recent book by Bernie Clark (also a Yin Yoga instructor) Your Body, Your Yoga. Clark discusses the same concepts of muscular tension versus bone-on-bone compression, but like you, I find it hard to figure out exactly which applies to my body.

[Eibhinn]

No problem, Beth, I'm glad my experience is helpful. I found the overemphasis on skeletal anatomy a little annoying in Grilley's stuff, because our individual variations - ie. our anatomy - are so much more than just bone. And I think a lot of the more complicated to diagnose limitations involve a lot of muscle and connective tissue: like the way tight IT bands can cause knee pain, tight hip flexors cause lower back pain, and weak glute medii can cause ankle instability. So with complicated biomechanical issues like that potentially in play, I didn't find it particularly helpful to know that it could be bone, unless I have some way to know it's not any number of muscles, liagments etc. that are causing limitations. It's only really helpful once you get to a very, very advanced level of flexibility, I think.

[PennyK]

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[yogapam]

Penny - My favorites of Jill's are her original Yoga Tune Ups that are OOP - Triangle Tune Up, Pelvic Primer, & Total Spinal Tune Up. Her Post Athletic Stretch is good place to start. I like the Yoga Link DVDs but they are all long, Hip Helpers will sure leave your hips very worked and stretched. I don't do her DVDs often, but take a lot of her work and method to my classes.
EDIT You might like Katy Bowman, she is very much about body awareness. Here is a link to her website:
https://nutritiousmovement.com/
And here is one of her alignment snacks, a freebie on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/yThbkHDQvsY

Eibhinn & Beth - Grilley can be an acquired taste and isn't for everyone, but that's the way it is with most instructors, lol. I don't think his work is the end all & be all with his focus on skeletal structure, but for me it was a piece of the puzzle that is often overlooked in relation to flexibility. I've seen people get discouraged when their flexibility in one area does not improve over time, hips come to mind first when I see someone sitting in sukhasana with their knees up high. Being aware that it could be related to joint structure and not a lack of progress is something that may not have occurred to them.

[PennyK]

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[toaster]

Well, I did decide to purchase Grilley's Yin DVD--I think I will like the balance of theory & practice.

[Eibhinn]

Originally Posted by toaster

Well, I did decide to purchase Grilley's Yin DVD--I think I will like the balance of theory & practice.

Although it's annoying, if you have any sort of physical limitations whatsoever, I would recommend watching the practices in full prior to attempting them. My recollection is that Grilley has this very irritating habit in his Yin DVD of only mentioning modifications and contraindications for poses when you're doing them on the second side. So, for instance, he'll tell you something like, "if you have lower back tightness, you should do this alternate pose, or modify in this way" or even suggest it's very harmful for you to do something in particular, but only after you've already done the potentially harmful pose for 5 minutes on the other side. I remember getting straight-up angry when I did the practice the first time, yelling at the TV - "thanks, Paul, that would have been nice to know seven minutes ago!" But clearly I have anger issues
I found the practices were good overall, save for that. I mostly got rid of them after realizing that, as someone with ligament laxity, it is a terrible idea for me to be doing Yin Yoga, since the whole point of Yin Yoga is stretching out connective tissues, and mine are already too loose. So no Yin Yoga for me.

[toaster]

LOL Eibhinn! It is annoying when instructors do this.