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Yoga is great. It’s great for our mental health and spiritual well-being. It’s great for business. It’s great for conversation. ("I tried yoga once, but was scared off by the headstands." "I love my yoga teacher!" " I once knew an 80 year old lady who did yoga every day.") It’s also great for our bodies. This is probably the reason most Americans get into yoga, or at least the reason they’re most willing to admit to. (Note, I said OUR bodies, not the bodies of teachers and devotees, however that may a reason some try their first class... whether they admit it or not).
I am a physical therapist. I love all things physical. Physical fitness, physiology, physical medicine, even the physics of mechanics. So of course I was initially interested in yoga as a means of physical exercise. I was not impressed by my first yoga class. It felt like nothing more than a simple stretching class. Nothing magical, nothing life-altering about it. But my interest was not completely foiled. I knew there must be more to it. I got a book, “Yoga for Dummies.” I started doing “The Daily Dozen” prescribed by the book to wake up and move my bones in the morning. One day, I was bedazzled by a guy at my gym doing a series of exercises I now know as a sun salutation but at the time I only saw the beauty of his circular, fluid movements. I bought a DVD, “Power Yoga for Strength” with Rodney Yee. Now that was my kind of yoga. I felt my muscles contract and stretch simultaneously (in PT we call that eccentric strengthening). I felt rejuvenated from all that deep breathing. And I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of the sun salutation. That was it, I was hooked.
That was almost ten years ago. Since then I have had an evolving understanding that yoga really is nothing more than a multi-faceted tool that can help one to achieve a variety of goals. I have learned to use yoga for treating patients that I would have considered very challenging cases in the early days of my career. I have used yoga to achieve my own peace of mind. And I have even used it to have fun. I have learned that the magic of yoga comes not from achieving esoteric knowledge or superhuman levels of strength and flexibility but from the ability of ordinary folks to apply ancient knowledge to our modern lives to help us improve our posture, our respiration or our outlook on life.
Lisa Minn is a licensed physical therapist and yoga enthusiast. She has been incorporating aspects of Yoga and Pilates into her physical therapy practice since 2001 and became a certified yoga instructor in 2004. Her experience ranges from working with athletes at West Point and Georgetown to instructing elderly and wheelchair-bound clients in the fundamentals of Hatha Yoga. Lisa has conducted several lectures and workshops across the US, as well as in Honduras and Peru, where she volunteered her services. She currently resides and practices in Northern California. This and other articles by Lisa can be found at The Pragmatic Yogi.
The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.
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