Knowledge Sets You Free
If you're a yoga teacher, I recommend that you run—don't walk!—to one of Roger Cole's anatomy seminars.
Most of the time, I don't expect a yoga class to clear up major mysteries of practice that I've been pondering for years. It's not that I'm jaded—I'm thrilled to be here at Yoga Journal's San Francisco 2006 conference—but I've been practicing yoga regularly for 23 years, writing about it for a decade, and working for eight years as an editor at YJ. I've had the blessing of studying and working with many amazing teachers. So usually I don't expect even the most stellar class to give me major "Aha!" moments. I'm happy that they almost always give me renewed inspiration, subtler insights, and little nudges that help me stay on the path.
Roger's class made me think it's time to reconsider my expectations.
There are many fine teachers of "yoga anatomy" and "anatomy for yogis", but it's hard for me to imagine that any of them have a deeper understanding than Roger's of how the body works in a huge range of poses.
Today's class concentrated on the anatomy of the knees and hip joints, covering the basic structures and common imbalances and injuries, with a special focus on some of the major surrounding muscles groups: the hamstrings, the quads, the external hips rotators, and the hip adductors.
Roger's teaching goes far beyond basic textbook information about the primary actions of muscles. As he pointed out, most yoga poses are incredibly complex feedback systems in which changing any action ripples throughout the whole asana, affecting every other action. The subtlest shift can change which muscle or even which part of a muscle is being challenged.
Roger excels at breaking down poses so these fine details emerge. Whether you're a teacher or just a yogi seeking to understand your body better so you can stay safe and make progress in your practice, the knowledge he offers is invaluable.
Perhaps you could figure out these same details by diving deeply into your own body, experimenting, and sensing what works and what doesn't. But there are cases where a little "book larnin'" can save a lot of wear and tear, grief, and time, and studying anatomy at the level Roger teaches it is certainly one of them. And if you're a teacher, this kind of knowledge will be invaluable in helping your students with injuries and seemingly intractable stuck places.
Roger has written a number of excellent and well-illustrated anatomy articles that are available at the Yoga Journal teachers' newsletter Web site. (Membership is free.) If you can't make it to one of Roger's anatomy workshops, these articles can give you a taste and whet your appetite for more. If we're lucky, one day Roger will collect his anatomy teachings in a book (hint, hint!), which would instantly become a must for every yoga teacher's bookshelf.