"Can I get hurt doing yoga?" "How do I avoid injuries?" - Yoga Vlog Q and A

Transcript

[Music] hello everyone welcome to yoga upload I'm Maris Aylward today's episode is another Q&A video and our question comes from Facebook it's from I'm not sure how to pronounce her name deal gay I didn't or Aiden I'll write it there she gave me permission to butcher her name but anyway this is her question the second part of her question is there any way to get hurt while doing yoga and if so how should we make sure that we are doing it right well thank you so much for your question short answer is yes we can't get hurt doing yoga in the same way that you can get hurt doing anything else you can get hurt working out at the gym or doing chores in your house and you know a lot of these other activities can cause injury but I understand where the question is coming from and it's because Yoga is thought to be a healing practice it's supposed to be what you do to heal you from your injury or to prevent injury so understand why people might be surprised at what you can get hurt doing yoga but unfortunately yes no there are many possible causes for injury for getting hurt in yoga and the number one biggest factor that I think is lack of body awareness now what does this mean lack of body awareness means rarely inhabiting our body meaning we don't pay much attention to how we're feeling sensations in her body how we're actually moving our body in space our posture from moment to moment we're not paying much attention to that and a lot of us live mostly in our heads okay so we rarely take the time to really feel and pay attention to the body so that's lack of body awareness and that's where yoga comes in actually because we slow down the movement enough because we pay attention to our alignment and postures you develop body awareness when you practice yoga now if you're new there as a danger of course of getting hurt because you don't know what you're doing we all start somewhere in the beginning I didn't know what I was doing so if you're a beginner in yoga class for example you might have poor alignment you know you don't know where to place your hands and your feet and how to position your body to get into a pose and that might cause some minor injuries some aches and pains here and there and for beginners I think and some teachers will disagree with me I think that in the beginning if you have no body awareness whatsoever it helps to have a teacher that will guide you and it also helps to have a mirror in front of you so you have a visual reference so you can see what you're actually doing because the truth is and I've seen as many times in class I'll give instructions and I'm looking at my students and some people think that they are following my instructions they think that yes I stack my knee directly over my ankle but they're not aware that they're not doing that and so in the beginning a mirror might help now as you practice as you grow you will depend less and less on that mirror just by moving your body alone without any visual reference you'll know how you're placing and positioning your body and you won't be that dependent on the mirror anymore because you've increased your body awareness and therefore your risk you minimize the risk of injury another possible cause of injury which is also related to lack of body awareness is a sense of competition okay and this is true for all levels of students whether you're a beginner or so-called advanced yoga practitioner a lot of us lead our lives you know wanting and needing to achieve to accomplish to compete to perform to win and if we take that same competitive element in yoga that's where we can get in trouble and you might be you might be in a yoga class and you're looking around with everyone else is doing and you're pushing yourself too hard so you can get into the poses that these other people have been doing for so long or even if you are advanced there are still gonna be poses that will never be available to you because of the body that you've been given and there's nothing wrong with that so forcing yourself into these postures into these asanas just because someone else is doing it can be another cause for injury and also even if you're not competing with other people you might be competing with yourself you know what I mean you might be thinking every time I get on my mat I have to be better than how I was the last time I was on my mat that could be another cause for injury so what's the solution when I'm beginner I'd manse let's check our egos at the door when you get on your mat it's time to let go of that sense of competition of that sense of wanting to perform or achieve or to be better than the point of your yoga practice is for you to be sensitive and to be mindful and to pay attention to your current state and adapt your practice to suit that currency so you might have days where you can do a vigorous vinyasa you can do all these strong arm balance poses you might also have days where you just need to pull back a little bit do a more gentle and more restorative practice maybe do Child's Pose a lot instead of going through your chaturanga and you have permission to do that in yoga that is the point the point is not to be better or to accomplish anything the point is to be so present that you know exactly what you need for a moment-to-moment and again that will go a long way in preventing injury and related to that is balancing your practice overall like I said if you're doing your power of in yoga every day that might be a little too much you want to balance that with some more passive practices like maybe a restorative or in yoga or just a more gentle yoga class there's also injury that comes from repetitive movements you know repetitive stress so combine that with poor alignment lack of body awareness and you keep doing the same movement same poses over and over again even just you know a little misalignment might cause injury over time and also you might not be aware of it but you might already have some kind of underlying condition or an underlying injury that you've ignored and you practice yoga and then you do something that triggers the pain but really it was from a previous injury so that's also another possibility remember no matter how long you've been practicing yoga no matter how advanced you believe your practice to be it takes one moment one second of not paying attention it takes just one moment of your mind wandering of you not focusing on what you're doing in the present moment for a possible injury to occur so always a solution is being in the now being mindful pay attention and focusing on the present moment so though those are the ways you can get injured and some of my tips for minimizing the risk of injury no activity is completely you know 100 percent no risk there's always a risk but of course you can minimize it you can be careful and you can take care of yourself so for beginners especially if you're going to a yoga class if that's gonna be your first experience with yoga make sure it's a beginner friendly class make sure you do your research into what class you're going into maybe talk to the teacher a little bit beforehand let them know that you're just starting out so that they can guide you and find a teacher that's appropriate for you you might try a few teachers a few classes to test it out and you know if it doesn't resonate with you if you're not connecting if you just don't feel it's right for you then keep looking the teacher that you need is gonna be out there for you over the years of practicing and teaching I've certainly had my share of gigs and pains I know that at least in the very beginning you know super gung ho was super excited and I know I've pushed myself too far at times and have gotten hurt they've had to like pull back a little bit to recover and you know that's part of life you learn you grow and you change and you adapt now I want to hear from you have you ever experienced any injuries in your yoga practice or if you have any other questions please write it in the comment section below or you can also connect with me on Facebook or Instagram and ask your questions there thank you so much for joining me today and I'll see you next time bye