Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Them Bones, Them Bones...

Gonna... WAAAAAALK around...

(I'm not the only one who knows that song, right?? Actually, that's the only part of the song I remember...)

We are having such a fun chat over on the yoga.com Bikram forum this week, and it reminded me of something cool that I want to bring up over here, too. (Duffy, sorry for giving you deja vu...)

A new poster was asking the question, "why don't the instructors in Bikram yoga tell you to engage the core as part of their dialogue?" I have a few ideas on that topic (big surprise). But to me, the most interesting point is the difference between moving muscles and moving bones.

One of the most interesting things I ever read about physiology is that your mind commands your bones, not your muscles. (This was in Mabel Todd's The Thinking Body, by the way, which I think is an excellent book.) When you go to lift an arm, you don't picture which muscles are going to relax and contract to complete the action. You picture the way your skeleton, your bones, are going to move, and the body responds appropriately.

It seems to me that Bikram understood this intuitively, because so many of the commands in his dialogue just tell you, in very plain language, WHERE to place your body parts. Arms touching ears, leg parallel to the floor, arms back, chest up, hips forward. Those commands will go straight to your brain, your brain talks to your muscular unit (the proprioceptive system really) and your body responds appropriately. It's almost like hypnosis. There are a few very notable exceptions (like "lock the knee"!!!),** but I think that a lot of the series works this way. If someone tells you to push your hips forward, you automatically use your butt. If someone tells you to lift your chest off the floor, you automatically use your back. If someone tells you to interlock your fingers and grab your foot in front of you, the only way your body can make this happen is by "engaging your core," so to speak. The dialogue makes it all happen, and your mind stays out of the way. (This is in the ideal scenario - teacher has perfect dialogue and student is perfect listener. Never QUITE happens that way, but.... it's the idea.)

I've also noticed that this is how some really expert teachers (i.e. Diane...) correct students. They don't usually say "engage this muscle" or "squeeze that muscle." They say "bring your upper body back!" and BOOM - all that other stuff happens automatically once the placement is correct. It is brilliant to watch. That's that I want to learn to do!! If the alignment is not correct, then the muscular instructions won't even make SENSE on the student's body. Nothing will move. You can sit at your desk and flex different leg muscles all day, WITHOUT changing the position of your leg. But if someone says, "straighten your leg" - aha, all the muscles have to fire appropriately, and you don't even have to think "ok I'm gonna flex my quadriceps, and relax my hamstrings"... the motion just happens.

Interesting, right? I think this is one of the most brilliant things about the way the dialogue is written. (And it can get a bit lost when people start to paraphrase, but you do NOT want to get me started on that...)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** "Lock the knee" works the opposite way. You have to direct the muscles specifically. I wonder if that's why this is the HARDEST thing to learn in all of Bikram yoga...?

I can only think of a couple other examples... "triceps muscles tight, nothing loose, nothing hanging," is one, and "compression of the abdominal wall, contraction of the abdominal muscles," is another... but there are not many of these!

7 comments:

Mei said...

The very first Bikram class I went to was taught by an American whom I thought couldn't speak English! I was thinking, "WTF, how can you say 'elbows each other'?!".

Yeah, I was one of those who overanalysed, go figure! :P

Now I realise the BEAUTY of the dialogue. So simple, so straightforward and WHAM BANG THANK YOU MAAM precise!

I'm not quite sure how teachers are in the US, but over here it's no "hands on corrections", not only just in case someone thinks the teacher is being frisky, but also to minimise the risk of pushing a student too far / hard. Hence the teachers over here correct verbally, "Arms back, body back, arms up, etc". The only time I've had a teacher do a physical correction is during triangle [pulling my stretching arm UP UP UP aieee] and half tortoise [pushing my hips down down down, ahhh].

bikramyogachick said...

Great post J! It really got me thinking! Especially since post surgery I am unable to achieve my former depth, but instead listen listen listen to dialog and just focus on form, trying to rebuild my strength. You are right, some of the dialog is strange, but makes us intuitively do things right, tighten this, engage that is what fires off in our subconscious. I LOVE this yoga!
P.S- on your recommendation I bought "how yoga works" and just started reading it last night. It's incredible. Thank you!!!

thedancingj said...

I love that you girls love the dialogue, too. :)

Hehe - that's right, Mei, "grab your elbows each other"! But now you are giving me competition for dialogue dorkiness, as we proved on FB the other night! And yea, the "no hands on corrections" is definitely a global Bikram yoga thing. Bikram himself will give hands-on at seminars and stuff, but in general hands-on corrections are a huge no-no. I don't think that's a bad thing. The verbal corrections make you smarter. You just have to learn to listen!

Michelle, I am SO EXCITED that you are reading my favorite book!! You will have to message me about it as you get further into it! It gets so good...

Duffy Pratt said...

I won't repeat my comments on the yoga.com forum (and I see you have incorporated some of them :) ). Imagine trying to teach someone to play the piano by telling them which muscles to contract. It would basically be impossible. For the most part we don't even know which muscles move our fingers. It took me a long time simply to convince some of my friends that there are no muscles in the fingers themselves.

thedancingj said...

Yep, Duffy, we were totally on the same page with this one! :)

Worst. Piano lesson. EVER. Haha...

a. said...

I go back and forth on it - sometimes I think the dialogue is genius and sometimes the idea of making people memorize something that is so wacked out, grammatically incorrect and just weird seems... odd. But hey - my favorite part is the Japanese ham sandwich thing because I lived in Japan for two years so I know exactly what kind of sandwich he's talking about :)

ActionJoJo said...

Re: the Japanese ham sandwich in the dialogue.

After reciting that part of the dialogue, the funniest teacher I ever had said, "Forget Japanese ham sandwich. I prefer a panini sandwich if you ask me. Anyway, you get my drift...no light, no air , no gap..." etc etc. And think heavy Queens/Long Island accent when you say those words. LOL