Written By Aviva Tulasi
We are honored that we have been nominated by our community for Chapel Hill Magazine's Best of Chapel Hill 2023 poll. Feel free to cast your vote HERE. You can vote for us as the Best Yoga Studio in the Services category. The poll runs until midnight on March 20.
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“You are only as young as your spine is flexible.” - Joseph Pilates
I have been volunteering to bring yoga to children while at school. In the middle school classes, there typically is a child who gets to a mat and immediately starts doing backbends. The other kids watch with a sense of disappointment because they fear that they won’t ever be good at yoga. However, yoga isn’t about folding the body into shapes. Yoga is an integration of the body, mind and spirit. Yoga allows you to have a flexible spirit, mind and body. This flexibility isn’t bending the body into various shapes, it is embracing the ability to adapt and change.
When I first started doing yoga, my belief system was very rigid. I believed what my experience leant me to believe was correct and discounted the other point of view. I believed that the outer world was completely separate and different from myself. After a decade of practicing yoga, I learned that I had the ability to be vulnerable and open my heart and soul to new possibilities. I allowed my belief system to become more flexible. Now, my beliefs are more fluid and I value the commonality of two opposing belief systems. Yoga teaches that the spirit can embrace the universal consciousness despite in all.
My core belief system has been able to adapt because yoga trained my mind to be flexible. The more I meditate the more I recognize that the habits and thought processes of the mind change. Meditation is a method towards accepting all that is in your awareness. Thoughts will always arise, unfold and dissolve. I have learned to be objective and I try not to judge my thoughts. I recognize I have a choice in how I think. I don’t have to tell myself I have a bad left hip. Instead, I can be grateful that my body has learned how to adjust itself to see better. Yoga teaches that our thought tendencies and habits can be modified and adjusted.
As a child, I could arch backwards into a backbend which in yoga is called wheel pose, Urdhva Dhanurasana. However, as a child, I could not get out of the bend. Yoga has given me awareness of my inner muscles and the core strength to maintain my body. I regularly twist my spine to stretch the muscles of the back and maintain the spine's natural range of motion. Yoga teaches that a flexible body is a means to maintain a well functioning body with good posture and a healthy range of motion.
Yoga is not merely a stretching routine. As you practice the physical component of yoga, you stretch, strengthen, build endurance and practice balance all of which the National Institute on Aging advocates that everyone should be doing on a regular basis. Additionally, we focus on increasing stability in our body through yoga (a topic we will explore in a future blog).
The teachers at Dogwood studios design yoga practices that provide an opportunity to stretch and strengthen the entire body including the major muscles of the back, inner thighs, ankles and back of the legs. We include movements of the spine including twists that promote flexibility throughout the entire body. In Mindful Movement and Yoga classes we do include both static and dynamic stretches. Including both types of stretching for at least 10 minutes, two days a week positively affects the body. According to Healthline, stretching “helps to release muscle tension and soreness, and reduces the risk of injury, increases circulation, muscle control, and improves balance and coordination.” In addition, a 2000 study in the Journal of Gerontology found that participants aged 65 and older enrolled in a stretching and flexibility exercise program reported less pain than those who were in a strength and endurance exercise program.
Maybe you are ready to practice flexibility by changing your routine slightly. Perhaps you can adapt to practicing yoga in a new space such as joining us for an In Person yoga class at Yoga Shala or The Parlour at Manns Chapel. You can also add a new class into your week such as joining Amanda’s online Heart - Centered Yoga and Meditation class Mondays in March at 8am.
Click here to see our class calendar and sign up for a class that meets your needs.
Aviva Chaye Tulasi is a team member at Dogwood Studios. She is a certified yoga therapist (C-IAYT). She applies the teachings of classical yoga to reduce the effects of negative stress and to balance the nervous system. Email Aviva at yogawithtulasi@gmail.com with any questions.
SAM Sather, founder of Dogwood Studios, is a certified yoga therapist (C-IAYT), individualizes the yoga practice with appropriate modifications for participants’ unique bodies and medical histories with a focus on finding calm and improving health. She offers several live, online and in person yoga classes as well as private sessions so you can focus on your needs one-on-one.