Ages and Stages: A Yoga Perspective on How the Body
Changes as We Grow
by Sam Dworkis
zone3
The initial concept for Ages and Stages was developed from
my study of anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology and through
studying fascia's characteristics and its properties.
With over 25 years of experience as both a yoga student and
teacher, and as a hands-on neuromuscular therapist, the Ages
and Stages theory has been confirmed and reconfirmed through
the survey of countless numbers of yoga students and therapy
clients.
We all age at different times and in different stages
depending upon a multitude of different factors such as
genetic makeup; extrinsic environmental factors such as the
air we breathe and the food we eat; the amount of physical
stress that we experience from life's accidents both big and
small; and intrinsic factors such as how we assimilate work
and family stress; and the amount of appropriate exercise we
do (or don't do).
It is undeniable that our bodies change as we age and that
eventually, the body dies. Notwithstanding the principles of
normal ageing, I have theorized that the average human body
goes through physiological "ages and stages." After reading
this material, you might ask yourself if the Ages and Stages
theory applies to you.
There is a nifty little mechanism in your body that helps
to facilitate your healing process. When ill, but
especially when injured, your body tightens up in order to
protect itself from further injury. This mechanism contracts
the fascia of your body; which is basically, the connective
tissue surrounding your entire body from the top of your head
to the tip of your toes. Fascia is directly under your skin
and also surrounds and encapsulates virtually every muscle and
muscle group, and every organ and every gland in your body.
The first "transition" in human physiology occurs somewhere
around the age of 28-32. Prior to this first threshold, your
body is fairly resilient. When your body has been traumatized
whether from injury or illness, your body quickly heals and
you get on with the business of life. However, after the age
of about 28-32, and about every ten years thereafter, there is
a natural contracting of your overall fascia. The “bag that
holds your body together” begins to tighten up; it becomes
less resilient.
Have you noticed that after your first “transition”
(that is, as you moved through the age of 28-32), you began to
“re-experience” injuries you thought were long-ago healed? As
you go through additional ten-year thresholds, you might
notice that you experience more and more of these older
injuries. Not withstanding old injuries, have you noticed that
as you go through these ages and stages, your body does not
respond as quickly or as lithely as it once did before that
last ten-year “transition.”
The very same mechanism that protects you when you are
injured is the very same mechanism that causes you to
re-experience your old injuries as you age. Notwithstanding
actual injury or illness, about every ten years after the age
of 28-32, your fascia contracts even more. Additionally,
emotional stress also contributes to fascia's
contraction.
Here is another way to look at this phenomenon. When
an animal in nature is injured, it simply looks for a dark and
quiet place in which to lie quietly and to allow nature to
take its course; for it to heal or die. Assuming the animal
was reasonably healthy before its injury, there is every
reason to believe that it would heal and get on with its
life.
Another thing about animals in nature; they are always
stretching. They stretch when they first arise from sleeping
and they stretch often during the day. Overall, animals in
nature take pretty good care of themselves. With the exception
of some higher primate species, including humans, animals live
pretty much “in the present,” seemingly wanting to avoid
personal and extraneous environmental stress.
Not so with us humans. When injured or ill, we almost
always prematurely resume our active and busy lifestyles
before we fully recover. And in so doing, fascia will continue
to contract in order to protect us from further damage. In
addition to illness and injury, the stress from our daily
lives also causes our fascia to contract. Thus, as we age and
as we both take on life's responsibilities with its multitude
of physical and emotional trauma, fascia contracts.
When we can appreciate that fascia will contract when it is
stimulated; be it from injury, illness, stress, or from the
natural process of living and ageing, we can begin to
appreciate why an effective and appropriate yoga practice can
have such a profound affect upon our body and mind.
When we recognize that stimulation only contracts
soft tissue (remembering that fascia is a soft tissue which
responds to stimulation in part due to Hilton’s Law), it makes
absolutely no sense to force our yoga, or to “try” to get our
body to become flexible; especially if our body is injured,
ill, or after it has gone through one or more of the age
transitions. I ask you if even the slightest "forcing" or
"trying" further traumatizes an already traumatized body,
where is the "yoga" in that?
This is not to say an appropriate yoga must be always be
passively or softly practiced. An appropriate practice must be
performed in such a way that appropriately challenges a
person's "current" or "present" physiology. Obviously, an
appropriate yoga practice would be considerably different for
a physically fit person as compared to that of a chronically
ill or injured student.
When you, as a yoga teacher offer a student an yoga
exercise or routine, the operative questions remain: What is
yoga and How does it feel? Both ExTension and Recovery Yoga
are all about learning how to appropriately practice and teach
in a way that supports changing physiology; be it through
illness, injury, or just the natural process of growing older.
Appropriate practice and teaching are not done by rote.
Appropriate practice and teaching is based upon the knowledge
and application of neuromuscular principles and laws which
moves you toward nature's balance of strength, endurance, and
flexibility. And through that balance, you will also move
toward enhanced spirituality.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
This article was written by Sam Dworkis, author of
ExTension Yoga and Recovery Yoga Books available on the right.
See his site at www.extensionyoga.com
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