TAI CHI YOGA PRINCIPLE #6:
Stretching Only as Far as Is Comfortable for You
This was me 46 years ago at the age of 28. Most would agree. This is EXTREME YOGA. Few would ever be able to do a balancing folded angle balance from a full lotus position.
At the time, I had the largest yoga teaching studio in the state of Kentucky, “Yoga East,” teaching hundreds each year. I had studied the published photos of the most extreme yoga movements of BKS Iyengar and Swami Vishnudevananda. If the movement was in their book, I could do it. The more extreme the position, the more inclined I was to want to do it.
In our late 20s and early 30s, serious yogis are at our peak physical condition and the degree to which they can flex. Most of us are teachers and like to showcase the extreme nature of what we can do. With the spread of social media, it seems that EXTREME YOGA can be seen everywhere today. But is that what yoga is really about and is that really what constitutes a great teacher?
While I was pleased with how much EXTREME YOGA I could do, I was also conscious as a yoga instructor of the different conditions, sizes, shapes, and ages of those who sought yoga from me. Those of my students who were ballet dancers could do most anything in time I demonstrated. But what about the grandmother with arthritis, the muscle-bound football player, the pregnant mother, the office worker with a large middle section, and the factory worker injured in a work-related injury?
While I was blessed with extreme flexibility, I learned early on as an instructor that those who stretched to their own bodies capabilities and comfort level derived the same internal benefits as I did from my EXTREME YOGA. When done with integrated, proper stomach breathing, anyone can experience progression physically, mentally, and spiritually from the daily practice of yoga. I found that it was more helpful to demonstrate movements and positions to the level of my students’ capabilities.
Yoga is not like regular exercise where the emphasis of most physical disciplines is to always push beyond our comfort zone, or the old axiom “No Pain, No Gain.” The reason that I have done first yoga and then tai chi yoga every day for nearly 50 years is that not only do I feel good after I have done it, but also I feel good while I am doing it. Plus as we continue our daily practice, we find that our physical capabilities and comfort zones increase naturally on their own without forcing.
Finally when I combined my tai chi and yoga into a single discipline I called Tai Chi Yoga, I found that the enhanced balance, flow, and energy awareness became more important than the degree to which I could do EXTREME YOGA. Understand – as a man, I am still no less vain than a woman who loves how yoga helps prolong and preserve a youthful look. But better still is how yoga and tai chi yoga prolong and preserve a youthful feel.
Thus, only stretch as far as is comfortable for you.