Area Yoga Brooklyn

Here at AREA Yoga, we have a great variety of teachers from many different yoga schools and backgrounds. We seek to share our teachers’ knowledge and style with the AREA community as a whole – even if you can’t make it to each teacher’s class. “Tea with Our Teachers” is our way of fostering satsang – a forum to discuss our yoga practice.

Last month, we heard from Erin about restorative yoga. This month, Anne shares her take on the same practice of restorative yoga. Ask the same questions, and get very different answers.

AY: What does “restorative yoga” mean to you?
AT: I trained in restorative yoga under the supervision of Bo Forbes PsyD, a bio-psychologist and yoga therapist who looks at restorative yoga in the context of the nervous system — i.e. as a way to cultivate balance for the body and mind. Much of my experience teaching restorative yoga has been as a tool to promote healing. I have taught restorative yoga to persons with chronic pain, immune system disorders, as well as persons with heightened or depressed nervous system functioning (anxiety, insomnia, PTSD, and depression). I see restorative yoga as an antidote to our accelerated pace of life and a way to clear the mind and learn to be comfortable with who we are.
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Here at AREA Yoga, we have a great variety of teachers from many different yoga schools and backgrounds. We seek to share our teachers’ knowledge and style with the AREA community as a whole – even if you can’t make it to each teacher’s class. “Tea with Our Teachers” is our way of fostering satsang – a forum to discuss our yoga practice.

Erin and I recently discussed restorative yoga and its benefits. Restorative yoga utilizes props, such as blocks, bolsters, and straps, to support your body in passive poses. Thanks to the props, your body is able to more fully release into the poses and their stretch. As we say here at AREA yoga, “this provides a meditative, slow practice allowing time to go deeper not only into the body, but into the restless mind.”

AY: What does “restorative yoga” mean to you?

ET: Restorative yoga is a unique form of yoga. The body and mind are rejuvenated; it is a process of restoring rather than building. The body is continually stressed throughout our day and this type of yoga can counter the effects of stress.

AY: Can you explain further what you mean by being “rejuvenated” by restorative yoga? How does restorative yoga counter the effects of stress?

ET: With restorative yoga, the poses are held for longer periods of time (up to 15 minutes sometimes) and the body is completely supported by props such as bolsters, blankets and even a wall. For example, viparita karani or “legs-up-the-wall pose” helps the blood and lymph from the lower extremities to return to the heart more efficiently (relieving physiological stress). This can, in turn, reduce blood pressure, decrease nausea and headaches. Many of the poses are very calming and soothing to the mind psychologically, as well. In fact, every pose has specific benefits, both physical and psychological. Some sources say that it helps with depression and anxiety.

AY: What drew you to teach restorative yoga?

ET: I was drawn to restorative yoga after experiencing one class with my 200-hour-teacher. The class was so calming and soothing. Every time I practice restorative poses, whether it be to help with insomnia, headaches or just to take some time out, I feel as though I have done something very nourishing for myself. I also find restorative yoga to be more meditative, at times, than other forms of yoga. The mind is very quiet in these poses… at least that is the goal. I’ve learned that it isn’t always easy to take time out to do something like this for ourselves. But, it can be so rewarding if we do!

AY: On that same note, how can people incorporate restorative yoga into their every day lives?

Relax & Renew by Judith Hanson Lasater

ET: There are a few basic poses that can be learned, but it’s best if beginners to restorative yoga work under the guidance of a teacher. The body needs to be placed properly in the pose and the teacher is there to make sure that is the case. There are some good books out there also. The best one I’ve found is Relax and Renew by Judith Lasater.

AY: Aside from your own positive experience in restorative yoga, can you share any stories your students, yoga peers, or yourself may have about the tangible benefits of restorative yoga?

ET: My husband recently had low back and sciatic nerve pain. He’s been doing some prescribed restorative yoga poses with me which has greatly reduced his pain and increased his quality of life.

AY: Prescribed by a doctor or his yogi wife?

ET: Yogi wife! Other students have told me that the stress of the current financial situation has drawn them to practicing restorative yoga. Personally, I find it works wonders for headaches and insomnia.

AY: One last, very important question: What’s your favorite music/background noise for when you do restorative on your own?

ET: Stars of the Lid! Awesome!

Here at AREA Yoga, we have a great variety of teachers from many different yoga schools and backgrounds. We seek to share our teachers’ knowledge and style with the AREA community as a whole – even if you can’t make it to each teacher’s class. “Tea with Our Teachers” is our way of fostering satsang – a forum to discuss our yoga practice.

I sat down with Anna to discuss her take on prenatal yoga. Having never been pregnant myself, and having never taken a prenatal yoga class, I was curious to learn about the prenatal practice and experience.

AY: What drew you to teach prenatal yoga?

AA: I’ve taught yoga for 10 years. In 2006, I had my son and from that experience – being pregnant while being a yoga teacher, giving birth, and so forth – I started teaching prenatal. I find it rewarding in a different way than teaching to regular folk.

AY: How so?

AA: Pregnant women have to deal with a constantly and quickly changing body. During my own pregnancy I found it to be an incredible lesson in all the things we strive to do as yogis. I was forced – against my will I might add – to be incredibly present with everything happening inside me, like never before or after. And I think about that when I teach prenatal: these women are going through this hyper presence-producing process and I get to support and direct it in a positive way.

AY: It’s very yogic: your own experience has given you a unique awareness. How do you tailor your classes for the needs of your students – both in terms of the physical practice and the emotional/mental/spiritual practice?

AA: There are a few things pregnant women can’t do, such as twists and extreme backbends, so this rules out a whole set of things I would cover in a regular class. The sun salutations are geared toward pregnant women, with step backs, no jumping, wider stance, and so on. I give a few variations for each posture and coming into and out of it, as there is a marked difference in what a women can do in early pregnancy versus in later pregnancy. In terms of the emotional/mental/spiritual, I do exercises that build on a woman’s intuition, her own inner reserves. Prenatal yoga is for the current moment, to stretch and strengthen the woman where she is that day but then to also prepare her for labor, giving birth. There is so much sensation. During labor of course, but also throughout the pregnancy. I’ve stopped using the P word [ed. note: pain] and focus on bringing women into their sensations, in warrior, in badha konasana, in pigeon. This is so elemental in yoga and yet for a pregnant woman, this is so in her face. IT is coming, there is no way out, so I hope to create in each class some feeling of sinking into what is, rather than what we hope for, usually a lessening of sensation. What is fascinating to me is that it is easier for pregnant women to get to these places than the rest of us in yoga.

AY: Very thoughtful Anna. Can a woman who did not practice yoga before becoming pregnant start during her pregnancy?

AA: Absolutely! As long as there are no medical reasons not to of course. It is like a basics class in that way, but with even more caution.

AY: Aside from what you mentioned earlier about getting into the experience of a pregnancy, in your own experience, and speaking of the experience of your students, what would you say are the benefits of prenatal yoga?

AA: Movement is a great benefit. As the baby grows it becomes more and more difficult to move yet movement is how we all, and especially a pregnant woman, can keep the aches and pains at bay. Movement also leads to a comfortable rest, for the body, and for the ever roving mind. On that note, mindfulness is a great benefit of prenatal yoga. There are so many fears and anxieties that come up during pregnancy and prenatal yoga helps ease these worries because we practice being in the present moment, shifting our attention to the breath instead of to our thoughts. Finally, the benefits of prenatal yoga include help for labor. We do postures and breathwork and imagery and meditation techniques that, practiced throughout the pregnancy, can greatly help during the birthing process, regardless of whether it turns out to be a natural birth or a cesarean, with medication or without.

AY: It sounds like your class truly is a sanctuary. I just have one last question, what’s one thing a day that pregnant women can do throughout their pregnancy to cultivate this mindfulness you’re talking about?

AA: Taking 5 minutes each day to sit or lie still, close the eyes, follow the breath with the mind, and whenever the mind wanders away from the breath, bring the mind gently back to the breath. I know you asked for one thing, but I’ll add a physical experience to the above: take 5 minutes a day to move how the body wants to in that moment, it can be standing, sitting, lying down, all fours, watch the breath while moving with one’s intuition.