Child’s pose is great to rest in during a sweaty vinyasa practice when you need a break, but when did it become a “modification”, a different version of an inversion? And in both cases, child’s pose may exacerbate their existing injuries instead of helping them.
The options they are given need to be different. Take another person who has a previous knee injury, and they may be able to deeply forward fold but are unable to support their weight in a closed chain stretch with the knee in deep flexion.
If someone has a history of a bulging disc, they may be able to accomplish all the joint positions of the leg, but have trouble forward folding. This pose requires deep hip flexion and external rotation of the front leg, deep knee flexion, and generally some ankle dorsiflexion along with spinal flexion. The purpose of the pose depends on the goal of the teacher, but, in general, we are stretching glute max, external rotators, piriformis, etc. Take a commonly cued pose like Ardha Kapotasana, aka half-pigeon pose. This is a difficult task to accomplish in a 200hr training (trust me, I try).
If we are going to label something accessible, we must first understand what it is we are accessing, to begin with.
#Accessible yoga how to#
Understanding how to make yoga accessible and how to modify poses comes down to education. Though age doesn’t at all suggest skill level and training, it does imply that we will see more diverse body types with more diverse injury histories. With more people finding yoga as a complement to healthcare and more older adults coming to yoga than ever before, we, as a community of yoga professionals, need to create an understanding of what “accessible” means. The 2016 survey conducted by Yoga Journal and Yoga Alliance shows that 14 million yoga practitioners are over the age of 50. In the US, the number of adults using yoga as a complement to healthcare increased from 9.5% in 2012 to 14.3% in 2017 according to the CDC. I believe that if we are throwing these words out there, we need to be able to back up what we say with well-informed teaching. Yoga studios everywhere are advertising with phrases like “Yoga for EVERY body,” “modifications encouraged,” and “accessible yoga.” When I see this, I ask myself, is a temperature of 105 degrees accessible? When I attend classes at some of these studios, do I actually SEE all body shapes? Or diversity at all for that matter? Is resting in child’s pose really an alternative to getting upside down? What I have observed in the yoga community is the transition to a more broad scope practice. They may have the same diagnosis as the person next door, but their symptoms and treatment plan are different. When I go into a patient’s room, I assess that patient. I love approaching movement from a complex, anti-one-size-fits-all attitude. As a registered nurse of 12 years, this excites me.
Movement is being looked at through a scientific lens, and we have started to question the way things have always been done. When the person next to me asked the instructor how to get upside down, the instructor told her to “just modify in child’s pose instead.” I have heard this very same instruction several times since this incident in classes, which studios market with the same misleading buzzwords. Much to my dismay, halfway through the class, the instructor said, “Now go upside-down” without any other explanation. I recently went to a class labeled “all levels” and, within the class description, found words like “accessible” and “modifications taught.” I expected an “all levels” vinyasa class as described, where difficulty may be layered with strategic sequencing and thoughtful options and pose choices. I love being anonymous and observing how different people do things, often picking up tips for my business back home. As a studio owner and yoga educator, one of my favorite things to do is take yoga classes when I am out of town.
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