Myofascial yoga : a movement and yoga therapists guide to asana

119 Pages·2014·4.99 MB·English

by  Segarra

Myofascial Yoga

A movement and Yoga
Therapists guide to
ASANA
Kirstie Bender Segarra, PhD LMT ERYT
Myofascial Yoga
A movement and Yoga Therapists guide to
ASANA
Copyright © 2013 Kirstie Bender Segarra All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
author. Permission may be sought by contacting balinesetraditionalmassage.com.
First Edition 2013
ISBN: 10-1484838785
ISBN-13: 978-1484838785

The author/publisher has made every effort to trace holders of copyright in
original material and to seek permission for its use in Myofascial Yoga: A
movement and yoga therapists guide to asana. Should this have proved
impossible, then copyright holders are asked to contact the publisher so that
suitable acknowledgement can be made at the first opportunity.
In dedication with loving memory to Mary Owen Dean Scott, Ph.D.
a.k.a. “Tutu”.
Table of Contents
MYOFASCIAL YOGA
A Y T ASANA FORWARD
MOVEMENT AND OGA HERAPISTS GUIDE TO
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE: WHAT IS MYOFASCIAL YOGA?
CHAPTER TWO: S BACK LINE S F L
UPERFICIAL AND UPERFICIAL RONT INE
CHAPTER T : L L , “O ”
HREE ATERAL INE UR INTERNAL FISHINESS
CHAPTER F : L MÖ CHAPTER F :
OUR SPIRAL INE OR BIUS STRIP IVE DEEP FRONT
, “ ”
LINE OUR CORE
CHAPTER SIX: T A F L CHAPTER S :
HE RM LINES AND UNCTIONAL INE EVEN
A , T B R CHAPTER :
LIGNMENT OUCH AND ODY EADING EIGHT EASTERN
MEDICINE
CHAPTER : S C
NINE EQUENCING YOUR MYOFASCIAL YOGA CLASS ONCLUSION
W C
ORKS ITED
C M
ONTRIBUTORS AND ODELS
FORWARD
Given how sedentary and routinized our post-industrial society has become, we
can salute and encourage all forms of movement training, because each has a
value to different people at different times in their lives. Yoga is of course one
of the oldest attempts, along with martial arts, to reform the person through the
body, to make a better human being via how that person positions themselves or
moves. As yoga has blossomed into our western world - just speaking of the one
'limb' of hatha yoga - it has become so very popular (and popularized) and has at
the same time diversified into many different forms in various venues, from the
most meditative to the most vigorous. Long live all these approaches!

I myself am not very knowledgeable about the depths of yoga, so I cannot
comment on the superiority of any method over any other. It is not a question of
'better than', but simply 'what does this living being need right now to become
more awake, alive, and adaptable to whatever their future may hold?' In my own
observation, the worst yoga done with full attention is better than the best yoga
done with your attention elsewhere. The next question becomes: attention to
what?

Here then is where I am very happy with this book. Kirstie Segarra has turned
our attention kindly but firmly toward a systems point-of-view. She has
employed some of my anatomical ideas (thank you) and taken them beyond my
original conception to show how the various asanas engage whole systems of
muscles and their surrounding fascia.

Applying standard Western musculoskeletal anatomy to yoga is a frustrating
experience. Our standard anatomy is an anatomy of parts, a reductionistic,
scalpel-based approach that breaks the body down into smaller and smaller parts,
thinking that if we put all those parts together we will come up with the whole.
But as the greatest systemic thinker in my lifetime, Buckminster Fuller, showed
us, there are behaviours of wholes unpredicted by putting together the
behaviours of the parts - this is how he defined synergy.

Yoga has always been synergetic, and yoga has always been a systemic
approach, not a series of exercises for different 'parts'. The Anatomy Trains
schema (and it is just that, simply a map), a subset of the holistic point of view
subsumed currently under the name 'fascia', presents us with a lot easier way to
understand the intention of the yoga asanas.

In the book you hold, Kirstie Segarra has laid out clearly, concisely, and usefully
how the asanas relate to the Anatomy Trains, and how to take up and teach
(whether teaching yourself or others) the anatomy of asana in a way that makes
sense to the body and to the person. Enjoy the ride.

Intuition and scientific knowledge are not opposed, they are simply two different
ways of knowing. This book allows you to blend both ways of knowing in
mutual service to each other to develop your inner and your outer knowledge of
yoga in your own living body.

Tom Myers
Clarks Cove, Maine
2013