Yoga for Beginners: The Philosophy of Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the Secret of Sleep Meditation and Deep Ralaxation with Yoga Nidra. Includes Teaching of Yoga Poses by Aurora Cooper

Author:Aurora Cooper [Cooper, Aurora]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-05-17T00:00:00+00:00

Technique #2

Breaking Up the Fuzz

This technique will not be as easy to apply in a group Yoga classroom as it will when you are at home. This is because it will require you to hold the poses longer. If you are at home practicing alone on your mat, or in front of a DVD, you can simply pause in each of the seated or reclining poses. Stay there for a minimum of 10 to 25 breaths. With each exhalation, see if you can stretch a little bit deeper into the pose.

I am now going to share with you the connective tissue story I tell all my students at some point in our time together. The teacher in my Yoga Anatomy training course called a buildup of connective tissue “The Fuzz.”

Every night when you sleep, or whenever your body isn't mobile for that matter, your muscles and joints begin to develop a thin layer of the Fuzz. This is a white, sticky material that does indeed look quite fuzzy. It is really called connective tissue or fascia.

When you wake up in the morning, you stretch yourself out and begin to move around. This breaks up the Fuzz that has built up in your body overnight. The Fuzz is always developing, but if you make a continuous effort to break it apart, all that will remain is a thin layer.

However, if you don't make a continuous effort to break up the Fuzz, it will build up. It will build layer upon layer as if you were adding multiple coats of paint to a surface.

As the layers build up, they become less malleable and begin to calcify. The Fuzz becomes tougher and tougher, and eventually, even hard. Once it reaches this state, it becomes significantly more difficult to break apart.

It is similar to maintaining dental hygiene, where the plaque that builds up on your teeth daily eventually becomes tartar if it is neglected.

If you want to avoid having connective tissue buildup, you need to make sure you are allowing oxygen to flow into your muscles. (Too much connective tissue can suffocate the muscle, leading to muscle atrophy). This is where Yoga comes in.

I had read quite a bit about connective tissue in my other anatomy and Yoga training courses, but I didn't fully understand its significance until I attended an autopsy demonstration on two human cadavers.

The first one was a young and physically fit marathon runner. He had passed away from a head injury, but he had been very active with a good diet and maintained good flexibility and mobility in all his joints.

The second was an elderly woman who had been confined to a wheelchair for the last several decades of her life.

There were several striking differences between their spines (if you are extremely squeamish or uncomfortable with this topic, I recommend you skip the next two paragraphs).

The young man's spine looked exactly the way one would expect a spine to look. There was a little bit of white, fuzzy-looking stuff around

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