When I started going to yoga, before I became a teacher, I found that it was accepted as common sense in the yoga community that yoga helps with a variety of ailments. But I didn't find much agreement or clarity about why and how exactly yoga works. It was kind of random, not everyone was having this result. I went to public yoga classes for about a year before I felt a whole lot better. With this training in Spanda Yoga Movement Therapy I learned assessments, analyses, and practices to cut right to the heart of dysfunction and in many cases start seeing improvement after just a few lessons.
In Spanda Yoga Movement Therapy we use three streams of functional somatic improvement. These are acute injury, chronic pain, and elite movers. I have had individual clients shift back and forth between streams on this spectrum. So I have had adults in their 60s come for chronic pain management, after being told by other professionals that they should expect progressively deteriorating symptoms with little hope of improvement. With yoga movement therapy, after a reduction or removal pain, sometimes these people keep coming to me and move into the stream of precision athletics. Part of this has to do with using the breath to control the autonomic nervous system. When I can mindfully disengage my body's stress response through an act of volition, everything becomes lighter and easier.
I think of Spanda as following a spark of inspiration all the way through to manifestation, whether it is doing a dance, or making a sandwich. Modern life, and even some yoga classes, have become terribly regimented. So I always try to include time in my practices for following original inspiration. Of course, there are some people who are always bouncing up to get a sandwich when they need to be focusing on their work, so there is some need for balance here, but it is my observation that most of us need to be working a little less, and dancing a little more. This takes me, and now my clients and students, much further on a journey towards oneness with ourselves.
Keep it moving everyone,
-Jamie
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