 |
  |
 |
|
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
Site Areas  |
store | | | articles | | | forums | | | studios | | | vacations |
|
yoga | massage | fitness | wellness | meditation |
|
|
For future visits, link to "http://www.YogiSource.com/forums".
Make a new bookmark.
Tell your friends so they can find us and you!
Coming soon ... exciting new changes for our website, now at YogiSource.com.
| ||
 locking knee in yogaModerators: Moderators Jump to page : 1 Now viewing page 1 [25 messages per page] | View previous thread :: View next thread |
| Yoga -> Bikram Yoga | Message format |
bomberpig |
| ||
| I have been doing Astanga on and off for about a year and have just done 2 Bikram classes just to see what it is about. Re the locking knee business, in Iyengar and Astanga then tend to tell you to pull up your kneecap with your quadriceps ( instead of locking the knee ), which keeps the leg straight and works the quads as well, and doesn't push the knee back. Seem to make more sense to me. | |||
| |||
| innerline |
| ||
| In the body there is postural and extrinsic or phasic muscles . Phasic muscles are the ones people think of when they think of muscles. They are the ones you can engage directly. Phasic muscles are powerful but for short duration. Postural muscles are deeper in the body around the bones. They tend not to be under our command. They responde to gravity and your internal world ( what you feal and think). Postural muscles do not tire easily but do not have powerful bursts. The body can change postural muscles into phasic muscles and vis versa depending on how you use your body over time. In the standing postures you are looking for a balance between the postural (deep) muscles in the leg and the phasic. Most people miss the postural muscles part. Those muscle responde to gravity, they always are since gravity always is. Easy to miss. You want weight balance in the foot so the postural muscles are strengthening the bones and your internal world and the phasic or superfiscial muscles are suporting this process. A balance between inside and outside of the leg. If the mind and ego try to do too much the phasic muscles will be over ephisized. I could go on and on but you get the point. This inside outside balance has a infinite number of relationship to realize and infer. Very rewarding. | |||
| |||
| innerline |
| ||
| This issue is in my opinion the biggest issue in Bikram Yoga. Some history will help. Bikram was not interested in teaching yoga after he left India. He was interested in rock an roll ,weight lifting, bicycling in competition. He wanted to make himself outside of india in the modern world. He had a very bad knee injury from training to "COMPETE" in weight lifting that shattered his knee. The western doctor could not help him so he was left having to return to his Guru with his tail between his legs. His Guru gave him a regimine that healed his knee. The western doctors told him he would not walk again. Once his knee was healed his teacher told him to teach yoga to the world. Bikram with the help of his Guru designed a series for modern man and went to Japan. The rest is history. So Bikram yoga started from Bikrams knee which he got injured through "Competition". Starting to see a pattern here? There is no such thing as a locked knee. As if your a peace of metal. There is nothing static about us. What your looking for with the standing postures is a balance weight in the foot and a balanced relationship between the deep leg ( around the bones) and the exstrinsic aspect of the leg. The goal, if you can say there really is one, is to get a straight vertical leg with balance through the foot that supports the core and breath. I have seen over a thousand students and I have seen only a handful of people accomplish this. Most "serious" pratitioners can get a straight leg but don't have a vertical leg which creates a poor balance in the foot and there center of gravity is behind their ankle. If the center of gravity is not balance into the earth the body has to hold and struggle or "COMPETE" to keep the core intact which the body will do at all costs. Gravity is the force the physical body is trying to come to balance with.So the more subtle bodies can be expressed or realized from the space created from balance with the earth. There needs to be a balance between the active will and the passive will or the doing and listening in all yoga postures. Bikram yoga when taught riggidly the way Bikram wants it, leads all the way into active will or struggle and strain. Very damaging to the knee and the soul wants nothing to do with such pain. Listen to your body and create a great relationship with it to the point it tells you what it needs. This whole issue deals with control and authority, issues Bikram has problems with. Hope this helps. | |||
| |||
| bomberpig |
| ||
| Thanks Brian that was very interesting. I can see how Bikram injured his knees in weightlifting after watching th Olympics - ouch!!! I find it takes a lot of mental concentration to keep the knee traight an engage all the thigh mucles and the butt, the temptation always is to get lazy and then the knee gets pushed back ( ie hyperetended ). Anyway lots to work on. | |||
| |||
| dagelove |
| ||
| Don't forget that Bikram Yoga is a beginner's series, as Bikram himself will tell you. If you listen to his instructions the next thing he says after telling you to "lock the knee" is to "contract the thigh muscles." He also tells you to do so with a straight leg and with the weight evenly distributed on the foot, which is a very clear way of saying very much what is being said above, only with a lot fewer words and less abstraction. Furthermore, he tells you to keep trying to do it over and over and to learn to listen to the body because that's where the true teaching comes from. Most of the controversy over this issue is due to a misunderstanding of what "lock the knee" means within the context of Bikram Yoga. As a performer who long ago learned never to lock the knee, I find no conflict with that in what Bikram is really asking me to do in his standing postures. | |||
| |||
| innerline |
| ||
| Thanks for your input dagelove. It sounds like you think what I have said is the same thing that Bikram says just simplier. This is the issue I see with it. If a person focuses on locking the knee, they "usually" push the knee back ,hyperextending it. The knee will end up behind the ankle leaving no possability for balance in the foot. Pushing the knee back puts an over ephasis on the front of the knee and the muscles in the front of the thigh would go with it. A staight leg with the weight evenly distributed in the foot would be a vertical leg, staight up and down, not at an angle back. The knee would be over the ankle and hip over the knee. In my opinion it is the balance in the foot that is primary. Anything that moves away from this would be distortive or playing into the imbalances inherent in peoples body. Structurally we are not expressions of perfection. Yoga has as a goal to bring us into better balance functionally and structurally. So I hear what you tell me Bikram says. The question is, what is actually happening in peoples practice?, What are the results from how it is being taught? If the results are not what was intended then the method it is being taught needs to be looked at. Over ephasis on the knee can be a bottleneck to getting the balance in the foot and the leg vertical. Have teachers studied what a balanced foot looks and feels like and the many pitfalls that express themselves in peoples bodies and feet. | |||
| |||
| dagelove |
| ||
| innerline writes, "If a person focuses on locking the knee, they "usually" push the knee back, hyperextending it." Which is why they benefit from the watchful eye and experience of their teacher. If the Bikram Method were to just tell people to lock the knee without explaining what is meant by that than I would agree with you. But the Bikram instructions include the further explanation while still trying to keep it simple enough for anyone to be able to understand and follow. When teaching anything, not just yoga, there is often a need to define terms and provide context for the language used in class. A lot of the criticisms of Bikram Yoga seem to come from people who don't understand it or hear something out of context (or who may have run into an incompetent teacher but that's not a problem unique to Bikram Yoga). | |||
| |||
| innerline |
| ||
| dagelove writes, "If the Bikram Method were to just tell people to lock the knee without explaining what is meant by that than I would agree with you". I am wondering if you can explain "lock the knee" to me with your own words. | |||
| |||
| Bay Guy |
| ||
Expert Yogi Posts: 2479    Location: A Blue State | How many times will the locked knee come up in this forum? Read some of the older posts here, especially Yogadancer's, on this subject. I've heard the Bikram "dialog" on knees hundreds of times from dozens of teachers (yes, I mean many hundreds of times). Lots of stuff about keeping the quads active, etc etc etc. Also "solid, one-piece, locked out, like a concrete lamp-post". Those are good things to counter the fundamental stress of the Bikram series on knee joints, but, over and over again, it's 'pull pull, hold hold', and so on in the dialog, and that atmosphere is what drives students toward injury. How many times have Bikram instructors told students to pull in Paschimottanasana, so that "one day your forehead will touch your toes" (ever notice that some people have long legs and short torsos? What are we trying to do, rip the spinal ligaments?). Ditto for Uttanasana. Let's look at the standing balancing series. Standing forehead to knee loads the knee joint toward hyperextension. Standing bow pulling does the same, especially if you are nearing a standing split: just look at the photos in Bikram's book where half the models are in hyperextension. Balancing stick does the same. And two sets of each of these in a row, with somebody telling you to hold them no matter what, and with your heart hitting its maximum rate for the class. No matter what you are trying to do with the muscles around the knee, under those conditions people are going to wind up falling into hyperextension. Let's see, in Bikram's book, what about Emmy Cleaves photo at the top of page 59? Or the photo on page 73? Or both standing bows on page 56? Or Jimmy Barkan's photo on page 57, bottom right? (Rajashree, on the same page is NOT hyperextending) How about the woman Bikram is assisting on page 53? Or the standing forehead to knee photos on pages 46-49? Perhaps I don't know what a hyperextended knee looks like, so would somebody else cross-check this for me? And do you know who's fault it is if students get knee injuries from all this? Well, not the student's fault anyway. :argh: Edited by Bay Guy 2004-09-09 10:40 PM | ||
| |||
| bomberpig |
| ||
| Bad guy, I find that in Bikram's if it sounds stupid I ignore it. eg 'feeling pain' when you do side back bends, 'forehead touching toes' in paschimottanasa. Anyway in Pachimottanasa I think most of the work comes from the abdominals ( here I ignore my instructor who tells me to pull from the biceps because I think that's how you put too much pressure on the knees ). And the forehead touching toe thing might be a figurative speech to stop people rounding their backs. And I contract the quads just so I support my knees. So is uttanasana, it is all core work. I I feel I am pushing too hard with my knees I don't go down as far. In standing bow I concentrate on my support leg and not my up leg. So what if I can't do the full pose and do the split, I am trying to build balance and strength in that support leg. I know it sounds like I am ignoring the instructor half the time, which I think echos what yogadancer has repeatedly said - Bikram's is not for beginners, because they have no idea about alignment, they tend to push too hard or be pushed too hard, and hence get injured. | |||
| |||
| dagelove |
| ||
| "I am wondering if you can explain "lock the knee" to me with your own words." Shift your weight to your left leg. Contract the muscles in the thigh to lock the knee. Don't just push your knee back as far as it goes but use the muscles to make and keep the leg straight. Your weight should be evenly distributed on the foot. Look at your knee in the mirror and make sure the muscles above it are engaged. You want to see that muscle definition in the mirror. That's a locked knee. (My own words, as asked for. I use the Bikram Dialog, albeit not verbatim, but I also add my own insights and observations. Isn't that what you would expect from any teacher?) I will also admonish students to back off from further steps in a posture if they lose that strong standing leg and the knee bends or hyperextends. In truth, I'm not convinced that some hyperextension is a problem when the quadriceps are properly engaged. That's why I'm not alarmed by seeing pictures of advanced practitioners with their knee hyperextended. You can argue about whether or not it is wise to show those kinds of pictures in a book designed for beginners but that's another issue. In the context of a class with a competent teacher, the Bikram method of locking the knee is not difficult to explain. | |||
| |||
| Bay Guy |
| ||
Expert Yogi Posts: 2479 Location: A Blue State | Okay, Dagelove, so you are admitting that Bikram put a dozen or more pictures of people hyperextending their knees in his beginner's yoga book as examples of the "ideal way" to do the pose. And now, instead of arguing that Bikram doesn't teach hyperextension, you're telling us "it's okay to hyperextend your knee if you are an advanced practitioner". I notice that Rajashree (who knew yoga before meeting Bikram) does not hyperextend her knees. I believe that it's fair to say nobody currently associated with BYCI is more advanced than she... Anyway, it's good that some Bikram instructors, like you, are teaching students not to hyperextend their knees despite what Bikram put in his book. Keep up the good work! | ||
| |||
| Wulfheir |
| ||
| i started bikram yoga a month ago and the instructors tell you not to let the knee bend back, but rather shift weight to the heel, engage the thigh muscles and imagine your knee cap coming up, not back. i have heard this from 3 instructors. maybe i lucked out and joined a good studio. | |||
| |||
| MariaFloresta |
| ||
| My experience has been the same. I have been to 2 different Bikram studios in the past month while visiting friends in addition to my regular studio, where there are 3 instructors. All 5 teachers emphasized pulling up on the the thigh muscle to straighten the knee rather than pulling back. They all also talked about the importance of balancing the weight evenly on the foot and connecting with the inner thigh muscles and the need to build strength in the entire leg and not to focus on the knee in itself. I have been reading this board for a while so I was pretty vigilant about this issue as there is such controversy. Also, each one talked of being very careful with the knees in fixed firm as well as awkward (keeping alignment etc). Having said that though, in backward bends, there was not the consistency I would have liked, but that's another topic. | |||
| |||
| dagelove |
| ||
| Bay Guy writes: "Okay, Dagelove, so you are admitting that Bikram put a dozen or more pictures of people hyperextending their knees in his beginner's yoga book as examples of the "ideal way" to do the pose. And now, instead of arguing that Bikram doesn't teach hyperextension, you're telling us "it's okay to hyperextend your knee if you are an advanced practitioner"." Actually, what I said was... "I'm not convinced that some hyperextension is a problem when the quadriceps are properly engaged." I also offered no guesses as to how or why Bikram chose the photos for his book. During the course of this conversation I haven't even looked at the book because I have been primarily talking about the instructions given during class regarding the knee and what it means to lock it. I'll have to look to see what he says in the book about locking the knee to see if it varies from his current dialogue. At the moment, I'm keeping an open mind as to whether or not SOME hyperextension is always and necessarily problematic. Not being convinced leaves room for doubt in either direction. I live in a world of gray areas and I'm not comfortable with absolutes. I know that it's important to engage the thigh muscles during standing postures. To me, that's more important than exactly how many degrees a knee might be bent in either direction. I've seen a lot of different body shapes and conditions and I accept that there will be variances in how things look depending on a number of different factors. Because I primarily teach beginners, I stress using the muscles to keep the leg as straight as possible during the standing poses - even when standing on two legs. Both Bikram and Rajashree began practicing yoga as young children and each of them were multiple year winners of India's national yoga competition. I think it's fair to say that they are both advanced practitioners. The fact that their postures may not look exactly alike might say something about these sometimes silly debates about the "correct" way to do yoga. I think we're in agreement that safety is paramount. Where we differ is that I am quite convinced of the safety of Bikam's method, as taught by him (and Rajashree and many others, including myself). | |||
| |||
| Bay Guy |
| ||
Expert Yogi Posts: 2479 Location: A Blue State | Sigh. Actually, you said quite a bit more than that, as anyone can see by scrolling back up a few messages. So your statement about not being troubled by "seeing pictures" of people with hyperextended knees in Bikram's book was not in fact based on seeing those pictures...have I got that right? You're defending Bikram valiantly, of course, but don't you think you ought to look at the evidence for yourself? Anyway, whenever you can trouble yourself to look at the photographs (note, I mean the photos, not the text or the dialog), I'd certainly be interested in hearing your thoughts on them. So far as Bikram being advanced, all reports say that he was utterly amazing back in the 1970's. There's even old video footage of him doing wild stuff. But I'm thinking of Bikram *today* when I speak so highly of Rajashree. (Since this discussion has gotten to be so literalistic, remember that I said "currently" and "more".) Edited by Bay Guy 2004-09-13 9:18 PM | ||
| |||
| innerline |
| ||
| Wulfheir and others. My experience of teachers that are more studied than most of the teachers that come right out of training is, they know there is something that is amiss about hyper extending the knee and have a better knowledge about it like dagelove shows. But in actuality they are still missing the alignment. They know in their heads a degree of what you want but in practice it is still unbalanced. I would have to go to dagelove's studio and see the practices. Case in point with Wulfheir. Knee over the heel is still a hyperextended knee. Weight focused into the heel is not balanced weight through the foot. I bet at that studio peoples knees are over their heel and not the ankle. So teachers sound good but do not know the alignment in manafestation. We can talk very easily, but how in harmony are our actions with what we say. My experience shows that our actions can be coming from a very different place then what the mind reflects. Many teachers now what to say but do not know what it takes to guide someone to the alignment and balance. | |||
| |||
| Wulfheir |
| ||
innerline - 2004-09-13 8:53 PM Case in point with Wulfheir. Knee over the heel is still a hyperextended knee. Is this an accepted definition of a hyperextended knee? If so, this is something that my instructor and I can easily watch for. | |||
| |||
| innerline |
| ||
| Wulfheir, Anytime the knee is behind the ankle it would be hyperextended. A straight leg angled back is also hyperextended. So it is not just when the leg is bowed back but also anytime the knee is behind the ankle in what ever fashion. Knee should be over the ankle not the heel. Wulfheir, give this subject alot of attention, do not just depend on the teachers knowledge, know for yourself. | |||
| |||
| Jump to page : 1 Now viewing page 1 [25 messages per page] |
| Search this forum Printer friendly version E-mail a link to this thread |
| (Delete all cookies set by this site) | |