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| I get a bit frustrated in class when my instructor insists that those of us who can't do certain poses are suffering from "an inflexible mind". One instructor in particular seems quite keen on the concept that an inflexible body is diagnostic of a rigid personality. And those of us unable to do a great standing head-to-knee pose are clearly unable to do so simply because we have a "personality defect".
Personally, I think I can't get into a great standing bow pose because my body has been unused and my muscles and tendons are unfortunately of a certain length with a certain range of motion right now as a result. It certainly isn't through lack of effort or lack of desire or belief that I can get there. While all personalities are different, I'm not sure if I buy this concept completely. And maybe my ego is getting in the way, but I find this just a tad bit offensive because some of the most physically flexible people that I know have the most rigid personalities, and I find that for a teacher to "diagnose" students in this way is in itself rigid and judgemental!
Anyone else hear this theory? Thoughts? |
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| Do you think you could be misinterpreting what the instructor is saying. |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
    
| Nonsense! Unless it is in the "dialogue" in which case it must be the complete and utter, unassailable truth.
OTOH - most of us are indeed unaware that we can go places in asana that we really can get to. With a safe and well executes assist, many of us can go beyond what we think our limits might be in a pose AND stay in that pose on our own after we have been helped to get there. Looked at from this angle, there is a smidgen of truth to that idea.
OTOOH (other, other hand) a flexible body and an inflexible mind is also totally possible. |
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| Ram - Nope, not misinterpreted at all! The one in question is the studio owner who doesn't stick to the dialogue and she will say this, literally, as in during standing stick: "Ok, can you keep your knee locked? if you can't you need to think about your life and how rigid you are in life. If you can't straightend your leg, is it because you are are a rigid person? Those who are RIGID can't do the movements with their BODIES! Rigidity transfers from your life to your body!"
Seriously.
And I've heard the same from my Thai Yoga Massage therapist. She asked me during a session if I was a "rigid personality" because my hamstrings were tight. She said that those who were inflexible personality wise were also physically inflexible, and that I needed to "work on that aspect" if I wanted to improve my yoga practice. Grrr! I've NEVER EVER had long loose hamstrings, ever, even as a child, but I digress...
I think that one needs to be open to the possibility of the pose, as in "I know I can do it" and visualize a perfect pose while doing it, but whether or not you GET there has alot to do with your body composition as determined genetically and through use/disuse patterns. I agree- if you approach a pose as "oh my I'll never do it" you won't. But if you think you can and your body won't let you, that's another matter?
Edited by freiamaya 2009-12-26 12:01 PM
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Regular
Posts: 73
Location: The City of Brotherly Love | Yoga teachers and body workers should stick to teaching yoga or doing massage and leave the psychological diagnosis for the trained professionals in that area.
Even if I did think that something about a person's posture could be related to an emotional issue, I certainly wouldn't make them feel like that was some kind of character defect and I certainly wouldn't address it in front of a public class. If I felt that my relationship with that person was trustworthy enough than I might bring it up in private if I really thought it could help them.
I think Danurasana said it best in another thread about a "flexible, enlightened a$$hole is still an a$$hole." Or something like that. Sounds like the teacher in question gets on a power trip. Sad...
And to the OP I certainly hope you don't feel like less of a person because your standing bow isn't as "good" as the freakin' teacher's. In fact maybe we should have some sympathy for that teacher. Maybe her standing bow is great but her personal life and relationships could have problems. Who would you rather be?
Edited by Roy Batty 2009-12-26 12:36 PM
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| Yes: An emotionally tense person will usually have a tense musculature. A rigid person will probably have a rigid musculature. We do hold our emotions and moods in our muscles as well as our minds. (Try being angry and relaxed at the same time.)
This has almost nothing to do with how deeply you can go into a pose.
Just because something is true does not mean that it applies to all people at all times.
The first barrier to a pose is often the relative lengths of your body parts, which has absolutely nothing to do with your emotions. The second barrier is the genetic elasticity of your muscles and tendons, also nothing to do with emotion. Thirdly, you have the relative amount of strength that you have (if you are stronger, you are less flexible and vice versa). Fourthly, you have how long and how frequently you have been stretching. Fifthly?, you have the other activities that you do that may shorten your muscles, like running or cycling shortening your hamstrings. Lastly (usually a distant last), you may have some emotional issues that relate to your practice, just like whatever your emotional issues are also relate to absolutely everything else that you do.
Unless your teacher is a clinical psychologist AND a physical therapist as well as a yoga teacher, I can only assume that he/she is just talking bullshit. Unfortunately, a lot of teachers (not just yoga) use their petty, temporary authority to be experts on everything. |
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| wellll....
we have all these nerves and blood vessels that run through our whole body, right?
if someone has poor posture and the resultant tightness/slackness that comes with,
wouldn't it stand to reason that their brains would not be receiving as much blood and nervous transit?
this is not to say that they are any less of people, but that their physical posture could very much be effecting their personality.
i mean, i clearly see people with overly muscular, tight bodies more prone to anger and aggression. in my weightlifting days i was much the same way. even now i still deal with that physical karma...doesn't being choked make you aggravated? so why should being choked by your own physique be any different?
additionally, i see recurring incidences of people with overly slack or flexible bodies having a difficult time enforcing personal boundaries.
i could go further, but only at the risk of sounding like a flexible @$$hole?
these ideas get thrown around (often times irresponsibly) a lot in movement/bodywork circles, but i think there is something to it. the body, mind and spirit are fundamentally connected, so wouldn't one have an impact on the others?
i know that the insights of my asana practice have translated into better understanding of my personality defects...
a couple great books on this subject are Hatha Yoga: the Hidden Language by Swami Sivananda Radha and Rolfing: the Integration of Human Structures by Ida Rolf. |
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| dhanurasana - 2009-12-26 10:18 AM
but that their physical posture could very much be effecting their personality.
the body, mind and spirit are fundamentally connected, so wouldn't one have an impact on the others?
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Our personality affects our posture as well as our posture affecting our personality. It is all inter-related.
The body, mind and spirit are not connected. They are one. You cannot have one without the others as they are not seperate. They are the same thing viewed from different perspectives.
For example: Do hormones control the brain or does the brain control your hormones? Isn't it both?
I still think that this teacher is talking bullshit.
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 574
| Firstly you need to define what flexibility is? Is it being able to stretch certain muscle groups? How you coordinate muscles with breathing? When you where a baby were you inflexible and only as you have developed, you have become inflexible as your personality has changed? When one is stressed of course the muscles tonus is very different from when at peace. It is so easy to forget that the brain controls our muscles and how we go into postures. To really improve yourself you have to allow yourself to be open, which often means getting away from a comfort zone of where you are already (on all levels). When you allow yourself to open up you will allow yourself to regain lost flexibility which is often caused by poor habits and poor coordination. So your teacher has a point. But without explaining further and probably without having the ability to help you understand how to find the underlying causes of your inflexibility and to learn how to learn to improve your flexibility. |
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| Sounds like she needs to go back to the dialogue, which has NONE of that bullshit! To borrow a phrase from Bikram: "Oh man, that's discrimination!!"
There is definitely a little grain of truth in the statement, which several people have already explained, but the generalization is way off base.
I really believe that our perception of the world is hugely shaped by the way we speak to ourselves and percieve ourselves. In other words, there are many time when we see something in the world that we dislike and we don't realize that we are just looking into a mirror. So you're right, in a way; I'd bet that a person who is very rigid and critical towards students is exactly the same way towards herself. Which is a shame. But it's also a shame when instructors bring their own issues into the classroom and reflect them out onto the students. I know we're all just human, but I REALLY wish that shit could stay OFF THE PODIUM. |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 5098
Location: Somewhere in the Mountains of Western NC | oh brother, 
To the original poster...your intuition is correct...this is BS at its finest,  |
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| i do believe in a certain measure of body typing and personality being entwined in that. i wouldn't say that it's a "smidgen" of truth. it is true.
but here is another truth--as jimg said--it's not true all the time with all peoples in all situations.
i had a client who had a form of muscular distrophy that set her posture into a peculiar slouch. for many--as jimg mentions--a slouch might indicate certain issues with the heart chakra or certain emotional/self-esteem issues or whatever.
so, just looking at her and looking at another woman slouching like her, you might think--wow, those two women have LOW self esteem! look at how they slouch! well, perhap one woman does, but the other woman has the effect of muscular dystrophy.
this client is my favorite teaching tool when teaching Anodea Judith's Eastern Body, Western Mind (which goes into this). it is a small section of my advanced teacher training. one aspect of the training is striving to 'feel' the energy body (in oneself, then in others).
what most people begin to feel is that this woman's heart chakra is very balanced. she also is balanced both above and below that chakra. it was a lot of energetic, psychological, etc work on her part. i laud her on this.
just looking at her, though, people assume that she has X, Y, and Z chakra problems that could indicate these physical, emotional, etc problems as the text would indicate. but when you then go and FEEL her body (energy body), you notice that it is not the case.
this is how i teach the students to begin to look with the feelings/intuitive self, rather than the eyes.
aside from that, though, i also teach them--and am mindful myself--to NOT mention what i think i have perceived. where it has impact is how i do non-verbal communication such as assisting. i do not say to that student--as your teacher does--if you can't do this, it's because of that.
i have said things like, "sometimes, a tightness or weakness has an origin that isn't physical--it's a psycho-somatic hold or trapped emotion, or an old pattern that we are holding on to. it's good to explore this occassionally if you feel frustrated that you aren't moving forward. or, it could just be where your limit is right now. so who cares? there's always next week."
the only benefit, i feel, in being able to analyze what we see and to feeling the energy body--as a teacher--is to better serve my students. i can be more careful for them. |
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| Mental masturbation... that's all that instructor is feeding you. Total BS, a waste of time, energy, and totally off base. Ugh. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 574
| I cant believe some people are dismissing what the teacher said. The truth hurts only if you allow it to. It is so obvious that when someone is tense his muscles are too. |
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| Being tense does not mean that you have a rigid personality and vice versa. The most open-minded people can go to a class in a state of anxiety or irritation over something, be physically tense, and see their practice is affected. The same goes the other way.
Rigid people can be relaxed: open-minded people can be tense.
A person who sees things "black and white" or rigidly can be wonderfully flexible physically. We have one instructor very much like this. Others who are more "go with the flow" can't touch their head to their knees.
I don't think anyone can realisitically deny the impact that body composition, genetics and movement patterns has on a person. If we could all do a pose because we "think positively" or were "open to it", trust me, we'd all be there. For lots of us, myself included, the mind is extremely willing but the body just can't cooperate. And it isn't helpful to have the added "diagnosis" of some sort of personality flaw added to the mix.
Edited by freiamaya 2010-01-02 7:30 PM
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Extreme Veteran
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| You dont get it. I know a lady with ms who has been to many different yoga therapists, physiotherapists,acupunturists,massage therapists,psychotherapists and life coaching too,Mainly for her right knee which refused to ben for over ten years. She admitted she is a stubborn woman and feels her body is the same. After one private yoga session with my great teacher, she was able to bend her right knee for the first time in over ten years. This was because she did something to improve the body image made up of cells inn her motor cortex area of the brain,and for a while moved away from the rigid stubborn nature which has effected her mobility for years. Since that private session she is still able to bend her right knee freely and feels less rigid and stubborn as a result.
We can only move according to our body image in the motor cortex area of the brain.Without an image we simply wouldnt move. Many stiff people beleive the only way to get flexibile is through hard repitions of stretching and exercise without thinking what the cause of their immobility is.So they associate becoming flexible with hard work that is difficult to achieve so then it becomes so.
In a similar way there are so many stories of athletes improviing as they get older after some from of psychotherapy or positive thinking methods. Often sportsmen run into a brickwall at some stage of their career. But then they learn how to go through it. If they a rigid they will remain hitting the wall without going further. |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 5098
Location: Somewhere in the Mountains of Western NC | Hey Vibes,
Part of what you say is true....HOWEVER, it is not necessarily true for every individual and this is where the problem lies. Its not a ONE size fits all solution. I hate it when yoga teacher "tries" to be intuitive based on things like you just said. Most of the cures like the one you mentioned are simply that your teacher got lucky and hit the jackpot. There is science behind Yoga and alternative medicines such as traditional Chinese and Ayurveda...there are so many other factors involved when it comes to healing and caring for the human body! |
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| You can sit and think about being flexible forever and it will not make you flexible. You are not flexible because you have a mental image of yourself that you are flexible. Yes, you can keep your muscles in a constant state of tension due to mental states, but your flexibility is mainly a matter of the elasticity of your cells, not the enervation of your muscles by your nerves. (There is no such thing as mind over matter because mind is matter! This is an artificial duality.) To become more flexible, you MUST stretch your muscles. Your state of mind can help this process or hinder it, but more flexible muscles are a result of your body rebuilding itself on the cellular level to meet your current usage of those muscles. If your current usage is stretching them and increasing your range of motion, you will grow more flexible muscles just like if you lift weights, you will grow larger, stronger muscles to meet that demand.
Vibes-I strongly suspect that your story about the woman with ms is an urban legend. You said:"We can only move according to our body image in the motor cortex area of the brain .Without an image we simply wouldnt move."
This image (proprioception) is NOT a conscious image and it can not be directly affected by our conscious minds any more than you can consciously control your pancreas or gall bladder.
Our minds and our bodies are not two seperate things. The content of our conscious mind affects our body and our body affects our conscious mind as they are both part of a single entity. This is shown by the use of drugs that change body chemistry and therefore change mood, perception and consciousness. If someone has really tight muscles and takes muscle relaxants, what happens? They will have slightly more flexible muscles, but they will not suddenly be on the cover of Yoga Journal or ready for Cirque de Soliel. If you want tight muscles to be more flexible, you must systematically stretch them until the grow flexible. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 574
| I still cant believe this! It is not an urban legend. The yoga teacher did not just get lucky.Stretching has a big drawback-it does not characteristacly change the way we move.You may be able to stretch yourself into many positions but move poorly.You may have strength in your muscles according to some social model of attractiveness (which model rarely provides a useful support to your daily activities); you may be aerobicaly fit in terms of cardiopulmonary capacity (but be neither breathing well or relaxed). In spite of such exercises, the manner in which you carry out any common activity tends to remain founded on your habitual coordination or self-organization, which may be ineffective and harmful. Conventional exercise seldom facilitates functionally useful movement. In fact it tends to aggravate habitual patterns.
When the body is well organized such that unnecessary tension is released and the anti-gravity mechanisms are working effectively, the body is buoyant and relaxed and movement becomes easier.
Generally, we presume that our sensory-motor capabilities are determined by nature, that each of us has reached our natural limits, and that deterioration is inevitable. Fortuantely, this is not true. There are no known limits to learning and few of us have approximated our full potential. Indeed pain,stiffness,mal-coordination,stress tension,poor posture, most so called signs of ageing even,are not predetermined processes,but faults in or regression of learning. And these limitations can be undone, not through some of the yoga that some of you guys do and stretching, which do not effectively improve the way we characteristacaly move, and tend, in fact to reinforce the very sensory-mmotor habits which are at the root of the limitations we are suffering,but through renewed learning. |
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| vibes,
If you do not bend your knee for ten years, you will lose the ability to bend your knee. If you do not use your legs, they will atrophy and become unusable. Do you know why astronauts are carried off of space vehicles when they return to earth? It is because they have lost so much bone mass in space because of weightlessness. Their bodies have absorbed their bones as they are not needed in weightlessness.
You said: "When the body is well organized such that unnecessary tension is released and the anti-gravity mechanisms are working effectively, the body is buoyant and relaxed and movement becomes easier." Absolutely true, but this does not mean that that organization is a mental exercise. You change one habitual pattern by replacing it with another habitual pattern, hopefully one that works better for you. You change patterns by re-wiring your brain and nervous system so that the preferred actions take place automatically. This is the result of regular practice so that the new pathways become dominant and the old deteriorate.
You said: "Indeed pain,stiffness,mal-coordination,stress tension,poor posture, most so called signs of ageing even,are not predetermined processes,but faults in or regression of learning." Bullshit!
As far as aging and deterioration goes, the body (mind included) will age and deteriorate no matter what. We can speed that process up or slow it down, but it will happen no matter what we do or think or which self proclaimed "master" we mindlessly follow.
Namaste,
Jim
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 574
| You do not understand Jim. Simple as that. It is far from bullshit. It is a shame that you feel that way. Your life will better if you look forward to improving with age which you can-you dont have to be a smelly cheese or a wine to do so!
All the above mentioned signs of ageing can be stopped and reversed. Ofcourse ageing itself cannot! |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 574
| Also if you know how to use your thinking, you can use it to improve your flexibility. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 574
| Babies do not walk often for as long as a year and sometimes for a year and a half. This generally never means that they will lose their ability to walk. The above mentioned woman was unable to bend her leg for over 10 years and she could after a private session. |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 5098
Location: Somewhere in the Mountains of Western NC | Wow......!!!!
BTW, thanks Jim, I really appreciate your post, what you said made a ton of sense!!
Edited by Cyndi 2010-01-04 10:42 PM
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| I think this thread has strayed from the question a bit...
Of course the mind affects the body, and of course the body affects the mind. However, as far as teaching practices go, a student should never even SUSPECT that they are being told: "You only have trouble with this posture because you suck as a person." Number one, it's never that simple, because the mind is only ONE of the many things that shapes the body. (Others would include lifestyle, sports history, injuries, and everything else that's EVER happened to you.) And number two, criticism is an INEFFECTIVE teaching tool.
My favorite yoga book uses a great analogy. If your pipes are clogged, there are two ways to clear them out. One way is to bang on them from the outside. The other way is to flow water through and clear them from the inside. Those are the two approaches to yoga: the first way is to take your body through poses, which works from the outside in, and the second way is basically meditation practice (for lack of a better word), which works from the inside out. Bikram yoga relies on the first approach, of "banging on the pipes." Vibes, I think you are an advocate of the second approach. But both methods can be extremely effective WHEN DONE WELL, and they are MOST effective when done TOGETHER.
Did I make my point? That's my 2 cents, and I'm sticking to it! |
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Is there a link between physical flexibility and personality?
