I am a bookworm! I hang out at my public library on the weekends and meander amongst the stacks like a cow grazing on pasture. Naturally, I always hit the ‘health and wellness’ section. The Yoga books fall under number 613 based on the Dewey Decimal system.
A couple of months of ago I came across the tome of a book, Your Spine, Your Yoga, by Bernie Clark. It’s Volume III in the series, Your Body, Your Yoga. This book was no easy read. The 300 some odd pages were loaded with scientific, anatomical language that made me feel like a medical school student instead of a Yoga teacher.
Being that I’m a bit of a bones and muscles gal, (I loved high school anatomy class!) I dove deep into this book and thought it would make a great blog series.
Your Spine, Your Yoga is divided into five chapters: the axial body, the sacral complex, the lumbar, the thoracic and the cervical complex. Now, what on earth does that mean?
The Axial Body – Think of the spine as the axis of your body; the line which things move or rotate around. Your head, legs and arms are connected to this axis thus making the axial body.
The Sacral Complex – At the base of the spine, the last two vertebrae, the sacrum (flat bone above your tail bone), pelvis and tail bone make up the sacral complex.
The Lumbar Segment – The lower back
The Thoracic Segment – The middle back; think of it as the spot between the shoulder blades you can’t reach to scratch.
The Cervical Complex – The upper back running through the neck up to the skull.
Once I learned how to navigate around the overwhelming language of this book, I found the insights on Yoga and the human body fascinating. The biggest take-away is that we humans are unique! I’m not just writing about fat, thin, short or tall. I’m referring to how our bones move and grow as we age and how we have to adapt as we age.
My next five blog posts will summarise each chapter in this book and hopefully you’ll learn a little something new about your body and why you may or may not be able to do that particular pose you’ve been wanting to achieve for ages.
Have you read this book, or another book about the spine? Please leave a comment below if you would like to share.
Please contact me if you would like to hold a private, in person or online yoga session where we can discuss your needs and I can design a Yoga plan uniquely for you.