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23: Practical Strategies for Injured Students
379 Plays2 years ago
Welcome to Episode 23 of the Movement Logic Podcast! In this episode, Sarah outlines five practical steps you can take as a movement teacher when you have a client or student who is injured. She discusses:
- Whether “just don’t do this pose” is a valid and useful answer for some teachers
- Why memorizing a billion modifications can work, but there’s an easier way
- What to do with a student when you don’t have any experience with their condition/injury
- How to think critically in the moment when you are teaching so you can offer the most logical solution to their issue
- How to relate to someone’s unique anatomy such that it might cause them pain or discomfort in a pose that you don’t experience
- A logical step-wise approach for any student
New Movement Logic Hip and SI Joint Tutorial now available!
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Transcript
Introduction to MovementLogic
00:00:02
Speaker
Hey everybody, Sarah here. Back in 2017, when Laurel and I started MovementLogic, we felt that movement teachers were being shortchanged by the available continuing education options out there, and we wanted to fill that gap. Now here we are five years later, and I'm very proud of the tutorials we've created so
New HIP and SI Joint Tutorial
00:00:20
Speaker
far. What's really exciting is, together with Jaisal Parikh, we're launching a brand new HIP and SI joint tutorial.
00:00:26
Speaker
In the movement world, the hips and the SI joint get a ton of attention. But at the same time, we see loads of injuries and misinformation all over the place. So what's going on? Clearly, there's some sort of disconnect and an information gap happening.
00:00:41
Speaker
As some of you might know, I have had several hip surgeries, including a hip replacement about 10 years ago. I don't blame my yoga practice for it because there's a meaningful genetic aspect, but I certainly don't think that my years of deep hip openers particularly helped, in large part because the way I practiced leaned into my hypermobility instead of working on the stability and longevity that my body really needed.
00:01:05
Speaker
There's a lot of unlearning for a lot of us to do around things like hypermobility, SI joint pain, sciatica, yoga butt, and other hip-related concerns. So with that in mind, Laurel, Jason, and I have created a free hips mini course video series for you, in which we address these topics and more, including gender bias and inclusivity, whether we store emotions in our hips, and why demonizing the SI joint is not particularly helpful.
00:01:34
Speaker
Right now, you can sign up for the free mini course, and by doing so, you'll get a discount code for $25 off our full hip and SI joint tutorial. This tutorial is a four-hour course that includes the anatomy and normal structural variations of the pelvis that can determine
00:01:50
Speaker
how a person might be able to move, how injuries happen, as well as how we experience pain, and of course, a whole lot about how movement can be a solution to specific obstacles like SI joint pain, sciatica, and yoga butt, and tons and tons of exercises for you to try out. If you're interested in learning a more thoughtful approach to movement solutions for yourself and your students, sign up for the mini course and get your $25 discount code for the full tutorial.
Launch of Movement Logic Podcast
00:02:17
Speaker
The link to sign up is in our show notes,
00:02:19
Speaker
Or if you follow us on Instagram at movement logic tutorials, the link to sign up is in our bio. And now it's time for today's episode.
00:02:31
Speaker
Welcome to the Movement Logic podcast with yoga teacher and strength coach Laurel Beaversdorf and physical therapist, Dr. Sarah Court. With over 30 years combined experience in the yoga, movement, and physical therapy worlds, we believe in strong opinions loosely held, which means we're not hyping outdated movement concepts. Instead, we're here with up to date and cutting edge tools, evidence, and ideas to help you as a mover and a teacher.
Teaching Injured Students in Yoga
00:03:05
Speaker
Welcome to episode 23 of the Movement Logic podcast. I am Dr. Sarah Court, physical therapist and huge David Bowie fan. And today I wanted to talk to you about working with injured students or clients. And what inspired me to do this is I teach the anatomy portion in some 200 hour yoga teacher trainings and
00:03:30
Speaker
you know, while I may be biased, I feel like the 20 hours allotted to anatomy is not really enough, but that's a whole separate conversation. What I see in these teacher trainings are sort of essentially two approaches that are taught as far as what should you do if someone comes to your class and they're injured. And the two approaches are either A, you tell them, don't do this pose.
00:03:57
Speaker
you know, or if it hurts, don't do this pose, which was my personal go to when I was a baby yoga teacher, I use that a lot. Or and the reason I liked it is it's and I still like it actually, it's the safest option. If you yourself don't feel like you know enough about how to help them, just have them not do the thing. It's not the most satisfying option. And it doesn't feel like you're helping particularly.
Challenges in Memorizing Modifications
00:04:23
Speaker
It's not it's not a safe
00:04:25
Speaker
kind of an option but it is a very safe option. It's safe, not saving. Or the other thing that I see is that students learn a sort of specific
00:04:37
Speaker
modification or group of modifications for each pose. Like when your student's hamstrings are tight, put a bolster under their butt before they're doing their forward fold, or if they're having a hard time in down dog, put blocks under their hands. It's a very one size fits all approach. That's what I see in these teacher trainings. I was teaching the other weekend.
00:05:04
Speaker
this kind of a question came up this like how do I adjust this pose for someone who has you know, duh duh duh and When a lot of the time with that Depending on the sophistication of the group I might just throw the group the question back to the group and see what they come up with and See if anything I've been teaching has actually landed So I did that in this case because we're sort of further along in the training. I was like, well, well, let me ask the room what would you guys do and It was a lot of this
00:05:33
Speaker
second category of the answer not the like don't do the pose if it hurts, but Here's like what we learned as the modification for this pose and it's essentially information that has been memorized completely out of contextual or critical thinking and You know, there's nothing inherently wrong with that and there's nothing inherently wrong with either of these two options
Strategic Approach to Movement Teaching
00:06:03
Speaker
either don't do the pose or here's the one modification I know. But the challenge or what it does leave you with is you're having to memorize a whole bunch of different modifications for every single pose, which is a lot of work. And then if that modification doesn't actually help the person in front of you, then it's not that successful of a strategy.
00:06:26
Speaker
Right? So, you know, maybe in the beginning of your teaching career, you're leaning into the, if it hurts, don't do it answer, which again was my real, it was my go-to for a long time before I just got really tired of being like, I don't like not having a better answer than just don't do it.
00:06:42
Speaker
Maybe then as you grow as a teacher, you're getting a little more confident. Maybe you're starting to implement the modifications that you have so diligently memorized and you're able to go into your mental filing cabinet on the spot and pick out that modification and give it to the student. Maybe it helps, let's say, 50% of the time. That might leave you feeling like, okay, well, yes, I am helping some people, but there's something missing in the way that I'm approaching this.
00:07:12
Speaker
because all I have in my arsenal, all you have in your arsenal are these very pose-based modifications. It doesn't allow you to then zoom out and take a wider lens view of the situation. It's very myopic, it's very narrow, and this pose gets this solution. What's missing here are critical thinking skills.
00:07:39
Speaker
and specifically for movement teachers, critical skills that teach you how to think about changing a pose versus what to do. So if you start to understand how to think about it, how to approach it, you learn these skills that are
00:07:58
Speaker
a lot easier first of all because there's not as much of it as way less of it so it's a lot less memorization and you're not getting caught out being like oh god was this the one where I use the blocks under the hand and then also the strap or is this the one with the bolster like you're not trying to like dig out a really specific piece of information because instead you're applying this pattern of thinking to the students in front of you.
Importance of Medical Clearance
00:08:27
Speaker
So this episode, what I want to talk about today is this wide lens, zoom out, macro critical thinking approach to how to work with the students that you see that are coming into class or maybe are your private clients that are working with either an injury or their post surgery or something like that.
00:08:48
Speaker
So if you can really wrap your head around, and if you can really start to understand these strategies, it's so much easier than trying to memorize a whole series of modifications that have no through line to connect them. So that's what I'm going to talk about today.
00:09:11
Speaker
A couple of things I want to say before I begin. The first one is this is not at all, this is not an exhaustive list of these are all of the ways that you can think critically. This is just sort of my top five. And five is plenty to begin with. And in fact, one or two of them are really kind of plenty to begin with.
00:09:33
Speaker
If these are new ways of thinking about movement for you, I invite you to listen to this episode, make it make sense for you. Go out and try to use one of these strategies each time you teach, and then you'll see how you actually start to layer them on. If one's not working, you pick another one, things like that. Since we're talking about people who have an injury or maybe are coming back to yoga after surgery,
00:10:01
Speaker
very, very big umbrella over this entire conversation is that you always, always, always make sure that the person is cleared for all exercise by their doctor. And if there's any restrictions to what they're supposed to do, you find out what it is. For example, they've been told not to do any back bending or they've been told not to go upside down.
00:10:29
Speaker
or they've been told not to do any weight bearing through their arms or something like that. And you follow that. You do not deviate. Even if you're like, I don't totally understand why that's what this person is having to do, you do not, you just say, okay, and you do not deviate. This is not the time for you to experiment with what their body can handle, right? Stay in your lane.
00:10:55
Speaker
say an hour lane because I get this as well as a PT. I'll have people come post surgery and they'll have very specific
00:11:02
Speaker
that are connected to a time period, but they'll have very specific instructions sometimes like no twisting, no lifting anything heavier than five pounds, things like that. And those usually go away because they're usually to do with a more acute phase immediately following an injury or surgery. But again, for your perspective, for your scope as a movement teacher, if they have, make sure if somebody comes in like
00:11:26
Speaker
you know they went and had surgery or they come in and they've got like a big bandage on their arm or they're kind of, or they raise their hand and they say, I've got da da da. The first thing out of your mouth is, are you cleared for exercise by your doctor? And if they say no, you say, get the hell out of here. No, but, um, that's when you say, well, did you sign the waiver? I'm just kidding. I mean, definitely make sure they sign the waiver, but also that's when you're going to be like, okay, well, you know,
00:11:55
Speaker
That's actually a situation where your if it hurts don't do it comes into play.
00:11:59
Speaker
because if they haven't been cleared for exercise, but they've taken it upon themselves to come to your class, and believe me, this is not as rare as it may be sounds, you have to release yourself from any responsibility as far as what this person is doing movement-wise, right? So that's the situation where I would be like, I'm not touching this person, I'm not giving them adjustments, I'm not suggesting modifications, I'm not doing any of that. This person is on their own, they're not supposed to be here,
00:12:28
Speaker
I am going to say, you know, since your doctor did not advise you exercise, then I don't think you should be in this class. But if you're going to take this class, just don't do anything that hurts and, you know, take care of yourself. I'm not going to be able to help you, something like that.
Teacher's Limits and Communication
00:12:45
Speaker
OK, so that's the first part. I hope I hammered that home appropriately. And then the second part is if somebody comes in and, you know, despite what you maybe learned today or from everything else that you know,
00:12:56
Speaker
you don't feel like you have the tools to help them. And again, we're talking specifically about somebody coming in with an injury or a surgery, post-surgery. If you don't feel like you can help them, you need to let them know. Now saying, I can't help you, it doesn't feel particularly great to you and it doesn't sound that great to the person either.
00:13:19
Speaker
But something like along the lines of this condition or this injury or this surgery is not one that I am familiar with. So please make sure to take care of your body's needs and modify anything that you need to.
00:13:32
Speaker
If I can help you with props or support you in any other way, please let me know." You're not doing the equivalent of the shrug emoji like, you're on your own, but you're also being very clear about what you know and in what ways you're going to be able to help
Adapting Poses for Injuries
00:13:53
Speaker
them. You're essentially saying,
00:13:55
Speaker
this is going to be more on you to take care of yourself. But I am here if you need me to grab a block or if you know that a particular position would be good but you can't figure out how to get into it, things like that. So essentially it's their class experience is driven by them with you kind of like helping in the background.
00:14:18
Speaker
So I'm going to give you guys five strategies. And these strategies are not in any particular order. Honestly, they're just sort of in the order that I thought of them, nor do they have to be applied individually. You may find that you're using two or more of these concepts at the same time.
00:14:35
Speaker
Ideally, they get into your brain in such a way that they just kind of feel intuitive and you would have to really sort of stop and explain and think about how to explain what you're doing. But in the beginning, it's going to be a little bit more of a mental list and you may want to sort of have them categorize that way so that you can just kind of go through each one.
00:14:57
Speaker
and see what is appropriate for the person in front of you. One thing that I'll say that really changed for me from being a yoga teacher versus then when I went through PT school and then as I became a physical therapist, is that my approach to people became a lot more logical and a lot more strategic. These are the things I'm going to do A, B, C, D.
00:15:22
Speaker
You know, and that in the beginning, again, I had to sort of, you know, have that list in my head and like, remember, remember to ask them about this and remember to do this test and remember to check this thing. And, and now it's just sort of a little bit more, quite a bit more ingrained, right? So part of this is starting to, I don't know if you guys ever saw the Terminator movie.
00:15:42
Speaker
I'm sure they've used it in other things as well, but where you see, I think it's one of the Terminator movies, where you see through his eye and he's looking at a person and then there's this whole digital readout about whether or not they're a threat and who they are and all that kind of stuff. It's almost like you want to have this list as your little digital readout happening on your eyeball and so you can see it as you're also looking at the person in front of you.
00:16:10
Speaker
Basically what I'm telling you is we all need to turn into futuristic robots and then we'll be really good at our jobs. OK, that's not the answer. OK, so here's the list and we're just going to go through each one and talk about it as a concept and then talk about specific examples of how you would apply it. So strategy number one is decrease the complexity of the pose.
00:16:38
Speaker
make the pose less complicated, right? So that's a really straightforward approach. You're taking a pose that is maybe a multi-joint, multi-planar pose, meaning, you know, lots of parts of your bodies are involved in it, and it's not just forwards-backwards, it's sideways and rotating at the same time, like it's a complicated pose. Maybe what you would think of as like a peak pose for a class. And
00:17:05
Speaker
Instead of keeping it that complicated, you're just going to dial down the level of involvement of all of the body parts. Let's say you have someone who's doing Marichyasana, the seated spinal twist, and they're doing it where they've got the one foot crossed over the other leg and the other foot's tucked behind and then they're twisting.
00:17:28
Speaker
And let's say if it's on the right and so the right leg is the one that's bent and they're twisting towards it and they're feeling a pinch in the front of their hip when they're doing it because I don't know, let's say they had hip surgery.
00:17:39
Speaker
And so you're maybe thinking, well, okay, this is not a pose that is about the hips that much. I mean, I guess a little bit it is, but it's really about twisting at its core. And it's just twisting with some fancy legs underneath. So in that instance, the way that I'm going to make it less complicated is I'm going to think about, okay, well, what is the point of the pose? The point of the pose is rotation.
00:18:05
Speaker
And the part that's giving them problem is this hip flexion. And then as I'm rotating towards that leg, it's taking that leg into some adduction and internal rotation a little bit, right? So maybe I get rid of the depth of the flexion. So maybe that person lies down on their back and does a twist where they bend their right knee in and then they bring that over to the side, right? They roll onto their side and then they do their twist that way.
00:18:35
Speaker
So I'm still getting some of that hip stretch on the outside of the hip or whatever I'm trying to make happen, but I've just made it a slightly less complicated pose for them, for their body. Or maybe it's something that the, where the, you know, crossing the foot over is sort of, that's too great of a adduction, internal rotation for their leg. So maybe they just do it with their left leg out straight and their right foot on the inside of their left leg. And then they're still sitting up and turning to the right.
00:19:04
Speaker
And maybe that's enough to make it feel better, right? So it's really figuring out, well, what is the point of this specific pose? What is the essence of it?
00:19:14
Speaker
Is it a rotational pose? Is it a back bend? Is it a forward bend, right? And then how do I make it less complicated? How do I either include fewer joint movements or maybe make the range of the joints that are where the person's having their pain or their sensation
00:19:35
Speaker
less intense, less end range, especially if that's not the point of the pose. So this is a situation where it's like where the injury is, is not the point of the pose, per se.
00:19:50
Speaker
If it's something where the injury is the point of the pose, like you're doing a supine, you know, lying on your back and pulling your knee in towards your chest and that hurts their hip, well, then maybe you just don't have them pull their knee in as far, right? That's also sort of a make it less complicated, but this make it less complicated is more around the injured area itself is not the point of the pose, but it's getting annoyed by the pose.
00:20:17
Speaker
Okay, so hopefully that makes sense. So that's our strategy number one, which is decrease the complexity of the pose. Strategy number two is decrease the effort of the pose. And the effort, I'm specifically using that word because I don't automatically mean
00:20:37
Speaker
load, right? I don't automatically mean weight or strength effort. It could be, it could be strength effort or it could be stretch effort, right? So let's say you're doing, the person is doing a forward fold and you know that they have a really irritated yoga butt, right? And whenever they do their forward folds it's super irritating and
00:21:02
Speaker
you know, that they haven't been given anything to do to change it, right? So that's something where the stretch effort is directly irritating the injury site, right? So you can decrease, obviously, the amount of stretch. Like if I'm doing Pachimottanasana, right? Seated forward fold with both legs straight out in front of me. That's kind of like the biggest possible stretch for my hamstrings, right? And especially if I have a hamstring injury,
00:21:32
Speaker
that's not going to feel good. So that's something where maybe I just don't sit down, go down that far. Maybe I stay in Dandasana, right? The upright seated version where you're not going past 90 degrees at the hips. So that's, that's one way to change the, the stretch part of it. Maybe if it's something where they're doing like a warrior three on the hamstring injury side and they're like, Oh, this is really, I can't do this. This hurts.
00:21:59
Speaker
You can do a couple of things. You can change where they are in space. And this is a trick that I learned in Yoga Tune Up, where you imagine the shape of a Warrior III and then you just flip it around. So maybe instead of doing Warrior III with their injured side leg behind them,
00:22:18
Speaker
maybe now we're doing it where their injured side leg is their standing leg and they've got one foot on a wall in front of them, right? So we've changed the orientation so that the leg that was really irritated by having to be held up in the air or be the standing leg is now having a different experience, right? Or
00:22:39
Speaker
maybe they lie down on their back and now they're doing it just with one leg up in the air. It's a totally different experience. That's a way to really flip where the person's feeling it and they still get to do the same shape as everyone else in the room. They get included. They're not off in the corner doing some other random thing. Or you can add more support to make it easier. If they're struggling with the load part of it,
00:23:07
Speaker
And again, in particular, let's say it's on the side that has an injury or that's coming back from an injury. Let's say they're trying to do a balance pose on that leg. You can always do a little kickstand leg with the other side.
00:23:20
Speaker
have them go into the corner so they get some more support, include some props in some way, whatever just makes the effort, the load, the physical exertion effort, not the stretch effort, a little bit easier for them to take. This has already come up just in the ways that I've been describing, ways to change poses.
00:23:42
Speaker
Using closed chain versus open chain right so close kinetic chain positions are where your hands and your feet are contacting something either the floor or wall. And that gives you a lot more stability it decreases the load significantly versus an open chain.
00:23:57
Speaker
position has hands or feet in the air not fixed to anything and that makes it a lot more effortful and can be a lot harder to to do as a result for people. So you might if someone's having a hard time with the pose because the amount of effort of it you might take it and just instead of you know let's say they hurt their shoulder and holding their arms up for warrior two doesn't feel good
00:24:18
Speaker
you see what happens if they just put their back arm up against a wall or against a block on the wall or something like that, right? So really purposely changing it from open chain to closed chain. So we've got two strategies so far. We've got make it less complicated, right? Decrease the complexity of the pose and we've got make it less effortful, right? Decrease the effort of the pose.
00:24:44
Speaker
And I would say that those two, those two on their own can serve you pretty well for a good long period of time. So if you're, if this sort of way of thinking about movement is newer to you, I would recommend start with these two. And you might also, I mean, this depends how you feel about homework.
00:25:07
Speaker
But if we repackage it, instead of calling it homework, if we call it learning, if we call it continuing education, let's say, maybe what you could do is write down a list of poses that you teach often, and for each one,
00:25:26
Speaker
Think about how could you make it less complicated? And then how could you make the effort less? Just so you start to get used to coming up with ideas kind of on the fly. And there's not gonna be a single correct answer. And that's what's so useful about thinking this way. There's gonna be a dozen different answers for each category. But if you can start to think that way, think that way around movement, it's gonna be a much more
00:25:54
Speaker
It's a little harder in the beginning because you have to learn how to think that way but once you start to think that way it just after a while it just becomes like you're not even aware that you're doing it you're just able to be like oh this is too oh move your leg here boom done next right you're not even like well now I have to think I have to decrease the complexity of the you know you're just you're just doing it that's those are the two that I that I really recommend starting with. If it is
00:26:20
Speaker
hard to sort of visualize in your head how you might change a pose, right? Because I'm just sort of doing it in my head right now as I'm sitting here talking. Get down on the floor and do the pose and feel it in your body and think about, okay, what would make this less complicated? What would make the stretch or the effort less intense, right? And so, especially if it's for something where you might be wanting to change the effort
00:26:49
Speaker
in a few different places, depending on what the person is telling you, come into the shape, feel where the effort is in what way, and then figure out like, okay, I'm decreasing the effort, I'm decreasing this. And so then that way, it's not about, again, what I'm trying to get you away from is sort of this memorized list of these are the ways to adjust these poses.
00:27:10
Speaker
and instead start to learn how to think your way around poses. So even if you don't then write down the answers, just your practice of getting in your body, and this is gonna come up later as well, just the practice of getting in your body and trying it out and seeing where you are and what you feel is going to make you smarter, right? It's gonna make you more of a kinesthetic person, teacher and learner.
00:27:38
Speaker
That's always helpful because it's going to give you some of that intuitive understanding of what your students are feeling. Okay.
Observing Anatomy for Modifications
00:27:46
Speaker
So strategy three, observe their specific anatomy. Everyone has completely unique anatomy. There are broad brushstrokes that we learn and we sort of start to take them as gospel and then we have to start to unlearn them because turns out everyone's different.
00:28:07
Speaker
But if you are looking at the person doing the pose and they are expressing to you that this is hurting this part of my body when I do this pose, but you know that when you do that pose, you don't feel anything in that part of your body, then you have to look at their specific anatomy and think to yourself, okay, why might this be bothering them? So that you can come up with a good solution. So for example, let's say somebody's lying on their back
00:28:37
Speaker
And just the position of lying on their back, they're like, ah, this doesn't really feel very good on my neck. And you're like, well, I lie on my back all the time and it doesn't on my neck. Why would this bother your neck?
00:28:50
Speaker
So then you have to look really closely at the person in front of you. And let's say maybe they have a more kyphotic thoracic spine, right? Their upper back in particular is just kind of more rounded than yours, let's say. And as a result, for them to then put their head back down to the ground, it's actually kind of farther away and you'll notice that their chin is kind of tipped up.
00:29:12
Speaker
And so they're kind of compressed into the back of their neck. So then you're like, oh, well, yeah, no, that doesn't hurt me, but I can see how for this person and their anatomy, this is a really uncomfortable in their neck. And so I'm going to get them a blanket or three maybe and put it underneath their head so that their neck is not being held in this position during their shavasana and they can actually relax. So that's a pretty straightforward one.
00:29:37
Speaker
But you want to think about that with all kinds of movements, right? Why might this person have a hard time doing eagle pose and they really don't, it feels really uncomfortable on their knee or something like, oh, okay, well, maybe it's because when I see them standing,
00:29:55
Speaker
they're actually extremely bowlegged and so that then creates a knee that is more let's call it abducted for want of a better description but that that's not going to feel great crossing the midline right or it's going to be harder or you know any number of things like that right so then you're going to use your two-pronged approach you're looking at their anatomy and you're seeing that that is
00:30:19
Speaker
you know, just really hard for them. And then maybe you're going to decrease the complexity of it. Maybe I don't have them cross their legs. Maybe they are standing on the one leg and the other leg is just kind of perched in squeezing in the inner thighs, but not crossed over, right? Something like that. So really look at the person in front of you. And if you're coming at it and you're like, I don't, this doesn't make sense to me why this would hurt.
00:30:44
Speaker
and you can't see right away, then look at their anatomy and try to figure out, okay, what impact is this pose having on this person's anatomy? And then you can figure out your fix from there.
Building Somatic Empathy
00:30:59
Speaker
Strategy number four is something that I called work on your somatic empathy. What does that mean?
00:31:08
Speaker
What that means to me, and I actually don't know if that's what this actually means, but it was two words that sort of went together in my head. What that actually means is
00:31:18
Speaker
There was a point when everyone got really excited about mirror neurons. I don't know if you guys have heard of mirror neurons, but it's the idea that watching someone else eat an apple lights up the same part of your brain as what lights up in your brain when you yourself are eating an apple. It's this way of having this embodied empathy where you're kind of experiencing what the other person is experiencing.
00:31:47
Speaker
I need to go back and do some more research because I think the mirror neuron mirror neuron theory actually got kind of debunked. But as an idea, you know,
00:32:00
Speaker
You've watched a movie where someone got kicked in the stomach and you reflexively went, oh, and you grabbed your own stomach as if you were getting kicked in the stomach, right? So certainly in extreme examples like that, we've all had moments where we have had that embodied empathy.
00:32:19
Speaker
with something that we're seeing. We can sense it in our own bodies. So what we work on, and this is something that you work on sort of separately. This is that you're not going to work on it while the person, you're like, okay, well, let me, oh, you've got a problem right now. Let me pause and like tap into my somatic empathy. But you're going to just start to try to work on it. And one of the ways that you can is through, I mean,
00:32:42
Speaker
Actually, this is true for all five strategies, but one of the ways you can work on it is observation. Watch people moving around through the world. Watch the postures that they're in.
00:32:54
Speaker
And you know do it maybe this part in a way where it doesn't look like you're actually copying them But try to adapt adopt try to put yourself into that posture and see okay well Wow if I was walking around all day like this I could see how My neck would really hurt and my like that spot right between my shoulder blades is going to be really irritated and you know things like that if you see someone limping again
00:33:18
Speaker
Don't copy them to their face. But try it yourself and see why might I be, why would I choose to limp like this consciously or not? What is my body trying to deal with that I have taken on this limp? So that's one way to do it. People always say, your own injuries are your best educators. And it's true. I have had multiple hip things happen. I've had surgery on my chest.
00:33:48
Speaker
All of these things have helped me so much with my understanding. I've had frozen shoulder. They've all helped me better understand what the person in front of me is going through. So I'm not here saying, well, just go out there and step into traffic and get super injured and then you'll be super empathetic. But if you have had your own injuries, pay attention, right?
Compassionate Connection with Students
00:34:09
Speaker
And remember what those things felt like. And even beyond something as simple as, you know, how might I adjust this pose for this person?
00:34:18
Speaker
The kind of deeper skill, the soft skill, they would call it in my world, of having that kind of compassionate connection with the person where you're like, oh, get it, it's really frustrating that you've got this injury.
00:34:31
Speaker
and this is a kind of injury that takes a long time to get better and it happened to me, I'm very familiar and we just have to move slowly and da da da. Being able to hold space for the person and really see them and see what they're going through has a lot of value. In fact, sometimes more than whether or not you can figure out the coolest way to change a pose for them so that it feels better on their body. Because they know now somebody's in my corner, somebody sees me
00:34:59
Speaker
and somebody is on my side and they're going to be with me as I am getting myself through this experience. The last strategy, strategy number five is ask them what helps and this might sound incredibly obvious but it's funny how we sometimes sort of get so in our own heads about like
00:35:23
Speaker
being the person who's providing the answer, that we don't ask the person in front of us what actually has helped them in the past. If this is a chronic condition and they've been going to yoga class this whole time, they probably know.
00:35:39
Speaker
like oh you know when I do forward bends I need this kind of a thing to help me or I need to modify all of these kinds of poses by going to the wall or I have to do you know plank is not going to work for me but I just come onto hands and knees or things like that. When I was a baby physical therapist student we did rotations into other clinics
00:36:02
Speaker
as part of our education. And we started doing them right away in the first year, which both was useful to see what it's like to be in a clinic, but also deeply frustrating because we hadn't really learned enough yet to be particularly helpful. But those thankfully were very, very short rotations. But I will never forget this one rotation that I was on. The person in the clinic who was my instructor, she had me go into a room with a patient that was a patient of hers.
00:36:30
Speaker
who was dealing with some ankle pain. And she was like, I just want you to do some massage to this part of their foot. And I was like, great, I know how to do that. So I go in, say hi, da, da, da, my small talk, I set up, making sure my own body mechanics are good. I've got my massage cream, person's lying down, and I start doing the work. And the person then said to me, they were like, you know, I think that actually, I think it would work better if I was right side up instead of face down.
00:36:56
Speaker
I was like, no, we're okay. That was my first response. No, you're wrong. I didn't say you're wrong, but I was just like, oh, I think this is fine. Then I think they said it again. I'm pretty sure they said it to me twice and both times I was like, nope, this is good. We're good where we are. They were like, all right. Then my instructor came in and he said to her, I think this would work better if I was turned over and she was like, yeah, turn over.
00:37:24
Speaker
That was her first answer. So what I learned from that was you don't have to be the keeper of all of the answers, right? You can let the person in front of you tell you what they already know. It makes your life a lot easier, first of all. You don't have to be the genius who comes up with everything. But then it also gives you a clue for other movements. If they're like, oh, when I do down dog, it's better if I do it at the wall.
00:37:51
Speaker
And you're like, why? And they're like, oh, I get dizzy if I do it like this. Then you're like, oh, OK. If they go upside down, they get dizzy. So I'm not taking this person upside down at all. Right. That might make you a little nervous. But just as an example. Right. If the person doesn't know, let's say they are dealing with a chronic condition, but they've just recently started yoga. So they're not really sure in terms of yoga what things feel better or otherwise. You could either. I mean, I would do both of these.
00:38:20
Speaker
ask them what kinds of positions or what kinds of shapes feel better or feel worse, right? If they do other exercise. And if they can't tell you, then okay. And then you also just lean on your other strategies to help them through. And I'm a really big fan of
00:38:40
Speaker
just setting very clear expectations up front. And so, you know, if they come in and they're like, I've never done yoga before and this is this condition I'm living with, or I just had this surgery and I've been cleared for exercise as a movement teacher, I would say, okay, we're just going to sort of take it as it goes and
00:38:57
Speaker
If there are poses that don't feel good on your body, stop what you're doing, raise your hand, I'll come over and we're going to problem solve and fix it for you, right? So then again, they know somebody's in my corner. They understand that I'm going to need a little extra help. And eventually, you know, that person could become a private client of yours. If they realize like, oh, actually a group setting isn't for me, I need more personal attention. This person that I came to their class seemed to have a pretty good idea of how to strategize the movements for me. I want to work with them.
00:39:27
Speaker
Okay, so let's recap our five strategies. Strategy number one, decrease the complexity of the pose. Turn a multi-joint pose into a single joint pose, right? Keep the point of the pose, but if something outside the point of the pose is hurting, change that. And strategy number two, decrease the effort, whether it is a stretch
00:39:53
Speaker
effort or whether it is a strength effort, find a way to make that part easier. Change where they are in space. If they're standing, make them lie down. If they're balancing, put them in the corner, right? Add more support. If something is hard, you give them two legs instead of one leg. Props to make it easier, things like that. And then also closed chain versus open chain. Those are all just really solid ways to kind of think about making whatever is the effortful part of the pose less effortful.
00:40:23
Speaker
Strategy number three, observe their specific anatomy and use that to help yourself answer the question, why are they having a hard time with us right now? Or why is this bothering them? Strategy four, work on, so this is sort of outside of class, work on your own embodied empathy.
00:40:42
Speaker
Think about the injuries that you've had. Think about the nagging back pain or that whiplash that you had and how it hurt your neck. Use that to have an understanding of what the person in front of you is going through. Watch people while they're walking or moving.
00:41:01
Speaker
Try that position and see what that position feels like. Imagine. This requires a little imagination and creativity, but an ability slip inside the skin of a different body while you're still in your own body. That's a good thing to just work on. If it's something that you've never worked on before, I think it's a good thing to work on. Strategy five, ask them what helps.
00:41:27
Speaker
Don't make your life harder than it needs to be. They may already know how they need to do poses, or they may already know what types of movement don't feel good that you can then translate into poses. Or if they don't know, then you just refer back to your earlier strategies.
00:41:43
Speaker
Okay, I hope this has been informative.
Critical Thinking for All
00:41:47
Speaker
Today's episode is a little short and sweet, but I hope this has been informative and helps you understand better how to start critically thinking your way around movement.
00:41:59
Speaker
And I set this up as working with people who are injured. But this applies to everybody. You don't have to be injured for opposed to not feel great on your body. So this is when you have that person's like, I have this and I can't do this shape.
00:42:16
Speaker
But it's also true just sort of across the board. So I hope this at least has either brought up this new concept for you of critical thinking around movement, or at least given you a little more of a stepwise approach that you can then use and take into your teaching.
Audience Engagement and Season Two
00:42:35
Speaker
You can always check out our show notes. I don't think I referred to anything in particular apart from my own brain here, but if there is anything in particular, you can take a look in our show notes. You can visit the MovementLogic website, which is www.movementlogictutorials.com.
00:42:53
Speaker
You can get on our mailing list if you're not there already. There's tons of free content that we put out only to our mailing list, which is stuff that you're not going to see on Instagram, and then also all of our different sales information you'll see on our mailing list. If you like watching video, you can watch the video version of this on our website as well.
00:43:14
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode of the Movement Logic Podcast. It helps us out so incredibly much if you subscribe, because that is a metric that the podcast gods care about. And it also helps if you rate and review.
00:43:35
Speaker
either on Apple Podcasts or anywhere else that you get your podcasts. We read our reviews. We do. It shares our little hearts when we get to read a review. If you have something that you want us to cover in an upcoming episode, we're getting to the end of season one here, but there's going to be season two. We have decided it is happening. If there's something you'd like us to discuss in season two,
00:44:03
Speaker
you can drop that into your review and then we will definitely see it. You can also always just send us a message through our website or through Instagram. If you're not following us on Instagram, we are at movement logic tutorials. And thank you so much for joining me. And I hope that this has been helpful. I would personally love to hear if this is some stuff that's new to you and you start applying it, how it works out. So definitely shoot us a direct message or
00:44:32
Speaker
message us on our website about that. Okay, and then please join us next week for more movement logic and more of our loosely held but very strong opinions.