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How Yoga Works
Dealing with the unexpected? Practice first.
BY MAGAZINE EDITOR SUSAN MAIER-MOUL
Try this Interval Yoga 30 Minute Practice
Extending practice or teaching a class Interval Yoga for Focus and Fitness
Have you seen movies where the music is fast but the action is in slow motion? Surfing movies are great examples. Step Into Liquid anyone?
Interval yoga is a way of practicing the fast cut in slow mo: in other words, it’s a practice of staying clear of drama, of having the option to act with grace under pressure.
Shapeshifting yoga
Change is the most salient aspect of reality. Our bodies are evolved to engage, relate, and respond to change.
When things happen differently than we expect them to, there’s a shift in brain chemistry and neurotransmitters. There’s even a change in which structures of our brains become involved with evaluating what’s going on and how to respond to it.
Responding to the unexpected includes parts of the brain involved in adventure and learning, as well as long term memory and spatial orientation.
Scientists at University College London’s Centre for Neuroimaging say the hippocampus responds to an unexpected change in a sequence of familiar things by acting
as a sort of comparison device, matching up past and present experience [and reacting] to discrepancies between what it expects to see and what it actually sees.
Why would we want to deliberately stimulate this response? Because it builds our ability to think usefully in unfamiliar situations, it’s key to creativity and stress reduction.
Neuroresearcher Francisco Barcelo notes,
Cognitive flexibility hinges on a readiness to direct attention to novel events, and on an ability to change one’s mental set to find new solutions for old problems.
How to Practice Interval Yoga
The down-low on interval is appealingly, maybe even deceptively, simple:
- 30 second posture holds
- 5 second transitions
Decide on the postures ahead of time, or decide you are going to commit to doing whatever posture come into your head when the bell rings, but don’t lose your faith and slip into dithering. Try both of these approaches – you’re likely to find them appropriate for different situations.
The rhythm is posture, release, posture, release.
Use a stopwatch or timer set with two intervals that follow each other continuously
i.e. 30 seconds/ bell/ 5 seconds/ bell/ 30 seconds/ bell and so on.
Many sports watches have stopwatch functions. We’ve put a link to the one I use when I’m teaching below. There are also apps in the iPhone store for free timers. I use one that cost 99 cents called “Timer” and it has all the functionality you could want for interval including a not too intrusive gong sound, and a very intrusive gong sound if you want a bit of a wake up call.
Practicing doing yoga
Research in emotion, novelty and memory suggests you will learn more about postures by changing the ways you work with them than you will by always doing them the same way.
In other words, tossing in an interval practice once in awhile will help you get more out of your usual practice or class. Here’s how to enjoy it:
Make choices
If you don’t feel comfortable, don’t go as deep. Change whatever part of your stance you need to change in order to adapt – foot placement, for example.
The point isn’t to do your usual posture the same way faster, it’s to do the posture adaptively, in concert with the reality you’re in.
Decide not to hurry. Be yourself
Decide not to lose focus. Be present
Decide not to be self-conscious. Be relaxed
Be friendly and curious
It’s definitely not about the MaryLou Retton dismount – don’t hit the posture. It’s more like flying a kite than flying a plane, so don’t find the control panel, feel the wind.
Be responsive
Acknowledge any frustration as soon as you can. Rather than suppress or deny feelings, try out any of the three things known to reduce stress:
– Lower the intensity
with your whole self, explore the posture at 30 or 50 or 75%
– You have control
make the choice to stop completely; get back in touch with yourself
– Change the duration by 5 seconds
shorten or lengthen the hold and see what happens. Do it with the timer, though, and not by guessing at the time.
Interval is not vinyasa
Vinyasa is a flow from posture to posture, sometimes with kramas as transitions.
In interval we step out of the posture before entering the next. Complete release of postural tone and attitude is the transition.
Not sure how to start? Try this 30 Minute Interval Practice and enjoy.
* University College London (2006, August 4). Novelty Aids Learning. ScienceDaily.
Wellcome Trust (2006, November 29). Tales Of The Unexpected: How The Brain Detects Novelty. ScienceDaily.
** Think differently: a brain orienting response to task novelty
Neuroreport: Francisco Barcelo
28 October 2002 – Volume 13 – Issue 15 – pp 1887-1892
Cognitive Neuroscience And Neuropsychology
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© 2011, The Magazine of Yoga, LLC.
