The 7 Principles Directory
Introduction:
As we go through life, we inevitably injure ourselves, either through accidents or simple wear and tear. We heal; but our soft-tissue; the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and especially the fascia of our body “remembers” the injury.
Let's take a moment to review the different "elements" of soft-tissue:
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Tendons attach muscles to bones; they are less vascular than muscles and take longer to heal when irritated or injured.
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Ligaments connect bone to bone and have minimal blood circulation; a serious ligament injury almost certainly requires surgery.
- Muscles move the body; they are infused with blood and when irritated or injured, heal quickly. quickly.
- And finally, permeating the entire body is fascia, yoga's most important connective tissue.
Understanding Fascia is the key to understanding how yoga works:
About every ten years — ages 28 to 32, 38 to 42, 48 to 52, 58 to 62 and 68 to 72 — our fascia becomes less resilient, and those past injuries cause it to become tighter and tighter.
As our fascia becomes contracted, other parts of our body suffer. And if other parts of our body suffer, our fascia contracts even more throwing our body off the "plumb," sometimes subtly, sometimes grossly.
When soft tissue contraction causes us to be off the plumb, even the simple act of trying to remain upright throughout the day can become fatiguing. When our body is out of alignment, muscles and fascia are constantly contracting to keep us upright and by nightfall, we are exhausted.
Appropriately practiced, yoga works on the surface level by releasing contracted fascia. Gently, layer-by-layer, an appropriate yoga practice relaxes and releases tight fascia ... and we begin to regain our energy.
Most exercise modalities, including many yoga systems, go deeply much too quickly, extending and hyper-extending the joints and spine too much setting up a chain reaction of irritation and pain within the muscles and especially, the fascia.
Translation? If it hurts, don't do it. Lighten up, and you'll open up that fascia, and the rest of your soft tissue will respond. There really is no gain in pain. The proof is in Hilton's Law relating to soft tissue.
Principle # 1: Applying Hilton's Law
If a joint, say for instance your knee becomes injured; the nerve root that supplies that joint becomes stimulated and causes all the muscles, tendons, and fascia that attach to that joint, to contract (as well as the overlying fascia and skin); it's the body's way of immobilizing the tissue so it can heal.
However, since the fascia was stimulated and because fascia is non-specific; meaning that your fascia permeates well beyond the area served by a specific nerve root, fascia contraction irritates distal nerves; especially those nerves that were previously stimulated due to old, previously long-forgotten injuries. What happens next is that muscles and joints far away from your newly injured knee will also begin to hurt. This is the inverse of Hilton's Law at play.
Throughout your life, all those physical and emotional injuries you had; all your illnesses, as well as the normal process of aging all cause fascia to contract. And as you age, fascia left to its own devices, contracts and can cause a nasty downward spiral.
Yoga is a powerful tool you can use
to
help mitigate fascia's propensity to contract.
So, now you want to practice yoga. If you are young and in reasonably good health, go ahead and practice yoga any way you wish, aggressively or not. Push it. Go for it. But I submit that if you are approaching middle age or if you have experienced injury or illness, aggressively pushing your yoga places you at risk for irritating soft tissue; especially tendons and ligaments.
And if you create such an irritation, it will cause the overlying and distal fascia to contract and that contraction of fascia causes additional soft tissue irritation. This is why you need to avoid pain; to avoid stretching into less resilient tissues such as tendons and ligaments.
If you've ever had surgery, you've experienced Hilton's Law; it feels as if every muscle in your body has contracted. Click for a further discussion of Hilton's Law, which is one of the key factors to understanding this system.
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Principle # 2: Pain is a Message
No Pain, No Gain was a message many of us bought into as we were growing up. Indeed, a certain amount of pain that we tolerated during our youth was a great motivator and (hopefully) in most instances, did not create long-lasting injury.
But as we grow older, adherence to that old adage can have devastating results. During yoga or any exercise, there is a significant difference between what I call an effective action and a pain. An effective action might burn, but it is almost a pleasant sensation. It makes us pay attention to the training effect, but all discomfort created by an effective action immediately dissipates after cessation of the activity.
Pain on the other hand creates a negative, unpleasant sensation such as a sharp, electric, pinching, searing or pulsing sensation that may or may not last beyond cessation of the exercise. You need to pay attention to the sensation you are creating.
Pain is a message that something is wrong and your exercise needs to be changed or stopped. If you're performing an exercise or holding a position that hurts, you must find a way to do it differently. Otherwise, you'll inhibit your progress by setting up a chain reaction of fascia irritation and pain. Pain in your neck, back, knees, or the sitting bones in your buttocks is especially crucial to avoid. Never push into pain in those areas.
The message in the pain is to “Stop!” When an animal in nature is injured, it doesn't go about with life's daily routines. It finds a dark place to hide and it lies down until it either heals or dies. Principle # 2 tells you that it is best to slow down or stop and rest until your body heals.
As a way of clarification: Just how long should you stop and rest until resuming your exercises? I am a firm proponent of: If you don't use it, you lose it. But using it does not mean abusing it. You need to learn when it is appropriate to resume your exercises and when it is appropriate to do something less intensive.
When you do resume your exercises; rather than trying to continue on where you left off, pay attention to the feeling. In most instances, it might behoove you to begin slowly; by doing less and by adding more support, or by just not going as deeply. Or by doing another set of exercises altogether.
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Principle # 3: Less Done Correctly Always Gets You More
All your life — and especially during the fitness-crazed years — you've been told that good things have to be hard to get. If there's no pain, there's no gain.
Fortunately, we've gotten smarter, and we're getting away from that dangerous thinking. But it's still tough to believe that if a little is good, more isn't necessarily better.
The information in this program is clear: "Less done correctly will always get you more." Once you learn how to move with your breath and with proper alignment; extending your body without hurting your muscles, tendons, fascia, or joints, less will always get you more.
This means less aggression, less effort, and less pain will afford you increased flexibility, strength, endurance, and tone. Review Toward for a more in depth discussion of why Less Done Correctly Always Gets You More.
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Principle # 4: Proper Stretching
Any time you create an action (a stretch or a feeling that something is happening) close to or in a joint, you are activating tendon or ligament. It is safer (and more productive) to create action first in the belly of a muscle (such as the hamstrings).
Then, as the tissue relaxes and begins to release, you can take the action closer toward the joint (which moves you toward the tendon) but never stretch deep into the joint (ligament). Review fascia for a more in depth discussion of the body's composition and how the different structures respond to yoga.
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Principle # 5: ExTension Releases Tension
NOTE: ExTension differs from the medical term extension, which at end range; extension of the spine actually places a limb in a closed packed, compressed state. ExTension, on the other hand, creates a neutral or even an increased space between joints that creates a "congruous alignment without excessive focal joint pressure." 1
Any exercise program will improve how you feel, even if you move lazily through it. But if you extend your neck, limbs, spine, and fingers long as you exercise, the movements will feel better and work better. ExTension through your joints creates freedom of movement; compression restricts movement. This applies to all of your joints, including your knees, elbows, hips, and, especially, your spine. When you elongate through your joints, pain is reduced and you feel lighter. Compressing your joints causes you to feel heavier and oftentimes creates or exacerbates pain.
Test this out. lie down on your back, legs flat on the floor. Now lift your right leg and hold it about six to nine inches off the floor. Just hold it up. Notice how it feels. Does it become heavy or start to shake? It will probably become pretty uncomfortable as you keep holding it up. Put the leg back down and rest. 
Now, you will learn how to create an “active” leg. Point your left heel away from you while you push through the ball of your foot and stretch your entire leg out away from you. Continue holding your leg up as you extend it long [Figs. 3 and 4]. Notice how much lighter your leg feels. Now for a moment, completely relax the foot and leg while you are holding it up. It becomes heavy again. Extend it once more. Lighter. Lower your leg and test this process with your left leg.
The ExTension you created released the tension of holding up your leg. It works with your arms, your spine, your head, and your neck. It will make any exercise you do feel and work better. ExTension Releases Tension. You'll see this phrase again and again throughout ExTension and Recovery Yoga.
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Principle # 6: Lengthening the Spine Increases Action
In order to "get more by doing less," lengthen your spine (it doesn't matter if you are standing, sitting, or lying down) and your action increases. In actuality, you don't even need to physically lengthen your spine. Even if you simply "think" yourself longer, you will feel the action.
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Principle # 7: The Importance of Yoga Breathing
An appropriate yoga practice begins by first paying attention to your breathing. I'm not meaning to be facetious when I say "breathing beats the alternative." A person can live without food for about 30 days and without water for about three to six days. But a person can survive without the breath for only five to seven minutes before death.
Obviously, breathing is imperative to the sustenance of life. But the breath also has a profound effect upon the nervous system.
The yogis have known for thousands of years that there is an intimate connection between the body, the mind and the breath; and that emotions are directly affected by breathing.
Accordingly, the yogis developed intricate methods of controlling the breath as a method of controlling the mind and body; metabolism, and emotions. As an example from current culture, how many times has it been said: "Take a deep breath and relax." The yogis have known about this connection for tens of centuries.
When we are stressed or feel highly threatened; when we are in a pressure situation or in crisis, our normal regular breathing patterns change. What would be a normally quiet and soft breath is replaced with shallow, rapid breaths, and sometimes we even unintentionally hold our breath. But when this occurs, out ability to think and to effectively move our body becomes compromised.
All our physiological processes are controlled by the nervous system. One branch of the nervous system, called the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), is affected by how we breathe. Rapid and shallow breathing depletes carbon dioxide, which causes the sympathetic nervous system to become activated. This results in increased heart rate and blood pressure, which leads to sweaty palms and feet, high levels of anxiety (the flight or fight syndrome), and more. Yoga breathing is an effective method that helps restore and maintain normal carbon dioxide levels.
Yoga exercises become more comfortable and powerful when inhalation and exhalation flow freely. The subtle flowing of air into and out of the nose stimulates a relaxation response, which directly affects the brain and nervous system. Breathing through your nose also warms and filters the air further reducing its impact upon the nervous system. Normal breathing oxygenates your blood and removes the noxious byproducts of metabolism and respiration. Controlled yoga breathing (pranayama) when appropriately practiced accelerates this process.
Research programs consistently show that yoga-controlled breathing affects brain wave patterning as measured on EEG2. For instance, when a person is active, physically or mentally, such as when involved in any kind of task orientation, the brain evokes an electrical patterning of more than 12 cycles per second and is known as beta or task orientation.
However, when a person is in a relaxed and quiet, eyes closed, sitting or laying 
down position; and when that person is focusing on a single object, be it music, a candle flame, or one's own breath, the brain slows its electrical patterning down to about 8-12 cycles per second, which is known as "alpha." And an alpha state is associated with meditation. EEG shows that meditation is always enhanced (deepened) when the relaxed subject is also doing controlled yogic breathing.
Therefore when a subject is in a meditative state, the brain produces alpha waves. When a subject goes from a 'closed eyes,' relaxed state to an 'eyes open,' cognitively demanding condition (or an outwardly focused action), brain waves speed up and increase in beta activity, which is clearly associated with "task orientation." Physical exercise, such as sports and other goal-oriented activities are focused cognitive activities and place the brain clearly into beta orientation.
You would think that the physical exercises of yoga; especially demanding exercises that require profound balance and concentration or that require moving the body into and out of "positions" would be considered forms of focused cognitive activity. And as such, they would be expected to produce brain waves largely in the beta range. But they don't.
Under laboratory conditions, even newly trained yoga practitioners are able to evoke an alpha state when correctly doing slow and methodical eyes closed yoga exercises. This might not be too impressive given the nature of yoga and especially, when subjects do these exercises with eyes closed.
However, a most interesting phenomenon takes place when experienced yoga practitioners execute physically complicated and demanding yoga exercises with eyes open. The more experienced the practitioner, the quicker and more congruent alpha is generated. In other words; the more experienced the practitioner, the quieter the brain becomes and the meditation becomes deeper. And as documented by EEG, when a yoga practitioner adds the component of controlled yoga breathing, meditation becomes deeper. An appropriate yoga practice then, can truly be considered as "Meditation in Action"
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Brain Wavelength Patterns
To further understand how yoga can be "meditation in action," you would need to know that there are four wavelength patterns generated by the human brain as measured by EEG (electroencephalogram).
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Delta is characterized as 0-3 cycles per second and is generally associated with unconsciousness to deep sleeping.
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Theta is characterized as 4-8 CPS and is associated with sleep or a very deep relaxed state.
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Alpha is characterized as 8-13 CPS and is associated with unfocused attention or a relaxed mental and physical state.
- Beta is characterized as above 13 CPS and is associated with mental and physical activity (otherwise known as: task orientation).
I participated in a research project at Wright Patterson Air Force Base that observed brain function during rest, exercise, task orientation (physical and mental coordination exercises), and yoga.3 (See more of this research at Yoga is Meditation in Action).
Alpha is generated during meditation
or generally when the mind and body
is in a quiet and relaxed position; either
sitting or lying down with the eyes closed
Because normal exercise generates a broad beta spectrum, the researchers, among other things, wanted to determine if an alpha state could be generated in the brain during all ranges of yoga based exercise, from simple to complex, even with eyes open.
Because yoga is said to be "meditation in action," we postulated that an experienced yoga practitioner should be able to perform virtually any yoga posture, regardless of how difficult or advanced, and be able to generate alpha; if the body was kept in balance and avoided forcing, straining or "trying." In other words, through "ExTension releasing tension," the brain would generate alpha, not beta as associated with task orientation.
Creating such balance means activating your entire body, that is, using the “ExTension releases tension” principle equally through the hands and arms, feet and legs, spine and neck. Maintaining an equal feeling of ExTension throughout your body while you move. If, for example, you extend your hands but keep your legs soft, there is imbalance within your body, and your brain must remain active to keep you from falling over.
We found that you can go into a moving alpha state (even with your eyes open!) by creating that balanced state of ExTension in all the muscles of your body and by breathing deeply and easily. In fact, you can be meditating while you exercise.
A basic exercise in the ExTension Yoga program is the Arm Flap, which is the beginning part of the Sun Salutation. In it, the balance of your body, mind, and breath is experienced through movement. Through the Arm Flap, the feeling of ExTension begins to come into focus by activating all your muscles; by widening your shoulders, activating your hands with fingers extending and thumbs stretching away thus activating the entire hand; elbows extending away from shoulders; legs active, spine lengthening; lungs expanding.
As your whole body becomes "active," there is no tension what-so-ever. Thus, you'll learn how to bring on a state of active rest, of energetic relaxation ... of mediation in action.
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1 Thanks to Mathew J. Taylor, MPT, RYT, for clarification: personal correspondence April, 2001.
2 An internet search using the terms "EEG + breathing" provides dozens of interesting hits.
3 Investigation of Brain Wave Activity During Yoga Postures and Meditation; Andrew Junker, PhD and Sam Dworkis, Dayton, OH 1986. This work was incorporated in Junker's subsequent doctoral thesis.
