Yoga as Bodywork

At the school we have morning three days a week. We feel that yoga is an integral part of bodywork and that our therapists as well as their clients will benefit from knowing how to do yoga. For that reason we have integrated yoga into our course of study. The following is part of an article written for Massage Magazine.

Articles
Yoga and Bodywork
Expressing Our True Nature

By Sonia Osorio

Originally published in Massage & Bodywork magazine, June/July 2005.
Copyright 2005. Associated Bodywork and Massage Professionals. All rights reserved.

Yoga and bodywork, in their complete expression, are similar fields of practice and self-study. They support one another as learning experiences and as healing systems. Both share a common foundation that focuses on the body and the breath in order to deeply understand the physiological and psychological aspects of our form and the energy systems that support it. Both disciplines also require a willingness to explore and discover our own authentic nature, which involves an ongoing commitment, daily practice, continual exploration, and a willingness to open not just our bodies, but our hearts.

Yoga is not a string of acrobatic postures or dogmatic philosophy, just as bodywork is not a litany of preset movements or academic study of the body. Both yoga and bodywork are means through which we observe the quality of our own and another's experience in the present moment.

In the classical context, yoga has very little to do with physical fitness in the way we pursue it in the West. Rather, yoga is a system designed to unite body and mind with the divine (the word yoga means "union"), which is our true nature. Yoga cultivates awareness, which begins by being mindful of bodily sensations and breath. As we become more aware of our sensations, we also notice the reactive tendencies of the mind, and we can begin to bring them under conscious control (another meaning of the word yoga is "yoking," which refers to reigning in our distractive tendencies). By working with and observing patterns of thought and movement, we come to understand them better, we see through them, and can therefore allow them to fall away more easily. In doing so, clarity of thought and ease of movement arise, and we come closer to our genuine expression -- who we are when our habitual patterns and stories have fallen away.


Integrity of Body and Mind
The yoga postures (asanas) are an integral part of the yogic discipline, which comprises other elements considered essential to a complete practice of yoga: ethical principles (yamas), personal conduct (niyamas), breathing techniques (pranayama), sensing inwardly (pratyahara), concentration (dharana), meditation (dhyana), and connection with the universal (samadhi). This holistic approach to yoga reflects the notion that body, mind, breath, and spirit are intimately related and that to work on any one of these, is to reconnect with the others, ultimately helping us understand our connection with a universal life energy that is both in and around us.

In any bodywork session, this connection is inherently understood as we awaken sensory awareness, linking breath with touch and movement, honoring who we touch and who we are, respecting ethical and personal boundaries, releasing physical and emotional tension, and feeling our aliveness in the moment. Massage begins with the body yet often touches the deeper sensations and emotions that open those places in our hearts and souls seeking expression through our form.

All bodywork approaches strive to improve and rebalance the functioning of our body, whether through massage, deep tissue restructuring, movement reeducation, or energy work. Often, these are used in concert and involve reestablishing a conscious connection to our bodies, helping us remember a deeper and more integral connection -- who we are at our core, which is both unique, yet intimately related to others and to this world. This is sometimes called our connection to the divine, to our essential self, which is often much more (or less) than we imagined it to be.

Bodywork, like yoga, is about this connection to the divine through the body. It is about a release of any preconceived notions of who we thought we were and how we believed we must move in our bodies and in this world. This is the essence of freedom -- to open to who and how we are in this very moment and to accept others in the same way.