The detailed art of adjusting Yoga postures has been accomplished in this book in a loving and practical format. It also comes at a fortuitous moment. With the rapid increase of Yoga teachers all over the globe during the last few years, greater understanding of the art of adjusting has been missing in the printed form.
I think Brian Cooper has done an excellent job of covering the key points of adjusting most of the postures of the Primary Series of Ashtanga Yoga. He clearly explains the main focus of each posture, the direction to take with each posture and eventually how to learn to do each posture unaided without an adjustment.
The visual aspects of each posture are conveyed precisely in a step-by-step format giving the reader practical insight into the wonderful art of touch. Enjoy!"
table of contents
Foreword by Matthew Sweeney
Introduction
Chapter 1 | Basics
The Science of Flexibility
Principles of Adjusting
Types of Adjusting
The Mechanics of Adjusting
How to use this manual
Terminology of Alignment
Chapter 2 | Surya Namaskar
Chapter 3 | Standing Asanas
Chapter 4 | Primary Series Asanas
Chapter 5 | Back Bending
Chapter 6 | Partner Yoga
Chapter 7 | Thai Massage
Behind this Manual by Brian Cooper
An important part of my teacher training courses is teaching students how to adjust. The overall format is to choose a student to demonstrate an asana and for the other trainees to comment on the alignment and to suggest how it could be improved. Often it turns out that a significant improvement can be made through verbal corrections, like changing the position of the feet etc.
Only when students are sure that no more can be done verbally, do we move on to physically adjusting. And even then it is not as simple as it first looks. Often it turns out that physically adjusting is not appropriate because the student is already working at the limit of their flexibility and pushing further could cause discomfort or even injury.
To know when a student can be adjusted you have to understand the mechanics of the asana. There are telltale signs indicating that the student has reached their limit. So for each asana we study the anatomy involved and this gives very useful insights into why someone does an asana the way they do. Only then are we ready to adjust safely and effectively.
Many students ask if the adjustments we do couldn’t be photographed to make them easier to remember when practising. I eventually decided to attempt to capture a cross-section of the many adjustments we cover in the courses. As I got into it, I realized that to take a snapshot of something as individual as an asana was going to require a lot of simplification, because no two students are alike and therefore no two adjustments are the same.
The next difficulty was how to translate the process described above into book format. It didn’t seem enough just to photograph some adjustments without any explanation of why the adjustment was being done, or if it should be done at all. I eventually settled on the format in the book after much trial and error and false starts. I was trying to find a way of making a clear distinction between what a student can do by themselves and what the adjuster can do.
As an example we can look at Paravritta Trikonasana. You see someone doing the asana and they are all over the place. Is there any point in adjusting, and what exactly are you trying to achieve with your adjustment? You need a very clear idea of some basic correct alignment. The adjustment starts with that, and no matter how far it goes, this basic alignment remains intact. In this case, we decide that the basic alignment is going to be to hold the hips ‘square’. Everything else moves around this stable position and this is what defines the asana. Now you have something tangible to adjust and you can clearly see if the adjustment is effective. Without this ‘key’ there is no way of knowing where you are going. And where are you going with the adjustment? You need a clear picture of what you want to achieve.
So I decided to simplify this down to two simple concepts: a Key and an Aim.
The key is what defines the asana and should remain throughout. Even beginner students should be able to achieve this. The skill of the teacher is to provide modifications which allow everyone to approach this key alignment. In the case of Paravritta Trikonasana it may be to only bend forward from squared hips and gradually work closer to placing the hand on the floor, without even attempting to twist. I have chosen not to include these modifications, as the book would end up too large and lose focus on the main theme.
The Aim provides a brief indication of where the asana is going, of what you are trying to achieve. It has to be understood that the key and the aim are not written in stone. They are suggestions which have proved very useful in my own teaching and practice. But the key could easily be changed depending on what you want to do, and this may also change the aim.
Once the concepts of key and aim are understood, it’s easy to add some more detail:
The Foundation gives further information into what really is basic alignment for the particular asana, like how far the feet should be apart and where the gaze should go. Again, like the key concept, you would expect a student to have this basic alignment before going any further, either on their own, or through an adjustment. And this gives a reasonably simple set of guidelines for a teacher who can almost tick them off. If some of the points are wrong, a verbal adjustment will almost always suffice.
What to do tells you what actions you can take to move deeper into the position without losing the alignment. I thought this would be useful both from a teacher’s perspective and a practitioner’s. These actions can be carried out by the student or may form part of an adjustment. In other words, they are guides to physically adjusting.
The rest of the book deals with the actual adjustments. I have tried to keep it consistent and logical. The first photo shows the student as would be observed by the teacher, and a list of observation points are given which lead to the decision of how to adjust.
The photos which follow show alternative methods of adjusting the same asana, or a different adjustment for a different student. I thought it worth dividing the adjustments into types because they all have a very different feel and effect. This has been the most creative part of the project and has made me realize the endless possibilities. Some of the adjustments are based on Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation which I teach to my students.
This technique can be used both in one’s own practice or in what I have called a resistance adjustment. The great thing about this type of adjustment is that once you get the idea you can invent your own for almost every asana, and they really work because the student is equally involved and quickly adapts the adjustment to his or her self-practice.
The partner section follows on logically from the previous sections because it’s a bit like two people adjusting each other at the same time. I have labeled the asanas which lend themselves to both conventional adjusting and to partner ‘adjusting’, so the reader can see how the equivalent adjustment will look when done as a partner exercise.
And I could not resist adding something from Traditional Thai Massage, which for me is adjusting taken to its most refined and subtle form.
I hope you enjoy using the book as much as we all have done creating it.
Brian Cooper, Shanti Griha, December 2006
