Response to Power Yoga
8/4/08
Beryl Birch’s axioms of power yoga are closely related to the work she does with athletes. The axioms of yoga she outlines are all connected and all work off of each other very well. The first two chapters are concerned with Birch’s attempt to show mainly an athletically minded individual and the general public to a lesser degree that yoga can be beneficial. Some of her axioms are of course directly related to athletes such as the third which says, “Sports do not get us in shape. In fact, sports get us out of shape.” On the whole reading this as someone who does not participate in sports I found the allusions to her career in assisting athletes such as the discussion of the phone call from an incoming client from California to be a bit distracting. On the whole though I think Birch lays out some good tips that anyone could follow.
From my experience in class her first axiom regarding the importance of heat is defiantly a point that deserves and receives much discussion throughout the reading selection. In fact a subsequent axiom deals with this point again No. 6, “Even iron will bend if you heat it.” In order to create heat you need to use strength which is in turn the second axiom which holds that strength builds flexibility. The third axiom which argues that sports do not get us into shape is the most unusual of them all. Her explanation of why does make some sense. We become tight during sports activities by repeating the same motions over again. The axioms are well connected as the fourth as “all injury in sports is caused by structural and muscular imbalance.” This imbalance is as mentioned the repetition of the same activity. I liked to think of this not in term of sports as Birch does throughout but in terms of my work and doing the same things there over and over again. And you can’t just rest or find another activity because the fifth axiom states that “Muscular imbalance and structural irregularities don’t fix...