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"Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment." - Steve Andreas
Ellen Kiley, R.Y.T., L.M.T. As a yoga teacher who specializes in tailoring specific therapeutic programs to match individual needs, I was thrilled to discover how the KMI training by Thomas Myers deepened and refined the skills specific to my work. Tom developed his understanding of the Anatomy Trains under the tutelage of Ida Rolf, who first began to develop Structural Integration in a yoga context: putting people into yoga postures on the floor and finding the manual technique to assist them most effectively. The Anatomy Trains model is a way of seeing students and their patterns more clearly. I am now able to very quickly read someone’s posture and movement patterns, to locate the probable source of a misalignment rather than focusing on its’ more obvious manifestations. Timeliness is a key factor here, as a classroom situation does not often afford the luxury of time to study and think about the individual in a leisurely manner. Teachers who care about indiividual differences have to see very quickly. In addition, the manual therapy skills I learned through KMI, which I didn’t think I was all that interested in, have proved invaluable. The qualities of deep, fascial touch which one develops as a Structural Integrator lend, again, a heightened level of specificity to hands-on assists in the yoga context. It is a great advantage for yoga teachers to know exactly what is underneath their hands and via what most direct route it relates to other parts of the body. KMI assidulously trains the practitioner in depth, direction and duration of touch, engaging at the level of fascia. Now that I understand the feel and nature of fascia, I realize that on the physical plane, its restrictions are usually what is between the person and an experience of stability and ease within a given posture. As a specific example, I have a devoted yoga student of many years, a male over 50 with big, bulky, set-in-their-ways muscles, who, though he had experienced many positive changes as a result of his dedication to the yoga practice, was exasperated with his inability to sit cross-legged without having his knees up in the air. Prior to my KMI training, I addressed this issue as best I could by assisting him with the usual hip stretches, adding cushions under the seat, etc. The situation would be much improved by the end of class, but would again return more or less to it’s previous state by the next week. After the training, I was looking at him and quickly suspected that the restriction was not in the “hips” per se, but was more likely the result of shortness in the sacrolumbar and hamstring fascia of the SBL. I was able to see this because of how his pelvis would dramatically shift from anterior to posterior tilt simply by bending his knees in tadasana. I recommend a private session, spent 15 minutes lengthening the sacrolumbar & hamstrings (especially the lateral one), and voila, knees resting easily down to the floor in a cross-legged position, lengthening of low back in straight leg tadasana, and an enthusiastic experience of freedom and ease for the client. In sum, I believe that KMI is a very worthwhile, advanced level training for any serious yoga teacher. I remained skeptical for a long time, because Tom clearly emphasizes the primacy the physical plane, and my yoga training, while very physically rigorous, ultimately holds to the primacy of the spiritual. Nevertheless, I knew we were on the same page when Tom so beautifully answered the question of “why not just stand people up against a grid to read the pattern?” His answer: because the ultimate goal is the client’s relationship to themself, not the grid. Ellen Kiley, R.Y.T., L.M.T, is a Jivamukti certified yoga instructor and KMI certified practitioner of Structural Integration. She has personally undergone extensive spine surgeries for scoliosis, and specializes in creating modified yoga programs for people with special needs. She is the founder of the Scoliyoga program, a holistic, therapeutic program specifically for people with scoliosis and/or spinal fusion. Ellen works at the Sea Island Spa & resort in coastal South Georgia, has a small private practice on the island of St. Simons, and teaches workshops periodically throughout the U.S. Website: www.ScoliYogi.com |
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