The Autistic Yogi Reflects on Some Considerations in Addressing Overheating in Yoga

The reasons that we overheat can vary extremely, and there is no one answer fits all, but there are some techniques that we can utilize to help produce a cooling sensation throughout the body. Do not let this replace any medical advice from a medical practitioner, and if there is anything out of the ordinary in your experience seek medical advice.

Consider some very basic physics. When we have a high particle system (more particles in a given area) which creates a high-pressure system. Energy moves along the path of least resistance, so the high-pressure system moves towards a low particle/low-pressure system.

The same concept exists for our bodies. If you feel like your torso is overheating if you relax, reach your arms gently out to the sides and gently open the hands and stand with legs gently apart without holding tension throughout the legs. If the torso has created a high-pressure system, we can use our arms and our legs to help reduce the pressure by releasing tension in the muscles of our limbs, this would be most pronounced laying down in a star pattern so that we maximize the airflow across the skin. Adding to this the cooling breath (shitali) we can help to even more rapidly cool down the torso.

This is just a method to help reduce heating, but will not completely remove it.  It is one of the methods of how to use the bandhas throughout the 9 joint complexes of the body.

If you want to get more in-depth into these concepts I highly recommend to study Simon Borg-Olivier and Bianca Machliss contribution to understanding applied anatomy and physiology to Yoga.

https://yogasynergy.com/online-courses/

The Autistic Yogi Reflects on Bandhas in Movement Practices

Bandhas could potentially be translated directly into any of the following terms;
    any configuration or position of the body, anything deposited, arrangement of a stanza in a particular shape, arrangement of musical sounds, arrest, assumption, attachment to this world, bale, bandage, binding, body, bond, bond, bondage, border, box, bridging over, building, Bundle, capture, case, chain, cherishing, combination of sounds, combining, compartment, composition, 
conceiving, connection or intercourse with, constructing, construction or arrangement of words, contracting, custody, damming up, deposit, directing, disease which prevents the eyelids from quite closing, enclosure, feeling, fetter, fixing, forming, framework, goods, imprisonment, joining, knitting, leave, ligature, mundane bondage, obtainment, pack, part, particular mode of sexual union, pledge, producing, putting together, receptacle, sinew, tendon, tie, tying, uniting.


My approach to the bandhas is mainly influenced by Simon Borg-Olivier.  A bandha is a co-activation of opposing muscles to create strength

1. SHOULDER JOINT COMPLEX - AMSA BANDHA
2. ELBOW JOINT COMPLEX - KURPARA BANDHA
3. HIP JOINT COMPLEX - KATI BANDHA
4. WRIST JOINT COMPLEX - MANI BANDHA
5. KNEE JOINT COMPLEX - JANU BANDHA
6. CERVICAL SPINAL JOINT COMPLEX - JALANDHARA
7. ANKLE JOINT COMPLEX - KULPHA BANDHA
8. THORACIC SPINAL JOINT COMPLEX - UDDIYANA
9. LUMBAR SPINAL JOINT COMPLEX - MULA BANDHA

Each joint complex can either be a heated Ha-Bandha or a cooling Tha-Bandha.  Think of heat as accelerated particles put under pressure, high-pressure particles systems move towards low-pressure particle systems. Activation and deactivation of the muscles around our joint complexes are like a weather system.

In attempting to utilize bandhas through practice it can be quite a mind exercise to consider each and every joint. I think of adapting these like we would any other exercise, we focus on it and then go away and return, hopefully, each return we are able to adapt it a little more into our cerebral experience of life and practice.

The Autistic Yogi Considers the use of Hypothesis in Forming Opinions and Correcting Knowledge

  In the years since I immersed myself deeply into the movement and function of our bodies and minds, I have noticed a huge tendency in people to misconstrue science. There is this approach in viewing science as a set of facts, buts not a set of facts, science is a process, you formulate a hypothesis and go about trying to falsify that hypothesis. If it is falsified than the hypothesis needs to be revamped and attempted to falsified again.
  Each person maintains the right to change their opinion at any moment that information that makes better sense then what their opinion was before. This can come about by a person considering their own thoughts and ideas or having ideas of others presented.
  When approaching a hypothesis, do not just seek information that supports your theory, but check to see if their is in fact opposing theories or anything between. Ask pertinent questions that both look at showing truth of the hypothesis but find questions that can put hypothesis under scrutiny and attempt to falsify, this leads to a greater knowledge set.
  Hypothesis don't need to completely be changed when falsified, but they need to be reconsidered and reformed subtlety or majorly so they can be tested again.
  When a person loves their knowledge so much that they can't budge from it, regardless of presentation there is a problem and communication can no longer happen in a conducive method that discussion would flow. Resentment builds and leads to actions that are typically reactive rather than responsive.
 

The Autistic Yogi Reflects on the Dunning-Kruger Effect in Yoga and Movement Cultures

The Dunning-Kruger effect in psychology is a bias where people with low skill/ability have the illusion that their skill/ability is superior. Personally, I think it does compel many people to become teachers of their movement culture because of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, hopefully, in so doing they realize how much they do not know and see that their knowledge most likely was not superior in the first place.

I think that this bias leads to a ton of injuries and misconceptions.  When a student comes in and at some point in their past they explored a particular flexibility or strength, but then they went for years without training these aspects, assume they should be at their previous peak, which can then lead the person to far outdo the movements that are being cued through. It tends to be easy to discern after a conversation with an individual to see whether they are working within this bias or in fact have the knowledge to keep themselves within the appropriate physiological restraint.

When it comes to human movement and cyclic loading events (activities repeated daily, be it sleep, walking, sitting, standing, running, etc) its wise for an individual to make some goals to reach for and to problem solve the safest, best way for them to achieve that goal without skipping steps. The Dunning-Kruger effect can compel a person or a trainer to take a person, well beyond the steps they should be paying attention to, creating a recipe for severe harm.

When it comes to human pathology and the Dunning-Kruger effect we see people in the position of instructors throughout the modalities of movement culture, being some of the first in line to hear about an issue in the body from a student. If the instructor centrates with the Dunning-Kruger effect they are likely to make a blanket diagnosis on the basis of their own experience with pain, and we sayings like "oh I know exactly what is going on, I had the same thing....." or "you need to do this, and take that" but there is no attempt at understanding diagnostics on this instructors part.

I am a firm believer of problem-solving at the level the instructor-student relationship. That is to ask pertinent questions 1. How long have you felt this? 2. Have you felt this before? 3. Is there a history of cancer? 4. Did a specific activity lead to the sensation/feeling? 5. What descriptor words would you describe the feeling? 6. Is the feeling superficial or deep? 7. Have you sought information from a healthcare practitioner with the appropriate knowledge and license to diagnose?
So many more questions could be asked that are applying diagnostics without diagnosing. Once information has been gathered, then ask the individual to take that knowledge to their Doctor, Chiropractor, etc.

In this day and age, we are more likely to fall prey to the Dunning-Kruger effect because of the sheer amount of information that exists and because of the way that entertainment is conducted. We hardly ever at all see the nitty-gritty details of the training and injury history of a person who is executing movements that we desire to mimic. If we ourselves have not done our due diligence to condition and train the body to execute the movements we desire, we open ourselves up to injuries that could have been avoided.