Knee Pain and Yin Yoga: What Teachers Need to Know

Knee Pain and Yin Yoga
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[00:00:00] Today on the Yin Yoga Podcast, we’re gonna talk about knee pain and how it relates to yin, and what can we do to help our students who are dealing with knee pain or who have maybe had some work done on their knees, some surgery. So stay tuned for more on that

Welcome, or welcome back, Yinies, to a Yin Yoga podcast. Today we have a return guest, , Beth Coyne Lewis, who was here previously, like just an episode ago, to talk to us about, , hip pain. And so we’re having her back to talk about knee pain. And this one is personally kind of really hitting me right now, ’cause I have some knee pain that I’m working through, and, , I’ve gotten some X-rays and going to physio and all that.

So I’m, very interested of course in this topic, for all my students as well, but also for myself, selfishly. Now, [00:01:00] in the last episode, we heard all about Beth’s, journey to yoga, styles of yoga she trained in, et cetera, and her background as a physiotherapist. So if you wanna hear all of that intro, , go back and listen to that one.

But today, once Beth joins me, we’re just gonna hop right into it. , I do wanna just mention A little podcast love here that I got. Now, this is on a Spotify comment, and it’s from Sue with a bunch of numbers after it. She’ll probably know who it is. It says, “Thank you so much for the valuable advice and information.

Loving the incredible support and guidance. I can say on every podcast I’ve taken at least one thing and applied it to my teaching. I’m forever grateful, Nick. Sitting here digesting this podcast on a sunny beach in beautiful Greece while on holiday.” Well, that paints a very pretty picture, Sue, and thank you so much for the feedback.

Y’all, I love it when I [00:02:00] get your feedback, whether you do that in the form of a rating or a review, which I love. You could do those on Apple or Spotify. So on Apple, you can do five stars and leave a written review, and on Spotify you can do five stars and then leave me a comment under the episode. So if you’ve been finding the podcast helpful, if you had any ahas or big takeaways, please let me know.

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But please feel free on Instagram to DM me [00:03:00] or to leave me comments in Spotify or on YouTube or on my own blog. I’d be so grateful for your feedback. Also, a great place to add any, topics that you might want covered on the pod. Now, sometimes I’ve already covered the topic, in which case… Or I think I’ve covered it well enough, in which case I’ll send you the link.

And then sometimes I’m like, “Hmm, that’s very interesting,” but I don’t think it would carry a whole episode. And so just know if that’s the case, I’m still saving those in my phone, and then I might just do a Q&A, episode for all the little questions that I don’t think would be a full episode. , Yeah, so please let me know, and if it’s something that I’m not qualified to speak on, I will try to find a good guest for this exact purpose of coming on to share their expertise.

All right, my friends, that’s enough for that. And the next time that you hear from me, I will be with Beth. Beth, welcome back to the [00:04:00] podcast. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me back. So today we’re gonna talk about knees, and we’ll get into some kind of, , I know, anatomical stuff in just a moment. , I wanted to… I, , I always wanted to talk about this topic. It was requested as well. And then ironically, I’ve been having knee issues, and so this feels very timely, for me as well.

, But before we talk about, , surgeries and all that, maybe we should just talk about, what are some of the common structures in our knee that actually could be a common issue, that requires these interventions to start with? Okay. Anatomically, the knee is considered a hinge joint, meaning it just, works like a door opening or something like that.

And the main bones are the femur, which is the thigh bone, and then the tibia, which is the shin bone. There is a second shin bone, the fibula, but that’s little and on the side and [00:05:00] doesn’t really join with the knee. And then the patella, the kneecap, which goes over the front of it. So when you are straightening your knee, which is called extension, you’re using your quad muscles and your tibia is…

I know not everyone is on camera to see this, but your tibia kinda comes up, your knee straightens. And then when you bend, you’re using your hamstrings, and it bends back. However, a knee is not exactly a hinge because when you go into that final bit of straightening your knee, there is a tiny little bit of rotation.

Hmm. So you can’t really feel it and can’t really see it, but sometimes that tiny little bit can be affected if other structures are affected. Now, the, one of the main things that sometimes can cause problems is your quadriceps. That big muscle in your thigh which straightens your leg [00:06:00] comes down to a tendon that goes over your kneecap and then inserts or attaches at the top of your tibia.

So that’s your patellar tendon. And then you have cartilage. There’s cartilage that covers the edges of all your bones. That’s what kind of disintegrates with arthritis or inflames with arthritis. Then you have cartilage in between those bones, so kind of a padding in between the thigh bone and the knee bone.

Those are called your meniscus, and a lot of people will hear about meniscal tears. And then really important in your knee are the ligaments which kind of keep the stability of the knee. So on either side, on the inside between the tibia or that shin bone and the femur, the thigh bone, is a ligament called the medial collateral.

So medial meaning midline, collateral is just the name of it. [00:07:00] On the outside in that same kind of location from the tibia or the shin bone to the femur, thigh bone, is your lateral collateral. So lateral just means more to the side. And then inside your knee is the, or two, there’s the anterior cruciate and the posterior cruciate.

They angle down, and they kinda hold your femur on top of your tibia. And particularly the ACL, anterior cruciate, that’s the one you hear about in a lot of,, football players and basketball players and stuff, people who tear their ACL and they’re… if you’re a sports geek, they’re out for rehab for, , eight months, ’cause that really prevents, like, the femur from sliding off of the tibia And then probably the other structure which can cause a lot of knee pain, which not everybody is as aware of, is the iliotibial band, which you do a great job of teaching, so all those good [00:08:00] hip and butt stretches are great for it.

But that runs from your ilium, which is part of your pelvis, that’s why it’s called the iliotibial, down to your tibia, that shin bone, and it’s a very thick band of tissue, fascia for the Yin people, that all of your muscles kind of attach to, and it helps those muscles, like, bring your leg out to the side.

But when you have a tight IT band, we usually call it the IT band, because it stops, or what we call inserts, down by the tibia, if that is tight or inflamed, that can also be responsible sometimes for knee pain, which not every… People think of it more related to where it goes, like around the hip. But distally, meaning away from the center of your body, that can cause some knee issues too if that is tight.

And that’s a , really [00:09:00] thick band of tissue, so it’s very strong, but when it’s inflamed can be really painful too. So those are probably, , the main structures that we can see, , in the knee. Okay. And then I feel like there’s, , acute injuries, right? Like you were saying, the football player gets,, slammed.

And then there’s, wear and tear or kind of gradual issues that can pop up. Yes. Yep. So- What do you think are some of the… I’m wondering which is probably more common in the layperson is probably more the gradual stuff, unless of course they’re an athlete Or a weekend warrior even, and they’ve been, you know- Yeah

skiing or something. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I would say for the people that I see, probably it’s more the gradual stuff. – Okay. Maybe we’ll start there then. Yeah. I- , what are some of the common ones that you see? Probably meniscal, those pads [00:10:00] that are in between your knee, meniscal tears or that meniscus, and the articular, the cartilage that goes around your bone starting to wear down, which can be arthritis.

A lot of times if you feel a click when you’re bending and straightening your knee, that can be a sign of a meniscal tear, that cartilage in between the two bones. It kinda like catches on something, and that’s something that people commonly will complain about. , “Oh, my knee’s clicking a little bit,” or, “It gives out suddenly when I’m walking,” which is usually from a click, something like that.

The other thing that is, I wouldn’t say common, but I see sometimes, , particularly as people age, is like a gri- they’ll say, “Oh, that’s my kneecap. There’s all that clicking behind my kneecap.” If you put your hand like over your knee and you straighten it out and you feel like Rice Krispies, so that’s starting to be, yeah, you’re nodding, , the wearing away of the cartilage on the backside of the patella.

And that happens [00:11:00] with age. The other thing that can happen with that patella, and it’s not super common, but if you have people, and I’m seeing a lot of people coming to yoga with this, people with Ehlers-Danlos or one of the connective tissue disorders where they’re hypermobile, they can have that patella slide out of place, dislocate.

, But and then other people also for different, like tracking reasons, their patella tendon might be off center a little bit or something like that.

You can have subluxations or dislocations of the patella. I wouldn’t say I see it a lot, but I have seen it. But probably the most common is the wearing away of the cartilage or a tear in that cartilage that comes from either, you know, your person who played field hockey all through high school and probably damaged their knee a little bit and didn’t know, and now they’re 40 and all of a sudden their knee’s clicking, and did they just do something [00:12:00] recently or is it just a gradual wearing away of something?

Or those ACL or collateral tears that could be from a fall or, from a, an injury or something like that. But I would say those gradual wearing away things are what I see more commonly. , So yes, I was nodding because, So I, this is, I already mentioned in the intro, so it won’t be a surprise to anybody that I’m having knee stuff.

And the first time I noticed my knees being weird was actually probably about, well, I guess it would’ve been 22 years ago when I was in my first teacher training. I just started noticing, like, when I went downstairs, all of a sudden I was getting this little discomfort on the top of my knee. Eventually, I got in to see a kne- a knee person.

They sent me to a physiotherapist, and it was… They told me I have tracking issues. And so I was, s- doing exercises. Unfortunately, I didn’t keep doing the exercises. You know, once that pain went away, I was like, “All right, I’m good.” I [00:13:00] probably should’ve kept it up. None of us do. Yes, I probably should’ve kept some, at least one of those moves up, the whole time.

And, also, when you were saying, hypermobile, so I did do a whole episode on that. I will include the link in the show notes. I personally, if somebody comes in and they know they have Ehlers-Danlos or something in that family, will say to them, “This is not an ideal practice for you. If you want a really m- chill practice, go to restorative where you’re way more supported.”

Yes. “Or really for you, a stronger practice is actually better, where you’re gonna be building your strength,” , not trying to go to your full range of motion. , That being said, if they’re already there, I’ll just say, “Okay, I’m gonna modify some things for you.” So I’ll make sure I get their name, and I’ll say, “So and , put blocks under your knees here,” so that they’re never going to their full range of motion.

Yes. And I did have a student for , many years who, , would come from a different part of Canada to where I live and, , as, part of their six-week [00:14:00] vacation. They bought a little condo here to retire to, but in the meantime, they would take their holidays here. And so she would come to my classes, like, every class I taught when I was…

when she was here. And so I’d taught her for probably maybe three years before she told me she had Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. I was like, “That would’ve been good information for me to have.” Yeah. And then she… And I said, “You know Yin isn’t ideal for you then.” And she said, “I know, but you’re my teacher.” And so I thought, “Well, what do I do with that,” right?

So she just got a more restorative version of everything, so that way she could still come and be… I should’ve asked her what she meant by I’m her teacher, but I was flattered and also trying to… The wheels were going about what can we do about this? I didn’t think to ask her, but, She, , she would come and I would just tell her, “Extra blankets, extra blocks.”

And then I would just say, put blocks under your knees here, or put another blanket here, or maybe you-” Yeah … don’t need that much height here.” , And yeah, we practiced that way together for years. But I mean, in a perfect [00:15:00] world, I would always send them to a physiotherapist es- and ideally one who specializes in those connective tissue disorders, which there are some.

So there’s that. But, you know, it’s interesting because when I look back at my childhood pictures, I look like I’ve got hypermobile knees from, like, the womb. Mm-hmm. Um, but I’m not hypermobile elsewhere. So it’s like I don’t, none of the other, physical manifestations of a connective tissue disorder are there.

I’ve heard, people say things like, “Well, you know, anxiety is also a sign of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome,” and things like that. I’m like, and it’s also a sign of being a human in an insane world. So, you know, I don’t think we can really say, “Oh, you have some anxiety? That must be the case,” you know?

So yeah, years of I guess tracking issues. And then, , it was, air quotes, “fine” for a while. I would always have a little discomfort in one of the tendons, the medial tendon on the back of my knee in things like dragonfly, [00:16:00] only on the right side, , or, half butterfly.

And I was just would always roll up a blanket and stick it underneath there or a pool noodle or something so that my knee wasn’t going to its full range. But when you said kneecaps that move- Mm-hmm … that has definitely been my, my s- my situation. So for example, and many of, many people will hear this and be like, “Say what?”

Until recently, with this current knee thing, the knee that would bother me in, say, sleeping swan pose wasn’t the front knee at all. It was the back knee because it resting on the mat, it f- like, it felt gross, like it was moving. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so I would always put, like, a chip foam block or a little folded blanket under my thigh- Mm-hmm

so that my knee wasn’t resting on the ground. And I have had maybe three or four other students that I never planted that seed, but where they mention, they’re like, “Ugh, I don’t like this,” and they point to their back knee, and I’m like, “Aha, I see what’s happening there.” , So , that’s definitely been the case.

But yeah, lately, and, , this is not a [00:17:00] let’s help Nic with her knee episode ’cause I have gotten some x-rays and I realize that only so much can show up on x-rays compared to, say, MRIs or things. But, I’ve been told that , the spaces, , on my x-rays for my meniscus are even, both sides. And the main issue is the right knee, although the left one’s a little sensitive, too.

, And so I’ve been doing all the things, , while I was waiting for test results, , I was like,, I’m not just gonna sit around and wait, so I was doing acupuncture and, , I was doing hot cold therapy and I was making sure that I… We have a massage gun. I was, like, doing that on my calf and my hamstring and my quad, and, anywhere on my knee that wasn’t, sharp pain, just to get everything, you know, flowing.

, I was using my heating pad, stretching, , doing all the things that I could do on my own. And all of them helped, and I bought knee braces, which, I was doing really good actually with my knees. I went to physio last week, and other than I don’t still have my full bend in my right, , if I try to squat down, I have to lean to one side a little bit, I was doing really well.

And so we [00:18:00] were on the point where he was like, “Okay, it’s just, we’re just gonna strengthen now.” We figured out some exercises for me to do. He did a little, little dry needling, little manipulation and stuff. I’m going back again next week. Oh, and I was in a training.

You know, in yoga trainings how you just, you sit on the floor, like, the whole time, the whole weekend? And so I kept making sure that I stretched my legs out straight, ’cause I did notice sitting cross-legged and letting my knee fall into its, natural range was, over time, would start to bug it. , And so I was wearing my knee braces to re- not so much because I was in excruciating pain while I was there, but to remind me when I went to instinctively sit cross-legged, like, ’cause there was a resistance there, so I’d be like, “Oh, yeah, right, we’re not doing that.”

, So I wore my braces for, the last two weekends of it, and I’m wondering if that alone might have been so much, that and I stopped cycling temporarily, hopefully temporarily, and I haven’t been walking to the studio. I bought one of those little electric scooters, so I feel like- a glorified [00:19:00] five-year-old as I’m traveling to my classes.

my little helmet and my scoot. But I was just like, “I need to be able to get back and forth from that studio,” and I don’t… There’s no bus that goes there directly. I don’t own a car. Plus, even if I did, by the time I paid for parking, and same with the taxi. It’s like by the time I paid for a taxi, I’m like, “Why did I teach this class?”

So I thought, “Well, I need a way to get down there.” It was actually my acupuncturist was like, “Have you thought about a scooter?” , Which has been… , it’s been super helpful. So between the braces and all the stuff I was doing with the acupuncture, the stretching, the massaging, the heat, the cold.

Oh, and we also have, a foot massager. You can tell my partner and I are getting to that age- Mm-hmm … when all the gifts we buy each other for our birthdays are, like, health gifts, right?

So I was doing all that, the hot cold, which I was very reluctant to, but actually was quite effective, All those things, wearing the braces. And last week my knees felt awesome. I was almost at full range again. I was, like, so excited to start strengthening and just, be gone with this whole knee episode.

And then yesterday, [00:20:00] stupidly, without wearing my knee brace, I decided to move… In my apartment building we have an internal, like, storage locker, and we actually scored finally a garage. There’s a very long wait list for them here. And so I moved the stuff from my storage locker into the garage, and right about halfway through I was like, “This is a bad idea.

Should’ve worn my knee brace.” Not a lot of stairs or anything, but I think just the weird angles and the extra walking and… So anyways, I have backtracked a little. It’s very frustrating.

But sometimes I think we go through these physical things, it really helps us actually become better teachers. It does, it- Because of course I’ve had students with knee pain for years, right? But it’s different when you’ve experienced it and you’re like, ah, okay. So I knew how to modify for knees and help people and, alternatives I could give them to kneeling and things like that just based on my years of Iyengar yoga and then also my therapeutic training.

But it’s really interesting when you then go through it yourself and you’re like, oh yeah, isn’t that [00:21:00] interesting? So tracking issues from what I’ve heard is more common in women because of the width of our pelvis. Is that an old wives’ tale, or is that accurate? That’s what I’ve heard, too. , I am an old wife, so often…

I’m an old widow now. But yeah, could be. Could be that. But yeah, it’s, it is true. And that is another thing in terms of anatomical structures that is so important for people to go back and look at their anatomy. A lot of issues with the knee can be related to how the thigh bone, the femur, connects to the knee.

So typically, everybody’s pelvis is a little bit wide. Women are wider, , um, your thigh bones then angle down to your knees. Everyone come down a little bit, and then your tibia hopefully comes down relatively straight.

But we’ve all heard of people that are knock-kneed or bow-legged. Mm-hmm. So knock-kneed, valgus in the medical world, [00:22:00] bow-legged is varus in the medical world. And that, how your thigh bone connects to your, the thigh bone connects to the knee bone, you know, how they connect can cause some angular and tracking, not problems necessarily, but it affects how your quadriceps tendon may track over things.

So if you’re having a student that is having some issues, looking at things like certain poses. No Saddle. When you sit between your heels- and you go back. Now, if you sit on your heels and go back, you get a huge stretch of the quads, and not everybody can do that, and that’s not comfortable.

But a lot of people will teach the old sitting between your heels, like in a W sit, and I W sat for years and years. Can’t quite do it with my hip anymore. But if you go back in that, you are, automatically putting stress on that inside [00:23:00] ligament. And if you are already prone to your knee going that way, it may bother it more.

But if you’re more of like a bow-legged person and your leg doesn’t normally go on that, you’re gonna be putting, a different kind of stress on it. So that is a pose that I personally never teach. I will teach it maybe sitting on your heels and going back, but I never do the, or even the, , I’ll teach deer, where one is internally rotated and one is externally rotated.

But even, like, a forward fold where one’s internally rotated and you’re folding forward, to me, puts a lot of stress on the knees. My preference for a good quad stretch is to be in, like, a sphinx pose. Throw the old strap around your knee and pull it forward so you’re keeping your l- knee in line, and then you can avoid, for the most part, tracking [00:24:00] issues.

Sometimes someone will roll to the side and not pull it quite right or roll to the other side. But if you’re verbally cuing them, , try to roll back over or something like that gives you a s- straighter, for lack of a better word, stretch on the quadriceps without Putting as much stress on the knee.

So that is something that sometimes with tracking issues people have, , issues with things like that. But a lot of it sometimes, and I think we talked about lotus pose last time with hips. There are people that’ll be like, “You’re not… You know, if you can’t do lotus pose, what are you doing?

You’re not a real yogi,” you know? And I will never be able to do lotus pose because I have such internally rotated hips that the more I try to do it, the more damage I’m gonna be causing to my knees. ‘Cause when my hips lock into place, what’s gonna try to compensate? The knees are gonna try to compensate, and it’s never [00:25:00] gonna happen in my body, and it’s not gonna happen in a lot of people’s bodies.

And unless you’re really aware of anatomy, people aren’t necessarily looking at that. But, some of the difficulties people have sometimes is not because there’s something wrong with their knee joint per se, but it’s how that femur or that thigh bone is coming down and how that changes your joint.

Like when your foot is planted or if your foot is not planted, things can change in positions, like what can be tolerated and, and how much stress is being put on the knee. And sometimes when people with tracking issues, and this would not be in yin, but you know, your standard in warrior one, keep your toes facing straight, make sure your knee goes over your toes before you bend into it.

Well, my knees, because I’m so internally rotated, are never going over my toes. My knee always falls [00:26:00] into the side a little bit. If I try to bring my femur over my knee, now I’m tweaking my ankle, and I’m gonna end up on the floor because that’s… But I know that as a PT and as a yoga teacher. But, when your foot’s, when my foot’s planted, it looks a lot different than when my foot is free in like a yin pose and then I can do things in a little bit different way.

, So sometimes tracking is how the femur is connected. Sometimes it’s if you’ve overstretched, sometimes it’s if you’re hypermobile. You know, there’s lots of different reasons as to why, um, you might have tracking issues but y- you know, it is. And probably one of the Biggest things to avoid in tracking issues, but even other issues, is not pushing into a lot of knee flexion.

Like in child’s pose, not having them [00:27:00] come all the way down on their heels. You know, in saddle not having them come all the way down in their heels. , In butterfly, taking a longer butterfly as opposed to the heels all the way in by the pelvis, making more of like a diamond-y shape then also that you’re not putting a lot, , really pushing for that maximal flexion.

Your, your physical therapist can help you get the flexion range back that you need. Your Yin Yoga teacher does not need to do that, couple of things to tease out there. , One, , for anyone who’s listening, I have a whole episode dedicated to saddle and saddle alternatives, including a PDF that you can download of other things you can do other than saddle.

Because, you know, as you mentioned, saddle is hard and it’s tricky, and I almost never teach saddle pose, unless I’m running my teacher training and then I teach saddle pose. , And then I tell them why I almost never teach saddle pose. , Sometimes I’ll have a couple people [00:28:00] that have quite a bit of experience in my class that, um, are comfortable in saddle, maybe with a bolster or something.

And you know, if when I do the check-in they say their quads are tight, I might say to that student, “If when we do heart-bed you wanna do saddle with the bolster instead, feel free,” but I don’t like guide the group through saddle. , We also mentioned it in, the episode on props with Adi D. Hilster. Um, she talked about how if she kind of thinks she wants to teach saddle, she’ll get everyone in child’s pose first, which you might think, huh?

But what she’s looking for is their feet and their ankles. Mm-hmm. Do they have the range to put their foot down, or do they have that little gap, you know, which means that they don’t have the ankle range of motion or the foot range of motion. And then she’s also looking at like who can’t get their bum to their heels.

And, and so that can inform whether she actually does wanna teach saddle or, you know, a- another variation. And I just find with saddle, if I include saddle in a sequence, it just takes so [00:29:00] much time because I have to g- show all the different variations that you could do with your feet and your knees and the blah, blah, blah.

And then I have to show alternatives. And so for me, it’s just easier to get everyone to flip on their belly, grab a strap, and let’s go. And then of course you don’t have the weight on your knee either that you do in saddle, ’cause you have so much more control over how much you’re pulling your foot in, et cetera, et cetera.

So that was one thing I wanted to touch on. Lotus pose as well, ,. i would say from my experience 90% of the human population will never do lotus pose, either because they have a limitation in their external rotation of their hip or even the lower leg.

So for me it’s not the hip that’s the issue, it’s that actually my, , like my tibia doesn’t… I don’t have that rotation in my lower leg, so for me it actually bothers my ankle- Mm-hmm … not my knee. So yeah, , this whole lotus po- pose thing, it’s a silly obsession. And if you don’t believe me, just take a look at how many Ashtanga yogis have had their knees operated on.[00:30:00]

And that right there should be proof in the pudding, because they’re obsessed with lotus, and they’ve also, many of the long-term practitioners have had one or both knees redone. You know? So that I wanted to mention. When I went in with my tracking issues, it turned off that my… I’m gonna use a yoga term and then I’ll define it for anyone who doesn’t know what that means.

My most medial quad, I can’t remember what the name of that one is off the top of my head, was basically totally tomasic, meaning I couldn’t engage it on its own. Mm. And so they were like, “Okay, so your medial quad is weak compared to…” Which I think is probably pretty common, ’cause a lot of our physical activities involve, like, more of our lateral or mid quad than, like, the inner part.

And so a lot of the things they had me doing were to strengthen that. But I remember being in physio and her saying, like, “Okay, engage this muscle,” and I was like, . But I was just like, ” I don’t know how to turn that muscle on.” , So that was a lot of it. So that’s tracking issues, which is, probably not at all uncommon.

And yeah, [00:31:00] my knees did have that Rice Krispy sound. Still do, , going up and down stairs, , and have for quite a while. And then we have things like meniscus issues. And I’m guessing that can be, like, a wear and tear thing, but is there anything else that can cause your meniscus,

I mean, maybe, like, an acute injury or? Yes. A sports injury, running injury. Sometimes just planting your foot and bending down and twisting to pick something up, any kind of shearing, type of thing can also cause a tear in your meniscus. Okay. Um, it’s, I tore my meniscus and my medial collateral, the ligament on the outside, lifting somebody out of a whirlpool on my very first physical therapy aid job.

I bent down and- Oh … like, twisted funny and, you know, tore both. So yeah, it, it can happen. Just- And- … a lot of it can be wear and tear, but, , you hear about meniscal tears a lot. Runners can tear their meniscus. Anybody that has a lot of activity, a lot on their [00:32:00] feet. I would assume that, like- Yeah … a gradual meniscus thing would feel very different than, say, what you did.

Like, in that moment- Yeah … I’m sure you were like, “Oh, God.” Yeah. Yeah, okay. If you tear it acutely, you’re gonna feel an acute sort of thing. Okay. If it’s a gradual, it’s gonna be more like that arthritic-y, achy, pain-y, yeah. Yeah. Certain positions- probably more that sort of thing with that cartilage

exactly. For a while there, I noticed that if I sat cross-legged without a, on my bed, not everywhere. But on my bed, my partner and I would be playing a game or something, and if I sat on my bed cross-legged without a good amount of height under my pelvis, my inner knee would start to ache by the time- Mm, yeah

we were done playing the game. Yeah. But it didn’t happen unless I sat cross-legged, on, like, on the floor, unless I sat cross-legged for, like, a long time. Yeah. , These were probably warning signs that I should’ve been paying attention to. But you know, human nature, we don’t pay attention till we wake up one morning and go, “Oh, God, why, why are you hurting me,” you know?

Yeah. “What is this thing happening in my knee?” [00:33:00] Um- And the click is another big one. If you’ve had an injury, all of a sudden you might feel, like, your knee catching. Mm-hmm. And a lot of times if the meniscus is torn and a little flap is hanging off, it might catch on something, and then you feel that click.

Or maybe you can’t totally straighten your knee all the way out, or you can’t bend it because it’s like something is, you know, jammed inside of the hinge. It’s like you stick a piece of paper in a doorjamb or something like that and it doesn’t close all the way., If your meniscus- is torn and is floating around in there, it can cause, you know, a clicky or a, you just can’t move as much or something like that.

So, like, at, an acute tear, you might notice that more than that kind of, like, “Oh, I ache when I’ve been sitting cross-legged,” or, “I ache be- because I’ve just drove,, eight hours and I, , didn’t get out-” Mm-hmm … “and stretch every two hours,” or, you know, something like that. Those are probably more long-term, my cartilage is starting to wear away issues.

Okay. And then with the,, is it the [00:34:00] cruciate ligaments you said on the back, the crisscross ones, is what they’re called? In between the femur and the tibia, yeah. Yeah. The, but the, they cross, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. What would cause, , is that an acute mostly injury, or does that- Yes. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So that’s like, I- Typically, you plant your foot and a linebacker comes barreling in, and you see the knee go out to the side- Oh

that way or back or whatever, and yeah, big football. Soccer, , it might- Skiing … occasionally, skiing is a big one, yeah. It might occasionally happen if you are lifting a really heavy load or something like that, it twists a little bit. But I would say predominantly they are sports type of related things.

Okay. And is that the kinda thing that like, ’cause , some of these things can be helped with physio and strengthening. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And then there’s stuff that, like maybe we can start talking a little bit more about like surgeries and, what the, what kinds of surgeries they [00:35:00] are, and then- Mm-hmm

what people could expect afterwards. I know when my knee first started hurting, in my, you know, over-analytical, anxious brain that I have, I was immediately searching out things like, “Can you kneel after a knee replacement?” You know, because I was- You can … which- That is, that is an important question

they told me you can. Yes. Because that was my biggest concern. I was like, of course I don’t want surgery, and I don’t want like the most intense surgery, which I’m guessing is a total replacement. But in worst case, as we say in Canada, worst case Ontario, … which is a province in Canada, for those of you who don’t get that joke.

, If you have, if I had to, would I still be able to teach in the way that I am? And it, , I was assured by Google that, yes, I would be, , which is good to know. , But what kinds of surgeries, do they do like meniscus surgeries? Yes. Typically, if you have a to- if your meniscus is just like wearing away, well, let’s get to torn meniscus.

Torn meniscus, they will go in, either cut off the part that’s torn or take out [00:36:00] most of it if they need to. And then what, just kinda stitch it back up or? Stitch it back up if they have to take it off or, , typically, it’s a quick surgery, couple little, , like- One stitch incision, something like that.

You stay off for it, off of it for a few weeks, throw a lot of ice on it. Typically, it’s not a , huge recovery if it’s just the meniscus. , Afterwards in terms of, , I don’t know how long they clear you to take yoga, but you would just not force a lot of flexion or extension. You know-

you’d have to follow whatever., For arthritis, typically joint replacements are kind of this gold standard. Um, although more recently there are people doing a lot of research and treatment with, um… Well, there’s the chicken shots, which are no longer chicken, but the cord- uh, cartilage shots that used to be made of- I was like, “Sorry, the what?”

the coxcomb, the rooster comb. [00:37:00] Basically that’s what it was made out of. Now it’s made out of a synthetic material, and they’re injecting cartilage into your knee to kind of try- Oh, wow … to re-pad the knee. Um- I never heard of that … that’s, that’s a, a measure that will buy you some time before, for some people, but anyhow, there, there are shots that can do it.

Sometimes a cortisone shot will help , decrease the inflammation that’s in there and give you, some relief that way. They’re also now starting to do, like stem cell stuff where they’ll siphon off your stem cells, clean them out, all that stuff, and put stem cells back in to see if that helps to regenerate cartilage.

There’s been some good results with that. Not all insurances cover it, not all doctors do it, but it’s something to investigate. You know, something that can be done because you wanna avoid a knee replacement if you can. As long as possible, yeah. As long as possible, yeah. Um- Knee replacements are when nothing else works, when all else fails is a knee replacement.

And then, , there’s different kinds of knee [00:38:00] replacements. , Sometimes you can get away with a unilateral, meaning like the femur has two bumps that come down on it and the tibia has two indentations. Sometimes they’ll replace both of them, but if you only have wear on one side, they might do a partial, so they’re only gonna replace either the medial or the lateral side of it.

So that’s one thing that they do. And then sometimes they have to go in and replace the whole thing. There’s different kinds of knee replacements, too, just like we talked about different kinds of hips. They used to go in and cut off that quad tendon, flip it back, open up the knee so they could see really well, and we won’t get into surgery.

That sounds- Sure, it’s there on YouTube if you wanna look … painful. Now they do quad-sparing knee tendon surgery, so they just kinda slide that tendon out of the way. They don’t, aren’t able to visualize it much, as much, but now they’re doing a lot with robotics and lasers and going in and cutting them much more precisely and getting better results with that.

So your rehab is much quicker when you’re not [00:39:00] having … when the quad tendon was cut, it took a long time to get that range and that strength back. With the quad sparing, it stretches a little bit as they move it to the side, but it’s nowhere near the We cut it off the bone, wait for it to heal to be able to, , really engage your quads again.

So they have gotten much better since I started as a physical therapist way back when people were in the hospital for weeks and now it’s a day procedure. With outpatient or in-home therapy for a while, , outpatient therapy., So it’s come a long way. But that’s if nothing else works.

But, yeah,, like we all go or many of us go to worst case scenario, but there’s a lot that can be done now that couldn’t have been done even 20 years ago with, some of the injections and stuff like that can sometimes postpone. And certainly,, and I’m not promoting this because I am a PT, but physical therapy to try to strengthen the joint, um, even if you know you have to have [00:40:00] surgery, your recovery will be so much faster if you really get in there and do a lot of strengthening to the best of your ability before that so the joint, you know, is ready for rehab after.

But yeah, there’s lots of different. And then the collaterals, those ones that go on the side, they often are more from an injury type of thing and they usually go in and repair those, sew them back in., The ACLs are a little different and the,, posterior which don’t tear as much, the cruciate ones that kind of hold your femur on your…

if I tore my ACL, they would probably say, “At your age, we’re not gonna bother to fix it.” Depending on how active you are, depending on is it a complete tear, stability, that sort of stuff. Athletes of course they’re gonna go in and repair it right away, you know? And it, sometimes they’re able to repair it.

Sometimes they use a graft, sometimes they use a cadaver replacement donor tendon to go in there. There’s, , different methods with that too. But, it kinda depends on [00:41:00] is it totally evolved off, is it just a little tear that might heal on its own, or is it flapping in the wind that it like totally got thrown off from the bone sort of thing.

So just because you tore your ACL does not mean that you’re necessarily going in and having surgery. It kinda depends on, was it really whipped off or was it just like a stretch sorta tear, if that makes sense, versus a completely detaching from the bone sort of thing. With these surgeries, are they like go in

Is it a pretty big incision nowadays, or are they kinda going like laparoscopic where they kinda- They’re getting smaller and smaller. Back in the day your average knee surgery’s incision was probably a good, I don’t know, eight to 10 inches. I think mine- Yeah … or six- ‘Cause you’d have to see the whole joint, right?

‘Cause they’d have to open it up. There’s so much with robotics and stuff like that they can do that used to be, you know- When you look at, like, any kind of abdominal surgery other than a C-section [00:42:00] when they have to have room to get the baby out, but hysterectomies, appendectomies, gallbladder surgeries- Mm-hmm

all that stuff, they’re taking major organs out of, you know, little laparoscopic holes and s- or repairs and stuff like that. With the- Yeah, I’ve experienced two laparoscopic surgeries in the last couple of years. Yeah. One to get my gallbladder removed, and then the second to remove a thing off my kidney.

And yeah, it’s amazing to me. I

, It’s amazing what they can do now with- Yes … with surgeries. Yeah. So th- you know, so, you know, if you, if you are a yoga student and your grandmother or your mother had a knee replacement 15 years ago, and all of a sudden they’re telling you you need a knee replacement, I’m not gonna lie and say that it doesn’t hurt, but it’s gonna be very different than your knee replacement of a decade ago.

Same with the hips when we were talking about in the last episode. Same with the hips. Yeah. Yes. , Same with anything, , , things that used to be major, you’re in the hospital for days. Now with robotics and laparoscopic and stuff like that, things are much [00:43:00] quicker recovery, much less invasive in terms of s- scar tissue, much less need for things like blood afterwards.

You used to have to, be worried about blood loss. Now with the knee it’s easier than a hip ’cause they can tourniquet it off, whereas a hip it’s harder. But, so many of the issues are way different. I have a lot of people who will say to me, “Oh, I’m not gonna see a doctor because my mom had their hip replaced and, you know, 25 years ago and it took them, you know-” Like, I told you when I had my knee replaced, I was back in the yoga studio in less than a week.

Would not recommend that. But, Now, how did you get to the floor? That was my thought about that afterwards. Sat down. Okay, so you could bend it enough that you could kinda, even if it was awkward, you could get to the earth. Yeah. Okay. Kinda stick the leg out and maybe sit down on a bolster or something like that, and then another bolster down.

Yeah. And then, getting up, kinda rolling over and- Yeah … you know, pushing up on the bolster, pushing up on the wall sort of thing, yeah. Yeah. That’s, I’ve done some creative getting up and down off the [00:44:00] floor recently. Yeah … and yes, I find there’s such a difference between, stacking two bolsters.

. To get up from that is so much different than if your butt’s flat on the floor, right? Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe let’s talk a little bit about, , so you had a knee replacement. Mm-hmm. And how long ago? 12 years. Okay. So it’s probably improved since even since you’ve done yours. Yeah, yeah.

How long were you out for? Like, how long were you, like, not back to normal life, but modifying things? I went back to work, I had it done- In July, I believe, and I was back to work in September. Think I missed work for three week, three months. That’s not bad at all. No. And if I’d had, if I wasn’t a physical therapist and I wasn’t lifting adults, if I’d had an office-type job, I would’ve been able to go back sooner- Right

is what they told me. You know, but I- Yeah, if you had [00:45:00] a job where you could sit on a chair, yeah. Yes. Yeah. You know, I think then they said it would’ve been, like, eight to 10 weeks or something like that, but I think I was out 12 weeks. And, you know, my doctor cleared me, and then occupational health had to clear me.

Like, they knew what was going on. All they asked me was could I squat down and stand back up again. So by three months I was squatting down and getting back up again. That was their… I won’t say that didn’t hurt a little bit, and I might have shifted onto my good knee a little bit, but, you know, that was their clearance.

So yeah, I’m pretty sure it was, like, 12 weeks that I was out for that one. Yeah. Those were my two concerns when I was first , being paranoid about this. I was like, will I be able to sit on my heels in cesa, and will- Mm-hmm … I be able to squat, and will I be able to kneel? Mm-hmm. ‘Cause I mean, I don’t care about saddle.

If I don’t ever do saddle again, that’s fine by me. There’s plenty- Yeah, yeah … of other ways to, to get in my quad, you know? When I teach squat, um, which not everyone teaches in yin, but sometimes if I do [00:46:00] a forward angle into a squat, depending on what kind of class I’m doing.

In yin, I automatically have people stack one or two blocks and- Yeah … sit on the block. I never have them just hanging out in squat. Even in a more vinyasa class, I always tell people to grab two blocks when they come in the door. Like, I don’t care what I’m teaching, they always get two blocks. Mm-hmm. And I will recommend that anybody sits on those blocks if they want to avoid stressing their hips or knees.

It’s just ki- And I always demonstrate sitting on, because I’m not gonna re-injure my knee by, like- Yes, you can still squat. You may not get your butt down to the floor squat, but you can take that position. In terms of kneeling, what I did and what I still do is I will fold up a blanket and kneel on a blanket if I’m gonna be straight on my knees for- Mm-hmm

any sort of quadruped stuff before I go into child’s pose. Even in a vinyasa class if I’m doing, hands and knees sort of stuff, I always, fold up a blanket a good amount [00:47:00] of time. If I was doing something like child’s pose or maybe camel, which again, I don’t teach very often in yin, but is in most yin books, that it’s a potential.

I have vertigo so I get too dizzy, so that’s why I don’t teach it. But, – It’s funny actually about camel. It’s only in, Paul’s book now. Oh, really? When Bernie redid his book he took it out. He had a whole conversation with Paul about it, about how, like- Okay … unless you’re, like, unusually gifted in your spine, I don’t think you can do this in a yin way.

And so, yeah. Yeah, yeah. He, he’s, he’s since removed camel as well. I’ve never taught it. I’ve taught camel plenty, but not as a yin pose. In yin. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think I teach it ’cause I do a yin teacher training at, at my studio, and I think I kinda say, “Here’s a pose.” I don’t like it. Yeah, I also don’t teach-

Chaturangas when I do a Vinyasa class because I’ve had so many wrist surgeries that I can’t do Chaturanga. So I might teach high plank, but I don’t ever teach going down into the low plank, but [00:48:00] that’s different story. But for kneeling, what I would do is I would roll up a blanket, or we have some thin bolsters, they’re like long, skinny bolsters- Mm-hmm

in the studio, and I would place that just below my knee. So if I’m in kneeling, the bolster’s on my shin, and my knee is hanging off the edge of the bolster or the rolled up blanket, if you can picture that. So I’m still in that kneeling position, but I’m not on my kneecap kneeling, if that makes sense.

Yep. So sometimes you might need, you know, a block to hold your arms or something like that, but that takes some stress off the knees. So when I was first doing child’s pose, I would do that. I would put like that rolled up bolster or blanket underneath my knees, then I would take one of the big fat bolsters, we have like the big s- Mm-hmm

rectangular like carpentry type ones, and I would put that between my butt and my calves so I wasn’t having to sit back as far. Yeah. And even when I had more range and could like, “Oh, yeah, I can [00:49:00] sit back on my knees,” I never did it in Yin because I can sit back on my knees, and I can bend my knees for five minutes and relax into the pose and not be counting the seconds until we get out of it are two entirely different things.

Yes. So for a long time, , it was like, “Oh, I can sit on my knees.” But then I realized I could not Yin sit on my knees. Yeah. So for a long time, I would put something in between my thighs and my calves when I was in child’s pose. So my butt was up in the air, but I was still, stretching my arms out, forehead still to the ground or turned to the side, whatever I was doing, still getting part of that.

But my kneecaps weren’t touching, and I wasn’t pushing flexion. And then I gradually backed off how thick is that pillow in between my thighs and my calves, and then gradually was able to, I maybe six months later it didn’t really bother me to kneel on my knee. I can’t remember [00:50:00] exactly, when that was that I was able to do it.

And there are some people who are not gonna be able to kneel. Either their surgeons are gonna tell them no, or they’re just very uncomfortable. Yeah. But I always say to… And then those people will say to me, “Well, I can’t get down on the ground ’cause I can’t stand up.” And I always say Talk to your doctor about how you’re supposed to get up off the floor.

Because telling them you can’t kneel might mean that if you’re Catholic, they don’t want you kneeling on that bench in church for too long. Well, whatever, the bench probably has a name. I’m not Catholic. But if you’re on the floor, it’s better for you to kneel for 30 seconds to stand up than to spend eight hours on the floor till your husband gets home from work.

You know? Like not kneeling, you know, maybe you can’t kneel to garden, but maybe you’re allowed- Right … to roll over on your knees to stand up. Yes, a big difference. Like even you were saying- That’s a big difference … with child’s pose. Even with child’s pose- Yes … if you’re in a Vinyasa class and you’re in there for three breaths as a break, very different than if you’re in a Yin class and now [00:51:00] we’re doing- Yes

child’s for minutes at a time. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I teach a lot of seniors. I have two senior chair yoga classes. Of course, we’re not down on the floor. And now I’ve started teaching a senior aqua yoga, which is really fun. Um, but even the senior, like flow classes that I have, I have a lot of people who will be like, “Well, I can’t get down on the floor.”

And I’m like, “Well, come to my chair class then.” But in, but they might say, “I have a knee replacement, I can’t stand up.” Talk to your physio or talk to your doctor. And sometimes it’s been they had it 25 years ago, and they’re not gonna go back and call their doctor, so, you know, we may, you know, talk through it.

But if you have someone who’s coming in with a more recent sort of injury, like talk to your doctor, talk to your physio. Send a message through, , at least in the States most hospitals have patient portals that you can send a message to the nurse or the doctor, am I allowed to kneel for 30 seconds to stand up or something like that, so.

One of the first things my physio… Because the p- the hard part for him and I was trying to find a position that I could feel a quad stretch without- Mm-hmm … [00:52:00] because I’m a yogi. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, you know, to try to find something- Yogi with a stretched quad. Yeah, something where I could stretch my quad, ’cause he w- he wants me to.

But, um, anyway, we were playing with camel, and I was showing him some hacks for people who can’t reach their feet. And anyway, we had a fun time. But, he asked me, “Can you kneel?” And he put down padding so thick. I was like, “Well, of course I can kneel on that,” I was like, you just put me on like an exercise mat that’s like two inches high.

Yes, I can kneel on that. I have always… And I loved actually that idea that you just said about… ‘Cause I think most of us as yoga teachers, our instinct would to be give them something to put their knees on. Mm-hmm. But I like how you were saying to actually, , pull it more towards.

Yeah. Yeah. I’m gonna experiment with that, because I actually really love chit foam blocks for kneeling- Yes … as opposed to a blanket, just ’cause they give- Yeah … a little more… But not everybody has those, of course. A little more push. But I’m gonna expe- A little more support, yeah … I’m gonna experiment with that.

Yeah So let’s, , let’s start to wrap it up with like, you know, [00:53:00] first of all, I wanna say, dear yoga teachers listening, if people come into your class and they’ve just had a knee surgery, you need to ask them if they’ve been cleared for yoga. Absolutely. That’s number one, ’cause that’s not up to us as the teacher.

It’s not re- I mean, I, they always are in charge of their own care, but it’s not really up to them either. Their physiotherapist, their surgeon is gonna have recommendations. So assuming they’ve been cleared- And they’re just kind of still working with some of that tightness and, and things like that. Uh, you’ve given some great tips for, like, child’s pose.

We could just… We’ve already talked about saddle, which AKA just avoid it- and do something else, people. Again, whole episode with downloadable PDF for you. And then there’s things like sitting in seiza or sitting cross-legged, where I’m assuming if you’re sitting in seiza and you’re getting to the point where your mobility’s starting to come back, putting more height under your bum- Yeah

so that you don’t have so much [00:54:00] bend in the knee. Mm-hmm. And then sitting cross-legged, what I’ve been doing with my own body and what I’ve always done with students is get their hips up on a small castle, up two bolsters if needed, and then take some yoga bricks and put that under their knees or- Under the knee?

Yeah, or rolling up a blanket and then putting… lifting your knees and putting that around your feet so that when your knees relax down, they’re relaxing onto that blanket roll instead- Yeah … of kind of hanging in the air. Yeah. Yep. Yep. So those are just a couple hacks that I had even long before my knee things.

Anything else that you can think of? ‘Cause really, there’s only a few poses where it is- The o- … gonna be an issue, like kneeling, you know- Yeah … if you were doing, thread the needle or something. The other biggie is, the other biggie is sleeping swan. And I usually put them on their back for figure four for that.

Yeah, figure four. Yeah. And they can do whatever level of bending their knee they can. Um, their weight is not on top of it. Sleeping swan can be difficult because n- not only is your knee now bent into a pretty significant angle, but you’re throwing your [00:55:00] body weight on top if you’re coming down. 100%. So- Yeah

I very often will put people… I very often do give the… I always give everybody the option of sleeping swan or on your back, figure four. And if they can’t bend even, you know, enough to get their ankle on, I’ll put them up against the wall and have the- I love that, against the wall … like, your left leg straight against the wall and the right leg just bended as far as you can, even if you can’t get it, like, too over the knee.

So you’re just starting to get some of that. Yeah. But yeah, it’s… W- sleeping swan is the other one. A deer pose too, you know, sometimes if they can’t- Really bend to like a more n- 90 degrees, just like don’t have them bend quite as deep into it. That one sometimes can bother people. , Maybe their front leg has to be straight, maybe their back leg has to be straight, and they’re only sitting like to one side.

That can be something that can be a problem with knees too. But, , I would say s- sleeping swan is one that a lot of people, even if they [00:56:00] just have a little bit like, “Yeah, that hurts my knee,” even if they don’t really have a knee problem, that’s one that a lot of people are not super happy with. So I do it- I almost never teach sleeping swan either.

Yeah. And I had one of my teacher trainees ask me about that, that why I do, figure four so often. And my answer was, “‘Cause I know my people.” Yeah. I know who’s in my class. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I know so-and-so has knee pain, and this one had a hip replacement, and this one…

and I, and I also wanna just, this is just a little pet peeve of mine, dear listener, I also wanna reverse this idea that figure four, or like reclined shoelace if you wanted to tighten the cross of your legs, is air quotes “easier,” or it’s air quotes a “modification.” It’s a variation. And the reason I wanna point this out is it’s not always only recommended for people who are in pain.

In my body, for example- I am very flexible in my hip, butt, IT band. [00:57:00] I actually feel a figure four or what I call keyhole, there’s a million names for it in yoga, so hopefully- Mm-hmm … everyone knows what we’re talking about. Um, I feel that way more effectively in my hip, butt, IT band, especially if I can use a wall for the other foot and, like, slide it down.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. ‘Cause in order for me to feel a stretch in that area, my knee has to be quite close to my chest, and that’s kind of hard to do in swan. Mm-hmm. Because, um, either gotta, like, amputate my boobs or, like, try to struggle to get them, like, over my leg, and then I’m kind of crooked and not comfort- like, I, it takes me so long to get comfortable in sleeping swan.

Yeah. That it’s not an effective hip, butt, IT band stretch for me. So when I flip on my back and gravity helps me out with my soft front bits on the bod- on the front of my body, then I’m able to bring my leg in closer and actually get a deeper stretch. So I just wanted to plant that seed, not because we’re always trying to go deeper, deeper, [00:58:00] deeper, Yin Yin, that’s not what we’re doing.

But just that, that, you know, sometimes as yoga professionals we have these ideas in our heads that, like, this pose is the modification, and I would say no, it’s a variation, and that there’s a huge percentage of the population that will actually feel that more effectively. A, because maybe the pressure’s off their knee or they can just get their leg closer.

And if you can use a wall, like you mentioned, oh, so delicious, ’cause then you can relax your arms. And so there’s something too about the nervous system and your whole back being on the floor. Um, so and I’m not saying if you, if you can do sleeping swan well and you love it, party on with yourself, but if you’re teaching, , you know- I will often just teach, nine times out of 10 I teach either figure four , or a seated hip stretch as opposed to sleeping swan.

Because again, dear teachers, we only have so much time and we got a mixed group of people, and by the time it’s gonna take me 10 minutes to get you into swan pose, now I don’t have time for that pose anymore. So I’m gonna be- Right … efficient [00:59:00] and just say, “If I’m looking for hip, butt, IT band, what is the most practical way that I could do that in this group?”

So that’s something else. The other thing with, the other thing with doing it on your back versus your belly, if you’re doing sleeping swan, you very easily can tip the pelvis to one side. You can get lumbar lordosis. You can round too much. When you’re doing it on your back, you’re keeping your spine nice and stable- Mm-hmm

and you’re better able to keep the hips stable and not, and so you’re better able to moderate your own stretch and really feel that you’re not shifting and wiggling, and you’re really feeling it where the intention is. Like I always say that the, , intended area-

For this pose is X, Y, Z. And I can find the target when I’m on my back way more than when I’m on my belly. And maybe today my hips are also tight, so I’m rolling off to the left a little bit, or I’m rolling off to the right, or my back hurts so I can’t lower myself down quite as much, you know, first thing in the morning and I’m [01:00:00] way stiffer than it is at 7:00 at night, which I often teach, and I’m pretty much looser at that point in time because I’ve been up and moving all day.

So I think you have more control over the- What your pelvis and knee are doing when your back is taken out of the equation. So let’s start to wrap it all together with a little bow for folks. So you’ve done an amazing job of explaining where these parts are on our body, so thank you for that. Because I think if teachers don’t have a lot of anatomy knowledge, they may not even know what their patella is or what their meniscus is.

So thank you for describing all of that. That’s helpful.

There’s always, , a blog post that goes with it where I can add more pictures and things. So I’ll try to find a picture of at least some of these things if I can. And then we talked about some of the common surgeries, which was great, and now we’ve talked about, some of the poses to watch out for and how we can give a variation.

\ Saddle being a, probably a big no [01:01:00] for a whole bunch of people, and what we can do instead. Again, there’s a whole PDF I made for y’all on that. I will have one coming out, probably not till next season, though, also on swan and frog. Those two have been requested. So we will do deep dives into those, in the fall session of the show.

And they’ll have matching PDFs again. So we’ve talked about things like child’s pose, saddle, sitting cross-legged, , seiza, squatting, , kneeling

I think, I mean, I think we’ve covered most of the shapes that might be… Yeah. I agree, yeah. Cool. Anything else you wanna add as we start to kinda wrap it up about that people might need to know about knees? You are a yoga teacher, you are not a doctor. Thank you. You are a yoga teacher, you are not a physical therapist.

Your number one question to your student when they come to you is, [01:02:00] “What has your doctor or your physical therapist had to say?” In addition, if you are, and I think I mentioned this with hips, if you are the student going back to your doctor or if you are a teacher who wants to suggest this to your student, have them describe what yin is.

Most doctors are gonna think of yoga as more of the vinyasa stuff- .. or of the Instagram stuff of my foot is over my head. Maybe explain that I’m not bouncing up and down, I’m not jumping around, I’m not, yin might be tolerated different than a vinyasa class is being tolerated. So educate your doctors, you know.

So if the student says, “Yeah, I’m going. I haven’t seen the doctor, but I’m gonna see them next week,” maybe mention to them the type of yoga that you do. . Yeah. Because I think, somebody- Take a little video or some photos or something with you … a couple pictures or something like that.

Because, you know, they may not [01:03:00] want you getting into warrior one and your warrior two and putting a lot of pressure on that knee and that sort of position, but they may be fine if you’re sitting in dragonfly and you’re actually helping to get that extension back into your knee or something like that.

The other thing that I would say is that if I know I have somebody who is very recently injured, they’re approved, whatever, and I say this in all my classes, “We’re gonna hold all of our poses for three to seven, three to five,” whatever I’ve decided for the night for the positions. You know, “If at any time you wanna back out because of pain,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

If Nic comes into my class and I know she’s having knee pain, I might say to her beforehand, “I’m gonna give a cue halfway through the pose.” And I don’t always do that normally- Mm-hmm … but if I know someone might, I might say, you know, “Think about backing out at the halfway point. Don’t hold for the whole time.”

That’s smart. Yeah. So- They have to build up to that gradually again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. , Take your rebound, [01:04:00] resonance, whatever you’re calling that pose in your class early. But you know, and if, if you don’t know, I still always give that cue, but, like, if I know for sure someone’s coming in and they’ve had an issue, I will just say, you , “You might wanna back out of that pose.

We’re gonna be doing,” particularly my people who’ve been coming for a long time, “We’re gonna be doing X, Y, and Z tonight. But you know, in figure four, make sure you’re not pulling your knee all the way into the chest, or only do it for two minutes, not the,” I’ll give you a warning at the halfway, something like that.

Mm-hmm. So then let them gradually move into the stretch as opposed to feeling like they have to stay the entire five minutes ’cause the rest of the class is. That’s great advice, and I don’t normally do a halfway point either because I just feel like mentally I don’t love it. But I do love that in the case of an injury.

Yeah. Um, you know, um, I- whether you say a halfway point or whether you just say their name softly or , some kind of a cue- Yes … so that they know- Yeah … okay, like we’re halfway there. And then they can decide, how [01:05:00] am I feeling? , Am I cooked or do I wanna go for another minute? Or- they could really take a moment to tune in and see how they feel about that.

That’s a great idea. All right, my friend. As always, we have chatted and chatted galore, which is great. First of all, I wanna just thank you for, , for coming for both of these, interviews. , Because I do think that these things come up, both hips, which was the last one, so if you haven’t listened to that one, just go on back, last week, and you can hear that one.

Both of these are things that come up so much in, in p- yoga practice, and it’s just so helpful to give teachers the confidence to have, alternative shapes, to give the teachers the confidence to even say to the student when they come in, “What has your doctor said?” , Or, “What has your physiotherapist said?”

Or, what movements did they tell you shouldn’t be doing?” Or, blah, blah, blah. I think that is super helpful because I know for a fact that there’s… There seems to be two camps with yoga [01:06:00] teachers. There’s either the, um, unwise but arrogant that thinks they know everything- … and so , they don’t ask, you know, “What has your doctor said?”

Blah, blah, blah. They think they just know. And then there’s the opposite, which is more common, I think, which, so many people say is imposter syndrome, and I’m so sick of that word. It’s not imposter syndrome to have the humility to know that something’s beyond your scope of knowledge or practice.

That is called- Yeah … humility and wisdom. So if someone comes in and they’re like, “By the way, I just had my knee replaced,” and you start sweatin’ and, like, uh, shakin’ inside and freakin’ out, it’s not your job to heal that, dear yoga teacher. Right. Just ask them, “Have you seen your physiotherapist? What did your doctor say?”

And if they haven’t gone yet, then say, “Okay, we’re gonna do a modified practice for you today and take it easy. We’re gonna not go to your full range of motion. I want you to just relax, and then let me know when you have feedback from your doctor, from your physio, and then we can figure it out more.”

Doesn’t mean [01:07:00] you have to send them away, and it doesn’t mean that they have to do everything that everyone else is doing. You can give them a softer version of things until they know, and when they know, then you’ll have more ideas. And this is why it’s important when we think about teaching functionally to know, “Why did I put this pose in the sequence?”

So if you just randomly throw sleeping swan in but you don’t know why you put sl- sleeping swan in, then if someone can’t do it, now you’re gonna panic. But if , oh, this was for hip

A sudden And , I think, and I mentioned this last time too, the other thing to remember is that Yin is not just physical. If they can’t maintain the pose that you’re calling, and I did this a lot when I went back after my knee replacement. I might not have been able to do the pose.

I might have sat in a heart bed for five [01:08:00] minutes when everybody else was doing sleeping swan or something. But I was still quieting my mind. Yeah. I was still doing the mental aspects of Yin. And being part of the community that, , when you’re recovering, it’s just great to get the heck out of your house and be around other people.

I can sit up against the wall the whole time, and then just close my eyes and relax for five minutes. That might be what I needed that day. Yeah. There are still days that I don’t do a pose that someone calls because I just feel like- Me too … I wanna sit and quiet my mind for five minutes.

So again, I would never kick anybody out of class. I might suggest, “These are a couple poses that you could just kind of relax into until we find out more.” Yeah. But I think so many particularly new Yin teachers focus so much on the physical aspect of it, that you have to hold in stillness, you have to hold for a period of time.

This is what we’re doing. Forgetting the, you’re also quieting your mind for those five minutes, or you’re also working [01:09:00] on your breath for those five minutes. You’re also, what else? I- You’re experiencing self-care. You’re getting community. You know, you’re getting- Yeah … out of the house, like you said.

Yeah. So I think that is the perfect place to end this on. Dear yoga teachers, Beth and I would like to say, remember, that the point of Yin isn’t just the physical poses. That there’s so much more to this practice that you could guide people to until they’re able to do versions of the shapes again. You and I will say our proper goodbyes in just a moment.

But for those of you that are watching or listening, bye for now. Bye. Thank you