Jivana Heyman, founder of Accessible Yoga Association and the Accessible Yoga School has graciously given beYogi the opportunity to share an exclusive excerpt from his upcoming January 2024 book release, The Teacher’s Guide to Accessible Yoga: Best Practices for Sharing Yoga with Every Body.

We want to continue to educate our community on making your yoga class and practice more accessible, Please enjoy!

Teaching Accessible Asana

If you stop to think about it, what is it that you’re actually doing when you’re teaching yoga? Are you standing at the front of a room making shapes with your body and asking the students to copy you like a game of Simon Says? Or are you trying to cultivate a deeper experience? The way we cultivate that deeper experience of yoga is by working with the mind. 

Yes, the body can make shapes, and we can breathe into those movements. But what makes yoga profound and transformative is what’s happening in the mind. In many ways, asana is simply moving meditation. And just like with any meditative practice, the benefits come from deepening our awareness and concentration. 

The result of engaging the mind in this way is magical, and yoga really is a kind of alchemy. You mix together the perfect balance of movement, breath, and focus, and poof! —the transformation occurs. You transform from feeling weighed down and worried to feeling so light you can touch the stars. Of course, each of us has our own personal alchemical recipe based on our preferences, personality, and experiences. Aa a yoga teacher, you're giving people guidance to create their own personal magic potion.

It's helpful to remember that asana is accessible by nature. Moving the body as a devotional practice is one of the simplest and most direct ways to practice spirituality. But somehow, in modern yoga, we’ve made asana exclusive, complicated, and even dangerous. There is a tradition of asceticism in yoga where the body is basically tortured as a way to transcend it—as a way of stopping the identification with the body. Contemporary asana practice seems to align itself with this part of the tradition, but there are so many other ways to practice.

The traditional paths of yoga offer a way in for all of us. There’s the path of love and devotion, bhakti yoga. The path of action and service, karma yoga. The path of wisdom and self-analysis, jnana yoga, and there’s the path of concentration and ethics, raja yoga.

Asana is a great support to any and all of these paths. Twisting and contorting the body by itself is not spiritual practice. But, moving the body with love is a bhakti yoga practice. Serving the body through self-care is a karma yoga practice. Reflecting on our relationship with the body as we move in and out of poses is a jnana yoga practice. Aligning breath and movement to help focus the mind is a raja yoga practice.

A Spectrum of Possibility

One central concept that informs all my teaching is the understanding that each yoga practice exists on a spectrum of possibility. This is similar to the concept of asana progressions, where you add elements of a practice to experience some kind of “full expression” of the pose. But this idea of a spectrum is more neutral. There are infinite ways of expressing each asana and each one is equal to the others. I’ve let go of the idea of “beginner” and “advanced” since they create a false dichotomy.

The idea of exploring an asana on a spectrum is more inviting and more inclusive. We can each find our special place on that spectrum of practice that is valid and effective, based on how our body, breath, and mind are experiencing this present moment.

Let’s look at cobra pose, bhujangasana, as an example. This pose is essentially a backbend (spinal extension) that offers an opportunity to counteract slouching and kyphosis (rounded upper back) that happens naturally as we age. Here are twenty variations on the spectrum of possibility:

Prone: 

1. A sphynx variation where you slide the hands forward and rest the forearms on the floor.
2. Place a folded blanket under the pelvis to reduce the lumbar curve.
3. Lift the hands off the floor to engage the back muscles rather than pushing with the arms.
4. Come up into the pose but lower the head to bring awareness to the thoracic spine without engaging the cervical spine.
5. Make it dynamic by coming up on the inhalation and lowering down on the exhalation.
6. Explore different leg positions; having them close together or separated, toes curled under or pointed, or squeezing a block between the legs.
7. Place a block on its highest setting under the forehead to keep the neck neutral.
8. Lie on top of a bolster so it's supporting the torso. Notice the effect on the lower back and neck. 

Supine:

9. Place a bolster or folded blanket behind the upper back to create the spinal extension of cobra. Be sure to support the neck as well. This can also be done in bed.

Kneeling:

10. Lean forward and rest the hands on the knees as you come into the pose.

Standing:

11. Bend the knees slightly and rest the hands on the knees as you come into the pose.
12. Face a wall about a foot away. Bring the hands to the wall at shoulder height and come up on to the toes as you extend the spine.

Seated:

13. Place the hands on the knees and lean forward as you come into the pose.
14. In a similar position, try a dynamic movement. Exhale and lower the head down, leaning forward as if you’re diving. Then as you inhale, slowly roll up the head, neck, and chest into cobra. Repeat a few times.
15. Bring the hands up in front of the shoulders as if you were on a mat, and then lean forward and come into the pose, bringing the arms back slightly to expand the chest.
16. Reach back with the hands and take hold of the back of the chair or the seat of the chair, and lean forward as you come into the pose.
17. Place a bolster, firm pillow, or blanket on the lap, and rest the arms on it. As you move forward into the pose, allow the abdomen to press gently into the prop, and pull the arms toward you as you would on the mat.
18. Scoot all the way back in the chair. Lean forward and place a folded blanket, a rolled yoga mat placed vertically, or a block behind the upper back. Lean back against the prop to find the cobra shape.
19. Seated at a desk, plant the feet and lean forward placing the hands on the edge of the desk as you come into the pose. This can also be done facing the back of a second chair or facing a wall. 

Mentally:

20. Resting in shavasana, imagine practicing cobra mentally without moving. Inhabit the body and feel how it would move and how the breath would change during the practice. 

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Jivana Heyman, founder of the Accessible Yoga Association, first coined the phrase "accessible yoga" nearly a decade ago. He's made it his mission to bring together an accessible yoga community as well as provide a platform to educate yoga teachers on sequencing and understanding accessible yoga. 

Committed to serving underrepresented people and communities in the yoga space, Heyman uses his 25 years of yoga teacher training experience around the world, shining light on how to create a more accessible yoga practice. If you'd like to learn more about how you can make your yoga classes more accessible check out the online courses from Accessible Yoga School.