Teaching Yoga Chapter 4: Body Structure and Movement

They are complex with 26 bones that form 25 joints, 20 muscles, and a variety to tendons and ligaments.

• The Feet

• The Knees

• The Pelvis

• The Abdominal Core

This body part is the center of yoga and it is the sushumna channel, carrying life-force, pranic energy up through the sublte body.

• The Pelvis

• The Spine

• The Arms

• The Shoulders

This body part receives considerable stress from above and below, making their stabilizing muscles and especially ligaments among the most frequently strained in physical yoga practices.

• The knees

• The Feet

• The Pelvis

• The Spine

5 metacarpal and 14 phalange bones linked by ligaments and surrounded by muscles, nerves, vessels, fascia, and skin.

• The Hands

• The Pelvis

• The Feet

• The Abdominal Core

When in balance this group of muscles supports standing with stability and ease, allows full and safe range of motion in the lumbar spine, supports the internal organs without compressing them, and allows the breath to flow strongly and freely.

• The Shoulder

• The Arm

• The Spine

• The Abdominal Core

They are the most mobile joints in the human body, but also strong enough to allow us to lift, push, pull, twist, and move with or against force in multiple directions.

• The Arms

• The Shoulders

• The Pelvis

• The Feet

Primarily a hinge joint capable of extension and flexion, with minor capacity to rotate when flexed to about ninety degrees, sudden or excessive movement in any ot these motions can tear ond of the supporting ligaments or cartilage.

• The Arms

• The Abdominal Core

• The Pelvis

• The Knees

Similar to the knee joint, this joint is very prone to hyperextension, a cause of misalignment and injury especially in weight bearing arm support asanas.

• The Wrists

• The Elbows

• The Pelvis

• The Spine

The body never ​ (a)   as the set of ​ (b)   parts.

• functions
• isolated

What is happening in our ​ (a)   affects what is happening in our ​​ (b)   no less than what is happening in between our ​ (c)   affects ​ (d)   in our bodies.

• feet
• spine
• ears
• sensations