Biodynamic Massage and Yoga - is it a match?

 
Sandra Heider is a practising body psychotherapist, trained at CBPC, and also a yoga teacher. We were lucky enough to have her at our Afternoon Session at this year’s AGM and to discover how biodynamic practice informs her yoga teaching.

Some of us there had done lots of yoga, some still did yoga, and some not very much at all. But we were all biodynamic massage therapists and were intrigued to find out whether there could be a meeting between yoga (which one attendee described as a more ‘top-down, structured approach’ to physical practice) and biodynamic massage. How would it make it different?

Sandra’s approach was one of allowing ‘gentle curiosity’ with ourselves, as our bodies followed her instructions. How does it feel to constrict the breath in ujjayi breathing? How does it feel to wrap our arms and hands around each other and bring our elbows together? What is happening internally when we take on the detailed positioning of each part of the body? Bringing a level of attention to the internal aspects of taking a pose not only meant we worked more interoceptively but also with an added sense of taking care of ourselves. Often Sandra would remind us to relax our  necks and heads – often forgotten when we are concentrating on aligning ourselves. Using our hands to hold our own heads as we came out of a pose also gave an added feeling of safety and care.  In a way that is more typical in body psychotherapy, we  also encouraged to make sounds and movement in the usually silent and still savasana (corpse) pose at the end of the session.

Read More