A 100-year-old yoga master's wisdom for joint safety and strengthening
Hypermobility: condition of having unusually or abnormally wide range of movement in one or more joints
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Hello, Tribe Hypermobile!
Have you ever been discouraged from yoga for risk of joint overextension or injury? Or have you ever taken a group yoga class where the stretches felt insufficient, you spent the session being the class demonstrator, or you had unexpected body aches afterwards? Do you suffer from hypermobility-related conditions such as repeated sprains, strains, or subluxations, poor healing, scoliosis, chronic pain, muscle fatigue, migraines, or arthritis? Or are you a hypermobile looking to keep such symptoms at bay?
Up to one in five people is estimated to have a certain degree of hypermobility. While some go on to thrive without any issue, extreme or extensive hypermobility can develop debilitating symptoms with relentless complications. For me, practicing the yoga of the world's oldest master Tao Porchon-Lynch has been the toggle switch between the two existences.
Channeling Tao's wisdom in wellness and longevity, Yoga for Hypermobility offers classes for clients with joint hypermobility, guided by a hypermobile instructor, trained by a master of a century of joint health, in a safe and educational training environment.
Have you ever been discouraged from yoga for risk of joint overextension or injury? Or have you ever taken a group yoga class where the stretches felt insufficient, you spent the session being the class demonstrator, or you had unexpected body aches afterwards? Do you suffer from hypermobility-related conditions such as repeated sprains, strains, or subluxations, poor healing, scoliosis, chronic pain, muscle fatigue, migraines, or arthritis? Or are you a hypermobile looking to keep such symptoms at bay?
Up to one in five people is estimated to have a certain degree of hypermobility. While some go on to thrive without any issue, extreme or extensive hypermobility can develop debilitating symptoms with relentless complications. For me, practicing the yoga of the world's oldest master Tao Porchon-Lynch has been the toggle switch between the two existences.
Channeling Tao's wisdom in wellness and longevity, Yoga for Hypermobility offers classes for clients with joint hypermobility, guided by a hypermobile instructor, trained by a master of a century of joint health, in a safe and educational training environment.
I met Tao when I was in my late twenties and she was in her early nineties. It was solely her longevity that gifted me our single overlapping decade that absolutely changed the course of the rest of my life.
Tao recognized my body's unusual laxity very early on, and over my ten-year apprenticeship spent countless one-on-one sessions with me patiently showing me how to protect and strengthen my joints while harnessing my flexibility. While few even recognized anything wrong with my seemingly benign "gift", my true blessing was that Tao intuitively foresaw the damage my limber body would be causing itself over time, and understood that the very yogic wisdom behind her tried-and-true century-long joint preservation would also save a 29-year-old's hypermobile body just the same. Having generalized joint hypermobility, my body became a canvas of her invaluable lessons, teaching me how to apply her yoga principles to every joint and limb.
Tao recognized my body's unusual laxity very early on, and over my ten-year apprenticeship spent countless one-on-one sessions with me patiently showing me how to protect and strengthen my joints while harnessing my flexibility. While few even recognized anything wrong with my seemingly benign "gift", my true blessing was that Tao intuitively foresaw the damage my limber body would be causing itself over time, and understood that the very yogic wisdom behind her tried-and-true century-long joint preservation would also save a 29-year-old's hypermobile body just the same. Having generalized joint hypermobility, my body became a canvas of her invaluable lessons, teaching me how to apply her yoga principles to every joint and limb.
Exercise is a known conundrum for generalized hypermobility as the abnormally wide ranges of joint motion throughout the body require further conditioning than most daily or fitness activities provide, and yet the joints are simultaneously prone to overextending, damaging, and even stiffening. While muscle retention is key in supporting the unstable and vulnerable joints and maintaining mobility, many exercises can cause prohibitive pain, chances of injury are higher while healing is slow, and anything involving high impact, repetition, resistance, or strain is contraindicated. Common exercise mantras such as "practice makes perfect" and "no pain no gain" can actually be very dangerous advice for an unsuspecting hypermobile.
I was an unsuspecting hypermobile. I actually learned of all of the above after Tao's training, and realized that I had never encountered any of these setbacks while practicing yoga with Tao, while it explained why I almost always did with other physical activities, even other yoga classes. Tao's yoga naturally neutralized these hypermobility hurdles, allowing my body to reap only the much-needed benefits through a yoga practice that was as effective as it was safe.
I am an ongoing case study on the effects of Tao's yoga on a hypermobile body over time. The following are a few examples of resulting physical changes that I have experienced:
- I have sprained my ankles countless times since childhood, sometimes both at once, that the condition was simply a fact of living life. I had taken other yoga classes before as well; however, not until I began Tao's yoga was this sprain-curse lifted. As my balance improved I fell less, and when I did, my stronger joints were more resilient against rolling and breakage. The number of sprains I have sustained in daily life while practicing Tao's yoga: zero.
- Due to immediate physical benefits, from inner-muscle retention to weight stabilization, fitness came much more easily while rendering all other forms of exercise optional, saving me time, money, energy, and most importantly, years of impact and wear on my joints.
- Maintaining a good posture had been a lifelong struggle, a fate to which I had partly resigned myself due to a misshapen spine and childhood neck injury. What was a hopeless state of constant heavyness and exhaustion almost instantly became weightless and effortless through Tao's yoga. This single change then led to improvements in every part of my well-being from breathing to circulation to stability to mobility to digestion to core strength to stamina and so much more.
I was an unsuspecting hypermobile. I actually learned of all of the above after Tao's training, and realized that I had never encountered any of these setbacks while practicing yoga with Tao, while it explained why I almost always did with other physical activities, even other yoga classes. Tao's yoga naturally neutralized these hypermobility hurdles, allowing my body to reap only the much-needed benefits through a yoga practice that was as effective as it was safe.
I am an ongoing case study on the effects of Tao's yoga on a hypermobile body over time. The following are a few examples of resulting physical changes that I have experienced:
- I have sprained my ankles countless times since childhood, sometimes both at once, that the condition was simply a fact of living life. I had taken other yoga classes before as well; however, not until I began Tao's yoga was this sprain-curse lifted. As my balance improved I fell less, and when I did, my stronger joints were more resilient against rolling and breakage. The number of sprains I have sustained in daily life while practicing Tao's yoga: zero.
- Due to immediate physical benefits, from inner-muscle retention to weight stabilization, fitness came much more easily while rendering all other forms of exercise optional, saving me time, money, energy, and most importantly, years of impact and wear on my joints.
- Maintaining a good posture had been a lifelong struggle, a fate to which I had partly resigned myself due to a misshapen spine and childhood neck injury. What was a hopeless state of constant heavyness and exhaustion almost instantly became weightless and effortless through Tao's yoga. This single change then led to improvements in every part of my well-being from breathing to circulation to stability to mobility to digestion to core strength to stamina and so much more.
*My view on yoga and hypermobility: Yoga is contraindicated for hypermobility, and for good reason
Many medical professionals voice concerns about patients with hypermobility practicing yoga, and from my own experiences I am in complete agreement. I have never recommended hypermobiles to explore yoga classes and never would, and myself know firsthand the risks that much of today's mainstream yoga could raise for hypermobile joints to the point where I have personally had to stop taking most other yoga classes because of how frequently they hurt my body. There are yoga programs which offer poses specifically modified for hypermobile joints, and yet I have felt too scared for and protective of my fragile body to even try those. Tao's yoga for hypermobility does not involve any modifications. I have never had to adapt nor alter any of Tao's original teachings for my hypermobility, and only consider myself a mere messenger of her practice, which was first learned a hundred years ago in India, then time-tested for a century by a master who lived ten lifetimes in one, and then safely user-tested for over a decade on one very bendy brittle subject. Tao's yoga, directly delivered from where she captured it in India one hundred years ago, simply works; it did so unimaginably well for my hypermobile body, and the proof is in my pudding-joints. That is why Tao's is the only yoga that I have come to personally and exceptionally trust for my own hypermobile body, as wisdom for even the most fragile breakable of bodies to thrive. Given the recent explosive global popularity of yoga, it is only imaginable that yoga instruction naturally evolved to serve the much larger non-hypermobile population without as many chances to preserve and pass down subtler nuances that support the rare hypermobile participants as well. Perhaps Tao's undiluted yoga provides a glimpse of how traditional yoga and its original benefits were more universally inclusive of all body types, ranging from hypermobiles to centenarians.
Many medical professionals voice concerns about patients with hypermobility practicing yoga, and from my own experiences I am in complete agreement. I have never recommended hypermobiles to explore yoga classes and never would, and myself know firsthand the risks that much of today's mainstream yoga could raise for hypermobile joints to the point where I have personally had to stop taking most other yoga classes because of how frequently they hurt my body. There are yoga programs which offer poses specifically modified for hypermobile joints, and yet I have felt too scared for and protective of my fragile body to even try those. Tao's yoga for hypermobility does not involve any modifications. I have never had to adapt nor alter any of Tao's original teachings for my hypermobility, and only consider myself a mere messenger of her practice, which was first learned a hundred years ago in India, then time-tested for a century by a master who lived ten lifetimes in one, and then safely user-tested for over a decade on one very bendy brittle subject. Tao's yoga, directly delivered from where she captured it in India one hundred years ago, simply works; it did so unimaginably well for my hypermobile body, and the proof is in my pudding-joints. That is why Tao's is the only yoga that I have come to personally and exceptionally trust for my own hypermobile body, as wisdom for even the most fragile breakable of bodies to thrive. Given the recent explosive global popularity of yoga, it is only imaginable that yoga instruction naturally evolved to serve the much larger non-hypermobile population without as many chances to preserve and pass down subtler nuances that support the rare hypermobile participants as well. Perhaps Tao's undiluted yoga provides a glimpse of how traditional yoga and its original benefits were more universally inclusive of all body types, ranging from hypermobiles to centenarians.
Teacher-training at the feet of a master: 94-year-old Tao describing to me how to breathe to expand my ribs laterally, while gently spotting my rib cage with her knees to prevent my pose from overextending and collapsing while I try. She is also about to tell me to "inhale" my knees closer together, which I then was about to feel and learn improves my alignment and thereby relieves the pressure inside of my lower back, in turn allowing me to breathe into the area and lift my pose upward through my hips, to then come away from her knees and hold myself up independently, solely by the correct engagement of my breath.