Yoga for Parkinson’s

I have aired several Parkinsons Recovery Radio shows over the years about doing yoga for Parkinson’s. People generally report a positive experience. It gets the oxygen moving throughout their body and is great exercise.

What follows is an email from Steve who offers a fresh perspective on yoga.

Robert Rodgers PhD
Road to Recovery from Parkinsons Disease 

In Touch of Life: The Healing Power of the Natural Life Force, author Robert Fulford,
a gifted doctor and healer, shares his wisdom after a 70 year career of healing  with the hands. I treasure like his insights. They come from clinical experience, not book learning. It is authentic knowledge.

Dr. Fulford argues that most yoga teachers and some students are heavily damaged from doing yoga. The damage can be for life since their ligaments have usually become over lax from aggressive stretching. He strongly cautions about doing yoga. This is 70 years experience speaking.

Actually muscles do not stretch. The primary focus of yoga in ancient days was not stretching! When the west got hold of yoga that is what happened.

I paraphrase next from the wisdom of Ruthy Alon who is my gold standard when it comes to knowledge about human movement.

  • Yoga is from the East where people are more receptive, have less ego, are more culture oriented and don’t have a strong self identity and all that goes along with that.
  • It is the opposite in the West where a strong ego and self-identity are needed to just survive.

Yoga poses strengthen the self-identity and will and are perfect to balance the Eastern psyche. Taken to the West, they can over balance the westerner who is already too strong in ego and self identity. For the western world it would be better for people to do flowing energy movements like Tai Chi, Qigong, Feldenkrais and the like as these therapies soften and harmonize the being in a way that yoga cannot do.

This also is 70 plus years of wisdom speaking from Ruthy.

Steve