Hands-On Adjustments: Techniques for Adjusting Yoga Postures

David Keil brings an in-depth understanding of the purpose and use of hands-on adjustments for yoga postures to the “Hands-On Adjustments DVD”. Hands-on adjustments are a very important and powerful tool for yoga teachers. When done well, hands-on adjustments are an opportunity to retrain certain patterns and ways of moving that we see in our students. David’s adjustments are informed by his solid foundation in functional anatomy. They are shared in a way that practitioners and teachers of all styles of yoga asana practice can understand and apply.

David covers the fundamental concepts of why, when, and how to apply hands-on adjustments for yoga poses. While specific poses are used to demonstrate these concepts, David presents the foundation of all hands-on adjustments in a way that allows instructors to gain experience with these basic principles and then apply them as appropriate any situation.

David instructs as though you’re a participant in a workshop that’s happening right in front of you. He demonstrates hands-on adjustments on a range of real-world body types showing you how to modify adjustments to fit student variables such as: height, flexibility, strength, and level of practice. David also includes suggestions for modifications to adjustments to accommodate injuries that might be present.

The DVD is organized by pose type and specific poses are listed in both English and Sanskrit. This allows the viewer to navigate directly to specific poses. Each adjustment demonstration is structured in a way that allows viewers to first observe the concepts and then pause the section while they put the concepts into practice with a fellow teacher or student.

David goes beyond the mechanics of individual adjustments. He emphasizes the importance of developing a clear intention and using that to guide your application of hands-on adjustments. David explains different elements of body mechanics as he goes through the postures such as:

• Using body positioning, taking advantage of your own or your students body weight, and effectively using your legs and larger muscle groups. He also shares tools for learning to feel what is happening in each adjustment in the moment and responding according to ongoing feedback from the student.
• David instructs the viewer to develop the skills to apply a correct adjustment: an adjustment that effectively fulfills the intention created by the adjuster based on their experience and the variables of the student. He conveys basic principles and ideas that you can translate into your own experience.
• Forty-five postures are covered in the DVD in total; they include standing, seated and inverted postures. David also includes a section on adjustments specific to the Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga practice.

 

Specific poses included in the DVD include: