Yoga on the farm

About 8 years ago, I took my first yoga class. I originally did it as a way to keep active during the winter. As if shoveling snow isn't enough activity!!! At the time, It was painful to bend over far enough to touch my knees. I couldn't tie my shoes. Today, I can easily bend over and place my palms on the floor. I could tie shoes while standing -- balanced on one foot. (I have stopped wearing shoes, so that seemed odd to write!) The transition has really helped with the ergonomics of farming.

Yoga dramatically helped me improve my flexibility, and ability to work on the farm. I am able to plant, harvest, and weed in new ways, such as by bending over, and squatting. I didn't formally practice yoga during the summer, but I incorporated yoga poses and methods into my work flow. I began to deliberately dance with the hoe, instead of using it like a bludgeon. Weeding became graceful instead of cludgeony. Threshing turned into ecstatic dance.

I learned to pay attention to my body, and it's limitations. Thus I stopped doing things that might be injury inducing such as trying to brute force heavy equipment that could injure back or limbs. I started paying attention to my skin, and stopped blistering my hands. I started paying attention to my breathing and heart-rate to minimize the chances of sudden heart-attack or stroke from overexertion. I started paying close attention to hydration. My activities around the farm transitioned from hard/fast work that would wear me out quickly to slower more deliberate work that I could maintain all day, or many days in a row. I (mostly) stopped doing too much one day and being forced to take rest days to recover.

And I learned techniques to slow down my mind and anxiety levels which allows me to plan better, and to work smarter on the farm. My sleep improved dramatically. I lost 70 pounds, which really helped my ability to do manual labor. It was a whole-life transition, other things besides yoga were happening in my life at the same time like making different diet and lifestyle choices. It's hard to tell with yoga what is due to physical activity, and what is due to changes in mental outlook. I suppose they are all inter-related.

Do any of you practice yoga? In what ways does it make you a better permaculturalist? How does it help with ergonomics around the homestead/farm?

I used to do yoga and have gotten out of the habit. I need to get back to it as I'm noticing my balance and strength are deteriorating. Core strength in particular.

Yoga is excellent for preventing/reducing injuries while farming.

It's something I dearly need to get back to!

I'm going to print out this cheat sheet of stretches and post it in a visible spot. It will be a good start, something that can be done on the run even if I don't make time these days for a full-on yoga practice. Thanks, Joseph, for the reminder that self-care is important.

https://extension.umaine.edu/agrability/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2020/07/YogaForFarmersPoster_Web.pdf

My husband and I have been doing yoga 4-5 mornings a week for many years now. It has been one of the best things we've done for ourselves and as we head further into our 60s, I am convinced that it is absolutely critical for our continued mobility.

I do yoga followed by either Qigong or weight lifting with light weights/high reps in the morning. I can do a full squat now and hold it with no issue. I can almost touch palms to the floor with straight legs. I don't get as sore from exertion and picking up big logs to cut has somehow become easy.

I highly recommend yoga to anyone, but caution to start slow and don't be surprised at how difficult it can be. I'm always amazed at people thinking it's a sissy exercise, but those people probably haven't tried it and found out how tough it can be at first.

We do Rodney Yee's yoga routines, which can vary from gentle to more vigorous. I like being able to pace myself.

Andrea: I do the first 6 of those stretches every day. They are really helpful to me.

what a great thread!!
I am that person who needs to have a class/gym membership/etc to actually make sure I go and do the yoga or pilates (I do have discipline, I just spend it on everything else like my business, family responsibilities, and the animals). Since group classes seem to be toast for the time being, I've got to find a way back to regular practice. Thank you for the (flexible) kick in the (flexible) pants!

Not yoga, but a fighting style with similar beliefs. It was developed so a young woman or elderly man could stop a samurai warrior, so it could not rely on strength and brute force tactics. What first amazed me about it, was that it is not a fighting style like most people think of martial arts. People tend to think of everyday living as normal, and a fighting style as something you switch into when threatened. I think it is better to have one style for everything. There is no disconnect between the mind and body. A life-threatening situation is not a good time to have to switch between trains of thought, or to remember some way of doing something. Living is fighting, fighting is living. There is no difference. The first thing taught is how to fall down. It's amazing how many fighting styles do not cover this. Such a thing is likely in a fight, and can cause serious harm. But also think how often people injure themselves falling doing everyday things. Then you are taught how to stand properly. The body is naturally strong in some positions, and naturally weak in others. This is paramount in a fight. Once again, how many people roll an ankle because they step sideways and do not point their foot that direction? Or fall down as a result of not standing properly in the first place? Or tire themselves or injure themselves working in a weak body stance? Then there is movement. How does the body naturally move? Working with nature is far more likely to be successful than working against it. If your movement is natural, and your opponent's unnatural, who is more likely to be successful? Can not this same tactic work when your opponent is a rock, chunk of wood, or hard ground? All of fighting is broken up into the five elements. So is military strategy. So is life. Everything is the same. Everything can be viewed as either earth, water, wind, fire, or the void. Life is truly simple when you realize that.  Everything is the same; only the scenery changes. When everything is balanced, there is calm. This is how you have the little sagacious old monk who can defeat a young warrior without appearing to exert himself. One uses his strengths and ignores his weaknesses, the other uses his opponent's strengths and weaknesses against him, while (or by) being fully cognizant of his own.

I find much satisfaction using hand tools, especially woodworking. I think most people see the art in shaping wood, but I think few truly realize that is only half of it. The other half of the art is the performance art of how you move the tool, just like how a violinist moves his bow, or as you put it, how a dancer moves with his partner. I think people who like tools and working understand this on some level, and people who detest work or using tools are not there yet.

Yoga is a huge part of my life. I've been teaching it for 7 years and Meditation for 6. I don't know if I would even be here in this lifestyle if I didn't! Like you, on a physical level, it helps me know my limitations and to recover when I go to far. Mantra has become a big part of my homesteading. So much of so many different things to do that it can be overwhelming. That's when I plug the Ganesh mantra into my mind and plow through it all with elephant power.
Hoping to get things developed enough to have a yoga space somewhere on the property in the woods because I think that would be a very peaceful retreat.  

Jordan, is it tai chi that you do, or something else?

Many years ago when I was in grad school, a group of us used to rent a rink and play hockey once a week. I'm sure this would have been hilarious to watch as we had one guy who had played Junior B and was really good, two or three other not bad players, a whole bunch of guys who could barely skate and were using the hockey stick to hold themselves up, and me who could skate rings around most of them playing hockey in figure skates but tending to trip over the stick that I wasn't used to skating with. Fortunately we had no spectators. We had one guy who was probably 50 give or take a few years, had recently come to Canada from Europe and couldn't skate - but he taught judo - so he said not to worry about him, he knew how to fall and never hurt himself. Which was good, because he really did fall down constantly! And apparently his judo training did save him, despite no protective gear whatsoever and all those falls, he never seemed to get hurt.

Andrea,
It's taijutsu. Judo uses lots of throws, like taijutsu, so I wouldn't doubt what he said. Judo uses more strength, while taijutsu uses more finesse. The key to falling is spreading the impact out over as much area over as long a duration as possible. In taijutsu, whenever possible, a fall is turned into a roll which gets you away from danger or instantly gets you back on your feet without losing any momentum. It's interesting you mention ice; practicing on ice was a common technique used to improve balance and to learn to control your center of gravity. Sounds like you all had lots of fun! I wish we had ice rinks and hockey where I live.

It sounds like there are a number of approaches - yoga, pilates, various martial arts or related disciplines - all of which have a common outcome of improved strength, balance, flexibility in a physical sense and what for lack of a better word I'll call grounding. Or maybe flow, because you can get there from immersion in work as well. I think, coming back to the original theme of how these contribute to farming, in addition to the obvious physical benefits of strength, balance, flexibility, there's also a big component of body awareness/situational awareness and the bodily control to avoid or extricate yourself from potentially dangerous situations. Does that make sense? Mental benefits to all these disciplines too.

My Newest Book

Hundred Hour Yoga Teacher Training

Yogis who read my first book Landrace Gardening, comment that it contains a lot of yoga philosophy. Indeed, I couldn't have written my that book until after I had become a yoga teacher. The tone of the rough draft felt horrid to me, so I stripped the angst away to make a delightful happy book filled with hope and joy.

Today, I published a book entitled Hundred Hour Yoga Teacher Training: A self-paced introduction to multi-style Yoga as a non-commercial way of life. It attempts to do the same thing that my gardening book did. Take the subject matter out of the hands of "professionals" and put it directly into the hands of the people.

The philosophies espoused in this manual attempt to reduce the gatekeeper syndrome that has become so common in western yoga, where current teachers and organizations ask huge fees to “certify” someone to teach yoga. This manual espouses a path towards democratizing and de-commercializing yoga, and making yoga and yoga teacher training accessible to anyone.

A person who lives yoga as a way of life, automatically becomes a yoga teacher to everyone they meet in all aspects of life. When yoga stops being something you do, and turns into something you are, then you have truly become a yoga teacher, whether or not you have a certificate, or teach formal classes.

Edit to add: Now available on Amazon.

Congratulations, Joseph. It sounds wonderful.