This is a recording of a Facebook live between Christa Fairbrother, aqua yoga expert, and Dr. Steffany Moonaz, founder of Yoga for Arthritis discussing aqua vs. land yoga for arthritis in honor of arthritis awareness month.
[00:00:03.08] – Christa
So could you please take a second and introduce yourself officially and what you’re hoping to talk about here today in our time together? Sure.
[00:04:45.22] – Steffany
Absolutely. Thank you, Christa. Christa and I go way back, and I am so pleased to know you and see everything that you’re doing. Our work just really aligns beautifully. I am a yoga therapist and a yoga researcher, and the focus of my work in both of those arenas is understanding the role of yoga in supporting the management of arthritis and chronic pain conditions. And when I say arthritis, that’s an umbrella for over 100 different disease diagnoses that have some similarities and some differences. And yoga is relevant to all of them in slightly different ways for each disease and similarly for each individual person, because no two people with any condition are the same. Yoga and yoga therapy being a whole person practice, and frankly, way of living, we’re not just talking about the physical postures, although that is certainly part of it. But another way that our work aligns, Christa, is that at yoga for arthritis, we really look at the whole package of yoga practices, including the mental practices, lifestyle, applied philosophy, breathing, ways of being in the world, all of which matter for arthritis conditions that are whole person conditions that affect more than just your joints.
And so it’s really a nice alignment. So on this day of Arthritis Awareness Month and Lupus Awareness Month and Mental Mental Health Awareness Month, it really makes sense for us to be talking about the whole person practice of yoga meeting the whole person experience of arthritis, lupus, and other conditions. Yes.
[00:06:44.26] – Christa
Thank you so much. And it is in that capacity, as Steffany described, is how I initially met her. So what I bring to the conversation, yes, the water, most people are seeing that. But I also live with five kinds of arthritis. And that was really what drove me to seek out additional training in working specifically with people for arthritis. That’s how I found Steffany and then proceeded to work for her and become a mentor in her program. So because of my lived experience with arthritis, I’m very passionate about helping people access the teachings of yoga, whether it’s on land or my specialty in the pool. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today. So Stephanie and I thought it would be really fun to give you some practical examples of how this plays out. So I’ll go first. So we do a little switch, switch here. And we thought we’d talk about Chair pose because it is very relevant to everybody listening because odds are you’re sitting in a chair, too. So it means you can even have the potential to join us. And in both Steffany and I’s work, we both really try to approach yoga for arthritis for people from a place of evidence-informed practice.
[00:08:02.08] – Christa
So we are trying to integrate the philosophy, the history, the tradition of yoga as it is, and the wisdom that has been passed down with the best of contemporary thought and approach to arthritis and arthritis management. So something like Chair pose, whether we’re doing it on land or in the pool, we’re looking to help people exert some muscular efforts in a way that is going to strengthen the tissues around their knee joint because that’s how they’re going to get some symptom relief physically, as well as Steffany spoke to that mental idea of, am I doing it appropriately? And is it in a way that’s working for my body? So why we would do that in the pool, perhaps, is I don’t have to get on and off the ground. That’s the number one difference that we highlight. We have to deal with sun, we have to deal with construction, we have to deal with noise, but at least we don’t have to get on and off the ground. So, in the interest of sound today, I’m going to give a little bit of description, and then when I back up, I will repeat it just in case you can’t hear me.
[00:09:07.15] – Christa
But I’m going to use one pool noodle to be able to apply a little extra muscular effort. I’m going to slide it behind my knees, and then I’m going to bend my knees and come down into a Chair pose. And it’s this buoyant noodle that’s going to require a little bit of extra effort and help me build muscle mass a little stronger. I’m going to do it from the side because you’re going to see that a little better. Without the handle to the noodle, it’s simply bending the knees and sinking into Chair pose. Why I’m using the handle to the noodle is, again, to have that a little bit more muscular effort. I have to slide it behind me, use my hands to hook it behind my knees, and then bend down. I’m going to get a pivot so you can see it from the front. So this idea of keeping it right for me, I need to check in with my knees, make sure I’m not having any discomfort there. For example, if I knocked my knees together, might not be the best choice for me. And then I can hold the pose statically, or perhaps I can move up and down a little bit to exert a little more of a muscular effort.
[00:10:10.05] – Christa
When I’m ready to get out, of course, I would remove the noodle so it doesn’t goose me in the face. So that’s just one simple, quick example of how I can apply a unique prop to a slightly different environment to try and get some of the benefits that I would expect from a land yoga practice in the pool. So Steffany can you please be kind enough to show us what that might look like on land for people who don’t have access to all this noise and water today?
[00:10:40.08] – Steffany
Yeah, it’s actually not that noisy, Christa. Chair pose on land, it suggests that we’re sitting in a chair, but we’re actually approximating sitting in a chair using our own muscular effort. I’m actually going to do Chair pose, but I’m going to use a chair as a prop because that’s going to help me with balance.
[00:11:03.25] – Steffany
Now, what Christa said about the water, you have the buoyancy, and that provides some benefits in terms of how it affects the strengthening of the tissue around the joints.
[00:11:17.00] – Steffany
What it doesn’t do in the same way is the relationship to gravity has changed. And so land-based yoga does allow you to stand on one foot.
[00:11:27.26] – Steffany
You can also build balance systems in the water in a slightly different way.
[00:11:32.15] – Steffany
But because we could fall in a standing Chair pose, we’re going to use the chair for support because we want to build balance, but we want to do it in a safe way.
[00:11:41.25] – Steffany
I’m going to have the chair in front of me and I’m going to bend the knees. As I bend the knees, I’m going to actually reach my tailbone back and keep a nice long spine. It’s as though I were about to sit down in a chair that I’m not actually going to sit in. I only bend my knees as as is comfortable for my knees. Something that happens as I bend when I’m standing here holding the chair is that my knees are starting to go past my ankles, and that can be a lot of pressure for the knees, which is one way that the water is helpful because you don’t have so much pressure. I want to be careful here that my knees are tracking right over the ankles, but that I’m tipping the tailbone back so that I’m not leaning too far forward into my toes, but I have plenty of weight in the Roll the shoulders back and down length in the spine. And now, if I feel stable, I can play with extending an arm. Now, depending on what’s going on with your shoulders, that may be up alongside your ear, it may be out to the side, it may be hand on the hip.
[00:12:45.28] – Christa
And if anybody can’t see, Steffany has her hands on the head of a chair, the back of a chair right now. It’s cutting you off right on the screen, Steffany. Just in case anybody can’t see. Yeah, that’s better. Thank you.
[00:12:59.22] – Steffany
So from here, I can play with just lifting my fingers off the chair for a moment at a time, or I can extend the arm if I feel comfortable doing so. And this is going to feel like a lot of sensation going on in the sides because I’m really working these muscles. And as Christa said, as I’m doing that, I’m strengthening the tissue around the joint, which is going to help to stabilize it. It is going to improve symptoms like pain, but it’s also going to slow the progression of the arthritis by creating some stability that I’m losing with the loss of connective tissue. I stay here for a few breaths, make sure that I can breathe fully and deeply, which is part of yoga. And then to come out of it, hold on to the chair again, lengthen up, shake out the legs. If there’s any discomfort in the low back, I may want to take a little twist. And if that still is uncomfortable for the knees, another way that you can try chair poses actually against a wall, which I’m not going to show you, but just to give an idea, you can stand against a wall, walk your feet out, and then slide down the wall, which is far more stable because you have the wall to lean on, but also allows you to step your feet further out so that there’s less pressure in the knees.
[00:14:15.19] – Christa
And we should say that Chair pose translates as fierce pose. So that example that you just gave of doing it on the wall, that’s something that if anybody here, it’s past the season, but you might have practiced this during ski season because that’s a real exercise that they give skiers because it is very fierce. It builds that musculature in your legs as well as helps you build that confidence in terms of fierce. It’s like, yes, I’ve got this, right? So we gave you some examples of using the wall, using the chair, using the water so that you can do it safely and comfortably for you and get the benefits without those risks, physically or emotionally, that you might have experienced in a yoga class that was not appropriate for you when you live with arthritis.
[00:15:00.04] – Stefffany
And I think that’s also something to be aware of. When we’re thinking about safety in yoga practice, we want to think about what is going to keep me physically safe in this pose. I want to make sure that I’m stable, that I’m not going to fall, that I’m not going to drown. But what also is going to make sure that I am mentally and emotionally safe, that I’m not feeling like this is too risky.
[00:15:22.16] – Steffany
And we want to find a balance between challenging ourselves so we grow, so we build resilience, which is absolutely essential for arthritis management, but also knowing how to set a boundary which applies to not only our yoga practice, but in our life. When is this feeling unsafe for me, physically, mentally or emotionally?
[00:15:44.25] – Christa
Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Steffany. If anybody is intrigued and they would like to work with you more on land, especially since many people here are joining me and they’re like, Yeah, I want to get out of the pool because it’s construction in my yard. How can we reach out and get in touch with you to learn more about land yoga for arthritis?
[00:16:05.03] – Steffany
Our website is arthritis.yoga Nothing else, just arthritis. Yoga. So you can find us there. We’re also, of course, on social media, and so we will add the information for how to follow us there. We also have a book that you might be interested in, which pairs really nicely with Krista’s book. This is yoga therapy for arthritis, which is a really comprehensive look, evidence-informed, but also really practical. So that’s a nice place to begin as well.
[00:16:37.06] – Christa
Excellent. Thank you. And why we wanted to highlight the books here, specifically this month, is Steffany and I, excuse me, last year, when my book came out, we did this format in a longer workshop of two hours, where we really gave people a lot of practical applications for how they can find the approach for them working with those two modalities and potentially how to combine them. And we continue to make that workshop available through either of us. You can get it through myself. You can get it through Steffany. What we really hope is that you get it in some capacity so that you can put the two approaches together and really get the best benefits. And I should just give myself a little shout out as well. My book won an award last week. It won a silver medal from the Nautilus Book Awards. So please But think about the idea that these approaches really do combine well, and we’ll make sure that you get that workshop because it will really help you this summer in your travels, perhaps at home, at the office, wherever you have the opportunity to practice yoga.
[00:17:46.08] – Steffany
I’ll add that, so if you have purchased both of our books, you get the workshop for free. So you just have to show proof of purchase, whether you bought them years ago or whether you’re buying them now. Just show us that you have both books and we’ll give you that two-hour workshop.
[00:18:02.19] – Christa
Yes. And it really is in the spirit of Arthritis Awareness Month, trying to help raise awareness about the capacity of yoga to help people who live with arthritis. So thank you so much, Stephanie, for taking the time. I really appreciate it. Enjoy this beautiful day, and Happy Mother’s Day to you.
[00:18:20.17] – Steffany
Oh, thank you. And you too, Christa. Always a pleasure.
[00:18:23.26] – Christa
Thank you. Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody.
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