Q&A: Skip Advil, Try Anusara

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WHEN DESIREE RUMBAUGH filmed "Yoga to the Rescue" and "Yoga to the Rescue for Back Pain" ($15 each, Acacia), her goal wasn't to string together a traditional yoga practice — although after two decades of studying and teaching anusara, she'd certainly be able to. Rather, she wanted to show how yoga's stretching and strengthening can have therapeutic properties by erasing chronic aches.

» EXPRESS: Why do you think yoga can be used to relieve pain?
» RAMBAUGH: It's something I learned by studying anusara. In anusara, we don't approach a pose wanting it to look good. It's about how you do the pose to make the body work more properly. Alignment can be a total miracle.

» EXPRESS: So, you never have any pain?
» RAMBAUGH: I've hurt everything — my neck, lower back, both knees, my shoulder. Then I healed it all through this technique. I've had direct experience, and it can be immediate. It's all about alignment. When the body is in proper alignment, it doesn't hurt. If your thighs go backward, your back will feel better. Yoga poses require you to be centered. Advil is just a pain reliever that takes down the inflammation, while yoga will make your pain disappear. It's kind of like self physical therapy.

» EXPRESS: Why are props helpful?
» RAMBAUGH: Blocks and rolled-up blankets are inexpensive, and they provide assistance when you need it. And you need it if it's painful. All stretching when it's deep feels like something, but it shouldn't feel like sharp, awful tension.

» EXPRESS: Sometimes yoga hurts though, no?
» RAMBAUGH: There are people who get hurt doing yoga, but they won't be if they're doing it biomechanically. Some people think they can't do yoga or that it's bad for them, but, really, they're just tight.

» EXPRESS: Are there certain poses that you think everyone should be doing?
» RAMBAUGH: There are categories everyone should be doing: back bends, forward bends, twists and inversions. But everyone can do shavasana -- that's just lying down on your back. And everyone should know how to do tadasana, which is standing on two feet, but there's an art to learning how to do that. When people stand for one way for such a long time, it can feel natural.

Photo courtesy Acacia