Body and Breath - Yoga Shop Talk

The comments in this section are protected by copyright, but certain exclusions are granted. You may copy questions and comments to your hard drive and/or share them with others via either individual print-outs or photocopies or via email messages so long as the credit to bodyandbreath.com is included. This privilege does not, of course, include the right to publish the comments verbatim in books or pamphlets.

( View Archive )

Yoga shoptalk, December, 2003

I am a beginning yoga student in my early 50s, and a month ago I underwent a radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer. As you may know, one of the consequences of that surgery is urinary incontinence. In some men this is temporary and lasts for only a few months, and in others it may be permanent, but in any case few ever become as fully continent as they were before the surgery. Most urologists recommend doing Kegel exercises (“pelvic floor” tightening) as a partial remedy, but when I started trying the exercises, I realized that the instructions for doing them were inadequate, in that no one tells you either how much to tighten the pelvic floor or how to relax. Synchronization of the tightening and relaxation with inhalation and exhalation is likewise not considered. I started looking into what yoga had to say about that area and with the help of my instructors discovered and acquired your book, and eagerly read the pages related to mula bandha (as you can imagine, I find the book fascinating and am now reading the rest of it...). My question is this: Do you have more information available on the pelvic floor and how postures and other yoga practices impact that area, and in particular, is there anything specifically relating to urinary continence?

Answer: The functioning of the pelvic floor is an extremely important topic, both in yoga and in reference to general health, and is covered in detail on page 145 of Anatomy of Hatha Yoga (figure 3.4 for the skeletal boundaries of the anal and urogenital triangles) and on pages 177-187 (anatomy, ashwini mudra, and mula bandha). Even though these topics are covered comprehensively, however, confusion is still rife among students and teachers who have given the subject no more than cursory review, and the topic continues to elicit the attention of numerous readers. Because the concepts are so troublesome, I have treated them in more detail (answering the first part of your question) on this website. Please go to www.bodyandbreath.com, click on yoga shoptalk, then click on archives, then select October 2002. There you will find a bird’s eye summary of the text in response to onesss common student complaint. Next, go to the home page of the website, click on questions and answers, click on archives, and select (and print) questions and answers for October 2002, November 2002, December 2002, January 2003, and February 2003. In questions and answers for those five months, you will find postures throughout the book that will help you distinguish ashwini mudra from mula bandha, and that will incidentally sensitize you to the operation of the pelvic diaphragm. The second part of your question is more difficult and is outside my immediate area of expertise, but if you will study the matter and get back to me in a year, I would be most interested in your experiences and analysis.---