 Welcome to Healthy Planet, the show for people who care about their health and the health of our planet on the ThinkTech Live Streaming Network series. I'm your host, Dr. Grace O'Neill. Joining me today is Kathy Louise Brota, yoga teacher and owner of Yoga Studio Purple Yoga Hawaii. Today we're going to talk about finding your core. So let's get into it. How can finding your core help you with back pain, Kathy? One of the main things when people have back pain is they discover that they don't have strong abdominals. So part of finding our core is it's our abdominal, the layers of abdominal wall, kind of the inside middle and outside layers. So there's three layers of abdominals, but it's also finding pelvic floor muscles. So the two in yoga, when we do our pelvic floor muscles and then abdominal muscles, these areas we call mulabanda, which is our root lock or our kegels or pelvic floor muscles. And then we have our uriana, which is our abdominal lock or abdominal engagement. Those two things coming together pull towards your spine, and that helps to stabilize your sacrum, your lower back. So most people when they are coming to yoga, if they have any kind of lower back pain, I'm always talking about thinking navel to spine. If we can look at the diagram that we have, we can kind of see what's going on with abdominals. So on the diagram you'll see the front we have, you'll see the words navel to spine. So literally thinking if you pull your navel back towards your spine, that's just the beginning of finding your core. And then for the pelvic floor kegels, muscles, we have the front, which is the urethra middle, which is the perineum, and back muscles, which are the anus. And literally thinking from your pubic bone to your tailbone of literally thinking of everything lifting up. So finding that navel back to spine and then pelvic floor lifting, that helps to find that kind of ball of energy on the inside of your tummy, which again stabilizes the sacrum and the lower back. So if someone is not using their pelvic floor muscles and their mula bunda, is it more likely that they'll be injured? Is it very likely they'll be injured? Like can people just go around not using them and not get injured because they're flexible? Yes, I think that generally in yoga it's like if you're flexible, you can practice without doing bundas. But what happens is that if you overdo something or you go too deeply into a posture and then maybe you're pushing yourself into it, and if you're not supporting the back, you'll get sometimes a little twinge where the sacroiliac joint meets. It's like a V-shaped where your spine kind of drops into your lower back and you've got this the sacroiliac joint. And so sometimes there's little tiny movements in the joint. And if it's not, say if you're going into a deep forward bend and then you push yourself a little bit more, you might just feel a little zing or a little like, ooh, it's like a little, kind of sometimes even people feel like a hot sensation. That usually means that you've gone a little bit too far. And then what happens is that over time, if you keep going into that without using your abdominal, your cables, muscles, then it just gets more and more angry. And then that's why some people will come into yoga and they'll leave and their lower back hurts and you're like, oh, yoga's not very good because my back hurts. And if that's the case, I always talk about it's like, well, we need to find that core. And for a beginner person, generally I'm just saying let's just think navel to spine because for a lot of people, they don't understand the pelvic floor muscles. And it can be, some people can think, well, why do I need to do that? So usually I'll just say just think navel to spine and then they understand it's that health and safety, like bend your knees, use your core. We hear all these things every day. And then it's actually putting it into practice in either in a yoga class or just day that they live in getting in and out of the car, lifting up grocery bags, really anything that we do, finding your core will really help with the lower back. So if you already have lower back problems, is this something that people can incorporate into their daily life already? Yes. Yes. Yeah. And I think that simply thinking, thinking kind of tall and long in the waist, thinking that navel to spine, that's kind of the beginning of finding some relief. It's kind of ironically that sometimes lower back pain is because the body is in kind of a hunched over position, either you're sitting like you're sitting at your computer really rounded, or sometimes when I sit in my car, I can feel the bucket seat nature of the car seat. Yeah. So doing something like putting, making sure you're sitting in an upright chair, or in my car, some cars have the fancy that, you know, you can kind of pump up the lower back area or put a put a pillow, something in your lower back to support the back. Because if you're in that rounded kind of C curve position, what can tend to happen is that the lower back will start to ache. Yeah. So that would be a good time to actually pull in your moolabunda and your yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean, I feel like whenever I go on long car trip, I always have incapacity back pain. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. I mean, I find that sometimes during the, you know, I take my daughter to school in the morning, some mornings and we take one daughter early and then I come home and I take my other daughter and then by the second car ride home, I'm like my back already hurts and I've probably just been sitting in the kind of slinched over driving and I'm not sitting up tall. So the more tall you feel internally, the more your abdominal muscles will connect to your spine. But then there's also the psoas muscle, but that's a whole other set of muscles that kind of hard to describe. And if you just think navel to spine, sit up tall, get something to support your back, that should help to begin to relieve the lower back. Yeah. How about you, why don't you show us the video right now and show us how people can incorporate the moolabunda and how it sort of works? So in this video, I'm in a forward bend and you can see my tummy is really kind of falling down. So this would be an example of a very big belly breath and I'm not engaging my core at all. I'm really just, I'm pulling with my arms, but I'm really just letting everything hang out. So there's that kind of hanging out and I'll come up to stand. You can see it's just kind of falling. The second version, I'm going in and I'm thinking breathe into my ribcaging so you can see all of a sudden the tummy kind of sucks up and in. So now I'm using my core so I can pull a little bit more and I know that I'm going to be safe if I am pulling into a forward bend. And it's kind of counterintuitive, but when I inhale, I can feel my navel like right here. It sucks up and in. I'm supporting my lower back and then I stand up. So there's just another thing that can be helpful as well as being able to spine is like how do I breathe? And I always tell people it's like breathing into the ribcage that if you breathe a belly breath is a very low breath kind of down in your tummy. If you're pulling your navel to your spine and you breathe into your ribcage, the ribcage expansion helps to actually lift the pelvic floor and helps to lift the abdominals as well. So if you just think of it as like a pressure that if I open up my ribcage at the top, then naturally there's this pull up from the bottom. So it's almost like you didn't have to think about it. Just think I'm going to expand my ribcage and you get that natural kind of suction on the inside of the body where the pelvic floor lifts. So there's kind of two things, but we're not used to breathing into our ribcage. A lot of people don't breathe into the ribcage. A lot of people breathe just into this part of their chest. So then it's just simply doing something like holding your ribs and then take a deep breath into your fingers. I talk about breathing into the back, kind of breathing into your kidneys. You can't really breathe into your kidneys, but you can think about breathing into the back of the body and that helps a lot. So kind of connecting the breath, the inhalation with that expansion of the upper part of the body and then the exhalation of really pulling the navel back in towards the spine. Yeah. So how about the mulabanda specifically? Because you know, there's two things. I guess you didn't explain it to them, but you know, there's the uriana and then there's mulabanda. So we've been talking about the uriana. Uriana, yeah. Yeah, they need all to the spine, but how about the mulabanda and how can that work? So mulabanda, mulabanda, if we can quick look at the diagram again and then we can see what's going on with the diagram. So you can see, okay, mulabanda, if you, everybody knows, you kind of, everybody kind of knows where the pubic bone is just below the navel. It's where the hip bones connect. And then the tailbone is the base of your spine. So between your pubic bone and your tailbone, we have a whole set of muscles. They're all interconnected and you can't disconnect them. So if you're doing one thing, other things are probably going along for the ride. So if you think about it, like, and I kind of joked recently a couple, a couple years ago, and I taught this workshop, I said, everybody's doing the mulabanda, the kegels right now. If we weren't doing them, it would be a complete mess. So basically you can, everybody can hold everything in without even thinking about it. And the hold in, for example, is if your bladder is full and you really need to go to the bathroom, you basically, we know how to or just body knows how to hold the very like where the urethra, where the exit, where the urine comes out. We know how to hold that. And then as soon as you sit down in the toilet, you're like, oh, you can let go. The urine comes out and your bladder is empty. So, and then the back muscles would be the same thing if you're, if you have a bowel movement and you're holding, holding, holding, and then you release the bowel movement comes out and all of a sudden you're empty. So it's really paying attention to those muscles, the front muscles and the back muscles and the middle muscles can be a little bit more elusive. But if you just think about connecting the back muscles and the front muscles and they, and then just thinking about everything kind of rising up towards the ceiling, that then helps to find the kegel muscles or your pelvic floor muscles. And for men and women, the perineum is, is the same for women we have a vagina. So the perineum is actually, I don't know if it's thinner. Anatomically, I don't know exactly like if there's a huge difference. All I know is that for women, we have a slightly different sensation when we lift the middle muscles because we have the ability to actually lift from the outside all the way up towards the cervix. And that's just all of these, all these things I'm talking about are just, I'm just, I'm experienced from practicing yoga and then from having children. So I just, it's really just the experience of finding, losing the muscles and refinding them that has helped me to understand our pelvic floor. You don't need to have kids in order to find your pelvic floor. You use it every day sitting in your car, going to the bathroom. You know, anytime in the day, our kegels, our pelvic floor muscles are engaged. So it's really just paying attention to it. Next time you have to go to the bathroom, just pay attention and be like, Oh, those are the front muscles. Oh, those are the back muscles. And then those connect to the abdominal muscles. And that helps to kind of find this ball of energy at the center just below our navel. There's kind of this ball of energy where the Udyana, your abdominal muscles and then the kegel muscles where they kind of connect. So in yoga, this is where we talk about our fire, where our Agni is our fire is. That's our core. Yeah. So how can I mean, for people who have given birth or people who are pregnant, you help people because you teach the pregnancy class in the studio and you help people kind of find their pelvic floor muscles so they can help themselves through their pregnancy and everything. And can you talk more about that? So in my pregnancy class, basically the very first thing we do is we do our kegels or pelvic floor muscle exercises. And I just take women through a visualization of thinking about front middle and back, identifying thinking about where your pubic bone is or your tailbone is. And just by talking about it every single time I teach the class, especially if I have a new person, I'll actually be very specific about the areas. Otherwise, I'll just say front middle and back. And we always do it at the beginning of class, because by the end of class, you're usually tired. And so it's kind of hard to find the muscles. So it's really just kind of saying the information and women hear it. And then if you keep hearing it, and especially towards the end of a pregnancy where your tummy is getting big, baby's big, there's a moment where around 37, 38 weeks where the baby drops down and literally the baby kind of crawls up underneath your ribcage and all of a sudden it drops and it's literally dropping into your pelvic bone. And you all of a sudden feel your pelvic floor just really dropping out. It's really uncomfortable. It's not very pleasant. And I'm always trying to tell women it's like find the muscles before that happens. Because if you don't do any kegels or you don't kind of identify your pelvic floor before you have a baby, and regardless of vaginal or C-section delivery, after you have a baby, it's really hard to refine those muscles. So I mean, I tell women and guys as well, it's like you wouldn't say I'm going to run a marathon, sign up for the marathon and never do any training. I know a couple people who have done that. And they're kind of crazy. But you wouldn't do that normally. You would think I'm going to run a marathon, I need to start building up my stamina, I need to start building up my miles. So for me, we have this opportunity in pregnancy to actually do the kegel exercises. We also do what I call rock the baby, which is letting your abdominal muscles go and pulling your abdominal muscles in. So we do those two exercises before we get up and actually start doing ostinous. And then once a woman has a baby, if they come into the mom and baby class, it's pretty much the same information. I'm talking about that navel to spine, I'm talking about lifting up in the kegels or lifting up pelvic floor muscles. So it's just a reinforcement of this event has happened. We need to refine this. This can be true also for anybody who has a kind of abdominal surgery, hernias for women, if they have any like uterine issues, if some women have hysterectomies, kind of there's so many prolapse. Yeah, the whole prolapse, a little bit more difficult, maybe, but yeah, that's like and prolapse. It's late by then, you know, uterus. Yeah, the uterus and also the bladder prolapsing. Those I've had, I've known as some older women kind of in their 70s, 80s, that's happened to. I don't know if it's related to not being strong or whether it's just something that all of a sudden happens. But when that situation, yeah, they end up having to have surgery and you kind of they put a net and they kind of sew it up into, I'm not sure where, to keep it supported. Yeah. I'll let you know if that ever happens to me. I don't think so. I don't think no. I feel like those of us that do yoga, it's like we're kind of walking experiments to see what happens as we get older. And I feel like having had, I have three kids and having had, I had a singleton and I had twins. So having had kids, I feel like I've kind of proven something because my body is put back together. It's not what it was before I had kids, but it's, I have, I have strength. I have, I feel my pelvic floor is strong. I feel my abdominals are strong. I had a C-section with the twin. So there's so many experiences that I've had. And as I said, that everything that I teach and everything that I talk about comes from experience. And so if somebody has a question, then it's like, we'll ask that question and then we'll try and figure out how we can help you to make things better or help things to heal with any kind of lower back pain or abdominal pain or ribcage, you know, whatever it is. You know, we try and help, but going at it from that core, because the core is so important, just generally in everything, you know, from, from any kind of sports to aging to any kind of injuries, it really goes back to if you can find your core, if you can be strong in your center, then other things kind of can go back to some sort of equilibrium. Yeah. I mean, as you age, it's very important to have a good strong core for balance, you know, every single time you fall, you might fall or you could take an easy fall. And then also just, you know, as people get older, a lot of people have incontinence, stress incontinence. So if you already have those muscles and you know how to use them, or you can like, you can catch yourself. I have one woman, you know, I've had women who come to class and when you're pregnant, the baby is pretty much sitting right on top of the bladder. So I've got one woman right now who her baby is just sitting right on top of the bladder. So she has to go to the bathroom a lot. So I know she's using her kegels, but there's just that feeling of like, I need to go. So she goes and then she comes back to class. And but she was saying that it's been like this from the beginning. So it's so important to keep finding those muscles so that you can help yourself and you can hold anything that's in your bladder for as long as you can until you can get to a bathroom. You know, so yet is for, you know, for everybody, really important muscles. Yeah. Are there any exercises like for beginners that you would recommend people who haven't maybe tried yoga yet that they could do to sort of start, I mean, besides like the breathing exercises, start finding their core for back pain, if they're experiencing back pain. Really just very simply just sit up taller or stand up taller. You know, we often, as I said, we often find ourselves really, and so many of us are, you know, at home on our computers and we're all rounded over and kind of hunched over. As soon as you're in that position, more than likely the abdominals are just kind of falling out and you're just hanging out. So even be aware of when I'm in my car, be aware of how you're driving that, you know, it's like try and find a position where you can actually sit up. Or the other thing you can also do is I have this in the pregnancy class I talk about. And it was something that a woman said that she did was that every time she either went to a stop light or a stop sign, any time she stopped the car, she would pull, she would pull her abdominal muscles in and pull up in her kegels just to feel it. Because that's another thing is like, you can try and work the muscles. But if you do too much, everything gets numb, you just can't feel what you're trying to do. So it's better and this is for guys as well. It's better to do a little bit a couple times a day, say three times a day, rather than try and do 100 lifts. Because at a point, the muscles just get tired and then you'll just kind of, you feel numb and you can't really feel what you're doing. And then sometimes it becomes counterproductive, especially with the abdominal muscles. Because we're not trying to do, it's different from doing like crunches, like sit up crunches. It's actually, it's actually, if we can show the second video of me and Downer chasing dog, because then you can see that kind of scoop. So here in this, I'm going to do one breath. I think there we go. So this is a belly breath where my tummy is just falling down. And I think I do a second one. So again, there's the inhale. So you can see I'm not using my core. There's no abdominal muscles. There's no pelvic floor muscles. Now watch on this next one. I'm breathing into my rib cage. I'm breathing into my back. I'm breathing into my bra strap. And then as I exhale, I'm pulling my rib cage in. And then, again, so finding, thanks for the video, finding a tall spine, making sure you're not grounded. So tall spine. And then just doing some like holding your rib cage, like can you hold your rib cage? And can you breathe into your rib cage? And if you find yourself all of a sudden kind of hunched over in your heads in front of your shoulders, just think I'm going to sit up tall, super tall, think shoulder blades back and down behind me, pull my abdominal muscles in, try and find some kegel muscles, and take a deep breath. It's as simple as that, but it's like when we're stressed out or we're in the middle of a job or middle of the day, it's usually the last thing we're thinking about, you know, but just doing something simple like that. If you do it enough, it starts to kind of, your body just kind of knows as soon as you stand up, those things will start to happen without you have to kind of having to consciously think about it. So for men, because they don't have like a vagina, like how do they find like the middle part of their, you know, they have the anus, they have the front part, the how do they find the middle? It's the same, it's the same area. It's not as dramatic because they don't have anything stuck up and into, right? But it's still the same feeling or it's not the same feeling. It's the same, same area. And think about that area. Yeah, just think about the area. Just think about that area of finding the, and then so the other thing is like, if you can find the front muscles and the back muscles and you can find that lift, more than likely middle, middle is coming along for the ride. I always say that. It's like, if you're doing one thing, something else is coming along for a ride because you can't disconnect the area. If you, if you look at an anatomy book, like look at the pelvic floor muscles and they basically, it's quite beautiful when you look at the shapes that they make, but you'll see that it's all interconnected. It's not, it can't be disconnected. So you do one, the other one's going to be engaged. Yeah. So Kathy, how can people find you? I mean, Kathy's been teaching for more than 30 years. She practices Ishinanga herself and she's a great teacher. She's my yoga teacher. So how can people find you if they want to get in touch with you, if they want to go to class? How can people find you? Best place to find us is on our website, which is purpleyoga.com. There we go. There it is, purpleyoga.com. On here, we've got our schedule. It's got the price listing. It has the kinds of classes that we teach. We have, our main teaching is a Mysore Self-Practice Ishinanga Yoga, which is, which is the class that Grace comes to. Sometimes Grace is also coming to my lead class, which is on Saturdays. And then I do a prenatal, postnatal program that we have on Sundays. And we're in three different locations. So it's probably best if you look at the website and you'll see all the different places that we're at. And then contact us. You can either call us or email us. We're also on Instagram at Purple Yoga Hawaii and Facebook same Purple Yoga Hawaii. So just to, yeah, contact us via that and ask any questions if you have any questions about what we do. Yeah. Yeah. Let me see if anybody, I guess, is there anything else that you want to say before we close up? Yeah, core. Use your core. It's so important. I know. Oh, another thing I want to say real quickly is that it was funny this morning, Grace, when you were practicing and when you came in, I started getting really nervous. And when I get nervous, my back hurts. So for me, my back is like my barometer of stress. So when I'm slightly stressed or I'm slightly nervous, my back will start to wobble. My literally my sacrum. I can feel my sacrum. I get these little kind of zingy, hot feeling. I'm like, Oh, no. So I was like the whole time today, I was like, I can get pulling your core. This is what you're talking about. You don't want to get something interesting and not be able to walk and move. So I'm doing it all the time. So you might find that if you have stress that your lower back takes that stress, or all of a sudden you your abdominal muscles, like you get a shock and your abdominal muscles just let go. And you feel your back, you're like, Oh, first thing, dude, take a breath and then pull your navel back in towards your spine. That's like the best advice that I can think tall, think tall and pull everything in. So I was this morning, I was I was teaching. Thank you so much. So our time and we have to wrap it up. But okay, so Neil, this is healthy planet on think tech live streaming network series. We've been talking with Kathy Lewis Broda of purple yoga about finding your core. Thanks to all of you for being here. And thanks to Max, our broadcast engineer and the rest of the crew at think tech for hosting our show. And thanks to you, our listeners for listening. I'll see you on March 3 for more of healthy planet on think tech the show for people who care about their health and the health of our planet. Our next show features guest Darlene Lou Macdowell butterfly rancher and owner of sharing the butterfly experience and expert in raising monarch butterflies. We will be talking about monarch butterflies. If you have ideas for the show, please contact me at healthy planet think tech at gmail.com. Check out my website at Grayson Hawaii.com for more information on my projects, including future show guests. I'm Dr. Grace O'Neill. Aloha everyone.