GLOSSARY: Terminology Used in DSL EdgeWork

PLEASE NOTE: The worlds of yoga, bodywork, meditation, fitness, and medical sciences use very diverse systems of terminology. Even wholistic medicine and natural healing, and the immense field of diet and nutrition, have huge vocabularies and conceptual bases that are in very different realms. Though they are NOT necessarily incompatible, this lack of cohesion in concepts and terminology can lead to some BIG problems in communication, teaching and application, especially when it comes to very technical and complex concepts. Add to that the psychological and emotional diversity of human beings, and their infinitely variable expressions of health and sickness, the problem of effective — and efficient — communication and description can be overwhelming.

For example, the yoga world tends toward a flowery and imprecise use of very subjective words, given the fact they are referring to actual physical realities; even in their supposedly state-of-the-art publications. For instance, you will hear or read instructions for a particular asana (physical yoga posture) from a yoga teacher that seems perfectly clear to the teacher (based on their own inner experience and what they have been told by their teachers); yet those words can be interpreted in very different ways by different people; sometimes in the opposite. This can lead the new, or even advanced, student to make subtle adjustments that are NOT what the teacher is thinking or wanting, and causing certain problems to develop, sometimes BIG problems. (I remember one article in a yoga magazine that referred to nerves as flowing through a muscle like a river. Well, I can SORT OF get what the guy must have been thinking, but can you imagine trying to talk that way to a neurologist? That analogy is so NOT like how nerves are truly arranged it isn't funny!)

Meditative discussions, though usually quite flowery in themselves, often refer to experiences that are so ethereal, unique and diverse (usually with no grounding in the physical reality at all) that finding precise words to describe phenomena or concepts is not easy. (How do you TELL someone what Love feels like?) Even the words Awareness or Spiritual are so expansive in their potential meanings that people often have difficulty communicating, and worse, don't even know that there is a problem or, even less, why.

And surprising to many people is the fact that for all its big words and precision, the medical world has tremendous amount of ambiguity and imprecision in certain aspects of its terminology. Some of this imprecision they are not even aware of! This is especially true when you try to discuss concepts from yoga and bodywork practices and therapeutics in light of orthodox medical sciences like anatomy and physiology.

EXAMPLE — Pelvic Tilt Landmarks:
As just one example, when speaking of a pelvic tilt, most physical therapists (and a whole lot of other people) think of the top-most portion of the wings of the pelvis as tipping forward or back, as in anterior or posterior TILT. HOWEVER, there are some physical therapists who focus on the public bone as the reference point for pelvic tilts. So when the public bone (which includes the whole pelvis) moves anteriorly, the whole pelvis is shifting forward (anterior) but it might or might not be tilting in space at all. But the angle between the pelvis and the femur (thigh bone)is changing in a way that is, by definition, a posterior tilt, if you are referring to the top most pelvic wings!

Consequently, if you are thinking top of pelvis and say anterior tilt, and the person you are talking to is thinking about the pubic bone, they will interpret what YOU think is a posterior tilt! You could very well end up in an argument, thinking the other person must be blind or or a dope or something, and not having any idea why the other person seems so clueless. They aren't of course, but this very issue has, I believe, led to a HUGE level of misunderstanding, misdiagnosis and treatment over the last 50 years. The results of this have been disastrous for MANY people. MOST importantl yis this is probably minor compared to some of what goes on!

(My cousin, and orthopedic surgeon, told me that in England, they put an X on the leg to NOT be amputated. In America, they put the X on the leg they are going to amputate. Well, there are some surgeons who travel back and forth between the two countries and they sometimes get confused. ... I'll let you figure out the rest of the story.

The point is that there are MANY areas prone to ambiguity and confusion, and sometimes so subtle that no one knows there is a real problem. One person just thinks the other person is out-to-lunch or something. And so does the OTHER person!

Because it is one of the purposes of this site to help integrate, at very minimum, the worlds of yoga and bodywork, and do so based on a foundation of hard, physical sciences, terminology is a potentially BIG problem.

Therefore, I am going to have to get as rigorous with myself as possible to keep the meanings of the words I am using consistent and useful to us ALL. That means, that to be useful to YOU, you are also going to have to cooperate with me in NOT assuming you know what I mean by any particular term.

Each word I use that suggests any ambiguity, or different than usual usage, I will put a small icon after -- GL -- that indicates you should click there and check the glossary and make sure we are on the same page, web page, that is. I will set it up so that the Glossary opens in a New Window so you do not lose your place on the page you are focusing on. ... I don't want you to get any more distracted than necessary!

THE SYMBOL GL right after a word is an Icon that will take you to a New Window, right on top of the one you are reading, with the Relevant Definition.

That Means: Click on GL and a small window will open up with the definition right there. You can scroll through that window if you would like to look for other definitions, or not, but it is important that you and I are both using words in the same way.

TRY IT NOW:

Awareness GL

PLEASE REMEMBER: In some cases, I am having to take liberties with definitions because there is not a universal, dictionary agreement or under-standing on certain concepts. So I will use a word a particular way, and I will let you know. When conversing with other people, then you have to let them know if you are going to use a word in the particualr way I am. Otherwise, they might not know what you are talking about, and things can get confusing or worse.