Kitchen Music: Second Hand Rose

Okay,  this one is a bit of a different style.  Broad, brassy, silly and Broadway.  I recorded this as a present for my Grandma for her recent 92nd birthday.  Back when I was wee (and had permed hair, see figure A), I used to sing this as a cabaret tune, and she’s loved it ever since.  Happy Birthday Grandma!

Second Hand Rose

 

“Kitchen Music:”  Music recorded literally in the kitchen.  No auto-tune.  No fancy mixin’.  Just me and my Garage Band and the sink.  (Caveat: This particular tune recorded in my Dad’s garage at a farm in Texas.)  Thanks for listening.

The Pleasure Manifesto

You have a right to pleasure.
Pleasure.  Say it.  It’s slow, it’s sensual, it has a lovely shhhhhhh sound right in the middle.
Pleasure.

You have a right to feel good in your skin.  It is, in fact, a divinely given right bequeathed to you via your senses, who, like tiny angelic messengers, are constantly bringing you a bounty of sensations upon which to feast.

Your breath |  Your skin |Your sight | Your taste |Your hearing | Your smell.

We live in a culture that is terrified of pleasure.  “It’s…sexual,” we’ve been told in furtive tones, “It’s just indecent!  If we let it take over, who knows what will happen next!” Our pleasurable responses have been strapped down and brow-beaten until they are anemic and sickly.

Because pleasure is power.
Wars are fought over the restraint of pleasure.  Women enshrouded head to foot, both sexes circumcised, emotions shoved down, sexuality twisted into dysfunction.  So when we do have the occasional pleasurable moment, we almost immediately revert to shame (“You shouldn’t have eaten that cake/ slept with that man/ bought that velvet couch”) or start dreading its imminent demise (“This can’t last/ I don’t deserve to feel like this”).  We don’t dare trust that we could actually feel good and not be somehow punished for our impertinence.

Bullshit.

You have a right to pleasure.

And not just sexual pleasure; you have the right to claim the subtle pleasures that are embedded in the fabric of every moment.  The pleasure of breathing and feeling your lungs stretch, the smell of your coffee, the feeling of your favorite sweater, the taste of your food, the sound of your children’s voices.  Most of the time, we rush past these delicacies and move on to “doing something important.”  I, for one, have eaten far too many un-tasted meals.

But we have to be brave. When we allow ourselves to feel, we get present to NOW and WHO we ARE, which is utterly exposing.  And feeling pleasure may open us to feeling other emotions that may not initially seem quite so appealing.  Fear, anxiety, sadness, longing.

But here’s the wild paradox: you can feel pain and  pleasure at the same time.   You can be uncomfortable, sad, even devastated –  and still marinate in the deliciousness of your life.  In fact, those emotional colors will actually heighten your ability to feel pleasure more thoroughly, more completely, and in every moment.

Imagine a world where we dared to claim our right to pleasure. Where we didn’t have to wait to be perfect, or pretty enough, or successful enough to embrace the sensations of our lives.    Where we are already beautiful, delicious, and fully sexy.  Feeling pleasure makes the preciousness of our life unavoidable.  Having a greater connection to our feelings leads to empathy, joy, truth, and deep relationship.  Ultimately, feeling pleasure will lead us to joy and peace.

We must actively cultivate our capacity for pleasure. 
We must practice opening ourselves afresh to the exquisite sensations of being alive.

The Pleasure Manifesto:

  • I am a delicious and miraculous child of the Universe.
  • I claim pleasure as my birthright and accept full-heartedly the gifts of my senses.
  • I relish my body’s aliveness, sensations, and vibrancy.
  • I discard shame as an antiquated social imposition, and I feel the pleasure of each and every moment.
  • I am brave and choose to live more fully, freely, and passionately NOW.

 

Ache

Fantasies are fun, my dear
When you long for relationship
To fill
The hollow ache
You close your eyes and swoon
Dreaming of strong hands and soft glances

But your body has a fire
Your heartbeat a steadfast companion
Each breath more intimate than the deepest kiss
How can you be lonely when the world
Ravishes you?

Kitchen Music: Fever

Heat up your night with Peggy Lee’s classic.

Fever

“Kitchen Music:”  Music recorded literally in the kitchen.  No auto-tune.  No fancy mixin’.  Just me and my Garage Band and the sink.  Thanks for listening. (Although a caveat to this one.  This one was actually recorded in my Dad’s tool shed while visiting Texas.  But the idea is still the same :))

Spring into Spring: Handstand!

Spring into Spring!

Flowers are blooming, sprouts are sprouting, the sun is out in Vancouver, which means that it’s time to do handstand!

Inversions are asana of marvelous integration, asking us to stabilize our mobile shoulder joints and connect all of our moving pieces together – no small task while we’re all topsy turvy.  The opportunity to explore ourselves in an unfamiliar orientation lets us experience our cells, our blood, our organs and muscles in a new way.   We literally get to turn our world upside down.

 

Physically, inverting give the blood and lymph in our legs the opportunity to race back heartwards via the force of gravity.  Our organs move and settle in a different orientation.  Blood moves into our brain and offers these vital tissues an oxygen bath.  The upper body gets a fantastic work out.  And psychologically, we practice courage and a sense of play by moving into the unknown.

 

There are many different kinds of inversions.  Downward Facing Dog and Forward Fold are great “light” inversions that we practice all the time.   (In a “light inversion,” the head is below the heart, but the rest of the body and the blood column in the legs isn’t adding any additional pressure.)   To do a “full” inversion, the entire weight of the body is transmitted and supported through the shoulder girdle rather than the pelvis and we bring our legs over our head.

 

Before inverting, there are a couple of sensible precautions to keep in mind.  As we will be increasing the amount of the fluid in the brain, active inversions should not be practiced if you’re experiencing high blood pressure or have a history of stroke.  If you’ve had recent eye surgery or have glaucoma, raising the pressure in the eye is also not recommended. A more passive inversion – like legs up the wall – is a great alternative that imparts lots of juicy inversion benefits while keeping the head and heart at the same level.

 

Are you ready to invert?

 

Our shoulder girdle is a marvelous, mobile joint that allows us to reach out through our arms and experience the world.  However, it’s only attached to our skeleton in one little place: right between your collarbone and your sternum!  This lack of bony attachment means that the support of the shoulder girdle comes from the muscular stability around the joint and from the muscles of the chest and back.   If we’re going to fully invert, then we need to ensure that we have enough integrity here to support our body.  Additionally, we have to get our arms all the way overhead by our ears without losing the connection to our core, which requires a good bit of shoulder flexibility.

 

To find out if you’re ready to do handstand, investigate the following poses as a warm up:

  • Plank: focus on stabilizing the shoulder blades onto your back as you lift your lower ribs up and into your body.  Hold for one minute.  Repeat.
  • Downward Facing Dog: bring your arms in line with your ears without collapsing the ribs towards the floor or letting the upper arm bones wing out.  Straighten your arms fully.  Continue to lift through your back ribs as you draw your shoulder blades slightly towards each other.   The shoulder blades and front ribs hug into the center line of the body, connecting the back and front body towards your center.
  • Dolphin:  (Downward Facing Dog on your forearms, with your hands interlaced.)  Walk your feet towards your shoulders without collapsing the ribcage down or towards your hands.  Press the elbows forward and down to lengthen the back of the arms and draw the shoulder blades into the back body.  Stretch the hips up and back.
  • Puppy Dog (Warrior III at the wall): Place your hands at your hip level on the wall, then walk your feet back until your hips are over your ankles and your body forms an inverted “L”.  Bring your feet together, hug your midline.  Keeping your hips level and your arms straight, lift one leg slowly up behind you.  Pause, check to see that the toes of your lifted leg are pointing straight down and draw your opposite hip back.  Then, continue to lift from your inner thigh until the leg is in line with your body.  Draw the bottom ribs and core into the body as you press into your hands and firm the outer arms in.  Hug the thighs and arms towards each other, and firm your outer hips in.  Keeping all the outer parts of your body connecting into the center, stretch from the core of your pelvis out through all four limbs.

If these poses are going well, then it’s time to move onto handstand.

 

How to do Handstand:

Stage I:

  • Come into Downward Facing Dog, placing your hands about a foot away from the wall.  Place the hands outer shoulder distance apart, spread the fingers wide, and press through the four corners of each hand.
  • Walk your feet up to your hands about halfway until your shoulders are over your wrists.
  • Lift through your back ribs as you hug the shoulder blades closer to each other (here’s the muscular engagement to keep your shoulder girdle strong and stable)
  • Lift one leg up – just like you did for Puppy Dog.
  • Hug the inner thighs in and lift the leg higher as you press through your hands vigorously
  • Stay here for 3-5 breaths, then change sides.
  • Child’s pose or sit on your heels.

Stage 2:

  • Continuing from Stage 1, keep the hips lifting up and back as you bend your standing leg.  Keeping the lifted leg strong, straight, and neutral, now begin to take small controlled hops.  Press strongly through your hands so that your arms remain straight.  The back, lifted leg is like a rudder: keep it straight and strong.
  • Change sides.
  • Child’s pose or sit on your heels.

Stage 3:

  • Once both legs are up at the wall, immediately hug them strongly together
  • Press through your hands vigorously as you stretch up through your heels.
  • Roll the inner upper thighs to the wall as you lengthen your sitting bones up to your heels.
  • Come down one leg at a time.
  • Child’s pose or sit on your heels.

 

Most importantly, after doing handstand, take the time to absorb what you feel.

In child’s pose or seated on your heels, close your eyes and feel the rush of blood and life force that is coursing through your body.   Take several deep, smooth breaths.

Enjoy!

Shifts in my body

The subterranean landscape moves, jiggles, giggles, wanders, flows
My animal, innate need rising through tissues
Impassioned, empowered, wild
Seeking relationship
Yearning for movement, for cycles of change, for radical break through and then
Sleepy, cozy, comfort
Settling into the arms, the cooling sweat of another’s body
Gliding planes seeking connection
A thousand relationships through the skin of my hands; the smell, the taste
Of internalizing
You

Beneath rises an animal of pleasure
Who shakes her hide and stretches
Turns belly up inside me and invites
Fingers to furrow and wind in her silky, white fur
Purring
In her great, cat self and reaching
Through my hands to touch
To feel
To vibrate
To stroke
To yearn for filling
To clutch wildly
To pull together
To pad across the earth to its edges and feel the ocean between my toes

We need
Against the gently dissolving forms of death
To stretch
Break
Release
Run, excite, kiss
To softly hold our children’s hands
To fill our mouths with loving words
To feel our flesh warm, delicious in the sun
To rise into passion
To wink at life and
Laugh
Full, rich, heady, exposed

Oh, to be alive in this great, wild world!
In my rising, packed, audacious body-

Hold hands
Speak softly
Laugh from our depths

Everything is a kiss
In this Universe of
Form and Light.

Written in response to attending a week long dissection immersion with the inimitable Gil Hedley.

Kitchen Music: Black Coffee

Another sultry classic. 

You know the kind of day: Coffee.  Cigarettes. A man who won’t come home.

Oh yes.

Black Coffee

 

“Kitchen Music:”  Music recorded literally in the kitchen.  No auto-tune.  No fancy mixin’.  Just me and my Garage Band and the sink.  Thanks for listening.

Kitchen Music: Summertime

One of my favorite songs ever.

Sultry.  Sexy.

Feel the southern heat settle across your skin as you sit on a lazy porch rocker with a cool glass of lemonade.   You gaze out at the fields, where the grass barely sways to move in the warm wind.  Condensation slips down the side of the glass…

Summertime

 

“Kitchen Music:”  Music recorded literally in the kitchen.  No auto-tune.  No fancy mixin’.  Just me and my Garage Band and the sink.  Thanks for listening.

Kitchen Music: Joni Mitchell

Kitchen Music is a series of songs that I literally sing in the kitchen with the aid of Garage Band.

God bless Garage Band.

This one is Joni’s Mitchell’s “Case of You.”  This song is very special to me.   Thanks for listening.

Case of You

 

 

A story of growth and a sea monster

“If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

“The only thing that doesn’t change is change itself.”

“The right decision isn’t always easy.”

 

These hard nuts of reason come easily to the tongue and slowly to the spirit.  I get swatted by a new life lesson and it’s as if I’m 14 and have never been on a date with self-awareness.  “Really,” I think to myself, “How can I have been this blind to something this obvious for so long?”

Like the moments where I suddenly realize that – yes, it’s true – I really have been doing the same pattern in the last three relationships.  Where – like a rising Atlantis (or that alien village in “The Abyss”), a leviathan surfaces from the murky depths of my subconscious to the light of day.  An old, gnarled monster encrusted with barnacles and strange sea debris that shakes its ratty head at me and smiles as if to say, “Yes, girlie, I was really here all along.”  And the real bummer of the story is that once he’s up – once my sea creature has surfaced and grinned and winked – he will not be going back.   Nope.  He’s up and he’s staying up.  Pour him a mai tai, ladies, and call it an afternoon, because the gentleman is just warming up his fingers to tickle those ivories, and you’re in for some wild entertainment.

Staring the monster in the face is not exactly comfortable.

So I (and we, most likely) will choose to get back on the yacht, leave the ocean and her vagaries, and hightail if for a safer – and less interesting – port.  And for awhile, we can even scrape out a manageable existence on our tiny beach of refuge.  We drop anchor, huddle up on the sand, and swear never to take to the seas again.  Which may work until we remember that the really good beaches lie across the ocean, and getting there requires meeting the Gentleman Sea Monster once more.

And frankly, even if we stay cozied on our beach, sooner or later some of his old sea debris starts washing up on shore.   A finger here, some hairied kelp there  – reminding us that he is waiting for us to resume our conversation.

So at some point, we renew our spirit to be brave.  We get in the boat, row out to the open ocean, and find him there, waiting.  And we sit in the small boat and play chess on the ocean with our strange leviathan.  We look unflinchingly at his weathered, crab-ridden face.

And over time, we find beauty there, and loneliness, and whimsy, and hope.

Are we teaching yoga?

The Times recently wrote an article about the 2012 yoga competition held in New York City. 

Yoga competition? As in prizes?  Seriously?

Founded by Rajashree Choudary, the wife of the famous Bikram Choudary, the competition is open to all asana practitioners but is primarily attended by those who practice the Bikram style.  Competitions like this are apparently more common in India, where teachers drum up publicity for their yoga schools through exhibitions.  However, in the States, it’s a rather new – and somewhat startling – activity, given that yoga here still bears the traces of its hippie, counter-culture origins, which eschews all things regulated and corporate.

However, yoga has now gained enough popularity here that it’s possible to hold competitions and evaluate someone’s prowess in this (spiritual?) practice.  So now what separates yoga from, say, gymnastics or cirque de soleil?  Rather ironic since these physical endeavors are renowned for injuring its adherents, while one of the goals of modern yoga is to promote health and wellness.

“I’m exhausted mentally and physically,” Jared McCann [competition winner] said, grinning. “My left toe is numb and I’ve got some kind of back spasm.” He paused before adding, “There’s always something.” (Times)

All this talk of injuries, scandals, and yoga competitions has me taking a pause.  Not to disparage Jared McCann or Afton Carraway for winning the 2012 competition – good on ’em, it must have been years in the making – but what is the larger message that we are getting here?

Let’s face it: the umbrella of yoga is becoming laden with competition. As the next generation of teachers starts to jockey for position, everyone is looking for their special derivative niche: acro-yoga, ballet-yoga, spin yoga, tai chi yoga, aerobics yoga, runners’ yoga – not to mention all the individual name brands that have become popular.  And of course we are diversifying.  It’s one way to survive in an increasingly saturated marketplace.

As this happens, ways of evaluating good “yoga” could become increasingly external.  After all, it’s easier – and perhaps more impressive – to measure how far someone can get their foot behind their head than how calm their mind is or how present they are.   (Although who knows, maybe we’ll have meditation competitions soon that measure practitioners’ theta waves.)  Realistically, teachers who can do complex asana may be taken more seriously than teachers who are passionate about pranayama and meditation.  Classes that invite asana showmanship may be more popular than classes that seem quieter or more introspective.

While there’s nothing wrong with striving to advance one’s personal practice, the growing anxiety of competition has led to increasingly insecure teachers.  We fret, “are my numbers good,” rather than asking if we’re actually teaching the yoga that we want to.  We can get caught in the cycle of teaching what we think the students will want, rather than teaching from our hearts.

And while it’s true that good teachers will endure and their students will find them eventually, it is naive to think that teachers needn’t be concerned about how popular their classes are.  Most students cultivate a love for the deeper practices of yoga after getting their asses kicked by asana for a couple years, so the majority of the students may not want to hear a long dharma talk or sit and meditate.  Being real about this may save us the depression of having three students in class – and getting concerned looks from our bosses.

One of my favorite teachers, Mark Whitwell, once said, “Give them what they want, so you can give them what you want.”  Mark is pretty darn smart and experienced, so I’m thinking that we will always be dancing between delivering yoga that is popular and yoga that reaches deeper. (And lord love those precious teachers who manage to do both at the same time, you do inspire me.)

So it’s not an either/or proposition.  In the midst of yoga competitions, prolific branding, and career insecurity, we can still find some room to return to our source of inspiration.  As Mark might say, we can still return to the “Heart of Yoga.”  While we “give them what they want,” we can also remember why we started yoga in the first place and trust that our students will be similarly inspired by something as simple as connecting to their breath.

To all those teachers out there who have struggled with the insecurity of popularity (including myself), I’d like to offer the following hopeful reminders:

  • Simple is not the same as boring.
  • Yoga does not need to be entertaining or even unique to be transformational.
  • Your students actually will find you.
  • It’s not about you; it’s about the practice.

So while we dance this dance – while we navigate marketing, yoga competitions, and class numbers – we can also try the occasional experiment.  Once in awhile, let’s see what happens if we teach the kind of yoga that we do in the living room when no one else is watching.    The kind of yoga that may not win any awards or look impressive on our websites, but simply leaves us more connected to who we are.

 

 

 

 

 

Words of wisdom from Grandma

Yesterday, I sent my Grandma an article from Harvard Medical School about some new research touting the merits of a protein from a plant-based diet. As someone who has run the spectrum between carnivore and vegan, I was rather cheekily lamenting my recent departure from the ranks of vegetarian.

Here’s her reply, which just goes to show why you should respect your elders:

“Dear Granddaughter,

Just read your article from Harvard and wish I could participate in one of these studies! As you know, I will be 92 next month and was raised on the delicious food My Mother prepared.  This was usually mush or eggs or bread with cream and sugar poured over it (for breakfast). I always drank a lot of milk (before they pasteurized it). We cooked with butter and cream, had fried chicken and I can still taste the little dumplings my Mother made and put in gravy made from the chicken drippings. The burnt sugar cake she made (from scratch) was out of this world. Fried ham and gravy made from the drippings was delicious. I remember the first time I made gravy, I was about 10 years old. We were down at my Aunt Birdie Dawson’s making apple butter. We spent a day each year doing this in a huge copper kettle over an outdoor fire. We had a big apple butter stirrer and it took all day to make. Anyway, I digress, My aunt asked me to go up to the house and fix lunch and  I had to fry ham and make gravy. First time.  As I recall it turned out O. K.

I am not disputing their studies- I try to eat healthy and try to eat fish a couple of times a week. I have always been a coffee drinker and always loved chocolate. Now after years of saying it was not good for you they tell you to drink coffee and eat chocolate. I always wonder how they figure out how many calories are in things? I really think there is too much time and money spent on telling people what they should and shouldn’t eat and the money could be put to better use drilling water wells in Africa for people there who have to walk miles for a little water.

I really do appreciate your sending me the info and always glad to hear from you.  I have read a lot on Yoga lately and think it is a good thing!

I Love you, Grandma   XOXO”

 

Sit your ass down, already…and other thoughts on meditation

Today, or this morning rather, I was eating piece toast with cashew butter (homemade, even, dee-lightful). And I decided to make a little agreement with myself.

To self: I will eat this toast with homemade cashew butter, and endeavor to do just that, and only that.  No checking email, no reading the paper.  Just simply stand, and eat.  And taste.

I didn’t get very far before my hands reached for the tv remote (put it DOWN, now! My head belatedly hollered).  Then I found my hand reaching for my Iphone (the phonecall to Mom can WAIT!, I suddenly thought, and mentally slapped my hand away.)  Then I found myself wandering across the room to go check on the cat (the damn cat is FINE, I caught myself, now just stand still!)

Apparently, I cannot even get through one piece of toast without my mind – and body – running off in six different directions.

This is a sobering thought, as it illuminates something frightening: What is happening for the vast majority of the time when I’m not actually trying to stand and just eat a piece of toast?  How much compulsion is daily pouring through my body and mind that I simply go along with (reach for remote, Iphone, cat, etc?).  When actions are done before I even realize that they’ve happened?  If I have to do some serious focusing just to stay in one place, then what’s going on when I’m not paying so much attention?

Freaky.

I do not have any glorious, pithy wisdom to offer up here.  I obviously spend a great deal of time in the throes of my subconscious urgings and only occasionally make it above water to look around at the scenery.  But the experience did remind me of a suggestion in the Yoga Sutras, which I’ve been cruising through lately.  The Sutras, a series of terse aphorisms compiled back in 200 CE or so, basically throw down the meditative wisdom of the time.  Most yogis are familiar with the second Sutra which declares that “Yoga is the restraint of the fluctuations of the mind.”  Here’s another that is particularly piquant (translation by Carlos Pomeda):

Sutra 1.13: tatra sthitau yatno’bhyasa
“Practice is the effort to remain there.”

Basically, Patanjali is saying that we need to just sit down already and eat our cashew butter covered toast.  Do one thing at a time.  Stay “there.”  In that space.  Can we sit in our stuff?  Literally and metaphorically?  And not go wandering after the damn cat?

Doing our yoga doesn’t always have to involve incense, candles, and a meditation cushion.  We can do it right now, simply by trying to anchor ourselves in doing one thing at a time.

Eat Toast.  Then call Mom.  Then pet cat.  Rather than eat/talk/pet.

A revolution of non-multi-tasking.
So here’s to sitting our asses down, already.

And just taking a moment.

Freeing the Shoulder: quick tips for creating space

What exactly is the shoulder?   And why do they get so freakin’ stuck when we try to lift our arms overhead?

Two Joints of the Shoulder

The shoulder is actually two joints in one: the gleno-humeral joint (the ball and socket joint where the upper arm connects to your shoulder blade) and the scapulo-thoracic joint (a functional joint where the shoulder blade slides around on the back ribs).  In order to lift your arm up more than about 30 degrees to the side, you have to actually have to move your shoulderblade on your back.  (Go ahead: try to lift your arm overhead without moving your shoulder blade – not going to happen).

When we do this motion, the shoulder blades have to protract – that is, they move away from each other and wrap forward on your ribcage (check out the pic).  They also they upwardly rotate, which means that the inner border of your shoulder blade actually moves down as the outer edges move up.

“Draw your shoulders down.”

When we’re in yoga class and lifting our arms, we often hear the phrase, “Draw your shoulder blades together” or “draw your shoulder blades down.”  These actions are counter-intuitive to the actual bio-mechanics of the shoulder blade on the back.  While a small degree of these actions can create stability, too much will restrict your freedom of movement.

When teachers say, “bring your shoulders down,” they are actually trying to get you to relax your upper trapezius.  The traps are the muscles at the base of your neck that love to overact and make your shoulders look all crunchy like.  While relaxing your traps is a good idea here, we need to remember that part of the shoulder blade must actually be going UP in order to get your arms overhead.  Trying to drag the whole shoulder blade down can create constriction and lessen our freedom of movement.

To get freedom in the shoulders as you lift your arms:

  • allow your scapulae to move freely on your back body
  • externally rotate your upper arms as you bring them overhead to create more space between the bones of your shoulder
  • visualize the inner borders of your shoulder blades moving down as the outer borders move up
  • relax the muscles at the base of your neck (they’re not needed here) – rather than trying to drag the shoulder blades down your back – to create space around your neck

Still tight?

Some of the muscle that can restrict us when we lift our arms up:

  • Latissimus Dorsi
  • Triceps
  • Posterior Deltoid

Try some dedicated, long stretches for these muscles to open them up.  Then explore again and see if one of these has been the culprit.

Happy exploring!

 

Alchemy! The secret roots of hatha yoga.

Did you know that alchemy is part of the roots of hatha yoga?

The desire to transmute the body into a worthy vessel was inspired in part by the alchemical explorations of turning lead into gold.  “The siddha is a spiritual alchemist who works on and transmutes impure matter, the human body-mind, into pure gold, the immortal spiritual essence.”  – Georg Feurstein, “The Yoga Tradition, Chapter 18: Yoga as Spiritual Alchemy: The Philosophy and Practice of Hatha Yoga.”

Learn more about the history of alchemy with this fun podcast from the gals of “Stuff you missed in history class.”  An interesting detour into one of the influences of our modern day yoga.

Protect thy neck: further thoughts on yoga injuries in headstand and shoulderstand

Tonight in class, one of my students asked me to expand on the response article to “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body,” particularly as it relates to two asana: shoulderstand and headstand.

Headstand and Shoulderstand – labelled the King and Queen of Asana by Iyengar for their therapeutic properties – got a bad rap in the NYTimes article.  And no wonder.  These are high demand poses, asking practitioners to support the entire weight of their body with their mobile shoulder girdles.  Unfortunately, some practitioners foray into them before they’ve developed the strength and flexibility to sufficiently support their body weight, which means that they are slinging weight instead into their cervical spine.

How to Protect yourself in Headstand

Tip 1: First of all, practice Sirsasana A, not B.  Sirsasana A is performed with the forearms on the floor and the hands interlaced behind the head.  Sirsasana  – also called tripod headstand, or teddy bear – is done with head on the floor and the hands flat, elbows at a 90 degree angle.  The problem here is clear: in Sirsasana A, you have the opportunity to use your the muscles of your arms and back to take weight off of your neck, while in Sirsasana B, there is no choice but for your cervical spine to bear weight.

I know, I know.  Some of you have heard that Sirsasana B is “easier.”  It’s not easier, it’s more accessible.   There is a critical difference between the two. It’s more accessible because it doesn’t require your shoulders to be as open and you have an easier time balancing.  However, it’s far more treacherous for your neck since your head is weight-bearing.

Tip 2: Support yourself on your forearms, not your head.   Although yogis extol the virtue of stimulating the crown chakra by having the head on the floor, I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s probably wiser to start by protecting your neck.   Keep your head light, and root like heck through your forearms – especially during your transitions.  Worry about the subtle body after you take care of your spine.

Tip 3: Never jump or hop into headstand.  Be patient.  There’s no gold pot of liberation once you get up there, so practice until your body can smoothly and safely sustain the transition.  Therein lies the actual reward.

Tip 4: Neck feel cramped?  Some of us have lovely long necks.  If this is you, there won’t be any amount that you can press through your forearms to get the weight off your head because your proportions will make this impossible.  Instead, place blankets under your forearms evenly so that your arms are artificially longer.   Presto.  Instantly reliever for neck compression.  Now press down your forearms with gusto and get the weight off your neck.

Tip 5: Keep your neck in its natural curve.  Take care when you’re on your head (even though you’re not putting a lot of weight there), to ensure that you are not rolling forward or back on you head, but that you can lengthen through all four sides of the neck evenly.  Maintaining the natural curve of your cervical spine will protect the delicate vertebrae of your cervical spine, which are not designed to be weight bearing.

How to Protect Yourself in Shoulderstand

1. Use blankets.  For the love of God.  Please.  I know you want to “get into the pose already” and going and getting props is a drag (especially when the teacher doesn’t suggest them), but trust me.  For the long terms health of your neck, there’s nothing to lose and everything to gain by folding some blankets and putting them under your shoulders so that you’ve got some space for your neck.  Here’s why:  when we’re in shoulderstand, the weight should actually be on the triceps, elbows, shoulders and (slightly) the back of the head – not the upper thoracic spine or the neck.  Most of us can’t sufficiently lift through our upper backs (nor do we have the opening in our shoulders in extension) to get our vertebrae off the floor without props.  So instead, we wind up putting all of our body weight on our upper spine, rounding through the upper back, and bringing the neck into extreme flexion.   While this may not bother you now, over time this can cause an over lengthening of the ligaments in the back of the neck that protect the natural cervical curve.  Read more about this in Roger Cole’s Yoga Journal article.  

Dr. Jeremy Brook add, “As a chiropractor, the problem I have with shoulderstand relates to most people’s habitual patterns, injuries and structural imbalances. Many people sit at a desk for hours, collapse on their sofa and sleep on their stomachs. While this example is extreme, most modern bodies are far different from those of the ancient yogi who practiced asana hours each day, meditated, read sacred texts and slept on a hard straw bed. Thus, a modern practitioner may possess the same spirit, but in a body with a far different, and likely compromised, neck. ”

2. Do a modified pose if you don’t have blankets.  Grab a block and come into a restorative shoulderstand with your hips on a blocks, legs up, and your upper back essential in bridge pose.  Same benefits, much less risk on the cervical spine.

3. If you’re a teacher, then Teach the Pose.  Let’s get rid of the habit of tossing shoulderstand in as an “if you want to,” or “if it’s in your practice” last minute offering.  Take some time, get out the props, teach it conservatively, and let’s reclaim the therapeutic potential of this Queen of Asana.  Maybe then it can really become the “the greatest boons conferred on humanity by our ancient sages” (Iyengar, Light on Yoga).  

When the muse stops talking: how to teach when inspiration doesn’t strike

A yoga teacher and galpal of mine recently emailed me about the proverbial drying of the creative yoga well.

“Last Wed I feel like I taught the WORST yoga class of my life: it was so vanilla, last minute sequencing on my feet (which sometimes I’m good at, but this time I lost the muse), and I felt like I kept saying the same damn thing over and over- just uninspired. I think I need a workshop or something to inspire me again, but saving my pennies. I guess I was wondering if you’ve ever felt that way and/or how you deal with it. I need some stimulation!”

Girl, we have all been there.  Who hasn’t taught the occasional class that feels repetitive or uninspired?

I’ve always found that the solution lies in my own practice.  Usually when I teach a cringe worthy class (at least that’s the way it feels), the root of the problem is my own lack of connection; I don’t feel like I have anything to share authentically from myself.  Investing time to practice and prepare holds the antidote – and doesn’t require spending money on a workshop.  Everyone gets jazzed differently through their yoga teaching:  some people find their soul connection through theming, others through sequencing, others through music.

If your muse doesn’t show up, here’s some tips to help hunt her down.

  • Give yourself an hour to just play physically – not even to do a “yoga practice” per se, but sure, start there and see where it takes you. Then take whatever you discover as an inspirations to share in your class
  • Take 20 minutes to journal on the message you want to share with the world. What lessons have been hard for you? What is a tool that you use when you come up against this challenge? Is there a way that you can share this tool through a physical yoga practice?
  • Open up your favorite inspirational books. Theme a class around your favorite quote.
  • Prepare a sequence to a kick ass, fun peak pose.  Be creative about how you get there.
  • Give yourself an hour to create an awesome music mix (of stuff that you like), then create a dynamic class to go with it.
  • Get back to what YOU need from your yoga practice, then share that gift with your students. Forget all the rote blah blah – speak truthfully from exactly where you are and see where that takes you.
  • And if exactly where you are is in the duldrums, then investigate what tools you can use to move beyond that (not just in yoga, but in life) and share those tools in the practice (like playfulness, or community, or non-judgment). Then everybody wins.
  • And…if all else fails…plan some accessible partner work. That makes almost any class fun. The community energy will feed itself.

 

“How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body”: A Response

The New York Times recently ran an article, “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body,”that has a rather sensational and silly title and a fairly simple point: doing yoga can cause injuries.  The article, citing the musings of yoga teacher Glenn Black, references the medley of yoga injuries that have been developing through the West over the last ten years.  The article whispers to us in horror: ‘Black has come to believe that “the vast majority of people” should give up yoga altogether. It’s simply too likely to cause harm.’

The response to this: Well, duh.

Of course it can cause injuries.

Hatha Yoga (which includes power, flow, Anusara, “hatha”, and every other physical form of yoga) is a physical, bio-mechanical practice.  Ask any yoga teacher and – if they’re over 30 and being honest – you’re likely to find some sort of medical history.  To share my personal trophies, I’ve torn my hamstring in Prasarita Padottanasana, damaged the meniscus in my knee from too many lotus attempts, and dislocated a rib facet falling out of handstand.  And these days, with the emphasis on “getting” handstand in the middle of the room to be a “real yogi” or pushing through thirty chaturangas in a class to “test your edge”, it’s no wonder that we are limping to the physio and crying to our RMT’s.  But before you gasp in shock and tremble because yoga is supposed to be a cure all, listen up.  Injury and stress is the nature of any repetitive physical endeavor done passionately over time.  I’ve also tweaked my hamstring playing touch football on the beach, damaged my wrist skiing, and hurt my back in Cross Fit.  Golf causes injuries.  Martial Arts causes injuries.  I may be going out on a limb, but I bet you can develop repetitive stress injuries in swimming too.

Anyone who expects yoga to be a panacea for all ills isn’t paying attention.  The author of the article, William Broad, describes his experience: “While doing the extended-side-angle pose, a posture hailed as a cure for many diseases, my back gave way. With it went my belief, naïve in retrospect, that yoga was a source only of healing and never harm.”  William, thank you for the wake up call.  We should all set our naivete aside.  Living on this plane of existence with muscles, bones, tendons, and blood, we are subject to the forces of time and aging.  We move in a world of form and limitation.  Expecting yoga to transcend the nature of this Universe is like expecting dinner to cook itself or time to move backwards.

Does this mean you shouldn’t do yoga?

Absolutely not.

Yoga is revelatory for self-connection.  Yoga wakes you up and asks you to breathe.  Yoga cultivates strength, suppleness, and fluidity. Yoga asks you to commit to your deepest and most passionate self and cultivate a deep inquiry into your life and your place in this world.  Yoga is a tool for helping you to become more fully yourself.   And – when done mindfully and with kick ass alignment – yoga heals.  So yes, do your freakin’ yoga.

But here are some tips:

  • Set aside your naivete that yoga will fix everything.  Physically, it won’t.
  • Listen to your body.  For reals this time.
  • Practice the style of yoga that you need, not just that you like.  If you need more strength and less flexibility, get your ass out of yin.
  • Please, focus on your alignment.  Do less, and do it better.
  • Complement your yoga practice with other sensible physical fare.  You’re not invalidating your yoga by doing your physio exercises, taking a jog, or going to the gym.
  • When you do these other physical activities, leave your Ipod at home.  Really pay attention to what you’re doing, and these activities can be yoga too.
  • Go to yoga class to work on your mind, not just your body.  Take the pressure off your yoga practice to be your workout, and you’ll find that you can actually move move deeply, find more ease, and (crazily enough) your practice will actually advance faster.

Yoga is one of the best things that has happened in my life.  If you’re reading this, my bet is that it’s transformed you, too.  But let’s remember what our yoga is really about: self-revelation, compassion, and a deep connection with the world.   Yoga is a tool for co-creating with the Universe; for nourishing our bodies, minds, and hearts and exploring the wonder of our own expression while we live on this marvelous world.

Do your yoga.

Just do your yoga smart.