How to: Chaturanga!

Learn to do and teach an excellently positioned Chaturanga. Use props to find your best alignment and protect the delicate shoulder joint for repetitive stress injury. Check out as we do this is in the YYoga 200-hour Teacher Training.

How to: Chaturanga to Updog

This is a challenging transition for the best of us! Check out these options that you can use to help both do this transition – as well as teach it to your students. Avoid “cheating” and be kind to your rotator cuff 🙂

How To: Handstand Prep

Join and and the YYoga 200-hour teacher trainees as we look at how to do and teach Handstand Prep. The secret is in the bent knees and the shoulder blades…. 🙂

How To: Supta Hasta Padangustasana

An awesome way to teach Supta Hasta Padangustasana – the floor gives you great feedback for your spine and the wall allows you to feel the turn out that tends to happen as our leg takes the path of least resistance.

Using your hip stabilizers effectively in asana

 

In yoga asana, we often experience imbalance in our body, where certain muscles love to be powerful and to dominate – like our hip flexors – while others (our adductors and abductors) begin to soften, weaken, and become quiet.  By bringing our bodies into balance and allowing each muscle to truly step back fully into its functional role, the whole of our system becomes more expansive, powerful, and expressive.

Five minutes to Hip Functionality

I learned this marvelous and simple exercise from Susi Hately Aldous.  You’ll need a block and a strap.

  • Lay in semi-supine (lay down, knees bent)
  • Place your hands on your hip flexors (place your hands at the crease of your thighs and hips)
  • Lift one leg at a time
  • Feel your hip flexors fire under your hands
  • Now, place a block between your upper thighs (as high as it will go)
  • Squeeze the block and hold.  Release.  Repeat several times.
  • Notice what you feel beneath your hands.
  • Now, release the block and place a strap around your mid-thighs snugly
  • Press your thighs out into the strap firmly and hold.  Release.  Repeat several times.
  • Notice what you feel beneath your hands.

Did you notice your hip flexors firing when you squeezed the block or pressed out into the strap?  Most of us will.  However, we don’t need our hip flexors to fire when we’re doing either of these actions.  If your hip flexors fire, that is a sign of these big and overworked muscles are trying to take over for the adductors (inner thighs/ squeezing the block) or abductors (outer thighs/ pressing into the strap).   Your muscular relationships have become co-dependent.

  • Try the exercise again; this time keeping your hip flexors as settled and quiet as possible
  • Are you able to let them quiet down?  Even a little?
  • Once you’ve let them become silent, increase the force that you use against the block or strap.
  • In other words, once you’ve empowered your boundaries, you can increase your power  – functionally.  Sounds a lot like a relationship to me.

Application to Asana

Here are some ways to bring this functionality into your asana.  Empowering your boundaries will make your practice lighter, more functional, and more free.  Now, having great boundaries isn’t necessarily “easy” – in fact, at first it might be harder – but it creates the groundwork for more power and personal expression.

In Surya Namaskar:

  • Hug a block between your thighs through the whole cycle: how does this change your core connection?  The lightness of your spine?  How does this empower your plank?
  • Strap yourself snugly at your mid-thigh: how does this change your strength?  Your plank and chaturanga?  The freedom of your lower back?

In your externally rotated poses (Warrior II, Side Angle, Triangle, Half Moon):

  • From Warrior II, use your hands to actively externally rotate your front thigh in the socket and press your knee towards your pinkie toe
  • Feel the outer hip engage to support you
  • Keep this support so that your knee tracks over the center of your ankle as you transition to Side Angle, Trikonasana
  • In the transition to Half Moon, can you keep this integrity through the outer line of your hip as you move?  You can even place a hand to the outer thigh and actively press into your hand as you move.  This action will begin to imprint the support of your outer leg into the movement.
  • Once in Half Moon, use the stability of your outer hip to deepen your hip crease. As you stabilize the lower leg, then you will have the freedom and stability to open the pelvis and spine safely towards the side wall.

In Bakasana:

Crow pose is not only a balancing pose.  And trying to balance your knees in your armpits will disconnect your midline and your core – the very support that you need to realize this pose effectively.

  • Toes together, knees apart, come into a low squat
  • Bring your elbows underneath your knees so that your knees are hugging the outside of your arms, as high up as possible
  • From this low and tight position, squeeze your knees and connect to the inner lines of your legs
  • Now, stay low as you shift forward and lift the toes off the floor
  • If you’re feeling your inner thighs – you’re doing it!
  • Once your feet lift, squeeze your knees in to lift your upper back to the sky and straighten your arms
  • Use the connection of your inner thighs to squeeze in to send you up

In Handstand

To do this, we’ll play with lifting both legs at the same time.  If you have a regular handstand practice, add this into the mix to explore the connection of the inner and outer thighs.

Most of us know the importance of the inner thighs in handstand.  After all, we squeeze the legs together like crazy once we’re up.  Reinforce this action on the lift up by placing a block between the upper inner thighs as you hop up.

  • Downdog at the wall, block between your thighs
  • Bring your shoulders over your wrists and straighten you arms completely
  • Keeping your tailbone high, bend both knees and squeeze the block
  • Squeeze the block, keep your arms straight as you play with hopping the hips above your shoulders and bringing your legs into a pike position, then eventually straight up
  • Do the same with a strap at mid-thigh to bring the outer legs online.

What have you noticed in these explorations?

Do you feel more integrated, lighter? Is there more or less space for your own growth and expression here?

Final thoughts

Creating strength in our adductors and abductors will free your power muscles to do their job with greater functionality and grace.  Although waking them up may take a little effort and time, the greater result will be integration and ease.

I used to think that boundaries would make me hard, impermeable, rigid, un-loveable.  But in fact, cultivating boundaries and unsticking ourselves gives us space to grow.

Having clear boundaries lets us nourish our internal goodness so that we can shine our best self forward.  Then we have the strength to uphold others with compassion.  We can serve as an inspiration to those needing to find love in their own eyes rather than the eyes of others.

In the Upanishads, it is said, “The pleasant is one thing.  The good another.”

May we rise to the good.

Teaching Flow versus Power: what’s the difference?

These two styles look the same, so what’s the difference?

At YYoga, we make a distinction between Flow and Power.  Now, these styles are very similar and use the same kinds of poses (sun salutations, standing poses, arm balances, inversions, complex backbends).  They both derive from the Ashtanga tradition, which incorporates standing poses held for 5 breaths interposed with vinyasa.  While there is also a temperature difference for our studios (Power classes are heated), the goals of each style are actually slightly different and will prompt us to use different tools as teachers.

Because they have similar components, we can envision Flow being on one end of the spectrum, and power on another.  While we will use elements of both for our teaching, we can benefit from being clear about which side of the spectrum that we are playing with and WHY.

flow-power

 

 
 

Power Classes

  • Tools:
    • Fewer poses held longer – static
    • Ujjayi pranayama
    • More time for props, teacher demonstrations, going to the wall
  • Strength building
  • Slow, steady work
  • Focus on alignment and muscular action
  • Encourages body awareness – annamaya kosha (physical body)
  • Grounding
  • Creates tapas (transformational heat), intensity, focus, stability
  • Harnesses energy IN
  • Consequences of the style to be aware of:
    • Burning out your students in long holds
    • Impact of holding on wrists, etc.
    • Moderation of chaturangas etc. when you’re peak pose is on the hands
    • Keeping ambitious students within their means (Power students may like to push)

Flow Classes

  • Tools for Flow
    • More poses moved through more more quickly – dynamic
    • Linking poses
    • Ujjayi
  • Flexibility building (or strength in movement)
  • Smooth, almost continuous movement
  • Focus on breath and fluidity
  • Encourages breath awareness – pranaymaya kosha (breath body)
  • Flowing
  • Illuminates spanda (the divine pulsation in us – here in the breath), breath expansion, mobility
  • Expands energy OUT
  • Consequences of the style to be aware of:
    • Necessity for safe transitions when you are moving quickly
    • Newer/ stiffer students may have a hard time keeping up
    • Can’t cue as much alignment in flow when you’re cuing the breath and moving quickly

As you’re creating your class, consider:

  • What is the experience that I want to offer my students?  Stabilizing and grounding?  Or flowing and expressive?
  • Which tools can I use from each style to create this experience?
  • How can I deliver this experience being mindful of the “Consequences to be aware of?”

Happy Teaching!

 

Victoria Yoga Conference: 2013!

RachelScottheadshotRachel will be teaching at the Victoria Yoga Conference February 2-3rd, 2013.  Don’t miss this great opportunity to take advantage of her best insights from her years as a Teacher Trainer!

Empower Your Boundaries – Saturday, February 2, 2013 – 8:00 to 9:15 am – Studio #1

Clear and strong boundaries give shape and discipline to our lives. In asana, clear and efficient engagement of the outer lines of our bodies harness our power so that we can graciously and effectively use our inner strength to take our practice to the next level. In this Wake up the strength of the inner and outer lines of the hips, legs and arms, and discover more grace, ease and stability in all your yoga poses.

Happy Knees, Happy Pigeons – Saturday, February 2, 2013 – 1:15 pm to 2:30 pm – Studio #1

Located between the mobile hip and ankle, your vulnerable knee often becomes the victim of mismanaged communication. Learn about the structure of the knees and empower yourself to protect them in all asana – including the treacherous pigeon pose. Through both power point and practice, you will gain a new and visceral understanding of this marvelous joint. As a bonus, discover why “flexing the foot to protect the knee” is a myth.

Sun Salutations – Sunday, February 3, 2013 – 2:45 pm to 4:00 pm – Studio #112-130-Yoga-Poster-Electronic-600x771pixels

Ever wondered if you were really doing chaturanga right? Want to figure out that pesky jump forward? Revolutionize your sun salutes with this in-depth, fun, and transformative workshop. With just a few simple adjustments, you will learn how to protect your joints, prevent repetitive stress injury, and fire up your core. You do them every practice, it’s time to do them right!

Location:  Victoria Conference Centre, 720 Douglas Street

Register Now!

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Linking in flow classes: how to teach smart transitions

Have you been in a class where any of the following have occurred:keep-calm-and-vinyasa-flow-2_large

  • The teacher (maybe it’s us) links 12 million poses on the same side.  Thighs are trembling.  Anger is mounting.
  • The teacher forgets to do one side, or forgets and entire series of poses
  • You have to change your foundation to get to the next pose…and the next
  • You’re not even sure how to get from one pose to another
  • You’re up.  You’re down.  You’re up.  You’re down.  You’re up.  You’re down. You’re seasick.
  • You’re not sure exactly what you’re supposed to be doing in the pose (what pose is it?) because it’s not about alignment, baby, it’s all about the FLOW

Alright.

So before we chat about how to flow SMART, let’s talk about why we flow, period.

Why We Flow

“Flow” yoga has its roots in Ashtanga yoga, where practitioners interpose a vinyasa (Chaturanga-updog-downwdog) between most static poses.  Each pose is held for five breaths, and the breath links the practice from its absolute beginnings until Savasana.  This steady, meditative practice invites a profound connection with the inner body, the breath, and the core.

It’s also a set sequence.

Flowing is a heck of a lot easier when you know where you’re going.

However,  now we have “flow” classes that are not set sequences.  In fact, the pressure is on for teachers to create increasingly wild and creative sequences so that students stay engaged and – dare I say – entertained by the class.  In other words, rather than addressing the crazy fluctuations of their minds through slow one-pointed focus, students are craving classes that bulldoze these fluctuations by replacing them with something so consuming that it is impossible to focus on anything else.   Oh right – and then add music.

Now, despite my cute tone, this is not a bad thing.

After all, meditation is the process of giving the practitioners something to harness their attention to.  If the bells and whistles need to be a little louder in order to break through our insane headspace, then I’m all for it.

But what I’m not a fan of is reckless transitions.

Why our Flow can get gnarly

In our zeal to create a powerful flow sequence, we can get carried away by our own invention.  And we also forget that:

  • our students don’t have the same proprioception that we do
  • our students aren’t as experienced as we are; they don’t know the risk factors of the asana
  • our students generally aren’t as strong or as flexible as we are
  • our students don’t already have the sequence in their heads
  • we are generally teaching multi-level classes with beginners
  • our students have injuries.  And need a I add: knee injuries.

SMART FLOW!  Rule number 1:

Here’s the number one rule of flowing smart:  in transitions, keep the action of the hips the same.

What this means:

  • Link externally rotated poses with externally rotated poses.
  • Link neutral poses with neutral poses.
  • And when you don’t link “like with like”, teach the heck out of the transition

That’s it.  This simple protocol will keep your students knees and lower backs happy.  And hopefully keep them from falling over.

Does this mean never break the rules?  No, of course not.  But be sensible about it.  If you are going to change the action of the hip, you must change the foundation of the pose and you must therefore TEACH the transition.

This means that instead of saying, “Warrior I, okay now takeWarrior II…”, you’d have to say something like:

  • “From Warrior I, tack your outer right hip back so the front knee tracks over the ankle…
  • Keep this as you turn your back toes to be parallel to the back of your mat..
  • Heel-toe your front foot to the left so the front arch bisects the back foot…
  • Now, keep your right hip drawing back and your knee over your ankle as you turn the pelvis towards the left.”

Phew!

Or you could just link Warrior II to similarly externally rotated standing poses such as Side Angle, Triangle, and Half Moon and spare yourself some trouble and verbiage.

If you want to really flow – that is, move fairly quickly through yoga asana in order to create a dynamic movement experience – then it is sensible to link poses smartly and safely so that you can maximize your students’ stability and enjoyment of their practice.  Smart Sequencing will allow them to think about their breath and not about their ouchy knee.

SMART FLOW!  Rule number 2:

Always use a stabilizing cue.

In your transitions, ask yourself, “What is at risk in this transition?”  Then offer a quick cue to stabilize the student against this risk factor as you move them through the action.  For example:

  • Transition: Triangle – Half Moon
    • Risk: Knee
    • Cue: “Hug your standing outer hip back as you…” or “Anchor your knee over the center of your ankle by pressing it towards your pinkie toe as you…”
  • Transition: Chair- Revolved Chair
    • Risk: Low back/ Hips moving
    • Cue: “Hug your knees together/ Firm your outer hips in as you…”
  • Transition: Crescent – Revolved Side Angle
    • Risk: Balance
    • Cue: “Hug your legs to the midline as you…”

Now these are pretty straight-forward, but you can apply the same principle to more complex transitions.

Linking “like with like” and using stabilizing cues in your transitions will keep your students connected and safe while allowing you to create to your heart’s content.

Happy Flowing!

 

 

Open those hips! Eka Pada Koundinyasana A

My IT Band is tight.

Tiiiiiiight.

Or more correctly, I should say that my gluteus maximus, which feeds into and inserts on the IT band, is tight, so that the resulting pull tautens the IT band.  (“IT” stand for “ilio-tibial”, and this band is a swath of connective tissue that runs from the pelvis to the outer knee.  The glute maximus and the tensor fasciae latae insert into it.)

Here’s an IT band loving sequence that culminates in Eka Pada Koundinyasana A – a crazy extension of Side Crow (Parsva Bakasana).

Eka Pada Koundinyasana A

Component Parts:

  • core
  • scapular stabilization
  • thoracic rotation (and some lateral flexion)
  • IT Band/ outer hip opening
  • Engagement of back line

Now, to be fair, this is really more a pose about the torso’s rotation and flexion than about the IT band…but, I think it warrants the exploration.

Here’s the sequence I used:

  • Sukhasana with unleveraged, then leveraged twist

I place my hands on the ribcage and twist from there, then release the arms and keep the twist to work the obliques.  Finally, we leverage the twist by using the arms to find the full range of motion.

  • Cat and Cow with leg (and arm) extension
  • Surya A 5 times
  • Warrior II with a twist and fingers interlaced overhead  -> “floating” Parsvakonasana to work core
  • Trikonasana -> “floating variation” to work the obliques
  • Plank with one hand lifted to work obliques.  Can also lift a foot.
  • Uttanasana with IT band stretch (both sides)

My teacher Chris Richardson introduced this to me.  Come into Uttanasana.  Place your hands on blocks and then turn around to the right on your feet so that they face the back of your mat and your legs are crossed.  Then continue to walk your hands further to the right (you can place them on blocks) as you like.  Press through the big toe mound of your left foot and shift your hips further back to the left until you feel a stretch through the outer hip.

  • Crescent -> Pvt. Parsvakonasana (unleveraged, then leveraged twist)
  • Lizard  (deep lunge) -> Ardha Hanumanasana (externally rotate the front thigh for another IT band stretch…yikes!) -> Brigid’s Cross (IT band stretch and deep twist: it’s like Parivrtta Supta Hasta Padangustasana facing down)

Eka Pada Koundinyasana A – take off sequence

  • Stage 1: Squat with knees together, twist: belly, waist, ribs
  • Stage 2: Hands to floor, shoulder distance apart
  • Stage 3: Parsva Bakasana
  • Stage 4: Eka Pada Koundinyasana A

Happy arm balancing!

Rachel

Back to Basics: Plank Pose

You know it.

You love it, you hate it.  You love to hate it.

It’s plank pose.

 

What’s plank pose?

Also known as “Phalakasana,” plank pose is a modification of Chaturanga Dandasana (“four-limbed staff pose”), which is doozy of a core stabilizer found in the traditional Sun Salutations.  Plank looks like a high push up position;  Chaturanga is pretty much the same pose, but with the elbows bent to ninety degrees.  In a traditional Sun Salutation, practitioners jump back from a preparatory pose directly into Chaturanga – a challenging move even for advanced practitioners.  To better control this transition, we usually step back to plank first, and then lower down into Chaturanga.

Uses of Plank

Although it has humble beginnings as a modification, plank has become quite the showstopper in its own right.  Forearm plank is held for a minute in the YHot practice to help practitioners develop their core strength and stability.  Plank is used in power and flow classes to create heat in the body, cultivate scapular stabilization, improve core strength, and act as an intermediary through transitions.

Anatomy of Plank

Plank pose is a lot of work for the upper body.  The shoulder girdle is intrinsically a joint of mobility, not stability (this ball and socket joint actually looks more like a baseball stuck to a plate).   In order for the practitioner to effectively manage his or her body weight, he or she must actively recruit the larger muscles of the back to stabilize the scapulae (the shoulder blades), so that the rotator cuff (the four little muscles that hold the humerus to the shoulder blade) isn’t struggling to bear the burden.

The primary muscles that keep the scapulae happily secure are the rhomboids, the trapezius, and the serratus anterior. They work in opposition to each other to make sure that the shoulder blades don’t “wing out” or slide too far afield.  You can understand their respective actions through the following exercise:

  1. Come onto all fours with your hands under your shoulders and your knees underneath your hips, as if you were about to do cat/cow.
  2. Keep your arms and your spine straight (unlike cat/cow, where we round and arch)
  3. Now, slide your shoulder blades closer to each other on your back (your chest will move closer to the floor, but your arms stay straight).  The drawing closer of the scapulae to the spine reflects the action of the rhomboids and trapezius.
  4. Now, slide your shoulder blades apart from each other so that they wrap around your ribcage and your upper back lifts to the ceiling.  This action is created by the contraction of serratus anterior, a wing-like muscle that pulls your scapula around the sides of your ribs.

When these muscles act together effectively, the scapulae stay well-secured on the back for plank – and ultimately for the transition to Chaturanga.

Finding your awesome plank pose

To find your plank, first find and excellent foundation:

  • Come onto all fours with your knees slightly behind your hips.  Place your hands outer shoulder distance apart, line up the center of your wrist with the space between your index and middle finger, and press firmly through the four corners of your hands.

Now, engage your scapular stabilization:

  • Lift your back ribs up to the sky so that your shoulder blades slide apart (this is serratus working).
  • Keep the upper back inflated as you draw your shoulder blades closer to each other on your back until they are nestled securely against your ribcage.

Now find your core:

  • With your shoulder girdle well-supported, draw the sides of your waist skywards in order to activate your core.  This action will help you to support the back body with the strength of your front body.

Add the pelvis:

  • To recruit the integration of the pelvis, roll your upper inner thighs back as you draw your sitting bones down to your knees.
  • If this feels like good work for you, then you can stay here on your knees in modified plank.

Add the legs:

  • To come into full plank, keep the stability you’ve created through your shoulders and your pelvis and step one foot back at a time.
  • Engage your quads and fully straighten your legs.
  • To prevent collapse in the lower back, lift your pelvis in line with your shoulders and lengthen your tailbone to your feet.
  • Finally, reach your sternum forward as you reach your heels back to expand the length of your plank fully.
  • Eventually, you may lower your hips to make one straight line from your heels to your shoulders (rather than keeping the hips and shoulders in line).

Plank to Chaturanga

Once you are able to hold your plank solidly for 5 breaths, you are ready to explore lowering to Chaturanga.  Through this transition, it is vitally important to keep your scapulae securely on your back.  We often allow the shoulder heads drop forward and down as we lower, which is a compensation can be injurious for the rotator cuff over time.

To come into Chaturanga:

  • Keep your legs engaged and your scapulae securely on your back.
  • Shift onto your toes so that your chest moves forward in space a few inches.
  • Keeping your shoulder heads lifted, bend your elbows and smoothly lower until your shoulders and elbows are in one line and your elbows are over your wrists.
  • Nothing about the pose should change save the angle of the arms.
  • Work up to holding Chaturanga for 5-8 breaths.

Modifications and Variations

Here’s a couple common modifications to make plank more accessible:

  • For wrist issues, come onto your forearms or fists.  You can also place the heel of your hand on a rolled up blanket or mat to decrease the angle of flexion in the wrist.
  • For a developing core, keep your back knees down
  • To cultivate great adductor strength, put a block between your thighs

To increase the intensity of the pose:

  • Lift one arm
  • Lift one leg
  • Lift opposite arms and legs
  • Draw a knee into your chest
  • For abductor work, tap a foot out to the side, then back

Happy Planking!

 

 

 

 

Lessons in patience. Or, what yoga has to do with flowers.

Okay, okay.

So you’ve met a guy or gal.  You’re excited about them.  A connection has been made. Your eyes have gotten slightly glassy and you get a little breathless and a-flutter when they send you a text. You long to unwrap them (immediately) like a Christmas present and discover all their yummy secrets.

However, despite every screaming instinct to the contrary, this is the time to pause and slow down.

I know it’s hard: when I get excited about someone, I am NOT what you’d call a patient person.  The new connection is like an intoxicating, young flower that is all wrapped up in its own pretty petals – and I want to pounce on it like a tiger and shred it apart with my hot little claws.

And you know what I get then?

One pretty darn fucked up flower.

Like flowers, relationships need their own time to unfold in order to reach their full expression.   No matter how much we’d like to just move forward NOW, we can’t pry them open early without sacrificing their beauty.  By cultivating patience, we can give the relationship the space to find its own unique expression.  And then if we decide that we dislike this particular flower after all, fair enough.  At least then we’re pruning honestly.

Similarly in yoga, we often rush to get to the “full expression” of the asana.  Rather than letting the pose open in its own time, we push our way in and shred some petals in the process.  This kind of end-gaining may get us there, but generally we’ll also be rigid, overexerted, and strained.

So what if we truly practiced patience in our yoga?  Give the pose a month, a year, five years (ten!) to decant.  In the yoga sutras, Patanjali suggests that practice is “earnest, sustained effort for a long time.”  We show up, we practice, we repeat.  Nothing is quick.  Pattabhi Jois suggested the same longevity when he said, “Practice – and all is coming.”  By slowing down, we give ourselves the opportunity to arrive organically at the heart of the experience.  As in relationships and gardening, finding patience will allow our yoga practice’s unique and graceful beauty to be fully – and unexpectedly – revealed.

Tips to Mastering an Arm Balance

To master an arm balance, you must master your booty.

Seriously.

Your pelvis is heavy, and knowing where to put it during an arm balance will make a big difference in your ability to distribute your weight effectively and ultimately find lightness and ease in your pose.

Balancing in an arm balance is about:

  • hands
  • shoulder stability
  • core strength
  • pelvic placement/ weight placement

Okay, okay, naturally you need core strength.  But not as much as you think.  Place your weight smartly, and you will use less tension, find more ease, and gain levity and freedom in your arm balances.

Tip #1: Maintain excellent hand positioning

To protect your weight in arm balances, weight all four corners of the hand evenly.  For most of us, this means pressing more firmly into the index finger mound.  Without adult supervision, weight will naturally roll to the outer heel of the hand.  But we have a lovely little nerve in there called the ulnar nerve (if you’ve ever had numbness in the outer hand after practicing, the compression of this little guy may be the reason why).  There is also a nerve in our carpal tunnel called the median nerve.  Keeping weight into our fingertips and medial palm edge will take the weight off of the heel of the hand and help you to protect both these nerves from over-compression.  Weighting into the fingertips will also give you more control of your weight – just like your toes help you to balance when you’re standing.

Tip #2: Maintain shoulder stability

Our shoulder girdle is only attached skeletally in one little place: the meeting point of the collarbone and sternum.  That’s it.  That’s all the skeletal support you’ve got when you’re balancing on your hands.  Therefore, you need excellent muscular stabilization through your back and your shoulders to support your arm balance effectively.  In the YYoga TT, we employ the actions, “lift your back ribs while you draw your shoulder blades together on your back” in order to recruit both sets of muscles that will stabilize the scapulae effectively.  In a nutshell, this means that the shoulders and the back body must become a place of support.  While it becomes tempting in arm balances to drop our shoulders down to the floor, we must earnestly continue to stabilize the shoulder blades on the back rather than collapse into gravity.

Think of lowering into chaturanga.  Effectively lowering from plank to chaturanga means that our shoulder blades stay on our back and that the heads of the arm bones stay lifted towards the sky.  When the shoulder heads drop, we place far too much pressure on the front of the rotator cuff and joint.  Similarly in arm balances, we must lift the heads of the arm bones skyward to maintain adequate stabilization of this shallow joint.

Tip #3: Core strength

You knew it would be in here. Yes, you need core strength.  However, core strength isn’t just about your six-pack.  Core strength means finding the connection from your big toes through the inner seams of your legs, through the pelvis floor and into the deepest layer of your abdominals, the transverse abdominus.  In a nutshell, find your “leg magnets” (as Chris Clancy might say) that link the inner seams of your legs together.   This engagement through the legs will naturally lift the pelvis floor and help you to deeply engage your core.

When doing an arm balance, we usually have our upper leg against our upper arms: use this connection to assist you in finding the muscular engagement of the inner leg.  Also, remember that your toes are part of your body, too.  By maintaining awareness from toes to pelvis, you will be able to recruit the legs to work for you so that they are not dead weight.

Tip #4: Control your booty

When doing a pose like bakasana (crow), the booty actually needs to be down.  Lifting the bum high will disconnect you from your core connection and make the pose more precarious.  By keeping the tailbone down and lifting vigorously through the sides of your waist, you will recruit more muscular stability in the pose, rather than teetering in a balance.

However, in other poses such as Eka Pada Galavasana, Parsva Bakasana (side crow),  and Eka Pada Koudinyasana, we must keep our bum high.  Letting the pelvis drop in these poses will deflate the integrity of the pose and make it much harder to shift your weight forward to take the weight off of the feet and find your balance.  While core integrity is necessary, lift off  in these poses depends on your ability to control your weight in space  – much like we move weight in a teeter totter.  When the pelvis stays high, you have the ability to shift the chest forward in space, which will allow the legs and back body to become light and eventually float.  If the pelvis drops, everything will move earthward and the levity of the pose will dissipate.

Playing in the poses

Bakasana (Crow): Booty low

  • In bakasana,  place your feet together on a block and take your knees wide.  Then place your hands outer shoulders’ distance apart, spread your fingers side, and evenly weight into all four corners of your palms – particularly the index finger mound
  • Get low, and bring your knees as high up onto your outer arms as you can.
  • Clamp your knees onto your outer, upper arms.
  • Gaze forward.
  • Keeping your booty low and your side waists high (think of an angry cat), begin to shift your weight forward into your hands as if you were a hovercraft.
  • Play with moving back and forth, and you will find that your feet become lighter and eventually leave the block.
  • Once your feet leave the block, clamp in with your thighs, lift through the sides of your waist, then begin to press down through the hands until the arms become straight.

Eka Pada Koundinyasana: Booty High

  • Come into a low lunge with both hands to the inside of your front foot.
  • Lift your back leg and lift your booty high.
  • Clamp your front knee onto your upper arm
  • Press into your hands, lift your back ribs skywards, and keep that as you anchor your shoulder blades on your back
  • Lift onto your front toes
  • Lift onto your back toes and begin to shift your weight forward
  • Keeping your shoulders lifted skywards and your booty high, lift your front foot off the ground. Either keep it bending in, or reach it diagonally away from your body (like you’re reaching it to 2 pm on a clock dial)
  • Keep your booty lifted and shoulders lifting as your reach your sternum forward and bring more weight onto your hands
  • Find the teeter-totter balance here as you reach the chest forward.  When the weight moves far enough ahead, the back toes will lift off the floor.

Bonus Tip #5: Patience

Arm balances are not natural for human kind.  After all, we don’t often find ourselves suddenly falling into an arm balance as we walk down the street!  Naturally, it takes time for our body to become confident balancing weight onto our hands.  Be patient, work slowly, and the support and ease that you cultivate will put in you in an excellent position for coming into flight.

In the meantime, the conscientious practice of the following poses are excellent warm ups to include in your preparations:

  • Cat/ Cow – particularly cat so you can keep your booty low!  Also, work your excellent hand position here
  • Plank – Chaturanga: practice keeping the shoulder heads lifting and keeping the hips and shoulders in line
  • Lizard – good for hip opening and practicing keeping that booty high!
  • Malasana – good for hip opening and finding the engagement of the inner thighs
  • Crescent- hug your “leg magnets” to find your core from your toes to your pelvis

Happy practicing!

 

 

Top Ten Life Lessons from my students

1. Practice.

We all reach plateaus in our practice.   “I’ll never get handstand.”  “I’m afraid of bakasana.”  But with every class, their sun salutations get a little stronger, their bodies more integrated, and their feet a little lighter.  Then one day, we have the a-ha!  “I’ve never done that before!”  Watching my students inexorably progress in their practice reminds me to stay patient and wait for the inevitable unfolding – not just in practice, but in life.  Everything really does move forward.

2. Community elevates.

It never fails: doing partner work in a class elevates the energy in the room.  Given the opportunity to connect with our fellow yogis, we all become brighter, more energized, and more dynamic.   Helping someone else reminds us how much we know and how much we can share.  Take this into the world and we find that connecting with our community helps us to tap into our potential.

3.  Connection energizes.

There have been many times where I have arrived to teach dog tired and done.  But I never fail to leave a class better than when I have arrived.  The opportunity to connect with my students and share gives me energy.   Teaching reminds me that when I share of myself, I am also elevated, healed, inspired.

4.  Be yourself.

The best classes that I have taught are classes where I have not tried to be an “ideal teacher,” but have simply been myself.  While this may have led to some goofy moments (“make your butt like Beyonce” was a recent artifact of this authenticity), I have found that students immediately respond when I am genuine.  Being a pristine asana robot just doesn’t cut it; they want the real thing – goofiness and all.   They remind me that sharing my silliest parts is actually far more rewarding than trying to fit into a box of perfection.

5. Fall Down.

Sometimes you have to fall over in Half Moon to figure out where the boundaries of balance are.  I’m thrilled when students dare to fall down.  How else will we find out where our edges are?  They remind me that moving forwards isn’t always about looking pretty.

6.  Turn the Heat Up.

Having just finished the YHot training, I can attest that sometimes you just gotta turn the heat up, close the door, meet yourself in the mirror, and sweat it out.  Like life, sometimes we need to move into the discomfort in order to break through.  Dare to face the intensity.  On the other side is a great Savasana.

7. When it’s tough, breathe more.

In the moments where we hit our peak pose, the room will often go silent.  As we intensely concentrate, we forget to breathe.  But once the reminder is sent out and the room starts to inhale again, the poses actually become more integrated and find softness.  When we face our greatest challenges,  we can get out of heads and back into our hearts by simply focusing on our breath.

8.  Take child’s pose.

The most advanced student in the room is the one who takes child’s pose when she needs to.  While there can be great value in rallying into intensity, sometimes the practice actually calls for surrender.  Determining which path to take requires discrimination and self-love.  Having the bravery to practice self-care by softening can do more to propel us along our path than twenty chaturangas.

9. Feel.

One of the gifts of the yoga practice is to feel more deeply into our bodies, our breath, and our aliveness.  I love to see my students take an extra breath in downdog, give a deep sigh, or take the arm variation their body craves, because it means that they are feeling into their bodies and following its guidance.   Rather than simply doing the practice “right,” they are using the practice as a conduit to greater self-connection.  When my students feel their way through the practice – rather than just “doing” the practice – I am reminded that the body is a deep and innate source of wisdom.

10. We are all human.   

When I share a personal story at the beginning of class and see nodding heads, I am reminded that we have far more in common than we have divergent.  Each of us has dreams, regrets, conflict, hopes, loss, and love.  Each of us is trying our best to negotiate the waters of life with grace and compassion.  When we practice yoga in the classroom, we come together with a diversity of people from all walks of life.  On the mat, these differences drop away and we meet each other from the heart.   Out in the world, this reminds me to look for the good in others, rather than staking my ego on our differences.

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!

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.

 

 

 

 

 

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.