Patience and Breath.

photo by Robyn Graham

It took me about eight years to be able to touch the floor in a standing froward bend. I hope you don't get discouraged by that announcement. It might have taken me less time if I wasn't so obsessed with it. I remember when I started doing yoga again in the 90's, after being away from it for several years. I was tight. I would watch other people come into yoga class and they would be as tight as I was, but then I noticed that they began to get more flexible and I didn't seem to be making any progress. I kept wondering what I was doing wrong. My teacher at the time wasn't that particular about alignment. She wasn't particularly helpful, either. One day she asked me when I was going to get over my hamstring thing! I wished I knew. I thought the day that I would finally be able to touch the floor would be a memorable day for me because I wanted it so bad.

I kept working on my hamstring flexibility by trying harder. I tried so hard that my hamstring attachments at my sitting bones would hurt. I kept irritating them by pushing too hard. One day I finally tore my hamstring. Ouch! I kept practicing, afraid to give up my perceived progress. My sitting bones hurt almost all the time. My physical therapist wasn't much help. I had better range of motion with a torn hamstring than most of his patients would ever hope to achieve. I became even more interested in alignment and anatomy. However, it wasn't until I re-injured my hamstring and ended back in my orthopedic surgeon's office that I started to figure things out. My orthopedic surgeon gave me the best advice for healing my hamstring. I had asked him how could I tell if I was rehabilitating my hamstring or re-injuring it, because when you do physical therapy on an injury, it hurts! This is what he told me:

"When you have an injury, it hurts. Assign the pain you have a number from 1 to 10, with 1 being no pain and 10 being the most pain. So, let's say the pain is a 5 today. When you begin to do your yoga practice, try to keep the pain at the same level. If the pain goes up, don't let it go up by more than 1. When you stop exercising, the pain should return to the same level it was before you started. And (here's where the patience comes in) the next day, your pain should not be any worse."

So, you can only tell if you have gone too far by how you feel the next day! After he told me that, I didn't need too many of those next days where the pain would shoot up to a 7 or 8 to figure it out. I learned to back off, feel what was going on in my body and work smarter, not harder. When I stopped pushing myself so hard, my progress in forward bends developed quickly. I paid more attention to my alignment and to my breath. I cannot remember the day when I was finally able to touch the floor in a standing forward bend because the goal became so much less important than the process.

Are we sensation junkies? Do we push ourselves too hard to feel something? In our effort to feel something, are we not feeling what is already there? Perhaps what we need to feel in our bodies is a greater sense of ease. My Iyengar teacher would say that most students cannot differentiate between pain and a stretch. I know she was right in my case. Where are we trying to get to? What's the rush? Are we so focused on getting somewhere that we cannot appreciate where we are right now? Let me know where you are frustrated. Write in a comment below.

Do you have pain in your body when you are practicing yoga? Are your frustrated with your progress or perceived lack of progress? I would be happy to help you explore these questions. If you are interested, you can always schedule a private with me. Contact me by clicking here.

Several people have expressed interest in learning more about what is going on under their skin while they are doing yoga poses, without having to go through a teacher training program. I am in the process of putting together an experiential anatomy workshop for anyone who is interested in learning more about their anatomy while doing yoga. If this is something that you would be interested in, please leave a comment below. What three things would you like to learn about your body in yoga?

Pinca Mayurasana – a preparatory shoulder stretch

I have many favorite warm ups for this Forearm Balance Posture. One of them is this stretch over a chair. You have to have a chair with the back removed, otherwise it won’t work. Make sure the chair is on a mat so it won’t slide out from under you. Place a blanket over the chair seat to pad the back of your shoulder blades. Sit in front of the chair, facing away from it. Lean back (if this is too much of a trust exercise for you, you can sit on two blocks or a bolster to make it easier to lean back) and place your head and shoulder blades on the chair. Once you are secure on the chair, lift your hips up in the air so your torso is parallel to the floor. Use one of your hands to feel that the top of your head is lined up with the back edge of the chair seat. This is important; otherwise it won’t be a stretch in the right place! Once you are lined up, thread your arms through the chair back, reach down and grab the back rung of the chair. Take your hands wide on the back rung. The sides of the chair will not let your elbows splay out. Start with your body parallel to the floor. With your breath, gradually allow your seat to begin to drop towards the floor. You should not be able to touch the floor. If your block or bolster is in the way, you might want to remove it. It is nice to have it there when you want to come down, however. Hold the stretch for five breaths and then release down and rest. You can try it again, if you want. I like to do it three times. Each time I try to move my body so that my back is getting leveraged in a slightly different spot over the front edge of the chair seat. That does mean that one time my head is slightly past the back edge of the chair and the third time, my head is in a little form the edge of the chair seat. Be careful, this can be a big stretch. You don’t want it to move towards a painful stretch.

If you are not sure about it, please ask. Ok? I’ll see you in class! Karin

Triangmukaikapada Pascimottanasana

If you look at one side of this pose, it looks like Child’s Pose.

If you look at it from the other side, it looks like Seated Forward Bend. That tells you something about perspective, doesn’t it?

While both postures are basically forward-folding, introspective postures, Seated Forward Fold exerts a stronger pull on your hamstrings, and Child’s Pose requires a deep bending at the knee and pointing of the feet. If your body is tight or resistant in those areas, this pose can be quite daunting. Asymmetrical postures are always more challenging in that way. If you find that to be true for our pose of the month, try practicing Child’s Pose and then Seated Forward Bend separately.

I am a big fan of the divide-and-conquer school of practicing yoga poses. If both parts of the posture are hard for you, start with the easier one. Keep trying the harder part, but you don’t need to do both of them together until at least one of them feels more comfortable.Save

A Sequence for Parivrtta Trikonasana

Let’s look at some postures to prepare you for Revolved Triangle.

I like to start in an easy Lunge Twist to warm up the spine for rotating.

Next, I would progress to Side Angle Pose.  This is a good pose to get some length in the side waist.

Triangle stretches the hamstrings in the front leg and warms them up for a deeper stretch in our pose of the month.

Next I would begin working the hips square.  Try a Wide Legged Forward Fold and after holding this pose for a few breaths, lift the torso so the spine is parallel to the floor.  Keep one hand on the floor under the chest and lift the other arm up and out to the side twisting to look up at the top hand. Keep the hips level as you twist and keep the spine in a long straight line form tailbone to top of head.

Next, I would do Crescent Lunge, followed by Pyramid Pose.

From Pyramid Pose you can open up into Easy Revolved Triangle, the bottom hand on the inside of the front leg, or full Revolved Triangle,  bottom hand crosses over the forward leg and gates the outside of the shin. Remember to keep your spine long and your breath full.  Be mindful to use the arms for stability and not leverage.

Let me know how this sequence works for you.  I’ll see you in class!   Karin

Urdhva Mukha Svanasana 2

Back bends are done from leg strength. You’ve heard me say this in class repeatedly. What does this mean?

It basically means that the back bend starts in the legs, not in the back. If the legs are not working when you look at someone doing Up Dog or even Cobra, the feet will be wider than the hips and the big toes will be on the floor, but the pinky toes will be turning up away from the floor with the legs externally rotating. If you follow the lines of energy up the feet through the legs, they will converge right in the lumbar spine. Ouch! This can create pinching in the low back. In order for the legs to work properly, they must remain parallel; this means the heels are sitting bone distance apart and the legs remain parallel all the way up into the hip. The tops of the feet press into the floor with all 10 toes pressing equally down into the floor. If you were to trace a line from the center of each heel, it should run up the middle of the leg, through the sitting bones up the back on either side of the spine, and end in the tops of the shoulders. These lines would be parallel all the way through the body and not converge anywhere. In Upward facing Dog, the legs are straight, no bend at the knee and the inner thighs lift upward toward the ceiling. The kneecaps are lifted and the front of the thigh is engaged. This is where your core starts, in the feet and legs.Save

Krishna Das Playlist

Here is an hour-and-a-half playlist for you to enjoy:

Namah Shivaya - Pilgrim Heart
Rock on Hanuman - Elephant Power - M.C. Yogi featuring Krishna Das
Sri Hanuman Chaleesa - Door of Faith
Mountain Hare Krishna - Pilgrim Heart
God Is Real/Hare Ram - Door of Faith
Kashi Vishwanath Gange - Breath of the Heart
Ma Durga - Breath of the Heart
Mere Gurudev - Door of Faith
Baba Hanuman - Breath of the Heart
Sita Ram - Chants of a Lifetime (CD comes with the book)