Restorative Poses

For the month of December we will focus on restorative poses.

That doesn’t mean that we will turn our vinyasa classes into restorative classes. It just means that we will include a restorative posture during every class.

Some students have a hard time with restorative postures. They might not see their value. After all, you are not really “doing” anything in a restorative pose. But, restorative poses are deceptively effective if you give them a chance.

Take Reclining Hero Pose, for example:

Some students can lie down in this pose fairly easily, but can’t hold it for 2 minutes. That is an example of what I would call deceptive flexibility.  This is when you can force your body into a position but you cannot maintain it because it is not comfortable. You are not really that flexible. That is an example of “doing the pose”. If you can cultivate a sense that you could be in a posture forever, then the pose can do you. Your body can reap the benefits of the pose and you can reset your resting muscle length.

If you are willing to experiment with props and support your body in a pose, you can cultivate a sense of serenity and equipoise in a pose and you might feel that you could stay forever, or at least 2 to 3 minutes with ease. In modern exercise physiology we have learned that you need to hold a stretch for between 30 and 120 seconds in order to change the resting length of your muscles.

Restorative postures are the perfect balance to busyness; the perfect antidote for this holiday season. Give them a try this month.

So Hum – The Mantra of the Breath

The ancient yogis thought the breath was the most important thing that you had.  Obviously, without the breath you would cease to exist.  As modern people we often feel that life is fast paced and because we are so rushed, we often forget things.  But perhaps the seers of old often felt the same way.  They taught that the breath was the one thing you always had with you.  You don’t need any other things, just find a spot to sit and feel your breath.

We often take the breath for granted, but I encourage you to pause for a moment and think about it.  Breath is a most intricate dance of give and take.  When we are born Shakti, that great feminine principle of the energy of action, is said to exhale into us.  As we exhale our last breath she is there to breathe us in.

Breathing is our primary method of exchange with the universe.  When we inhale, it is an act of receiving.  How do we receive things: money, food, goods, compliments, criticisms?  Do we receive consciously and with gratitude?  Or, are we takers, gulping things down greedily?  Is our breath restricted?  Do we barely breathe, afraid of taking in new things?   Are we afraid of change?  When we exhale, it is indicative of how we give.  Do we do so generously?  Do we give out more compliments or more criticisms?  Do we give with strings attached, restricting the breath by gripping?

The ancient yogis knew about the benefits of slow, deep breathing; they passed down practices of pranayama, or breathing exercises, to us.  Most of these practices were aimed at making our breath longer, slower, deeper and more refined.  These wise practitioners cautioned us that we were born with a specific number of breaths and that when we used them up, we would die.

The ancient yogis knew what they were talking about because modern science tells us that our breath is intricately tied in with our health.  When we are stressed, we breathe shallowly and rapidly, barely ever taking in a full tankful of air. This means that the blood is never fully oxygenated and carbon dioxide is never fully released;  nutrients aren’t being delivered properly and wastes are not being removed fully.  This makes the blood more acidic.  We have all heard that if our systems are too acidic, it is not beneficial.  Increasing the acidity of the blood is one of the ways that stress is injurious to our bodies.  While we cannot control the stressors in our environment, we can do things to lessen the effects of stress on our bodies like pausing to take a few minutes to breathe fully and deeply. By fully oxygenating the blood it is restored to its normal ph level.

Since it only takes the blood about 1 minute to make a round trip to the heart, you can quickly make a difference in the effect stress has on your body.  While it would be ideal to keep up breathing slowly in a full and deep way, you won’t be able to maintain it.  But, the benefits of pausing occasionally during your day and slowing down the breath has enough benefit to make it a practice that is worthwhile.

Our bodies are regulated and controlled by our nervous system which can be further divided into what falls under our voluntary or involuntary control.  As an example, our muscles are under our voluntary control and our digestion happens involuntarily.  Most systems in the body are regulated by one or the other, but the breath falls under both.  Most of the time we breathe unconsciously.  But we can also control our breath voluntarily.

I’m sure you’ve had the experience where someone has told you to calm down and take a deep breath when you have been very excited or agitated.  When we get stressed, we breathe rapidly and shallowly.  Our involuntary nervous system kicks in taking us into ’fight or flight’ mode and shutting down things like digestion.  But we can take some slow deep breaths to calm ourselves.    This brings us out of ‘fight or flight’ and into ‘rest and digest’

The practice of the mantra So-Hum can help with this.  It is a beautiful practice that ties breath with mantra to help bring you into a quiet and calm state.

Find a comfortable seat.  This can be on the floor in a cross-legged position, or it can be done in a chair.    Close your eyes and get in tune with your breath.

As you feel the breath coming in through the nostrils, feel that it makes a subtle “So” sound, and on the exhale feel that it makes a “Hum” sound.

Sit with the breath for a few moments and feel “So” as you inhale and “Hum” as you exhale.  Allow the rhythm of the breath to establish itself.  Be consistent with the “So- Hum” sound.  Let it lull you into a meditative state.

As you feel the breath come in, begin to repeat “I am” with the inhalation and “That” with the exhalation.  With each breath feel each one of your identities that arise with the thought, “I am”.  I am a mother, a teacher, a woman, a friend, a worrier (yes, those things, too!).  You may be surprised at how many things you can identify with.  But, realize that you are more than just “that”.  Stay with this mantra and the meditation of “I am that” for anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes. Set a timer if you wish.     Allow yourself to run out of identities and come to the realization that you are all of those things and more.  You could be any of those things, or none.  You could be anything you want to be.  Stay with this contemplation until you come to a state of unified consciousness.  Your breathing has become slow and deep and just for a few moments, you have entered into a state of deep meditation.  Your mind is quiet.  Your breath is slow and deep and full.  Your body and your brain will thank you for this.

All Dharma Teachings agree on one point – lessening one’s self-absorption.

It is the perfect time of year to be reading The Book of Joy about the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, written by Douglas Abrams.
The topic sentence that heads this blog post comes from The Book of Joy, where the Buddhist method of Lojong teachings is mentioned. (Lojong is a mind training practice based on a set of aphorisms that are designed as an antidote to undesired mental habits that cause suffering.)

The text clarifies that when we focus only on ourselves, we are destined to be unhappy: “Contemplate that, as long as you are too focused on your self-importance and too caught up in how you are good or bad, you will experience suffering. Obsessing about getting what you want and avoiding what you don’t want does not result in happiness. Included in this text is the admonition: “Always maintain a joyful mind.”
This ties in with the yogic teaching on the five kleshas being the main obstacles on our path to Samadhi, which translates as meditative absorption, freedom and joy.

The five kleshas are:
Avidya, or seeing things incorrectly. (Looking for happiness in all the wrong places)
Asmita, or ego. (Focusing too much on ourselves)
Raga, or attachment (Focusing on getting what we want)
Dvesha, or aversion (Trying to avoid what we don’t want)
Abhinivesha, or fear, specifically fear of death (Fear of change of any sort, but specifically the ultimate change of dying.)

So, what is a joyful mind?

Buddhists believe that joy is our natural state, but the ability to experience joy can be cultivated as a skill. So much depends on where we put our attention: on our own suffering or that of others, on our own perceived separation or on our indivisible connection.

Everybody wants to be happy, but the challenge is that a lot of people don’t know how. I was surprised to read in this book a statistic about a psychological study done in 1978 that found that lottery winners were not significantly happier than those who had been paralyzed in an accident! The study was perhaps the first that put forth the idea that we all have a default state of happiness; that after the initial reaction wears off, we return to a “set point”.

Further psychological studies suggest that certain immutable factors such as our genes and our temperament make up this idea of a set point which constitutes about 50% of our happiness. The other half is determined by a combination of our circumstances, over which we may have limited control, and our attitudes and our actions, over which we have a great deal of control.

Three practices that have the greatest influence on increasing our happiness are:
Our ability to reframe our situation more positively. (Learn to see the lesson or blessing in every situation.)
Our ability to experience gratitude. (Cultivate a gratitude practice.)
Our choice to be kind and generous. (Always be mindful of the needs of others.)
These three practices create the attitudes and actions help us cultivate a more joyful life.

There is a wonderful Buddhist parable about suffering and the end of suffering. This story is known as the Parable of the Mustard Seed.
A young mother’s only son dies. She is heartbroken and stricken with grief. She carries his body from neighbor to neighbor asking each one if they have any medicine or can do anything to revive him, but no one can. One neighbor suggests that she take her son to Buddha and ask him to bring her son back to life. The Buddha agrees to revive her son, but he tells the woman that she needs to gather mustard seeds from households that have never been touched by death. From these special mustard seeds he will create a medicine that will revive her son. All of her neighbors are willing to give her mustard seeds, but they all told her that none of them have been untouched by death.

Through this process the woman becomes enlightened. She is able to step out of her own grief and experience the grief of others. She becomes less focused on herself and finds friends and community.

As you gather around the Thanksgiving table this year, be grateful for the many blessings in your life, for the food you have to eat, for all of those who contributed to that food being on your table, for your family and friends and finally, may you not be too self-absorbed, may you always be mindful of the needs of others.

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” - Melody Beattie

Moving and Flowing

In last week’s post I commented on the difference between holding poses for a long time and moving and flowing from one pose to the next.  Both are challenging in different ways.  As I observe students move through these flowing sequences this month, I can see where they can hold the poses together and where they can’t and the poses fall apart.   Moving and flowing requires more than strength and coordination, you also need a clear path and a plan to get there.  The path and the plan come from knowledge and repetition; of both the poses and of the sequences.

A clear path comes from knowing the poses: Where are your feet?  Your hands? Which way is the torso facing?  Are the legs bent or straight?  And from knowing what is important in each pose.  Students often mistake what is important in a pose.  In Side Angle students often think it is more important that the hand is on the floor.  The hand should only be placed on the floor if the alignment of the rest of the body can be optimized and maintained.

Let’s take a look at Side Angle Pose, for an example:

In this pose, my front foot is pointing straight ahead and is perpendicular to the arch of my back foot, with my back foot turned in slightly.
My front knee is over its ankle and my back foot is far enough away so that my front thigh is parallel to the floor.  If I could not bend my front thigh to 90 degrees then I would have to move my back foot closer.  But then, my front hand would have to be on a block.    My right forearm is practically hidden from view by my right shin.  They should be lined up, with my right knee pressing against my right arm.

My body is a straight line from the outer edge of my left foot up through my left finger tips.  My left arm is very close to my face, in a straight line. (I call this “handstand arm”.  The arm is in the same position it would be if you were in a handstand.)  My neck is in a straight line with my body and just my gaze is turned up.

My torso is facing the camera, not the floor.  If you have your hand on the floor and your torso is facing downwards, then your hand is too low and you need to raise it on a block. It is more important that the body is turned sideways than it is that the hand is on the floor.

Make the transition in as few moves as possible

Do you remember that show, “Name That Tune”?  It was a game where contestants tried to name a song in as few notes as possible to beat their opponent and win prizes.  Think about making the transition from Side Angle to Half Moon with the fewest steps possible.

In order to make the transition form Side Angle to Half Moon Pose, it is important that I not turn my torso to face the floor.  It is already facing sideways in Side Angle and it should still be facing sideways in Half Moon.  Learn to keep the torso sideways as you make the transition.  Learn to stay in alignment.  Take a look at this picture of Mr. Iyengar.  In this photo, he is taking the intermediate step from Side Angle as he prepares to move into Half Moon.  Notice his body position.  He lunges deeper into his front knee, reaches his bottom hand forward as he steps his back leg in.  The top arm rests along the side of his body as he prepares to step up.  Notice how he does not turn his torso to the floor!

Develop the strength in the front leg to drive down through your standing heel and straighten your standing leg as you come into half moon.  This is all about quadriceps strength.  Notice, in the superimposed picture, that my front foot does not move at all.

Once you come onto your standing leg, expand out through all of your extremities equally.

The alignment of the standing leg is not any different from the shin in Side Angle Pose, it is still vertical.  The straight line of the body shifts as the torso moves more horizontal to the floor.  The arms, well, they are supposed to be vertical and the upper arm is over the lower arm.  As you can see, I need to work on that!  But, that is the idea.

To come out of the pose, you reverse the steps and be as mindful as you were when you came into it.  People often get hurt in transitions when they let go.  Stay engaged until you are back in Tadasana.  Think about it this way, rather than engage, let go and then re-engage, stay engaged as you move from one pose to the next.

This is just one of the transitions that I will be working on in class this month, but this is a big one and a fun one to play with.  See how smoothly you can shift from Side Angle to Half Moon and back again.  Have fun with it.  Notice your improvement and celebrate your accomplishments.  I’ll see you in class!

Vinyasa Pose of the Month – Dancing Warrior Series, or going with the flow.

The weather feels as if it is finally changing to fall. What better way to help our bodies through this transition than to focus on transitions from one yoga pose to the next. We can use the flow of yoga poses to help keep us warm as our bodies adapt to the change from the unseasonal warm temperatures we had been experiencing to the more seasonal temperatures of November.

Instead of focusing on a single pose for the month of November, we are going to with the flow. Our focus will be on Vinyasa Flow. Expect to see Sun Salutes, Moon Salutes, Dancing Warrior Series and other transitions linking poses together.

In general, yoga practice builds strength and flexibility. But you can shift the focus of your practice by doing static poses for long holds or by constantly moving and flowing from one pose to the next. Long holds of single poses builds patience, stamina, endurance, perseverance and awareness of the body in space. This is a great practice for times when you feel scattered and need to get grounded. Flowing sequences build trust, confidence and coordination. A practice that focuses more on movement can energize you when you are feeling stuck or sluggish, or it can let off steam when you feel ready to burst from excitement or tension.

Just because we will be flowing more this month, please don’t throw your alignment to the wind! The word vinyasa means to place or step carefully, so as we move from one pose to the next, let your movements be thoughtful and considered. Sun Salutations are said to be a body mantra. Think of this type of a practice as a physical prayer and move through your practice as if it is an offering from your heart.

While I never think of yoga as a weight loss program, I did schedule this practice for now when there are many temptations to over-eat, or to eat less healthy. I love the way this type of practice makes me feel afterwards. I often feel clean and detoxified which makes me want to be careful about what I eat after.

I saw a sign outside of a gym the other day that said: “The average person gains 5 pounds between November 1 and January 1.” Yikes! A little scare tactic to get you into their program. However, if we are not mindful about what we eat, we could easily fulfill this statistic. Remember that yoga should be done on an empty stomach. And after your workout, when you are ready to eat, make sure you replenish your muscles with some protein. Avoid the temptation to go for empty calories that only leave you craving more later. Eating mindfully and healthfully is an important part of my yogic lifestyle.

The Great Death Conquering Mantra

Mahamrityunjaya Mantra:

Om Tryambakam Yajamahe
Sugandhim Pushtivardhanam
Urvarukamiva Bandhanan
Mrityor Mukshiya Maamritat

Literal meaning:

Tryambakam = the three-eyed one (accusative case)
Yajamahe = We worship, adore, honor, revere
Sugandhim = sweet fragrance (accusative case)
Pushti = A well-nourished condition, thriving, prosperous, full, and complete
Vardhanam = One who nourishes, strengthens, causes to increase (in health, wealth, well-being); who gladdens, exhilarates, and restores health; a good gardener
Urvarukam = disease, attachment, obstacles in life, and resulting depression (accusative case)
Iva = like, just as
Bandhanan = stem (of the gourd); but more generally, unhealthy attachment
Mrityor = From death
Mukshiya = Free us, liberate us
Ma = not
Amritat = Immortality, emancipation 

Usable meaning:

Om, We worship The Three-Eyed One (Lord Shiva)
Who Is Fragrant (Spiritual Essence)
And Who Nourishes All Beings
May He Severe Our Bondage Of Samsara (Worldly Life),
Like A Cucumber (severed From The Bondage Of Its Creeper)
And Thus Liberate Us From The Fear Of Death,
By Making Us Realize That We Are Never Separated From Our Immortal Nature 

Listen to a traditional version of the chant here.
Listen to it performed more as a song here.  This is the version I play in class.

One of the Best Shoulder Openers – Setu Bandha Sarvangasana

And all you have to do is lie there! This supported pose is a precursor to Shoulderstand.  Setu Bandha Sarvangasana benefits all of the systems of the body so you can recover your health. It reduces fatigue by draining fluids from the legs after long periods of standing. Athletes find it beneficial after a long run to help reduce soreness in the leg and hip muscles. This pose also helps to relieve headaches or mental agitation which are often symptoms of over work.

Set up: place your mat with the short edge against the wall. You will need a bolster, two blocks and a belt. Place the blocks at the wall for your heels to rest on. Place the bolster lengthwise on your mat. In this pose you want your heels on the wall, the bolster under your torso and your shoulders on the floor.

Technique: Place your belt around the middle of your thighs. It should be snug. Sit on the edge of the bolster closest to the wall. Have your knees bent and your feet on the wall. Lie back over the bolster and let your head hang over the far end. Keeping your back down on the bolster, push into the wall with your feet and allow the bolster to pull down on the skin of your upper back as you slide off the edge of the bolster. You may have to do this a couple of times to get the exact measurement. You want to have your entire foot pressing into the wall. The bolster should reach up to the bottom tips of your shoulder blades and it lifts your chest, but your head and shoulders should be resting on the floor. Having your thighs belted will keep the legs resting in a parallel position without exerting any effort. Take a good look at the picture to get all of the alignment points correct.

You can rest here for anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes. When you are finished, roll over off of the bolster and rest on your side for a few breaths before coming up. You can practice this pose everyday if you’d like. If you want it to work on helping to open your shoulders, you’d have to practice it at least 3 or 4 times a week.

If you back hurts during or after, the bolster was too thick. Either use a thinner bolster or a folded blanket, or support your head and shoulders with a blanket.

Regarding Shoulders – continued: Developing Yoga Teacher Sight.

Last week I talked about and showed pictures of what it looks like when you are lying on the floor with your shoulders rounded. I used the floor as a reference point so you could see this more clearly.

I want to make sure that you can see and understand this from a teacher's perspective.  These differences can appear to be subtle, but they have a profound effect on the body and mind.

This week let’s look at what this looks like in Bridge Pose. One of the main concepts in many poses from Tadasana and especially into the Backbends is to open the chest.   Daily living seems to make us round our shoulders.  Yoga can help reverse these effects.

Take a look at the following series of photos and pay close attention to the effect that rounded shoulders have on the pose.

Lying on the floor, shoulders rounded, sunken chest

Bridge prep, shoulders rounded, sunken chest

Bridge pose, shoulders rounded, sunken chest

Compare and contrast the differences in the following three photos:

Lying down, shoulders back, chest lifted

Bridge prep, shoulders back, chest lifted

Bridge pose, shoulders back, chest lifted

Can you clearly see the difference an open chest has on these simple postures?  But, what happens if you try and your chest doesn't open like that?  Next week I will show some restorative poses to work on to open the chest.

Let me know if this was helpful.  I'll see you in class!

P.S.  I wish someone had told me to put my toes down!  Although lifting the toes is a good remedial action that forms the arches in the feet and helps to keep the knees from splaying out; they shouldn't be lifted that way in the final pose.

Regarding Shoulders

The word yoga means “to come together, to unite.” This refers to tying the mind, body and breath together.  When we do our yoga poses we strive to do them intelligently; to put our mind in our bodies.  For example; to know how rolling the heads of the arm bones back lifts the chest.  The practice of yoga helps our bodies learn to feel these things.  We endeavor to make our whole selves shiny (with an inner radiance), bright and alert.  When our mind is not in our bodies, that part of our body becomes dull and lifeless.  This intelligence is what differentiates yoga from merely stretching.  And it is this inner inquiry that helps us to make progress on the path of yoga.  If we are not aware of what we are or are not doing, we can stay stuck.  Awareness always proceeds change.

There are a lot of things we could be focusing on in any yoga pose, but today I want to shine a light on the shoulders.  I noticed things shifted in my yoga practice when I began to look at my shoulders and realize that I was slumping.  My teachers would say things like "Take the heads of your arm bones back. What does that mean? In my Anusara training the concept used was called “Shoulder Loop”.  The cueing went like this:  “Side body long and the heads of the arm bones back.”

What does that mean to make the side body long?  And why should we do this?

When we do yoga we not only exercise the muscles, which pull on and affect the bones, but the poses also affect our nervous systems and our internal organs.  In everyday life we tend to slump.  Some of that is because we work at keyboards (as I am doing right now) Or, it can be a form of protection of the heart because life is hard and we don’t want to be vulnerable.  Slumping compresses our lungs and heart making it harder to take a full breath and making it harder for the heart to pump blood.  When the chest is caved in, it indirectly puts pressure on the abdominal organs, making it harder for them to function as well.  The decrease in oxygen intake and compression of the organs makes our brain dull and we feel sluggish.

How do you make the side body long?  Lengthen your side waist from your hips to your armpits by lifting the heads of your arm bones up towards your ears.  Then roll the heads of the arm bones backward allowing your scapula, or shoulder blades, to settle on your back close to the spine.  Release the scapula down towards your waist without letting them slide apart again.  This releases your shoulders away from your ears and allows them to settle into a more natural position.  Make sure you don't let the shoulders roll forward again.  The next time you find yourself slumped over your computer keyboard and you are starting to feel sluggish and sleepy, take one minute to sit up straight and try this.  Remain in this upright position and breathe; notice how it feels.  This is how long it takes for your blood to circulate through your body. In just one minute, with full, deep breathing you can 100% oxygenate your blood. Notice the effect this has on your body and your mind.

I wanted to clearly illustrate what it looks like with my shoulder blades rounding forward and with them rolled back so I took the pictures while lying on the floor so you could see the difference more clearly.  Can you see the difference?  What do your shoulders look like?  Now can you do this while standing up?

Shoulders rounding forward

Shoulders back and down

This is the beginning of being able to open the upper chest and move the upper thoracic spine into the body.  This starts in Tadasana, but is especially important in back bends.  Next week I will continue this exploration into Bridge Pose.