Today at the Y, I did Primary and up to Supta Vajrasana--not that I'm "done" with Kapo at all, but if SV is going to help with my thoracic, and if it's going to change my Kapo (as they say it does), then it must be part of the mix. I think of it as sort of "Kapo-dessert." It's basically part of that pose for me now.
Anyway:
I was listening keenly for hip flexor action in the whole practice, and here's where I felt it:
1) Parivrtta Parsvakonasana. Revolved side angle. Particularly, with the LEFT leg forward. This stretches the right hip long, esp. with the foot turned out and planted down; gets me right in the tailbone-to-greater-trochanter glute mystery, and also straight up in the outer hip, iliac crest to greater trochanter. For the record, I do this pose with five fingers on the floor but no palm, top hand extended over the ear.
2) Marichyasana C. Finally taking a wrist again (after the hip crankiness of summer half-bending took it away for a while) I can crank a GIANT twist in this pose, and on both sides, I get a lot of action in the right hip, again in the glute, and secondarily up at the top of the iliac crest, sort of tailbone to outer hip. What is UP with that gluteus maximus (it's only the right one that acts up)?
3) Supta Kurmasana. The up-dog after this exit (which I have been NAILING lately, and that's fun) is totally delicious for a hip flexor stretch, and it's both sides, but of course I am more aware of it on the right side. When I do Intermediate, the up-dog after Eka Pada Sirsasana also has this same deliciousness.
4) Supta Padangusthasana. In each "rotation out to the side," there is an AMAZING pulling stretch all through the lateral hip fascia. This goes for both sides. When I swing out the left/right foot, the opposite hip gets this incredible release right in the tensor fasciae latae area, or maybe the deeper glutes; very lateral hip. It's delicious, and I took 8 breaths in that part of the pose to work it.
5) Pasasana. Predictably. Going to the right, there's some stretching in the hip, but going LEFT, there is this incredible and intense opening, moreso if I really try to put the side ribs on the thigh; the more twist I ask of the thoracic, the more this stretch gets ALL OVER the right hip--the lateral fascia, the greater trochanter-to-tailbone glute route, the whole thing.
6) Dhanurasana. This pose and the side variations have always gotten directly and specifically all over the hip flexors. Today they were creeping (not in a pleasant way) into my low back (but I know why that is; see below), and so I emphasized the "ribs up and away" rule and that took some of the energy out of the low back.
7) Kapotasana. Again, predictably, duh. Now I know that Ustrasana gets into the flexors, too, but today I just didn't feel the magic there, so I'm skipping mentioning it (aside from this aside, of course). I hung back for five breaths, which weren't totally comfortable or easy to breathe in, and then dropped. Walked in twice, bumped the left toes. Good. Where are the right ones? By myself, I could get no deeper. Thighs engage, and sure enough, I feel resistance and stretch in a line directly across the front of the right hip (not the left one). So I made the pose about that, rather than taking the toes. Pushed up for five, tried to launch up with a fingertip press, and didn't make it. Eh. So be it.
8) Supta Vajrasana. Fingers stayed on toes, going back again. Psyched! However, elbows hit the floor before head touched, and I couldn't get the arch to behave to make it the other way around. This didn't feel as marvelous as it did last night. Supta V achievers, should it be head-instead-of-elbows? Input?
9) Urdhva Dhanurasana. As I've said before, I press up, and often feel a stretch in the front and side of the right hip. This can be increased by rotating the thigh in harder, or moving the toes of that foot inward toward the left foot, or simply pushing the right hip higher than the left. I usually just increase the thigh rotation. I'm still wary of my wrist (although it feels better) and so I didn't walk in past my cotton-rug wrist-wedge's allowances (it allows about 1 1/2 inches of walk-in), but I think that the persistent right-hip stretch I felt today, indicates that the whole thing is changing. It appears and reappears in so many poses that I want to do--and on which my current practice "is working"--that I think a time has finally come for this mystery to be revealed.
10) Dropbacks. I think I figured out something important today. I was hanging back, doing my usual pattern ("straighten legs, drop a little more, repeat") and I found that with each straightening of legs, the right hip flexors (the left ones, too, but the right moreso) would pull open, stretching with intensity. Then as the legs bent, the stretch backed off, and sometimes it would move into the low back. But then I'd straighten the legs again, and the stretch would move around front to that pulling open feeling.
I think that the hip flexors "pass" stretches on to the low back, in exactly the same way that hips that don't want to externally rotate (say, in lotus) pass the stretch on to the knees.
My evidence for this is that in the vinyasa version of Dancer's pose (where you reach back like Dhanurasana, not over your head like Natarajasana), for a long time I felt serious discomfort in the low back, and NOT a stretch in the front thigh. Also, in last night's assisted come-to-standings from dropbacks, a LOT of pressure got exerted on my low back (and that's where my tweaky back in Dhanurasana today came from) because (I think) the hip flexors are not ready to engage to pull me up yet (YET).
So I think that engaging the thighs causes the hip flexors to stretch (a wonderful strength-flexibility paradox of practically all backbending). Thus, in my hangbacks, I'm really going to give myself the Kino rule ("Stick-straight legs!") in order to get the flexors into the game.
These have been the discoveries! More, of course, to be posted next time.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
A Monday night encounter with Intermediate's "core postures"
Matthew Sweeney once identified four "core postures" in Intermediate: they are (predictably) Pasasana the noose, Kapotasana the pigeon, Dwi Pada (two legs behind head) and Karandavasana, the lowering/picking up of the lotus goose, to the forearms.
As it is a Monday night, I had an opportunity to meet all four, as well as to develop my backbend mission, which I reinstated, once again, last post.
Pasasana: bound with feet flat, going to the right. This is good, like the old days before all that half-bending made my hips cranky. Bound with toes up, going left. Heels are still apart; needs work to get feet flat. POST-practice, I was able to bind it with flat feet, and it cranks BIG into the tricky right hip (put this on the list).
Kapotasana: I held the hang back for ten breaths. I felt something in the low abs give me a bit more depth. I dropped back, walked in, walked in again, bumped the left toes. Couldn't find the right ones. A few breaths there and teacher came over, moved the hands in, got me quickly to a toe-grab with both hands. We spent about 7 breaths down there. Then up, five breaths in a big bent-arm Kapo B and then assisted come-up. Very intense, nervous system developments, once up. Many breaths, probably a dozen, before the floating Lolasana vinyasa.
Supta Vajrasana (I know count this as part of Kapo, primarily because of tonight's experience): finally I duplicated the recent toe-hold from last Sunday's Y practice. Two fingers on each toe, and a big lean back, without losing contact. Not head to floor, but a really nice thoracic opening, and a big one. Ten breaths back there.
Dwi Pada: I've been putting myself into a variation of this. Left leg back, left hand down. Right hand to right foot, shoulder tries to tuck under thigh, foot up and over. The left slips out as I bind it with the right, and then I lock the ankles and try to crank the feet behind my head (they like to float over it). I can't sit up in that position without my hands on the floor, but it's nothing to lift up for five and then Titti-Bakasana back.
Karandavasana: it took me two tries to stick the Pincha, but I held it for five and timbered down to chaturanga. Then I did, count them, EIGHT launches into Pincha to make the lotus. I lose Karanda when I try to slip the left foot over the right knee; there's twisting and struggle there, to get it over, and for some reason I can hold that pose, stone, in Sirsasana or Sarvangasana but in Pincha, it disables my balance, or, if I stick it, my endurance, and then I have to come out.
All told, I probably spent 40-50 breaths on my forearms tonight, inverted, trying to make lotus. I'm not doing Grimmly's "Pepsi Challenge," but I'm certainly inspired by it. If I can make lotus up there, I somehow have confidence that I have the strength to heft the mighty duck. I did the Sirsasana-hands variation, and lowered with total control, held for five and then picked it up, undid it, switched hands to chaturanga and timbered. It's ALL there.
Five backbends, three dropbacks assisted. I went down on my shoulders on the first one, and found out that in an assisted come-up, the lower back scrunches powerfully, which means that for coming up, I need a TIGHTER WHEEL. That's going to be hard. So be it. As I said before, I didn't get into this because it was easy.
Closing and svasana were positively delicious.
As it is a Monday night, I had an opportunity to meet all four, as well as to develop my backbend mission, which I reinstated, once again, last post.
Pasasana: bound with feet flat, going to the right. This is good, like the old days before all that half-bending made my hips cranky. Bound with toes up, going left. Heels are still apart; needs work to get feet flat. POST-practice, I was able to bind it with flat feet, and it cranks BIG into the tricky right hip (put this on the list).
Kapotasana: I held the hang back for ten breaths. I felt something in the low abs give me a bit more depth. I dropped back, walked in, walked in again, bumped the left toes. Couldn't find the right ones. A few breaths there and teacher came over, moved the hands in, got me quickly to a toe-grab with both hands. We spent about 7 breaths down there. Then up, five breaths in a big bent-arm Kapo B and then assisted come-up. Very intense, nervous system developments, once up. Many breaths, probably a dozen, before the floating Lolasana vinyasa.
Supta Vajrasana (I know count this as part of Kapo, primarily because of tonight's experience): finally I duplicated the recent toe-hold from last Sunday's Y practice. Two fingers on each toe, and a big lean back, without losing contact. Not head to floor, but a really nice thoracic opening, and a big one. Ten breaths back there.
Dwi Pada: I've been putting myself into a variation of this. Left leg back, left hand down. Right hand to right foot, shoulder tries to tuck under thigh, foot up and over. The left slips out as I bind it with the right, and then I lock the ankles and try to crank the feet behind my head (they like to float over it). I can't sit up in that position without my hands on the floor, but it's nothing to lift up for five and then Titti-Bakasana back.
Karandavasana: it took me two tries to stick the Pincha, but I held it for five and timbered down to chaturanga. Then I did, count them, EIGHT launches into Pincha to make the lotus. I lose Karanda when I try to slip the left foot over the right knee; there's twisting and struggle there, to get it over, and for some reason I can hold that pose, stone, in Sirsasana or Sarvangasana but in Pincha, it disables my balance, or, if I stick it, my endurance, and then I have to come out.
All told, I probably spent 40-50 breaths on my forearms tonight, inverted, trying to make lotus. I'm not doing Grimmly's "Pepsi Challenge," but I'm certainly inspired by it. If I can make lotus up there, I somehow have confidence that I have the strength to heft the mighty duck. I did the Sirsasana-hands variation, and lowered with total control, held for five and then picked it up, undid it, switched hands to chaturanga and timbered. It's ALL there.
Five backbends, three dropbacks assisted. I went down on my shoulders on the first one, and found out that in an assisted come-up, the lower back scrunches powerfully, which means that for coming up, I need a TIGHTER WHEEL. That's going to be hard. So be it. As I said before, I didn't get into this because it was easy.
Closing and svasana were positively delicious.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Backbends, lotus, glutes, hip flexors, lunges
I have decided to take up the "your hip flexors might be tight" from last post's comments.
Matthew, last summer, said I had "slight restriction" in the shoulders. I think that's because I went and climbed for two hours the night before that morning practice (and more widely, I think that climbing gives me some yoga tightness in the shoulders; there are many climbing folk who CANNOT clasp hands behind their backs and extend away).
But shoulder-wise, I can do deep Garudasana (Eagle) arms, I can link Gomukhasana (Cow Face) hands, I can bring my chest forward of the shoulders in Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Up Doggie), and I can do all the bits and pieces of Matthew's "shoulder krama". So, like Karen, I don't think the main deal here is in the shoulders. Sure, there's work to be done, but the big mystery in my backbends lies elsewhere.
When I do Urdhva Dhanurasana, it's not at all uncommon for me to feel a pulling stretch in the front-lateral right hip. This is the same one I feel when I do a deep "high lunge" with the right foot back. But also, and curiously until recently, there's a little line of electricity in the right gluteus maximus, and it feels like it's between the tailbone and the greater trochanter, and sometimes in Urdhva D. it can be downright intense (although the more wheels I do, the better it gets).
So I read up on the gluteus maximus; this is what the 'net told me. The glute max does two things: it extends the hip (i.e., it helps you backbend) and it externally rotates the thigh (turns your knee out to the respective side). Apparently in backbends we're told to leave the glutes out of it, because external rotation crunches the tailbone and makes bending hard to do. However, one writer in particular said that we NEED the extension, and so our mission is to PARTLY engage the glute max, to GET the extension without the external rotation. How? Internally rotate the thighs.
So I think it fits that, in a backbend, I feel some electricity between the tailbone and the greater trochanter, because (perhaps; now speculating) the glute WANTS to turn the leg out and I won't let it. I wonder if this explains the odd "glute stretch" that I feel after backbending.
Speaking of which: Padmasana (lotus) is usually considered to be deep, deep external rotation, yes? Well then why do I feel it nicely pull open my lateral hips, like right in the tensor fasciae latae and particularly powerfully in the glutes? If, say, an hour after practice, I sit here and take one leg up into half-lotus, I get this really nice, intense stretch between the greater trochanter and the iliac crest, particularly if I sit up tall. This is the same place, pretty much exactly, where my last-summer half-bending got me SUPER cranky.
So what, then, is the magic link between LOTUS and backbending? I can wait for an answer to this one; there's research to be done there.
Anyway, I am settling on the hip flexors. Last summer my hands would drop back about 28 to 29 inches from my feet. Two days ago in a great big Urdhva D., my hands were, hah!, 28 to 29 inches from my feet. Something close to structural, I feel, makes that so. Something that stretches open at a nearly geological time scale.
It is my asana experience, that the hips are the most geological part of the body, where change is concerned. If my backbending is creeping and crawling in micro-steps, then it is in the hips that I must seek. For how many years, post-practice, have I felt the "ring of tension" come back to "normal" first? ALL OF THEM. All the way back to my pre-ashtanga morning hatha class in 2004.
And where is said "ring of tension"? Roughly from the pubic bone, up in an arch to the iliac crests, straight down to the greater trochanter, and then in a big, fat arch around the back, encompassing the glute max.
So then! A program:
1) One of the things that I now realize I love about Matthew's vinyasa krama sequences is how completely hips-focused they are. Look at the long, 30-breath beautiful hip-flexor cracking sequences in the Baddha Krama, or the backbends of the opening salutations in the Simha Krama, or the Ustrasana variations, or the Padma Kapotasana of the advanced Simha Krama, or the inversion dropovers of the Uddi Krama. Mmmmm mmmmmm good.
2) Lunges, lunges, lunges. Go get those hip flexors. I realize that this whole opening process is a practice which will happen sort of "under" my regular practice, but now and then, at night, I'm going to crack open a lunging practice. Lunges and twists. That delicious, fantastic pigeon lunge twist ankle grab from Simha Krama. That sort of thing.
3) Work toward dropbacks with feet flat. Taking up the heels makes it easier, but keeps it out of the hip flexors. Add in purposeful hang-backs (no drop), which will get in there.
4) Hang back longer, pre-drop, in Kapotasana. Think about seeing the feet.
5) As the wrists permit, walk the hands in, in Urdhva Dhanurasana. Walk them in until they stop.
6) Take a belly-on-floor position for working, or at least a minute or two there, nightly. Make it more familiar, commonplace.
You, ring of tension, you and me. I know you're transformative, and I know you'll take forever to open, but--you and me. It is ON.
Matthew, last summer, said I had "slight restriction" in the shoulders. I think that's because I went and climbed for two hours the night before that morning practice (and more widely, I think that climbing gives me some yoga tightness in the shoulders; there are many climbing folk who CANNOT clasp hands behind their backs and extend away).
But shoulder-wise, I can do deep Garudasana (Eagle) arms, I can link Gomukhasana (Cow Face) hands, I can bring my chest forward of the shoulders in Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Up Doggie), and I can do all the bits and pieces of Matthew's "shoulder krama". So, like Karen, I don't think the main deal here is in the shoulders. Sure, there's work to be done, but the big mystery in my backbends lies elsewhere.
When I do Urdhva Dhanurasana, it's not at all uncommon for me to feel a pulling stretch in the front-lateral right hip. This is the same one I feel when I do a deep "high lunge" with the right foot back. But also, and curiously until recently, there's a little line of electricity in the right gluteus maximus, and it feels like it's between the tailbone and the greater trochanter, and sometimes in Urdhva D. it can be downright intense (although the more wheels I do, the better it gets).
So I read up on the gluteus maximus; this is what the 'net told me. The glute max does two things: it extends the hip (i.e., it helps you backbend) and it externally rotates the thigh (turns your knee out to the respective side). Apparently in backbends we're told to leave the glutes out of it, because external rotation crunches the tailbone and makes bending hard to do. However, one writer in particular said that we NEED the extension, and so our mission is to PARTLY engage the glute max, to GET the extension without the external rotation. How? Internally rotate the thighs.
So I think it fits that, in a backbend, I feel some electricity between the tailbone and the greater trochanter, because (perhaps; now speculating) the glute WANTS to turn the leg out and I won't let it. I wonder if this explains the odd "glute stretch" that I feel after backbending.
Speaking of which: Padmasana (lotus) is usually considered to be deep, deep external rotation, yes? Well then why do I feel it nicely pull open my lateral hips, like right in the tensor fasciae latae and particularly powerfully in the glutes? If, say, an hour after practice, I sit here and take one leg up into half-lotus, I get this really nice, intense stretch between the greater trochanter and the iliac crest, particularly if I sit up tall. This is the same place, pretty much exactly, where my last-summer half-bending got me SUPER cranky.
So what, then, is the magic link between LOTUS and backbending? I can wait for an answer to this one; there's research to be done there.
Anyway, I am settling on the hip flexors. Last summer my hands would drop back about 28 to 29 inches from my feet. Two days ago in a great big Urdhva D., my hands were, hah!, 28 to 29 inches from my feet. Something close to structural, I feel, makes that so. Something that stretches open at a nearly geological time scale.
It is my asana experience, that the hips are the most geological part of the body, where change is concerned. If my backbending is creeping and crawling in micro-steps, then it is in the hips that I must seek. For how many years, post-practice, have I felt the "ring of tension" come back to "normal" first? ALL OF THEM. All the way back to my pre-ashtanga morning hatha class in 2004.
And where is said "ring of tension"? Roughly from the pubic bone, up in an arch to the iliac crests, straight down to the greater trochanter, and then in a big, fat arch around the back, encompassing the glute max.
So then! A program:
1) One of the things that I now realize I love about Matthew's vinyasa krama sequences is how completely hips-focused they are. Look at the long, 30-breath beautiful hip-flexor cracking sequences in the Baddha Krama, or the backbends of the opening salutations in the Simha Krama, or the Ustrasana variations, or the Padma Kapotasana of the advanced Simha Krama, or the inversion dropovers of the Uddi Krama. Mmmmm mmmmmm good.
2) Lunges, lunges, lunges. Go get those hip flexors. I realize that this whole opening process is a practice which will happen sort of "under" my regular practice, but now and then, at night, I'm going to crack open a lunging practice. Lunges and twists. That delicious, fantastic pigeon lunge twist ankle grab from Simha Krama. That sort of thing.
3) Work toward dropbacks with feet flat. Taking up the heels makes it easier, but keeps it out of the hip flexors. Add in purposeful hang-backs (no drop), which will get in there.
4) Hang back longer, pre-drop, in Kapotasana. Think about seeing the feet.
5) As the wrists permit, walk the hands in, in Urdhva Dhanurasana. Walk them in until they stop.
6) Take a belly-on-floor position for working, or at least a minute or two there, nightly. Make it more familiar, commonplace.
You, ring of tension, you and me. I know you're transformative, and I know you'll take forever to open, but--you and me. It is ON.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Backbends: when does the comfort set in WITH the depth?
Basically I have a single backbends question here.
Let us take either a standing dropback or Kapotasana (they're the same for purposes of this question).
I can handle the set-up steps: thighs engage and "think" toward each other, hips forward, ribs up and away, breathe, hands maybe to chin, maybe to forehead, all of these steps repeating, hands reach up and over, elbows together for as long as possible.
As I've said, I can hang back, arms fully extended over my head, in a standing half-bend. It's harder for me to hang over my head in Kapo but I can do it.
The CHALLENGE of these poses (for me, anyway, at this point) is increasing the ACTUAL lumbar bend. Yes, I know, the thing you hear in all backbending is "be careful now, don't take it all in the lumbar" and of course that's true, I tell students that myself.
BUT
On Monday night last, I dropped back and landed on my shoulders/back/head on the first one (harmlessly). To set up for the second one I did my hang back and then thought "Ok Patrick, now INCREASE IT in the lumbar" and in a few breaths, I did, and then I dropped back onto my hands.
If you watch any of the digital-shala backbenders do their thing (hi Susan, Tova, Owl, and Karen counts here too), you see this MASSIVE lumbar bend.
So, either for those folks, or for the rest of you, or really for anyone who comes across this, did you go through a phase of "holy crap, that's intense" before it gradually became comfortable?
When I drop back, I get this sponge-squeezing, fantastically intense feeling in the low and mid-back. It's pure muscular sensation (I've cranked the SI before, and I know the difference between muscle feeling and white nerve tweaky sensation).
Dropbacks are actually (again, for me) a bit more intense sensation-wise than Kapotasana (keeping in mind that my Kapo has just recently become a full toe-grab, and that's with assistance). No, that's not right. They're more intense in the LUMBAR than Kapo. Kapo is MILES more intense in my quads than dropbacks are.
Anyway: is greater comfort coming? It came in lengthening the hamstrings, in developing jumpbacks; it came in everything else. Shall I keep trusting the sequence on this?
Let us take either a standing dropback or Kapotasana (they're the same for purposes of this question).
I can handle the set-up steps: thighs engage and "think" toward each other, hips forward, ribs up and away, breathe, hands maybe to chin, maybe to forehead, all of these steps repeating, hands reach up and over, elbows together for as long as possible.
As I've said, I can hang back, arms fully extended over my head, in a standing half-bend. It's harder for me to hang over my head in Kapo but I can do it.
The CHALLENGE of these poses (for me, anyway, at this point) is increasing the ACTUAL lumbar bend. Yes, I know, the thing you hear in all backbending is "be careful now, don't take it all in the lumbar" and of course that's true, I tell students that myself.
BUT
On Monday night last, I dropped back and landed on my shoulders/back/head on the first one (harmlessly). To set up for the second one I did my hang back and then thought "Ok Patrick, now INCREASE IT in the lumbar" and in a few breaths, I did, and then I dropped back onto my hands.
If you watch any of the digital-shala backbenders do their thing (hi Susan, Tova, Owl, and Karen counts here too), you see this MASSIVE lumbar bend.
So, either for those folks, or for the rest of you, or really for anyone who comes across this, did you go through a phase of "holy crap, that's intense" before it gradually became comfortable?
When I drop back, I get this sponge-squeezing, fantastically intense feeling in the low and mid-back. It's pure muscular sensation (I've cranked the SI before, and I know the difference between muscle feeling and white nerve tweaky sensation).
Dropbacks are actually (again, for me) a bit more intense sensation-wise than Kapotasana (keeping in mind that my Kapo has just recently become a full toe-grab, and that's with assistance). No, that's not right. They're more intense in the LUMBAR than Kapo. Kapo is MILES more intense in my quads than dropbacks are.
Anyway: is greater comfort coming? It came in lengthening the hamstrings, in developing jumpbacks; it came in everything else. Shall I keep trusting the sequence on this?
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
I'm turning morning practice again, cool.
As you know, my practice is almost entirely without shala. Monday nights, there's an Intro to Intermediate (which is lovely), and Saturday mornings, there's the hardest power vinyasa class in the city (probably), but other than that, I'm mostly home practice all the time.
My teaching schedule varies, semester to semester, and that includes teaching yoga on Thursday nights, and also film screenings (at night) if I'm teaching film stuff, so there's a lot of variability in my schedule. This semester I teach in morning-to-afternoon blocks from about 10 am to 2 pm, and usually I have preparatory stuff to do before class, and so I haven't been practicing in the morning.
However, this week things got especially hectic in the afternoons, making my days more like 10-5, and I like to practice between 1-4 pm if I can (with this schedule anyway).
Yesterday I got on the mat at 8 am; it was either that, or 6 pm, and 6 wasn't gonna do. Primary (especially since I'd done intermediate to Nakrasana the night before) was tighter than usual, more tiring than usual, but really good for cracking open the soreness from all that intermediate backbending (THANK YOU, Janu A and C).
Currently it's 7:01 am, and I'll be on the mat sometime in the next hour. The Y where I practice is 6 minutes from here by car. I have to teach a class at school (about 20 minutes in the other direction) at 10:30. Said Y not only has showers, but a hot tub for soaking the post-Kapotasana outer hips :) Plenty of time.
Maybe this is becoming a habit; it's certainly nice to be able to get out of school at 2 pm (if meetings or other duties do not call) and to write more of that article I've been trying to finish for three months.
My teaching schedule varies, semester to semester, and that includes teaching yoga on Thursday nights, and also film screenings (at night) if I'm teaching film stuff, so there's a lot of variability in my schedule. This semester I teach in morning-to-afternoon blocks from about 10 am to 2 pm, and usually I have preparatory stuff to do before class, and so I haven't been practicing in the morning.
However, this week things got especially hectic in the afternoons, making my days more like 10-5, and I like to practice between 1-4 pm if I can (with this schedule anyway).
Yesterday I got on the mat at 8 am; it was either that, or 6 pm, and 6 wasn't gonna do. Primary (especially since I'd done intermediate to Nakrasana the night before) was tighter than usual, more tiring than usual, but really good for cracking open the soreness from all that intermediate backbending (THANK YOU, Janu A and C).
Currently it's 7:01 am, and I'll be on the mat sometime in the next hour. The Y where I practice is 6 minutes from here by car. I have to teach a class at school (about 20 minutes in the other direction) at 10:30. Said Y not only has showers, but a hot tub for soaking the post-Kapotasana outer hips :) Plenty of time.
Maybe this is becoming a habit; it's certainly nice to be able to get out of school at 2 pm (if meetings or other duties do not call) and to write more of that article I've been trying to finish for three months.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Intermediate, Supta V discovery, and you don't do it because it's easy.
On Sundays, my choices for asana practice are these:
1) Practice before teaching at 12:30. The house is 62 degrees, at best, until real live springtime and summer come. The Y is 70 degrees (yum) but it opens at 11 am and it's about 15 minutes if I speed, from the studio where I teach.
2) Practice after teaching, which means at about 3 pm. Day is busier then; school stuff must be prepped. Sometimes a friend calls for a brewery trip. Life happens.
This means that most times, I count my Saturday vinyasa class as practice, and then take Sunday off. Sunday is problematic for asana practice. Until summer, of course, when I can practice outside at 8:30 am if I want, and it's already 77 degrees. But anyway:
I decided to do as much Intermediate as I could stuff into an hour. I got on the mat probably at 11:10, was doing Pasasana at 11:35, and was taking rest at 11:59. I got as far as Eka Pada Sirsasana, did 5 wheels, took 3 deep hang-backs (dropbacks were just not going to go; breath was challenged; I took one but had to tiptoe it and couldn't flatten the feet, so meh) and did a 15-and-8 closing.
Breaths in closing come in sets for me: if I'm doing full closing, it's 25-and-10 (inversions and everywhere else). If I have SOME time, it's 15-and-8. If I have little time, it's 10-and-5.
**************************************
I had a Supta Vajrasana discovery. After doing two rounds of "walk the hands in and press the arms straight as they'll go" in Kapo and then a successful come-up, I put my lotused knees under the bench of a Cybex machine, tossed the cotton rug over the knees for protection, grabbed the toes from around the back, and arched back and for the first time ever did NOT have to let go of the toes. I pushed the elbows as together as they'd go, and felt the lumbar curve, and then the THORACIC get into it. I didn't touch my head to the floor; I let the toe-grab determine the depth, but I FELT the purpose of Supta Vajrasana. It's like a thigh-releasing, ab-releasing Kapotasana. Almost like drinking to cure a hangover; it's the lightweight version of the hard pose (not that it, itself, is easy).
***************************************
A couple of days ago I was going to throw another of my bitchy hissy-fits about backbending, because my dropback practice is getting come-and-go, and I'm not happy about that. Immediately, and particularly since I did NOT post said hissy fit (finally!) I learned some things:
1) You didn't get into ashtanga yoga because it was EASY. THIS challenge is what you got into it for.
2) Tiny developments like today's Supta Vajrasana discovery are teaching you: It Is Coming. Slowly, slowly, but if you throw a few lifetimes at it, all is coming. (but meow meow, patience, meow meow; yes. yes, we know)
3) Dude, you did a tripod headstand entry-exit of freakin' PARSVA BAKASANA on Saturday and you're making some notable Karandavasana progress. What, you're going to forget gifts and gratitude because you can't just fold over and grab your feet in a backbend? Shut. Up.
And so on.
I mean, in terms of gratitude, there is reducing wrist pain. Gratitude. There is the fact that my mucousy cold is finally freakin' gone. Gratitude. There is sunshine and springtime. Gratitude. There is a job until December. Gratitude. Shall I go on? I can walk, I can see, I'm not poor like so many of those who live in this neighborhood, and so forth?
Gratitude, mister. No snarky hissy fits about making a shape.
1) Practice before teaching at 12:30. The house is 62 degrees, at best, until real live springtime and summer come. The Y is 70 degrees (yum) but it opens at 11 am and it's about 15 minutes if I speed, from the studio where I teach.
2) Practice after teaching, which means at about 3 pm. Day is busier then; school stuff must be prepped. Sometimes a friend calls for a brewery trip. Life happens.
This means that most times, I count my Saturday vinyasa class as practice, and then take Sunday off. Sunday is problematic for asana practice. Until summer, of course, when I can practice outside at 8:30 am if I want, and it's already 77 degrees. But anyway:
I decided to do as much Intermediate as I could stuff into an hour. I got on the mat probably at 11:10, was doing Pasasana at 11:35, and was taking rest at 11:59. I got as far as Eka Pada Sirsasana, did 5 wheels, took 3 deep hang-backs (dropbacks were just not going to go; breath was challenged; I took one but had to tiptoe it and couldn't flatten the feet, so meh) and did a 15-and-8 closing.
Breaths in closing come in sets for me: if I'm doing full closing, it's 25-and-10 (inversions and everywhere else). If I have SOME time, it's 15-and-8. If I have little time, it's 10-and-5.
**************************************
I had a Supta Vajrasana discovery. After doing two rounds of "walk the hands in and press the arms straight as they'll go" in Kapo and then a successful come-up, I put my lotused knees under the bench of a Cybex machine, tossed the cotton rug over the knees for protection, grabbed the toes from around the back, and arched back and for the first time ever did NOT have to let go of the toes. I pushed the elbows as together as they'd go, and felt the lumbar curve, and then the THORACIC get into it. I didn't touch my head to the floor; I let the toe-grab determine the depth, but I FELT the purpose of Supta Vajrasana. It's like a thigh-releasing, ab-releasing Kapotasana. Almost like drinking to cure a hangover; it's the lightweight version of the hard pose (not that it, itself, is easy).
***************************************
A couple of days ago I was going to throw another of my bitchy hissy-fits about backbending, because my dropback practice is getting come-and-go, and I'm not happy about that. Immediately, and particularly since I did NOT post said hissy fit (finally!) I learned some things:
1) You didn't get into ashtanga yoga because it was EASY. THIS challenge is what you got into it for.
2) Tiny developments like today's Supta Vajrasana discovery are teaching you: It Is Coming. Slowly, slowly, but if you throw a few lifetimes at it, all is coming. (but meow meow, patience, meow meow; yes. yes, we know)
3) Dude, you did a tripod headstand entry-exit of freakin' PARSVA BAKASANA on Saturday and you're making some notable Karandavasana progress. What, you're going to forget gifts and gratitude because you can't just fold over and grab your feet in a backbend? Shut. Up.
And so on.
I mean, in terms of gratitude, there is reducing wrist pain. Gratitude. There is the fact that my mucousy cold is finally freakin' gone. Gratitude. There is sunshine and springtime. Gratitude. There is a job until December. Gratitude. Shall I go on? I can walk, I can see, I'm not poor like so many of those who live in this neighborhood, and so forth?
Gratitude, mister. No snarky hissy fits about making a shape.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Surrealism in Cincinnati, and Primary
Today I drove over to Cincinnati to see a famous Dada/Surrealism show; stuff from the Arturo Schwartz collection from Israel (AS is a BIG Duchamp fan and everyone in the game knows that he has a killer collection; this was a must-see).
There were numerous readymades suspended from the ceiling, real issues of Dada publications like the journals from Cabaret Voltaire, Der Dada, Die Zweltweg, Die Pleite, and 291 and 391, with drawings by George Grosz and collages by Francis Picabia and all that wonderful stuff. They even had the inaugural issue of Jedermann sein Eigner Fussball! (Everyman his own Football; this was a Berlin Dada parody of rhetoric such as "to every man a loaf of bread")
There were drawings, paintings and collages by Schwitters, Hannah Hoch, Arshile Gorky and the Ab Ex gang, Andre Masson, Joan Miro, Yves Tanguy, and numerous people inspired by and similar to these characters (Matta, for example, and numerous Chilean and Czech and other developments).
There were films, including the infamous Andalusian Dog, and Meshes of the Afternoon, and even Yoko Ono's "Number Four," which is also and fittingly called "Bottoms." There was also sculpture from Hans Bellmer and Jean Arp, and a "half-doll" from Bellmer. I'd never seen one of those before. Of course, there was a ton of Duchamp. The famous LHOOQ parody of the Mona Lisa, the ceiling-suspended Bottle Rack, Trebuchet (his floor-mounted coatrack), the "Female Fig Leaf," and a ton of other objects, like a beer mug with a squirrel tale (made by Meret Oppenheim) and Man Ray's infamous "Gift," the iron with a row of nails down the middle.
A fantastic exhibit. I took ample notes for the next time I teach that stuff, which is actually happening in June 2009. Heh!
Then I drove back, and with my regular mats at the Y full, returned to my under-the-red-stairs locale, and did Primary (with some serious fading bandhas at about Upavistha Konasana) and then 5 wheels (with my "rug wrist wedge") and then 3 dropbacks, with heels up. In the hangbacks (which begin with hands to forehead, elbows together, and end with arms fully extended), I began to feel the hip flexors and abs pulling open. In the closing sequence up-dogs, I felt it under the ribs. This is a good thing.
Why do I have much, MUCH, greater control, when I do dropbacks heels-up rather than feet flat? Arms extended, balanced on toes, I not only come down closer to my feet (29 inches; I measured) but with much greater control and a softer landing.
Anyway, it was great and I look forward to more of it. Yay!
There were numerous readymades suspended from the ceiling, real issues of Dada publications like the journals from Cabaret Voltaire, Der Dada, Die Zweltweg, Die Pleite, and 291 and 391, with drawings by George Grosz and collages by Francis Picabia and all that wonderful stuff. They even had the inaugural issue of Jedermann sein Eigner Fussball! (Everyman his own Football; this was a Berlin Dada parody of rhetoric such as "to every man a loaf of bread")
There were drawings, paintings and collages by Schwitters, Hannah Hoch, Arshile Gorky and the Ab Ex gang, Andre Masson, Joan Miro, Yves Tanguy, and numerous people inspired by and similar to these characters (Matta, for example, and numerous Chilean and Czech and other developments).
There were films, including the infamous Andalusian Dog, and Meshes of the Afternoon, and even Yoko Ono's "Number Four," which is also and fittingly called "Bottoms." There was also sculpture from Hans Bellmer and Jean Arp, and a "half-doll" from Bellmer. I'd never seen one of those before. Of course, there was a ton of Duchamp. The famous LHOOQ parody of the Mona Lisa, the ceiling-suspended Bottle Rack, Trebuchet (his floor-mounted coatrack), the "Female Fig Leaf," and a ton of other objects, like a beer mug with a squirrel tale (made by Meret Oppenheim) and Man Ray's infamous "Gift," the iron with a row of nails down the middle.
A fantastic exhibit. I took ample notes for the next time I teach that stuff, which is actually happening in June 2009. Heh!
Then I drove back, and with my regular mats at the Y full, returned to my under-the-red-stairs locale, and did Primary (with some serious fading bandhas at about Upavistha Konasana) and then 5 wheels (with my "rug wrist wedge") and then 3 dropbacks, with heels up. In the hangbacks (which begin with hands to forehead, elbows together, and end with arms fully extended), I began to feel the hip flexors and abs pulling open. In the closing sequence up-dogs, I felt it under the ribs. This is a good thing.
Why do I have much, MUCH, greater control, when I do dropbacks heels-up rather than feet flat? Arms extended, balanced on toes, I not only come down closer to my feet (29 inches; I measured) but with much greater control and a softer landing.
Anyway, it was great and I look forward to more of it. Yay!
Monday, March 16, 2009
Spitting out the honey--a practice of Intermediate.
Over here there's a trifecta of posts from March 9, and they are, as we're used to, brilliant.
One has "good" and "bad" practices; there is effort and there is frustration; one is attached by practicing non-attachment. I buy all of that.
I've been attached and stuck with this Kapo/dropbacks/standups business for two years, so all of the posting about "stuck" places and boredom and pursuit and grasping to "get the pose" resonates like no tomorrow.
Can you spit out the honey? This was a question raised in the non-attachment section. If we are REALLY to be non-attached, we're equally non-attached all the way through. The sweet pose, the bitter pose, the fearsome pose, the eagerly-greeted pose, all of those become equal. Ideally. Perhaps.
So I had a tremendous, really a wonderful, evening's class of Intro to Intermediate. It ended with a modified Karandavasana, then backbends and closing.
Some attempts to spit the honey:
Pasasana: Yes to the bind on both sides, but tiptoe-ing and heels apart.
Parsva Dhanurasana: big, fun, easier to hold than usual, but nothing like breath pace.
Laghuvajrasana: held head-off-floor for five (that guarantees that I don't slack on the quads), but with clear effort, and a bit of panic.
Kapotasana: I will try not to make this a book. Hands to forehead, over, take a breath to hang, drop. Hands to floor, head does not touch. Press up for five. Teacher adjusts low back, maintaining the arch. Walk hands in. Head down. Hips somehow learn to float forwardish, and thighs engage, and this PICKS UP the pose from the top, and lets me arch more, and move the hands in and get the head off the floor. This happens again. Hands creep well in and find the divots between the toes and the feet. I take five breaths with the toes firmly, officially grasped. But the quads are burning so hard, I can only press up for one breath before letting it go. Kapo A to toes, ok, but Kapo B, fail.
Eka Pada Sirsasana: clumsy vinyasa in, but leg over arm. I skip my usual compass pose and go right for it. On both sides, calf up, over, situated. Shoulder even gets in a bit, on supporting the leg back. Seated for five, folded for five, leg slips on pushup exit, but other than leg-on-arm rather than behind head, I do the proper exit.
Vinyasa: throughout, I'd been doing big suspended vinyasa. Weight off floor, suspended in air, after Pasasana, both Krounchasanas, all kneeling backbends, and then more briefly after both sides of both twists. Fun. Oddly ok on sore wrist. The payment for this is that it made the practice even more off breath pace.
Dwi Pada: Feet connected, but exactly like my Supta Kurmasana. The ankles hook, but they hook OVER my head, so I have to crank back like gangbusters with the shoulders, in order to keep the feet from flopping onto my chest. I was able to balance seated like that for 2 breaths. The pressup is much easier, but I was more horizontal than vertical.
Tittibhasanas: did all forms in full expression, but had to take some breaths between C and D (how do you quickly reorganize the feet?). Smoked. Big recovery break after this sequence; ujjayi maintained, but clear break taken.
Pincha: was fine, as usual.
Karanda: student from my Sunday class who did amazing Intermediate, said that Kino had given her the assignment of doing lotus-lower-downs from classical Sirsasana, so I tried that, and found it quite fun and physically enjoyable but massively demanding on concentration.
Backbends: 3 wheels, big ones, with my cotton-rug-wedge, which, as hoped, did back off wrist pain.
Dropbacks: 3 attempts and 2 successes, with popping the heels up. The middle one went down on knees (too much forward, not enough back).
Uth Pluthi: 20 breaths. I count up 10 and down 10.
It was a brilliant practice, for me anyway, but because I'd read this bit about being stuck and dealing with that and the Yoga Sutras and "spitting the honey," I kept telling myself to disown it as soon as it happened, and I think I have. I know (well, I suspect) that tomorrow's practice won't have this element, but it might have something different.
I'm content with my post-practice state. I don't know if it's non-attachment, and I don't really care too much. Mostly I feel big gratitude to the random and marvelous practitioner who walked into my room on Sunday and broke it down! That was inspiring stuff. Gratitude.
One has "good" and "bad" practices; there is effort and there is frustration; one is attached by practicing non-attachment. I buy all of that.
I've been attached and stuck with this Kapo/dropbacks/standups business for two years, so all of the posting about "stuck" places and boredom and pursuit and grasping to "get the pose" resonates like no tomorrow.
Can you spit out the honey? This was a question raised in the non-attachment section. If we are REALLY to be non-attached, we're equally non-attached all the way through. The sweet pose, the bitter pose, the fearsome pose, the eagerly-greeted pose, all of those become equal. Ideally. Perhaps.
So I had a tremendous, really a wonderful, evening's class of Intro to Intermediate. It ended with a modified Karandavasana, then backbends and closing.
Some attempts to spit the honey:
Pasasana: Yes to the bind on both sides, but tiptoe-ing and heels apart.
Parsva Dhanurasana: big, fun, easier to hold than usual, but nothing like breath pace.
Laghuvajrasana: held head-off-floor for five (that guarantees that I don't slack on the quads), but with clear effort, and a bit of panic.
Kapotasana: I will try not to make this a book. Hands to forehead, over, take a breath to hang, drop. Hands to floor, head does not touch. Press up for five. Teacher adjusts low back, maintaining the arch. Walk hands in. Head down. Hips somehow learn to float forwardish, and thighs engage, and this PICKS UP the pose from the top, and lets me arch more, and move the hands in and get the head off the floor. This happens again. Hands creep well in and find the divots between the toes and the feet. I take five breaths with the toes firmly, officially grasped. But the quads are burning so hard, I can only press up for one breath before letting it go. Kapo A to toes, ok, but Kapo B, fail.
Eka Pada Sirsasana: clumsy vinyasa in, but leg over arm. I skip my usual compass pose and go right for it. On both sides, calf up, over, situated. Shoulder even gets in a bit, on supporting the leg back. Seated for five, folded for five, leg slips on pushup exit, but other than leg-on-arm rather than behind head, I do the proper exit.
Vinyasa: throughout, I'd been doing big suspended vinyasa. Weight off floor, suspended in air, after Pasasana, both Krounchasanas, all kneeling backbends, and then more briefly after both sides of both twists. Fun. Oddly ok on sore wrist. The payment for this is that it made the practice even more off breath pace.
Dwi Pada: Feet connected, but exactly like my Supta Kurmasana. The ankles hook, but they hook OVER my head, so I have to crank back like gangbusters with the shoulders, in order to keep the feet from flopping onto my chest. I was able to balance seated like that for 2 breaths. The pressup is much easier, but I was more horizontal than vertical.
Tittibhasanas: did all forms in full expression, but had to take some breaths between C and D (how do you quickly reorganize the feet?). Smoked. Big recovery break after this sequence; ujjayi maintained, but clear break taken.
Pincha: was fine, as usual.
Karanda: student from my Sunday class who did amazing Intermediate, said that Kino had given her the assignment of doing lotus-lower-downs from classical Sirsasana, so I tried that, and found it quite fun and physically enjoyable but massively demanding on concentration.
Backbends: 3 wheels, big ones, with my cotton-rug-wedge, which, as hoped, did back off wrist pain.
Dropbacks: 3 attempts and 2 successes, with popping the heels up. The middle one went down on knees (too much forward, not enough back).
Uth Pluthi: 20 breaths. I count up 10 and down 10.
It was a brilliant practice, for me anyway, but because I'd read this bit about being stuck and dealing with that and the Yoga Sutras and "spitting the honey," I kept telling myself to disown it as soon as it happened, and I think I have. I know (well, I suspect) that tomorrow's practice won't have this element, but it might have something different.
I'm content with my post-practice state. I don't know if it's non-attachment, and I don't really care too much. Mostly I feel big gratitude to the random and marvelous practitioner who walked into my room on Sunday and broke it down! That was inspiring stuff. Gratitude.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Hips and backbends? and a witness to Intermediate
What, exactly, is the relationship between tightness in the outer (lateral) hips and tightness in the backbend (spec. the wheel)?
Of course this question is nuts. What tightness, which tightness? What's it feel like? Does it disable the backbend or do you just feel a stretch? Etc.
Come on Patrick, what do you mean here?
Ok, ok, ok.
Last week, I was feeling my wheels in my front lateral right hip; outside the quads proper, more in the tensor-fasciae-latae area or, my usual suspects, the medi and mini glutes. But also, last week, I was feeling a big, intense stretch (like a slight overstretch, one you feel for two days after practice) ACROSS the gluteus max, on both sides.
Is there a stated or known relationship between stretching the front body (since that's technically what a "backbend" does, in part) and stretching the outer hip fascia? I know there's a rule to disengage the glutes as much as possible, but can backwardsbending STRETCH the glute max? Can PUSHING the backbend higher and deeper do this?
It's the same stretch/soreness that I had when I was, over the summer, working on half-bending. REALLY intense lengthening sensations in the outer hips, as if the ligaments themselves were pulling open. Chronic sensation, that lasts for days.
Anyway, I still haven't gotten it, and I'm totally puzzled about the backbend/hip relationship.
************************
I ALSO, and quickly after I posted it, solved my wrist-wheel problem. Fold the mat, or, better, fold the cotton rug and make a big SOFT wedge out of it. Ahhhhh.
And best of all, this is FREE.
************************
Thursday, I did most of the Advanced Simha Krama, from Sweeney's book. I love the way that even the standing poses get in the side hips. The shoulder sequence, too, lends this sequence the name that Matthew told me a student had given it: "The Kapotasana sequence." Indeed.
BUT, I think that trying a half-lotus camel, even with dropback to wall, was too much on the front lateral right hip, because only today (four days later) is it not sore and cranked up in backbends. Maybe it was the 1/2 lotus camel, or maybe it was the half-bhekasana-half-kapotasana dropback-to-wall that I did after that.
In any case, this soreness (which was at first in the outer hip, but then sent a sort of satellite pain up to the right SI joint), set me off on my hips/backbends question above, all over again.
***********************
My right hip has been tight for my whole yoga practice: it didn't permit a bound half-lotus for over 2 years, only allowed Garbha Pindasana in winter 2007 (after 2 1/2 years) and now kicks around in backbends. Parsva Dhanurasana regularly provides a flaring-light near-tearing sensation in it, right in the front center hip, although I enjoy this sensation, and it's not painful. Pigeon lunges, for years, have been the counterpose for whatever my right hip is tight about. There is also, from Sweeney's book, a pigeon lunge ankle-grabbing TWIST, which is heaven itself for what my right hip has going on. I wonder what this hip will have to say about backbends in the experiments to come.
**********************
Also on Thursday, I experimented with coming up from a backbend. So far, very generally speaking, it's been rock forward, with no rise, no sort of "grab" of the front hips which then spring me upward. So I pressed up into a wheel, very close to a wall (that is, hands by wall), and rocked forward. Nope. So I put my hands flat on the wall, at the base, and pushed forward. Nope. So I stepped them up about a foot; rock; nope. It took until my hands were about hip high before I could push the hips forward and finally get the hips to "take" the hands off the wall.
At first I was puzzled, but then I remembered Susan's advice to YC about coming up: HANDS CLOSER TO FEET. I bet my wheel's too wide.
This, of course, is what I was doing before the wrist forced me to surrender my 8-breath wheels with 3 additional walk-ins after.
So now, the program is this:
1) Continue to practice regularly. Use the cotton wedge, and take 3 wheels until you can take 5. When you can take 5, take 8 breaths instead of 5. When you can take even 3 wheels of 8 breaths, come down and take 3 more of 5 breaths, walking in as far as possible. THEN dropbacks, THEN comeups (?).
2) Heal the wrist; it governs the steps of the progression above.
3) Get that ligament-stretchy-you-feel-me-for-days sensation out of the right hip.
4) Primary plus Ten is your goal (Kapotasana) with 3 backbends and then, as possible, 3 dropbacks. Consider a walk in before rocking up. If it's too wristy, leave it.
**********************
FINALLY,
Today I was running my usual Sunday gig, and a new student came in, with substantial experience from the Columbus Ohio ashtanga scene (they LIKE IT THERE). She did a slightly-modified full Intermediate, including:
heels down Pasasana, heels-from-the-air Kapo (and later crawling to calves), a Supta Vajrasana which never came unbound, full expressions all of FBH poses, a hands-bound Tittibhasana D, proper vinyasa from the three "sun salutation" strength poses, and chaturanga exits from all seven headstands. This was capped with a SOLO chakra bandhasana. I have NEVER seen a solo chakra bandhasana with my own eyes. Holy COW.
Modifications: Bakasana B (not as high as her A), Mayurasana, Nakrasana (jumps but no "forward/back"), Pincha (unstickable today), Karanda (lotus lowered from a classical headstand position).
THIS, I think, is what a flexy backbender's Intermediate might look like. I've never seen a practice like it (and those of you that know my Intermediate, even from online description, know that my challenge poses are Pasasana, Kapo, Dwi Pada, Karanda (but maybe only because I never work on it), and getting the headstands to chaturanga--the headstands THEMSELVES are fine).
There was less anti-gravity play than I do, but more grace and ease. Overall, WOW.
Inspiring stuff.
Of course this question is nuts. What tightness, which tightness? What's it feel like? Does it disable the backbend or do you just feel a stretch? Etc.
Come on Patrick, what do you mean here?
Ok, ok, ok.
Last week, I was feeling my wheels in my front lateral right hip; outside the quads proper, more in the tensor-fasciae-latae area or, my usual suspects, the medi and mini glutes. But also, last week, I was feeling a big, intense stretch (like a slight overstretch, one you feel for two days after practice) ACROSS the gluteus max, on both sides.
Is there a stated or known relationship between stretching the front body (since that's technically what a "backbend" does, in part) and stretching the outer hip fascia? I know there's a rule to disengage the glutes as much as possible, but can backwardsbending STRETCH the glute max? Can PUSHING the backbend higher and deeper do this?
It's the same stretch/soreness that I had when I was, over the summer, working on half-bending. REALLY intense lengthening sensations in the outer hips, as if the ligaments themselves were pulling open. Chronic sensation, that lasts for days.
Anyway, I still haven't gotten it, and I'm totally puzzled about the backbend/hip relationship.
************************
I ALSO, and quickly after I posted it, solved my wrist-wheel problem. Fold the mat, or, better, fold the cotton rug and make a big SOFT wedge out of it. Ahhhhh.
And best of all, this is FREE.
************************
Thursday, I did most of the Advanced Simha Krama, from Sweeney's book. I love the way that even the standing poses get in the side hips. The shoulder sequence, too, lends this sequence the name that Matthew told me a student had given it: "The Kapotasana sequence." Indeed.
BUT, I think that trying a half-lotus camel, even with dropback to wall, was too much on the front lateral right hip, because only today (four days later) is it not sore and cranked up in backbends. Maybe it was the 1/2 lotus camel, or maybe it was the half-bhekasana-half-kapotasana dropback-to-wall that I did after that.
In any case, this soreness (which was at first in the outer hip, but then sent a sort of satellite pain up to the right SI joint), set me off on my hips/backbends question above, all over again.
***********************
My right hip has been tight for my whole yoga practice: it didn't permit a bound half-lotus for over 2 years, only allowed Garbha Pindasana in winter 2007 (after 2 1/2 years) and now kicks around in backbends. Parsva Dhanurasana regularly provides a flaring-light near-tearing sensation in it, right in the front center hip, although I enjoy this sensation, and it's not painful. Pigeon lunges, for years, have been the counterpose for whatever my right hip is tight about. There is also, from Sweeney's book, a pigeon lunge ankle-grabbing TWIST, which is heaven itself for what my right hip has going on. I wonder what this hip will have to say about backbends in the experiments to come.
**********************
Also on Thursday, I experimented with coming up from a backbend. So far, very generally speaking, it's been rock forward, with no rise, no sort of "grab" of the front hips which then spring me upward. So I pressed up into a wheel, very close to a wall (that is, hands by wall), and rocked forward. Nope. So I put my hands flat on the wall, at the base, and pushed forward. Nope. So I stepped them up about a foot; rock; nope. It took until my hands were about hip high before I could push the hips forward and finally get the hips to "take" the hands off the wall.
At first I was puzzled, but then I remembered Susan's advice to YC about coming up: HANDS CLOSER TO FEET. I bet my wheel's too wide.
This, of course, is what I was doing before the wrist forced me to surrender my 8-breath wheels with 3 additional walk-ins after.
So now, the program is this:
1) Continue to practice regularly. Use the cotton wedge, and take 3 wheels until you can take 5. When you can take 5, take 8 breaths instead of 5. When you can take even 3 wheels of 8 breaths, come down and take 3 more of 5 breaths, walking in as far as possible. THEN dropbacks, THEN comeups (?).
2) Heal the wrist; it governs the steps of the progression above.
3) Get that ligament-stretchy-you-feel-me-for-days sensation out of the right hip.
4) Primary plus Ten is your goal (Kapotasana) with 3 backbends and then, as possible, 3 dropbacks. Consider a walk in before rocking up. If it's too wristy, leave it.
**********************
FINALLY,
Today I was running my usual Sunday gig, and a new student came in, with substantial experience from the Columbus Ohio ashtanga scene (they LIKE IT THERE). She did a slightly-modified full Intermediate, including:
heels down Pasasana, heels-from-the-air Kapo (and later crawling to calves), a Supta Vajrasana which never came unbound, full expressions all of FBH poses, a hands-bound Tittibhasana D, proper vinyasa from the three "sun salutation" strength poses, and chaturanga exits from all seven headstands. This was capped with a SOLO chakra bandhasana. I have NEVER seen a solo chakra bandhasana with my own eyes. Holy COW.
Modifications: Bakasana B (not as high as her A), Mayurasana, Nakrasana (jumps but no "forward/back"), Pincha (unstickable today), Karanda (lotus lowered from a classical headstand position).
THIS, I think, is what a flexy backbender's Intermediate might look like. I've never seen a practice like it (and those of you that know my Intermediate, even from online description, know that my challenge poses are Pasasana, Kapo, Dwi Pada, Karanda (but maybe only because I never work on it), and getting the headstands to chaturanga--the headstands THEMSELVES are fine).
There was less anti-gravity play than I do, but more grace and ease. Overall, WOW.
Inspiring stuff.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Heal without retreat: but HOW?
Here's what I want. I'm not sure I can have it.
1) The wrist must heal. All the way. It took four months to get this thing back on line after teacher training in SF in May 2007. Every time it's sore, it's from that exact same overuse injury. Too much vinyasa, arm balancing, handstanding.
2) Stupid things set it off and eventually I'll learn that. If I model a trio of arm-balance surfing moves unwarm for a class, or if I throw a tripod headstand arm balance into a class when it's not called, I can crank the wrist and then it's sore and I need to back off to un-sore it. Someday I will learn this and modify my behavior.
3) This time, I do not wish to sacrifice the backbends. I have this move (in climbing terms) with good holds for hands AND feet, and I will NOT surrender the backbends this time.
4) HOW, then, do I heal the wrist, continue to handle ashtanga yoga, and keep the backbends (it's the Wheel in particular I want to keep)?
Here are some things that are true:
a) Vinyasa doesn't REALLY hurt, if I'm in mid-practice, warm and focused. There's pressure in a jumpback or through, but not pain. I cut half of them as it is.
b) Bhuja and Kukku are the two set-it-off poses. I am willing to cut the exit from the arm balance (that's what hurts) and to roll up and right back down in Kukku.
c) Let's face it, the pressure on the wrist in the wheel, hurts. I cut 8 breaths to 5, and then I cut 5 backbends to 3. The fewer I do, the harder the dropbacks are.
Solutions? I can think of one.
1) Acquire or use (if in a studio) a wrist plank. Don't use it in vinyasa; when it comes to backbends, put it by the nearest wall, put your hands on it so that the angle is friendly, and backbend.
2) What about the well-reviewed wrist gloves? They sound brilliant, but they are SEVENTY BUCKS. Sure, that doesn't sound like much, but I owe the Fed a THOUSAND DOLLARS in taxes (thanks, five jobs last year!) and can't afford anything that's not food or gasoline. Out of the question.
Today was the first practice without dropbacks; tired, sore, unwilling to press into the deep places. I could feel this coming on, in yesterday's practice.
1) The wrist must heal. All the way. It took four months to get this thing back on line after teacher training in SF in May 2007. Every time it's sore, it's from that exact same overuse injury. Too much vinyasa, arm balancing, handstanding.
2) Stupid things set it off and eventually I'll learn that. If I model a trio of arm-balance surfing moves unwarm for a class, or if I throw a tripod headstand arm balance into a class when it's not called, I can crank the wrist and then it's sore and I need to back off to un-sore it. Someday I will learn this and modify my behavior.
3) This time, I do not wish to sacrifice the backbends. I have this move (in climbing terms) with good holds for hands AND feet, and I will NOT surrender the backbends this time.
4) HOW, then, do I heal the wrist, continue to handle ashtanga yoga, and keep the backbends (it's the Wheel in particular I want to keep)?
Here are some things that are true:
a) Vinyasa doesn't REALLY hurt, if I'm in mid-practice, warm and focused. There's pressure in a jumpback or through, but not pain. I cut half of them as it is.
b) Bhuja and Kukku are the two set-it-off poses. I am willing to cut the exit from the arm balance (that's what hurts) and to roll up and right back down in Kukku.
c) Let's face it, the pressure on the wrist in the wheel, hurts. I cut 8 breaths to 5, and then I cut 5 backbends to 3. The fewer I do, the harder the dropbacks are.
Solutions? I can think of one.
1) Acquire or use (if in a studio) a wrist plank. Don't use it in vinyasa; when it comes to backbends, put it by the nearest wall, put your hands on it so that the angle is friendly, and backbend.
2) What about the well-reviewed wrist gloves? They sound brilliant, but they are SEVENTY BUCKS. Sure, that doesn't sound like much, but I owe the Fed a THOUSAND DOLLARS in taxes (thanks, five jobs last year!) and can't afford anything that's not food or gasoline. Out of the question.
Today was the first practice without dropbacks; tired, sore, unwilling to press into the deep places. I could feel this coming on, in yesterday's practice.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Wrist, backbends, dropbacks.
The right wrist gets sore in three poses: Bhujapidasana, Kukkutasana, Urdhva Dhanurasana.
It's the exit from the arm balance, the "swing up" from chin-to-floor. That makes me crimp my fingers, and that hurts. Maybe I'll start swinging up and right to chaturanga instead of doing the showy exit.
For Kukku, I'm not sure how to modify. Hold the pressup for 1 instead of 5?
For UD, I'm again not sure. I did 3 today instead of 5, and I REALLY do not want to leave it out. Backbending, even after Intermediate's backbends, is not the same without it.
Backbending, after Saturday and Sunday off from ashtanga-style backbends, seems to have retreated, but really I have no idea why. I suspect too much ab-crunching computer-sitting, but who can say.
It took me TWENTY THREE breaths of hanging back to get deep enough to drop back the first time today.
The second time only took 14, and the third, only maybe 11. Still, these are harder earned dropbacks than ANY day last week, and again, I've no clear idea why.
There is, of course, something to be said for hanging back for 23 breaths. I did Susan's hands-to-3rd-eye method, and consistently told myself, "LEGS STRAIGHT; FOLLOW THE HANDS DOWN." This keeps me from either holding my breath or closing my eyes, and it makes the dropback more secure and easier and less fearful. Sure, I still collapsed in one arm and went down in a pile on the second one, but without fear. Hurrah!
They are not stone yet, not guaranteed. But, I did what I had to to do 3, same as every practice since the Friday before last. Per Grimmly: do them every day.
It's the exit from the arm balance, the "swing up" from chin-to-floor. That makes me crimp my fingers, and that hurts. Maybe I'll start swinging up and right to chaturanga instead of doing the showy exit.
For Kukku, I'm not sure how to modify. Hold the pressup for 1 instead of 5?
For UD, I'm again not sure. I did 3 today instead of 5, and I REALLY do not want to leave it out. Backbending, even after Intermediate's backbends, is not the same without it.
Backbending, after Saturday and Sunday off from ashtanga-style backbends, seems to have retreated, but really I have no idea why. I suspect too much ab-crunching computer-sitting, but who can say.
It took me TWENTY THREE breaths of hanging back to get deep enough to drop back the first time today.
The second time only took 14, and the third, only maybe 11. Still, these are harder earned dropbacks than ANY day last week, and again, I've no clear idea why.
There is, of course, something to be said for hanging back for 23 breaths. I did Susan's hands-to-3rd-eye method, and consistently told myself, "LEGS STRAIGHT; FOLLOW THE HANDS DOWN." This keeps me from either holding my breath or closing my eyes, and it makes the dropback more secure and easier and less fearful. Sure, I still collapsed in one arm and went down in a pile on the second one, but without fear. Hurrah!
They are not stone yet, not guaranteed. But, I did what I had to to do 3, same as every practice since the Friday before last. Per Grimmly: do them every day.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Surfing with the Alien
True, I'm listening to a Feist song as I type this, nonetheless, the Satriani is called for.
Most of the time, when yoga people refer to "surfing," they mean arm balance transitions, one to another (Eka Pada Koundinyasana II to Astavakrasana and then back and then chaturanga, is one of my favorites). I'm a past master gravity surfer in those terms. ItsYoga will teach you things like that (plus, that's where I'm natively talented anyway; gravity surfing on your hands is ALL core strength and balance, and a rock climber yogi is bound to have talent there).
However, this is not what, today, I mean.
I did my usual practice, and have abandoned the hang-back warmups that I was doing on Monday and Tuesday. It's Primary and up to Kapotasana, 5 backbends of 5 breaths (8 was proving too hard on the right wrist), and then 3 dropbacks, no fakes, no "tries," and then close.
Tonight I was teaching a yoga class, which is sort of half ashtanga, half rocket (speaking of ItsYoga), and in there, I led a camel-with-variations, which included the easier "hands stay on hips" to the harder "hands might come to your face or extend overhead," which one of my students tried. Someone asked, "do you do this?" and I said, "I've been known to go to the floor" and she said, "Let's see it." I had been on the mat about 2 hours earlier and felt decent, so I gave a disclaimer and then knelt, arched up and dropped back.
Now, my Kapotasana entry doesn't usually hang (because it's such a breath challenge) and I usually land, and nowadays, try to straighten the arms, and then sort of pop myself up.
Not so in this demo. I arched up and hung back, and suddenly the thighs were holding me in midair and it wasn't hard at all. I touched the floor and then lifted my hands, and the same magic suspension system kicked in. So I rose with a fairly light tap on the floor. Hmm, now THOSE are the hip flexors I wanted to wake up.
There was no taking the feet, no actual Kapotasana, but it was a really nice anti-gravity floor tap and float. It gave me confidence for my next Kapo.
I think that I probably can do all the physics involved in both standing from a backbend AND Kapotasana, but am grokking the physical/psychological/emotional reality of it all. After all, my first unassisted dropback was what, summer 2007? It was clunky, but so were my Friday dropbacks last week.
I think it's all in believing one can. Yoda and Luke, you know. "I can't." "That is why you fail." That sort of thing.
Anyway, on deck are more Sweeney hang-backs, as THOSE are what will, I think, kick in the hip flexors more regularly.
I think of dropbacks-standups-Kapo as ONE pose.
Most of the time, when yoga people refer to "surfing," they mean arm balance transitions, one to another (Eka Pada Koundinyasana II to Astavakrasana and then back and then chaturanga, is one of my favorites). I'm a past master gravity surfer in those terms. ItsYoga will teach you things like that (plus, that's where I'm natively talented anyway; gravity surfing on your hands is ALL core strength and balance, and a rock climber yogi is bound to have talent there).
However, this is not what, today, I mean.
I did my usual practice, and have abandoned the hang-back warmups that I was doing on Monday and Tuesday. It's Primary and up to Kapotasana, 5 backbends of 5 breaths (8 was proving too hard on the right wrist), and then 3 dropbacks, no fakes, no "tries," and then close.
Tonight I was teaching a yoga class, which is sort of half ashtanga, half rocket (speaking of ItsYoga), and in there, I led a camel-with-variations, which included the easier "hands stay on hips" to the harder "hands might come to your face or extend overhead," which one of my students tried. Someone asked, "do you do this?" and I said, "I've been known to go to the floor" and she said, "Let's see it." I had been on the mat about 2 hours earlier and felt decent, so I gave a disclaimer and then knelt, arched up and dropped back.
Now, my Kapotasana entry doesn't usually hang (because it's such a breath challenge) and I usually land, and nowadays, try to straighten the arms, and then sort of pop myself up.
Not so in this demo. I arched up and hung back, and suddenly the thighs were holding me in midair and it wasn't hard at all. I touched the floor and then lifted my hands, and the same magic suspension system kicked in. So I rose with a fairly light tap on the floor. Hmm, now THOSE are the hip flexors I wanted to wake up.
There was no taking the feet, no actual Kapotasana, but it was a really nice anti-gravity floor tap and float. It gave me confidence for my next Kapo.
I think that I probably can do all the physics involved in both standing from a backbend AND Kapotasana, but am grokking the physical/psychological/emotional reality of it all. After all, my first unassisted dropback was what, summer 2007? It was clunky, but so were my Friday dropbacks last week.
I think it's all in believing one can. Yoda and Luke, you know. "I can't." "That is why you fail." That sort of thing.
Anyway, on deck are more Sweeney hang-backs, as THOSE are what will, I think, kick in the hip flexors more regularly.
I think of dropbacks-standups-Kapo as ONE pose.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
New dropback discoveries, questions
Briefly, again 3 dropbacks today, and hurrah.
The first dropback, which early this week was the best, has gradually degraded, and often it's a hands-and-head show, which is fine. I think that if I concentrate more on taking the ribs up and moving the hips slightly forward as I drop, it'll improve.
Hands to face, even before beginning the "inhale up and back," helps immensely with taking fewer breaths hanging back and also with developing the backbend faster.
I can (thank you MS) reach back, fully extended in the arms, and hang. It's not easy, but if I focus on breathing, it can be done. My self-talk is "straighten legs, hang lower, drop gaze, yes" and things to that effect. I find that my tendency is to want to get to the floor, and that cranks the bend more and more into the lumbar, and so to work against that, I need to get the BEND into the front body; more emphasis on ribs away from hips, on arching hips forward, on keeping thighs engaged, on really thinking and doing UP and back.
I re-learned this in playing with coming up: when I press the heels down, I do feel a sort of stretch in the chest (this is good) but I can't seem to get my weight to rock over my feet, not even in rocking. I paid good attention to this in the second wheel (pressup from dropping back), and found that my head tends to move toward my knees, rather than my hips moving over my feet. This is, if you've seen the vid, more like a YC come-to-standing than a real live un-drop-back, and it won't do.
But I'm happy to have discovered this. I think the new strategy will be pressing my wheel over my feet (I always push the wheel over my hands) and then seeing if I can get the hip flexors to flare into consciousness the way my chest and armpits have, from pushing the backbend over my hands for so long.
Does coming up briefly INTENSIFY the backbend, the way I've felt it also intensify between, say, Kapo A (ish) and Kapo B (again, ish)?
Yes, I know it's been a babbly week of dropbacks and backbends; maybe Grim is contagious hah! No seriously, it's a new toy and I'm learning it by myself and I'm too extroverted to keep this quiet. So you get a daily essay on it :)
The first dropback, which early this week was the best, has gradually degraded, and often it's a hands-and-head show, which is fine. I think that if I concentrate more on taking the ribs up and moving the hips slightly forward as I drop, it'll improve.
Hands to face, even before beginning the "inhale up and back," helps immensely with taking fewer breaths hanging back and also with developing the backbend faster.
I can (thank you MS) reach back, fully extended in the arms, and hang. It's not easy, but if I focus on breathing, it can be done. My self-talk is "straighten legs, hang lower, drop gaze, yes" and things to that effect. I find that my tendency is to want to get to the floor, and that cranks the bend more and more into the lumbar, and so to work against that, I need to get the BEND into the front body; more emphasis on ribs away from hips, on arching hips forward, on keeping thighs engaged, on really thinking and doing UP and back.
I re-learned this in playing with coming up: when I press the heels down, I do feel a sort of stretch in the chest (this is good) but I can't seem to get my weight to rock over my feet, not even in rocking. I paid good attention to this in the second wheel (pressup from dropping back), and found that my head tends to move toward my knees, rather than my hips moving over my feet. This is, if you've seen the vid, more like a YC come-to-standing than a real live un-drop-back, and it won't do.
But I'm happy to have discovered this. I think the new strategy will be pressing my wheel over my feet (I always push the wheel over my hands) and then seeing if I can get the hip flexors to flare into consciousness the way my chest and armpits have, from pushing the backbend over my hands for so long.
Does coming up briefly INTENSIFY the backbend, the way I've felt it also intensify between, say, Kapo A (ish) and Kapo B (again, ish)?
Yes, I know it's been a babbly week of dropbacks and backbends; maybe Grim is contagious hah! No seriously, it's a new toy and I'm learning it by myself and I'm too extroverted to keep this quiet. So you get a daily essay on it :)
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Tuesday dropbacks--it's a habit!
Again, 3 dropbacks after Primary and up to Kapo; this is now really becoming just my normal, everyday practice. The dropbacks are still thrillingly new, but up to Kapo is getting downright ordinary, and that's a good thing.
Today I was tired and sore a bit from yesterday, and so there was not the same freakish bandha power. It was still a thoroughly enjoyable practice, though. I teetered some in Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana, and only did vinyasa after both sides (wrist has been really sore), but again, I did a "straighten arms, walk in" pattern with Kapo, and again, rose with a handspring and engaged quads.
Susan, you were RIGHT about the big toe joint. Think pressure there, and the quads engage! Thanks! Also to whoever said little toes---that too, is true! Tops of the feet down into the floor somehow holds the thighs in the pose. Yummy.
I made it up from Supta K with the Dwi Pada feet, finally---it's not easy for me to do that, because my shins are so freakin' long. Usually the feet loop over my head and I wear them like a necklace, but today, I was able to really clasp the ankles big and deep, and hold it. The come-up was more horizontal than the classical Dwi Pada liftoff, but it was inhale, feet clasped, behind head. Hurrah.
Anyway:
different dropbacks today. When I say "no fear," that's just a claim. Of COURSE there's fear, and today it got the better of me on the first one. I went down, and either forgot to throw my hips forward and bend the knees a bit, or else freaked out and didn't do it. CLUNK, onto my head and hands I went. But I pressed up, and I still count it as a dropback.
The second one was much better. The third one had me locked up in fear and really intense muscle-scrunching sensation in the back (it's REALLY hard to do that third one), and so I took the heels up, and froze the dropback in midair and then touched down nice and soft. It amazes me that I can freakin' hold balance, arched over, on my tiptoes. Anyway, I want to work toward flat feet, but heels up is so much easier, in control and in depth, that it's going to be a temptation for a while.
Ah--and one more dropback thing. On the second one, I actually FELT my feet duck out during the in-air drop, and then IMMEDIATELY point forward again once my hands were down. It was funny; the feet turned out then in, real quick, like a guilty child who is trying to convince you he didn't touch that cookie jar.
It's cool. I actually look forward each day to my three dropbacks. No playing with coming up today; too much concentration and sensation in just getting down.
Today I was tired and sore a bit from yesterday, and so there was not the same freakish bandha power. It was still a thoroughly enjoyable practice, though. I teetered some in Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana, and only did vinyasa after both sides (wrist has been really sore), but again, I did a "straighten arms, walk in" pattern with Kapo, and again, rose with a handspring and engaged quads.
Susan, you were RIGHT about the big toe joint. Think pressure there, and the quads engage! Thanks! Also to whoever said little toes---that too, is true! Tops of the feet down into the floor somehow holds the thighs in the pose. Yummy.
I made it up from Supta K with the Dwi Pada feet, finally---it's not easy for me to do that, because my shins are so freakin' long. Usually the feet loop over my head and I wear them like a necklace, but today, I was able to really clasp the ankles big and deep, and hold it. The come-up was more horizontal than the classical Dwi Pada liftoff, but it was inhale, feet clasped, behind head. Hurrah.
Anyway:
different dropbacks today. When I say "no fear," that's just a claim. Of COURSE there's fear, and today it got the better of me on the first one. I went down, and either forgot to throw my hips forward and bend the knees a bit, or else freaked out and didn't do it. CLUNK, onto my head and hands I went. But I pressed up, and I still count it as a dropback.
The second one was much better. The third one had me locked up in fear and really intense muscle-scrunching sensation in the back (it's REALLY hard to do that third one), and so I took the heels up, and froze the dropback in midair and then touched down nice and soft. It amazes me that I can freakin' hold balance, arched over, on my tiptoes. Anyway, I want to work toward flat feet, but heels up is so much easier, in control and in depth, that it's going to be a temptation for a while.
Ah--and one more dropback thing. On the second one, I actually FELT my feet duck out during the in-air drop, and then IMMEDIATELY point forward again once my hands were down. It was funny; the feet turned out then in, real quick, like a guilty child who is trying to convince you he didn't touch that cookie jar.
It's cool. I actually look forward each day to my three dropbacks. No playing with coming up today; too much concentration and sensation in just getting down.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Bandhas, Kapo developments, Monday dropbacks.
I wanted to write this directly after this afternoon's practice, when it was cosmic and I was riding the thing like some kind of anime surfer. Let's dive in anyway:
A few weeks ago, after one of my "energy burnout in the hips" practices, which left me also with a sorer-than-usual right wrist, I started thinking about what those practices have or lack which "light powerful" practices either do not.
The answer I landed on was BANDHAS. Yes, the famous, the elusive, the paradoxical.
The burnout practices lose the bandhas; maybe they don't start with them to begin with. In any case, my experience with Primary (I know, too, why 0v0 calls first series a "lover") still carries developments, regularly. A few weeks back, I had a practice that was all about breath and, though I didn't know it then, bandhas. It's all, as people have said before, in the sun salutations.
Inhale, arms over. Exhale, fold. Inhale, look. That look, right there, that "halfway up" or the other dozen things that instructors call it. Trini. I feel uddiyana bandha kick in, right there (when I'm aware of it, at least). A slight pair of muscular engagements over the kidneys, and roughly kidney-shaped. The inflating rib cage. Power wiring that, if I let it trace, goes down to the core, in and under, and hints at the ever-elusive moola bandha. The lats awaken; strength shows up in this frame all around the ribs. Uddiyana. Mmmmmmmm.
Now there is, of course, a KRIYA called uddiyana, and it's a FULL uddiyana bandha, as big as you can get it, with retention (at least that's my understanding of said kriya). Asana uddiyana bandha is more like feeling, not this big purposeful inhalation into the ribs and suspension of that expansion. Bandhas, true to their description, flex; they bend, they come and go. One's attention is stronger, fainter, mobile, around them.
Recently this has been happening with my sun salutation jumpback to chaturanga: there is the sensation of a straight-arm lolasana, and then the legs extending to plank and lowering down. In July, Matthew Sweeney had me jump back to plank and then lower, and until recently, it's been inhale, look, then exhale, bend knees, jump, extend, plank, lower. This is Bandhas, exhibit A.
Breathing has also been a key, with my right wrist being sore. I want less weight on it, and so I've been doing "take it up" (tolasana) between sides of seated poses. Last week, I did all of the vinyasa three times, but then modeled a tripod headstand entry to side crane (Parsva Bakasana) and set off the wrist again (duh).
So in Primary, particularly in the tough sequences after Navasana, I've been really cueing movement to breath, with big, big intent. I find that this pulls in bandhas as well.
Today this had the following result: Bhujapidasana for five. Chin to mat. Eyes locked on a little orange crumble of my Jade Harmony on the patterned rug. Inhale, swing feet out from under. Exhale, extend into a low Tittibhasana (yes, I know it's "for showoffs only," but I like it). Inhale, swing feet back, toward Bakasana. But I didn't get Bakasana; the knees met between my elbows, and I HELD that for the inhale; exhale, chaturanga. It wasn't even intentional, it was more like "oops, hell, better hold that or else lose the exit!" It wasn't showy at all, I simply knew that I had to hold it or else let the whole thing go. And so be it. Bandhas, exhibit B.
Supta K had exactly the same exit result.
That's not, of course, my usual exit; plenty of times, I flub it, still. But not today; this was a practice for the books (we all have them).
From Kukkutasana, I usually take my hands out and try to throw the lotus back. Often I land on my knees, undo it, and then climb into chaturanga. Today I threw it back, undid it in the air and landed on my toes. First time ever that that's happened. I repeated it with the lotus from Uth Pluthi. Bandhas, exhibit C.
Let us hop up to my final pose, which is still Kapotasana.
I've been dropping back, and walking my hands in, toward my feet. I read somewhere, however, that when Sharath teaches it, he has the Kapoer drop back, work the arms toward straight, walk in, and repeat. Gradual arm straightening, closer and closer to the feet. I figured that I'd give this a shot, since my thighs keep disengaging in Kapo, which makes it impossible to come up, and sort of negates the strengthening work of Laghuvajrasana.
I dropped back to my hands, and pushed up for five, and then picked up one hand without dropping my head to the floor (which often happens anyway) and was able to walk both hands in, no head-to-floor (this is a victory, and uncommon). Then I pushed/hefted myself up, both with some spring from the hands and from engaged quads. What I like best about this method is that it intensifies the quadricep engagement, and thus makes Laghu make more sense as a precursor, and also intensifies the hip flexor stretch, and thus makes Ustrasana make more sense. I can imagine, eventually, walking the hands TO the feet, lowering, then pressing up, and then coming up. And that, if it ever happens, will be Kapotasana.
Dropbacks! On a Monday! This, of course, is only a celebration because I've only been able to do them on Fridays for the last two weeks.
I did 3 for 3; over the summer, I was doing "3 in 6 tries." Now, if I see the back of the mat from the front of the mat, I drop. No fear, no question. Sure, on the third one, with the back muscles overloading with sensation, I tend to go down on my hands and head, but at the Y, that's safe.
The first one was better, deeper than Friday's, with feet flat. The second one, again, inadvertently came heels up, but the landing was safe. The third, again as usual, was a head tapper, but again, that's fine. They are coming. As Grimmly swore some time ago, DO THEM EVERY DAY.
I played with the coming-up strategies offered last time, by a variety of marvelous people. I cannot, yet, get AWAKE in the hip flexors; they remain sort of in the dark about coming up. I feel that "exhale, press into the heels" will awaken them, but maybe dropbacks need to get cozier first, and more of that Kapo walk-in should be done too. Hello, hip flexors, I am coming for you, just like for Charles Xavier :D
All is coming. This practice is a marvelous thing. I say this, of course, on a good day. You regular readers know the kind of curses I've levied against this whole thing on the bad days :)
A few weeks ago, after one of my "energy burnout in the hips" practices, which left me also with a sorer-than-usual right wrist, I started thinking about what those practices have or lack which "light powerful" practices either do not.
The answer I landed on was BANDHAS. Yes, the famous, the elusive, the paradoxical.
The burnout practices lose the bandhas; maybe they don't start with them to begin with. In any case, my experience with Primary (I know, too, why 0v0 calls first series a "lover") still carries developments, regularly. A few weeks back, I had a practice that was all about breath and, though I didn't know it then, bandhas. It's all, as people have said before, in the sun salutations.
Inhale, arms over. Exhale, fold. Inhale, look. That look, right there, that "halfway up" or the other dozen things that instructors call it. Trini. I feel uddiyana bandha kick in, right there (when I'm aware of it, at least). A slight pair of muscular engagements over the kidneys, and roughly kidney-shaped. The inflating rib cage. Power wiring that, if I let it trace, goes down to the core, in and under, and hints at the ever-elusive moola bandha. The lats awaken; strength shows up in this frame all around the ribs. Uddiyana. Mmmmmmmm.
Now there is, of course, a KRIYA called uddiyana, and it's a FULL uddiyana bandha, as big as you can get it, with retention (at least that's my understanding of said kriya). Asana uddiyana bandha is more like feeling, not this big purposeful inhalation into the ribs and suspension of that expansion. Bandhas, true to their description, flex; they bend, they come and go. One's attention is stronger, fainter, mobile, around them.
Recently this has been happening with my sun salutation jumpback to chaturanga: there is the sensation of a straight-arm lolasana, and then the legs extending to plank and lowering down. In July, Matthew Sweeney had me jump back to plank and then lower, and until recently, it's been inhale, look, then exhale, bend knees, jump, extend, plank, lower. This is Bandhas, exhibit A.
Breathing has also been a key, with my right wrist being sore. I want less weight on it, and so I've been doing "take it up" (tolasana) between sides of seated poses. Last week, I did all of the vinyasa three times, but then modeled a tripod headstand entry to side crane (Parsva Bakasana) and set off the wrist again (duh).
So in Primary, particularly in the tough sequences after Navasana, I've been really cueing movement to breath, with big, big intent. I find that this pulls in bandhas as well.
Today this had the following result: Bhujapidasana for five. Chin to mat. Eyes locked on a little orange crumble of my Jade Harmony on the patterned rug. Inhale, swing feet out from under. Exhale, extend into a low Tittibhasana (yes, I know it's "for showoffs only," but I like it). Inhale, swing feet back, toward Bakasana. But I didn't get Bakasana; the knees met between my elbows, and I HELD that for the inhale; exhale, chaturanga. It wasn't even intentional, it was more like "oops, hell, better hold that or else lose the exit!" It wasn't showy at all, I simply knew that I had to hold it or else let the whole thing go. And so be it. Bandhas, exhibit B.
Supta K had exactly the same exit result.
That's not, of course, my usual exit; plenty of times, I flub it, still. But not today; this was a practice for the books (we all have them).
From Kukkutasana, I usually take my hands out and try to throw the lotus back. Often I land on my knees, undo it, and then climb into chaturanga. Today I threw it back, undid it in the air and landed on my toes. First time ever that that's happened. I repeated it with the lotus from Uth Pluthi. Bandhas, exhibit C.
Let us hop up to my final pose, which is still Kapotasana.
I've been dropping back, and walking my hands in, toward my feet. I read somewhere, however, that when Sharath teaches it, he has the Kapoer drop back, work the arms toward straight, walk in, and repeat. Gradual arm straightening, closer and closer to the feet. I figured that I'd give this a shot, since my thighs keep disengaging in Kapo, which makes it impossible to come up, and sort of negates the strengthening work of Laghuvajrasana.
I dropped back to my hands, and pushed up for five, and then picked up one hand without dropping my head to the floor (which often happens anyway) and was able to walk both hands in, no head-to-floor (this is a victory, and uncommon). Then I pushed/hefted myself up, both with some spring from the hands and from engaged quads. What I like best about this method is that it intensifies the quadricep engagement, and thus makes Laghu make more sense as a precursor, and also intensifies the hip flexor stretch, and thus makes Ustrasana make more sense. I can imagine, eventually, walking the hands TO the feet, lowering, then pressing up, and then coming up. And that, if it ever happens, will be Kapotasana.
Dropbacks! On a Monday! This, of course, is only a celebration because I've only been able to do them on Fridays for the last two weeks.
I did 3 for 3; over the summer, I was doing "3 in 6 tries." Now, if I see the back of the mat from the front of the mat, I drop. No fear, no question. Sure, on the third one, with the back muscles overloading with sensation, I tend to go down on my hands and head, but at the Y, that's safe.
The first one was better, deeper than Friday's, with feet flat. The second one, again, inadvertently came heels up, but the landing was safe. The third, again as usual, was a head tapper, but again, that's fine. They are coming. As Grimmly swore some time ago, DO THEM EVERY DAY.
I played with the coming-up strategies offered last time, by a variety of marvelous people. I cannot, yet, get AWAKE in the hip flexors; they remain sort of in the dark about coming up. I feel that "exhale, press into the heels" will awaken them, but maybe dropbacks need to get cozier first, and more of that Kapo walk-in should be done too. Hello, hip flexors, I am coming for you, just like for Charles Xavier :D
All is coming. This practice is a marvelous thing. I say this, of course, on a good day. You regular readers know the kind of curses I've levied against this whole thing on the bad days :)
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