Rox Does Yoga

Yoga, Wellness, and Life

Pose of the Month: Hero Pose May 17, 2011

Filed under: Pose of the Month,yoga — R. H. Ward @ 6:17 pm
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Hero Pose - SeatedPose Name:

Hero Pose

Sanskrit Name:

Virasana / Supta Virasana

Steps:

  1. Begin by kneeling on the floor.
  2. Spread the feet just wide enough apart that your tush can fit between your heels. Keep the inner knees close together, and the tops of the feet flat on the floor. Try to bring your tush to rest on the floor.
  3. If your tush doesn’t hit the floor, just sit up straight and breathe into the pose. Don’t force your tush down – opening the hips is more important than getting down to the floor.
  4. If you feel discomfort in your knees, you can place a pillow or block under your bottom for support. If you feel discomfort in your feet, you can try rolling up the edges of your mat under your feet for more support.
  5. If you can sit in the pose comfortably with your bottom on the floor, you can begin to bend backward. Use your hands for support on the floor. Engage abdominal muscles to avoid overextending your back. If you’re flexible, you may be able to come down on your elbows or even flat on your back.
  6. Work on relaxing into the pose, remembering to breathe.
  7. Come back up to a seated kneeling position. Gently bring your legs around to a cross-legged position.

Benefits:

Hero pose works to stretch and open the knees, hips, and feet. The pose can improve digestion and relieve gas and the symptoms of menopause. The more advanced version adds a deep backbend, which is beneficial for spine health: when done properly, the pose can be helpful for sciatica and lower-back pain. Backbends are heart-opening poses, which decrease depression, improve functioning of the lungs, and improve posture.

Contraindications:

Contraindications include heart problems. Students with knee or ankle problems may want to modify or avoid this pose. Those with back problems should avoid the backbending variation.

My Experience of Hero Pose:

Hero pose has been a favorite of mine for a long time. I liked the challenge of the pose and the stretch through hips and thighs. Over the years it’s been exciting to make progress in this pose – being able to sit my tush on the floor, to increase the backbend I was capable of, and eventually to lie on the floor with my arms extended. It was very satisfying to finally find a sense of ease in this challenging pose, to be able to lie back comfortably and just enjoy the stretch without being limited by pain or pressure. However, with my current schedule, I’ve had less time for yoga, which has led me to focus the time I do have on standing poses and meditation. I began to practice hero pose less frequently, and so I lost some of that flexibility that allowed me to relax deeply into the pose. My knees started to bother me, and I’ve had to work more gently and thoughtfully with the pose than I used to. It’s become a goal of mine to regain that former flexibility and ease and to maintain it as I get older.

Hero Pose - Reclining Version

 

Beginners’ One-Hour Class Sequence May 16, 2011

Filed under: yoga — R. H. Ward @ 1:12 pm
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The sequence below would be appropriate for a beginners’ one-hour class. I practiced and timed this sequence earlier this week. For most poses, I held the pose for a count of seven of my breaths (a beginning student would be likely to have shorter breaths than I do; my breath tends to be shorter than N’s or J’s, so they’d probably count each pose at five breaths to my seven, while a beginner might count eight or ten breaths, or just hang on until it’s over!).

  • child’s pose
  • rabbit pose
  • cat/dog tilt
  • side stretches
  • downward dog; transition to standing
  • half sun salutes X 4
  • class sun salutations with lunges X 2
  • mountain pose
  • vinyasa (transition to wide-leg standing poses)
  • warrior 1
  • warrior 2
  • radiant warrior
  • triangle pose
  • revolved triangle
  • head-to-knee pose
  • pigeon pose
  • one-legged downward dog
  • vinyasa
  • repeat wide-legged standing pose sequence (warrior 1 to pigeon) on the other side
  • vinyasa; transition back to mountain pose
  • tree pose
  • paschimottanasana (seated forward fold)
  • if time allows: cobbler pose
  • if time allows: seated twist
  • if time allows: camel or bridge
  • inversion: legs-up-the-wall or shoulderstand
  • fish pose
  • sivasana
  • brief meditation
 

Pose of the Month: Plank Pose May 14, 2011

Filed under: Pose of the Month,yoga — R. H. Ward @ 1:02 pm
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Pose Name:

Plank Pose

Sanskrit Name:

I could not identify a Sanskrit name for this specific pose.

Steps:

Plank pose is most frequently practiced during sun salutation (surya namaskar). For brevity, my instructions below begin with downward dog.

  1. Begin in downward-facing dog pose.
  2. Shift your weight forward so that your shoulders are directly over your hands. Arms are straight; legs are straight, with toes curled under. Look straight down at your hands and keep your fingers spread wide.
  3. Keep your tailbone tucked and your body straight. Activate the core muscles in your abdomen to help hold you up.
  4. Keep your breathing deep and even. Focusing on your steady breath will help you stay strong in this pose.
  5. Slowly lower down to rest on your belly.

Benefits:

Plank pose works arm muscles and tones core muscles. It builds heat and energy in the body while building strength.

Contraindications:

Plank may be difficult for students with wrist problems or carpal tunnel syndrome. These students can instead practice dolphin plank, which puts less pressure on wrists by resting the forearms on the floor.

My Experience of Plank Pose:

I have always hated plank pose. It makes me feel weak and helpless. I’ve been practicing yoga for over eight years – I do plank all the time and I work out with weights, but no matter how much muscle I build or how strong I think I am, plank is always really difficult for me to hold. Whenever it becomes too much and I have to drop my knees to rest, it feels like a failure.

I think I need to change my attitude towards plank pose. So far, I’ve always approached plank with the idea that if I just worked harder, I would be strong enough to do the pose well. I think I need to let go of that idea and learn to appreciate my plank for what it is: a challenging pose that makes me work. When my arms shake in plank, that doesn’t mean that I’m weak, and needing to drop my knees doesn’t make me a failure. If I can approach plank with a feeling of acceptance about where I am with the pose, my experience of the pose (and hopefully my enjoyment of it) will improve.

Plank Pose

 

Pose of the Month: Tree Pose May 12, 2011

Filed under: Pose of the Month,yoga — R. H. Ward @ 12:28 pm
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Tree Pose - FrontPose Name:

Tree Pose

Sanskrit Name:

Vrksasana

Steps:

  1. Begin in mountain pose (tadasana) with hands in prayer.
  2. Shift your weight onto your right foot, and slowly lift your left foot off the ground.
  3. Place the left foot against the right leg: against the thigh or against the calf, but not against the knee. If you feel wobbly, it’s okay to place the left foot at the right ankle and rest your toes on the floor for stability.
  4. Press your left knee out to the side.
  5. Let your gaze rest on an unmoving spot in front of you.
  6. When you feel steady, you can lift your arms up.
  7. Remember to breathe!
  8. Slowly lower your arms down and your left leg to the floor. Shake out your legs.
  9. Repeat on the other side.

Benefits:

Tree pose improves balance. It also works the muscles in both the standing leg and the bent leg, as well as in the arms if arms are extended overhead. Can be beneficial for those with sciatica and flat feet.

Contraindications:

People with balance disorders should take care and practice tree pose near a wall for stability and support. Headache and low blood pressure are also contraindications. Those with high blood pressure should not raise the arms overhead.

My Experience of Tree Pose:

I love tree pose for several reasons. It’s a pose that I can do well, and it feels good to do the pose. At the same time, tree pose is always challenging, depending on what my balance is like on that particular day. In tree pose, I have to rely on both physical and mental balance, and if either are off that day, it makes the pose more difficult. However, when I am physically and mentally balanced, I get into tree pose and feel like I can stay there all day. I love how practicing tree pose makes me focus my mind. It’s a pose that always makes me feel peaceful and centered, balanced and strong.

 

Yoga and Wrist Health May 11, 2011

Filed under: yoga — R. H. Ward @ 2:01 pm
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Here’s a link to an interesting little article about yoga and wrist health: Floating, Flying and Balancing: A Guide To Yoga Wrist Care and Proper Alignment.

Since I’ve experienced wrist pain associated with yoga poses in the past, I find it interesting to check out what different people have to say about this. For my wrists, I bought a wrist brace from Walgreens – just your basic carpal tunnel style brace, but it kept my wrist immobilized and allowed it to rest, and after a few days, it felt much better. I also found generic wrist supports (again, from Walgreens) to be useful when experiencing mild discomfort. I now have two of the generic wrist supports and a wrist brace for each hand (the braces are hand-specific, while the supports can be wrapped on either hand). I don’t usually have problems now but at least I have something to fall back on if pain flares up.

Waiting for pain to happen isn’t the best idea, either, though – we should try to prevent the pain from occurring. The article above gives some good tips for keeping wrists healthy. I’ve thought about getting these wrist-assured gloves that are supposed to be very helpful for poses that put strain on the wrist. One of F’s yoga classmates has a wedge that she puts under her hands in downward dog and other wrist-intensive poses. The wedge looks to be more cost-effective than the gloves, but the gloves might be a little more versatile. So far, though, I’m glad I haven’t needed either of them.

Have you ever experienced wrist pain, either in a single pose or in a chronic way? How did you treat it?

 

April Training Weekend: Saturday Teaching Practice May 7, 2011

Filed under: reflections,teacher training,yoga — R. H. Ward @ 1:28 pm
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Saturday’s teacher training class also included a round of teaching practice. We split into two groups of six, and round-robin-taught a class to one another. In my group, Tony started with child’s pose and rabbit pose, then I did side stretches, then Joanna half sun salutes, and so on. Each of the six of us got to teach twice.

This was an interesting exercise in a few ways. I kept noticing how as a group we weren’t really structuring a “yoga class” the way we’d actually teach one. Each person, when put on the spot, made interesting choices about which pose to teach next. We did balance poses twice, and sun salutations twice, and skipped warriors until I decided that was what I wanted to teach on my second round – they seemed too important to leave out. Even then, it was tricky trying to figure out how to get into the warrior pose, as each person brought the group up to standing when she finished her part. I ended up making everyone do another sun salutation/vinyasa, because that seems like a more natural way to get into the wide-legged stance for warrior than to just step a leg back (even though stepping a leg back was the way my old teacher Gene taught it – I don’t know, it would have been fine to do it that way, but I didn’t realize it until after half the group was in plank already). I could have just had everyone do a half sun salute and then step one leg back, but I wasn’t thinking and made them go through plank, up dog, and down dog before stepping one foot forward to get to warrior 1. I talked the group through warrior 1, warrior 2, and radiant warrior on each side before bringing them back to standing.

I was pretty pleased with how I did in this exercise, but I think it was more interesting to watch my classmates. This was what really inspired my post on voice the other day: listening to everyone else and hearing each person trying to establish his or her own voice as a teacher. Each person had strengths and weaknesses. Some people repeated the same things over and over; some people didn’t say enough to guide a beginner into a pose, and others talked too much. I’m sure I had similar faults. It’ll be just as interesting to observe my classmates growing as yoga teachers as it will be to see it happen in myself.

 

April Training Weekend: Saturday Asana Round-Up, part 2 May 5, 2011

Filed under: teacher training,yoga — R. H. Ward @ 1:27 pm
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Yesterday‘s post discussed standing postures, forward bends, backbends, and twists. Here are a few other categories of yoga postures:

  • Arm balances are often the poses that look the coolest. We’ve all seen photos of some flexible, muscular, inhuman-looking guy balancing like some sort of impossible alien creature. We look at these pictures and think, I could never do that. Part of what’s needed to accomplish arm balances is a positive attitude: the ability to get over the idea that it’s impossible. It may be too much for you right now, but anything is possible. This is why arm balances also require and build strength and determination. Because they look like you’re about to take flight, arm balances are often named after birds: crow, crane, peacock, swan. Side plank (vasisthasana), while challenging, can be an easier arm balance for beginners to start with.
  • Inverted postures are usually done near the end of hatha yoga class. Any pose that results in your head being below your heart is technically an inversion, but there are many classic ones: the most challenging include handstand, headstand, and wheel; easier ones are bridge and shoulder stand; and finally, there’s legs-up-the-wall, which anyone can do. No matter which you choose, inversions are beneficial because they mix things up, reversing your systems, which can improve slow metabolism and help with headaches. Inversions also make organs and muscles work harder to stay upright, which tones them. With inversions, it’s best to be humble – don’t force yourself into a pose you’re not ready for just to impress others. When you do “egostand”, you’ll be uncomfortable and could end up really hurting yourself. Be kind to your neck!
  • Finally, any hatha yoga class will end with sivasana – corpse pose or rest pose. It looks the simplest because your just lying there on the floor, but it’s actually challenging because you have to calm your mind and really allow the body to relax. The whole yoga class is building to this point: relaxing in sivasana. (Here’s an interesting tip I learned: if you have a cold and sivasana makes you cough, try lying on your stomach instead!)

Some yoga poses may seem to fit into more than one of these categories (handstand is both an arm balance and an inversion; wheel is both an inversion and a backbend; standing poses often involve backbends and twists). That’s not a problem, because you’re getting the benefit of both kinds of poses.

Since this month is focused on asana, our homework assignment is to do eight posture write-ups. We have to write on four of our favorite poses, and on four of our least favorite poses. We’ll reflect on what specifically it is that we like or dislike about the pose. After all, the posture itself is neutral – it’s how I perceive the posture that makes it “good” or “bad”, so what does my perception of that posture say about me? This assignment gives us an opportunity not just to examine the poses, but also ourselves based on our feelings about the poses. Some of my classmates wondered aloud how they would find four different poses they disliked, while another classmate had trouble coming up with more than two poses he actually liked! I think we’ll get a variety of responses to this assignment.

We also have to write out a one-hour sequence of postures for a beginner class. We talked a lot in class about how to structure a hatha yoga class, so I’ll write more about this in the days to come.

 

April Training Weekend: Saturday Asana Round-Up, part 1 May 4, 2011

Filed under: teacher training,yoga — R. H. Ward @ 8:19 pm
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I haven’t finished my write-up of the April teacher training weekend yet, so let’s remedy that. On Friday, we had talked about sun salutations; in Saturday’s class we covered other types of yoga postures. Most postures can be grouped into one of the following categories:

  • Standing postures build strength, endurance, and flexibility. They can improve circulation and energy by building heat in the body. Standing poses also increase mental energy, improving alertness and concentration. There’s a lot to concentrate on during standing poses, after all! Although vigorous, standing poses are good for beginners because they strengthen the body and improve focus, which is necessary for meditation. Standing postures include the warrior poses, triangle, chair pose, and balances like tree, eagle, and dancer pose.
  • Forward bends can be done while standing or seated – all you do is bend forward. These poses are good for calming body and mind, releasing tension, and lengthening the spine. Forward bends also provide an abdominal massage, which can be good for the internal organs and digestion. In seated forward bends, the legs can be straight, wide open, in a split, or one or both knees can be bent – different positions of the legs allow you to get different leg stretches during the pose. For standing forward bends, you can bend with legs hip-width apart or in a wide-legged stance.
  • Backbends are heart opening poses. For this reason, backbends can be difficult for some people – a backbend can make you feel vulnerable. When you drop your head back, you can’t see what’s in front of you, and that can be scary. However, backbends can be really beneficial because they open the chest and shoulders; if you spend a lot of time hunched over a computer keyboard, backbends can really help to balance out your body. They improve posture, decrease depression, and strengthen the back. Common backbends are upward-facing dog, cobra, sphinx, camel, and wheel pose. You can do a simple backbend right now, either standing or seated, just by placing your hands on your lower back for support and leaning gently back, opening and bending backward from the heart.
  • Twisting poses wring out the body, releasing toxins and massaging the internal organs. This makes them good for digestion and circulation. Twists also, obviously, twist the spine, which can release tension in the back and shoulders. Many standing poses involve a twist (think of revolved triangle), but usually we think of twists as seated or reclining poses. Twists are great for improving energy – when you’re feeling stressed, do some twists and unwind!

Tomorrow: learn about arm balances, inversions, and sivasana, and find out what my homework for this month will be!

 

General guidelines for asana practice: comfortable and steady May 3, 2011

Filed under: breath,teacher training,yoga — R. H. Ward @ 7:19 am
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N gave us a handout listing general guidelines for a yoga class:

  1. Start with a centering exercise
  2. Breathe in and out through the nose
  3. Engage diaphragmatic breathing (not shallow breathing)
  4. Do not hold the breath; let breath flow
  5. Practice on an empty stomach
  6. Wear loose-fitting comfortable clothing
  7. Always end practice with sivasana and meditation
  8. Stay present and focused on practice
  9. Make sure you are comfortable and steady in every posture
  10. Close the eyes if you are able, or focus on drishti (focal point)
  11. Have no expectations of your practice; remain detached
  12. Each posture has an attitude behind it: acceptance, surrender, balance, strength, heart-opening
  13. Each posture works with subtle body energy and chakras
  14. Time of practice and place of practice are important elements

Many of these are common-sense things or things I’d heard before, but there are a couple that were new to me. One of these is #9, “Make sure you are comfortable and steady in every posture”, which I’d never heard before coming to N & J’s classes. They’re not saying that you should feel as comfortable practicing yoga as you feel sitting on the couch. What they’re saying is that, even in a difficult pose, you should be able to feel comfortable and steady staying in the pose for a while, despite the fact that it’s difficult.

We all know that, when practicing yoga, you need to find a balance between actual pain and the strain of stretching in a new way. If a posture is causing actual pain, you need to get out of that posture or modify it so it doesn’t hurt. However, some strain is natural, the body’s way of letting us know that something is going on here. Feeling strain allows us to practice tapas and use that burning feeling in our arms or legs as fuel to become stronger.

Despite the strain and ache in our muscles, we need to find a way to feel steady in the posture. If we’re wobbling all over the place, we can’t find our balance, and our feet are slipping, then we’re not practicing the pose properly. The best thing to do is to come out of the pose a little bit: change your stance, bend a little less, modifying the pose until you feel steady. If you don’t feel steady, it’s a sign that your body isn’t ready for the most challenging modification, and maybe you should spend a little more time in the basic posture or a in gentler modification. If you feel steady in the posture, then you can allow your body to relax into it a little, and you can hold the posture comfortably for longer.

Similarly, N & J tell us to pay attention to the breath in a difficult pose. Is your breathing ragged and uneven? Are you panting like you just ran a marathon? Or are you holding the breath? Then it’s time to modify the posture. Hatha yoga class isn’t like kickboxing class – the point isn’t just to give the body a good workout. You want to be able to keep your breath deep and even and regular as you hold each pose. Let your breath guide you as you flow from one pose to another. There’s nothing wrong with modifying a pose to make it easier, or with taking a rest if you need one. Get your breath back to a nice even flow and focus on keeping it steady and even as you practice. It will make your practice stronger and you’ll feel better afterwards!

Are any points on the list of general guidelines unfamiliar to you? Do you see any surprises here?

 

Yoga teaching voice April 30, 2011

Filed under: reflections,teacher training,yoga,yoga lifestyle — R. H. Ward @ 7:50 pm
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As a writer in grad school, I really struggled with voice, trying to write poems that would stand out as MY poems. My thesis advisor would tell me how important it was for my poems to hang together as a cohesive group, with a voice to unify them; he said he wanted my poems to have a voice so strong that if someone dropped a pile of unattributed poems on his desk, he could pick mine out of the stack. At the time, I was 23. I had no idea really who I was as a poet, and was just beginning to figure out who I might be as a person, so when my advisor talked about voice it was hard really to understand what he meant. I didn’t have as much confidence as my classmates did, and that came through in the poems. In the years since then, I’ve made a lot of progress with developing my voice. The poems I’m writing now (or was writing, before teacher training started) have a much stronger voice, a voice that was influenced by many writers I admire but which is still definitively mine.

This teacher training weekend made me think about my voice as a yoga teacher. I don’t mean my speaking voice (although that’s important too), but who I am and what’s important to me as a teacher. I’ve been practicing yoga for over eight years, and I’ve taken classes with a lot of different yoga instructors, all of whom teach differently. The core poses are all the same, but every teacher is going to phrase things differently, is going to emphasize something different. My favorite teachers all live in my head somewhere: Gene in Boston, my friend Lucia, Jennifer Schelter, Adam and Lisie at Enso, now J & N, even the woman who taught my very first yoga class back in North Carolina. When I practice yoga, and even more when I try to teach a pose, I have their words in my mind to draw upon, but it does no good for me to just regurgitate another teacher’s class. That’s not helpful for me, and it’d be dead boring for the students. What I need to do is to synthesize the different voices I hear in my mind and add my own perspective – make my yoga my own. It doesn’t sound all that difficult, but practicing teaching this weekend, it was incredibly difficult! My classmates and I could all hear J’s voice in our mouths as we taught. Each of us needs to develop our own unique voice.

How? The only way to do it is practice, practice, practice. I need to dive deeper into my own yoga practice, not just doing poses but paying attention to each pose, noticing the little things I do to get my alignment right and figuring out how to tell those little things to someone else, how to describe those things in my own way. And I need to practice teaching. The same way I had to practice writing poetry to find my voice as a poet, or the same way that a student in a public speaking class needs to practice before giving a speech, I need to practice giving yoga instructions, practice hearing my voice in this new way, practice paying attention to what the students are doing and finding ways to guide and correct them. I’ll get a lot of this practice through the teacher training program, but still, I think F’s going to be getting a lot of yoga lectures for a while. This issue of voice is something I’d never really considered before, but it’s critically important to explore if I’m going to follow this path.