Rox Does Yoga

Yoga, Wellness, and Life

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
 

Vegetarianism: Further Restaurant Adventures May 15, 2011

Filed under: reflections,yoga lifestyle — R. H. Ward @ 1:31 pm
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I can now confirm officially that Quiznos wins over Subway. Quiznos’ veggie sub includes sauteed mushrooms and guacamole. They also have a veggie wrap. Now I know which sandwich shop works better for me!

F and I went to a fancy Mexican restaurant last Saturday, where I had my first “this ought to be vegetarian but isn’t” mishap. We ordered the elote appetizer: a corn and cheese dish that was amazing. After we finished, F asked the waitress about the ingredients, and it turned out that the corn was cooked in chicken stock. This wasn’t indicated on the menu, so there’s no way I could have known. I’m not going to guilt myself about this.

This made me think about how much I can control what I eat at a restaurant. At home, I know exactly what goes into my meal and how the food is prepared, but not at a restaurant. If I want to eat out sometimes (and I do), all I can do is to do my best not to eat meat. Sometimes accidents will happen, like at this Mexican restaurant. I don’t know what goes on in the kitchen – maybe my portobello sandwich is cooked on the same grill with F’s hamburger, or right in the same oil. If so, there’s nothing I can do about that. I try to choose restaurants that cook in healthy ways,and I order meat-free food at those restaurants, but I can’t micromanage and control every aspect of the cooking process. I can ony do what I can, and then let go of the results.

This incident also made me think of a friend of mine who’s been vegetarian since childhood and has never eaten meat. Once we went to a Mexican place together and she accidentally ate something that had been cooked in chicken stock, and it made her sick because her body just didn’t know how to process it. I’m nowhere near that point, but I may just email the restaurant to suggest that they add more information to their menu. No one wants to go out for a nice dinner and get sick afterward. This is also a reminder that I need to be careful at Mexican restaurants; my sister-in-law, who works in the food industry, says that most Mexican places cook their rice in chicken stock. Now that I know, I can be more careful in the future.

 

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

 

Yoga guidelines: when to eat? May 13, 2011

Filed under: reflections,yoga lifestyle — R. H. Ward @ 2:28 pm
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Let’s talk about food. The yoga guidelines that N & J gave me include #5, “Practice on an empty stomach.” I find this remarkably difficult, partly because I’m always hungry, and partly for practical reasons.

Before starting teacher training, I usually practiced yoga in the morning before work. F and I would get up, make breakfast, eat together, and then I’d do yoga while he took the first shower. Our usual breakfast is a bowl of cereal and a fresh fruit smoothie, so it’s not a heavy meal, but it’s still definitely a meal. Only occasionally did I find that the food was sloshing around in my belly or otherwise making yoga practice uncomfortable. I’m just the kind of person who needs to eat first thing in the morning, period. If I get up early and don’t eat right away, I’m likely to feel ill. It’s just the way I’m built, so for me if I’m going to do yoga in the morning I need to eat something first.

Now that I’m doing the training, I still sometimes practice yoga in the morning, but I also go to hatha yoga class after work at least one day a week. This throws my whole schedule into disarray. Instead of getting up early and doing yoga, I’ll now take the first shower and get to work early, so that I can leave early, so that I can eat something for dinner before going to a 6:15 yoga class. The 6:15 class runs until 7:30, which in reality ends up being closer to 7:45, and by the time I collect my things and drive home it’s after 8:15. Add time to prepare myself a healthy meal and it’d be after 9 PM by the time I was eating. My usual dinner time is around 7:00-7:30, which is smack in the middle of yoga class. I cannot wait to have dinner until after 9 at night. First of all, I would be starving and exhausted, and secondly, it’s not really very healthy to eat a meal before going to bed. Researchers say that it’s best to finish eating before 8 PM. I feel like my only option is to eat at 5:15 or so.

I brought some of these concerns up at the last training weekend. N says that, ideally, we would practice yoga on an empty stomach, but really you just don’t want to have a very full stomach when practicing. I can appreciate that; nobody wants to go out to a nice restaurant and then practice yoga, or practice yoga on Thanksgiving night. You can’t stretch when you’re stuffed, it’d be too uncomfortable. N further said that, ideally, we would all make lunch our main meal of the day. I have to say that, unless sandwiches and pre-packaged frozen meals are one’s idea of a “main meal”, that it’s really hard to make lunch the main meal of the day while working a full-time job. No matter what kind of job it is, if you’re in an office or a hospital or a factory, you just can’t cut out for 2+ hours at midday to go home and cook yourself a healthy lunch. There are many good things to pack for lunch, yes, but it just doesn’t feel like the “main meal” to me if I’m not cooking something. And financially, it’s not feasible to buy a hot meal for lunch every day, and eating out is proven to be less healthy than cooking at home anyway.

This turned out to be a pretty grumpy post, which wasn’t my intention. I just feel frustrated by the constraints of being a yogini in the world, I think. As J says, it would be easy to do yoga if you lived in a cave or an ashram all the time, but it’s hard to do yoga in the world. Living in a cave or an ashram, you could certainly arrange things to have lunch be your main meal of the day and set up your yoga practice to fall conveniently at an appropriate interval of hours after eating. But that’s a lot harder to do in the world, when you have to consider work schedules and commute times and, god forbid, dropping off small people at activities like soccer practice. You eat when you can, is what I’m saying, because we have to eat, and you fit your yoga in when you can, because you deserve to have your yoga. You try to be careful about what you eat before yoga (a salad or a pork chop? let’s go salad), but sometimes you just have to do your best and that’s all you’ve got.

What are your thoughts on this? I’m really interested to hear what you have to say about how you structure your day and fit both healthy eating and yoga into your schedule.

 

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?

 

Vegetarian Update May 9, 2011

Filed under: reflections,yoga lifestyle — R. H. Ward @ 1:49 pm
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It’s been almost two weeks since my last official meat meal. I’m finding vegetarianism interesting so far. I think it must be different to make a dietary change for health reasons – if, when you eat shrimp, you go into anaphalactic shock, then you probably pretty quickly develop an aversion to shrimp. I don’t feel an aversion to meat, really, I just decided not to eat it. Although I feel strongly in an ideological way about meat consumption, I don’t have strong feelings about meat when I see it on a menu or on someone else’s sandwich. It doesn’t gross me out or make me feel ill, which I know happens to some vegetarians (and which does happen for me with broccoli, the one vegetable that I truly cannot bear). A dietary restriction not for reasons of health or taste but for ideological reasons seems sort of unnatural: if the food looks good and smells good, and I can reasonably assume it won’t make me ill, then it seems natural to eat it. I have to keep reminding myself that factory farming of meat isn’t natural. This is a conscious lifestyle choice I’m making for myself, and I guess I’m getting used to what that means.

Two restaurant incidents of note. Last Saturday, F and I stopped at Popeye’s Chicken for biscuits – just one biscuit each, to tide us over until dinner. When we walked in the door, the chicken smell almost knocked me over. I really like fried chicken. I practiced tapas and we got out of there without chowing down on bird flesh, but it was still quite an experience. Just the awareness that I couldn’t have the chicken made the smell more powerful.

Also, last Sunday I had lunch at Subway with my mom. I had never realized before just how meat-centric their menu is. Subway used to be one of my favorite fast food places; I have so many memories of getting the spicy italian sub with my best friend on Saturday afternoons in middle school. Now there is exactly one option on the menu for me – the veggie delite – and I’m not overly fond of Subway’s veggie selections, so this is kind of a letdown. (No pickles and no olives, please, and hold the sweet peppers too.) As soon as we realized that my choices were limited at Subway, Mom offered to go somewhere else, but I need to figure out how to feed myself at normal restaurants, so I said we should stay. My veggie delite was perfectly serviceable. No spicy italian, but pretty okay.

I had the thought that next time I could have them put marinara sauce on the sandwich – I often used to do that with the spicy italian, to turn it into a pizza sub, so this would just be a veggie pizza sub, something I could get excited about. Then I realized that the marinara sauce at Subway has the meatballs sitting in it. There’s likely to be little meat chunks throughout the sauce; I’ve encountered little meatball bits in my spicy italian pizza subs many times. This means the marinara sauce is out for me. I wouldn’t eat chicken broth even if there were no chicken chunks in it, so why would I order marinara sauce that had meatballs sitting in it? I guess I could, since unlike chicken broth the marinara sauce is not intrinsically made of meat, but it still feels like cheating. Overall, I need to measure how far I go with this, how fanatical I want to be. I think it’ll be a long learning process.

 

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!