Rox Does Yoga

Yoga, Wellness, and Life

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.

 

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!

 

April Yoga Weekend: Friday night practice on sun salutations April 27, 2011

Filed under: teacher training,yoga — R. H. Ward @ 3:05 pm
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On Friday night I found out that this month is… Asana Month! Last month was intensive study on the yamas and niyamas, and this month will be intensive study on poses. Really excited about this, but on the other hand, I do wish this month was something more bookish that could be easily done in a plane, train, or automobile. F and I have a LOT of travel going on in May, which will make time on the mat more difficult to come by. I predict much grumping and whining in my future (but then, that’s pretty much the norm).

After group sharing on Friday, N gave us a handout that covered general guidelines for asana practice (I’ll come back to this in a later post), guidelines for sequencing a yoga class, and notes on each type of yoga posture: sun salutations, backbends, standing postures, twists, etc. On Friday night, we went through sun salutations in detail, papers  and notebooks open next to our mats, practicing and taking notes and practicing some more. I felt so pumped up – yes, this is exactly what I want to be doing! It was really exciting, doing poses and talking through them and asking questions about nitpicky details of alignment.

I’ve been doing sun salutations for over eight years (longer if you count Paul and Caroline teaching me a sun salutation after our college production of Children of Eden). Sun salutations always follow the same basic format – reaching up, folding forward, stepping/jumping back, backbend, downward-facing dog, stepping up, and rising back up – but there are variations in how some teachers teach sun salutations. It seems like something so basic to most people’s yoga practice, but I’ve always wondered about those variations. (For those who aren’t familiar with sun salutations, here’s the Wikipedia page about sun salutations, and I’ve linked a few videos below.)

N & J recommend teaching the “classic” form of sun salutation for a beginner class. This form takes out some of the more difficult elements. Instead of jumping or hopping back, you step one leg back into a lunge, hold for a few breaths, then step the other foot back to plank position. You then lower gently down to the belly (rather than doing a chaturanga push up), and take Sphinx or Cobra pose (rather than upward-facing dog). Press back to down-dog as usual, then step one foot forward to do the lunge on the other side, before stepping both feet up to the hands and completing the sequence.

Other common variations are Sun Salutations A and B. In A, you step or jump both feet all the way back, skipping the lunge, and typically you do chaturanga and upward dog. Sun Salutation B starts with chair pose and also includes Warrior 1.  (Here are videos of an incredibly flexible guy doing Sun Salutation A and  Sun Salutation B.)

I’m more used to doing Sun Salutation A, so it was actually a little challenging for me when I started attending classes at this studio and doing the “classic” sun salutation. The lunges were really hard when I wasn’t used to them! Now, though, I can appreciate it more. In the past, doing A, I was used to moving on every inhale and exhale, while with the classic version, each pose can be held for a few breaths, which can allow for a deeper experience of the pose while still building heat in the body. I find that slowing my sun salutations down this way can also help me to improve my alignment in tiny ways, creating a better experience.

Friday night’s class was useful because we were able to analyze each step of the different Sun Salutation sequences, looking at every option and modification for each step. After having practiced yoga for many years, it was useful to look at this basic sequence from a beginner’s perspective, examining what could be challenging or painful, and seeing how the poses could be interpreted by beginners.

 

Pose of the Month: Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Bend) April 20, 2011

Filed under: Pose of the Month,yoga — R. H. Ward @ 8:21 pm
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Pose name:

Seated Forward Bend

Sanskrit name:

Paschimottanasana

Steps:

  1. Begin by sitting up straight with legs extended straight out in front of you.
  2. Raise your arms over your head and stretch up, then slowly fold forward over your legs.
  3. Let your hands fall naturally onto your legs – you don’t have to reach your feet.
  4. Relax into the pose: feel the stretch up the backs of your legs. Keep your feet flexed and active. Keep breathing as you surrender into the pose.
  5. To move deeper into the pose, try lengthening the spine on each inhale, and sinking deeper into the fold on each exhale.
  6. To come out of the pose, slowly slide the hands up the legs until you are sitting up straight again.

Benefits:

This pose stretches the hamstrings and calves, helping to lengthen and strengthen tight muscles, as well as the spine, arms, and shoulders. Forward bending can be beneficial for digestion and the internal organs. Forward bends also help to calm the mind and relieve stress.

Contraindications:

Students with back injuries should use caution. Pregnant students should take care in any forward bend.

 

Pose of the Month: Big Toe Pose, Gorilla Pose April 18, 2011

Filed under: Pose of the Month,yoga — R. H. Ward @ 9:38 pm
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Pose name:

Big Toe Pose (standing forward bend with toe lock), Gorilla Pose

Sanskrit name:

Padangusthasana, Padahastasana

Steps:

  1. Begin by standing in tadasana (mountain pose).
  2. Bend forward, hinging from the hips and keeping a flat back, until your hands can touch your feet. It’s okay to bend your knees if you need to.
  3. Wrap the thumb and first two fingers of each hand around your big toes and squeeze.
  4. Rise up until your elbows are straight; straighten your back, and feel your belly hollow out, as if your belly button were reaching back to touch your spine.
  5. Gently lower forward, gripping the toes and dropping the elbows out to the sides.
  6. If your legs aren’t straight or your hamstrings are tight, keep your front torso long and your back straight, and work on trying to straighten the legs; if your legs are straight, you can deepen into the pose and bring your head towards your knees.
  7. Hold the pose and breathe.
  8. Raise up a little, unhook your fingers, and slide your whole hand underneath your foot, so that each foot is palm-to-palm with each hand. It’s okay to bend your knees if you need to.
  9. Continue trying to straighten your legs, or, if your legs are straight, deepening into the pose.
  10. Hold the pose and breathe.
  11. To come out, release your hands and rest them on the floor for a moment until you feel stable. Bring your hands to your hips; come halfway up to straighten your back, and slowly lift back up to standing.
  12. Take a small backbend if it would feel good: bend back from the heart, not from the waist. Return to tadasana.

Benefits:

This pose stretches the hamstrings and calves, helping to lengthen and strengthen tight muscles. Forward bending can be beneficial for digestion and the internal organs. Forward bends also help to calm the mind. The Gorilla Pose variation can improve circulation in wrists and hands.

Contraindications:

Students with back injuries (particularly lower back injuries) should use caution. Pregnant students should take care in any forward bend. Those with low blood pressure should come out of this pose slowly and carefully to avoid getting dizzy.

 

Teaching a seated twist! April 5, 2011

Filed under: Pose of the Month,teacher training,yoga — R. H. Ward @ 8:54 am
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Last night in yoga class, there were three of us teacher trainees there, and we all got to teach. (I don’t think I’m going to get to relax and enjoy a yoga class for the next 9.5 months, but hey, it makes sense that I actually have to work for my almost-a-year of complimentary yoga classes.) Julia did a balance pose, Nancy did a backbend, and I did a seated twist.

Seated twist.(Hey, check it out, I added an item of visual interest to my post! Thanks to F, special guest photographer, who somehow managed to climb halfway up the wall to get this shot. I went back and added a photo to my Tree Pose post too!)

So here’s the seated twist I chose to teach. And of course, J asked us not to do the pose ourselves, just to talk through it. I understand why he wants us to do it that way, but what I discovered is that this is a difficult pose to tell someone how to get into.

OK, so first, you start out sitting up straight with your legs out in front of you. Easy. Now you’ve got to get the leg bend. What I said was something like, “Bring up your left knee, and then let it drop off to the side, and press your left foot against your right thigh.” That’s how I personally do it, but based on the class response, it might not be the best way ever to tell someone else how to do it (I then followed up that clear and accessible bit of instruction with, “Look, Julia’s got it!”). Not totally sure what the best way would be. Maybe, “Bend the left knee and slide your foot up your right leg”? Or just, “Bend your left knee and place your foot against your right thigh”? But then you miss the bit where the left leg is parallel to the floor, not up.

Anyway, hopefully now we’ve got the leg bent, so next is the twist. What I said was, “Raise your left arm – no, just to shoulder height – and now twist toward your left leg. Let your left arm lead you into the twist, and when you’re at the limit of the twist, drop your left hand to the floor. Bring your right hand to your left knee, and look over your left shoulder” (I’m not looking over my shoulder in the photo, but you should be when you try this at home). In retrospect, I should have brought the right hand to the knee first, then done the twist, because I think the hand on the knee gives you some leverage and helps keep your back straight, which people were having some trouble with. I also might have offered some guidance on where the left hand should drop behind you – i.e., right behind your tush – because having the hand too far back possibly caused people to be leaning back too much. A few people were confused about the whole darn thing and J had to go fix one woman, which I was a little embarrassed about.

Things I neglected to mention: keeping your right foot flexed and right leg active instead of just letting it lay there, and using the breath to deepen into the pose (breathe in and lengthen your spine, breathe out and move a little deeper into the twist). I also neglected to count my breaths as a way of telling how long they’d been in the pose so I just had to guess.

And then, you untwist and do it on the other side, which hopefully is less confusing because you just did it once. It seemed to be less confusing on the other side in class.

Overall, I don’t think I did the best job ever teaching this pose, but it helped to deconstruct it a bit here to see what I can do better next time. (I don’t know that I’ll always post here after every time I teach anything, because that would be a lot considering I’m trying to get to class twice a week. Maybe I’ll post for every new pose I get to teach? Or every interesting and out of the ordinary teaching event? We’ll see.)

 

Today’s yoga: teaching tree pose April 2, 2011

Filed under: teacher training,yoga — R. H. Ward @ 3:29 pm
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Today J made me teach a pose in yoga class! Before class, as everyone was coming in and getting settled, I was waiting on my mat and J looked at me and said, “Want to teach today?” I said, “No,” but J told me to be ready to teach a balance pose.

The whole first half of class was a struggle for me then, thinking about what balance pose I wanted to teach, trying not to overthink it (I’ve done balance poses hundreds of times, heard balance poses taught hundreds of times, I know this), and trying to actually pay attention to class and be in the moment.  Really difficult.  Plus (and I know everyone must think this sometimes) it felt like J was making the class extra-challenging on purpose.  And then I was scoping out the other students in the class (there were 12 of us) to see if anyone looked likely to have difficulty doing a balance pose, and which of my TT classmates were there (Sarah and Trish were there), and then I reminded myself that I trust all my classmates and we’re doing this together and it’s fine.  And then, oh wait, I’m supposed to be paying attention to Warrior 2 right now.

Tree pose.I was torn on which pose to teach.  My first thought was Tree Pose, because it’s my favorite and because I know it well and my group practiced teaching it in training a few weeks ago.  Then I thought I should challenge myself and do Hand-To-Big-Toe Pose, because that one is challenging for me just by itself before I even think about anyone else.  I started running through the steps of Hand-To-Big-Toe Pose in my head, but then I wasn’t sure if I could do it well, and I couldn’t remember if I’d done that pose at this studio and then I worried that they don’t teach that one here or if they do they call it something else, and then I couldn’t think of any other balance poses except Dancer which I know I don’t want to try to teach.  So I ended up doing Tree, and it went okay.  J said I did well, and I checked with Sarah after class to see if she could hear me in the back of the room and she said she could.  It was still hard, though, even though it’s the easiest balance pose for me to teach – I’ve heard it taught so many times before and yet, doing it myself, I didn’t know where to work in that your gaze should find an unmoving spot to rest, and I didn’t mention the neat little trick I learned at the anusara studio last summer because I figured I should keep it simple.  Here is basically what I said:

Bring your hands to a prayer, and start shifting your weight over to your left foot.  When you feel good and grounded, you can begin to lift your right foot off the floor.  You can press your right foot against your left leg at the ankle, or at the calf, or you can bring the foot all the way up to your thigh.  Start to press your right knee out to the side.  Now when you feel good and steady, you can bring your hands up into the branches of your tree.

And that’s pretty much the basic instructions.  I’m fine with that.  I also remembered to breathe, myself, and to count my breaths so that I didn’t leave everybody hanging for too long or take them out too soon. And I did not remember to worry about my hair or about straightening my clothing, which I take to be a good thing.

J had me come up to the front of the room and teach from his mat, and he stood by my mat like a regular student.  While I taught the right side, I did the pose myself while talking through it; then J whispered to me that for the left side I should just talk and not do the pose myself, which is harder, but which gives you more of a chance to look around and see how everyone’s doing.  Everyone was doing pretty well.  And then I was done and J and I switched back and he told me I did a good job, and I spent the rest of the class alternately analyzing how I’d done and trying to stop analyzing.