As part of my intention of "not working so hard" at my yoga, I've been practicing more seated poses, usually cross-legged Easy Pose (Sukhasana). In the evenings, I get up from my computer and take a seat on a zafu cushion in the middle of my study. I'll listen to some music, read or simply rest my attention on my body. I don't necessarily intend to meditate, but it often moves in that direction. Sometimes, I will transition into yoga nidra or a restorative pose as a release from being seated more than 15-20 minutes.
I notice that it takes a while to sink into the seated posture. It feels different after 10 minutes, and not just because my legs are losing sensation. I start working through my musculature, which is pretty substantial, lots of thick muscles working all day to keep me upright and moving. It takes time to get through the resistance and "touch bottom." By the end, I feel that I'm resting more on my sit bones than on the muscles. I also notice a change in my breathing as my upper torso (rib cage, diaphragm, solar plexus, thoracic spine) gains freedom from the lower half.
Obviously, if I lived in a non-Western culture, I would be spending a lot more time seated on the floor and the uniqueness of what I experience on the zafu would be routine.
One benefit I find so far is that it makes for much sounder sleep. Because I am really working my core in seated Easy Pose, my torso and thighs are really grateful for the relief of lying doing. I've exerted a lot of effort holding the upright position without really working up a sweat or increased aerobic activity. I sense that it bleeds off a lot of the nervous energy that builds up during the day.
Labels: breathing, core, meditation
Yesterday I took a vinyasa flow 2/3 class with Dana Cohen and today a Hatha yoga class with Marylou McNamara, both at Thrive Yoga. At the first class, I learned that I had lost conditioning and had to let the practice come to me, rather than trying to catch up with the sequencing; at the second, that the body quickly slips back into its old habits, and forgets to engage the right muscles for holding poses, especially in my core. Muscle memory has cultural roots: we Westerners spend too long sitting in chairs drooping our shoulders and arms over keyboards. Holding Warrior II (Virabhadrasana II) requires activating the manipura chakra (the energetic core that lies near the solar plexus, according to the yogic knowledge system). That's why yoga can sometimes seems so frustrating, even pointless, because a beginner is fighting against deeply ingrained muscular habits that are being constantly reinforced by our daily routines or absence of activity.
But each time I come back to the mat after a pause -- of a few days or months -- it's a fresh opportunity to become a beginner and start learning from a slightly different perspective than in the past. So I don't kick myself for having relapsed or lost ground; it's just a different spot in space and time that makes the process all the most enlivening and challenging.
It is also a conscious process in which what I learn about myself is even more important that the postures or the techniques. Sometimes, I can express that shifting awareness in this blog; other times, I just have to let it express itself silently in my practice.
I got in two classes at Thrive Yoga this week: a vinyasa flow with Lisa Johnson and a hatha class with Marylou McNamara. Neither made me work up much of a sweat, but that was not why I was taking them. I was seeking to get back in the groove with my yoga practice after a two-week gap in classes: I did not want to overreach and aggravate one of my injuries or get a new one.
I have a heel spur that flares up when I am savasana. I think that some fatty tissue has moved out of the way in my heel or just worn down with age, and a little bony protrusion sticks out. When I let my legs relax, I put pressure on the bone spur. It does not make for a very restful restoration phase in my practice. It was really bad last week because I wore running shoes on the flight to Miami and it really irritated the heel. It took me two days of soaking it in ice, massaging and stretching it to walk without a limp. I can also feel how the heel injury affects the rest of my body and my way of walking.
I've also had some issues with my core, especially between my rib cage and hips. At my last class before my trip, I had something like back spasms, and afterwards a sore back. I don't know if this is due to not being able to activate the correct muscles or some other issue. It has not been an issue for the past week or so, but I am anxious about it resurfacing.
On a more positive note, I realize that restarting practice after a short layoff is a good time to work on form and alignment because my muscle are looser and willing to take new directions and angles.
In any case, both classes went well. I enjoyed just being in the now of the poses and flows. I trust both instructors and feel challenged by their lead.
Last night, the stars were aligned and I made it out of work before 6:00 pm, the Metro did not stall halfway home, and my wife picked me up on time. So I went to Thrive Yoga for a class of Hatha yoga -- you know, my remedial class. Well, towards the end of the class, I was seat on the floor with my legs spread wide and I noticed a strange feeling in my back, deep within the muscle tissue on my left side. I noticed that I did not have my usual reach. Then, the pain became more focused, and I realized that I was having spasms, seemingly at the height of my kidneys. I waited for it the pass, and then went through the rest of the final sequences ending in savasana. No problem, except for a little discomfort in my back.
This morning, the problem was more pronounced. If I carry my shoulder bag on the right shoulder, it hurts my back; I can sling it across my chest without any pain. If I bend over, however, the pain is most noticeable.
For the life of me, I can think of any pose or movement last night that set off alarms. Marylou, the instructor, takes a lot of care to work through a progression of postures to warm us up gradually. She has her own aches and pains, and wants us to avoid them if at all possible. The one thing is that we were working to loosen up the thoracic spin and rib cage, which I know is pretty tight in my case.
Add to all that a bruised left heel, stiff thigh muscles and soar sit bones, and I am feeling my age.
Since coming back from my knee injury and yogic abstinence, I noticed for the first time that I have access to the muscles at the base of my spine. I can tell the qualitative difference between allowing my hips to tip forward and engaging my mula bandha (or maybe some other combination of muscles) to support the stem of my spin. When I do it right, it sets off a kind of chain reaction up and down my body. My abdomen automatically firms up; the same of my back feels an instant release from tension as it straightens up; my shoulders loosen up and I am actually able to access my shoulder blades to move them closer together or farther apart; the shift in my thoracic spine means that my chest girdle opens up, broadens and allows a deep breath. On the lower end of my body, my hips immediately line up under my thighs, encouraging the energy spirals that the Anusara teachers love to emphasize; the alignment automatically kicks into the rest of the leg all the way downs to the soles of my feet.
A couple of times when I've had to stand all the way home on the Metro, I've been sensitive to this new alignment and can engage and sustain it consciously as the car sways and lurches. "Correct alignment" is much less tiring than a slouch (just letting it all hang together loosely); it's almost like the kundalini rising up from mula bandha. But I can't seem to maintain the alignment when I am not consciously enforcing it. I will get distracted in something, then snap out of it and see that I've lost the posture.
This new awareness has also driven home the need for core strength, but aligned correctly. The days that I don't have yoga classes, I am trying to fit in exercises that strengthen my core.
I went to Thrive again this evening, after giving myself 48 hours to recover from my first yoga session in four months. Tonight's class was with Elizabeth Pope, a new teacher for me, who joined the studio after I hurt my knee. She's been exposed to a range of teachers, from Kasthaub Desikachar to Ana Forrest. It was a good solid class for all levels so I modified most of the poses to concentrate on my knees. Where I really felt it was in my shoulder and upper arms: all the chararungas in the vinyasas were punishing me for wimping out during my convalescence and not maintaining my core strength. Elizabeth confirmed this conclusion by making us do multiple sets of abdominal exercises that left me barely able to lift my head and neck off the ground. I sweated profusely and had to take child's pose on several occasions because my conditioning has lagged far more than it should have, especially in the last few weeks when I was struggling with resistance to going to the gym and the studio.
Labels: balance, class, conditioning, core, injury, teachers
I did not go into the workshop with Desiree Rumbaugh with any special expectations, aside from that of knowing that an excellent instructor would be guiding the process and a group of yogis would energize the environment. I saw the occasion as a mid-term evaluation about how my practice has been maturing since my last workshop. I wanted to see how the work invested on the mat has paid off. So I pick up where I left off yesterday.
Thrive Yoga's Dave Bowen gets a taste of Desiree's adjustment of wheel pose.
Fourth Finding: The day after the workshop was over, I felt really fatigued, my whole body burnt out. I pampered myself and did not try to do any yoga or exercise except for my walks to and from the Metro, a couple of miles. I felt sore as if I'd really gone through an extreme physical ordeal. I was especially sore and stiff in my hips and shoulders, thighs and arms. Curiously, my knees hurts when I walked, as if I might be a risk of tweaking a tendon. Throughout the weekend, I had been probing my edges and it was natural that my body should feel the strain. At my age (two months short of 59), the energy reserves are shallower, the recovery capacity is slower and the need for healing is more pronounced. But it took me a while to realize that this sensation is really a kind of muscle memory of all the poses that I did and the new edges established. I stop, focus in on my aches and pains, and sense what muscles involved, and then I feel myself drawn into alignment and something lights up inside me.
Desiree stands back in awe, watching Christine Peterson
(you can tell she's a Forest Yoga buff because she uses gloves)
settle into Diving Osprey pose.
Fifth Finding: yoga is an experimental, experiential science. It is a sophisticated universe of knowledge about the body, mind, spirit, energy and their complex interrelation, which has been accumulated, filtered, refined, and aged over millenia. But the application of this knowledge system on the body and mind is left to the individual practitioner. Desiree said that you can tell when a yogi is advanced because they take their time getting into poses. It almost looks as if they were practicing in slow motion. That's because they are observing and parsing all the information coming back from the far reaches of their limbs with scientific rigor: how do the muscles feel, have they reached their edge, is there a risk in pushing beyond the edge, do I feel at ease, can I dwell in stillness in the pose, how can I get out of this knot, what emotions and energies are released by this pose, what am I revealing about my mind or spirit in this vulnerable pose and so on. A beginner will zip through the vinyasa, and in and out of poses, as if he/she is sprinting to a finish line. The intermediate yogis are the ones who get themselves injured, Desiree pointed out, because they are pushing recklessly beyond what is physically safe and worth the risk for the practice. She admitted that she was guilty of this excess in her early years, and her current skills at practicing advanced poses and assisting others to learn yoga were acquired through painful mistakes and the need to heal and avert them in the future. She got really amped up when people started asking questions or giving insights that showed that they were paying attention to the details. The workshop drew a pretty experienced crowd of yogis, but we went over the details of the poses as if we were all beginners.
Thrive Yoga's Lisa Johnson turns inward in Eight-Angle pose (Astavakrasana).
Sixth Finding: Anusara yoga practitioners have their opening invocation "Om namah shivaya gurave..." that starts each session, and then there's the mantra that they repeat for every pose: "Shins press towards the mid-line, thighs spiral in and back, the sit bones widen, the tail bone tucks into the space made by the blossoming of the hips..." The Universal Principles of Alignment are the guidelines that John Friend laid down to unify all the yoga practices and poses across multiple lineages and traditions. Desiree repeated the instructions over and over again, and then came back to them, again and again. But I never found this repetitious or boring. Even though the instructions are similar, each pose opens a different gateway into the body. And since your body is changing in the process, each time you approach a pose, the experience is going to be unique. You can be practicing mountain pose or a complicated arm balance, and the same attitude and approach apply.
The reward of sweat
Seventh Finding: at any time during the workshop, I'd look up and see yogis and yoginis, teachers and students doing their stuff, and all of them were bumping into what seemed to be their own bodies'limits. Desiree would come up and apply pressure with a hand or knee on a specific area and show that it was merely a false floor, that there was space beyond that faux boundary. Desiree was asked about the ideas of some yoga teachers, like Paul Grilley, who make a point of highlighting the anatomical limits that exist in all people, and may be quite different, the conclusion being that you should not ask students to go beyond their physical limits. Desiree said, however, that Anusara celebrates freedom of yoga (as opposed to anatomical limits) and that each individual should assume ownership of his or her own body and take it as far as they can.
Labels: blessing, core, hips, milestone, shoulders, workshop
I took my first Forrest Yoga class at Thrive Yoga with Christine Peterson this morning. I could tell that the routine has different priorities than your run-of-the-mill vinyasa class. We started out with core work, then moved on to inversions with emphasis on shoulders -- the rest of the class was gravy. Since this was the first Forrest Yoga class for most people, Christine had to do a lot of explaining and demoing so that we were all on the same page. Christine used a term that I had never heard before: "gravity surfing." This refers to transitions from one pose to another, say, Downward Facing Dog pose to Crow pose. It requires muscle strength, but you're using gravity to pull you into a pose. I don't believe that I did any surfing this morning.
This was the only class offered at Thrive on July 4 so it drew all the people who could not miss yoga, even on a holiday. We opened up both classrooms (sliding doors) to make room for everyone. A few new faces were there, as well.
While I've sensed that my hips have loosened up, I now realize that this more relaxed hold may apply more broadly because I could feel that my shoulders were opening up -- and also feeling more fatigued from the exertion. Christine had us soften our necks in a lot of poses, for instance, Triangle pose. Instead of looking up towards the raised arm, you allow your neck to relax and hang. As an over-striver, I instinctively lead with my head in a lot of poses. This Forrest Yoga technique will help me break that habit.
Back at Thrive Yoga for a vinyasa flow 2 class with Christine Peterson. She has been assisting Ana Forrest, the widely respected West Coast yoga teacher, which says a lot about Christine's capabilities. (If you've never seen Ana Forest's peformance at Yoga Journal Conference in Boston in 2006, you owe it to yourself to see how far yoga can take you). As far as I know, this was her first class at Thrive, and there were more than a dozen students so the word had definitely gotten out.
In a few words, Christine gives a mean class (and this was a vinyasa class, not Forest Yoga): I took a small hand towel to mop up my sweat; I should have taken a beach towel. Aside from some work on inversions, which was really more prep work, there was nothing really beyond a 2-level class. But she hit a couple of areas in which I am really weak and tight, and then doubled back and hit them again. Shoulders, especially in Dolphin pose and other preps for getting into Feathered Peacock Pose (Pincha Mayurasana). Core, core, core. This blog entry isn't long enough to mention all the poses and sequences that hit my core muscles.
Christine will be giving a 1.5/2 hour class on Friday, July 4 and then have several classes on a regular basis (when she's not assisting Ana Forest on tour). I will make a point of picking them up as often as I can.Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. My experience Monday with more open hips did not turn out to be a fluke. Today, I came very close to getting into Double Pigeon pose (Agnistambhasana). I didn't want to push it too hard because of the stress the pose puts on the knees, but I was closer than I ever dreamed I would be mid-way through my fourth year of yoga. I also went more deeply into One-Legged King Pigeon pose (Eka Pada Rajakapotasana). It's as if I stopped clenching my muscles and that loosening of tension allowed my hips to open up.
Today, I did not do my usual Sunday routine of meditation and vinyasa at Thrive Yoga in the morning. I took a special master Ashtanga class that Devon Roe offers, usually on a monthly basis at Thrive (next time is in August or September). Devon studied with Beryl Bender Birch and teaches in several yoga shops in the DC area, mainly in Virginia. It's two hours and focuses on the primary series. There were only four students in the class so it was a chance to focus on the asanas and get hands on corrections.
I have taken a few Ashtanga classes or workshops in the past so it was not completely foreign to me. For that matter, the whole vinyasa trend is strongly influenced by Ashtanga. I was surprised that I could handle the class physically, that I did not have to fall down in child's pose in order to recover my breath, recoup my strength and steel my will (except for one brief time in downdog, but that does not count). After the whole thing was over, I did not spent two hours collapsed on my couch at home because I have developed stamina, thanks to my running and practice. In other words, I did not feel intimidated by the difficulty of poses, I just knew that some of them were beyond my reach.
If it were a strict Ashtanga class, I would never have gotten beyond the first pose that requires anything approaching half-lotus: hips and hamstrings are still too tight to allow me to fold. Then, there are still issues with behind the back binds because of stiff shoulders and my inability to rotate my should joints more than a few degrees. The other major flaw is core strength, especially in the lower abs: I still don't have enough strength to lift my legs off the ground when seated in staff pose, for instance, or when sitting cross legged.
My biggest surprise was that when I was in shoulder stand and plow poses, I was able to breathe smoothly. In the past, my stomach (and probably other organs, like liver, kidneys and intestines) pressed down on my diaphragm and made me feel as if I was suffocating. I suspect that I've gotten rid of some belly (omentum) fat. That changes lifts a burden off me in the inversion phase of my yoga practice because I don't have to fight off the panic feeling of suffocation and can concentrate on balance and breath.
Labels: class, conditioning, core, hips, practice, shoulders
This past weekend, I surprised myself by kicking into my first unassisted handstand (Adho Mukha Vrksasana) against the wall. It is probably harder, I believe, to get into handstand (with or without a support) than to actually balance in the pose. Susan Bowen had been leading a class to reach into unexplored poses that we assumed were too difficult for us so it was appropriate that I reached this milestone in the class. We had spent a large segment of the class practicing keeping the core firm and kicking up to the pose, leading with one leg and pushing off with the other. The first couple of rounds I held back; I refrained from attempting the full pose with someone to spot me up for the final push into the pose. But as we were going into the last round of repetitions, I got down into the starter pose and something clicked. I just did the lead leg lift-up and it just kept going. I was in the handstand. My form was lousy: my back over-arched, my shoulders too tight, my legs too loose, but I just held the pose absorbing the sensation of being suspended upside-down on my hands.
I think a key trick was something that Jill Abelson had taught us a week before a Flow Yoga: when using the lead-leg kick-up, make sure that the toes on the lead leg comes all the way down to the ground before kicking it up because it is the full swing that give you momentum to get all the way up to the wall. The tendency after doing a couple of attempts is to bring the kick-up leg midway down, kind of waving it in the air, instead of lowering it completely. I also found that the less I thought about it, the easier it was to get up.
Labels: core, inversions, milestone
I went into my class tonight really eager and energized to get back on the mat. I've become aware of increased control over my lower core (thighs and hips) because of my new jogging regime. That strength gets reflected in my balancing poses because there is a firmer foundation to build on. I can hold something like Lord of the Dance (Natarajasana) pose (with a strap to pull my raise leg higher) for more than 30 seconds without wobbling, and I can transition in and out of the pose more smoothly.
This sense of enhanced power and skill is something new for me & and a bit bewildering. On one hand, I feel as if I'm falling into a trap of vanity and pride, that I am betraying the very mindset necessary for practicing yoga. On the other hand, this confidence and enthusiasm are what propel me to get back on my mat, make me aware that there are really changes taking place in my body and my mind. This contradiction is paralleled in my practice by the conundrum of strength and flexibility, rigidity and suppleness.
I don't have an answer for this dilemma right now. But I do get another chance to respond the next time I get on the mat.
My weight has fluctuated between 191 and 196 pounds, depending when I weigh myself and whether I've abused dessert at dinner time, for most of the year. I've tried not to obsess about it, but I know that I could make things easier on me in a number of ways if I carried around fewer pounds. This week, the lower end of my weight range dropped consistently below 190 for the first time in years. My waist has hit 36 inches (on a good day), but I've been there before (briefly). It's amazing how the body is not a static container-vehicle. It will change and shift as we exert mental and physical efforts. It will change and shift without us doing anything. Thanks to my new running routine, I've now got cute, thin ankles.
Labels: conditioning, core
I did my usual weekend routine of morning sessions at Thrive Yoga. I noticed that I need to improve my cardio conditioning because I am not able to manage my breath once I've gotten into the heat of the practice. I've had to drop into child's pose and take a couple of breaths. I've assumed that regular yoga practice (3-4 times a week in studio) would be enough to get my aerobic conditioning up to scratch, but now I have my doubts. I may need to head to the gyms a couple of times a week.
The other surprise of the session today was that while I was in vasisthasana (side plank pose), I was able to raise my top leg. Previously, I had either kept both legs down on the ground and concentrated on getting my hips as high as possible or I took the tree variation with my top leg cocked and my foot resting on my calf. Either way, it's a demanding pose because it takes a lot of core strength and balance in a way that we don't traditionally practice outside of yoga. Whenever I tried to do a more advanced variation (even with the top leg raised a few inches), my whole body could collapse or totter. My support ankle and my hips would give out. It's also a physically fatiguing pose so I usually end up in child's pose afterwards.
Today, I was able to go for the more advanced pose. I did not plan to do it, but merely said impulsively "What the hell" silently in my mind and raised the leg. I surprised myself with how long I was able to sustain the leg in the air and did not lose my balance (except when trying it on the other side).
What was the difference? My home practice has include a variation on side plank for the past six months and it has taken that long to build up the necessary strength.
