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Yoga – Pose of a Child …

  • April 19, 2009 at 2:02 am

Confusion

The StarThere seem to be different names for Pose of a Child as the Iyengar class I began Yoga with (8-yrs ago) called this posture by another name.  And their Pose of a Child was the one where you take your arms to the side and towards the back of you where your hands are somewhere by the sides of your ankles.

However when I started practicing the Scaravelli way (taught by Heart of Yoga trained teachers, James Jewell and Erica Rasmussen) who taught in Folkestone, I much preferred their Pose of a Child, because it felt more comfortable.   And this resonates with a style of Yoga which is more about what feels right for the body, rather than inflicting a strong regime on the body that it has to adhere to.

The Pose

yoga poac free iofoto080200477 Yoga Pose of a Child ...This is usually applied in conjunction with the Down Face Dog and is found to act as a pause, or punctuation to the Down Faced Dog movement.

The Down Face Dog has usually been worked towards in the practice (as it is a strong pose) and will be carried out several times with the Pose of a Child acting coming at the end of the sentence, as a respite, where you will rest and restore in readiness to start a Down Face Dog again.

The Instructions

  1. If you look at the picture above
  2. You are stretching forwards from the same point as in Tadasana, the lower back to middle
  3. The upper part is going forwards, culminating in the arms being outstretched on the ground
  4. The lower part is sitting back on the heels as much as possible
  5. Neither should compensate for the other
  6. If one of them has to yield it should be the upper body as the emphasis tips towards being on the heels
  7. If the imbalance is too great and the bottom is too far from the heels then the arms/hands should rest on a block rather than reach beyond their capability
  8. Alternatively you can rest your head on a block
  9. You should feel balance and take your attention into the two-way stretch
  10. Explore it and find out what that is telling you
  11. Be easy with it

Then you’re ready to go back into Down Face Dog.

When carrying out this posture with the Iyengar teacher she would come around to the students who weren’t managing to get their buttocks onto their heels (me included) and sit on your bottom (facing away from you) to draw the lower back and buttocks away from the torso.  It gave you a good stretch, but in hindsight it says more about the western Iyengar approach than it does about my limitations in the pose.

What have your experiences of the Pose of a Child been like?  Please share your experiences and get in contact.

Jane

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Yoga – Standing Forward Bend …

  • April 15, 2009 at 10:19 am

Legs Up The Wall

The StarWell this pose doesn’t necessarily have a name … or not that I know of … can’t say I’ve seen it in books …

But its an incredible tool for revitalizing at the end of a busy work-day … that time between the day and the evening … just before you eat … when you feel the need of something and if you don’t STOP and take a breathe … you can so easily take yourself into a completely different direction to the one you wanted …

A Tricky Time of Day

This is the time when we need to take a moment and re-charge the batteries. So to the process:

  • Start by lying on your back
  • Have your bottom right next to a skirting board in the room
  • Which means the legs have no place to go, but up the wall
  • The legs can fall apart as far as is comfortable, as they rest against the wall
  • Its important for the bottom to be snugly up against the wall with as little space between them, to create a right angle
  • The feet need to be flat out, away from the wall, meaning they should not just slump but instead be themselves at a right angle
  • The arms fall to the side and can relax out from the sides of the body, as feels comfortable
  • Close the eyes and relax
  • Rest there for as long as feels comfortable
  • This provides a great rejuvenation

Perpendicular Creatures

The benefits are manifold, in the main because the legs carry so much of the body’s debris.  As we are perpendicular creatures, spending most of our time either standing upright or sitting down, gravity takes it toll and rubbish collects and sinks into the leg and ankle area.  This pose provides an ‘antidote’ to gravity and allows waste, etc, to galvanize and make its way back up the body.

Iyengar

Gary Carter (my teacher on an Anatomy and Physiology course for Yoga Teachers) stated that Iyengar once said that the diaphragm was another muscle, but he wouldn’t want the west to know it because they would use it as such.  Wat he meant was that

  • The west overuse and abuse the muscular system
  • That the diaphragm has a connection with the leg muscles
  • That the breathe can be used to make that connection
  • Then a realignment can be made to re-balance the imbalance that gravity causes
  • In other words if we just go about life and don’t re-adjust this then the waste materials will continue to collect in the calves and ankes in particular
  • Realignment is imjportant and that broad calves indicate a lack of movement which indicates a dis-function in the system

And Relax

Once the Rejuvenation is complete, you can get on with the rest of the day …  Have you got any other suggestions along similar lines?  Do get in touch and share … would love to hear from your ideas.

Jane

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Yoga – The Foot …

  • April 8, 2009 at 10:49 pm

Taking a Stand

blue 3 wheel 50 pcnkd12 Yoga The Foot ...Why is the foot so important in Yoga?  Well its the starting point … its the base of how we stand, and what we stand the whole body on … In Yoga there are four points to the foot to focus on …

The Four Points of the Foot

  1. The first point is just below the big toe (underneath)
  2. The second point is just underneath the little toe
  3. The third point is at the broadest point of the heel just before it starts to reduce its shape at the back
  4. The fourth point is the opposite side of the heel adjacent to the third point

The importance

a fibula pcnkd 751 Yoga The Foot ...If these four points are felt and worked towards then the natural curvature on the inner and (to a lesser extent) the outer foot, along the sides.  This ensures we can be grounded without being flat footed, as our yogic intention is to be light of foot and body.

The tibia bone in the front of the leg is the only straight bone in the whole body, 206 bones in all. And although it joins the foot at the ankle there is a mish-mash of cartilage (as where all bones appear to meet) that prevents the bones touching. None of the bones in the body directly touch, as substances that oils the wheels, such as blood, synovial fluids and connective tissue construct a junction to each bone-to-bone meeting point.

Best foot forward

The foot plays an important starting point in Yoga and the correct standing and grounding of it shouldn’t be overlooked, as all other postures tend to derive from an awareness of the feet.

If you haven’t already have a go at the exercise I talked about some weeks ago. That easily demonstrates the differrence between grounded and non-grounded feet and for me if I’ve some paperwork to clear, it’ll be one of the poses I start the day with … and works every time in helping focus.

Jane

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Yoga – Down Face Dog …

  • April 7, 2009 at 6:36 pm

Yoga Pose

The most well known posture in Yoga is probably the Down Face Dog (DFD) … It usually sits in the centre of a Yoga class … the group will have warmed up to it because it stretches everything.  Once completed, and most sessions will include it like an ‘old favorite’, is followed by the more advanced poses such as the shoulder and headstands that often headline a class.

Because it stretches everything, care is key.  Its so easy to go into the DFD wrongly.  Just getting into the pose from the usual position of being on all-fours, on the mat and of course there are other ways, such as the forward bend, is where an awareness starts.  Often people just lift from the lower to mid-back region to take the arms and legs into full stretch.  The best way to protect the lower back is to push back into a semi-squat taking the legs up that way.

The Posture

Once in the pose its important to become aware of the lower back, and bring it in line with the flat of the rest of the back, rather than a common tendency to over-extend or invert.   The neck should not drop too heavily but instead align with the rest of the spine, while simultaneously opening the chest and keeping the shoulders as far away from the ears as possible.

The Feet

The pose comes from the feet and legs and its more useful to keep the feet flat, with a shorter reach between the feet and hands than it is to stretch the body out and have the heels not touch the ground.  The benefits of the ’shorter dog’ far outweigh the alternative, as the grounding through the legs and feet will over time enable a wider stretch between the feet and hands than does wobbling and not being grounded at all when the heels sit mid-air.  And if nothing else its more encouraging for the participant.

Be careful not to stay for too long in pose, in a competitive way, but similarly stay for a little longer than you think you can.   And relax!

Jane

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Bouncing like a kid …

  • March 7, 2009 at 10:45 am

The Naughty Power of the Subconscious

Strangely, this morning I fell … was it that I mentioned it in the previous days post (as a fleeting reference!) and so awoke something in my bodies history … but what was remarkable was the automatic and quite different response I had …

Is it ‘All in the Mind’

acrobatic cartoon kid prawny080600015 Bouncing like a kid ...

I literally bounced up from the floor … it was bizarre … It felt like a cross between one of those contact rolling-body experiences you see where one person makes body contact and rolls over the other with intuitive speed and agility. And also like a fast-forward/backward film clip!

Light as a Feather

feather moodboard080506936 Bouncing like a kid ...

And as I fell I was light and laughed my head off … a great and very different reaction to any I had in the past … I’m impressed with the difference and happily using it as a gauge to measure how far I’ve traveled in recent times.

Good times … as that west-country comedian would say! I was so happy with that and the wonderful day followed in its wake.

So let me ask you, what have your experiences been with gravity lately?

Jane

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Yoga with Pete Blackaby …

  • March 6, 2009 at 12:03 am

The Breathe

I recently attended a workshop (2 of 2 on the Breathe) with Pete Blackaby http://www.peteblackaby.co.uk at Cora Kemball-Cook’s lovely yoga studios in Canterbury, Kent (I attend Cora’s monthly Health and Healing group).

Pete’s style of teaching casts away a veil of what other teachers shirk away from (yet seem undeveloped in their opinion of) regarding the mystical element of Yoga.  And like him I live in a western post-industrialized country and because of this I like Pete for not only addressing these issues but telling it the way he feels it.

He talks about his current discoveries and makes clear that he hasn’t all the answers (as most teachers might).  He invites an opinion from the group and intertwines it organically into his organized program.   This difference demonstrates his authenticity and his views mostly coincide with my own.

I began practicing Yoga 8-yrs ago and have taken quite a journey where I began as a very flexible person, but within 3-mths I experienced what led to long-term injury.

Choosing a Yoga Style and Class

My Yoga classes started as a freebie where I worked, and I was excited as I’d been introduced to Yoga in my early twenties and due to (what I felt) was a rather dull Yoga teacher I fell away from it.  My newer teacher came from the Iyengar school, she was tough, relentless and fell neatly into my North of England background where ‘nothing worthwhile comes easy’ so what did I know, then?  She pressed limbs and sat on lower backs to manipulate us into postures I was ‘proud’ to be capable of and continued in this vein in my own usually irregular practice.

However the injury occurred in a Gym as at that stage I was overlapping fitness styles to become healthy.  I was using a Down Face Dog pose as a warm-up exercise (I knew no better) and collapsed in a heap on the mat with a lower-back pain as ice-packs were quickly applied.  I had difficulty in walking for the ensuing months and required an adapted chair at work.  When I finally saw a Physiotherapist (due to ignorance in not pressing for assistance earlier) I was advised that flexible people [like me - and it was 'official' as I was given a 'bendy fingers/thumbs test - the further back you can bend them the more flexible you are, apparently and there's a gauge] are more likely to fall into injury but take longer to recover due to less sensitivity because they have further ‘reach’ before the senses kick-in.  A big learning or was it?  And adversely this indicates that the stiffer you are the safer you are in exercise, because you reach and protect your resistance point sooner.

Injuries happen so Easily

I recovered within 3-mths and regained almost full flexibility in no-time.  But 18-mths down the line I experienced similar but deeper injuries that I’m still recovering from as these continued to escalate with poor balance and lots of falling over!  So why have I not turned my back on Yoga and told it ‘where to go’?

The simple explanation is that I got such great benefit from it and whenever I recover and get back ‘there’ I feel it again.  Initially I experienced such a deep change as I began to ‘calm down’ as one of Harry Enfield’s characters might say.  The inner change was a huge shift for me.

Returning to Health

But due to lack of Yoga and other exercise I have declined into a stiff pole, hankering for the flexibility I took for granted and I appreciate that I can return to it provided I ‘change my ways’ and begin a more conscious-minded practice.  And this is what Pete Blackaby promotes.  His style is not for the ‘work-out’ fanatic, but instead is about taking the route of ‘intention’ (as with all change-processes I believe) and reaching your own resistance point which is where the exploration and learning begins.  For me it will take quite a while (I’m resisting numbers here – after all I wouldn’t want to hem myself in now would I – but I have set some goals!).

He’s based in Brighton (on the south coast) as are so many Yoga teachers in the UK, and Pete trained as an Osteopath and knows his stuff.  This man walks the walk and talks the talk … and I like his style of teaching and will continue to attend his classes where others have left me stranded …

Check out Pete’s classes and courses and if you’re not UK based then you’ll just have to visit these shores or look out for his book ‘How Yoga Works’ (the working and probably final title) which I believe is due out towards the end of this year.

Jane

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Yoga – the Foot …

  • February 6, 2009 at 12:52 am

The Starting Point

Today I want to talk about the starting point … the Foot … ‘to stand on our own two feet’ … something I heard as a child … it didn’t really sink in … ahh!

Tadasana

With regards to Yoga we are talking about doing that on every level … as being in Tadasana (Mountain Pose) for example enables us to have a moment of calm … and re-engage with what it might have felt like to walk for the first time … A memory that will be long gone for most everyone and what’s the purpose … Its about taking things for granted and often poor habit has formed unbeknown to us. Yoga generally brings us back into the physical body so we can check it out and see how we’re doing! And start to work on any adjustments that may be required …

Grounding

Here is something really great to try and I wouldn’t think it has a Yoga pose name … as I think its roots may well lie in the field of massage … I learned this with two teachers on separate occasions Gary Carter in Brighton and Chris Yorke at Rhodes Minnis.

  1. You start this by standing in Tadasana … and just allow yourself to come into an awareness of the body, especially the legs and feet …
  2. Once you have gained this sense …. you can sit on the ground …
  3. There isn’t a correct side to start with … whatever works for you … but for the sake of description I shall begin with the right foot …

The Method

  1. Take the right foot into the left hand by cradling the leg
  2. Take the fingers and intertwine them between the toes … as though you were intertwining your fingers with each other only this is a toes of the right foot with the fingers of the left hand
  3. Gently bend the fingers back towards the toes so the toes go back as far as they comfortably will. Close the eyes if you like … I find it aids relaxation … And hold for as long as feels comfortable
  4. Now take the fingers and toes the other way … Same again
  5. Turn the foot and hand in a clockwise rotation for around 5-10 turns as slowly as you can … the slower you turn them the deeper it works and the nicer it feels
  6. Then turn them anti-clockwise … similarly
  7. Now stand back into Tadasana … and feel the difference
  8. Do the same thing all over again on the other side

I would love to hear from anyone who tries this and what your experience of the worked foot felt like … Drop me a line …. I look forward to your comments.

Jane

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Vanda Scaravelli – Yoga for ALL …

  • January 15, 2009 at 12:23 am

BKS Iyengar

If you’re a Yoga fan … the chances are that you have attended a class or watched a DVD where the teacher was influenced by Vanda Scaravelli. She was born in Florence in 1908 into an artistic and intellectual background and died only a few years ago, in her ’90’s with her extraordinary flexibility in tact, due to her lifelong yoga practice.

She learned Yoga, during the 1940’s when BKS Iyengar visited her mountain lodge, alongside other notables of the day like Yehudi Menuhin. She claimed in her book Awakening the Spine that she only began to learn properly when the guests left and she was able to develop her personal practice. And this observation illustrates the underlying philosophy of her yoga teaching.

The Tree Body

tree the spine nikuwka080700040 Vanda Scaravelli Yoga for ALL ...She likens the human body … upright where most other creatures are not … to a tree where the waist area approximately equates to that of a tree where it separates the trunk from the branches.

If you were to stand upright in Mountain Pose (Tadasana) you would get a sense of this. You simply place your feet hip-width apart and gently root your feet into the ground. In her book Scaravelli describes this foundation of all good yoga practice thus …

“In Tadasana the body is perfectly still. Standing on the back of the heels your weight slowing sinks down. If you stand long enough, the lower part of the body, from the waist to the heels, gravitates, you will discover that the upper part of the body becomes, light, free and straight. This starting position can correct and adjust spinal problems such as scoliosis and arthritis.

To do the pose correctly stand on the back of the heels with the spine straight, knees extended and chin in. The weight must be distributed equally on both legs,

This is the most important pose. Do it correctly and all the others will follow.”

Give it a Go

kid standing with arms in air dmbaker060600045 Vanda Scaravelli Yoga for ALL ...

if you look at this child you can see how much he’s stretching his arms upwards and away from his feet. The act of stretching takes us wholly away from grounding (the act of calm and focus).  He’s laughing and excited about life, and our aim is to have that joy, but from our centre (not control).  One method for achieving this is Yoga and the starting point of Mountain Pose (Tadasana) provides that start, as stated earlier. We often don’t realize how ungrounded we are as we go about life, mostly in habit, existing in our dreamlike conscious-state, carrying out most actions on automatic pilot.

If you like a challenge, which stillness is for most of us, then have a go at this and who knows what you might find.  This pose will start to inform you as to how much you can release and highlight the areas that may just require your attention.

And one aspect is our physical sense, as anyone who’s had a massage knows we carry most of our tension in the shoulder and neck areas, and likewise just how good it feels to free up those knots.

This is a simple and very effective pose … give it a try …

Jane

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