The YogaScope Kaleidoscope - Yoga Blog

Another Up-Side-Down Inversion Workshop

2010-09-09T07:52:00.002-05:00

I am going to be teaching another one of these inversion workshops at Finding Sukha Yoga School on Sunday September 19th. It should be a lot of fun. The details are below.

Up-side-Down: Inversion Workshop taught by Carl Horowitz.

Finding Sukha Yoga School
638 East 6th Street, 3rd Floor, NY, NY - 917-499-5262
http://www.findingsukha.com

Sunday, September 19 1:30pm- 3:30pm
$20 pre-registration $25 day of workshop

Join us Saturday, June 12 at 5:30pm. This 2 hour workshop is a practice focused on strengthening and lengthening the core for inversions. Headstand, forearm stand and handstand require strength and the ability to lengthen from a powerful core in order to balance over a stable base. This workshop will explore ways of developing these qualities to enhance a feeling of float in jumps and steadiness and control in a number of inverted variations.

Carl Horowitz is a New York City yoga teacher who is most interested in revealing effective ways for individuals to personalize their practice. His work is influenced by the teaching of T. Krishnamacharya and his son T. K. V. Desikachar. It is based on the principle that there is an appropriate yoga practice for everyone and, in order to achieve the best results, this practice must be adapted continually to suit the individual'ss changing needs.

Carl performed for Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus for two years and has a wealth of knowledge on how to access the full potential of your body's ability to move. In his work he also draws on his knowledge of anatomy, movement theory and therapeutic applications of movement.

This practice is recommended for anyone who wants to improve their ability to perform inversions.

Upside Down - An Inversion Workshop

2010-06-01T12:41:00.004-05:00

Coming up on Saturday June 12th I am teaching an inversion workshop. If you are interested the information is below. I am excited about it and it should be a lot of fun.

Carl Horowitz
917.301.1616
http://www.yogascope.com
upsidedowncarl@yogascope.com

http://www.findingsukha.com/Workshops.html

Upside Down - An Inversion Workshop
Saturday June 12th,
$25, 5:30-7:30pm
with Carl Horowitz

@ Finding Sukha Yoga School
638 East 6th Street 3rd Floor
917-499-5262
info@findingsukha.com

A practice focused on strengthening and lengthening the core for inversions. Headstand, forearm stand and handstand require strength and the ability to lengthen from a powerful core in order to balance over a stable base. This workshop will explore ways of developing these qualities to enhance a feeling of float in jumps and steadiness and control in a number of inverted variations. This practice is recommended for anyone who wants to improve their ability to perform inversions.

Carl Horowitz is a New York City yoga teacher who is most interested in revealing effective ways for individuals to personalize their practice. His work is influenced by the teaching of T. Krishnamacharya and his son T. K. V. Desikachar. It is based on the principle that there is an appropriate yoga practice for everyone and, in order to achieve the best results, this practice must be adapted continually to suit the individual’s changing needs.

Carl performed for Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus for two years and has a wealth of knowledge on how to access the full potential of your body’s ability to move. In his work he also draws on his knowledge of anatomy, movement theory and therapeutic applications of movement.

The YogaScope Kaleidoscope Back

2010-05-07T20:23:00.002-05:00

So I am sorry it has been so long since I have been able to post to the YogaScope Kaleidoscope but it has sort of been out of commission. There are some people who tried to post comments and those comments actually never came through even though I was sent a copy of the comments. I believe you should be able to post comments again now. Since I don't really know how to deal with the kind of technical issues that were preventing my blog from publishing I was unable to fix them. But it looks like it is working now.

upsidedowncarl@yogascope.com

This blog has moved

2010-04-28T00:33:00.004-05:00

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Another Quote from Ram Das, Paths to God

2009-07-30T05:03:00.002-05:00

I like this quote. There is a lot in here:

Now, in a way, purification I s a hype. You take your body, just as it is, and your mind, just as it is, and your feelings, just as they are—and right here, in this very place, lies the Brahman, the enlightened state. It’s right here! It’s not there or then, it’s not in India or Tibet, it’s not being kept secret by “him” or “her,” it’s not in this book or in that book. It’s right here, and you are it—right now.

Okay, so then what’s the point of purification? What, in fact, is the point of any of these practices if we already are the Brahman? They’re to get rid of whatever in us prevents us from really knowing who we are at this moment. See, from a practical point of view, we’re faced with an interesting paradox. At one level of our intellectual understanding we know that we already have all the riches—we know that we are the atman, that we are the Buddha, that we are free. We know all that. But if we look inside, we’ll notice that although we know it, we somehow don’t believe it. And that’s what all the purification methods are about: getting us from where we seem to think we still are, to where we don’t think we’re anywhere anymore. Hence we have all these practices, like karma yoga and jnana yoga, like sacrifice and mantra, like renunciation and purification. All of them, by one route or another, are designed to get around that roadblock between our knowing and our believing.

P 128 Ram Das, Paths to God: Living the Bhagavad Gita

Quote from Ram Das, Paths to God: Living The Bhagavad Gita

2009-07-27T02:45:00.001-05:00

This is a great quote from Paths to God: Living The Bhagavad Gita by Ram Das

Those of you who have been in human relationships where real love was present recognize experiences in which the well-being of your beloved was more important than your own. You’d offer your own discomfort to ensure their well-being. If you can extrapolate from that experience to a time (called the Satya Yuga) when everybody makes that kind of offering in relation to everybody and everything else, you’ll have a taste of what it is like to live in the Spirit. (P. 111 Ram Das Paths to God.)

Bujangasana, Cobra Pose Variation for Lower Back Strengthening

2009-03-25T06:22:00.002-05:00

This gentle but strong movement can be really useful for the strength and health of your lower back.

Urdhva Prasarita Padasana

2009-03-20T18:27:00.005-05:00

This is a gentle movement with the breath. It is interesting how repetitive movements like this, where you are linking the movement with the breath really do far more than you might realize just by looking at it. One of the secrets to a movement like this is that the movement is really synched up with the breath in a way where the breath starts first and the breath finishes after the movement so that the breath envelops the movement. That takes a lot of concentration. Another aspect of this is the way in which you are breathing. If you are inhaling into the chest first while keeping the lower part of the abdomen gently pulled inward a little, the breath while help your body move and cause the movement to be initiated by the breath and the core. This will actually help you improve your movement mechanics in ways that you would not even expect. My experience has been that, as a result of doing movements like this where I am focused on simple, clean movement mechanics and connecting the movements with the breath, it makes it much easier for me to to do many of those more complex looking movements like the floats, because movements like these teach your body how to move with control. These seemingly simple movements are truly well worth taking the time to work on.

Turning Downdog Split Upside Down into Full Wheel

2009-03-10T03:12:00.003-05:00

This is a video that shows two versions of turning Downward Facing Dog over. In the first version I go part way over and do not take both hands to the floor. In this pose the outer edge of one foot stays on the ground as that leg stays long and straight with the foot turned out to help lift the hips. Sometimes when people turn the pose part way over and leave that top hand off the ground they still turn their feet parallel to each other and are in a pose that is a lot like Four Legged Table, Chatur Padapitam. The pose where the leg stays turned out with the leg straight and the outer edge of the foot on the floor is much more powerful than if you turn the feet parallel to each other and have the soles of the feet on the floor without taking both hands to the floor. The second variation shows turning the pose all the way over into Full Wheel, Urdhva Dhanurasana (Which literally translates as upside down bow). In this variation you can see how the first variation, as an intermediate step is part of the process of turning the pose all the way over

Jumping Through to Sitting Broken Down in Stages

2009-03-08T03:31:00.001-05:00

This video breaks down the process of jumping forward through the hands to sitting. It gives a few techniques to work on that would help you develop the ability to jump through the hands to sitting incrementally, safely, intelligently. I don't think the end result is really the issue. I think the work you get during the process of trying while keeping yourself safe, is the actual thing you are looking for. The work in something like this should be fun and enjoyable. If it is not, there are other things that would be more beneficial.

Jumping Forward into Crow Broken Down in Stages

2009-03-07T14:55:00.000-05:00

This is a video that breaks down the process of jumping forward into Crow Pose into a few stages giving the practitioner a few techniques to practice that would help develop the skill of floating forward and placing the knees on the arms. I have seen people teach how to jump so that you stay low and aim the knees at the arms and get them to land. In my opinion it would be more valuable to work on developing the skill of holding your weight, balanced over the arms, floating, hovering above the arms, and placing the knees softly onto the arms with control. Even if you never are able to do this, I think it would be more valuable to work on the techniques that would help you develop that core strength than to learn how to simply jump the knees at the arms.

The Philosophy is in the Practice

2009-03-06T03:43:00.002-05:00

It is always interesting to me how the philosophy is really contained in the practice but then, being human, and having a brain that wants things to be one way, easy to understand, we end up trying to rigidify practice into sets of rules about right and wrong when really practice and reality are about experience and being conscious, connected, aware and letting things flow, not grasping onto things and trying to make them concrete when they are really transparent...liquid. But that bipolar manner in which our mind works, wanting things to fit into simple categories, good-bad, right-wrong, up-down, hot-cold, we only think these things are real but they are perspectives, they are relative terms.

One of the ways I try and explain this has to do with the Hot Yoga Center I teach at. You walk into the lobby of the Hot Yoga Center from outside and invariably it feels hot in the lobby. You change and walk into the practice studio and it feels hot. When you are done practicing you walk out of the practice space and into the lobby and the lobby feels cold. Now the temperature of the lobby has not changed. So is the lobby hot or cold? The obvious answer is that it depends on your perspective which depends on how you are looking at it and where you are coming from. Which means that hot and cold are not absolute terms but relative ones.

So with a lot of styles of practice which settle on one specific way of doing certain things, my experience is that if you stay within that style and go deep, the style will work. The versions of things that have been chosen for you will be beneficial and useful and have their applications. Often, the style will have a reason for the choices that have been made and they will help you go deeper. And interestingly, even when the style does not seem to have much reason, or such intelligent reasons, for the choices that have been made, the style still often does something useful.

However, if you are serious about practice and if you do go deep enough you should get to a point where the limits imposed by the style or any style are holding you back rather than helping you. Ultimately all styles are there to be transcended. So you use them while they are useful and then leave them when you have entered that territory of your own authentic journey, whether that journey is within asana practice or the deeper aspects of practice. Ultimately these two categories (asana and deeper aspects) are not really separate.

So the idea I am getting at is that when one style does things one way, and another style does the same things a different way, a lot of the times, people want to understand things as right and wrong: which style is right? Which one is better? And a lot of the time when you have different styles or systems that have made different choices, a better question to ask is: What does each variation do? What is each system emphasizing? What are the benefits to these different techniques and methods?

When you do this and try and examine things in this manner of openness and exploration (rather than judging and choosing), you can understand the application of different techniques and methods and the ways in which they are beneficial without being stuck or attached to a particular method.

And in the end, practice is about freedom. The freedom you obtain in your body with asana is only a metaphor to help you try to find freedom in other aspects of your life. Although, having a body that moves in a variety of ways and is flexible and healthy is also beneficial in itself.

If your physical practice, your seated practices and your in everyday life awareness practices are open and not stuck on right and wrong, if you use your time during practice to open to the experience within which you are currently immersed, interesting shifts and transformations will unfold. Really, they are unfolding whether we realize it or not. But if the process is about awareness, more consciousness, cultivating that deepened awareness, we may see more of what is actually unfolding. And there is so much in each moment that it is worth making practice about initiating that process of cultivating consciousness. But with a soft touch and an open heart; trying to be present without being judgmental: of yourself, of others.

A Quote from A Path With Heart

2009-03-05T08:58:00.003-05:00

I like this quote. It points to the idea that we can use other peoples teachings and techniques, we can learn from someone else's process but in the end we need to do the work for ourselves, to feel and experience things for ourselves.

This is from A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield p. 158.

Initially, in our enthusiasm for our practice, we tend to take everything we hear or read as the gospel truth. This attitude often becomes even stronger when we join a community, follow a teacher, undertake a disciple. Yet all of the teachings of books, maps, and beliefs have little to do with wisdom or compassion. At best they are a signpost, a finger pointing at the moon, or the leftover dialogue from a time when someone received some true spiritual nourishment. To make spiritual practice come alive, we must discover within ourselves our own way to become conscious, to live a life of the spirit.

Jumping Back from Sitting Broken Down in Stages

2009-03-02T07:46:00.003-05:00

This video shows the process of jumping back. It is broken down into a few stages that would help you develop the ability to jump back from sitting.

Yoga Sequence for the Core

2009-03-01T07:05:00.004-05:00

This is a little sequence of yoga postures done for core strength. Because of the way you are balancing in these postures they cause the deep muscles of your abdomen and the deep muscles of your spine to work together in a way that is very useful in strengthening the muscles of postural alignment for the health of your spine and lower back. The central technique that would make these postures more effective at getting the core to work is using the breath so that the exhale causes you to scoop your belly inward hollowing out your abdomen while trying to keep the chest expanded, and on the inhale using the breath so that the lower part of the abdomen continues to stay scooped inward as you fill the chest and ribcage. Even without these exercises, if you use this breath technique you will work your core in a useful way. If you add that breath technique to these postures, it will make the work you do in the postures far more powerful. As with all practice, the postures should be adapted to the actual needs and abilities of the practitioner for them to be useful and effective.

Jumping Back from Crow Broken Down in Stages

2009-02-28T07:28:00.003-05:00

This is a short and simple video that shows what I feel are the stages for jumping back from Crow Pose, Bakasana. The central issue in the process is the upper bodies weight shifting forward as the legs move first up and then back. The reason you want the upper body to shift forward is so that the weight stays centered over the hands: as the legs move back the upper body moves forward to counterbalance the weight of the legs.

Side Plank: Vashistasana Variations Working the Core

2009-02-27T23:42:00.004-05:00

This is a video that goes through a few variations for Side Plank Pose, Vashistasana. This is a great pose because it can be done in so many ways so there is bound to be a variation that works for you. And because you are holding your body at a lateral angle it causes the deep muscles of the abdomen and spine--what I would refer to as the core, the muscles that control posture and are closest to our center of gravity--to work at a unique angle.

New Titibhasana Photo

2009-02-27T20:50:00.003-05:00

Somehow I always make some sort of intense face with this pose. I think that is me smiling. :) Nah, just kidding. But I like this photo. I should have another group of videos ready to post in the next few hours.

Eka Pada Koundinyasana II to Ashtavakrasana: Moving with Control: Floating

2009-02-23T01:13:00.003-05:00

These hand balances are not really that hard but they are fun and they link together very nicely. Eka Pada Koundinyasana II opens the pelvic structure towards a split while you are balancing on your hands. Ashtavakrasana is a rotation where your spine and hips are turning while balancing on the hands. Each pose separately feels pretty good and when you link them together it adds an extra element of balance as you float from one pose to the next and then back through the vinyasa.

Moving Reclining Twist Releasing Tension from Neck, Shoulders, Hips and Lower Back

2009-02-22T07:54:00.004-05:00

Jathara Parivrrti is the Sanskrit name for the pose. This video shows a moving or dynamic version of a reclining twist. It is interesting how much moving into and out of the pose does to release tension and get you ready before holding the pose. If you just go straight into the pose and hold, the body will not release anywhere near as much tension. This rotation really does great things, especially for the lower back and hips but also for the neck shoulders and the whole spine. I am always amazed at how useful and effective some of these simpler movements are for the health of our bodies.

Titibhasana, Firefly: Hand Balancing and Float Through Vinyasa

2009-02-21T20:56:00.001-05:00

This is a video of me doing Titibhasana, Firefly pose. You can see decent form in the hand balance and then float through the vinyasa.

Chakravakasana: Releasing Tension from the Neck, Shoulders, Upper Back, Mid Back, Lower Back, HIps and Knees

2009-02-20T20:46:00.004-05:00

These movements are often called Cat/Cow. I like the name Desikachar uses for the movement a little better. Chakravakasana refers to a mythical bird that is puffing up its chest. I think this gets at the essence of the back bend better than the image of a rickety cow whose back is swayed so that its belly is falling towards the floor. Instead, if you think of the expansion of the chest and keep the neck and lower back long, using the core strength to stabilize those areas, ultimately you are going to be better off.

When done in a way that is useful to the practitioner, this pose can release tension from the neck, shoulders, upper back, mid back, lower back, hips and knees. Not too shabby for a movement that is so easy and simple.

A Series Sun Salutation

2009-02-19T01:55:00.004-05:00

I made a new version of A Series and this one is different enough that I figured I would put this in as a new post but I am pulling the old post so there is only one A Series Sun Salutation video.

In this video one of the things to take note of is the quality of the movement from one pose to the next. There is a quality of relaxedness and strength, fluidity and control without any of the movements being rushed. The movements are all coordinated with the breathing. The breath is full, deep, even and relaxed.

B Series Sun Salutation with Handstand Slipped In

2009-02-18T23:19:00.001-05:00

So this is simply a B Series Sun Salutation, Surya Namaskar B, with a Handstand slipped into the sequence.

Hugging One Knee In At A Time: Releasing Tension From Hips and Lower Back

2009-02-18T04:24:00.006-05:00

This is a video of a gentle Vinyasa that is deceptively effective. I find it interesting how these simple repetitive movements are much more powerful than one might think from simply watching. Because you are moving in a relaxed and controlled manner they remove tension from your joints in an extremely effective way. This movement actually helps to relax and release tension from the neck, shoulders and upper back while expanding the chest and ribcage, and it also removes tension from the knees, hips and lower back.

Balancing Half Moon and Bird of Paradise in Sequence

2009-02-16T00:03:00.003-05:00

This is a sequence with Balancing Half Moon and Bird of Paradise. One of the nice things in this sequence is seeing a way of coming into Ardha Chandrasana slowly--balancing and floating your way into the pose.

B Series Sun Salutation

2009-02-15T20:37:00.002-05:00

So I think I am getting the hang of the editing side of this process better and better each time. This is a B Series Sun Salutation. Things to note about this video: It is a little longer than the others. I think it is worth showing good form in a B Series Sun Salutation. The movement is slow, not rushed. I am moving with my breath. The movements are powerful but not forceful. They are relaxed. And my head, neck and upper back alignment is always really good. My neck is never tightening up, particularly on the back bends where I am looking up. So I am not creating unwanted stress in those important areas while I am moving. I guess the last thing is that my alignment in each of the poses is pretty solid and part of that is due to the fact that my alignment while I am moving is pretty good. It is really important to have good alignment while moving from one pose to the next. That is really one of the keys to arriving in a pose with good alignment. I hope you enjoy this.

Bakasana, Crow Pose, Floating Into and Out of Pose Slowly

2009-02-14T13:49:00.003-05:00

The idea with this video clip is to see how jumping, or really floating, into and out of crow pose can be done slowly with control if you keep your weight over your hands so that you can stay balanced for as long as possible in the float.

In my commentary on this video I was trying to get across the idea that while the jumps are slow, the tape is at regular speed. I had a friend suggest that I do a video where I slow motion the video so you can really see the jumps. And what I decided to do instead was to make this video where I was doing the jumps and going very slowly so that you can see how the jumps can actually be about floating, slowly, rather than being about jumping.

Handstand, Getting The Hips Over The Hands First

2009-02-13T13:02:00.004-05:00

I am posting this version of handstand so that I can show a little more clearly the process of getting the hips over the hands first before trying to come the rest of the way up to balance. In this footage, when I jumped, I let my right leg lag behind and waited until my hips were centered over my hands before trying to bring that right leg up. But it is also worth noting that, when I jump, I am not trying to get the left leg over my hands either. I am just focused on getting my hips over my hands. Once that happens the balance falls into place and the legs come up in a nice controlled manner.

Handstand: Two Variations on Getting Up

2009-02-06T23:13:00.007-05:00

This is a video in which I demonstrate two variations on how to get up into handstand. The first variation is kicking up with one leg. Often when people kick up with one leg they try to get the foot over the hands. If instead you focus on getting the hips over the hands it causes the feet to follow and you get up there much more easily and you start getting your balance much more quickly as a result. The second variation that I show is coming up with both legs at the same time. With this one also, if you focus on getting the hips over the shoulders then you can start working on those subtle balance adjustments that get you the rest of the way up with a sense of control.

Video of a Moving Bridge Variation that Will Help Release Tension from the Neck, Shoulders and Lower Back

2009-02-05T00:23:00.004-05:00

This simple, gentle variation of Dvi Pada Pitam (Moving Bridge) will help release tension from the neck, shoulders and lower back. It is interesting how powerful and effective simple things like this can be.

Photos of What I did for the Circus

2009-02-04T00:18:00.005-05:00

I figured I would put a few photos of what I used to do on inline skates (rollerblades) on here so you guys could see the type of stuff that I used to do with the circus.

These first two are dropping in to the ramp. These are called vert ramps because the top of the ramp is a vertical surface. That platform I am standing on is 12 feet above the ground.

These next two are in Miami Beach, Florida.

Sometimes people ask me if the palm tree behind me is real. Yes it is. The photographer, John Twomey, is just good at what he does and he got an angle where I was centered in front of the palm tree. Towards the bottom left of the photo you can see the top of the ramp.

This last one is in New York at a competition that was held at Chelsea Piers. I like this because you can see the background and get a perspective of where I am in relationship to the ground. This photo is on my bio page next to a photo of me in Scorpion.

Yoga Photo Slide Show

2009-01-27T06:36:00.028-05:00

So I have now figured out enough about how to play with video to edit something like this and to put it on the web. This video is really just me taking many of those same photos that have been on the blog in other places and editing them into a short slide show. But now that I know how to do this kind of thing I am hopefully going to be taking some actual footage of me practicing and perhaps even, me teaching and turning them into some useful videos. If you click on the box that has a box inside it you will get a full screen view of it. This video can also be found on YouTube. Here is the link to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X84RSyOQA-U

A Tiny Little Blurb in Time Out New York

2009-01-11T02:26:00.001-05:00

If you follow this link of me teaching it will bring you to a photo and this tiny little blurb about my teaching. It is towards the bottom of the page. It is also in the current issue of Time Out New York (January 8-14 2009).

You will have to follow the link to see the photo but this is what the blurb says:

==

New York Yoga

Vinyasa All Levels class
Photo: Beth Levendis
Vinyasa All Levels class
(1629 York Ave at 86th St; 212-717-YOGA,newyorkyoga.com. $23 plus $2 mat rental.)
So this is what yoga is all about! Yogi Carl is as calming as he is motivating, and hands-on pointers made me feel (literally) centered. His method is “mindful”—don’t overdo it and aim for balance (what you do on one side, do on the other).

==

I think I got called "Yogi". That makes me laugh.

Photos of teaching in teacher training

2009-01-10T20:08:00.000-05:00

These photos were taken by students in various teacher training sessions. I thought it might be fun to post them and have people see me teaching in this capacity.

Happy New Year 2009

2009-01-09T20:07:00.002-05:00

I almost typed in 3009 by accident. I don't want things to go that fast. My how time flies. I hope everyone has a happy new year.

Some More Photos

2008-09-26T12:15:00.004-05:00

Again, no commentary. :) UpSideDown

Random Photos

2008-09-24T21:35:00.002-05:00

It has been a long time since I have posted anything and I felt like just posting some photos without any commentary. Here we go.

The Art of Living: Finding Your Passion

2008-03-16T22:56:00.002-05:00

Below is a description of a two part seminar being taught by Jeffrey Rubin. He is really worth checking out. He is doing something that I think is what Yoga is really about. He is using tools from psychotherapy, meditation and yoga practice to help people make their whole life better. To me that sounds like what yoga is fundamentally supposed to be about.

Peace, UpSideDown

==

The Art of Living: Finding Your Passion

Creating a rich and fulfilling life starts with passion—the compelling excitement you feel when doing something you love, which is a doorway into what you value. When you pursue your passions, you discover meaning and purpose and feel alive and vibrant. Explore how to pinpoint your passion with Dr. Jeffrey B. Rubin through lecture, dialogue and experiential exercises drawn from the Eastern yogic and meditative and western psychotherapeutic traditions. Attendance at both sessions is strongly recommended, as second session builds upon the first.

2 times on Tuesdays
7:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Mar 18 - Mar 25
$30.00 - Member
$40.00 - Non-Member
ACFPAS00W8
Location: The JCC in Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Ave. at 76th St. (Program room assignments will be available at the JCC Customer Service Desk, in the lobby of the Samuel Priest Rose Building.)

Releasing Tension from the Hips, Pelvic Structure and Back While Strengthening the Core and the Back Muscles to Help Reduce Back Pain

2008-02-13T19:12:00.004-05:00

These Posts taken together could be turned into an endless number of practices to help the health of your spine. Learning to reduce tension from your hips to your spine, from your pelvic structure to your spine and from the back of the legs to your spine is very beneficial. Learning to strengthen your core is also extremely important to the health of your back. And learning to strengthen your back muscles safely and effectively can also be extremely useful. Taken together to make your spine and the back of your body stronger, more capable of holding itself in good alignment and free of unwanted tension would be a good part of helping to eliminate back pain for a large percentage of people.

The First Principle of Therapeutic Yoga

SthiraSukham Asanam: The Postures Should Be Strong and Soft

Reclining Hip Opening Postures to Reduce Stress in the Outer Hips and Lower Back

Cow Faced Pose: Gomukhasana: A Seated Hip Opening Pose to Reduce Tension in the Outer Hip and Lower Back

Ankle to Knee Pose: A Seated Hip Opening Pose to Stretch from the Outer Hip into the Lower Back

Postures To Reduce Stress in the Pelvic Structure and Spine to Help Relieve Back Pain

More Angles on Opening from the Pelvic Structure to the Spine to help Reduce Back Pain

Bharadvajasana, A Twist that Opens Your Hips and Releases Tension in Your Neck and Shoulders As Well

Janusirsasana: Asymmetrical Opening from the Hips and Pelvic Structure into the Spine Reducing Tension and Improving Health of Lower Back

Parivrtti Janusirsasna: Opening From the Outer Hip into the Side of the Body Reducing Tension in Lower Back

Marichyansana A; Another Angle on Opening from the Hips to the Lower Back to Reduce Tension

Forward Bends: Uttanasana and Pascimottanasana: Stretching the Lower Back to Release Tension

Four Back Bends: Strengthening the Lower Back: The Difference Between Cobra Pose and Upward Facing Dog

Reclining Core Strengthening Twist

More Core Strengthening Postures for Improved Postural Alignment and the Health of Your Spine

Core Strengthening with Pelvic Opening

More Angles on Opening from the Pelvic Structure to the Spine to help Reduce Back Pain

2008-02-12T01:29:00.000-05:00

Here are some more angles on opening from the pelvic structure into the spine. The more angles you can give your body the better in the end. When done in a manner that is appropriate for the individual, reducing tension from the pelvic structure into the spine can help reduce stress and pain in either or both areas.

I am amazed that I could not find an image of myself in Baddha Konasana of all the poses. But this is a nice photo of Erin Wilson in a gentle version of the posture.

Ashtavakrasana: A Hand Balancing Pose That Works and Opens the Pelvic Structure and Mildly Rotates the Spine

2008-02-09T01:16:00.000-05:00

Here is a photo of a pose where you are working the muscles of the pelvic structure while opening them at the same time. You are also rotating your spine while balancing on your hands. As with all the poses the key is that there should be an element of effortlessness while performing the pose. You are working fairly strongly but you are not overworking and it should look like you are not working hard at all.

Postures To Reduce Stress in the Pelvic Structure and Spine to Help Relieve Back Pain

2008-02-08T00:52:00.000-05:00

These photos show a few angles on opening from the pelvic structure into the spine. This kind of work would reduce tension in those areas and could help relieve certain kinds of back pain if done in a away that is right for the person practicing. How far you go is not the important part of the posture. What is important is that the poses are releasing stress, rather than being done in an aggressive manner that could create more stress. What you would be looking for in the poses is to feel opening and a release of tension in the inner thighs, the back of the legs, the pelvic structure and the entire back of the torso (lower back, mid back, upper back and even the back of the neck). It is also interesting how effective the bent kneed variations are at helping reduce stress in the pelvic structure and spine.

MEDITATION AND PSYCHOTHERAPY: PARTNERS IN HEALING with Jeffrey Rubin, Ph.D.

2008-02-01T11:17:00.000-05:00

This is some information about a seminar that is going to be held this Sunday. Jeffrey Rubin is someone worth checking out. He has a wealth of knowledge and experience in the fields of Psychotherapy, Insight Meditation and Yoga. And the way he combines techniques is really groundbreaking. There is a lot that you will take away from what he has to offer. This work will deepen your practice and give you tools to help make other aspects of your life more fulfilling and more of what you want them to be.

Here is a link to some of the kinds of workshops he offers: http://www.drjeffreyrubin.com/workshops.htm

Here is a link to his published works: http://www.drjeffreyrubin.com/publications.htm

UpSideDownCarl

==

MEDITATION AND PSYCHOTHERAPY:
PARTNERS IN HEALING
Jeffrey Rubin, Ph.D.
Sunday, February 3, 1-4:30pm
Fee: $25
Meditation and Psychotherapy each offer unique and wonderful tools for self-transformation. Meditation provides indispensable strategies for quieting and focusing the mind and cultivating deep concentration, equanimity and compassion. Psychotherapy offers incomparable techniques for detecting self-deception and discovering those hidden forces that sabotage our efforts to change.
Through a combination of lecture, dialogue and experiential practices drawn from the yogic, psychotherapeutic and meditative traditions, we will explore the way meditative and psychotherapeutic traditions can enrich each other. Topics to be addressed will include: cultivating and deepening whole-hearteded therapeutic presence, integrating meditative attentiveness and psychoanalytic understanding of unconscious communication, and integrating meditation and psychotherapy in clinical practice.

New York Insight Meditation Center - to register, see link below.
http://www.nyimc.org/index6.htm

Breath Anatomy for Asana, Pranayama and Meditation

2008-01-28T10:24:00.000-05:00

Coming up on Saturday, February 23rd is the first part of a three part workshop that I am doing for Yoga Sutra's School of Yogic Studies. Here is the title of the workshop with dates and times for all three parts:

Breath Anatomy for Asana, Pranayama and Meditation
with Carl Horowitz

Three Saturday Intensives:
Part 1 The Diaphragm: Feb 23, 5:30-8:30pm
Part 2: Accessory Muscles and Efficiency: March 15, 5:30-8:30pm
Part 3: Breath and the Bandhas: May 31, 5:30-8:30pm

Here is a link to more information about the workshops: http://www.yogasutranyc.com/yogicstudies.php

My workshop is the first one listed on that page as of now (1/28/08--this page gets updated to reflect upcoming workshops so some time after the date of the last one it will be changed). The work we will be doing in these seminars will be fairly powerful. We will be looking at the main anatomical features of breathing, exploring how the postures and movement both affect the breathing process and how you can use the breathing process to deepen your experience in the postures. We will also look at ways of making your breathing more efficient.

In the first session we will look at the diaphragm's major role in breathing.

In the second session we will look at the accessory muscles and how to use this deeper understanding of the breathing mechanism to help create more efficiency in the breathing process.

In the third session we will explore how the breath and the bandhas are interrelated, how understanding the breathing process can deepen your ability to use the bandhas effectively, which will deepen the power and effectiveness of your practice.

I am excited about teaching these sessions. This is really powerful material and the way it is organized should make it a really fun and deep learning experience for any level practitioner.

Gentle Yoga at Yoga Sutra Coming in February 2008

2008-01-18T21:21:00.000-05:00

So I am going to be teaching a Gentle Yoga class at Yoga Sutra NYC starting in February. The first class will be Monday February 4th and it will be every Monday from 10:30AM-12:00PM.

There is something very beneficial about dropping back a few notches in intensity and seeing what is going on inside. In this kind of gentle approach where the emphasis is on an internal process of listening, the kind of shifts you can make in your system are pretty profound and it is also interesting how much of those shifts and that deeper awareness you are able to bring back into your practice if and when you step things up a notch or two. Some of the deepest work I do is also some of the subtlest, but that subtle work is definitely a huge part of why I am able to do some of the more complex or physically challenging asana practice I am able to do. The more detailed work carries over into the bigger movements because you body absorbs it and your form improves, your mechanics improve, your body knows what is doing better, and that all translates into an internal process that is empowering and healing.

Another Year Appears to Be Winding Down Rather Quickly: Happy Holidays

2007-12-19T15:46:00.000-05:00

Okay, it has been months since I posted anything. I have found a whole new category of busy. Things are good though. I guess all I really have to say is that I hope everyone has a happy holiday season and that your practice continues to help you connect internally with what is most important in your life.

The Connection Between the External Form of Pose and the Benefits the Posture Creates

2007-09-10T01:20:00.000-05:00

Lauren Cahn asked another great question and it took me a while to get to it but now, here it is.

UpSideDown

======

YC Said: Thank you so much!! Now I have something interesting to explore in my next practice!

Oh! And now I have a follow-up sort-of question. Maybe you could write a post about this: the external expression of a pose, like what you see in a photo or in the mirror, versus the actual action of a pose that you feel in your boy. Discuss.

Thanks!

My reply: Excellent. It is always nice to have new things to explore which is ultimately where practice leads us. And as usual your questions and inquiries are deep and there is more than meets the eye to them.

The complicated thing about form is that there are several issues at stake here. In any pose there are a variety of ways of doing a posture that will be useful to a practitioner. Different angles cause you to work or open different areas of the body. So any one person can do several different variations of any posture. An easy example is that a standing forward bend can be done with the hands holding the elbows and the arms hanging, the legs could be straight or bent; you could have your palms flat on the floor, again the legs could be straight or bent; you could have your hands holding your big toes, they could be under your feet from the front, from the side, from the back of the heel; whether the legs are straight or bent the feet can be together or apart. I could keep going. There are variations with one hand behind your back or both. The more you look at things the more different angles you can give.

This is mainly concerning arrangement of limbs and spine. Within any of those variations there are positions where you could be in a good alignment where your body is getting good healthy work that will strengthen and open or you could be creating unwanted stress in certain areas unnecessary to the movement and work of the posture. That unwanted stress could be minor and therefore not such a big deal. This would merely represent a lack of awareness of the most efficient way of bringing your body into the posture. However, repetitive stress like this can, over time, cause cumulative damage, so, hopefully the practitioner learns to improve his or her form over time so that the body is not wasting effort in ways that are counter productive. Then there is the kind of unwanted stress that is bigger and more damaging. That is the stuff that you need to look out for first.

Now this second aspect of form could be categorized as ways of finding good alignment and avoiding damaging alignment within any of the variations of a posture.

And then there is the individual practitioner to be considered. Different people have different bodies, different shaped bones, different joint structures. I think I will talk about genetics and flexibility for a moment, which has to do with joint structure to some extent. Some people walk into their first yoga practice never having done anything like yoga and are quite flexible in many directions. They never worked on it. It just has to do with that person’s body type. There are others who practice for years and feel they can never get past a certain degree of flexibility no matter how much they work on it. Some people are stronger and can do postures that take a high degree of strength without much effort. Some cannot hold certain postures for very long because of their lack of strength for that kind of work. A certain amount of this can be changed and a certain amount of your inherent body type is just what you were given.

Now most of us would be more flexible than we are if, during the years from when we were around 10 till we were around 20, we were doing a considerable amount of movement that required a high degree of flexibility. The reason this is the case is that somewhere between those ages most of us experienced what we could call growth spurts. When your bones are still growing, if your bones grow really fast and you are not doing movements that require certain ranges of movement, you start to loose those ranges of movement in the joints. The bones grew but the joint capsules that surround the joints and prevent movements beyond a certain range don’t necessarily change much if you are not moving the joints in those directions. If your bones grow really fast and you do not continue doing movements that require a certain range of flexibility, it is almost like your joint capsules, your ligaments, which hold your bones together, shrink wrap around the joint. If you don’t do a certain range of movement your body does not know you need that range of movement and by the time our bones have stopped growing, the body pretty much thinks that the movements you have been doing are the ones you need. So a person who spends the years during which the bones in their body were growing the fastest, doing something like sitting in a chair, at a desk, reading, writing and doing schoolwork, might end up with something like chair length hamstrings.

Some of this can be changed but the kind of opening that happens in yoga postures or the kinds of assisted stretching that happen in a lot of yoga adjustments is not the most intelligent method of stretching the connective tissue that keeps your joints stable. There are joint mobilization techniques that can precisely stretch joint capsules in particular directions but I would not recommend a yoga practitioner or teacher to mess with this stuff unless they are well trained in the techniques and know what they are doing. This is also not something you can do to yourself. But joint mobility is not really something you want to mess with too much anyway.

Now you also have the length and shape of the bones. One person might have long legs and a short spine; another might have long arms and a short spine; long legs and short arms, or short legs and long arms. A person might have a long upper leg and short lower leg; a long lower leg and a short upper leg; a long forearm and a short upper arm; or a short forearm and a long upper arm. Things like this will affect the way the external form of a posture appears to someone who is looking from outside.

The length and shape of the posterior spinous processes can play some role in determining how much mobility the thoracic spine has when moving into hyperextension (back bending). Of course there are a lot of other things that could come into play as well.

The shape of the upper part of the thigh bone can play a great role in movements of the leg in abduction, adduction, external rotation, flexion and extension. The angle of the femoral neck in relation to the ground, it is usually somewhere close to a 45-degree angle to the femoral shaft, but can be closer to parallel to the ground or closer to vertical. As the shaft goes from the greater trochanter towards the pelvic structure there is also an angle. Sometimes the greater trochanter is lateral and posterior to the hip joint, sometimes it is directly lateral to the hip joint and sometimes the greater trochanter is lateral and anterior to the hip joint. This angle will determine a certain amount of range of movement in certain planes as well. And how long or short the shaft is will also determine a certain amount of range of movement because a longer shaft, while not being as strong and stable is more mobile since the trochanters can move farther in more directions before coming up against the bones of the pelvic structure.

(I am re-reading this and you need to look at photos of several different femurs from several different angles to get what I am trying to say above. I wish I had the graphics to lay out.)

The shoulder girdle is more complicated and sometimes there are similar things at play that cause one person to have greater or lesser ranges of motion in all planes. An example is that one person might be able to reach the arms up higher than another before the shoulder blades start elevating, creating tension and doing funny things.

So now that we got that information out, the external form of a posture, even if two people are doing the same basic variation, is often going to look a little different from person to person. A person with long arms, short legs and a long spine doing the variation of Urdhva Dhanurasana where you are trying to get your feet and hands closer to each other so that the apex of the arch in the posture is the abdomen and lower back, would look different in the pose than a person with long legs, short arms and a long spine in the same variation.

So the external form is a very superficial and imprecise guideline to use in looking to quantify what a person will feel in a posture.

The simple information about the benefits of the postures that I generally give, and this is very simplistic, is this:

1) Back bending postures generally work the back of the body and gently open the front of the body. As a general statement, the work in the back of the body is more prevalent than the opening in the front of the body, but the postures can be done in a way that emphasizes the opening in the front of the body or deemphasizes the work in the back of the body.

2) Forward bending postures open the back of the body and gently work the front of the body. Here too, as a general statement, the opening in the back of the body is more prevalent than the work in the front of the body, but the postures can be done in ways that emphasize the work in the front of the body or they can be done in a way that deemphasizes the opening in the back of the body.

3) Movements in the lateral plane, whether lateral flexion or lateral extension, generally lengthen one side of the spine more than the other and as a result open aspects in the shoulders, the hips and pelvic structure as well.

4) Rotations are a little more complicated than the previous three movements of the spine. There are sets of muscles that are lined up at 90-degree angles to each other and at 45-degree angles to the ground throughout the torso. Examples are the internal and external obliques and the internal and external intercostals. There are also sets of muscles in the spine that line up like this. When you twist, one set of these muscles will shorten helping you twist while the other set will be stretched by the action. The rotational force also stretches the external fibers of the intervertebral disks (anulus fibrosus), which also line up at 45-degree angles to the ground and 90-angles to each other. So just like the intercostals and obliques one set gets stretched, but cartilage is non contractile so the set of fibers that is not stretched is merely put on slack rather than shortened.

5) In yoga there are also postures where you lengthen the spine. The ones that are interesting for our purposes are the ones where you lengthen the spine while flattening the natural curves of the spine. Postures like Ardha Uttanasana where you lift the chest and flatten the spine while keeping your palms or, more frequently, your finger tips on the ground, getting ready to jump back to chaturanga. Downward facing dog is another posture where you are straightening your back and flattening the curves of the spine. The work of flexing at the hip joints, and flexing the lumbar spine to flat, while extending the thoracic spine, to flat, takes work in the thighs, the hip flexors, the abdominal muscles, and the spinal extensors of the upper back all at the same time. And if the legs are straight it could lengthen the hamstrings, depending on the angle of flexion at the hip joints.

All yoga postures, and really any movement we as humans can do has to have at least one of those movements of the spine mentioned above. But those ideas of what benefits come from each of the movements of the spine, are really generalizations and when you add things like a bind of the arms or a rotation in the hip joint you add more things to consider.

Here too, the simple way of expressing things is that if you change the way you do a posture you will change the benefits you receive from that posture. So there would be ways of doing a pose like Urdhva Dhanurasana that would emphasize extension of the lower back, the mid back or the upper back; you could do it to emphasize a kind of work in the inner thighs; you could emphasize the extension in the hip joint; you could emphasize the movement of the shoulders and arms.

If the alignment of a posture is useful to the person the pose will probably look powerful and effortless at the same time. If the person is struggling, gripping, creating stress on particular joints that should not be in play to such an extent, the posture will probably not look as graceful; it will not look as elegant or as powerful. The person will not look quite as happy. The analogy that I would use is that a great gymnast makes what he or she is doing look easy, effortless, almost like they could do what they are doing in their sleep. A pretty good gymnast does all the same movements but you can see more of their effort and so it does not look as powerful, as deep or as graceful. The extra effort, the effort that was not necessary, is a reflection of alignment that could be improved.

So now once you are in a posture in a way that is useful to your body the information given above might give a very simplistic guideline to help you understand some of the physical benefits you might feel but every person is different. One person might feel one set of muscles working and another might feel completely different muscles working to create the same basic movement or posture; what joint capsules are being stressed and pulled taught would be different from person to person; what joints come into play might be different as well.

Then, there are the deeper benefits underneath the physical effects, the work and actions of the postures; what I am talking about is how the physical postures affect the underlying energetic and emotional levels of the system. Since we are all a little different this too is complicated. General tendencies here are that back bends are energizing and expanding and forward bends are calming while eliminating waste. But back bends can be done in ways that are relaxing and vice versa. Side leans are sort of calming even though they are expanding and rotations are sort of energizing even though they move waste out of the system. Again, how you do the postures can cause you to get different underlying effects than what I just described as general tendencies.

It is interesting to me that, as I practice and think of my practice as an exploration rather than trying to fit my body into specific shapes, and as I am using my body and exploring the way my body works in my physical practice, over time, I have felt my body change so much. Poses that used to feel one way to me might feel very different now. So rather than say anything too specific about the underlying benefits of practice I will say that as I go deeper into my own personal practice, this is where the juice of my physical practice seems to be: the awareness of what is happening in my body while I am doing. I feel like the shapes are tools you use to help put yourself into positions where you can experience something about your body on that day that you are doing your practice. If you are present to the Now of the particular practice you are in, and content with yourself as you are, something magical might come up as a result of your experience in the postures and with the breath. But, as I see and feel them, the postures are not really specific shapes to put your body into. Instead they seem to be templates or archetypes for exploring certain types of work. This work is sort of liquid and changeable. As your body changes your experiences in the postures change and the postures can be adapted to your current needs.

So go and explore what your experiences in the postures are and I would love to hear the results of some of those explorations: the euphoria or the stillness that you feel in a pose; the power of the release or the energy of the work.

Peace.

Yoga Without Walls with Swami X otherwise known as Asananda or the Wise Guy

2007-09-07T09:47:00.000-05:00

This is from a friend of mine who calls himself Asananda X. He is an interesting guy who is quite creative and has a lot to offer. He started something that he calls Yoga Without Walls: sort of thinking outside the box. If this info is useful to you guys check him out:

Peace.

UpSideDown

====

I started a Yahoo Group called "Yoga Without Walls" as it reflected my feeling that leaving the lessons of the yoga class locked in the classroom seems a waste of consciousness. I teach in Central Park on Saturdays by donation, all proceeds going towards my Karma Konsciousness Kollection in which I duplicate non-copywritten dvd's, cd's and acquire other educational information to give out to people to help raise their awareness about certain issues. I would love to have more yogis join the "kollective" and help spread awareness!

I have some outside the classroom events coming up as well, such as a yoga hike in Minnewaska State Park on Saturday, September 8th
http://mountainyoga9-08-07.eventbrite.com, another yoga hike in Harriman State Park September 30th and will be teaching in Baja, Mexico October 6-13th as part of a yoga/multi-sport experience where we'll be snorkling with sea lions one minute and doing sunset yoga on the beach the next! http://baja2007.eventbrite.com

Swami X

A Question from Lauren Cahn: More Technical Information On Urdhva Dhanurasana

2007-08-25T19:40:00.000-05:00

This was a comment that I thought brought up some great information to explore about Urdhva Dhanurasana. There other variations of the posture shown here as well. Thank you Lauren for your dedication as a practitioner and your inquisitive mind.

yc said...
Hi Carl, I have a question about the form demonstrated in your UD shown in the pic. First of all, I think you look very nice and comfortable and at ease. Ok, that out of the way...  I notice that a lot of your weight appears to be on your hands and that your legs are stretched out. I personally LOVE this way of practicing UD for myself, as opposed to when I walk my feet in closer to my hands.   Is there an advantage to practicing the way you show it, as opposed to bringing the feet closer to the hands?  Lauren

Hey Lauren,

As always, you ask such great questions.

In the picture you are asking about I am using my legs to lengthen my lower back so my chest expands more and there is less of the back bend in my lower back. I can understand how it might seem that my arms are bearing more of the weight. There would also be nothing wrong with the hands bearing more of the weight, especially if you were getting ready to start lifting up into a handstand from the posture (just as you can drop back and then come up to standing from Urdhva Dhanurasana, you can come up to handstand or drop back from handstand into the pose). But what I am doing is extending my knees a little, and pressing my feet into the ground, and I am using that to try and help me lengthen my lower back and move more of the back bend into my upper back so that I can expand my chest as much as possible.

The benefits of this variation is that it might enable you to keep the lower back safer while you are deeper in the thoracic spine and are opening the ribcage more. If you notice in the posture in question how much of the emphasis is on my chest and ribcage expanding. You can even go all out with this variation and have the feet a little farther away from the hands and the legs fully straightened so the legs look like they are in a version of an upside down plank while the upper body is in Full Wheel. I looked to see if I had a photo of what I am talking about but don’t. I guess I will have to see about taking one because it does end up looking really nice when you do it that way.

That being said, the more traditional, or perhaps more commonly used variation, where the feet are a little closer to the hands and the idea is to try and get your abdomen to basically be the apex of the arc, is quite beneficial as well. In the end, being able to do as many variations of a posture as possible is an indication that your body is open and flexible enough to get a variety of different kinds of work. The one that is more commonly used allows you to get more arch in your lower back and for some people it lets you off the hook in your upper back and ribcage. It might make it so that a person does not have to have as much expansion there because the lower back being farther away from the ground has to be where more of the curve in the spine is. That being said, it really depends on the person’s body. I have photos of practitioners where their feet and hands are almost touching and they have an amazing amount of expansion in the chest and ribcage and I also have photos where someone is doing the variation I was describing above where the legs are moving towards straight and working to lengthen the lower back and there is very little expansion in the chest and ribcage most of the arch is still coming from the lower back. Our bodies are all so unique it is great to explore the effects of different variations. And most people’s bodies are really able to do a variety of kinds of work in any single variation of a posture.

Probably the best piece of information I could give is to try and explore both variations and feel them; compare them. See what is working in each and what is getting opened. Compare the things that are different and you will end up knowing how each of them is useful to your body and ways in which each might be less useful than the other. Since they do slightly different things they will each be better for certain things and they will not work or open other areas as effectively. When you have taken a while to explore each I would love to hear what you have to say.

It is really good hearing from you.

Peace.

Breathing Anatomy for Asana, Pranayama and Meditation Course in the Fall 2007

2007-08-24T19:33:00.000-05:00

This link: http://www.yogasutranyc.com/yogicstudies.php has information on a course called Breathing Anatomy for Asana, Pranayama and Meditation that is going to be starting up in September.

The session that happened over the summer went quite well and the response from the students who were there was quite positive. The work is powerful. The way we will be using the breath creates some of the most powerful transformational experiences Yoga has to offer. I am excited about continuing the program.

I am also teaching parts of two teacher training programs in the fall.

This link has information about New York Yoga's teacher training program: http://www.newyorkyoga.com/teacher_training/

And this link has information about Yoga Sutra's teacher training program: http://www.yogasutranyc.com/training.php

That Still Point at the Center of Your Being

2007-08-15T12:36:00.000-05:00

After a good practice--after the postures, after the rest, after some breathing techniques, when I am ready to sit and be still and go inside, where going inside simply happens naturally, not because I have tried--that internal stillness, that rare and beautiful calm where you can feel how much depth there is to your being, is such a treasure. It is my experience that you cannot try and create this state; you cannot force yourself into this state: all you can do is try and create the right circumstances for this to occur and then it may or it may not. Sort of like a beautiful day. You need to have the right circumstances, but it sure is nice when you fall into that feeling of harmony with yourself and everything around you.

Peace.

Breathing in Urdhva Dhanurasana

2007-07-31T08:13:00.001-05:00

I realize it is worth making a small note on breathing in Urdhva Danurasana.

Because of the position of the arms and what that does to the chest, ribcage and upper back, and the arch in the spine and what that does to the whole breathing mechanism, if you want to be deep in this pose, it is worthwhile to breath softly in a relaxed manner. The spine and ribcage are in such a deep position that there is no room for them to give the breathing mechanism extra volume in breathing, and the abdomen is being stretched as well so there is not much space to give there. The result is that if you tried to breath too deeply in the pose it would result in tension and strained breathing which is not what you want. Slow relaxed breaths that are a length and depth that feels natural and comfortable to the body would help you open deeper into this pose than trying to breath deeply would. The strain from deeper breathing could actually prevent you from opening as much and could make the whole posture feel strained and less beneficial.

Urdhva Dhanurasana Variations

2007-07-28T00:30:00.001-05:00

Urdhva Dhanurasana translates as Upside Down Bow, some traditions call this Cakrasana, Full Wheel, and sometimes I have heard it called Bridge Pose. This posture works the muscles of the back of the body that are necessary for upright postural alignment. It also works the muscles of the shoulders and arms and the back of the legs. The entire front of the body, including the ribcage and front of the pelvic structure is opened by the pose. Areas to be careful of in the posture are the lower back and the shoulders. As with all of the postures you want to avoid unnecessary strain, while moving into the posture. If you open your body to where it can go in the pose you will get more from the pose than if you try and push to get farther into the pose that your body wants you to go.

Busy But Enough Time for a Brief Note on Breathing

2007-07-28T00:13:00.000-05:00

Wow, I have been busy; too busy to do a lot of things. This breathing anatomy and practice course has gone really well so far though. Well enough so that it looks like, in the fall they will add more segments of it as an ongoing continuing education course in breathing anatomy and breath-work. I will add links when I have them.

It is amazing to see how people's breathing patterns improve from simply understanding what they are working on more completely rather than dogmatically presenting one method of breathing as THE method. And when people's breathing patterns improve and they are able to breath with less unnecessary tension in their breathing, and with an intelligent framework for understanding what they are trying to do with their breathing, it is pretty remarkable how much better it makes you feel; what a deep experience you are offered just by improving your breathing patterns, just by understanding more completely.

Peace.

Notes from My Breathing Seminar at Yoga Sutra

2007-07-12T16:51:00.000-05:00

So on the Monday that just past, July 9th, I taught the first part of a 4 part series called “Breathing Anatomy and Techniques for Asana, Pranayama, and Meditation”. It was interesting to see the responses from the students after class. Everyone seemed like they were completely blissed out. It is amazing how deep you can go with just some simple breathing. And then if you add some techniques and some information that help people remove unwanted tension from the body caused by inefficient breathing patterns, it is amazing how much opens up, both physically and in some way that transcends the physical level. It was a great group to work with and I am excited about this upcoming Monday. Last week we worked on how the spine, the ribcage, the abdomen and the diaphragm work together in breathing. This coming Monday we are going to focus on what accessory muscles to breathing do to determine the way the body changes shape around the breath and how different patterns of holding or releasing tension in the muscles of the torso can create different breathing patterns. The interesting thing about this subject is that if you become more aware of ways of changing patterns of holding and releasing tension while breathing you start becoming aware of what your habitual patterns of holding tension are in breathing and in every day life. Being aware of these kinds of things so that you can use those patterns of work when they are useful and release them when they are getting in the way of what you are doing can be an interestingly powerful tool in all aspects of the practice of yoga and even in every day life.

Peace

UpSideDownCarl

Experiencing the Breath

2007-07-08T01:15:00.000-05:00

It really is amazing how powerful and healing the breath can be. Just a short practice where you are doing simple postures where the central focus is the breath instead of the actual posture for itself can effect such a great amount of change in the internal system. Tension melting away, your mood changing, that ability to go far more deeply inside yourself; I guess it is hard to explain and put into words but the best things in life seem to be that way. I highly recommend to everyone out there, every once in a while to try a very simple gentle asana practice with the main focus being on the breathing in the postures. You can move into and out of the postures repetitively several times before holding them and then when holding them focusing on the breath ratio you established while moving, keeping the breath long and smooth, relaxed and even, almost like what you are doing is a breathing exercise while doing simple postures. Even just fifteen to twenty minutes of doing this kind of practice can put you in a new place and set the stage for you to hit new levels in other aspects of your practice. If you add a seated breathing exercise at the end where you focus fully on the breath you will notice how much the practice--doing postures while focusing primarily on the breath--can free your system for breathing. And then when you sit still afterwards that ability to go inside and how the breathing techniques can significantly enhance that ability to go deeper within. Freedom.

To explore more have a look here: A Breathing Seminar with Carl

Marichyansana A; Another Angle on Opening from the Hips to the Lower Back to Reduce Tension

2007-06-27T14:51:00.000-05:00

This pose, like all poses, has to be adapted to your current needs. If this is done, you get a nice angle from your pelvic structure into your lower back in this pose and the asymmetrical quality of the pose, like with Janusirsasna, causes you to get a nice release in the tension from the pelvic structure to the lower back.

The First Principle of Therapeutic Yoga

2007-06-25T22:10:00.000-05:00

The first and most important principle of working therapeutically with a yoga practitioner is not to cause harm, not to make things worse. Part of what you need to do to do this is to find out what will potentially cause damage and what is causing the damage in the first place. What makes this complicated is that it could be any number of things. It could be something the person is doing while practicing. It could be something the person does while they are sleeping or during any other daily activity. If all you do, in working with someone who has an injury, is help that person remove the source of the problem you have done something really monumental in leading that person towards the direction of health. With most injuries, if the source of the problem is removed then the person’s body will heal itself over time. If you figure out what is creating a problem, understand what that is, and change the patterns that are causing the damage, replacing them with something that will not cause harm, something positive, things will usually just get better.

Therapeutic work in yoga is usually more complicated than just the simple physical level of things, but this is really a good place to start. And it is interesting that sometimes this works with deeper emotional stuff as well. Finding your way to the root of a problem, understanding it, and replacing damaging patterns of behavior with useful ones can do amazing things.

Knowing what exercises will make a physical problem better without addressing the root cause of the problem can really end up being like putting a band-aid on a cut that needs stitches.

Of course this is my opinion but.... :)

Peace.

UpSideDownCarl

Yoga of Heart: A 5-Day Workshop to Advance Your Practice with Mark Whitwell

2007-06-24T22:32:00.000-05:00

This is a workshop from July 1st through July 6th at the Omega Institute. Here is where to go to find out full details on the workshop: http://www.eomega.org/omega/workshops/60d21e455fa4babfbfa9be115c974525/

Mark is a wonderful teachers and I have learned more from him than any other yoga teacher I can think of. And I cannot really think of anything that would be better than to be someplace beautiful like the Omega Institute for five days with a gifted and inspiring teacher like Mark.

Mark has decades of experience teaching and practicing and has a unique skill of getting practitioners to put the practice in a real and authentic perspective. Mark helps you go deep into your own understanding of practice in a way that few teachers will ever understand how to duplicate. I cannot recommend this workshop highly enough.

Peace.

Bright Spirit Yoga 300-Hour Advanced Teacher Training

2007-06-21T19:40:00.000-05:00

I wanted to post this. Bright Spirit Yoga 300-Hour Advanced Teacher Training. That is a link to a 300 hour teacher training that I will be teaching a few small segments of. They are having me teach a few segments. These are the subjects they are having me present: Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras In Our Asana and Daily Life, and The Bhagavad Gita in Modern Yoga. It should be a lot of fun teaching these subjects. The directors of the training program are Carrie Parker Gastelu and Jillian Pransky. They are both wonderful teachers who I have known since 1999. I guess it is even longer than I realized. How time does fly when you are having fun.

Peace.

Breathing Anatomy and Techniques for Asana, Pranayama, and Meditation

2007-06-20T13:03:00.001-05:00

In July I will be teaching this program on Breathing Anatomy with a focus on how to apply techniques in practice at Yoga Sutra. This link will bring you to the full description of the workshop:

http://www.yogasutranyc.com/yogicstudies.php#5

The workshop will be part of a series of workshops that the center is offering. If you want to see the full list here is the link:

Yoga Sutra Advanced Studies Programing

They have some good programs including one with Srivatsa Ramaswami.

Parivrtti Janusirsasna: Opening From the Outer Hip into the Side of the Body Reducing Tension in Lower Back

2007-06-18T14:21:00.000-05:00

This variation of Janusirsasna where you are lengthening from the outer hip into the side of the body directly stretches the muscles that attach from the iliac crest to the lower ribs including the quadratus lumborum.

As a result it can help reduce tension in the lower back if it is applied appropriately to the needs of the individual. Because it is a pose where you are extending the spine laterally, it also stretches the muscles in between the ribs (the intercostals muscles) and the muscles on one side of the spine. For some there is also an element of opening in the inner thigh of the leg with the bent knee.

Janusirsasana: Asymmetrical Opening from the Hips and Pelvic Structure into the Spine Reducing Tension and Improving Health of Lower Back

2007-06-14T21:08:00.000-05:00

Here are two different arm positions for Janusirsasana. Applied appropriately this pose can really be great for your lower back. One of the reasons is that you are stretching the muscles of your lower back asymmetrically. On the side of the body with the knee bent you are opening from the outer hip and inner thigh into the lower back in a way that helps you open the muscles that encase the kidney region on the outside of the lower back. One of those muscles is the Quadratus Lumborum. On the side where the leg is straight you are opening from the back of the leg, the hamstring muscles, into the lower back. If you do both sides evenly this angle on the lower back can be very beneficial to the health of your spine because you get a more complete opening by adding muscles farther away from the spine that attach to the Illium (major hip bone) of the pelvic structure. You are also lengthening one side of the spine a little more than the other so there is a little bit of lateral extension in the posture and then you are rotating a little towards the straightened leg so there is an slight amount of rotation in the spine. This adds to the asymmetrical quality of the pose and is also part of what makes the pose so good for the health of your lower back as long as you do not push beyond your capabilities while going into the posture. When you feel the opening in the pose you are far enough and you want to be able to relax while working in the pose so that you can enjoy the benefits you are getting while you are in the posture.

This second arm variation helps emphasize the asymmetrical nature of the pose by making bent knee side lengthen more than it would with the first arm variation.

Reclining Core Strengthening Twist

2007-06-11T13:33:00.000-05:00

Here are two variations of a reclining twist done in a way that will cause the focal point to be strengthening the core. If you are attempting to scoop your abdomen inward the core will work more effectively and the work will be more beneficial. These postures also can help the health of the lower back and postural alignment as they strengthen muscles in the spine and ribcage and muscles in the abdomen that help with postural alignment. Applied appropriately these can be powerful and useful postures for the overall health of your system.

Bharadvajasana, A Twist that Opens Your Hips and Releases Tension in Your Neck and Shoulders As Well

2007-06-02T02:20:00.000-05:00

This pose is unique in how it opens the hips in both internal and external rotation at the same time because of the leg positioning. Because of the bind it opens the shoulders in a nice way. And, because the head and neck are turning in the opposite direction from the rest of the body the neck, shoulders and upper back get a stretch in a unique way that is hard to find. It is not often that the spine below the shoulders is turing in one direction while, above the shoulders, it turns in the opposite direction. This pose can release tension in the neck, shoulders and upper back while releasing tension in the hips and lower back at the same time.

Core Strengthening with Pelvic Opening

2007-05-31T01:11:00.000-05:00

I am going to let these pictures stand for themselves. The main thing to make these more powerful for the core is to try and scoop your abdomen inward as you are balancing. It really feels good to my body to do postures that release tension in the pelvic structure and work the core at the same time.

Ankle to Knee Pose: A Seated Hip Opening Pose to Stretch from the Outer Hip into the Lower Back

2007-05-28T11:15:00.000-05:00

These poses are powerful for opening from the outer hips into the lower back. For most people, these ankle to knee variations are a little more intense than the Cow Faced variations from the previous post. If the postures are applied in a way that is appropriate for the practitioner they can help reduce tension from the hips to the back and which can help the heath of your spine.

However, with ankle to knee particularly, you need to be careful that the knee does not have unwanted stress on it. You are using the knee as a fulcrum to rotate the hip and, even if it seems that you have good alignment, if you go too far you can stress your knee and over time this could lead to damage. You want your knees in a position as close to a 90-degree angle as possible and your shins as close to parallel to each other as possible in all the variations. If the knee is bent farther than 90-degrees it is easier to damage the cartilage in the knee (the cartilage in the knee is called meniscus or menisci: singular=meniscus, plural=menisci). Therefore, when you are trying to open the outer hip it is worth proceeding with caution. If you were doing a posture like Lotus pose which requires a deeper than 90-degree bend in the knee your hips should be open enough so that it is not an intense hip stretch in order for it to be safe.

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In this first variation the feet are under the knees, which helps protect the knees and makes the depth of the rotation gentle. If this one feels deep enough this is the variation that should be used. If this is too deep, or if your knees cannot rest comfortably on your feet then you should do one of the variations lying on your back.

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This second variation is a little deeper. The shin and foot is resting on top of the lower leg's calf. This variation should only be done if you can fully rest the top shin on the lower shin. If the top shin is not fully resting on the lower shin this one can be more dangerous to the knees than either of the other variations. This variation is deeper than the previous variation but not as deep as the next variation.

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This last variation is the deepest of the three. The ankle has come across to the outside of the knee and is not touching the leg. This one can be practiced safely even if the top shin does not rest on the lower shin. However, if the top shin is more than an inch or two above the lower shin, you should not fold forward. Instead you should stay upright and hold the pose feeling the opening there. You should only fold forward in this posture if the top shin is either resting on the bottom shin or close enough to it so that when you fold it does rest on the bottom shin. This pose should also not feel too intense and if you feel the stretch is too intense or that there is stress in the knees you need to back up to one of the previous variations or one of the variations lying on your back.

Go to: Reclining Hip Opening Postures to Reduce Stress in the Outer Hips and Lower Back
Go to: Cow Faced Pose: Gomukhasana: A Seated Hip Opening Pose to Reduce Tension in the Outer Hip and Lower Back

Cow Faced Pose: Gomukhasana: A Seated Hip Opening Pose to Reduce Tension in the Outer Hip and Lower Back

2007-05-27T02:18:00.000-05:00

If this pose is adapted in a way that is appropriate for the practitioner, it can be effectively used to help reduce tension in the outer hip and lower back. You want to make sure that the pose is not too intense on the hips and that the knees do not feel tension as you progress your way into the posture.

In the first picture I am setting up the leg position. If this is as far as you go, then this might be enough opening for your body.

In this second picture I am starting to move the feet away from each other so that the opening in the hips is a little deeper. As you are doing this, when your body tells you that you should not bring your feet farther away from each other that would be far enough, and then you could fold if folding feels okay for you.

In this third photo the feet have gone out just about as far as they can so my knees are stacked one on top of the other. The closer the bend in my knee is to a 90-degree angle, so that my shins go straight out to the sides, the deeper the opening in my hips will be.

In this forth photo I am folding forward. This makes it so I can get the opening from my outer hips into my lower back. The release feels great. If you hold a lot of tension in your outer hips and lower back this is a great way to help reduce that tension and get your lower back to begin to relax. However, when you fold, you should only go as far as your body tells you is okay so that you remain safe. There is no place to get to. The release in the pose should be comfortable and enjoyable, not overdone.

Go to: Reclining Hip Opening Postures to Reduce Stress in the Outer Hips and Lower Back
Go to: Ankle to Knee Pose: A Seated Hip Opening Pose to Stretch from the Outer Hip into the Lower Back

Yoga Anatomy By Leslie Kaminoff

2007-05-26T00:03:00.000-05:00

Leslie Kaminoff's new book, Yoga Anatomy is almost out. You can preorder it and it should actually be out in about three weeks. Amy Matthews contributed and helped with the book and there are pictures in the book that are drawings adapted from photos of me in it. I have seen drafts of the book and it looks like it will be quite a useful book. There is not another book out there like this one. I recommend checking it out when it comes out.

Reclining Hip Opening Postures to Reduce Stress in the Outer Hips and Lower Back

2007-05-24T15:01:00.000-05:00

These are some variations you can do while lying on your back to open your hips and help reduce stress in your outer hips and lower back. Because you are lying on your back it makes it easier to protect your knees as you open the outer hips. Some of what you are releasing is the tension in the external hip rotator muscles like the piriformis or the obturator internus and externus. There are a lot of muscles in that area that attach from the pelvic structure to the outer thigh. When these muscles are stressed or tight it can cause some tension in the lower back. Reducing this tension by stretching the outer hip muscles can help relieve some of this tension.

The four photos that are variations of reclining ankle to knee go from softer and easier to more intense and deeper. There are also four photos of a reclining variation of Cow Faced (gomukhasana) pose that progress in a similar manner from move basic to more challenging.

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In this first photo it is hard to see that my hands are holding my right leg so that my hands are in between the back of my calf and the back of my thigh.

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In this second pose I am a little deeper as I am holding the knee. This gives me a little more leverage to open deeper.

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In the third photo I am holding the back of my heel from the outer edge of the foot. The leg position starts to look a lot like the seated pose without the ground there to force you deeper than ought to have gone.

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In the fourth photo I have simply taken the pose a little deeper.

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The fifth photo is the first variation of Reclining Cow Face. It is gentle I am only holding softly near the knees.

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The sixth photo, which is the second Reclining Cow Face, is almost the same as the previous photo. The main difference are that my hands are a little farther away from my knees and I am trying to rotate my shins a little more to open the hips a little more deeply.

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In the seventh photo I am holding my shins right near my feel and going considerably deeper than I went in the previous variation.

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And in the eighth photo I am still doing reclining Cow Faced Pose, but I am holding the back of my heels to help protect my knees while opening my hips far more deeply that in any of the other photos presented here.

Go to: Cow Faced Pose: Gomukhasana: A Seated Hip Opening Pose to Reduce Tension in the Outer Hip and Lower Back
Go to: Ankle to Knee Pose: A Seated Hip Opening Pose to Stretch from the Outer Hip into the Lower Back

Dynamic Alignment While Folding Into a Standing Forward Bend

2007-05-22T22:13:00.000-05:00

The idea of these pictures is to show good form while folding into or coming out of a forward bend. A lot of the time people think of alignment as something that occurs when you have set yourself in a pose. If you move into a pose with good form then you enter the form with good form as well. Your alignment while moving from one posture to another is at least as important as your alignment while holding a pose and it is harder to have good alignment in a movement than it is to adjust yourself into alignment when you are holding a posture and have more time to make micro-adjustments and observe how the posture feels to you.

Details to note about the form of these postures: My spine is long and relaxed all the way through. I am not arching my back like a banana (hyper-extension) and I am not rounding my spine (flexion) either. My spine is almost completely straight the whole way through the movement until the end parts of the movement when my spine rounds to complete the forward bend. My spine being basically straight means I am not shortening my spine while I fold. A back arch or rounding would mean my spine is shortening. And if I was arching my spine into hyper extension I would be working and shortening the back muscles more than would be useful for the fact that I am about to lengthen the back of my body in the forward bend. Often when people do this (sometimes referred to as “swan diving”), they are putting a lot of stress on the lower back and the back of the neck. Most adult human beings--at least in western culture where we often sit in chairs, talk on telephones and work at computers--don’t really need more tension in those areas of the spine. So, in a sense this is about being kind to your spine and the nice thing to know that it is much more challenging, better work and healthier for you all at once to have good form in movements.

Hip Opening Crow Variation: Eka Pada Galavasana

2007-05-18T19:15:00.000-05:00

I thought these photos show this pose nicely so I figured I would throw them on. Not much to say about them aside from the standard comment that part of what makes them look good is the relaxed quality in the work: strength without tension, softness without laziness, power and stability balanced by comfort and enjoyability, alertness and relaxedness at the same time. You can tell that what I am doing feels good and I am focused on what I am doing.

Alternate Vinyasa Sequences: Part Eight; A Brief Note

2007-05-17T16:06:00.000-05:00

Alternate Vinyasa Sequences: Part Eight; A Brief Note

I hint at this somewhere in the dialogue. The possible combination of vinyasa sequences that could be used in place of chataranga, upward facing dog and downward facing dog is really limitless. You can creatively link the posture, explore and experiment, and you will come up with some wonderful combinations of your own. For this reason I have specifically tried not to formalize what I have present or make the sequences seem like are supposed to go in any specific order. All I have done is categorize the poses by the breath, so that a practitioner will be able to know if he or she should be inhaling or exhaling while coming into a particular pose.

What I have presented is really just a starting point. With the postures I have presented there are hundreds of ways in which they could be combined to create different kinds of sequences. I hope you enjoy exploring the process of moving with your breath and opening your creative mind to new ways of getting from posture to posture while making the practice right for your current needs.

Peace.

UpSideDownCarl

Go to Part One
Go to Part Two
Go to Part Three
Go to Part Four
Go to Part Five
Go to Part Six
Go to Part Seven

Alternate Vinyasa Sequences: Part Seven; Sun Breath Variations

2007-05-16T00:57:00.000-05:00

Urdhva Hastasana, arms up position, to be done on an inhale. Two variations.

Uttanasana, the forward bend, to be done on an exhale.

Three versions of Ardha Uttanasana. These postures to be done on an inhale after the forward bend.

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Go to Part One
Go to Part Two
Go to Part Three
Go to Part Four
Go to Part Five
Go to Part Six

Go to Part Eight

Alternate Vinyasa Sequences: Part Six; The Dialogue

2007-05-13T22:22:00.000-05:00

This is the dialogue that got me to post all those photos. If you want to see the photos you need to go to Alternate Vinyasa Sequences Parts One through Five. It is a great dialogue and I had a lot of fun putting this together. I hope it is helpful to those of you out there who like practicing Vinyasa but would like to have some alternatives to doing Chaturanga/Up Dog/Down Dog over and over again. Here are ways to make the Vinyasa sequences more gentle or stronger while mixing things up. And simply mixing things up and changing what you do has its benefits.

Links to the photos which are in parts one through five without much commentary:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five

Part Seven
Part Eight

All the photos in parts one through five were taken at The Breathing Project

Peace, UpSideDownCarl

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M wrote: Hi Carl, after reading your current blog (the post being referred to is On Binding in Titibhasana C Variation), I was wondering if you might share some of the vinyasa sequences you spoke of (without chaturanga/upward dog/downward dog). I've been an avid yoga practitioner since the early 90's of various styles, mostly vinyasa, and need to take it easy on my shoulders for a few weeks due to a mild case of tendonitis. My instincts are to keep flowing, keep the prana circulating, but keep weight out of the shoulders and also lay off stretching inflamed tissue. I once took a class which used Warrior II as the resting base pose (instead of downward dog) and will probably try to work out some sequencing along these lines. I'd be interested in hearing what you do in class in terms of offering students options.

Thanks for whatever advice and insights you can provide.

Best wishes to you,
M.

Carl Responded: Thanks for writing me. There are lots of things you can do. If the issue is that you do not want to bear weight on your arms and therefore don't want to do downward facing dog, chaturanga or updog you can use movements on your hands and knees like cat cow variations. There are dozens of movements that can be done on the hands and knees.

1) Rounding like a frightened cat.
2) Back bending looking forward. (It gets called cow pose a lot in this country for the belly dropping to the floor. I don't really like that image. The tradition I was taught in calls it Chakravakasana which is the name of a mythical bird. The image is of the bird puffing its chest up as if it is preening. I think the active expansion of the chest is a healthier image than the lazy sagging of the stomach and lower back).
3) Child's pose (with arms forward, chest resting on or close to the thighs, head resting on or moving towards the ground and seat moving towards or resting on the heels).
4) Standing on your knees reaching your arms up: Vajrasana.
6) Cobra pose: the variation where the back muscles are used to actively lift the chest without the hands and arms being used in the process of lifting.
7) Chakravakasana variation, on hands and one knee, reaching other leg back, looking forward.
8) Cat variation, rounding spine bringing knee towards chest, looking towards knee.

This link has photos of some of the postures described here: Photos from Part One

I did not put these in a particular order. I simply am listing some of the poses that could be options in a sequence that would not put full weight on the hands and feet.

If you wanted your base of support to be your feet instead of your arms to keep all weight bearing out of the arms, it could be as simple as movements like these:

1) from standing,
2) to reaching the arms up,
3) to forward bending,
4) to a half forward bend (ardha uttanasana, one variation of this posture has your fingertips on the floor, or reaching for the floor, and your spine straight and this variation often gets called something like prepare pose).

Photos of some of these poses are can be found in this link: Part Four; Non-Weight Bearing Postures

You could simply do some variation of those movements until the class was getting ready to step forward into a standing pose. Then when the rest of a class was stepping forward from downward facing dog for a standing pose like warrior 2 you could step one foot back and you would be right with them.

Photos of stepping back can be found at this link: Part Five; Two Examples of Stepping Back

For instance, if you were in "Prepare Pose" with your fingertips on the ground and your spine straight, you could step your left foot back and then come up into warrior 2 ready for a standing sequence.

But there is no reason if you were practicing on your own you could not simply use a standing pose for the center of a vinyasa. The only thing with using a pose like warrior 2 is that it is an asymmetrical posture which means you would have to spend half your time on one side and the other half of your time on the other side which would work well with a class where the whole class was doing that kind of vinyasa. But if the rest of the class was doing chaturanga, updog and downdog, you might be better off with a symmetrical posture like uttanasana (standing forward bend) or prasaritapadotanasana (standing forward bend with the feet wide apart.)

But there are also ways of modifying so that the poses you replace chaturanga, updog and downdog with make the work harder or make the upper body work even more strongly as well. That was not your question. I just wanted to be clear that you can use modifications to make things stronger or softer. You can also make the work stronger while making it so you are not bearing weight with your arms at all.

I hope this is helpful in getting you to start thinking creatively about ways of putting the poses together in flow sequences that work for the current needs of your system.

Take care.

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M Wrote: Dear Carl, thanks so very much for taking the time to help me with these excellent suggestions. I can visualize all this exactly. You've shown me a way to still stay in class, especially with the second set of suggestions below using the feet as a base of support. While I do practice a sort of yin-type sequence at home (along the lines of your first set of suggestions), I find the studio environment very healing and it would feel like a negative change to simply stop going and cut myself off from the yoga community.

Also--and I hope this isn't asking too much--I'm really intrigued and interested in the sequencing you allude to in the first sentence below:

“But there are also ways of modifying so that the poses you replace chaturanga, updog and downdog with make the work harder or make the upper body work even more strongly as well. That was not your question. I just wanted to be clear that you can use modifications to make things stronger or softer. You can also make the work stronger while making it so you are not bearing weight with your arms at all.”

I'm very interested in what you have in mind for replacements for chaturanga, updog, downdog, whether the work is weight bearing or not and whether it is harder. I do expect my tendonitis condition to improve and I'm always on the lookout for creative sequencing that provides an alternative to these postures (I think they tend to be overused in classes).

Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and insights with me. It is extremely kind of you to take the time.

With sincere appreciation,
M.

Carl Responded: I am glad the information, so far, has been helpful.

There are a lot of methods you can use to make the work more intense. You can keep the same variation and add a breath technique or a hold of the breath that makes the work more powerful. You can add isometric contractions of certain areas. If, while doing upward facing dog, you pull your stomach in while pressing your feet down and engaging your legs, you will protect your lower back and work your lower body much more strongly; the stronger the contraction the harder the work. If you add an engagement of the muscles of the chest, upper back, and arms to the contraction mentioned above, as you are trying to open the ribcage, the upper body can work that much more strongly as well while you open the ribcage.

If you add some things like one leg, or one arm, this will add a certain kind of challenge. Toes curled underneath for upward facing dog so the legs can work more actively while the heels reach back as you move into the back bend and stabilize the lower back with the lower abdomen pulling in and the tail tucking slightly can make things really powerful. You can do chaturanga with the toes pointed while trying to keep the back straight—in this variation you need a lot of strength from your core to keep your lower back and bottom from sagging towards the ground; see second chataranga photo for toes pointed variation. If you go only half way into chaturanga and isometrically contract this also makes things harder; you can isometrically contract the lower body, the upper body, or both. You could lower one inch in one exhale, and hold on the inhale, then one more inch in the next exhale and so on until you are in the pose. However, not going as far down in chaturanga, holding your body approximately 10 inches away from the ground is much more challenging than the 2 or 3 inches away from the ground that most people seem to sag into. Even holding plank with the arms straight and holding the arms legs and core in an isometric contraction can be powerful stabilizing work. Really the possibilities are endless. We are only limited by the restrictions imposed by our own minds.

As far as variations where the upper body is non-weight-bearing but the work is stronger, if you just wanted the lower body working I could show you some things to do with chair pose and several variations of chair that would lead very nicely into those step backs. You could also use one leg off the ground variations, like moving from prepare with only one foot on the ground to standing split instead of the standing forward bend; photos of these variations. These variations could be used as a set up for steping back into standing poses. If you did parts of these movements while holding the standing leg (the leg of the foot on the floor) fairly bent, as if that leg were in chair, this could also make it more challenging. Then if you made it so that you were doing these movements without the hands touching the ground (this could be done with both feet on the ground or only one foot on the ground) the work would make things one step harder. If the arms reached out to the sides for the position where the spine was coming parallel to the ground this would be easier than if the hands reached forward. In the forward bend there are any number of directions for the arms to reach or positions for them to be in without touching the floor. If you did this with only one foot on the ground the prepare pose with the spine parallel to the ground would actually be Warrior Three. The forward bend with both feet on the ground can be done with the arms at any angle without touching the ground and it can also be done as a standing split with one foot off the ground and the hands in a position at any number of angles without touching the ground. If you are using the Warrior Three position as the prepare position you could work on very slowly floating, balancing back to the standing poses. Part Five has photos of this transition.

You could add breath techniques, holds, and/or isometric muscle contractions to any of the above variations to make this kind of work that much more challenging as well.

And as far as chaturanga, I have found I can stand up with my arms reaching forward and slowly bend my elbows and bring my upper arms towards the sides of my body as though I am lowering into chaturanga but while standing and use stabilizing contractions with the movement and work at least as hard without the ground as I would in the actual movement lowering towards the ground.

And I completely agree that the sequence of moving from chaturanga through upward facing dog to get to downward facing dog are movements that are seriously overused. My understanding of repetitive movements that are done consistently without to much thought to how they are being done, which is what often happens when you are moving “with your breath” and you are doing something that has become pretty much a habitual pattern, is that most people wind up with bad movement patterns from repeating bad habits over and over. Most people who do a vinyasa practice would do well to learn how to get the breath to start before the movement begins and to get the breath to finish after the movement ends. This is supposed to be part of those vinyasa movement sequences and it is very rare to hear a practitioner moving in a way where the breath is more than loosely connected with the movements.

And even with good movement patterns, the movement of chaturanga, updog, downdog can cause repetitive stress syndromes like tendonitis. For an intelligent practitioner, at a certain point, it would be worth asking how many push-ups does a person really need in a day. :) But I also feel like people are adults, and if I give them that information and they don't take it, I am happy to let them take responsibility for their own actions. And I do present that you don't need those movements, that there are others available and that too many push-ups can be counter productive.

Take care and thanks for your interest.

M Said: Dear Carl, I read your e-mail in awe. It is packed with creative and innovative ideas that don't seem to be available in the usual media. I know that my condition--while not tragic or unresolvable--has sidelined many a vinyasa practitioner, and the available books (I have most of them) and articles (scant information on Google for chaturanga-based injuries) don't come close to laying out these options. Thank you!

I guess I should explain how I learned of you and your work in NYC. I used to be part of Leslie Kaminoff's e-sutra mailing list before it changed into a blog. Here and there he made references to you and provided links. Then last week, when I googled around for articles relating to shoulder injuries, your blog with L's case popped up on the third page of entries. I read it with interest and really liked your thoughtful approach and patient explanation and so I took a chance in contacting you. I'm glad that our exchange is not just one-sided and that it will enhance your blog and possibly help others.

The variations you refer to sound wonderful. I can't wait to try them once the tendonitis abates. The other variations I used to enjoy doing in downward facing dog involve some weight displacement in the arms and legs. Arms: bending one elbow slightly and placing the opposite forearm on the ground to provide a nice twist through the spine (neck and head following turn of spine), then reverse on opposite side. Legs: from standard downward dog, lean more into the hand of one side while allowing the same-side ankle to lighten up and rotate inward, then, with the tailbone high in the air rotating the spine gently in both directions to release the QL muscle (that's where I feel it the most anyway--you need to keep shifting weight back and forth into opposite hands while the twisting happens). Your comment that "we are only limited by the restrictions imposed by our own minds" is so true--in yoga practice and in every facet of living. I think I needed to encounter that idea again and I thank you for bringing it forward.

“As far as variations where the upper body is non-weight-bearing but the work is stronger, if you just wanted the lower body working I could show you some things to do with chair pose and several variations of chair that would lead very nicely into those step backs.” Part Four; photos for some variations referred to are here.

Yes, I'm very interested in this specifically and ready to hear more. Again, I'm looking for ways to stay in class and not stray wildly from the standard sequence while at the same time minimizing weight bearing and stretching of inflamed shoulder tissue. The classes in my neighborhood studio include lots of good lower body, hip and core work, and if can just get through the Sun A/B series, I should be able to continue.

Your ideas for non-weight bearing options sound great. When is your book coming out? Seriously, I think there is a need for longer term vinyasa practitioners to keep the practice fresh and challenging and you're showing the way.

As far as your ideas of doing Chaturanga while standing without any weight bearing, I've also run across this method. There is a yoga studio outside Harvard Square in Cambridge (Karma Yoga) that offers Physio-Yoga (yoga as guided by practices/principles of physical therapy) and a teacher there recommended doing exactly as described above with a thera-band. The good thing for desk jockeys such as myself is that you can perform this exercise while sitting in a chair.

"How many push ups does a person really need in a day." What a great question. Yes, this is the heart of the matter. Why aren't more people noticing that something is really not working for lots of folks, whether they have good form or bad? I've come to the conclusion that the whole chaturanga/upward dog/downward dog (c/u/d for short) serves as so much "filler" in vinyasa classes, with downward dog sometimes taking up to 20-25% of class time. Even after my tendonitis heals, it would probably be foolish of me to return to the practice and slavishly follow these routines when I know they could continue to cause injury. However, I know I will miss one aspect of all the c/u/d movements: I love the energetic effect of having the head and heart exchange positions constantly throughout practice in a constant rhythm, whereby the head is above the heart in upward dog, below the heart in downward dog and on an equal plane with the heart in chaturanga. And then lather, rinse and repeat: you keep doing these movements over and over and it feels like stuck energy is draining away and that you're riding a fresh wave of energy and you're almost flying. This has had such incredibly beneficial effects on my nervous system. I will always be searching for ways to induce this feeling, but now I guess in a different way. Thanks again for dialoging with me--I've really enjoyed our exchange.

Carl Responded: Your variations on downdog sound fun and enjoyable. A question would be: Do they help to get the weight out of your shoulders? Or do they primarily serve to release the sides of the body including QL? You know there are lots of ways to release QL and sides without bearing weight. That might be a different discussion though.

There is a release in the nervous system that helps the lower body, the back of the legs and spine let go and open that chaturanga, updog, downdog stimulates which really does make it so the body can open certain areas far more effectively, so it is a little more than filler, and there is a reason people get ADDICTED to practices that use those repetitive movements. The problem is that too much of this particular movement also has negative side effects. The solution is that there are other ways to get this same response where the nervous system tells the muscles that it is okay to let go of some of the tension and open. This release also affects the energetic and emotional systems as you noted in one of your comments. This effect on our entire system has everything to do with how the nervous system works. So it is more complicated than just the repositioning of the head and heart thing. Without that change (head above the heart, head below the heart) you can get that same release. The head/heart-positioning thing does do something, but not as much as you are giving it credit for. The repetitive process of working the back of the body, back of the legs and spine (updog, downdog, prepare pose, arms reaching up) and then lengthening the back of the body, back of the legs and spine (downdog, prepare, forward bend) sends a signal to the muscle spindles and the golgi tendon organs to release and reset the muscles at a longer length so that they open. This also creates a response where the nervous system sends a whole lot fewer neural signals for contraction to the musculoskeletal system, which promotes the possibility of opening further. The reduction of work that the nervous system is doing to hold you together while your body is doing all this movement and having the blood flowing sets up a whole bunch of chemicals to be released by the endocrine system. This process is enhanced by the fact that the way you are breathing--if you are doing ujjayi and taking long, slow, relaxed, deep even breaths--is causing the relaxation response to be elicited. The result is that you feel great: engergized and relaxed, strong and open, and there is this internal experience of strength and stillness, peace and power. You can get these results with any number of other repetitive movements, synchronized with the breath, that are not chaturanga, updog, downdog. And if you are set on having that head/heart-positioning thing happen,

1) Starting in a standing position,
2) Then inhaling and reaching the arms over the head,
3) Then folding forward,
4) Then flattening the back so that the spine is approximately parallel to the ground (Ardha Uttanasana, Half Forward Bend),
5) Then folding forward again,
6) Then coming back up and reaching the arms up,
7) Then lowering the arms to the sides or the heart,
8) And then repeating the whole process as many times as you like,

click to see photos

has the head above the heart, below the heart, and then at the same level as the heart over and over without you bearing weight on your arms. I have heard this called a Sun Breath since it is part of a standard sun salutation without doing the weight bearing on the arms. Have fun in your explorations.

Hopefully the book is coming soon. :)

M Said: Thanks, Carl. I really enjoyed reading your explanation of the addiction phenomenon. My shoulder inflammation is slowly getting better by completely stopping practice, although my mood is a lot worse from not moving energy! This I know will pass. Again, I appreciate learning of your methods and ideas and will drop you a line further down the road.

With thanks and gratitude,
M.

Carl Responds: I am glad your shoulder is getting better and I am glad you found and contacted me. ESutra was an awful lot of fun when it was an e-mail list wasn't it? :) I miss that but the e-Sutra blog is still a lot of fun and great information.

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Alternate Vinyasa Sequences: Part Five; Moving Into a Standing Pose from Non-Weight Bearing Alternatives

2007-05-13T21:50:00.000-05:00

These are two examples of ways to get into standing postures from the non-weight bearing vinyasa variations.

First Set:

Second Set:

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Alternate Vinyasa Sequences: Part Four; Postures with No Weight Bearing for the Arms

2007-05-13T20:48:00.000-05:00

These are postures where there is no weight bearing for the arms. I have put the postures that could be done on an exhale to replace Chataranga and Downward Facing Dog first because there are not as many of these as the postures you could do on an inhale.

These are poses where there would be no weight bearing for the arms that could be used on an inhale to replace Upward Facing Dog or the straight armed plank position. There are a lot of them so I put them second.

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Alternate Vinyasa Sequences: Part Three; Alternate Versions of Chataranga and Updog with One Foot Off The Ground

2007-05-13T20:34:00.001-05:00

These are simple examples of things you can do to make Chataranga, Upward Facing Dog and Downward Facing Dog a little more challenging.

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Alternate Vinyasa Sequences: Part Two; A Vinyasa on Your Hands and Feet that I Like to Use

2007-05-13T20:26:00.000-05:00

This is one that I like to use. Downward Facing Dog in this one can replace Chataranga and then you can do Upward Facing Dog as it is in the photo with the toes curled underneath or you could use the traditional version with the toes pointed or a softer version with the knees down.

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Alternate Vinyasa Sequences: Part One; Kneeling Poses with Mild Weight Bearing on Hands, Wrists and Shoulders

2007-05-12T00:29:00.000-05:00

I have been waiting for a while to set this up. This is the first part of a series of postings on alternate vinyasa sequences. There will be a few more postings that will be photos of postures. And then there will be a dialogue. The subject is: things you can do instead of Chataranga, Upward Facing Dog and Downward Facing Dog in a Vinyasa class or in your own practice. The original dialogue was initiated by a vinyasa practitioner who has a repetitive stress injury and needs not to bear weight on her shoulder but loves the effects of a flowing style of practice where you continue to do repetitive movements with your breath throughout practice to help your body open. After the some of the ideas for things you could do in place of Chataranga-Up Dog, Down Dog, I will post the dialogue.

I want to be clear, this in no way even comes close to exhausting thing possibilities for alternative vinyasa sequences. But hopefully it will help practitioner’s think and practice creatively and open new doorways in your practice.

The first posture is a posture that can be done on an inhale and is on the hands and knees. It could replace straight armed plank or upward facing dog.

These two postures are also poses that can be done on an inhale and are on the hands and knees. They could also replace straight armed plank or upward facing dog.

These are two postures that can be done on an inhale where you are standing on your knees. They could also replace straight armed plank or upward facing dog.

These are two postures that can be done on an inhale, where you are lying on your stomach. They could also replace straight armed plank or upward facing dog.

These are two photos of postures you could do on an exhale to replace chataranga (the low push up position) or downward facing dog. I forgot to take pictures of the variations where you are on your hands and knees and rounding and bringing your knee into your chest while looking at your knee. You can do that with both hands on the ground or while bringing one hand into your chest as well.

Any of these variations could be held to replace the holding of downward facing dog in a vinyasa sequence as well. They could be held to replace plank, chataranga and up dog as well. The idea of this is being open to trying new things; and if you are, you will find yourself coming up with all sorts of variations that you like.

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Forward Bends: Uttanasana and Pascimottanasana: Stretching the Lower Back to Release Tension

2007-05-06T20:16:00.000-05:00

Either of these forward bends, if applied appropriately, can help stretch and reduce tension in your lower back and your entire spine. Releasing tension in your lower back and the rest of your spine can often help the health of your spine in general, but you do not want to over do this kind of work. Either of these postures, done in a way that is inappropriate for a practitioner, could create problems for the health of the practitioner's spine. When practicing these postures, if you begin to feel any part of your spine, your neck or your shoulders start to tighten up, it is an indication that you are either going too far or doing something that is not quite right for your current needs.

I think these photos can stand for themselves but one of the things I really like about these photos, again, is that combination of strength with relaxedness. I am working but I am not struggling. That is what you are looking for. I am not going any farther than I can comfortably.

In this last photo I have separated my feet a little so I can get my face in between my legs and move just a little deeper. Note that in all variations, my arms are working but they are not gripping and my neck and shoulders are nice and relaxed. There is no unwanted tension.

Four Back Bends: Strengthening the Lower Back: The Difference Between Cobra Pose and Upward Facing Dog

2007-05-02T13:15:00.002-05:00

These are four back bends that look a lot alike. Three of them are useful for using in flow movements where you move with your breath, otherwise known as vinyasa. One of these back bends is a wonderful back bend to do later in a practice when your spine is warmed up enough so that you can move deeply into back bending. However, if you moved into this one quickly and came out of it quickly while doing a flow, you could end up hurting your back.

Any of these variations, if applied appropriately, can help strengthen your lower back. Lower back strengthening can often help the health of your lower back and your spine in general, but you do not want to over do this kind of work. Any of these postures, done in a way that is inappropriate for a practitioner, could create problems for the health of the practitioner's spine. When practicing these postures, if you begin to feel gripping or tension in your lower back or any other part of your spine, it is an indication that you are either going too far or doing something that is not quite right for your current needs.

UpSideDownCarl

This is a variation of Bujangasana, Cobra Pose that is often referred to as Baby Cobra. This back bend is safe and healthy to do as a replacement for Upward Facing Dog in a flow or vinyasa. A key feature of the posture is that the back muscles are lifting you and you only lift to the height that your back muscles will allow. Another key feature is that the back of the neck and the lower back are relaxed and open. There is no compression or tension in either of these areas. The back of my neck is smooth, not wrinkled.

This is also a variation of Bujangasana. You could also call this Baby Cobra Pose. This back bend is almost the same as the first one. The key difference is that the hands are now in the air and I am rotating my arms in a way that gives me useful work for my external rotator cuff muscles as my shoulder blades stay on my back. In addition the the rotator cuff, the muscles in between my shoulder blades are working a little more strongly than they were in the first variation of Bujangasana. Because they hands are not touching the ground my spine will probably work a little more strongly as well.

This is also a variation of Bujangasana, Cobra Pose. This one is often referred to as Full Cobra Pose. It is not Upward Facing Dog. This variation of Bujangasana is the deepest of the four back bends. I am not as high up in this pose as I am in Upward Facing Dog but the hyperflexion in my spine is deeper. Distinguishing features of this variation are that my hips are on the ground; my thighs are on the ground as well. My spine is passively being moved into the back bend from the work in the arms as my chest expands forward and my shoulders help broaden my chest. Because my spine is able to be passively moved I can arch my spine deeper here than in the other variations of Bujangasana where the spine was active or in Upward Facing Dog where my spine works with my legs and abdomen to stabilize and protect my lower back as a result of my legs being lifted away from the ground. But these reasons that alow me to move deeper into the back bend are also are what determine that I should move into this pose slowly and stay in the pose for several breaths and then move out of the pose slowly rather than what would happen in a flow sequence where you would move into the back bend on an inhale and then you would be moving out of it again when the exhale comes. I see a lot of practitioners do a variation of this pose where they simply do not have good form and are not doing Upward Facing Dog even though they think they are.

This is Urdhva Mukha Svanasana, Upward Facing Dog. Distinguishing features of this posture are that the only parts of my body that are touching the ground are my hands and the tops of my feet. I am using my legs to help stabilize my lower back. My core is slightly engaged; I am gently pulling my lower abdomen inward to help lengthen my lower back and protect it. My spine is also active here. It is both working to bring me into the pose and to stabilize and protect my lower back. Please note that I am gazing forward and the back of my neck is long. Someone who is really flexible might look upward instead. When it is okay to look upward is when your back bend is deep enough for your chest to start pointing upward. Please note, in the deep variation of Bujangasana my gaze has started turning up even though I still have a long relaxed neck. In that pose my chest is also turned a little more up then in this variation of Urdhva Mukha Svanasana. Upward Facing Dog, the pose where the legs are not touching the ground to protect the lower back, is the pose with the arms lifting you, that people should be using when flowing through a sun salutation. If the hips stay on the ground you could be comprimising the health of your lower back.

Chaturanga Dandasana: Strengthening the Arms, Shoulders and Core

2007-04-28T01:28:00.001-05:00

Because you are holding your body basically parallel to the ground in this posture, to have good form and hold your spine in postural alignment and your shoulders in a neutral position, you need to be working the connections between the strength of your core and the deep muscles of your spine. This means that if you have the strength to do the pose well, it can be a great pose for maintaining or increasing your core strength.

There are a few things that are going on in this photo that I like. The first thing is that my shoulders are centered midway between the front and back of my ribcage. That means they are not being pulled back or dipping forward. As a result I have maintained the natural curves of my spine so that my posture in this pose maintains the actual, natural curves of my spine. I have not flattened out my thoracic curve (the curve of my upper back) and I have not distorted my lumbar curve (the curve of my lower back). If I was standing upright with my upper arms parallel to my body and my forearms basically parallel to the floor, my spine would have pretty much the same alignment it has in this picture. This means I am using my core effectively to keep the curves of my spine from distorting. It also means I am using my legs to maintain alignment effectively. I also like my head position and where I am gazing because it maintains the natural curve of my cervical spine (the curve of my neck) without distortion or tension. The result is that my shoulders are relaxed and they are not dipping forward. I also like the distance away from the ground that my body is in this picture. If I go any lower my upper arms and elbows would be higher than the back of my body and this would cause a flattening of my upper back, a dipping of my shoulders and tension in my neck.

The last thing that I think is worth mentioning about this photo is how relaxed the work looks. It is work to hold that position but you would not know from looking that I am working hard. This, again, is that concept of effortless effort that the Yoga Sutras describes in defining asana as stirasukham asanam.

Look closely at my toes. In this second version of Chaturanga my toes being pointed makes the work of the pose a little more challenging.

Hand Balancing Version of Titibhasana

2007-04-25T20:37:00.000-05:00

This is a hand-balancing version of Titibhasana. It is the same basic movement of the legs, pelvic structure and spine as what you are doing in the posture from On Binding in Titibhasana C, except you are balancing on your hands.

I just want to point out a few things I think are important about some of the fundamental aspects of what is happening in this pose in this photo.

The first thing is that this is not the hardest pose in the world but it is also not an easy pose. The second thing is that, although the pose is somewhat difficult and I am working strongly, there is a quality of relaxedness and effortlessness that is present in the work my body is doing. This quality in the postures, is what sthirasukham asanam is alluding to.

This is the quality that the Yoga Sutras says you are looking for in any asana: effortless effort. To achieve that quality, you really have to have good body mechanics and therefore good alignment, and when you are gripping or struggling some part of your body is distorting, some joint is not quite in an appropriate alignment, or you would not have that muscle tension. The tension created by struggling actually is an indication of something, somewhere, not being quite right.

There is a distinction being made here between good strong work and tension that is unnecessary to the work of maintaining the posture; there is nothing wrong with muscles contracting which is what muscles are supposed to do, but you don’t need to overcompensate and overwork: effortlessness in effort, strong and soft.

Peace.

UpSideDownCarl

On Binding in Titibhasana C Variation

2007-03-02T21:23:00.000-05:00

This is a dialogue I had with a practitioner. I think this is really useful information and an example of information being matched to the current needs and interests of the practitioner. It is an example of how information needs to be put into context and how learning in Yoga can be based on a dialogue rather than simply being a body of information to be learned.

Thank you L. for your intelligent questions and your consistent attitude of interest and curiosity and your desire to understand and learn.

The photographs that are not of me were taken by me and are of my friend Katya who is a modern dancer, a Pilates instructor and an avid yoga practitioner. I wanted to thank Katya for alowing me to use these images.

I also want to make a note about the pose. The reason I am calling this pose Titibhasana C Variation is that I am teaching the pose with the feet a little wider apart than the classic pose to get a different angle on the pelvic structure. In the variation I am using here the feet are about two and a half feet apart, which is about the distance that would usually be used for Kurmasana if you were sitting, or about the distance that would naturally occur in the hand balancing version of Titibhasana. This angle is well worth playing with and experiencing. I can highly recommend it.

Peace. UpSideDownCarl

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On Binding in Titibhasana C Variation

L asked: I can't identify the benefits of grabbing your hands behind your back in that pose. When I try to that, I only feel like my collar bones are being compressed. In what direction(s) is the pose going?

Carl responds: It was binding of any kind. It is not always useful but it does not stop people from thinking that it is cool or something. It is sort of silly.

I wish people actually just wanted to do what would be good for themselves but... It is like sun salutations. I know it is more useful for many people if much of the time they replace chataranga and updog with movements that get the same basic work in a way that is less risky for the shoulder joint, as you usually do. This would be far more beneficial. But telling people stuff like that usually does not help them for some reason.

L replied: Hey Carl, Thanks for the information on binding. I know that a good rule of thumb for yoga is, "if the posture doesn't feel right to your body, the posture probably isn't right for you." Usually when a posture does not feel right to me, I can at least identify the work of the pose and understand how it might be a good kind of work for another person. Every once in a while, however, I come across a pose whose benefits remain a mystery. That's how I felt in pose we did on Saturday (the forward bend with arms wrapped around the back). The only thing I felt is that my collar bones were being compressed {editor’s note: this was the case for L when trying to bind not in the initial arm position with the hands on the outer ankle}.

See you soon.

Carl responds: Ah I see. The first option for the arms was actually reaching the arms in between the legs, taking the forearms behind the calves, and the hands to the outside of the ankles. Behind the back was an "advanced option".

For someone who is bendy in that direction it creates some nice flexion for the spine and some deep opening in the pelvic region. For this to happen you have to round your spine enough to get your shoulders behind your legs. If your chest has not moved in between your legs so that your shoulders can be behind the legs then you will be compressing your collarbones. When your shoulders are behind your legs then, when the arms reach behind the back, they are able to help broaden the chest and bring the spine and hip joints deeper into flexion increasing the opening in the pelvic region and the spine. Then, as you move the legs towards straight, you add opening to the back of the legs.

You have done a variation of it while sitting that is perhaps more understandable where you are reaching for the outside edges of the feet from under your calves, or lying on the back in happy baby pose. These poses can be bound also when it is appropriate for a student.

It is basically the same thing except you are standing. But the bind part is sort of for the people who are trying to achieve something. It is a precursor to putting your feet behind your head.

When you can do it like in this picture below what is happening in the shoulders is much less of that compression in the collar bones because the chest has moved far enough in between the thighs for the arms to actually reach around towards the back with the chest broadening and then what you get is more opening in the back of the spine and in the pelvic structure as the torso moves further towards being behind the legs.

L. replied: Carl, Thank you so much for the detailed response to my question.

Carl replied: You are most welcome. Thank you for your dedication as a practitioner.

What follows is a postscript:

Following the dialogue L. and I looked at the pose in person. I had her feel it herself and then I had her see someone else do the pose up close and see what it looked like before the shoulders were in place and then what it looked like with the shoulders in place and the spine more flexed. As a result she had one last thing to say.

"On practicing the pose, with the dialogue in body and mind," L. says. "Although I am a fairly flexible person, the pose in question made me realize that there is a lot of physical territory that I have yet to explore and understand, both physically and mentally. My spine has, or at least almost has, the flexibility required to bind. But my spine is not accustomed to the degree of flexion necessary for binding, and resists moving in that direction. Carl helped me get around that obstacle by having me think of pulling my head through my legs, as opposed to down towards the floor, where my head is in the habit of going. It will take time for my spine to welcome that new direction, but I now have a clearer sense of what my body needs in the pose. What a difference dialogue can make! When I first encountered the pose, I couldn't understand its benefits. It's still not my favorite pose, but now I have a better sense of how to approach it. Doing this pose also reminded me of the large learning curve that comes along with almost any physical discipline. With my dance background, that aspect of yoga is less pronounced for me, which is unfortunate. Few things are more rewarding than a physical "Eureka!", when the body surprises itself and the mind by performing some previously impossible physical task, suddenly and without warning."

And Carl replies: I thoroughly agree that realizing something in your body that you had not realized before is pretty cool and often leads to a whole bunch of other realizations. And it is kind of cool how there is always more of that even when we are very familiar with our bodies. And that action of flexing, otherwise known as rounding, the spine, as long as it is not overdone or done aggressively, is one that can in fact be healthy for our spines. So that new territory is one that might offer you a little bit of new vocabulary for your body and an ability to know when spinal flexion is useful and how much spinal flexion will be useful for certain things. For me it is interesting that it took me a while to realize that this is what you were not getting about the pose. I am pretty confident that the reason is that this was initiated as an internet dialogue, and as soon as we looked at the pose in person it took about 3 minutes to get you to feel a little more of what you were supposed to. It is nice to realize how effective direct communication, in person, one-on-one can be, especially when the subject is about how we are using our bodies. Thanks again for initiating this wonderful dialogue.

Another Parable: The Two Saints and the Hermit on the Island

2007-02-26T16:21:00.000-05:00

The Two Saints and the Hermit on the Island

So this is another Indian parable. I like this one. It means a lot more than what I am going to use it to explain. That is the nature of stories that mean something. They express a lot more than you could have by trying to explain things in rational terms because the meaning is open ended. I particularly like this story.

The story is of two Brahmin Saints who are making a journey on a boat. In their journey they come to an island where they find a hermit. He is doing many of the same rituals they perform in their daily observances. They see him performing these rituals and are dismayed at how many of the rituals he has been performing incorrectly and how many of the chants he is pronouncing improperly.

They go about showing him the correct way of performing all the rituals and pronouncing all the sacred chants. After several weeks they show him as much as they can and feel frustrated because of how hard it seems for this Hermit to learn the proper ways of performing these holy rites. However, they feel they have spent enough time on the island it is time for them to move on. So, hoping he has learned enough, they set sail.

But as the two saints are about a mile away from the island sailing off on their next adventure, the hermit comes running up to them in their boat and says: “Please don’t go yet. I am not sure I will remember everything you have shown me. Can you come back and show me one last time?”

The two saints, perplexed and amazed look at each other and say to the hermit: “We were wrong. Go back to your island and do all your rites and rituals exactly how you were performing them before we arrived. You were doing them correctly after all!”

And so the hermit walked back over the sea to shore much relieved and went back to his own methods of practice.

===

The intention with which you perform an action is sometimes more important than the methods or techniques you use in their performance. Sometimes doing something “correctly” is not as important as whether your inner intention is coming from the “right” place. There are many methods and techniques, many correct ways of doing things. If you think you know what is “right” and you see someone doing something differently than how you thought it was supposed to be done, they might be doing something in a useful manner even if it is not the same method you use.

I don’t know if this needs further comment. I don’t know if it needed any of my comments in the first place.

Peace.

UpSideDownCarl

From Mukunda Stiles: What is the Role of a Spiritual Mentor in Yoga?

2007-02-23T19:31:00.000-05:00

I recently was in touch with Mukunda Stiles and had a nice e-mail exchange with him. In the end I asked if he would like to submit something to the YogaScope Kaleidoscope so that some of my readers could become more familiar with him. I originally became familiar with Mukunda Stiles through e-Sutra when it was just an e-mail list. I remember reading many things he wrote and thinking his writing was sensitive, thoughtful and intellegent, demonstrating a great deal of knowledge. He also seemed fairly modest which was a breath of fresh air from someone who does know a great deal. I have only met him in person once and it was quite a while ago now, but when I met him one of the things I was struck with was the way he handled himself in the company we were in. He was accompanied by people who obviously cared for him and respected him. They were also students in his teacher training program and it was obvious that they looked up to him. For many this circumstance could have been a challenging situation. Some may have felt that there was pressure to live up to the standards to which his students were holding him. Some may have felt that pressure. However, he was magnanimous and graceful in his social interactions and it all seemed to come from a place deep inside him that was very organic and natural. He was not trying to be anything other than who he was and it was quite a pleasure to observe. One of the things I look for these days in a teacher is someone who has his house in order; someone I can respect and admire as a human being. To me that is the real test of a person's practice is how they actually live their life. Mukunda showed himself to be a true teacher in the deepest sense of the word and I am honored that he took the time to present this for this forum.

Peace.

UpsideDownCarl

===

Carl –

Thanks for the opportunity to share. I thought for a while and decided to share something I presented in a talk to Claritas Institute, formed by Joan Borysenko to train spiritual mentors. I gave the part about what is yoga spiritual mentoring.

What is the Role of a Spiritual Mentor in Yoga?

A mentor is one who helps another find how Spirit is present in all aspects of their life. Their own life must be deeply touched by Spirit, and ideally they are chosen by their teacher to have this role. According to the Yoga Vasistha the mentoring offered consists of four parts – scriptural texts, teacher, inner teacher and satsang – keeping good company. The study of yogic texts helps the student to see the continuity of yoga tradition. This develops wisdom. Key is right action that is spiritually motivated. The Siva Sutras I, 5 in II, 9 says jnanam annam -wisdom is food. This wisdom is not merely knowledge; for it literally transforms the grosser bodies as it nurtures the spiritual body that is the 4th kosha (dimension). The food that is nurturing to a spiritual student is self knowledge bringing joy and contentment.

A spiritual mentor is different from a spiritual teacher. A mentor suggests practices that they have been exposed to. A spiritual teacher has attained a steady state of elevated consciousness (Yoga Sutras I, 37) as a result of time with their teacher. The main qualifications that make a spiritual teacher unique include being a disciple (gone through the teacher’s fire), approved by their teacher to give spiritual instructions and share the teacher’s awakened prana Shakti. While the inner teacher is the guru of even the most ancient spiritual teachers (Yoga Sutras I, 25); until that is stable yoga students need the assistance of a spiritual mentor or teacher.

===

Stay Well and Happy

Mukunda Stiles
new address -- 439 Northampton Street,
Holyoke, MA 01040
(303) 442-7004
www.yogatherapycenter.org

===

Mukunda Stiles, author of Structural Yoga Therapy, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and soon to be released Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy; is offering trainings and individual sessions.

The Elephant and the Five Blind Men

2007-02-07T13:40:00.000-05:00

There is this parable from India that I am going to use to make a specific point although it has a lot more meaning than what I am presenting. I like these kinds of stories that teach us without being technical information. I think metaphor is a really useful language that can be used as a learning tool.

There are these five blind men and an elephant. The blind men want to know what an elephant is so they decide they will feel the elephant and see if they can determine its nature. The first blind man feels the elephants trunk and proclaims, "I now know what an elephant is like. It is like a long snake." The second blind man has taken hold of one of the legs and responds, "You obviously are mistaken. It is actually like the trunk of a tree." The third blind man is holding the belly of the elephant and responds, "I am not sure what you guys are talking about, but the elephant feels more like a gigantic barrel to me." The fourth blind man has hold of the elephant's tail and says, "Well from where I stand it feels much more like a whip, long, thin and bendable with a wisp of brittle hairs at the tip." And the fifth blind man, who has a hold of the elephant's ear, says, "How interesting. I cannot imagine how you all could be so mistaken, for, in my estimation the elephant is far more like a fine piece of leather, broad and flat, soft and pliable."

=

Who is right? The story is obviously about perspective. In a sense all of these blind men have a point. The part of the body that they have a hold of is just as they have described. The flaw in logic is the assumption that each individual's perspective is the only one that is accurate. This short sighted tendency often holds us back in our own lives, from seeing a broader perspective, from seeing things from other people's perspective, and from seeing things from multiple perspectives.

In the category of styles of yoga, often people choose a particular style because it seems to work for them. However, it is interesting how often this is combined with the idea that this one particular style is what everyone else is supposed to do. Part of this is related to what I see as an unconscious process of indoctrination. I don't know if people realize this is happening or that this is what they are doing, but often the way information is presented is as though this one way of doing things is the only right way. That is the flaw. One particular way might work while another way might work differently but work never the less. So Iyengar's focus on alignment and Pattabhi Jois's focus on linking of postures might just be two separate ways of going about things. The Shivananda method of aligning the body in the postures, which is different than the Iyengar method, might work as well even if the method works a little differently. The more I practice the more I realize that if you go with a system as it is presented, you start to understand its inner logic and it starts to make sense. The trick to this realization would be to keep this realization without thinking one method contradicts the validity of the way things are done in another method of practicing.

So if you are in a yoga class and a yoga teacher asks you to do, say, triangle pose one way, and then you are in another yoga class and another yoga teacher asks you to do what is seemingly the same pose in a different way, they might just be different ways of doing the same basic pose that give you different nuances and different aspects of the work that is potentially available to a practitioner from that particular posture. It does not have to be an issue of one method being correct and therefore the other method having to be viewed as incorrect.

If you change the way you do a posture or a practice you will change what you get from it. If you hurt yourself you might have done something inappropriate for you at the time, but the same thing might be perfectly appropriate for someone else or it even might be perfectly appropriate for you on a different day.

It is worth broadening your perspective to try and understand ways in which different methods of practice are useful rather than narrowing your perspective and limiting yourself to only one way of doing, seeing and understanding your yoga practice and the living universe around you.

Peace. upsidedowncarl

Dialogue on the Definition of the Term Vinyasa in Yoga Practice

2007-02-02T22:59:00.000-05:00

This is a dialogue I had with a yoga practitioner about the actual definition of the term vinyasa. I hope you enjoy this.

ELK wrote: Your most recent posting about Stanislavski reminded me to ask you about a
comment you made in class a number of years ago that has stuck with me.

The comment concerned the meaning of the word "Vinyassa", and how it is more nuanced that the usual translations of "breath" or "flow". I think It had something to do with what connects the postures, also with attitude or intention.

I am interested to know more in your own words. I have searched through past postings to see if you've addressed this already in your blog, but I haven't found it yet. Which doesn't mean it isn't there, but, if it's not, perhaps you might want to write about it some time in the future?

Happy 2007. Hope to see you in class before long.

Best,

ELK

=

I replied: The term vinyasa actually does not have much to do with the term flow or movement with breath except for in a roundabout way. Vinyasa is part of a larger term, Vinyasa Krama, which means: taking a step in a special way. That is a fairly literal translation of the term. But it has an essence. The essence is of the process which will bring you from where you are right now to where you want to get to. It is like what many people do in the morning to get ready to go to work. A standard process would be something like, getting up, who knows, perhaps a little stretching, having something to eat, taking a shower and brushing your teeth, putting on cloths and you are ready to meet the rest of the day. That step by step process that prepares you to get out the door would be what Vinyasa actually indicates: a thoughtful process that gets you ready for something. In the actual original "Vinyasa" practice, the "Ashtanga Vinyasa" that Krishnamacharya taught to Brahman boys in Mysore in the 1930's the sequence is a thoughtful and intelligent progression of postures that prepares your body to go deeper and deeper. Each pose prepares you for what is coming up next as the sequence progresses. In a true vinyasa practice this will happen, like the way I link the poses in a logical order so they build on each other.

The way the term gets associated with linking movement with the breath is that, if you get the breath to start before you start to move, and you finish the movement a hare before you have finished breathing so that the breath envelops the movement, it will protect you and practically ensure that you are practicing in a way that is right for your body thereby preparing you for how you are moving from one pose to the next. Unfortunately, it is very rare that people in a "Vinyasa" practice are doing any such thing as synchronizing the movements with the breathing in the way I just described. Often people are not even exhaling on exhale movements or inhaling on inhale movements. When I am teaching, I often hear people take both an inhale and an exhale on one short movement which means that person is breathing very fast and perhaps even erratically. This means that the person is working beyond their actual ability level which means it is the opposite of what vinyasa krama is referring to: taking a step in a specific and special way that is just right for the person practicing, in order to lead that person from where they currently are to where the practice is bringing them. If you want to read a definition from a book, in Heart of Yoga by T. K. V. Desikachar, on page 25 the term is defined. On that page it is explained that krama = "step", -nyasa = "to place", and in this instance the prefix vi- = "in a special way".

=

ELK wrote :THANK YOU!

I wanted you to know what motivated my question, and why I think I’ve remembered that comment for a few years. Partly, as you can tell, I just like to know things. Vinyassa, in the vernacular that is the yoga studio schedule, seems to mean a class less athletic than ashtanga, but requiring some moving around. It is useful to know otherwise. Also, the definition just illuminates something you begin to understand in your body after well-structured yoga classes. As you often point out, one does not need to understand that in order to get all kinds of benefits from yoga, but feeling/understanding/appreciating/observing it brings benefits of another kind. Or so I am learning.

With gratitude,
ELK

=

I replied: ELK, you are welcome. Thanks for the interesting and intelligently constructed question.

Quotes From Andre Bernard Out of Ideokinesis: A Creative Approach to Human Movement & Body Alignment

2007-01-29T18:08:00.000-05:00

What follows is some quotes from the recently published book: Ideokinesis: A Creative Approach to Human Movement & Body Alignment, by Andre Bernard, Wolfgang Stainmuller and Ursula Stricker. In this book Wolfgang and Ursula have put together a piece Andre wrote explaining the work he did, an interview that Richard Rosen and Nancy Lyons had done with Andre, and then they took recordings that had been made of some of Andre’s workshops and transcribed them to create this book. It is a great read, accessible and very informative, and quite enjoyable. Andre’s teachings feel like they come alive again for me as a result of this book and in the time I spent with Andre Bernard I found him to be a very wonderful teacher. I feel I learned quite a lot from him, as much as I have learned from anyone I can think of.

===

“Remember, I gave you some of the voluntary aspects of movement? The goals of movement are: the start, the end, the direction, the effort, the speed, and the range. The involuntary aspect that I have spoken so much about is the muscle pattern, the complex of muscles that will achieve the desired goals of the movement. This is involuntary; it is a function of the nervous system.

About those goals of movement being voluntary: it is not just that you are permitted to be voluntary, but that you must be. This is because the nervous system, in organizing the muscle pattern, is responding to your intention towards those goals. It is responding to the clarity and the intensity of your intention toward those goals as you start to move.” (p. 182)

=

“Well, we have come to the end of our workshop. I’d like to say a few words as we close.

I think that most of us are here because we ant to improve our movement patterns or our body patterns in general. That is certainly a legitimate goal, but I am looking at this work on a larger canvas. I see it as a metaphor for life itself, for the life process. What I mean by that is, whether we realize it or not, we are constantly re-creating ourselves. Moment by moment, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, month by month, and so on. This is usually somewhat, a process of which we are unaware, but it is happening through the same devices we have been using with consciousness to make changes in the body. That is the process of thinking, intending, desire, attitude, insight—all of these tools we have been using to affect our neuromuscular system—as a goal; using them with awareness. In life these tools are being used, as I said, usually unconsciously. So what I feel is that we can guide this process. I do not think we can control it, nor is it desirable to have a rigid control on it, but I think we can guide it by being aware of what we think, what we intend, what we desire, and what we do.” (p. 195)

=

“Ideokinesis can be translated roughly as ‘the image or thought as facilitator of the movement.’ Ideokinesis began to be used as a label for the work after the publication in 1974 of Sweigard’s book, Human Movement Potential, in which she used the word.

In order to understand why imagery is used as a means of changing muscle patterns, one must understand what a movement is. Movement may be defined as a neuromusculoskeletal event. This means that in order for movement to take place, all three of the systems alluded to in this definition—nervous, muscular, and skeletal—must be involved. Each system has its own specific role to play; the nervous system is the messenger, that is, it transmits impulses or messages to the muscles to contract or release; the muscle system is the workhorse or the motor system; the skeletal system is the support system that is moved by the work of the muscles.

The critical point to be aware of in order to understand how the image can change the muscle pattern is this: The nervous system is more than just a simple messenger. It also organizes the muscle pattern, and it does this on a sub-cortical level, that is, the level below consciousness. Let us be clear about what the muscle pattern is. It is the complex of muscles that perform a desired movement: organizing the muscle pattern is a highly complex and sophisticated task.

It is fortunate that the nervous system does this for us below the level of consciousness. Not only do we not have to organize the muscle pattern consciously, but we should not attempt to do so, because this will interfere with the process. Our conscious role in movement is to focus on the movement, because the nervous system, in organizing the muscle pattern, is responding to the clarity of one’s concept of what the movement is. If the movement is not done well, it means the muscle pattern is poor, and the muscle pattern is poor because the “wrong” message (a faulty concept of the movement) has been sent to the muscles. This wrong message is the result of either a lack of clarity about what the movement is or a previously established poor muscle pattern associated with the movement. The objective is to change the message—that is, to rethink the movement in order to change the poor muscle pattern. This rethinking the movement is formed into an image and used as a means to change the muscle pattern.” (p. 5-6)

=

"In terms of movement, what you want to do is to learn what the movement is, not how to do the movement: to learn what the movement is, very specifically and very precisely. If you have that very clear intention, when you decide to do it, the nervous system will often choose the most efficient muscle pattern. The problem is that many of us have already established inefficient patterns, which need a little more work to make the change. That's where the image comes in. It's a way to tap into the system. It's still somewhat indirect, but it is used to modify the message that is going to the muscles in order to make a change in the pattern.” (p. 14-15).

=

“I said that muscles do not act singly in normal functioning. The mistake that even experienced anatomists make is that they will analyze a movement and they will find that a certain muscle is involved in that movement, and then they list that muscle’s function as creating that movement. That’s all right, because it’s partially true. But if you’re not careful, you can get the idea that that muscle is the only muscle that performs that function, whereas if I take a step, 118 muscles are involved—that’s a ‘guesstimate.’ Some yogis have learned to isolate single muscles, but that’s not normal functioning.” (p. 18)

=

“They (Lulu Sweigard and Mabel Todd) learned early on that movement performance and skeletal alignment are completely interdependent, and that improvement in the mechanical efficiency of either one automatically leads to improvement in the other. (p. 17)

=

“One group of images releases muscles, and the other group brings more tone. It’s very simple. Those images that seek to create more distance between the skeletal parts generally are the ones that are going to be releasing muscles, because it is those muscles that tend to pull the bones closer together. Those images that seek to bring two bones closer together would be ones that encourage increased muscle tone.” (p. 21)

=

“Todd said something that was so wonderful in her book The Thinking Body. You can read it again and again and always get something you didn’t get before. She said that good movement takes place the same way that it rains, snows, sleets, and the wind blows—because conditions are right. I think that is such a profound way of saying what it is, and of getting us out of these mechanistic concepts, talking about the synapses, etc. You need this kind of understanding, because one’s understanding is part of the imagery.” (p. 23-24)

=

The key word here is balance. That is what allows free, flowing movement, movement with ease. And that is one of the main things that I saw in Erick Hawkins that I had no idea how to achieve when I was first his student. That was one of the hallmarks of Erick’s work, the ease of the movement, and yet the movement had strength—strong, definitive movement, but with ease.” (p. 34)

=

“This work attempts to bring mind and body together. It is one of the original mind-body integration techniques in the West. Todd goes back to about the time of the First World War, maybe 1914. Her work relates to Eastern thought, the Eastern way of doing things, in that it attempts to have a person move, in the current saying, ‘smarter, not harder.’ It creates an awareness that you don’t have if you’re not totally in the movement, not only with your body, but with your mind. You’re immersed in the movement, in your whole being.

My emphasis is to integrate this work into one’s daily life, so that the principles are used in whatever one does, whether it be walking down the street, climbing stairs, or brushing your teeth. Good movement should not be reserved for special occasions such as dance.” (p. 35-36).

=

I want to show you briefly what the function of the image is, this methodology we use. So I am going to give you a definition of movement. Movement could be defined as a neuromusculoskeletal event. The reason I give you this definition is that it brings together something you need to be aware of: that in order for voluntary movement to take place, these three systems of the body—the nervous system, the muscle system, and the skeletal system—all have to be involved. Otherwise you cannot have voluntary movement. Each of these systems has its own special role to play in this phenomenon we call movement. The nervous system is generally called the messenger; it gives the message to the muscles to work. The muscle system is what does the work; it is the workhouse, called in physiology ‘the motor system.’ The skeletal system is your support system; it is what is moved.

In order to understand the function of the image, the role of the image, we have to go back to the nervous system and add something. The nervous system is not just a simple messenger; it is also the organizer of the muscle pattern that is going to accomplish a desired movement. Furthermore, it organizes the muscle pattern on the sub-cortical level, the level below consciousness. In other words, you are totally unconscious of what the nervous system is doing and you should be. If you try to interfere with that complex process of organizing the muscle pattern with your conscious mind, you will blow the process. The muscle pattern is the complex of muscles that will accomplish the desired movement. Muscles do not in normal functioning act singly. We talk about them acting singly, but they do not act that way. They act as a group, and groups often interact with other groups.

By the way, it is not essential that you understand what I am saying to utilize the work. The reason I am giving you this is that I want you to know where the work comes from, because when we start to work with the methodology here, we are going to be doing very simple, childlike things. If you do not know that they come from a very well developed scientific process, then you will think we are just playing games and you will not understand what we are doing.

So now, to continue: the nervous system in organizing the muscle pattern is responding to your idea of the movement. So what you need to focus on to improve movement is to focus on the movement. More accurately put, you need to focus on the goals of the movement, which are broken down into six components: start, end, direction, effort, speed, and range. These are voluntary components of the movement. That is what you do with your conscious mind. Not only are you permitted to be voluntary about that, but you must be because the nervous system in organizing the muscle pattern is responding to the clarity and intensity of your intention regarding these goals of movement. (p. 44-46)

=

Rather than take this quote to its conclusion, which, in the workshop where he made this quote, Andre took his time to set up and show how a good image would help a person understand the movement better; I will simply make the statement. The image, if it is a good one, will help the person understand the desired movement better, and then the movement pattern will begin to change on its own because of that clearer intention and understanding. It is amazing how simple and how powerful this is. And this book is a wealth of great and inspiring information.

Peace, upsidedowncarl

An Actor Prepares and Yoga

2007-01-10T16:12:00.000-05:00

An Actor Prepares and Yoga

I am reading a book called, An Actor Prepares by a man named Constantin Stanislavski. It is a book I am told is fairly well known in the acting field as a seminal text from one of the major approaches to acting. One of the things that interest me about this work is that the process that this man is presenting is really not different than what a yoga practice is. Some people who know me think I have a loose grip on reality and interpret everything in relation to yoga. :) Perhaps this is true but An Actor Prepares presents a well organized approach to getting inside and having a connection to an underlying experience of a kind of consciousness that, in our ordinary lives we might not have access to.

The techniques might be different but the goals and results are related.

My experience as a musician and my experiences as a professional in-line skater tell me that artistic expression can lead to deep experiences of self at a “higher” level of consciousness where your conscious mind has bridged a gap from the conscious to things underneath, behind or perhaps above consciousness; what Stanislavski refers to in An Actor Prepares as the “subconscious”.

In the Yoga Sutras a distinction is made between the STATE OF YOGA and the process of trying to achieve that state. The process of trying to achieve the state could be referred to as PRACTICE. The Yoga Sutras defines the state of Yoga as a completely clear, fully focused, fully absorbed state of being: a state where there are no unnecessary fluctuations or activities of the mind (YS 1.2). The Sutras defines practice in terms of qualities. It says that the action or process of bringing oneself towards the state of Yoga is made up of three mental frameworks (YS 2.1):

(1) The discipline to engage in this process consistently over time; this process may cause a certain amount of inspiration, mental fervor, heat, and certain moments of lucidity, awareness and realization or ah ha moments as I like to call them.
(2) Self-observation and self-awareness during this disciplined process. And
(3) The understanding that there are things that are beyond your control, and so an attitude of openness and availability to that which is currently occurring, and a sense of humility when faced with the enormity of what is occurring right now: this inexpressible, ultimate reality.

The techniques that are mentioned in the Yoga Sutras, and there are many, are really a small sampling. The scope and breadth of what could possibly be used as a technique for the purpose of practice is hinted at in Sutra 1.39: yatah bimadat dhyanadva: any inquiry that captives the interest of the practitioner could, potentially, be used for the purpose of achieving the state of Yoga.

The techniques are not something to get stuck on. They are tools to help you achieve the state of Yoga. This is a key factor that is worth understanding. It is not the tools and techniques themselves that are important, it is whether they are useful for YOU; whether they help you move towards or into this state of Yoga, even if only for a brief amount of time. If the techniques work for you, then you use them. If the techniques do not work for you, then they are not currently the right techniques for your purposes. Interestingly, the techniques that work at one point in your practice may, at a future time, no longer produce results. Similarly, techniques that did not work at some point in the past might somehow be more useful and produce the desired results today. Just like with practice in general, which is at least in part, about helping you be free so you don’t get stuck in ruts, one should not get too attached to specific techniques. As you change the affects of a technique on your system might change and become more or less effective or useful.

In An Actor Prepares, Stanislavski describes three elements that are essential to the actor performing a role in a dramatic work:
(1) Inner Grasp.
(2) The Through Line of Action.
(3) The Super-Objective.
Inner Grasp is the internal understanding of the particular role or character and how that character fits into the work being performed as a whole. So the character’s motives and internal machinations are what are at play here.

The Through Line of Action is a concept to help the actor to understand ways of getting his or her actions and motives to move with the whole work of art towards the ultimate goal of the dramatic piece. Stanislavski refers to this ultimate goal of the dramatic piece as the super-objective.

Part of the objective of this acting system is to set the ground for a creative state that is organic and in some sense actual, where the actor is not pretending to feel emotions or presenting a cartoon-like external impression of the emotions his/her character is supposed to feel. Pretending to present emotions without feeling them is characterized as creating habits an actor would do well not to cultivate and this tendency leads the actor to bring his/her attention off the stage into the audience which Stanislavski is trying to help the acting student to avoid. When the actor can keep his attention fully on the action on the stage and on the character’s intentions and the action of the other characters, the actor may actually fall completely into the role in such a way where he/she really believes his/her own acts as having a reality, that the actor falls into living his/her part, and feels the actual emotions, and so in a sense is not acting but taking on the role. The actor becomes one with the role and the action of the performed piece.

The techniques presented are explained as tools to help create this state, which, in An Actor Prepares, is referred to as the “subconscious” state where the creative impulse is, in a sense unleashed; where the actor does not, for the time that this state lasts, realize that there is any difference or distance between the actor’s life and the life of the character he/she is playing; where the actor has merged with the part.

The techniques are obviously easy to correspond to the techniques used in a yoga practice. In fact many of them are extremely similar in how they get the actors focused on what they are doing by using the interests of the actor to get them to go deeper into the work and achieve a sustained, focused state. Even many of the body practices described in An Actor Prepares are described with the same terms that Patanjali uses in the Yoga Sutras to describe the way to perform the postures. There is a whole chapter on creating relaxed, effortless, organic postures where there is no unnecessary tension in the actor’s movements, gestures, actions or postural positioning. This is exactly how the Yoga Sutras defines asana (YS 2.46, YS 2.47 also see my post titled Sthira Sukham Asana: The Postures Should Be Strong and Soft).

Inner Grasp would be comparable to a yoga practitioner understanding the inner depth of the particular poses or techniques being used, and useful motivating forces to help him/her achieve the benefits of the individual postures or breathing techniques in a way that was useful for him/her and also how the postures or other kinds of techniques can be fit together to create different results, in a sense an organizing principle for the practitioner to help him get into the role of practicing and to mentally bring his/her focused attention into each of different aspects of practice (postures, breathing exercises, visualization techniques and meditative techniques) fully and organically. Although alignment techniques in asana practice can be extremely useful, mechanical performance of the details of alignment for a pose is not a substitute for really, organically feeling your way inside the pose for yourself.

The Through Line of Action would be like the direction of action and attention that would be created by the goals and intentions of the practitioner. These goals and intentions motivate the practitioner throughout all of the techniques used in a cohesive practice and would create a connection between a particular practice and the development of practice in general over a long period of time, as those goals and intentions grow and become more refined. It would be what keeps a practitioner going from beginning to end in the practice and over time, keep the practitioner coming back with a consistent direction. So just like The Through Line of Action and the Super-Objective in Stanislavski’s presentation, the direction of action a practitioner takes cannot be fully discussed without reference to the practitioner’s overall goals.

What is being referred to as the Super-Objective is like the overall goal of the yoga practitioner, that the practitioner is always moving towards which is the organizing principle of all the other, smaller motives and intentions, and goals; this is the ultimate direction in which the practice is leading the practitioner.

In traditional Indian culture a standard final goal for an ascetic or a yogi was enlightenment, muksha, freedom from the karmic cycle of being and becoming. The way yoga is practiced in the west currently, there are many overriding goals that can be observed depending on who is teaching and who is practicing. There are systems that focus mainly on physical benefits like overall fitness, strength or flexibility. There are systems that approach practice as an eastern form of physical therapy. There are other systems that see practice as psychological, spiritual or even metaphysical “therapy”. There are also modern systems that remain true to that traditional Indian mindset of using this kind of practice to move towards some sort of spiritual enlightenment, which might be seen as different than “spiritual” therapy depending on your outlook even if it may have some similar results.

There are really innumerable overall goals that a practitioner could have as a guiding principle in practice. Just like in Stanislavski’s An Actor Prepares, in the end, it is most important for the practitioner to choose one for him/herself so those goals can truly be a guiding principle for the practitioner.

In terms of “Super-Objective” or overall goal, a major difference between Yoga and Acting would be that, for the actor, the Super-Objective has to be in line with the actual piece being performed and the author’s intentions in the piece. In Yoga the overall goal of practice is ultimately up to the practitioner; there is no story line that it has to fit in with other than the practitioner’s own life. A teacher or any number of other things might influence the practitioner, but, in the end, the practitioner decides the goals for him/herself.

Stanislavki presents the process and the state that he is trying to create, where what he calls a subconscious principle takes over so that the actor actually lives the part and feels the emotions for real and in a sense is not acting but going through the emotional processes that the character he/she is playing would actually go through if it were a real life situation. This shift in consciousness which Stanislavski refers to as accessing the “subconscious” might instead be called super-conscious, above conscious or even simply a heightened state of consciousness, where the actor’s psyche seems to merge with the character being played and lives the part instead of faking the emotions, is very much related to that state that naturally occurs in a yoga practice as the practice is done in a deeper way, where the Yoga practitioner’s state of mind and consciousness shifts from a normal, distracted state of mind, to a hyper aware and vivid kind of consciousness where you seem to be transported to a different dimension.

This being said, I guess my experience has been that all the artistic endeavors I have participated in have lead to this kind of experience in one way or another. I remember times when I was playing music and the audience disappeared, technique disappeared, I remember the sensation of watching myself playing and I wasn’t doing anything, the playing was happening of its own accord. Effortlessly, everything fell into place just so as I watched from what felt like a great distance behind myself. It was magical. When I performed on in-line skates for Ringling Brothers, I had similar kinds of experiences many times as well. That state where you are connected and moving from something far deeper inside yourself than your rational mind and conscious will is well worth accessing regardless of what activity you are performing.

Reading List; The Short Version

2007-01-05T18:43:00.003-05:00

This is the short version of a reading list. I feel these books would be worthwhile reading for any serious yoga practitioner:

The Heart of Yoga by T. K. V. Desikachar

Yoga for Wellness: Healing with the Timeless Teaching of Viniyoga by Gary Kraftsow

Yoga for Transformation by Gary Kraftsow

Health, Healing and Beyond: Yoga and the Living Tradition of Krishnamacharya by T. K. V. Desikachar

Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving into Stillness by Erich Schiffmann

Tantric Quest: An Encounter with Absolute Love by Daniel Odier

The Anatomy of Movement by Blandine Calais-Germain

The Anatomy of Movement Exercises by Blandine Calais-Germain and Andrea Lamott

Atlas of Human Anatomy by Frank H Netter, M. D.

Ideokinesis: A Creative Approach to Human Movement and Body Alignment by Andre Bernard, Wolfgang Steinmuller and Ursula Stricker

Taking Root to Fly by Irene Dowd

The Thinking Body by Mabel E. Todd

Human Movement Potential: Its Ideokinetic Facilitation by Lulu Sweigard

Sensing, Feeling and Action: The Experiential Anatomy of Body-Mind Centering by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen

Therapeutic Exercise: Foundations and Techniques by Carolyn Kisner and Lynn Allen Colby

The Only Dance There Is by Ram Das

Start Where You Are by Pema Chodron

Lao Tse’s Toa Te Ching (sometimes spelled Lao Tsu, any translation)

What Are We Seeking by T. K. V. Desikachar

The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious by Carl Jung

The Courage to Stand Alone by U. G. Krishnamurti

Awareness Through Movement: Easy-To-Do Exercises to Improve Your Posture, Vision, Imagination, and Personal Awareness by Moshe Feldenkrais

Philosophies of India by Heinrich Zimmer

Yoga: Immortality and Freedom by Mircea Eliade

First There Is a Mountain by Elizabeth Kadetsky

Thoughts Without a Thinker by Mark Epstein, MD

A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield

Happy New Year 2007

2006-12-31T08:19:00.000-05:00

Another Year? Just like last year, I am, once again, in a state of disbelief. I cannot believe how fast 2006 went by. I feel quite fortunate in loving what I do. In the process of teaching yoga to groups and individuals I have learned a little about the concept that time is liquid and changeable. I have been able to examine the process in a little detail, see when and where time seems to start slipping at a faster rate, when it seems to slow down. As my life becomes more and more full, more and more busy, time seems to continue to speed up. I am not going to judge this but generally time goes slower when I am not doing something I absorbed in and enjoying, time goes slower when I am waiting for something or am in a state that feels like limbo, where I am not absorbed in what I am doing but am biding my time till something else can happen. Because my work is so rewarding and my family life is so full, most of what I am involved in is wishing I had more time. More time with my daughter; more time teaching; more time writing; more time with friends; more time for so many things including practice even though some people feel I practice way to much. Recently I have noticed how little time I spend in that limbo state of waiting for something to happen. I simply do not have the time to waste and tend to fill all those spaces with productive things that get me absorbed. I even look forward to those times to myself on a subway train where I can get to certain things like reading that I would have little time for otherwise.

In any case, I hope that all of you have had as good a year as I have and that 2008 will be your best year ever. I am confident that if you have Yoga in your life it can help make this the case. Practice does some very simple but very amazing things to bring you into where you are. And that is where all the real magic happens.

Have a Happy and a Healthy New Year 2006-2007 and BEYOND.

General Principles of Sequencing for NYYoga Teacher Training

2006-12-15T20:12:00.000-05:00

What follows is something I wrote for the Teacher Trainees at New York Yoga. Because some of the text relates directly to the sequence that New York Yoga teaches its trainees those parts are not relevant here and have been left out. Unfortunately for those parts to be relevant you would have to know the sequence. In this forum I have just left the parts of this document that address general principles. I hope you enjoy this information.

Peace.

upsidedowncarl

=====

General Principles of Sequencing
For NYYoga TT Sequence

These are all general statements not rules. A skilled teacher or practitioner can go against every one of these main points and still create a sequence that is safe, effective, powerful and useful, because, just like in therapeutic practice, HOW YOU USE THE POSES is more important than THE PARTICULAR POSES YOU USE, or the PARTICULAR ORDER YOU USE THEM IN.

Seated poses are more powerful as poses for opening your body because you need less effort and have more leverage to open the body and bring yourself deeper. Because of this, in standard sequencing it is useful to do seated poses after the body has been warmed up considerably first.

Gentler versions of a pose or of a particular kind of opening are useful to before stronger or deeper versions of a posture. An example: Cat/Cow can warm your spine for Cobra and Cobra can prepare your spine for Upward Facing Dog; the movements in a sun salutation including the work of the back muscles in Upward Facing Dog, but especially the opening of the hamstrings with the work and lengthening of the spine that happen in Downward Facing Dog and Prepare Pose (Half Forward Bend) and the brief stays in the Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana), prepare you for holding the Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana) for a longer period of time. Holding the Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana) for a longer period of time and/or doing an Asymmetrical Standing Forward Bend (Parvsvottanasana) or a Standing Forward Bend with the Legs Spread Apart (Prasaritta Padottanasana) and holding these postures to open in, after the body has been warmed up, could intelligently help prepare you for doing a Seated Forward Bends like Upavishta Konasana (Seated Forward Bend with Legs Spread Apart), Janu Shirshasana (Asymmetrical Seated Forward Bend with One Leg Straight and One Knee Bent), and Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Bend Over Both Legs). Standing poses like Warrior 1, Warrior 2, Extended Triangle, Extended Side Angle, Rotated Triangle and Revolved Triangle can prepare the legs, the spine, the pelvic structure, the shoulder girdle, the ribcage, and the arms for deeper poses of their kind. Back bends on your stomach can prepare you for Full Wheel (Urdhva Dhanurasana, the back bend on your back where your arms lift you all the way up off the floor). Before doing inversions it is worth preparing your neck, shoulders, upper back, and arms for supporting your body while upside down. Poses like Downward Facing Dog, Dolphin Pose and Bridge Pose might be useful for this kind of purpose.

After a deep posture or sequence of postures, it would be beneficial to release any residual tension left over from the work of the pose. This can be referred to as compensation or counterposing. After a deep forward bend a gentle back bend can be beneficial and vice versa. If there is tension in the neck or shoulders, something to release it would be called for. Often fish pose is presented as the counterpose for shoulderstand and this might compensate for tension in the neck and shoulders, but if you come out of shoulderstand feeling tension in your lower back you might need something additional for this tension. Something like bridge pose or locust might be beneficial work for the spine to take care of the lower back after shoulderstand. The important point to understand about counterposes is that each person may need something slightly different and if a counterpose does not remove the residual tension from a deep posture for a particular practitioner then the posture still has not fully been compensated for, at least for that practitioner.

Before resting in Shavasana (Final Relaxation) it would be worth cooling down with some simple relaxing poses lying on the back.

An intelligent and well-organized sequence can start from almost any orientation to gravity (lying on the back, sitting, kneeling, standing) and still be an intelligently organized sequence. However, a well-organized sequence will progress logically and help the practitioner prepare for deeper more challenging poses in thoughtfully prepared stages.

Amy Matthews PNF & BMC workshop: muscle coupling, currenting and PNF patterns

2006-12-13T22:52:00.000-05:00

This is information about a workshop coming up this weekend that promises to be great information. Amy Matthews is an amazing teacher and is covering some ground that is deep and extremely useful for anyone practicing or teaching yoga. I highly recommend this work.

upsidedowncarl

==========

embodied asana presents:

PNF & BMC workshop:
muscle coupling, currenting and PNF patterns

On Saturday we will explore the Body-Mind Centering concepts of “currenting” and “coupling” in the muscular system, and how these ideas can help to make movement more easeful and efficient.

On Sunday we will explore the techniques of PNF (Prioprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation), which include using resistance, reflex patterns, initiation and specific sequencing to increase proprioception and to integrate movement patterns in the nerves and muscles.

Any level of movement experience is welcome, and no yoga experience is necessary. Class will involve both discussion and movement.

Saturday & Sunday, December 16 & 17
11 am – 5 pm (1 hour break)
$80 for one day, $150 for both

The Breathing Project
15 West 26 Street, 10th Floor (b/t B’way & 6th Ave)
Questions? Call 917-843-9537, or e-mail spiralamy@aol.com.

Amy Matthews, CMA, SME, RYT, RSMT/RSME has been teaching movement since 1994. She is a
Certified Laban Movement Analyst and a Body-Mind Centering™ Practitioner.
Amy is certified as a yoga teacher by Heart of Yoga and Yoga Union, is registered with ISMETA and Yoga Alliance, and is certified as a Motherhand Shiatsu practitioner.

Amy has been on the faculty of the Year-Long Certificate Program at the Laban/Bartenieff
Institute of Movement Studies since 2000, and teaches embodied asana classes and workshops at Movements Afoot, as part of the Advanced Studies Program at the Breathing Project, and at the
Society for Martial Arts Instruction. Amy works privately as a movement therapist, integrating
Laban Movement Analysis, Bartenieff Fundamentals, yoga and Body Mind Centering™. She
teaches anatomy workshops for LIMS, co-teaches “Still Moving” karate and yoga workshops with
Sensei Michelle Gay for the Society for Martial Arts Instruction, and has co-taught with
Alison West on Yoga Union's Teacher Training program.

A Perspective Drawn from the Yoga Sutras

2006-10-23T22:03:00.003-05:00

This is something I wrote several years ago but updated just now. I thought it was appropriate for the YogaScope Kaleidoscope.

upsidedowncarl

======

A Perspective Drawn from the Yoga Sutras

Note: the English text that is in italics is Desikchar’s translation of the particular Sutra.

In what is below I have taken a selection of Sutras from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras to present a cohesive perspective on how to understand what you are working with during a yoga practice. This is merely one way of looking at things but it is, in my opinion, a particularly useful and healthy perspective. Hopefully it will help empower you to understanding things more clearly and integrate this understanding into your own practice for yourself.

Sutra 1.2
yogaschittavrttinirodhah

yogas = yoga or union,
chitta = mind or consciousness
vrtti = fluctuation or unnecessary activity
nirodhah = to bring to an end

This is the Yoga Sutra’s definition of Yoga. A literal translation would be: yoga is bringing an end to the unnecessary activities of the mind.

Because this bringing to an end to unnecessary mental activities can create clarity and one pointed focus Desikachar translates the Sutra: Yoga is the ability to direct the mind exclusively towards one object and sustain that direction without any distractions.

This is a nice interpretation rather than a literal translation.

I have also heard Desikachar translate the word yoga as: relationship, connection and anything that can create an improvement in your mental state.

Sutra 1.3
tada drastuh svarupe ‘vasthanam

Desikachar’s translation is: Then the ability to understand the object fully and correctly is apparent.

When you have your mind fully focused on something you can come to understand it clearly and accurately.

Sutra 1.4
vrttisarupyamitaratra

Deslikachar’s translation is: The ability to understand the object is simply replaced by the mind’s conception of that object or by a total lack of comprehension.

When you are not fully focused on what you are observing you could be mislead by your mind’s projections and/or misunderstandings.

Sutra 1.12
abhyasavairagyahbhyam tannirodhah

abhyasa = bringing your attention towards, this word often gets translated as practice.
vairagya = space, distance, detachment.
tannirodhah = refers to nirodhah in Sutra 1.2 and means something like: so, this bringing an end to the fluctuations of the mind.

So this sutra might be translated something like: So, this bringing an end to the fluctuations of the mind can be reached through practice without attachment.

Desikachar’s translation is: The mind can reach a state of Yoga through practice and detachment.

I think the idea is that you practice for the sake of the practice and not for the results or benefits you expect to receive from the practice. This is nice and simple in theory but sometimes it is not so easy to establish in a practice.

Sutra 1.39
yathabhimatadhyanadva

Desikachar’s translation is: Any inquiry of interest can calm the mind.

I have also seen as a translation: any inquiry that elevates the mind can be used for the attainment of the state of yoga.

It says any inquiry can be used. You can choose anything and use it to help focus your mind. What determines what should be used is determined by several of the other sutras. But the basic deal is that what you use to focus your mind should make things better, not worse. In an asana practice it could be alignment, it could be the breath, it could be any number of things to help you focus on what you are doing.

Sutra 1.44 expands on this idea.

Sutra 1.44
tayaiva svicara nirvicara ca suksmavisaya vyakhyata

This process (i.e. yoga) is possible with any type of object, at any level of perception, whether superficial and general or in depth and specific.

The way I like to explain this is this, the last three limbs of yoga, dharana, dhyana and samdhi are like this.
1) dharana = concentration
2) dhyana = sustained concentration, which we often refer to as meditation.
3) samadhi = integration, merging with the object of concentration.
When you read a book you bring yourself to pay attention to what you are reading. If the book is boring you continually have to bring your attention back to what you are reading. That is the stage called dharana. When the book starts to get interesting there is a relationship that is established. This is the important part. It is not that you force yourself to pay attention. The story or content of the book actually begins to draw you in. You bring yourself to concentrate but your attention is also captivated by the content of the book. So it is not a one way street. You cannot simply impose your will on your attention and expect to be successful. When the subject matter of the book starts to suck you in, you attain a period of sustained concentration. This is dhyana. Then, every so often while you are reading you are drawn in to such an extent that everything else besides what you are reading seems to disappear. All that is there is what you are reading. You stop even realizing that you are looking at a book and reading words on a page. You start seeing the scenes of what you are reading. You almost feel like you are living what you are reading. You have merged with the object of you concentration. That is a kind of samadhi. So who ever thought that reading could be a yoga practice. Any object at any level of perception can be used.

I have had this kind of experience while playing music, while riding ramps on in-line skates, while doing an asana practice, while meditating and while doing many other things. With each different activity it has a different quality to it. I have heard Joseph Campbell refer to this as a peak experience.

I do not want anyone to think I am presenting this kind of experience to lightly, because when ever it has happened to me, even while reading, it has been a powerful experience. I often feel how much I would like to get back there and/or spend more time there. And what you can do is promote the circumstances for it to happen but you cannot force this experience to occur. However, in yoga practice and meditation you can learn how to create the circumstances for its natural occurrence and significantly increase its likelihood.

Here is a quote from Martin Pierce, author of Yoga for Your Life, in a presentation on yoga and meditation where he is talking about this experience with Desikachar:

“There is a lot of confusion, particularly about Samadhi. There are so many different meanings of Samadhi. I'd like to share my experience of a state of samadhi. I was on a bicycle tour on the Baltic Islands, on a lonely penninsula. At one point, I felt a part of everything around me, the wind, the trees, waves. Something happened that changed me and the way I felt about the world. I don't know how long it lasted. I didn't understand it at the time. My relationship with the group I was with on the tour changed. I even tried to explain it to them which wasn't of much use. I talked to head master because I thought it was a religious experience. And he replied, "Oh, pantheism." It wasn't until many years later, when I came to Desikachar and studied the sutras, I learned about Samadhi and recognized that was what the experience was. Samadhi is to be so much at one with the object that only that object shines forth. The waves, the wind, what was shining inside broke through to the another understanding of my place in the universe. Not that I'm special. Most people have experiences like this but our society belittles it, denies it and says we're crazy.

Yoga is defined as oneness. In the yoga sutras, many different kinds of samadhi are described. Some minor, some profound. They happen every day, they are not just great moments of enlightenment. Talking with a friend, focusing on a friend and becoming one with them.”

So according to Sutra 1.44, you could be focusing on something on a superficial level or you could be focusing more in depth and have this experience, and according to Sutra 1.39 you can be focusing on any kind of object that captures your interest

Sutra 3.12
tatah punah santoditau tulyapratyayau cittasyaikagrataparinamah

The mind reaches a stage where the link with the object is consistent and continuous. The distractions cease to appear.

Sutra 1.51
tasyapi nirodhe sarvanirodhannirbijah samadhih

(Finally, if ever) The mind reaches a state when it has no impressions of any sort. It is open, clear, simply transparent.

I would say that this means your mind can reach a state of clarity in which it can understand and see what is actually there to be seen. If it is a flower, it is the flower without any preexisting concept of what flower is to interfere with your perception of the flower that is in front of you. If it is quantum physics…

Sutra 2.1
tapahsvadyayeshvarapranidhanani kriyayogah

1) kriya = to do.
2) tapas: discipline that could create heat and will clear obstructions. This could simply be the discipline to come to a practice consistently. The only requirement with tapas is that it should create some sense of clarity or cleansing of things that are getting in your way. The tricky part about this is that what would create that clarity for one person might do the opposite for another.
3) svadhyaya: self observation. Traditionally this was practiced by reciting and learning ancient texts by heart and the idea was that by doing this you would come to know something about yourself; that by paying attention and focusing fully on something you come to know yourself better.
4) isvarapranidhana: this can mean many things: self surrender, surrender to god, reverence for a higher intelligence; or, for someone who does not believe in god, God or the gods it can be understood as: acceptance of our limitations and an understanding that there are things in the universe that are beyond our control. The concept conveys a quality of standing in awe before the mystery of life. So the attitude expressed by isvarapranidhana is one of openness, availability, humility and gratitude.

The practice of yoga consists of these three things simultaneously: 1) the discipline to bring yourself to practice consistently, this discipline may create heat and may clear out some impurities and obstructions, 2) self observation during the pursuit of that discipline and 3) the understanding that there are things in the universe that are beyond your control.

This means that, for it to be a yoga practice, as you fold into a forward bend you need to have an attitude of self observation, you have to have the discipline to bring yourself to do this same thing consistently enough so that, while observing yourself over time you can begin to see changes, and while you are folding into that forward bend you need to practice with the understanding that there are things in the universe that are beyond your control, so even if you wanted open hamstrings, that might be beyond your control.

This concept—understanding that there are things in the universe that are beyond your control—is connected to the idea of practicing for the sake of practicing and not for the results which Sutra 1.12 is referring to.

This Sutra is also very similar to that saying: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to now the difference.”

Sutra 3.6:
tasya bhumisu viniyogah

The practice must be developed gradually in the way most appropriate to the student.

This sutra is actually referring to the process of samyama which is the practice of dharana, dhyana and samadhi as one process. Desikachar’s translation is: Samayama must be developed gradually. In his comments he says that you should use an object that is appropriate for the student. You should start with simple objects first and then move on to more complex objects. I am paraphrasing. I think if you choose something that is interesting and understandable to the person it does not matter how simple or complicated it is.

Sutra 4.3
nimittamaprayojakam prakrtinam varanabhedastu tatah ksetrikavat

But such intelligence can only remove obstacles that obstruct certain changes. Its role is no more than that of a farmer who cuts a dam to allow water to flow into the field where it is needed.

In Sutra 4.3 Patanjali is trying to explain how to remove obstacles that obstruct our understanding of things and he uses the analogy of a farmer who has a reserve of water and channels cut to direct the water into his fields. Because he has these channels cut, when he wants to water his fields, all he needs to do is remove the block that is obstructing the flow of water and it will flow where it is supposed to.

Over and over again in my teaching I find that people’s bodies actually know where they are supposed to go and something in their training or their minds or something tells them that their instincts are wrong and that they need to work harder or push or something. If they just listened to what their bodies were telling them they would be just fine but instead they listen to what someone else tells them is correct. Yoga is not so much about getting it right as it is about being aware.

So yoga is a system of coming to understand things for yourself. The understanding is direct and immediate because the understanding is through experience. So when you teach it is also a yoga practice because you are paying attention to yourself and what you are doing. You are connecting with an object of concentration, your students. It takes the disciple to bring yourself to teach and practice teaching consistently. And you are consistently faced with the overwhelming fact that there are things in the universe that are beyond your control. There are an outrageous number of things that you cannot control when you are teaching a student or group of students. It is a wonderful and humbling experience.

Sutra 1.33 says:
maitrikarunamuditopeksanam sukhadukhapuyapunyavisaynam bhavanatascittaprasadanam

Desikachar’s translation is:

In daily life we see people around us who are happier than we are, people who are less happy. Some may be doing praiseworthy things and others causing problems. Whatever may be our usual attitude towards such people and their actions, if we can be pleased with others who are happier than ourselves, compassionate towards those who are unhappy, joyful with those doing praiseworthy things, and remain undisturbed by the errors of others, our mind will be very tranquil.

This sutra is actually revealing a way of gauging how successful someone’s practice is. This is a really hard quality to cultivate. It sort of happens naturally when a person’s practice is having beneficial results. When you are clear and connected, you see things clearly, as they are, without judgment. This might cause you to take certain actions and to act effectively in response to a certain issue, but not to become distressed by the actions of others. So if your yoga practice is working well for you it should make you more centered, more whole and less likely to be taken out of yourself and your own disposition by outside events: happy for those who are happier, compassionate for those less fortunate than ourselves, joyful for those doing praiseworthy things and aware but not disturbed or psychologically harmed by someone who might even be trying to cause harm: in a word, centered.

Keeping the Space - The Breathing Project

2006-10-02T23:50:00.000-05:00

This is from Leslie Kaminoff. It is about a Fundraiser for the Breathing Project called "Keeping the Space". It should be a great event.

Carl

===

Hello All.

I'm writing to let you know about a special event that we're all very excited about. It's "Keeping the Space" - our first annual fundraiser for the Breathing Project. It's being held at 6PM on Thursday evening, November 16th, and our honorees are my old friends Robert Moses and Eddie Stern, founders of Namarupa Magazine. Along with a celebrity auction, the event features a concert performance by the incomparable Krishna Das and David Hykes.

I've named this event "Keeping the Space" for a few reasons. First and foremost, it's to remind everyone what a special space we've all created at The Breathing Project , a space where we value the individuality of our teachers and students, and the uniqueness of our teaching tradition. Also, our studio is a place where we can explore the spaces within ourselves where the breath can be honored in all of its depth, complexity and simplicity.

"Keeping the Space" has another, more urgent meaning as well. This benefit will literally help us keep our doors open. The funds we are raising are essential to our survival as a studio. We have been very fortunate to have a dedicated core of supporters who helped us open our doors in 2003 by loaning us the funds needed to build the studio. The time has come to pay back our original stakeholders by expanding our circle of support to the next level. In addition, the funds we are raising will make possible a whole new series of teaching initiatives we've named S.P.A.N. (Special Projects and Needs), which will extend the teaching of breath-centered, individualized Yoga into the community.

I'm asking for your help in the following ways:

Please log on to the event's website and check out the spectacular evening we have planned. Ticket order forms are accessible from the links to the left of the page.

Please forward this message to anyone you know who might be interested in attending our event. It will help enormously if you'd add a personal note letting them know what a worthy project this is.

As a special incentive, I'm offering you and your friends a significant discount on benefit tickets.
This discount has been funded by the generosity of several donors who has given funds specifically for the purpose of making the event more accessible to all.

The discounted ticket price is $150. ($100. off). All you or your friends have to do to qualify is mention the code "donor discount" when faxing or calling the order in to us. There are a limited number of these funded discounts, and they will be distributed on a first-come-first served basis, so please act quickly.

If the $150. price is still to high, you may buy tickets for just the concert portion of the evening for only $45. each. All contributions are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.

I look forward to seeing you and your friends at the event. If you have any questions, please contact me directly at benefit@breathingproject.org

Thank you,

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
Leslie Kaminoff, President
The Breathing Project, Inc.

15 West 26th Street 10th floor
New York, NY 10010

www.breathingproject.org

personal website:
http://www.yogaanatomy.org

blog:
http://esutra.blogspot.com/

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Internal Landscapes

2006-09-20T11:56:00.000-05:00

This is something I wrote a few years ago for a friends web-site. The web-site is no longer in existence but I still like this piece. I hope you enjoy it.

upsidedowncarl

====

Internal Landscapes
The Vastness and Majestic Beauty of the Night Sky Within

I would like to ask you to do me a favor. For a moment see if you can let go of your rational mind. Close your eyes and connect with that internal perspective of your creative imagination. The power of this internal world of thoughts and imagination is far greater than most of us are capable of fully realizing. With your eyes closed I want you to imagine the most beautiful sunrise you have ever seen. Take your time with this. You can start with the night sky slowly becoming lighter in the east. It continues getting lighter until that moment when the sun peeks over the horizon and everything is illuminated with brilliance and color. Allow yourself to stay with this for a little while.

Now visualize a snowcapped mountain off in the distance towards the west. There is a power to this mountain; the power of earth rising up to meet sky. The sun is shining above. Imagine the beauty of the sky and the smell of the air. As you are watching the sun gets lower and begins to burn red. The fiery light of the setting sun reflects off the clouds and the snow capped peaks of the mountain. Slowly the sun sinks below the horizon line as though merging with the earth. Sit for a few moments more imagining this scene. Okay. Thank you.

Now I want you to think about the seed of a plant for a moment. Let us just say it is the seed of a morning glory. This seed is seemingly inert matter. It does not appear to be alive. And yet, with the right circumstances, the fortunate circumstances of fertile earth, the right amount of water and enough sunlight, this seed will root and sprout. It will grow, slowly at first. A stalk, some leaves. A morning glory is a vine. If it has something to climb up it will climb. It grows long, thin, green tentacles that reach out, grab onto and wrap around what ever they can as the morning glory grows and climbs. In the course of about six months the vine that started out as that little morning glory seed can climb more than six feet in several directions turning into a beautiful plant with delicate green leaves. Eventually it will sprout buds and then flower. It is pretty amazing that the intelligence of the life force contained within this little seed has the potential to transform in such dramatic fashion.

As humans we often forget the simple wonders. Conditioned by our daily routines we are creatures of habit and this creates the desire for change. Frequently we look for answers outside of ourselves. We look at the world outside and are drawn away from ourselves. We are complex beings and there is a need for certain things from the outside world. It is, in part, nature’s way of insuring that our basic needs are met: food, shelter and the continuation of the species. But so often when these basic needs have been met we still look outside of ourselves for things. Clearly many of us feel something is missing. We want. We do not feel whole; we feel fragmented. Or perhaps we are so used to looking outside of ourselves that we need to relearn how to look within.

The wholeness that so many of us seem to be seeking is not something that we can obtain from outside of our selves. If we are lucky we can find people who can help point us in the right direction. But even this is hard to find in the outside world. As often as not, when we are looking outside for what we feel is missing, what we find winds up leading us in many different directions at once and heightening this sense of fragmentation. The true spiritual guide will help you access what is already inside you; will help you connect with that internal source of knowledge that is within each of us.

The hard part of this is that it takes a lot of self motivation and internal strength to really take responsibility for yourself. It is much easier to have someone else give you the answers. But it will mean much less if someone else has spoon fed you the answers to your problems. In the end those kinds of solutions can often wind up creating problems of their own. In fact, perhaps the solution, or the idea of a solution, might be part of the problem in the first place.

The idea of truth as other creates this complex response of searching for truth outside of ourselves. But life is our natural condition and understood correctly life is the result of the natural intelligence of the universe and at the same time life is the natural intelligence of the universe. Within each of us is contained this intelligence of life force. We are the result of this natural process: sun, stars, earth, water, plants. The interrelationships between the natural processes create and sustain all life on our planet. Without this natural process we cannot exist. By being alive we are participating in the life of the universe and all its natural wonder. We are not separate from source. At our deepest level, within, we are whole; we are the truth that we seek. We only need to realize this.

If you think about it there are very few things in the universe that are as amazing as the simple fact that we are alive in the first place. Nobody can really explain or fully understand how this is even possible. How is it that we are alive? What is this livingness that we are? This is a wonder as profound as any that can be experienced. Perhaps we don’t even need to realize this in the intellectual sense. We may just need to participate with awareness in the experience of our aliveness.

Here of course is the problem. We have forgotten how to experience life. We are so caught up in our day to day routines and in our expectations of how our lives are supposed to be that we end up forgetting or losing ourselves. And then, to try and ease the distressing feeling that we are not enough as we are, we search in the outside world for answers or for things to distract us from our current condition. An interesting example is what happens when we go to the movies. We go to watch and experience life vicariously through observing others pretending to feel and live and experience life. Somehow we feel the need to experience the emotions of life by watching others pretend to live for us. I want to be clear about this; this medium can be a powerful tool to help us connect with ourselves, to help us get in contact with, to re-experience and to understand certain things.

However, it is very easy for the misuse of this type of medium to heighten that fragmentation and that longing for wholeness. The effect of watching as others act out the lives we would like to live can easily end up implying that we are not enough as we are. One result of this is that the real situations of our lives are devalued, and, by trying to ignore and/or escape from them, we disconnect from the things that could actually help us improve our current situation. Another result is that we end up thinking that something really dramatic has to happen in our lives in order for us to feel and experience life deeply. We become anesthetized and then only extreme experiences will live up to our expectations of what life is supposed to be like. So recreational activities like jumping out of air planes or doing drugs are common place for many in our culture.

Even when someone begins to question things the tendency is to look outside. There is someone else who must have the answers or who must know better than we do ourselves. There is something to this. One of the hardest things when you are stuck in habitual patterns of behavior that are holding you back is to be able to see those patterns which are creating the problems. Although we all need some help in certain areas, the problem with looking outside comes if we expect to find someone who will take care of our problems for us; give us a cure or give us the answers to the problems so that they just go away without our having to do any of the real work for ourselves.

Of course the work can be hard, but usually when someone has enough of an idea of what is going on to formulate some questions, if they are directed appropriately, they will realize they actually know the answers to their questions as well. We have the answers within. We just need to learn how to access this. A true spiritual teacher may not give you the answers. He/she may instead show you how to find the right questions and the answers within yourself. A true teacher is like a person who can hold up a mirror to help you see parts of yourself which would have been hard to become aware of otherwise. This process is empowering because it gives you the understanding that you can learn how to take responsibility for your life yourself.

Of course, finding this source of wisdom within yourself is only the first step. The next would be actually beginning to understand how to get the actions in your life to be in harmony with the internal intelligence of this life force. Participating in this process of self discovery is a good part of what we need in order to experience ourselves as more whole. And although this can take a lifetime of striving, taking the first step can help things begin to fall into place.

I am suggesting a simple concept: you can start this process right now.

Just closing your eyes and allowing yourself to go within is a big step. Perhaps at first you will not see much. Or perhaps you will have the idea that there is something you are supposed to see. There is no doubt that our minds are powerful enough for us to imagine the whole universe within. Stars, galaxies, trees, flowers, the cells in our body, DNA; there is nothing that exists that is beyond the reach of our imaginations. There is nothing that you need to do besides close your eyes. Interestingly, the things that we need to deal with in order to feel more whole will often come up if we do this simple thing. Just closing your eyes will allow you to observe and participate in the life that you are; and the questions and answers to the issues that are seeking resolution within you are quite likely to come up on their own. With some thoughtful consideration and time you will be able to move through some of these issues a little more gracefully. Closing your eyes and allowing yourself to feel and experience the life current within you, as you live and breathe, will make it possible for you to bring a little of this self awareness into your everyday life. And this will help your thoughts, feelings and actions begin to align themselves with the inner intelligence of your life.

There are thousands of different teachings and thousands of different kinds of techniques. All have there benefits. Some teachings work better for certain individuals than others. Different types of techniques create slightly different results. But all paths ultimately have the potential to bring us in contact with the intelligence of life force. One technique that is quite powerful is almost not a technique at all. Just close your eyes and sit and watch as your thoughts wander. Let them wander. All you have to do is try to observe with self awareness as your thoughts come and go. It is so simple it is hard to imagine that this would do anything. But I am confident that, if you do this, something will happen and you will begin to see the vastness and majestic beauty of the night sky within.