1. JasonDecember 11, 2015 at 6:22 PM

   Fluidity and Structure in The Hips
   
   The most difficult thing about my asana practice has been the physical limitation of my hips. After 17 years of having a yoga practice I watched with awe and patience as my legs, spine, inversions and breath practice all evolved and changed. After 17 years of a yoga practice I have grimaced, huffed, and puffed, while glowering at my two hips, Eduardo Sanchez and Hans Friedrich ( I have named them) as they look and feel exactly the same as when I started my practice. This can't be entirely true, that my hips haven't changed at all, but that's how it feels. I have owned up to my ego-centric envy as boys I have practiced alongside in yoga class, who have practiced a third of the time I have, just slide effortlessly in and out out of padmasa, galavasana, ardha matsyendrasana 3, tolasana and the like, as if they were playing a casual game of scrimmage on the campus lawn. I have never been able to understand or know for the sure what the basis of my hip limitation was. It could be structural, it could be muscular, it could even be energetic or emotional. Maybe it's a combination of all of it. I once asked Shiva Rea, one of my first teachers, what she thought about the idea that certain places in the body held specific emotional trauma and toxicity. For instance, if your calves are tight you are unfocused and aimless, if your hamstrings are tight you are an aggressive asshole, if your lower back hurts you don't trust yourself or your decisions. Although Shiva acknowledged that humans can and do hold emotional memory in their body, she told me not to fall for that false body code of neurosis. She thought the process of identification and exploration, svadhyaya, to be much more complex than that. I tend to agree. Still, the concept that our second chakra, svandhistana, is a spiritual hub of creativity, sexuality, and pleasure makes major sense to me. So when I approach the environment of my pelvic and hip region, I want to keep these fluid elements in mind. I have found that mindful and precise placement of props, along with a longer duration of time in hip opening postures have been helpful. They also feel damn satisfying, even though the visual results are not all that dramatic. The pay off is in how my knees and hips feel after. But if we were to take the vibration flow and fluidity of our second chakra into the sadhana of it all, I would think we have some sense of flow and play in it. Therefore, my idea would be do to the following 8 postures in almost a restorative sense. Allowing props, time and breath to really soak in the postures, for 1-3 minutes each, and then come back and around with an anjaneyasana version of surya namaskar and then flow through the 8 postures as more of a quick paced vinyasa sequence.
   1. Baddha Konasana
   2. Baddha Konasana with forward fold
   3. Marichyasana C
   4. Marichyasana D
   5. Ardha Matsyendrasana 3
   5. Parvritta Trikonasana
   6. Ekha Pada Rajakapotasana
   7. Galavasana
   8. Utthita Parsvakonasana
   9. 3 - 5 cycles of sivananda style surya namaskar with anjaneyasana
   10. Repeat poses 1-8 as a flow
   11. Savasana

   ReplyDelete
2. 
   Colleen SaidmanDecember 11, 2015 at 7:47 PM

   story has us in hysterics. what a great writer. I am stealing this for our focus of the month - (without the sequence) Marich. d??? ardha matsyandrasana 3? We were so excited that you were going to do restoratives which would make total sense...give us the restorative sequence that you were talking about....:)