Flexibility is fun, but a lot to manage.

Joyce Englander Levy

This biggest challenge in my yoga practice is flexibility. It feels like I have an unruly toddler living in my joints. It's a lot of fun, but equally a lot to manage. I spend a great deal of mental energy vigilantly trying not to exploit my flexibility. If I forget for one iota of an instant, there goes my elbows, ribs, or inner knees. Now, apparently, as a result of trying to ever-reign in my lower ribs, I've been depressing in my heart and disrupting my heart to chin connection, while still not fixing the rib issue. Enough already. I want to create sequences that will help me to:

A) Strengthen the muscles that support my hyper-mobile hinges (so I can stop thinking about it.)
B) Lift the heart without splaying my lower ribs
C) Tone my valves rather than clench internally

Philosophically, within the practice, I am exploring the gunas. What parts feel tamasic - reluctant, stuck, stagnate? Where do I need to apply more tamas - stability, immovability, structure. What parts feel rajasic - unstoppable, spreading like wildfire? Where do I need to apply more rajas - ignition, direction, infinite reach? What streams are sattvic - moving slowly and steadily towards the center? Where do I need to discover more sattva - ease of breath?

Sequence: 

1) Prone biceps, quadriceps, serratus posterior inferior strengthening pose. (build up to 14 seconds 3x)

Lying on stomach, block between hands, bend elbows & take block to shoulder blades. Low ribs are integrated and off the floor. Toes are tucked knees lift off from and lower to the floor to engage quads.

2) Plank on the forearms tapping the knees (build up to 14 seconds 3x)

Block between hands, refrain from touching a bolster under the ribs, raise and lower one knee at a time.

3) Constructive Rest Shape, but as a strength building pose

Block between the knees. Sandbag on lower ribs. Pincha arms with sandbag in the hands. First, raise the legs to 90 degrees, and then touch the toes to floor -  several times. Then keep elbows bent to 90 degrees, holding sandbag in hands, rotate arms overhead and back-up, repeat several times, keeping chest lifted, but sandbag on ribs is a reminder to keep tone here.

4) Uktatasana

Stand near a wall. One block between inner thighs (move it back), and one block between inner knees (move it forward).

Hands on the wall at the height of shoulder. Energetically drag the hands down like I am ironing out tension from my wrists.

Place strap around lower rib-cage as a reminder to pull back if it pokes forward. Can I lift the chest without the strap tightening in the front?

5) Vira 1 & Vira 2 at the wall

Front foot is on a block, and front shin is pressing a block into the wall. Centers the weight between both feet.

Headstand arms for Vira 1
Bicep curls for Vira 2

Strap around low front ribs to monitor the lift from the chest without splaying.

6) Pinchamayurasana at the wall

Strap around lower ribs.
Knees bent to a 90 degree angle with feet on wall. Bend and straighten one leg at a time tracking the knee cap, and engaging the quadriceps.

7) Downdog with hands & head on blocks

8) Sirasana 1 --> Sirsasana 2 --> Bakasana --> Uttanasana holding opposite elbows

9) Virasana --> Supta Virasana

10) Viparita Karani

Aditi Shah Fear After Injury

Overcoming Fear After Injury

Aditi Shah

Suffering from an injury and undergoing a slow healing process can often create fear and anxiety when approaching yoga postures which address the injured area.  A few years ago, I tore my labrum and rotated a disc in my neck – leading to many months of rest – and a fear of headstand.

Even though I was 100% cleared to do it, every time I would approach the idea of putting my head on the ground, fear and self-doubt would take over my mind and I would end up just staying in child’s pose.  After a while, the disappointment of not being able to come into headstand made me decide to change my approach.  I allowed myself to feel my fear and decided that I could move towards headstand in spite of it.  Here’s a sequence outlining an approach to sirsasana.

 Child’s Pose – bend elbows and press palms behind head

Adho Mukha Svanasana

Plank to Forearm Plank

Dolphin

Balasana

Sirsasana at the wall with blocks beneath shoulders at the wall to keep weight off of neck

Sirsasana Prep with feet on floor

(Over time, work on headstand prep with feet on the floor, pull one knee at a time into chest, come into egg shape, lift up)

Balasana

Supported Setu Bandha Sarvangasana

Savasana with bolster beneath knees

Deborah O'Brian Spilling My Guts

.Spilling My Guts by Deborah O'Brian

Manorma D’Alva - one of our resident Yoga Shanti Sanskrit instructors - compares this delicate language with dating and the art of flirtation.  She talks about the come hither look but the benefit of not giving away too much too soon. she went around the room one afternoon in Teacher Training and had us each take turns singing the sanskrit vowels.  So I “sang” it in my singer's voice and she said “you have a beautiful voice, but save a little prana for yourself”... 

Save prana for myself??? Nonsense, you have to “give it your all” “put in 110%”!!!  Right????

In my practice and in my life I find I’m “spilling my guts” when I’m not careful.  It had become my habit to give everything away about myself to anyone who was willing to listen in the hopes someone might be impressed.  This concept also applied to my yoga practice but to backbending in particular.  Each backbend was deeper than the next, the ribs and hips points cracked apart like an eggshell to reveal all of my insides spilling out. 

After relocating back to South Florida I’ve gone back to work at a trendy,  popular and high paced restaurant I called home for 5 years prior to living in NY.  With a buffet of new handsome, single co-workers at my fingertips, the art of flirtation and saving a little prana for myself has become of great importance to me.  I can see this container breach in my co-workers. Their physical posture changes as a hot tamale passes, they burst at the seams and their contents run out in the name of flirtation.  Where is the wink and the nod, the coy glance? Cracking open and spilling my guts now feels similar to jamming my sacrum forward.  It’s not flirting, it forcing.  Sanskrit is flowing and poetic yet we force ourselves into shapes in the name of yoga same as we do with love and life.

The rush of achieving something, of being “that girl” who can poke herself in the eye with her toe creeping up from behind her head, felt like being the pretty girl everyone wants to talk to. I was willing to sacrifice me and give all my prana away to do a circus trick for attention.  I was willing to give everything away about myself hoping to convince anyone listening that I was confident, secure and worth loving.  

Sometimes I still break open and lose a little too much, but I am starting to get a glimpse of the vast capacity of my container ;)

Today we will focus on “who am I?” You are valuable, you deserve to be loved and you don’t have to spill your guts to prove it.

Rod/Col Gems to weave into class: 

“What if you changed your concept of who you think you are, so that your container became as vast as the universe?”

“You don't become integrated. You give up your illusion that you're not integrated already.”

“I am not the pain/limitation in my (insert part of you here)”

“Prana rides the chariot of the breath”

“Leave a gateway for an inquiry” Ujayi Breath exploration to start. Make reference to this gateway in regard to the kidneys, sacrum, skull/neck- dome of the soft palate continues to lift with the seed of the exhale. 

Sequence leading to Pincha Mayurasana:

- Virasana - Kapalabati breath
- Supported Fish Pose with blocks under the shoulder blades and T spine softening in between the blocks - base of the skull pressing lightly down to leave space for the “3rd eye”
- DD with head hanging easy, say no and yes
- Tadasana- 2 Sunsalute B’s bent elbows in uttkatasana hands touching shoulder blades head released to broaden kidneys
- DD on forearms - plank on forearms 5 times - head easy gaze down the nose
- 10 dynamic squats from standing - butt poked out
- Triangle both sides
- Sphinx pose with cat cow initiated with the pushing and pulling of the forearms
- Baradvadrasana twist - swing into pigeon - no forward bend stay high on finger tips and cat cow here back toes press strongly -Virasana - repeat other side
- Vira 1 with block between hands - Vira 3 with block bend elbows to place block behind head, press base of skull to block and look forward, gaze down the nose - repeat other side
- Pincha with block btw both forefinger and thumb - work on finding cat cow when inverted 
- Constructive rest with block btw thighs and strap around them, hug arms across chest, press base of the skull toward the floor
- Sivasana