I learned this great exercise from Susi Hately Aldous. Explore what your external rotation is like when you do pure movement at the hip joint – rather than compensate by shifting the pelvis or flattening the lower back.
In yoga asana, we often experience imbalance in our body, where certain muscles love to be powerful and to dominate – like our hip flexors – while others (our adductors and abductors) begin to soften, weaken, and become quiet. By bringing our bodies into balance and allowing each muscle to truly step back fully into its functional role, the whole of our system becomes more expansive, powerful, and expressive.
I learned this marvelous and simple exercise from Susi Hately Aldous. You’ll need a block and a strap.
Did you notice your hip flexors firing when you squeezed the block or pressed out into the strap? Most of us will. However, we don’t need our hip flexors to fire when we’re doing either of these actions. If your hip flexors fire, that is a sign of these big and overworked muscles are trying to take over for the adductors (inner thighs/ squeezing the block) or abductors (outer thighs/ pressing into the strap). Your muscular relationships have become co-dependent.
Here are some ways to bring this functionality into your asana. Empowering your boundaries will make your practice lighter, more functional, and more free. Now, having great boundaries isn’t necessarily “easy” – in fact, at first it might be harder – but it creates the groundwork for more power and personal expression.
In Surya Namaskar:
In your externally rotated poses (Warrior II, Side Angle, Triangle, Half Moon):
In Bakasana:
Crow pose is not only a balancing pose. And trying to balance your knees in your armpits will disconnect your midline and your core – the very support that you need to realize this pose effectively.
In Handstand
To do this, we’ll play with lifting both legs at the same time. If you have a regular handstand practice, add this into the mix to explore the connection of the inner and outer thighs.
Most of us know the importance of the inner thighs in handstand. After all, we squeeze the legs together like crazy once we’re up. Reinforce this action on the lift up by placing a block between the upper inner thighs as you hop up.
What have you noticed in these explorations?
Do you feel more integrated, lighter? Is there more or less space for your own growth and expression here?
Final thoughts
Creating strength in our adductors and abductors will free your power muscles to do their job with greater functionality and grace. Although waking them up may take a little effort and time, the greater result will be integration and ease.
I used to think that boundaries would make me hard, impermeable, rigid, un-loveable. But in fact, cultivating boundaries and unsticking ourselves gives us space to grow.
Having clear boundaries lets us nourish our internal goodness so that we can shine our best self forward. Then we have the strength to uphold others with compassion. We can serve as an inspiration to those needing to find love in their own eyes rather than the eyes of others.
In the Upanishads, it is said, “The pleasant is one thing. The good another.”
May we rise to the good.
Join me and the YYoga 200-hour teacher trainees as we explore how to do Full Wheel when there are wrist issues. Great modifications so that you can help make this pose accessible to all your students!
Clear and simple steps for how to do and teach headstand. Look at common misalignments in order to help your students find their best path to stability and lightness.
This video was filmed during YYoga‘s 200-hour Teacher Training Program.
These two styles look the same, so what’s the difference?
At YYoga, we make a distinction between Flow and Power. Now, these styles are very similar and use the same kinds of poses (sun salutations, standing poses, arm balances, inversions, complex backbends). They both derive from the Ashtanga tradition, which incorporates standing poses held for 5 breaths interposed with vinyasa. While there is also a temperature difference for our studios (Power classes are heated), the goals of each style are actually slightly different and will prompt us to use different tools as teachers.
Because they have similar components, we can envision Flow being on one end of the spectrum, and power on another. While we will use elements of both for our teaching, we can benefit from being clear about which side of the spectrum that we are playing with and WHY.
Power Classes
Flow Classes
As you’re creating your class, consider:
Happy Teaching!
Have you been in a class where any of the following have occurred:
Alright.
So before we chat about how to flow SMART, let’s talk about why we flow, period.
Why We Flow
“Flow” yoga has its roots in Ashtanga yoga, where practitioners interpose a vinyasa (Chaturanga-updog-downwdog) between most static poses. Each pose is held for five breaths, and the breath links the practice from its absolute beginnings until Savasana. This steady, meditative practice invites a profound connection with the inner body, the breath, and the core.
It’s also a set sequence.
Flowing is a heck of a lot easier when you know where you’re going.
However, now we have “flow” classes that are not set sequences. In fact, the pressure is on for teachers to create increasingly wild and creative sequences so that students stay engaged and – dare I say – entertained by the class. In other words, rather than addressing the crazy fluctuations of their minds through slow one-pointed focus, students are craving classes that bulldoze these fluctuations by replacing them with something so consuming that it is impossible to focus on anything else. Oh right – and then add music.
Now, despite my cute tone, this is not a bad thing.
After all, meditation is the process of giving the practitioners something to harness their attention to. If the bells and whistles need to be a little louder in order to break through our insane headspace, then I’m all for it.
But what I’m not a fan of is reckless transitions.
Why our Flow can get gnarly
In our zeal to create a powerful flow sequence, we can get carried away by our own invention. And we also forget that:
SMART FLOW! Rule number 1:
Here’s the number one rule of flowing smart: in transitions, keep the action of the hips the same.
What this means:
That’s it. This simple protocol will keep your students knees and lower backs happy. And hopefully keep them from falling over.
Does this mean never break the rules? No, of course not. But be sensible about it. If you are going to change the action of the hip, you must change the foundation of the pose and you must therefore TEACH the transition.
This means that instead of saying, “Warrior I, okay now takeWarrior II…”, you’d have to say something like:
Phew!
Or you could just link Warrior II to similarly externally rotated standing poses such as Side Angle, Triangle, and Half Moon and spare yourself some trouble and verbiage.
If you want to really flow – that is, move fairly quickly through yoga asana in order to create a dynamic movement experience – then it is sensible to link poses smartly and safely so that you can maximize your students’ stability and enjoyment of their practice. Smart Sequencing will allow them to think about their breath and not about their ouchy knee.
SMART FLOW! Rule number 2:
Always use a stabilizing cue.
In your transitions, ask yourself, “What is at risk in this transition?” Then offer a quick cue to stabilize the student against this risk factor as you move them through the action. For example:
Now these are pretty straight-forward, but you can apply the same principle to more complex transitions.
Linking “like with like” and using stabilizing cues in your transitions will keep your students connected and safe while allowing you to create to your heart’s content.
Happy Flowing!
My IT Band is tight.
Tiiiiiiight.
Or more correctly, I should say that my gluteus maximus, which feeds into and inserts on the IT band, is tight, so that the resulting pull tautens the IT band. (“IT” stand for “ilio-tibial”, and this band is a swath of connective tissue that runs from the pelvis to the outer knee. The glute maximus and the tensor fasciae latae insert into it.)
Here’s an IT band loving sequence that culminates in Eka Pada Koundinyasana A – a crazy extension of Side Crow (Parsva Bakasana).
Eka Pada Koundinyasana A
Component Parts:
Now, to be fair, this is really more a pose about the torso’s rotation and flexion than about the IT band…but, I think it warrants the exploration.
Here’s the sequence I used:
I place my hands on the ribcage and twist from there, then release the arms and keep the twist to work the obliques. Finally, we leverage the twist by using the arms to find the full range of motion.
My teacher Chris Richardson introduced this to me. Come into Uttanasana. Place your hands on blocks and then turn around to the right on your feet so that they face the back of your mat and your legs are crossed. Then continue to walk your hands further to the right (you can place them on blocks) as you like. Press through the big toe mound of your left foot and shift your hips further back to the left until you feel a stretch through the outer hip.
Eka Pada Koundinyasana A – take off sequence
Happy arm balancing!
Rachel
You know it.
You love it, you hate it. You love to hate it.
It’s plank pose.
What’s plank pose?
Also known as “Phalakasana,” plank pose is a modification of Chaturanga Dandasana (“four-limbed staff pose”), which is doozy of a core stabilizer found in the traditional Sun Salutations. Plank looks like a high push up position; Chaturanga is pretty much the same pose, but with the elbows bent to ninety degrees. In a traditional Sun Salutation, practitioners jump back from a preparatory pose directly into Chaturanga – a challenging move even for advanced practitioners. To better control this transition, we usually step back to plank first, and then lower down into Chaturanga.
Uses of Plank
Although it has humble beginnings as a modification, plank has become quite the showstopper in its own right. Forearm plank is held for a minute in the YHot practice to help practitioners develop their core strength and stability. Plank is used in power and flow classes to create heat in the body, cultivate scapular stabilization, improve core strength, and act as an intermediary through transitions.
Anatomy of Plank
Plank pose is a lot of work for the upper body. The shoulder girdle is intrinsically a joint of mobility, not stability (this ball and socket joint actually looks more like a baseball stuck to a plate). In order for the practitioner to effectively manage his or her body weight, he or she must actively recruit the larger muscles of the back to stabilize the scapulae (the shoulder blades), so that the rotator cuff (the four little muscles that hold the humerus to the shoulder blade) isn’t struggling to bear the burden.
The primary muscles that keep the scapulae happily secure are the rhomboids, the trapezius, and the serratus anterior. They work in opposition to each other to make sure that the shoulder blades don’t “wing out” or slide too far afield. You can understand their respective actions through the following exercise:
When these muscles act together effectively, the scapulae stay well-secured on the back for plank – and ultimately for the transition to Chaturanga.
Finding your awesome plank pose
To find your plank, first find and excellent foundation:
Now, engage your scapular stabilization:
Now find your core:
Add the pelvis:
Add the legs:
Plank to Chaturanga
Once you are able to hold your plank solidly for 5 breaths, you are ready to explore lowering to Chaturanga. Through this transition, it is vitally important to keep your scapulae securely on your back. We often allow the shoulder heads drop forward and down as we lower, which is a compensation can be injurious for the rotator cuff over time.
To come into Chaturanga:
Modifications and Variations
Here’s a couple common modifications to make plank more accessible:
To increase the intensity of the pose:
Happy Planking!
To master an arm balance, you must master your booty.
Seriously.
Your pelvis is heavy, and knowing where to put it during an arm balance will make a big difference in your ability to distribute your weight effectively and ultimately find lightness and ease in your pose.
Balancing in an arm balance is about:
Okay, okay, naturally you need core strength. But not as much as you think. Place your weight smartly, and you will use less tension, find more ease, and gain levity and freedom in your arm balances.
Tip #1: Maintain excellent hand positioning
To protect your weight in arm balances, weight all four corners of the hand evenly. For most of us, this means pressing more firmly into the index finger mound. Without adult supervision, weight will naturally roll to the outer heel of the hand. But we have a lovely little nerve in there called the ulnar nerve (if you’ve ever had numbness in the outer hand after practicing, the compression of this little guy may be the reason why). There is also a nerve in our carpal tunnel called the median nerve. Keeping weight into our fingertips and medial palm edge will take the weight off of the heel of the hand and help you to protect both these nerves from over-compression. Weighting into the fingertips will also give you more control of your weight – just like your toes help you to balance when you’re standing.
Tip #2: Maintain shoulder stability
Our shoulder girdle is only attached skeletally in one little place: the meeting point of the collarbone and sternum. That’s it. That’s all the skeletal support you’ve got when you’re balancing on your hands. Therefore, you need excellent muscular stabilization through your back and your shoulders to support your arm balance effectively. In the YYoga TT, we employ the actions, “lift your back ribs while you draw your shoulder blades together on your back” in order to recruit both sets of muscles that will stabilize the scapulae effectively. In a nutshell, this means that the shoulders and the back body must become a place of support. While it becomes tempting in arm balances to drop our shoulders down to the floor, we must earnestly continue to stabilize the shoulder blades on the back rather than collapse into gravity.
Think of lowering into chaturanga. Effectively lowering from plank to chaturanga means that our shoulder blades stay on our back and that the heads of the arm bones stay lifted towards the sky. When the shoulder heads drop, we place far too much pressure on the front of the rotator cuff and joint. Similarly in arm balances, we must lift the heads of the arm bones skyward to maintain adequate stabilization of this shallow joint.
Tip #3: Core strength
You knew it would be in here. Yes, you need core strength. However, core strength isn’t just about your six-pack. Core strength means finding the connection from your big toes through the inner seams of your legs, through the pelvis floor and into the deepest layer of your abdominals, the transverse abdominus. In a nutshell, find your “leg magnets” (as Chris Clancy might say) that link the inner seams of your legs together. This engagement through the legs will naturally lift the pelvis floor and help you to deeply engage your core.
When doing an arm balance, we usually have our upper leg against our upper arms: use this connection to assist you in finding the muscular engagement of the inner leg. Also, remember that your toes are part of your body, too. By maintaining awareness from toes to pelvis, you will be able to recruit the legs to work for you so that they are not dead weight.
Tip #4: Control your booty
When doing a pose like bakasana (crow), the booty actually needs to be down. Lifting the bum high will disconnect you from your core connection and make the pose more precarious. By keeping the tailbone down and lifting vigorously through the sides of your waist, you will recruit more muscular stability in the pose, rather than teetering in a balance.
However, in other poses such as Eka Pada Galavasana, Parsva Bakasana (side crow), and Eka Pada Koudinyasana, we must keep our bum high. Letting the pelvis drop in these poses will deflate the integrity of the pose and make it much harder to shift your weight forward to take the weight off of the feet and find your balance. While core integrity is necessary, lift off in these poses depends on your ability to control your weight in space – much like we move weight in a teeter totter. When the pelvis stays high, you have the ability to shift the chest forward in space, which will allow the legs and back body to become light and eventually float. If the pelvis drops, everything will move earthward and the levity of the pose will dissipate.
Playing in the poses
Bakasana (Crow): Booty low
Eka Pada Koundinyasana: Booty High
Bonus Tip #5: Patience
Arm balances are not natural for human kind. After all, we don’t often find ourselves suddenly falling into an arm balance as we walk down the street! Naturally, it takes time for our body to become confident balancing weight onto our hands. Be patient, work slowly, and the support and ease that you cultivate will put in you in an excellent position for coming into flight.
In the meantime, the conscientious practice of the following poses are excellent warm ups to include in your preparations:
Happy practicing!
Spring into Spring!
Flowers are blooming, sprouts are sprouting, the sun is out in Vancouver, which means that it’s time to do handstand!
Inversions are asana of marvelous integration, asking us to stabilize our mobile shoulder joints and connect all of our moving pieces together – no small task while we’re all topsy turvy. The opportunity to explore ourselves in an unfamiliar orientation lets us experience our cells, our blood, our organs and muscles in a new way. We literally get to turn our world upside down.
Physically, inverting give the blood and lymph in our legs the opportunity to race back heartwards via the force of gravity. Our organs move and settle in a different orientation. Blood moves into our brain and offers these vital tissues an oxygen bath. The upper body gets a fantastic work out. And psychologically, we practice courage and a sense of play by moving into the unknown.
There are many different kinds of inversions. Downward Facing Dog and Forward Fold are great “light” inversions that we practice all the time. (In a “light inversion,” the head is below the heart, but the rest of the body and the blood column in the legs isn’t adding any additional pressure.) To do a “full” inversion, the entire weight of the body is transmitted and supported through the shoulder girdle rather than the pelvis and we bring our legs over our head.
Before inverting, there are a couple of sensible precautions to keep in mind. As we will be increasing the amount of the fluid in the brain, active inversions should not be practiced if you’re experiencing high blood pressure or have a history of stroke. If you’ve had recent eye surgery or have glaucoma, raising the pressure in the eye is also not recommended. A more passive inversion – like legs up the wall – is a great alternative that imparts lots of juicy inversion benefits while keeping the head and heart at the same level.
Are you ready to invert?
Our shoulder girdle is a marvelous, mobile joint that allows us to reach out through our arms and experience the world. However, it’s only attached to our skeleton in one little place: right between your collarbone and your sternum! This lack of bony attachment means that the support of the shoulder girdle comes from the muscular stability around the joint and from the muscles of the chest and back. If we’re going to fully invert, then we need to ensure that we have enough integrity here to support our body. Additionally, we have to get our arms all the way overhead by our ears without losing the connection to our core, which requires a good bit of shoulder flexibility.
To find out if you’re ready to do handstand, investigate the following poses as a warm up:
If these poses are going well, then it’s time to move onto handstand.
How to do Handstand:
Stage I:
Stage 2:
Stage 3:
Most importantly, after doing handstand, take the time to absorb what you feel.
In child’s pose or seated on your heels, close your eyes and feel the rush of blood and life force that is coursing through your body. Take several deep, smooth breaths.
Enjoy!
What exactly is the shoulder? And why do they get so freakin’ stuck when we try to lift our arms ove
rhead?
Two Joints of the Shoulder
The shoulder is actually two joints in one: the gleno-humeral joint (the ball and socket joint where the upper arm connects to your shoulder blade) and the scapulo-thoracic joint (a functional joint where the shoulder blade slides around on the back ribs). In order to lift your arm up more than about 30 degrees to the side, you have to actually have to move your shoulderblade on your back. (Go ahead: try to lift your arm overhead without moving your shoulder blade – not going to happen).
When we do this motion, the shoulder blades have to protract – that is, they move away from each other and wrap forward on your ribcage (check out the pic). They also they upwardly rotate, which means that the inner border of your shoulder blade actually moves down as the outer edges move up.
“Draw your shoulders down.”
When we’re in yoga class and lifting our arms, we often hear the phrase, “Draw your shoulder blades together” or “draw your shoulder blades down.” These actions are counter-intuitive to the actual bio-mechanics of the shoulder blade on the back. While a small degree of these actions can create stability, too much will restrict your freedom of movement.
When teachers say, “bring your shoulders down,” they are actually trying to get you to relax your upper trapezius. The traps are the muscles at the base of your neck that love to overact and make your shoulders look all crunchy like. While relaxing your traps is a good idea here, we need to remember that part of the shoulder blade must actually be going UP in order to get your arms overhead. Trying to drag the whole shoulder blade down can create constriction and lessen our freedom of movement.
To get freedom in the shoulders as you lift your arms:
Still tight?
Some of the muscle that can restrict us when we lift our arms up:
Try some dedicated, long stretches for these muscles to open them up. Then explore again and see if one of these has been the culprit.
Happy exploring!
Tonight in class, one of my students asked me to expand on the response article to “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body,” particularly as it relates to two asana: shoulderstand and headstand.
Headstand and Shoulderstand – labelled the King and Queen of Asana by Iyengar for their therapeutic properties – got a bad rap in the NYTimes article. And no wonder. These are high demand poses, asking practitioners to support the entire weight of their body with their mobile shoulder girdles. Unfortunately, some practitioners foray into them before they’ve developed the strength and flexibility to sufficiently support their body weight, which means that they are slinging weight instead into their cervical spine.
How to Protect yourself in Headstand
Tip 1: First of all, practice Sirsasana A, not B. Sirsasana A is performed with the forearms on the floor and the hands interlaced behind the head. Sirsasana – also called tripod headstand, or teddy bear – is done with head on the floor and the hands flat, elbows at a 90 degree angle. The problem here is clear: in Sirsasana A, you have the opportunity to use your the muscles of your arms and back to take weight off of your neck, while in Sirsasana B, there is no choice but for your cervical spine to bear weight.
I know, I know. Some of you have heard that Sirsasana B is “easier.” It’s not easier, it’s more accessible. There is a critical difference between the two. It’s more accessible because it doesn’t require your shoulders to be as open and you have an easier time balancing. However, it’s far more treacherous for your neck since your head is weight-bearing.
Tip 2: Support yourself on your forearms, not your head. Although yogis extol the virtue of stimulating the crown chakra by having the head on the floor, I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s probably wiser to start by protecting your neck. Keep your head light, and root like heck through your forearms – especially during your transitions. Worry about the subtle body after you take care of your spine.
Tip 3: Never jump or hop into headstand. Be patient. There’s no gold pot of liberation once you get up there, so practice until your body can smoothly and safely sustain the transition. Therein lies the actual reward.
Tip 4: Neck feel cramped? Some of us have lovely long necks. If this is you, there won’t be any amount that you can press through your forearms to get the weight off your head because your proportions will make this impossible. Instead, place blankets under your forearms evenly so that your arms are artificially longer. Presto. Instantly reliever for neck compression. Now press down your forearms with gusto and get the weight off your neck.
Tip 5: Keep your neck in its natural curve. Take care when you’re on your head (even though you’re not putting a lot of weight there), to ensure that you are not rolling forward or back on you head, but that you can lengthen through all four sides of the neck evenly. Maintaining the natural curve of your cervical spine will protect the delicate vertebrae of your cervical spine, which are not designed to be weight bearing.
How to Protect Yourself in Shoulderstand
1. Use blankets. For the love of God. Please. I know you want to “get into the pose already” and going and getting props is a drag (especially when the teacher doesn’t suggest them), but trust me. For the long terms health of your neck, there’s nothing to lose and everything to gain by folding some blankets and putting them under your shoulders so that you’ve got some space for your neck. Here’s why: when we’re in shoulderstand, the weight should actually be on the triceps, elbows, shoulders and (slightly) the back of the head – not the upper thoracic spine or the neck. Most of us can’t sufficiently lift through our upper backs (nor do we have the opening in our shoulders in extension) to get our vertebrae off the floor without props. So instead, we wind up putting all of our body weight on our upper spine, rounding through the upper back, and bringing the neck into extreme flexion. While this may not bother you now, over time this can cause an over lengthening of the ligaments in the back of the neck that protect the natural cervical curve. Read more about this in Roger Cole’s Yoga Journal article.
Dr. Jeremy Brook add, “As a chiropractor, the problem I have with shoulderstand relates to most people’s habitual patterns, injuries and structural imbalances. Many people sit at a desk for hours, collapse on their sofa and sleep on their stomachs. While this example is extreme, most modern bodies are far different from those of the ancient yogi who practiced asana hours each day, meditated, read sacred texts and slept on a hard straw bed. Thus, a modern practitioner may possess the same spirit, but in a body with a far different, and likely compromised, neck. ”
2. Do a modified pose if you don’t have blankets. Grab a block and come into a restorative shoulderstand with your hips on a blocks, legs up, and your upper back essential in bridge pose. Same benefits, much less risk on the cervical spine.
3. If you’re a teacher, then Teach the Pose. Let’s get rid of the habit of tossing shoulderstand in as an “if you want to,” or “if it’s in your practice” last minute offering. Take some time, get out the props, teach it conservatively, and let’s reclaim the therapeutic potential of this Queen of Asana. Maybe then it can really become the “the greatest boons conferred on humanity by our ancient sages” (Iyengar, Light on Yoga).
The New York Times recently ran an article, “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body,”that has a rather sensational and silly title and a fairly simple point: doing yoga can cause injuries. The article, citing the musings of yoga teacher Glenn Black, references the medley of yoga injuries that have been developing through the West over the last ten years. The article whispers to us in horror: ‘Black has come to believe that “the vast majority of people” should give up yoga altogether. It’s simply too likely to cause harm.’
The response to this: Well, duh.
Of course it can cause injuries.
Hatha Yoga (which includes power, flow, Anusara, “hatha”, and every other physical form of yoga) is a physical, bio-mechanical practice. Ask any yoga teacher and – if they’re over 30 and being honest – you’re likely to find some sort of medical history. To share my personal trophies, I’ve torn my hamstring in Prasarita Padottanasana, damaged the meniscus in my knee from too many lotus attempts, and dislocated a rib facet falling out of handstand. And these days, with the emphasis on “getting” handstand in the middle of the room to be a “real yogi” or pushing through thirty chaturangas in a class to “test your edge”, it’s no wonder that we are limping to the physio and crying to our RMT’s. But before you gasp in shock and tremble because yoga is supposed to be a cure all, listen up. Injury and stress is the nature of any repetitive physical endeavor done passionately over time. I’ve also tweaked my hamstring playing touch football on the beach, damaged my wrist skiing, and hurt my back in Cross Fit. Golf causes injuries. Martial Arts causes injuries. I may be going out on a limb, but I bet you can develop repetitive stress injuries in swimming too.
Anyone who expects yoga to be a panacea for all ills isn’t paying attention. The author of the article, William Broad, describes his experience: “While doing the extended-side-angle pose, a posture hailed as a cure for many diseases, my back gave way. With it went my belief, naïve in retrospect, that yoga was a source only of healing and never harm.” William, thank you for the wake up call. We should all set our naivete aside. Living on this plane of existence with muscles, bones, tendons, and blood, we are subject to the forces of time and aging. We move in a world of form and limitation. Expecting yoga to transcend the nature of this Universe is like expecting dinner to cook itself or time to move backwards.
Does this mean you shouldn’t do yoga?
Absolutely not.
Yoga is revelatory for self-connection. Yoga wakes you up and asks you to breathe. Yoga cultivates strength, suppleness, and fluidity. Yoga asks you to commit to your deepest and most passionate self and cultivate a deep inquiry into your life and your place in this world. Yoga is a tool for helping you to become more fully yourself. And – when done mindfully and with kick ass alignment – yoga heals. So yes, do your freakin’ yoga.
But here are some tips:
Yoga is one of the best things that has happened in my life. If you’re reading this, my bet is that it’s transformed you, too. But let’s remember what our yoga is really about: self-revelation, compassion, and a deep connection with the world. Yoga is a tool for co-creating with the Universe; for nourishing our bodies, minds, and hearts and exploring the wonder of our own expression while we live on this marvelous world.
Do your yoga.
Just do your yoga smart.
Who doesn’t like sugarcane in the moonlight? De-lish.
But let’s face it, getting into this variation of Half Moon (Ardha Chandrasana) can test your balance, flexibility, and coordination as you reach back and grab your lifted leg. Never fear, here are some tips that help make this elusive pose more accessible.
First, to approach the pose, we must understand its component parts. Let’s start with Ardha Chandrasana:
External Rotation of Standing Leg
The key to Half Moon is the strong external rotation of the bottom leg. (Think about it for a moment: the bottom leg. Often we get confused and think it’s the lifted leg in rotation, but actually the lifted leg is neutral.) The strong external rotation of the lower leg is counterbalanced by the drawing in of the lower shin and anchoring of the inner edge of the bottom foot. Together, these two actions create a diagonal spiral effect that keeps your standing leg stable. Against the external rotation of the standing thigh, the pelvis can open to the side plane. If you lose the anchor of external rotation, the standing knee will collapse in, the booty will swing with abandon to the back plane, the the containment of the pose will be lost.
Great poses to teach this external rotation in a non-balancing position: Warrior II (Virabhadrasana II), Triangle (Trikonasana), Gate (Parighasana), Side Angle (Parsvakonasana).
Hamstrings/ Adductors
The standing leg hamstring must be open, as well as some of the adductors. Imagine triangle pose on its side, so the back leg is now in the air, and you have Half Moon with a balance added. Good standing poses for opening the hamstrings: Uttanasana, Triangle (Trikonasana), Wide-legged forward fold (Prasarita Padottanasana), Hanumanasana and Ardha Hanumanasana (splits), Pyramid (Parsvottanasana), and Standing Hand to Foot Pose (Utthita Hasta Padangustasana).
In traditional Half Moon, the torso stays steady in all three plane so that it is like Tadasana, but with the arms wide. If the neck is comfortable, the gaze anchors to the top hand.
Getting into Ardha Chandrasana
To move into Ardha Chandrasana effectively, you must impress upon your students the imprint of the external rotation of the standing leg so that you can steady the knee appropriately. Without this rotation, the inner knee will collapse in and the foundation will usually become unsteady. The knee will torque and the lift that we need out of the standing leg will deflate. Rooting through the inner edge of the bottom foot while strongly externally rotating the standing leg thigh will create a powerful dual action to steady the lateral lines of the leg.
For this reason, coming to the pose from another externally rotated pose is ideal. Trikonasana is an obvious choice, but Parsvakonasana (Side Angle) is also effective. Once you have transferred your weight to the standing leg, pause, and bend the standing leg knee. With the knee bent, you can clearly discern the efficacy of your external rotation. Strongly wrap the standing leg buttock under you until the sitting bone actually feels like it’s sliding towards your lifted leg. When this action is effectively performed, your standing leg knee will again track over the center of your ankle.
Now, maintaining that rotation and lateral engagement, begin to straighten your leg by rooting strongly through the standing leg heel. Because you’ve entered the pose from Trikonasana or Parsvakonasana, the torso is likely already facing the side. Maintain the rotation of the bottom leg as you open the pelvis further. (Rather than turning your chest, first turn your pelvis.) Where the pelvis leads, the body follows.
In traditional Ardha Chandrasana, the body is essentially in Tadasana with the arms wide, except the bottom leg is strongly externally rotating.
Ardha Chandrachapasana
When we elevate the pose to Ardha Chandrachapasana, we add two elements: the bending of the top leg and a backbend.
Adding a thigh stretch to the upper leg requires balance, coordination, and open hip flexors. Prepare for the action of this variations in non-balancing poses such as Anjaneyasana (low lunge), Crescent (high lunge), and variations with a thigh stretch. I recommend doing a low lunge with a thigh stretch where the student reaches back with the ipsilateral hand for the leg, in order to imprint of holding the foot with the same side hand in ACC. Awkward pigeon with a thigh stretch is also an interesting warm up, as the hip are mimicking some of the actions of ACC: the front leg is externally rotating while the back thigh’s hip flexors are stretching.
Backbending requires thoracic extension, which can be efficiently added to poses like lunges and thigh stretches, and warmed up separately in poses such as Bhujangasana (cobra), sphinx, and Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Upward Dog).
Putting it Together
To enter the pose from Ardha Chandrasana, the obvious transition is to simply bend the top knee and reach for the top of the foot. However, this is frequently inaccessible to many students. Another way in is to bend both knees and actually draw your top knee into your chest. For most, this makes it easier to find the top foot. From this contracted position, actively hug towards the core of the body until you are stable. Then, unfurl the pose by pressing your back knee towards the back of the mat. The back thigh stays parallel to the floor; watch the tendency to float the knee towards the ceiling, which diminishes the stretch of the front of the thigh.
Like Ardha Chandrasana, the external rotation of the bottom leg is essential. That rotation is the “brake” that allows the body to then uncurl into a backbend. Without the hip drawing under, there is little leverage for the body to move back. With the bottom leg still bent, reaffirm the external rotation of the leg by drawing the hip firmly under and lengthening your tailbone towards the lifted knee. Now keep that strong action as you begin to draw the shoulder heads and the throat back and open the chest. The foot and the hand form a reinforcing energetic loop; press the foot strongly into the top hand to further open the heart. When the body is steady, take the gaze to the ceiling.
Releasing the pose
Coming out of the pose is just important an opportunity as coming into the pose. Bring your gaze to the floor to create a visual anchor. Re-establish the steadiness of the bottom leg. Energetically maintain the bend of the top leg as you release it from your hand and bring the spine back to Tadasana. Re-connect to the external rotation of the bottom leg as you step back to Trikonasana or Parsvakonasana.
Playtime
Experiment with this pose at the wall. Place your standing foot parallel to the wall and about 18 inches away (everyone’s distance will be a little different, you’ll adjust if you need to.) Come into Ardha Chandrasana. Then bend the top leg and place the top of the foot on the wall behind you. With this third point of contact, the body will have a chance to settle more so that you can work the actions without worrying so much about balance. Also, you can explore the actions here without actually holding on the foot.
If possible, reach back to hold onto the top foot. Otherwise, wrap your standing leg hip under, press the top foot into the wall, and begin to explore the opening of the backbend with the top arm simply lifted towards the sky. The connection of the foot to the wall will begin to imprint the actions of the pose into the body.
Urdhva Dhanurasana (Upward Bow, also known as “Wheel”) is one of the most delicious and expansive of yoga asana, inviting a full opening of the “Eastern,” or front, side of the body. As in all yoga asana, the stability (sthira) of the back body is essential for supporting the full expansion and sweetness (sukha) of the front body. Also, Urdhva Dhanurasana calls for a profound opening in the hips and shoulders in order to access the fullest expression of the spine. Since the body has to put all these parts together effectively, accessing the full expression of this pose can sometimes be elusive.
However, with some preparation and variation, the benefits of this pose can be readily be made available to a wide range of students.
Component Parts
Hips
Finding the full range of motion in the lower body for Urdhva Dhanurasana is more than a matter of spinal flexibility. For most of us, we can find about 45 degrees of mobility through the spine, and an additional 15 degrees of extension between the hips and the thighs. What this means is that in order to access the full “bow-ness” of Upward Bow, we must be conscious to open the hips as well as the back.
The muscles to target here are the psoas, iliacus, and rectus femoris (one of the quads). By effectively opening these muscles, over time the full hip extension of Urdhva Dhanurasana becomes accessible. While opening the quads can be targeted through thigh stretches (think low lunge, bending the back knee, and drawing the heel towards the buttock), the ilio-psoas needs to be stretched by a differential between the angle of the back thigh and the pelvis. Crescent and Upright Low lunge are great candidates. When stretching the psoas, the back leg will often turn out in a clever attempt to avoid the stretch. Focus on softening the upper inner thigh of the back leg towards the back plane of the body until the thigh is neutral in the socket. Once space and alignment is created, the anchoring of the tailbone down will create the posterior action needed to begin stretching this important muscle.
Because the psoas attaches all the way up the lumbar spine towards T12, conscious alignment of the hips is one half of the equation. Note that in the stretch, the lumbar and thoracic spine will want to pull forward in space. Instead, consciously draw the lower belly and sides of the waist back and up (almost like scooping your belly with an ice cream scoop). This lifting and scooping action will draw the superior fibers of the psoas away from its insertion on the back thigh. Like ice cream: delicious.
Shoulders
Urdhva Dhanurasana requires a lot of openness through the shoulders. Invariable, this is why some of our sturdier male students remain landlocked on the ground. The arms need the facility to flex fully at the shoulder joint. External rotation of the upper arm is preferred to help anchor the scapulae firmly on the back. Prepare the body for this position by focusing on poses that get the arms above the head: crescent, chair. One of my favorite poses is to do Chair (utkasana) with a block firmly positioned between the hands. Work on pressing your hands into the block as you externally rotate the upper arms, straighten the arms, and then lift them overhead. Once you’ve worked in these positions, move the body in weight-bearing positions to open the shoulders in such asana as dolphin and handstand.
Thoracic Spine
Naturally, a backbend ain’t a backbend without the extension of the thoracic spine. Start small and target the upper back through poses such as cobra and sphinx. Once the upper back has been educated, then you can move to fully spine extensions such as full cobra and updog. When working in spinal extension, it is important to maintain the stability of the lower back in order to avoid over-compressing in the lumbar and lower thoracic. The lower back is the backbendiest place of the spine, and the juncture between the lumbar and thoracic is particularly mobile. While we do use this mobility when we backbend, we don’t want to overly capitalize on it and neglect the opening that needs to occur in the upper spine. Create length and stability by maintaining a broadness in the mid and lower back and focus your backbending efforts higher up. Use the external rotation of the upper arms to facilitate a greater sense of drawing the scapulae into the back. This will help with your thoracic extension. (Try it: do a mini standing backbend with your arms externally rotated, then internally rotated – which is easier?)
The pumpkin
The buttocks in backbending can become overly zealous. My teacher Catherine Munro called this phenomenon the “pumpkin.” While the glutes work, we want to be careful that they don’t overly engage. The secondary action of the glutes is to externally rotate the thigh, which can lead to compression through the lower back and inability to lengthen the tailbone. Use the muscular midline (adductors, internal rotators) to keep the legs neutral even when the glutes engage.
You can teach proper engagement in your backbends, but also in poses such as crescent or 3-legged dog, where the back leg needs to find a slight internal rotation to bring it back to neutral.
Getting up there- Two hand positions
After you warm up your students thoroughly and appropriately, start your students in bridge and confirm the neutral placement of the feet. The feet – as a distal reflection of the thighs – will attempt to turn out when the glutes engage. Use midline to keep the legs (and feet) parallel. As your students lift into bridge, confirm the action of the legs and pelvis in this non-weight bearing position.
From here, they place their hands in position #1: by the ears and close. The proximity of the hands to the head will give them more muscular access to lifting up.
Once they come onto their heads, widen the hands into hand position #2, which creates a little more space into the shoulder girdle. While they will have less power to press up, most students appreciate the extra space. They can also turn their hands out slightly to create even more room.
Now it is time to affirm the lift into the thoracic spine and appropriate action of the shoulders – before they become weight-bearing through their arms. Have your students roll towards their hairline to draw their chest forward through their arms as they root the upper arms bones back into their sockets (towards their hips). This will anchor the scapulae on the back. From here, they can then press into the hands and feet evenly (watch the feet don’t move – continue to hug the midline) to come up.
There are two variations of Urdhva Dhanurasana. In variation 1, the student works to create an even bow through the whole body, with the pelvis and ribs level. While this is easier on the shoulders, it’s harder on the wrists as they are at a very acute angle. In version 2, the student begins to bring their shoulders forward over their wrists (see pic above). Easier on the wrists, but asking for lots of space in the shoulders. Eventually, you can take version 2, then walk the feet in as is comfortable to tighten the bowstring. Students should maintain the capacity to feel grounded in the feet (good for standing up eventually from this pose) as well as rooted in the hands (great for shoulder opening). Here’s a tip from Asthanga teacher Chris Richardson: To keep the lower back long, move everything from the navel through the thighs towards the feet, while the navel through the back spine reaches forward into the hands. Move both parts of the body away from each other to create spaciousness in the center.
If you have students who are limited through their shoulders, you can have them hold your ankles. They should place the webbing of their hands into the crease where your leg and foot meet and hold there, rather than wrapping their hands around your lower leg. (Make sure to keep your feet on the wide side.) Otherwise their hands will slide down to your feet anyway, giving you a you an unwelcome skin massage.
One step at a time
Many times students will forget about the foundation in the excitement of getting up and turn their feet and leg out every which way in an effort to “do the full pose.” While this may be initially exciting, it is far better to proceed with patience so that the whole body can be integrated in the pose – from the toes to the fingers. Otherwise, cranky low backs will ensue rather than the adrenal stimulating, expansive awakening that Urdhva Dhanuarasana provides.
The”full expression” of Urdhva Dhanurasana allows you to leverage the action of the arms to open the upper back and chest, your students in bridge are still experiencing the delights of spinal extension. Over time and patient practice, the body will become more receptive and open to this luxurious expression. Warm up intelligently, manage your foundation and actions, and allow the pose to unfold from there.
Headstand is like the grandpappy of inversions. Unlike the 5-year old exuberance of handstand, or the slightly more moderated enthusiasm of forearm stand, headstand evokes a deep seated patience and – dare I say – necessary dignity in the practitioner.
Kicking up into headstand is a big ol’ no-no, primarily because the head is rooted into the floor and any instability in the body can translate into torquing of the delicate cervical spine. Unlike other inversions (where we can willy-nilly get ourselves up there without too much of a problem), handstand requires us to move slowly from a deep connection to our core. Without momentum, how do we safely get up into the darn thing?
Well, the point is, maybe we won’t. Maybe not today. But by calling upon our reserves of patience and a deeply felt commitment to process, we can eventually find our way into a headstand that is light, stable, and sustainable.
Step 1: Set the foundation
If this pose is new to you, practice at the wall until you find your inverted center. Interlace your hands up to the webbing and tuck your bottom pinky in so that the foundation is flat. Keep a small space in the center of your hands so that the bones of your arms creates a straight line through your to your knuckles. Place your elbows directly beneath your shoulders. Look at your wrists. See how you can roll them in and out? Instead, position the wrist so that the inner wrist is stacked directly onto the outer wrist.
Place the top of your head on the floor between your hands and pause to make sure that you are really on the plumb line top of your head. Your chin should be level with the floor and the natural curve of your cervical spine should be maintained.
Step 2: Cultivate stability
Lift your shoulderblades away from your ears and hug the scapulae onto your back. Press down firmly into your forearms as you curl your toes under and lift your hips. Press into your forearms to de-weight your head, and make sure that you can lighten the burden on your neck by using the strength of your shoulder girdle.
From here, walk your feet towards your arms, continuing to lift your shoulder blades into the back of your body. Press down through your forearms and lift your hips high into the air.
Step 3: Taking flight
Pressing into your forearms, draw one knee into your chest. Hug your knee in towards your face until your hips move past your shoulders and you can de-weight your other toes. This is not time for jumping. Practice finding the subtle lifting and gathering of your core that you need to stabilize your center and give your legs freedom. Often this step is the one requiring the most patience, so take your time so that you can organically find the opening and stability that you need to unearth your feet.
Once you have found lightness in both legs, bring both feet to the wall above you and slide your feet up. Press down firmly into your forearms so that your neck can continue to be spacious. Breathe smoothly and calmly. When you are ready, come out the way that you came in. Slide your feet down the wall, then very slowly bring one foot at a time back to the floor.
Component Parts:
When preparing the body for headstand, consider the benefits of some of the following poses:
Happy Inverting!
“Vi” = in a special way
“nyasa” = to place
“krama” = step by step
Change is challenging.
When confronted with change, it’s easy to get swept up in anxiety, discomfort, depression, or panic. We distract ourselves, or seethe as we create a million contingency plans. We cling to our “creature comforts” – those small habits we’ve created that anchor us in an easy ride of familiarity, that soothe us when we get ragged around the edges.
So how can we cope?
While she was going through a particular challenging time, my Mum said to me, “It’s not one day at at time, honey. It’s one hour at a time, one minute.” We can cope with change by getting out of our head – which is wired to try to analyze and “fix” our problem – and move into the spaciousness of the present moment. In the present moment, we are generally “okay.” However, we are so used to living in the past and the future (in analyzing past actions, in projecting future results), that we have forgotten how to arrive in our own skin.
Our yoga practice can help.
In the “vinyasa krama” practice, which literally means “to place step-by-step in a special way,” we cultivate our capacity to return to each unfolding moment. When we bring our attention to how we place our feet, our hands, or move in and out of our asani – we are continually brought back to each arising moment.
The first yoga sutra is “Now the exposition of yoga is being made.” The very first word in the sutras is “atha” or NOW. This is a clarion call to return to the Now, the only moment that truly exists, the only moment in which we can actually accommodate change.
As you practice your vinyasa krama, open to step by step progression of your asana. Use this practice as a reminder that our deepest creature comfort is our fundamental and eternal connection to ourselves.
Pema Chodron writes, “Only to the extent that we expose ourselves again and again to annihilation, can that which is indestructible in use be found.” As we ride the currents of change, the dauntless center within us becomes polished and revealed.
Eka Pada Koundinyasana. It’s one of those poses that you see on the cover of yoga journal, performed by someone smiling peacefully (and seemingly in no state of stress or panic) that makes you go, “Huh? Riiiiiiiiiight.” As my boyfriend said with alarm upon seeing this picture to the left, “Jesus! That is not good!” (Photo courtesy of Yoga Journal.) But despite it’s daunting appearance, there are accessible roads into this seemingly impossible position.
Eka Pada Koundinyasana #1 (there are two versions of this pose) is not only an arm balance, it’s also a deep twist. To warm up the body effectively, we must first imprint our body (especially our upper body) with the alignment necessary to support the pose.
In a word: hunching. Coming into this arm balance from a deep twist, we tend to slouch our shoulders forward and collapse in our chests. In fact, we tend to do this even in more accessible twists. For example, bring to mind parivrtta parvakonasana (revolved side angle). (See right, thanks again, yoga journal!) 
Usually in order to get our arm to the outside of our leg, we make a big ‘ol C curve in the spine – anything to get that (in this case, left) elbow over there. Our head and pelvis are no longer lined up, and we shorten the upper side of our torso. This causes the left shoulder to droop forward, which means that we can’t get that left shoulder blade down and INTO our back to facilitate the twist. We get stuck.
To protect the shoulder joints and create maximum length in the body, we instead need set up for this pose by maintaining even alignment in both sides of the spine. As we lengthen the spine, the keep the shoulder blades ON the back, so that they act like little shovels and lift our thoracic spine up and INTO our body. We maintain a virtual backbend in our upper back. Our chests lift and our collarbones stay wide.
Then we need to keep this openness through the upper body AS we move into a twist and balance on our hands. No biggie, right?
Upper back/Thoracic: As discussed, this is essential for the pose and for the happiness of the shoulder joint.
Shoulderblade Position: On your back. This goes with upper back. Upper arms gather in.
Core: Yep, you gotta find a some core stability here – even while you keep the chest open. That means we need to engage the deep core muscles like the transverse abdominis rather than the rectus abdominis (those six-pack, or “crunching” muscles).
Legs: Work those legs. If you want to get airborne, stretch through the legs and feet with great enthusiasm.
And actually, that’s kind of it. No hamstrings, no great flexibility needed here. Just a brave, open heart and some core engagement.
This week, I’m sequencing this pose with an intent to work on maintaining the lift and openness of the spine during the twist.
To get everyone imprinted with the right body in the action, I start everyone at the wall with a block. Standing in tadasana a little aways from the wall, place the block on your shoulderblades so that the block is giving encouragement for the thoracic to draw in and up. You may have to play with your distance. You want to be far enough away that you don’t have to lean forward, but close enough in that you are upright and getting the feeling of the block lifting your spine up and in.
Then do the same thing, this time with the block in the middle of your buttocks (so the tailbone is lengthening down to your heels). Imagine the block moving up and into your chest.
Tadasana into Urdhva Hastasana with a block between your hands. Imagine the other two blocks now: one into your upper back, the other pressing your tailbone down to the floor. Straighten your arms, stretch your legs, and reach, baby, reach!
Then, use the recall of the two block positions all through class to encourage chest open, long lower back. Here are some highlighted poses I’ll hit:
Dandasana (seated on block – length and evenness of spine)
Maricyasana III, both sides. No bind – remember, we want to avoid the rounding of the spine and sliding off of the shoulder blades. Focus on keeping skull atop pelvis, even length through both sides of waist, and lift in the thoracic.
Sun salutations – again, weaving the focus of the upper back lift throughout.
Low lunge (back knee up)
Low lunge with twist)
Trikonasana (triangle) to focus on even length of both sides of waist
Twisting chair (no C-curve)
Parivrtta Parsvakonsasna – less is more. Have them keep length in both sides of waist rather than end gaining and getting elbow across at all costs.
To actually get into the pose, I like YJ’s description below, with a couple of modification possiblities.
As a modification of the pose, Ardha Mastyendrasa with the bottom leg extended. Work on keeping the lift and openness in spine – all the same actions we’ve been doing all class.
As a variation, put the sitbone of the crossed over leg on top of a block (not everyone can sit on their heels). Work the twist from there, but don’t bring your hands to the floor. Instead stay upright. Explore the constraint of the legs as you lift, open, and twist.
Here’s the YJ exerpt with my notes in blue:
Step by Step
Come into it from a standing position. First bend your knees as if to squat, then take your left knee to the floor. Turn your left foot so it points to the right and sit on the heel. Cross your right foot over your left thigh and place it, sole down, beside your left knee. Your right knee should point toward the ceiling. (Okay, here’s where I say, place a block underneath your right butt if you can’t sit back on your left heel. Work the lift and twist from there and be happy.)
To twist, bring your left waist, side ribs, and shoulder around to the right. Place your left upper arm across your right thigh and slide your left outer armpit down the outside of the thigh. Use movements similar to those you used in Parsva Bakasana to maximize your twist and make good contact between your left upper arm and right outer thigh. (Okay, you may need to do a little rounding here, but as soon as you find the connect, work the same actions you have been. Get your shoulderblades back on your back, lengthen your chest forward.) Maintaining this contact high on the arm and far to the outside of the thigh is the secret to the pose.
To place your hands on the floor, first straighten your left elbow and put your left palm down (you may need to lean to the right to bring your hand all the way down). To place your right hand, carefully lift both hips without losing the left-arm-to-right-thigh placement, lean even more to the right, and put your right hand on the floor. Your hands should be shoulder width apart, with your middle fingers parallel to each other. Most of your weight will still be on your knees and feet.
Without losing contact between your left arm and your right outer thigh, lift your hips so you can flip your left foot and stand on the ball of the foot, heel up. Next, lift your left knee off the floor so most of your weight is on your feet. Lift your hips a little higher and start shifting your weight to bring your whole torso above and between your hands with its midline parallel to your middle fingers. Leaning your weight slightly forward, bend your left elbow a little, then tilt your head and shoulders a bit toward the floor. This should leverage your right foot up in the air. When your right foot is up, lean your weight farther forward until your left foot becomes light, then lifts up with an exhale. (Keep your shoulderblades ON your back, reach your sternum forward. No droopy shoulders!)
To finish the pose, straighten both knees simultaneously with an inhale. Lift the left leg until it’s parallel to the floor. Bending your left elbow more, lift your right foot higher, and reach out through the balls of both feet. Adjust the height of your right shoulder so it’s the same as the left. Lift your chest to bring your torso parallel to the floor. Breathing smoothly, hold the pose for 20 seconds or longer (Um, whatever? Be happy with whatever you do, even if you just get an inkling of taking the weight off your feet), then release both feet to the floor with an exhale. Repeat on the other side for the same length of time.
Have fun, see you in class!
During the holidays, it’s more important than ever to have some quiet time. With all of the distractions – parties, relatives, drama, presents, planning, joy, baggage – it’s easy to get swept away on a holiday rollercoaster!
This week’s pose is halasana (plow). By turning ourselves upside down and folding over, we are literally looking into ourselves. The pose helps us to pull our energy in and become more contained and centered. As in inversion, halasana encourages us to challenge our point of view and get out of sticky patterns. Its (literally!) navel-gazing properties can help us become less reactive and more grounded. How do we want to greet the new year?
Halasana is rather like dandasana – on its head. While many of us do a “soft” halasana that resembles a forward fold, the full expression of the pose more closely resembles a backbend, with the shoulder blades drawing strongly into the back, the hips reaching up into the sky, and the spine perpendicular to the floor rather than rounded.
Component parts:
Arms: extension, external rotation.
Thoracic: drawing in strongly.
Hamstrings: must be warmed up to approach the pose
Neck: cervical spine in flexion
Hips: reaching into the air
Poses for preparation:
Downward Dog: teach the reaching of the hips up toward the ceiling, lifting away from the floor. Also, this pose will start to warm up the hamstrings, warm up the shoulders (albeit in flexion), and actually looks like halasana – in a different orientation
Backbends with the shoulders in extension: salabhasana, bridge, baby cobra, dhanurasana. These will start to teach both the essential drawing in of the thoracic spine as well as warm up the extension of the arm at the shoulder.
Forward folds to open the hamstrings: Uttansanasa, Parsvottanasana (with arms in reverse namaste you will also treat extension of the arm), Prasarita Padottanasana B and C (wide-legged forward fold with the hands at the waist or fingers interlaced behind you).
Jalandhara Bandha (chin to chest): practice this in dandasana. With jalandhara bandha, you must continue to strongly lift the chest up. Do not compromise the pose by drooping in the thoracic spine.
Teaching the pose:
I like to teach this pose with the shoulders stacked on foam blocks or on 2-3 neatly folded, thick (Mexican style) blankets. Just as in shoulderstand, lifting the shoulders onto a support will enable you to lift more strongly through the thoracic spine, as well as protect the cervical spine from flattening. Use more support rather than less when you’re starting.
Try placing the blankets about a leg’s distance away from the wall, with the folded edges toward the center of the room. Come onto the blankets with your head TOWARD the wall and your shoulders on the blankets/supports. First press your upper arms down firmly into the support and tuck your shoulder blades underneath you. Press the outer arms and palms down as you swing your legs over your head and bring them onto the wall at the same height as your hips. (You may have to play with the distance you are from the wall until you find the right position.) You will make an L-shape with your body. Roll your upper arms more deeply underneath your body to facilitate the lifting of the thoracic spine. Bring your hands to your back, as close to the floor as possible to lift the thoracic spine up and in. Press your arms down to lift the chest up. Reach your hips straight up to the ceiling. Press your feet into the wall and your quads to the ceiling in order to lift the hips up higher. To the extent that is accessible, you may walk your feet down the wall towards the baseboard as far as you can without compromising the vertical lift of the hips.
Smooth out your breath. Keep pressing your arms down in order to lift your chest and hips up. Press the back of your head down gently to maintain the gentle curve of the cervical spine. Breath, and turn your attention inwards. Embrace the quiet.
To come out, keep pressing your arms down firmly as you bring your hands back to the floor and slowly begin to roll out. Let your knees bend when your hips hit the floor.
Counterpose:
Move yourself toward the wall until your shoulders are on the floor, giving you a slight backbend. Take a gentle spinal twist to each side. Downdog to release the back of the neck.
Variations:
In case of neck injury or high/low blood pressure issues, you can do a modified version by doing viparita karani (legs up the wall) with a block underneath the hips. Tuck the shoulderblades under you and lift the thoracic spine up and reach through the heels (legs together). Another alternative is dandasana, or a restorative backbend with a bolster underneath the back and the legs extended out straight.
Bakasana is one of those asani that looks impossible until you actually do it.
“You want me to put my knees where and balance on my what?” we think with dismay.
But with just a few steps, you two can begin to find the effortless flight that characterizes this arm balance. And the key lies in finding your core. The gateway to the core? Your inner thighs. Very simply, by using your adductors (the muscles that allow you to squeeze your legs together), you begin to activate your core – namely your transverse abdominis. Once this engagement starts, you are on your way to flight.
To find the adductors, try “scissoring” your legs together in poses such as lunge, virabhadrasana I, parsvottanasana, and other neutral-legged postures. This scissoring action will help “square” your hips, create a sense of buoyancy through the pelvic floor, and add stability to your posture. Another great way to find the adductors is to bring a block between your feet or your inner thighs and squeeze – presto! Instant adductor action.
Here’s a good sequence to help you find your core:
-Place a block on medium width between your thighs and stand in tadasana (it’s okay, your feet will be under your hips)
-Inhale arms up into urdhva hastasana (squeeze the block)
-Exhale uttanasana (squeeze the block)
-Inhale halfway (squeeze the block)
-Exhale uttanasana (squeeze the block)
-Inhale urdhva hastasana/ arms up (squeeze the block)
-Exhale tadasasna (squeeze the block)
You get the idea? You can do a whole sun salutation with the block by jumping (with your knees bent) into down dog and moving through the vinyasa from there. Holding plank or forearm plank with the block between the upper thighs can change the dynamic of the posture by encouraging the activation of the legs and the core. When the legs start working for you, the pose becomes easier on the arms and the wrists.
The shape of the back in bakasana is similar to that in an arching cat. When many of us start to come into bakasana, we flatten out the spine, which actually makes is more difficult to engage the abdominals. Also, instead of trying to balance the knees in the armpit, instead, clamp the knees onto the outer upper arms. This clamping action allows you to find the inner thighs, which has a trickle up effect to the pelvic floor and abdominals, giving you lift.
Poses to find the rounding of the back aren’t common in yoga, as we tend to work toward a straight spine. However, here are a few that can help:
-The cat part of cat/cow
-Garudasana (Eagle), if you hinge from hips and round the back
-Arching cat in downward dog. To do this, come into downward dog. Extend one leg back. Shift your shoulders over your wrists (a la plank). Draw your knee to your nose, press into your hands, and round your spine toward the ceiling. Stretch the leg back into three-legged dog and repeat a few times.
My favorite way of doing bakasana is to start with the feet together on a block.
-Place your feet on the block and widen your knees.
-Place your hands on the floor shoulder distance apart and spread your fingers wide. Claw the fingers into the floor so that you are distributing your weight through the whole hand and not just bearing down through the wrist
-Hunker down and clamp your knees onto your arms as high up as you can. Squeeze. Feel your adductors fire up.
-Look forward
-Begin to shift your weight forward off the block and into your hands
-As you shift, keep your tailbone reaching down so that you your spine is round and not flat, scooping your abdominals up
-Bring one foot off the block, maybe both. If you have both, then squeeze the sides of your feet together, lift your addominals up, and straighten your arms
-Come down by bringing one foot to the block and then the other.
If you felt your adductors firing and your back rounding, then you are on the right path!
Bakasana is a great pose for the wintery months, when we feel as if our inner furnace is a bit dimmed.
Cat/Cow (focus on rounding of spine)
Cat/Cow – add leg extension and knee to nose
Extended child’s pose
Downward Dog
Cat/Cow in Downward Dog (students have option to return to easier version on their knees if necessary)
Low lunge (scissor legs and fire adductors)
Forearm plank (do forearm plank rather than plank to preserve the wrists for later)
Repeat on other side
Sun Salutation with block between inner thighs or feet 3-5 times
Utkatasana
Eagle with forward fold to round spine
Surya B (focus on adductors) 1-3 times
Surya B to downward dog, step into lunge, parivrtta parsvakonasana (revolved side angle) – Both sides
Parsvottanasna (Pyramid pose)
Malasana (squat) – squeeze inner thighs in
Navasana (Boat)
Bakasana (as described above)
Table or purvottanasana to release front of body
Upavista Konasana (wide-legged forward fold) to release inner thighs
Baddha Konasana (cobbler’s pose)
Maricyasana C (seated twist)
Pascimottanasna (seated forward fold)
onto back: Reclined Ankle to Knee
Savasana
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