Sun Salutation

Practice Ideas: Using Reps to Develop the Core: Rocking; Reaching Back in Camel; Alternating Side Plank; Dolphin Pushups

Crossposted at sun_salutation.

Disclaimer: I am not a yoga instructor. I don't know anything about exercise safety or fitness instruction. I'm not even an advanced practitioner of yoga. But I have come to love yoga and am completely self taught.

You know your own body best, so please respect your known health conditions and use the variations offered by instructors that are best for you. Remember to balance where you are now with where you could be in the future. There is no perfect pose.

Using Reps to Develop the Core

Yoga as an exercise regime is body weight resistance training. By developing the strength to move your own body through the postures, you gain lean muscle.

As a vinyasa yoga girl (oh, you didn't notice?), I like power yoga and vinyasa instructors who can bring a little cardio to my yoga practice.

Here are a couple of moves I like that are also good for core.

Rocking on your back

From Rodney Yee – Power Yoga Total Body, we get rocking on your back. Mr. Yee does this after backbending as part of the supine counterpose sequence.

Lie on your back. Bring your knees in to your chest. Cross your right ankle over the left and grip your feet, one in each hand. Relax into the earth. Then, after several breaths, begin rocking – a little back towards Plow Pose (Halasana), then a little forward toward Easy Pose (Sukhasana). Make the rocking bigger, until you are coming all the way up to sit, and rocking all the way back on your shoulders. Then slowly decrease the rocking, making it very small until you stop again. Switch sides, crossing the left ankle over the right. Grip the feet. Begin rocking again.

When you return to resting, release the feet and begin rocking with a longer lever, extending your legs straight, and rocking forward into a full Seated Forward Bend (Paschimottanasana), then back into a full Plow Pose. Repeat several times, finally coming forward into your favorite seated posture.

Reaching Back in Camel

I just got Jillian Michaels – Yoga Meltdown this weekend, and I am now going to suggest a couple of her moves, starting with doing "reps" in Camel (Ustrasana).

Come to your knees, arms extended directly out in front of you like a zombie reaching for brains.* On an exhale, reach your right arm back for your right heel. Feet can be in the position you usually use for Camel. Inhale, come up with strong legs and engaged core, reaching your right arm forward again. On an exhale, reach your left arm back for your left heel. Inhale, come up with strong legs and engaged core, reaching your left arm forward again. Repeat five or so times, then reach both arms back and hold Camel for your usual three to five breaths.

Concentrate on engaging your quads, using their power to lift and lower your upper body. Keep your abdominals active, allowing your shoulders to fall back with ease, lifting your heart toward the sky.

Alternating Side Plank

From Plank, flow to Side Plank (Vasisthasana) on your left. Hold a beat. Return to Plank. Flow to Vasisthasana on your right. Hold a beat. Return to Plank. And so on. I suggest five to eight reps, then hold the left side. You can flow through a vinyasa and immediately return to the alternating Vasisthasana, this time holding the right side, or you can proceed through some standing postures to give your arms a rest and return to the right side later in your practice. Just be sure to get both sides.

Concentrate not falling in the middle. Keep your hips pressing toward the sky, engaging your core, and keeping good from, though you are in an almost constant flow.

Dolphin Pushups

Finally, come into Plank, then drop to your elbows for Dolphin Plank. Clasp your hands together for stability. Exhale, pushing back into Dolphin. (If you are familiar with Dolphin already, you will notice that by alternating from Dolphin Plank to Dolphin, you will not get the usual angle in Dolphin. Your feet will be too far back to get the full hamstring stretch usually achieved.). Inhale, drop back into Dolphin Plank. Exhale, push back into Dolphin. After five to eight repetitions, hold Dolphin for about five to eight breaths. I suggest at this point walking the feet in to achieve the hamstring and shoulder opening that is usual for Dolphin.

Remember to keep your abdominals engaged, as you pull back into Dolphin using the power in your belly, then return to Dolphin Plank with the back straight, quads and abs active, keeping the strength, length and integrity in the spine.

Namaste.

* Sorry. Feeling a little punchy after doing yoga with Jillian Michaels. It's not a bad workout, but it's not very zen…

Gentle Readers of Getting Started:

I think that the starting has been got, as it were. I'm thinking of switching gears and doing shorter posts suggesting practice ideas, sometimes a new posture or sometimes a new way of incorporating postures Getting Started already discussed.

But I'd like to provide a venue for people to suggest new Getting Started topics.

So, feel free to comment if there is something you would like to see, and I can prod Ye Olde Internet and see what falls out!

With kindest regards and best wishes, I remain

Very truly yours,
CK

Crossposted at sun_salutation.

Disclaimer: I am not a yoga instructor. I don't know anything about exercise safety or fitness instruction. I'm not even an advanced practitioner of yoga. But I have come to love yoga and am completely self taught.

You know your own body best, so please respect your known health conditions and use the variations offered by instructors that are best for you. Remember to balance where you are now with where you could be in the future. There is no perfect pose.


Mandala Namaskar I

I am being very slow getting anything out for anyone who was waiting for another installment of this Getting Started thing.

But! I have been enjoying some new vinyasa stuff from a DVD I've been trying out, and stumbled on a sequence I *really* like.

I was doing the Hip Opening pre-set from Shiva Rea's Fluid Power, and she has a sequence she calls Mandala Namaskar. It's challenging, but not too advanced for anyone who can already do Suyra Namaskar B. (Surya is Sun. I’m pretty sure Mandala is Circle.)

Well, it appears that Shiva did not make this critter up (to be fair, she never said she did), but rather, I think there may be four Mandala Namaskars, just like we have Surya Namaskar A and B, plus a Great Surya Namaskar.

Kristi Bowman instructs Mandala Namaskar I.

I hope you like it!

I'll be back soon with Backbends, followed by Inversions. FEAR ME! :D

Ahem.

Namaste.

Disclaimer: I am not a yoga instructor. I don't know anything about exercise safety or fitness instruction. I'm not even an advanced practitioner of yoga. But I have come to love yoga and am completely self taught.

You know your own body best, so please respect your known health conditions and use the variations offered by instructors that are best for you. Remember to balance where you are now with where you could be in the future. There is no perfect pose.


Seated Postures

Sorry! I fell victim to Snomageddon, but I'm feeling much better now, thanks!

So. At this point, you're probably thinking, "Isn't yoga supposed to be relaxing?!" And not I-must-find-inner-calm-so-I-don't-fall-down relaxing or where-the-heck-did-all-this-sweat-come-from-fall-down-exhausted-in-sivasana relaxing. More like that-was-almost-as-good-as-a-massage relaxing?

Well, it's time for some relaxing, peaceful, lunar forward bending.

Be sure to do a good warm up and some standing postures first. At least a few rounds of Surya Namaskar A and B, with maybe the Dancing Warrior sequence from Getting Started 7 on each side. The important thing is to be sure your hips are warm and stretched before you sit down. A lot of the seated postures are forceful and intense "hip openers" and getting some lunges behind you first will help you to get deeper into the postures and prevent injury.

Remember that as you are watching the instruction for these poses, the instructors are going to fold very deeply forward, and they are going to make it look very, very easy. Well, it is not easy to fold in some of these postures, especially at the beginning. Respect your own flexibility and challenge yourself without pushing too far. In my own experience of doing yoga three or four times a week, it took me a year to get my forehead to touch the floor in Wide-Angle Forward Bend, and I have done it a grand total of ONE time. You grow into these poses, so do what you can today. I think I've mentioned Brian Kest's comment before: The only difference between a more flexible person and a less flexible person is that the more flexible person has to go farther to feel something.

In the following list of poses, I suggest a sequence, where you perform all the postures for one side, then switch legs and perform all the postures for the other side.

( Pigeon Pose )


( Ardha Matsyendrasana )

Then shift your knees again, bringing one knee over the other for the next pose in the sequence, Gomukhasana.

( Gomukhasana )

Now, transition to the next posture by slowly unwinding your legs, opening your knees out, keeping the top leg on top. You are proceeding to the next posture stretching the same hip.

( Double Pigeon )

Now go back to the beginning, and repeat this sequence, bringing the other leg forward into Pigeon.

After completing the second leg, move on to three symmetrical poses to finish, starting with Baddha Konasana.

( Baddha Konasana and Upavistha Konasana )

( Seated Forward Bend )

( The entire sequence )

Disclaimer: I am not a yoga instructor. I don't know anything about exercise safety or fitness instruction. I'm not even an advanced practitioner of yoga. But I have come to love yoga and am completely self taught.

You know your own body best, so please respect your known health conditions and use the variations offered by instructors that are best for you. Remember to balance where you are now with where you could be in the future. There is no perfect pose.


Balance: For Real, This Time!

So blah, blah, balance blah blah, there are actually postures in yoga devoted to balance. It's not just a metaphor or a psychological state!

Chair has elements of balance in it, especially when you are new to the posture and if you are twisting it.

Warrior I also has balance elements, and in fact illustrates one of the most important things you should know about balance.

Balance is not, strictly, about coordination. It helps to be coordinated, but there are at least three things you can do, or learn to do, that will make you more coordinated today: learn and use correct foot positions, engage your core, and find good focus points for your eyes.

Have you felt unsteady in Warrior I at all? If so, check your foot placement. Balance poses change the structure of your base. In standing postures where both feet are on the ground, you can often improve your balance right away by making certain that your feet are placed correctly. If your Warrior I is wobbly, check that your heels are aligned with the heel of your front foot directly in front of the heel of the back foot. In Warrior II, the heel of the front foot should be in alignment with the arch of the back foot. When you are doing a high lunge with a prayer twist, it helps to move your front foot out some, so you are not "on such a tightrope" as Brian Kest puts it. Correct foot placement can give you instant, surprising improvement in balance.

Second, balance often depends on stability in the core. If you are standing on one leg, your thighs and glutes are obviously doing a lot of work, holding you up, stabilizing your pelvis. Your abs are supporting your lower back and lifting your chest. Be aware when you are balancing of what is happening in your core. Engage your abs and your thighs. Of course, you will find that as you simply get stronger in these areas, balancing should become easier, but being deliberately attentive to your muscle engagement can help even from the beginning.

Finally, a very large component of balance has to do with your eyes. Believe it or not, if you can find a point of focus, your balance will instantly improve. I learned this when I was transitioning from Eagle to Dancing Shiva. When I find a point in front of me and focus my eyes on that point, I can shift from one posture to the other with hardly a wobble. The importance of your visual field to balance is probably one of the reasons why balance poses such as Tree, or even Warrior I, become more difficult when you shift your focus from a point in front of you upward towards your raised hands. Moving your eyes disturbs your equilibrium.

Roger Cole has an excellent article at www.yogajournal.com titled "Plumb Perfect" that addresses these practical issues, as well as the larger issue of focus in balance poses. He also argues that balance poses bring calm despite their difficulty because they require total attention to the action.

Yoga and Mindfulness: Movement Meditation

Yoga is often called "movement meditation." Even if you approach yoga without any intent to seek a "spiritual" component, yoga's very nature requires careful attentiveness to the details of your body's movement. You are constantly monitoring your breathing and it's placement with the movements. The movements themselves are difficult and often uncomfortable. Your mind is in the moment, focused on the action of your legs, your core, your heart center, your arm placement, the focus of your eyes. This attentiveness is a beginners way to the "mindfulness" that people achieve when the meditate. You concentrate so much on the small details, that you are no longer distracted by the noise of the larger world around you, or the thoughts inside your own head. Yoga helps to bring you into this state of mindfulness, and balance poses are an important tool to bring your mind into the moment.

Virabhadrasana III (Warrior III)

I was tickled when rydra_wong complained that Warrior III doesn't get enough love, because I knew from the beginning that this would be the first balance pose I suggested for a beginner.

It is not a complicated pose to understand, as you will see when you review the link to Yoga Journal.

Links to YouTube:

Virabhadrasana III demonstrated by Yoga Poses with Sonja

Demonstration with Core Power: with still photos only, but excellent instruction.

Sadie Nardini gives instruction on all three Warrior postures

Here's how to work Warrior III into your Surya Namaskar B sequence. Perform the usual vinyasa. Settle into Warrior I. Then shift your weight onto your front leg, bending your torso forward over the front knee and feel like you are "stepping" forward, lifting your back leg and extending your arms in front of you. Hold the posture for three to five long steady breaths, then drop your back leg, "stepping" back into Vira I, then to Downward Dog.

I have found that for me the critical element of Vira III is to remember the power of the lifted leg. More than one instructor comments that you should imagine "shooting energy" though the back heel. When I think about that, I engage the glutes on the lifted leg, and possibly engage the thigh more firmly as well. This brings lift to the back leg and more stability to the pelvis, which makes my balance more firm. Also, I learned to do this posture with my hands palms together, stretching away. Eye focus should be the thumbs. If that doesn't bring enough stability, then focus on a still point beyond your thumbs.

Remember to keep your grounded leg fluid. Do not lock the knee. Imagine that leg is buoyant, and engage the muscles in your thigh, as if you were lifting up the kneecap. You are going to have wobble in this posture, especially at the beginning. Handle the wobble calmly. If you fall, no big deal. Reset and try again.

Other resources

Another resource you might want to review is Julie Gudmestad's article "Yoga Anatomy – Help for Standing Balances".

And in case you, like me, really want to see what the "core muscles" are: Wikipedia entry on core muscles.

Namaste.

Disclaimer: I am not a yoga instructor. I don't know anything about exercise safety or fitness instruction. I'm not even an advanced practitioner of yoga. But I have come to love yoga and am completely self taught.

You know your own body best, so please respect your known health conditions and use the variations offered by instructors that are best for you. Remember to balance where you are now with where you could be in the future. There is no perfect pose.

Surya Namaskar B

After you have decided you are ready to move on to something new from Surya Namaskar A, and excellent progression is to go ahead and learn Surya Namaskar B.

Sun Salutation B is very much like Sun Salutation A, except it incorporates two new standing postures.

First, you begin in Utkatasana, also called Chair, or Awkward Chair. This is an excellent pose to strengthen the thighs, back and core. (Remember that if you scroll down the Yoga Journal page, there is a video illustration of the pose.)

Then, you flow through the vinyasa, but after you step back in to Downward Dog, you step one foot forward again into a lunge and rise up into Virabhadrasana I (Warrior I). Warrior I is a lunge with a gentle backbend.

Here is Luke Jordan, demonstrating Surya Namaskar B.

Here is Maria Villella, doing a *beautiful* example, without much guidance, just naming the postures as she moves through them.

Developing your practice

So, now you have both sun salutations to play with! You can now start putting together a real practice!

Here's my suggestion for a mini practice. Do Surya Namaskar A three times, starting with the easier variations and moving through until on the third time you are doing the more advanced version with Upward Facing Dog and a full Chaturanga, if you can manage it. Then do three rounds of Surya Namaskar B. If you start to get tired, drop back to half Chaturanga and Cobra, or even just scoop through to low Cobra.

Ending your Practice

Yoga is about balance. One of the things you should do when you finish a yoga practice is give your body a chance to recuperate from the practice and "absorb the shanti, the peace, of yoga," as Shiva Rea admonishes.

There are many ways to finish a practice.

One is to adopt a seated posture, either a simple crosslegged pose, Sukhasana (Easy Pose), Half Lotus, or Full Lotus. Place your hands in the prayer position and use Ujayii, breathing deeply and evenly in and out, and feeling how your breath moves your body, like the tides move the ocean. Remain seated for five minutes or more, just enjoying the richness and ease of your breath. Some instructors advocate using the seated relaxation to end a practice when you want to maintain the energy of your practice at the beginning of the day.

A second strategy is to relax into Child's Pose (Balasana). I prefer the variation of this with the knees open wide to the edges of the mat (feet remain together), and the arms stretched forward in prostration. Rest your forehead or cheek on the floor and relax for five minutes or so. Be a little careful about staying in this comfortable, relaxing posture too long, as it might be hard on your knees. I find Balasana is a particularly tempting way to finish a practice where I have just exhausted myself and would rather collapse right there on the floor than move one more step!

A third strategy is Savasana, also known as Corpse Pose or Deep Relaxation Pose. In Savasana, you lie on your back, with your knees and feet dropped open, arms relaxed out to the side. Close your eyes and concentrate on scanning your body from head to toe, recognizing areas of tension and relaxing them. After two or three scans of your body, stop thinking about anything at all. Let go of the Ujjayi breathing and just breathe normally. Feel your body dropping into the earth. In Savasana, consider having a light blanket nearby and as you lie down, drape the blanket over your cooling body, so that you won't be cold lying on the floor, especially in winter.

Namaste.

Crossposted at sun_salutation.


Disclaimer: I am not a yoga instructor. I don't know anything about exercise safety or fitness instruction. I'm not even an advanced practitioner of yoga. But I have come to love yoga and am completely self taught.

You know your own body best, so please respect your known health conditions and use the variations offered by instructors that are best for you. Remember to balance where you are now with where you could be in the future. There is no perfect pose.

Yoga Attitude

And as Mr. Kest reminds us, the important thing in yoga is "to feel something." The difference between a flexible person and a less flexible person is that the flexible person just has to go farther to feel something.

Disclaimers and reminders all done!

Surya Namaskar A has a lot of components. I would like to take the component postures and discuss them, starting with Uttanasana.

Some thoughts about getting the most out of Uttanasana

The second posture in the sequence is Uttanasana (Standing Forward Bend).

This may seem like a very simple posture at first - touching your toes, basically.

It has two basic components. Getting length in your spine, and developing openness in the hamstrings.

( More thoughts )

( Examples )
Real Life Applications for Uttanasana

As you do more yoga, you may find that you discover poses that you bring into your daily life. For instance, I know Zats, when forced to sleep on terrible mattresses while traveling, will do a few rounds of Suyra Namaskar B with some extra standing postures thrown in to work out the mattress-induced aches and pains. And uisgich has been known to sneak off at work to a special hidey hole to do a couple of interations of Wheel, or sun salutations.

My all time favorite posture for real life is Uttanasana.

1. Sometimes it's just fun to spontaneously reach down and put my hands on the floor.

2. If my back is tired, doing a hanging version of Uttanasana, as in the Yoga Therapy example above, really releases tension and rejuvenates.

3. If I'm feeling run down, there's nothing like getting upside down to get some blood and oxygen to my brain.

4. If my head is congested, particularly if my sinuses are really stubbornly plugged up, several rounds of Uttanasana in a row will really get the nasty fluids moving again and loosen things up.


So! I think that's all I have to say about Uttanasana.

On other, practical yoga topics for people just getting started:

( Or consider an evening practice )

( Do I need special clothes for practicing yoga? )

And lastly, a few more examples of Surya Namaskar A, provided by rydra_wong:

Ceci Lester does a "softer" "more modified" Sun Salutation A.

Example with Rise Yoga.