Daily Practice

[viklikesfic]

Well this is somewhat of a misnomer, since I'm not going to jump right into daily, but I did want to participate! As I said earlier, I had a wrist injury but I think it's finally healed. I'm starting very slowly--I did one gentle hatha practice last weekend and this morning I did Yoga for Strength from YogaDownload, which is my favorite for when I'm afraid of my own motivation (it goes by very quickly so it's good for building confidence).

Unsurprisingly, I'm very tight, so I'm trying to be gentle with myself. I only move forward a few inches in forward bends, and I'm keeping my feet very close together in warrior poses. I noticed that my calves and feet were especially tight in warrior poses, which are some of my favorite poses, so I hope that remedies itself quickly. One of my biggest challenges for sticking with yoga is that my hands slip in down dog and I get very frustrated. I read the recent post about this but I'm nervous about shelling out money when it might not work. I've tried putting my hands on blocks and on a guest towel that's pretty thin, and neither of these really work. The towel will work at first but then I'll start sliding steadily along. So annoying!

I'm going to shoot for every three days for the next couple of weeks, and then drop to every two.

Comments

[rydra_wong]

Re: down dog, you could try putting your hands at the base of a wall (turned out, so that your thumb and first finger press against the wall -- it's an Iyengar thing for working on externally rotating the shoulders).

Of course, that might just mean that your feet start sliding, but it's worth a go.

[viklikesfic]

*nod* I've seen some tricks like that in Cool Yoga Tricks, and I like them in theory, but I'm very particular about following an audio class without starts and stops, so chair/wall tricks don't work as well for me. If it's something like blocks or a bolster or another prop I can keep right next to my mat and grab, that's okay, but I don't want to have to be constantly getting up, hitting pause, hitting pause again, etc.

[jumpuphigh]

If you aren't grounding properly through your hands, you will slip even with a towel. If you are, you'll be able to stay solid even in a pool of sweat. It's unfortunately something that is hard to learn unless you have someone right there adjusting you. Think about spreading your fingers wider and pressing through the top part of your palms and extending out through the fingers. Most people put way too much pressure through the wrist and lower part of the palm.

[indywind]

I attest that one can still slip even when grounding 'properly'.

Yoga does not magically circumvent laws of physics.

[jumpuphigh]

Well, I don't recommend trying it on a wet tile floor and cheap yoga mats can be super-slippery. Good equipment is essential in this equation in order to provide enough friction to keep from slipping. However, just like I can walk across a slippery floor without falling by placing my weight correctly on my feet or I can completely wipe out by not taking care, there is a sweet spot in down-dog that will make the difference between sliding and not sliding.

[viklikesfic]

I'm certainly willing to give the grounding idea a try! The audio classes I use suggest grounding through the thumb and first finger, which is what I'm aiming for, but of course it's difficult to do a lot of things for alignment when the body is super-tight. I do use a bolster for my heels, which helps somewhat with alignment. My mat is decent, but one of the other solutions might help--a rug or something like that. I'm just not quite ready to drop $50+ on more yoga stuff until I can do it a little more.

[jumpuphigh]

For tightness, you can both bend your knees and take your feet wider. Those are both pretty common modifications for tightness in the low back and legs. To play with how your shoulders should feel in down-dog, do it standing with your palms flat on a hip-high countertop. My kitchen counter is the perfect height for this for me but ymmv. There you can play with taking the tops of your shoulders wider and expanding through your chest without encountering as much tightness in the body to inhibit you. Paul Grilley, mentioned by indywind below, has several resources that may be worth purchasing. I've not used his yin yoga video but I have done at least one workshop with him and I like what he teaches quite a lot.

[gnomad]

I've had problems with slipping on all yoga mats in most weight bearing positions because I sweat so much, so I use climbers chalk to keep my hands and feet dry. I'd dust some on my hands and feet and the top and bottom of my mat before class, and that seemed to do the trick for about 90% of the time.

[indywind]

viklikesfic, are you looking for suggestions for how to work around the slippy-hands-in-down-dog problem? Or more sympathy?

I get where you're coming from; when I'm on a slippery enough surface, I do still slip even though the dog is one of my favorite and most solid poses otherwise. You could probably tell how much I like it by how much I have to say about it below :-D ; read on if you would like suggestions.

I second jumpuphigh's suggestion for self-adjusting. Though I don't think it's a surefire cure for slipping, it may help (maybe a lot), and it may benefit your practice in other ways.

There's so much going on in Down Dog, that to find stability may call for changes in more than one part of the pose. For instance, the hips/low back, calves and ankles--where you said you experience tightness-- are very involved in the balance of the whole pose. Sometime when you're not worried about keeping up with a video, you might try just playing with Down Dog, changing one body-position variable at a time to experience all the variations available in the position. Some of them may feel more secure. Changing alignment can also bring the stretch to different areas of the body --you might find a version that better releases the tightness you feel.

Yoga Journal has an article by Paul Grilley on the mechanics of Downward Dog, especially longer or shorter stances. Sounds like a shorter stance, or with bent knees, might be useful for you to experiment with.


When you're working with a video, and you want to do something to keep up with the video's sequence of poses without so much frustrating slipping, you might try
substituting another pose for Down Dog in the flow. Depending on what fits with the poses before and after, a high plank (make sure shoulders are directly over wrists), puppy pose, dolphin pose. This isn't "dumbing down" -- Dolphin, especially, can be more work for the upper body and more stretch for the hamstrings/calves than Down Dog. Puppy is an excellent stretch for the shoulders, high plank is a core and upper body strength builder.

Best wishes.

[viklikesfic]

I appreciate the suggestions! I'm not really looking for suggestions for new props to keep me from slipping, since I'm not ready to make a big investment when I've never been able to get into a regular practice, but alignment corrections are free and if they work, I'll be thrilled.

I have tried some things that make it a little more comfortable, such as adjusting the rotation of the arms and putting a bolster under my heels. I found the bolster to be particularly helpful, though it still is hard to work on getting comfortable when my hands are gradually sliding forward, haha. If I can find a sweet spot, that'd be great, though I have played a little bit with trying to ground through the right place in the hands and haven't quite found a solution. I could try shortening the stance a little, certainly that would mean that the pressure is more down than "across," which theoretically should help slipping.

I do want to at least make an effort at Downward Dog, because I do like the pose and how it works on a number of areas that could use work for me--arm strength, lengthening the back, lengthening the calves, etc. But I might experiment with variations. Sadly, yoga is something that I think could improve my flexibility, but I think it'll take a minimum of 10-15 years of sustained practice, and it's hard to motivate that practice when it's constantly frustrating. (This sounds melodramatic, but I danced for 20 years and could never get my leg even parallel to the floor when lifting it from standing, so I'm aware of my limitations in terms of flexibility). I'll keep trying though!