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

[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.