Gentle Vinyasa, 11/11/09

I sub-taught a savsani yoga class today.  Wondering what savsani yoga is?  Yeah, me too.  I Googled it, but still don’t really understand what it is.

Anyways, I taught a gentle vinyasa at noon today.  The students were really receptive to it — great breath work!

Gentle Vinyasa
(sub for Savsani Yoga)
50 minutes
10 peeps
music: Boom Boom, Will Dailey and Life Less Ordinary by Carbon Leaf

child’s pose
cat/cow
downward facing dog
down dog to high plank x3
3 Sun As (holding in high push up and then flowing back to down dog)
3 Sun Bs
B1: low lunge with hip opener
B2: crescent lunge
B3: warrior I opening to warrior II
reverse warrior II
triangle
prasritta A/B
pivot to front for airplane
tree
repeat on left from third B through tree
table top
ab work with holding opposite arm and opposite leg out from all-fours (is this a pose?)
half-bow if they want
2 locust
modified pigeon
wide-legged baddha konasana (this is really popular!)
inversion
savasana

Fifty minutes is SHORT!  I kept the class slow moving and pretty gentle.  It was definitely still a vinyasa class (constant motion) but we worked on soothing, even breathing and grounding down through the feet.

Stars in Alignment: Vinyasa Flow 11/10/09

alignment

Vinyasa Flow (60 minutes)
Tuesday 11/10/09
14 peeps
Music: Buddha Bar X mix

(I play music as people are coming in and getting set up.  Once we start, music goes off.  It comes back on after the closing “namaste.”  Since the music post was a pretty popular one, I thought I’d note what was played before/after class.)

child’s pose
downward facing dog
down dog to plank (three times on breath)
rag doll
tadasana
3 Sun As
omitted low push up and up dog
3 Sun Bs
1st B with crescent lunge
2nd B with crescent lunge to low lunge hip stretch
3rd B to warrior I and opening to warrior II
side angle
triangle
prasritta A/B
pivot to front and into eagle
airplane
tree
::repeat from last Sun B through tree::
utkatasana twist
padangustasana
utkatasana twist
padahastasana
step back to high plank and lower on 5
2 locust
1 bow
1 bridge
1 10-count bridge or wheel
supta baddha konasana
happy baby
modified hip stretch on back
(3 stage hip opener)
bound-legged spinal twist
savasana

Worked on simple poses with strong alignment, grounding down through the feet, keeping even balance, stillness and breath-work to support an energetic practice.  The cues to ground down through the feet, big toe mounds and outer-edges of back feet really seemed to resonate/work with the students.  The breath was great today and I hope that can carry over to next week.

Low plank to updog transition is still rough and the cues I’ve been using don’t seem to be helping.  Any suggestions for different cues or ways to get students to think about alignment in the vinyasa sequence?

Yoga School – Day 8

M was back in the morning with more pseudo-science. Very little of what she said make sense to me and my experiences.  It also got frustrating when she was doing an “inquiry” with a patient and she would ask these open-ended questions while pressing down on their abdomen.  As soon as they gave her an answer that she liked, she’s said “Ah yes.  I can tell that X is an issue because I can feel a lump in your ascending colon.”  WTF?  It was like going to a psychic who asks these leading questions, picks up on the thread they like and turns the person’s response into their own answer.  Anyways, not everything she shared was ridiculous.  She did have some good and interesting things to say, especially on theimportance of a well-balanced diet.

LOTS of teaching this afternoon.  JB was back again so I knew it was going to be a long day, a tough day, but a great day.  This afternoon’s flow was:

1 Sun A
1 Sun B
Vinyasa through to Crescent twist to the right
up to Warrior II
Parsvakonasana on right
Extended Parsavakonasa on right
Vinyasa through to Crescent twist to left
Parsvakonasana on left
Extended Parsavakonasa on left
Utkatasana – twist on right
Uttanasana
Utkatasana – twist on left
Padahastasana or Pandangustasana
Balance pose: eagle, dancer, Warrior III, tree or Half Moon
Vinyasa to WI and WII on right
reverse Warrior
Triangle on right
Prasritta on right
Parsvottanasana on right
Winyasa to WI and WII on left
reverse Warrior
Triangle on left
Prasaritta on left
Parsvotanasana on left
Tadasana
Balasana

…. we did this sequence 7 or 8 times.  I honestly lost count.

The feedback for all the people who taught this sequence today took a very long time.  Teacher training is supposed to end by 8:00pm and it was 9:30 by the time we were cleaning up and ready to leave.

The upshot to all this is that I really got a chance to feel each pose as we were doing them.  A couple things came up that I’m finding really help.

• Squeezing shoulder blades together in crescent twist, upward facing dog, parsvakonasana and triangle really help open my chest up.  After yesterday’s anatomy lesson I try to picture the little muscles that control scapular movement drawing together.  That visual gives me the extra oomph I need to open my shoulders and chest.  This is an ongoing challenge for me as I have a tendency to hunch forward.

• Connecting to the lower abs in the transition from chaturanga – up dog – down dog is so key.  Especially in updog to down dog.  Otherwise the weight ends up in my wrists and shoulders and jeez that hurts!  Dropping my knees and really focusing on engaging my lower abs makes the transition much smoother and less painful.

Those were my two big revelations.  They’re also things I want to remember to cue.  If I’m struggling with it, there must be other people out there who are also struggling.

Today also marks the half way point of  teacher training.  While it will be nice to have my weekends back, I’m really going to miss the training.  It’s challenging, exciting and educational.  I love having the luxury to do something wholly for myself.  The icing on the cake is that I’m sharing that experience with 40 other like-minded people.  It’s incredible and I am so grateful for the experience.

Sleep tight, fellow yogis!!

Star Wars Yoga

Stumbled across this at the Unshelved blog:

STAR WARS YOGA.

So amazingly, awesomely, utterly nerdy!

I just know i’m going to be giggling like a maniac this weekend as I come in and out of Downward Facing Wookie.

This could open up a whole new avenue of teaching/learning asanas, especially for those with a sense of humor.

I think I might start incorporating the May the Force be With You Handstand:

Looks pretty similar to the one from Yoga Journal …

How about AT-ST?

What other poses can you come up with?

(Apologies to Yoga Journal and the other images, which I found courtesy of Google image search.)

Asana Project — Adho Mukha Svanasana

… Otherwise known as Downward Facing Dog (or Downward Damn Dog, if you’re my friend KF.)

In the early stages of this yogic-journey, I would venture that Downward Facing Dog is the core of a yoga practice.  It’s the basis for the sun salutations and, in the style I practice, the resting pose between sequences.

Adho Mukha Svanasana

For info on Adho Mukha Svanasana check out:

• Yoga Journal for basics, forum discussions and therapeutic benefits of this pose.

• Yoga for Beginners on YouTube.

• GTTSB, founder of the The Asana Project has posted some great modifications under the awesome post title of “Housebreaking the Dog” as well as links to older posts.

Some things I’ve learned that help me with this pose:

• press the weight of the hands into the mat through the thumb and the first and second knuckles of the fingers.  This will help take the weight out of the wrists.
• Also, actively engage the abs and tuck your tailbone, lifting your hips as high as they can go.  This will shift the weight back into the legs and stretch the hamstrings, rather than keep the weight coming forward into the shoulders and arms.
• An easy way of getting the hips up in the air is, once in the pose, bend the knees a lot, almost to the mat, lift the hips, then, keeping them in that position, gently stretch the legs.  I do this in my first Dog of a practice and in the middle when my body is starting to get tired and my Dog gets sloppy.

Have fun!  Let me know what you think!  (I’m seriously restraining myself from a “doggy-style” joke here.)

Follow-up on Triangle Pose (Utthita Trikonasana): it’s a great pose for people with osteoporosis and/or sciatica.  Because it stretches all the major joint areas and the lower back in a gentle way, it can be a real release for those who suffer from these conditions.

Trikonasana review

OK, so having spent two weeks thinking about this pose and thinking about it while I’m in it, it remains one of my favorite poses.  It used to be a favorite because with my weirdly loose hips, I felt like a yoga ninja being able to go so deep into the post.  Now, however, I realize that pushing my self so hard into the pose is NOT a good idea and I’m focusing much more on lifting the torso and rotating my chest up.  This creates a great stretch in the top of the hip and along the side.  Love love it and I always miss it when it’s not part of a class.  Guess that’s another good reason for developing and committing to a home practice .

So — what about you?  Anyone else play along?

Asana Project — Utthita Trikonasana

Brenda P at Grounding Thru The Sit Bones had an awesome post about picking an asana (yoga pose) and sticking with it for a week to 10 days and just seeing how it goes.

I tried something like this a few years ago, but was waaay too ambitious (a pose/post per day–I lasted about four days), so I’ve scaled it back. I’m going to focus on a pose every week to ten days. Do it for a few days, report on my impressions and then do several modifications and report on those. I teach with an Iynegar-influence, so I’m big on finding a version of a pose–often using props–that everyone can do. But, I’ve never really tested my versions beyond just the demonstration: do they really offer the same benefits? do they open something else in addition? Are there better modifications that I’m not considering? (Brenda on GTTSB)

I think it’s a great idea and something I’d like to do to kick-start my training program and the journaling process. (Hopefully Brenda and GTTSB won’t mind me jumping on their bandwagon!)

First asana: Triangle Pose (Utthita Trikonasana)

Note: Do NOT be scared of picture in the above link.  Yoga Journal’s pictures are of freaky-perfect yogis and trust me, NO ONE ever looks like this.  Think Vogue or Marie Claire for women’s beauty standards and you have YJ for yoga poses.

GTTSB has some great older posts on this pose and You Tube (of course!) has some great videos on this pose.  Check out the one for Beginners if you’re newer to yoga (within first 10 classes), or there’s one for more advanced practitioners. (For really advanced, the hand goes on the floor – see the Yoga Journal link for freaky-advanced Trikonasana pose.)

So — here we go!  I’ll be reporting back soon and hope that you’ll participate with me!