Body Technology

February 25, 2010

Back Bends

Filed under: yoga tech — Tags: , , , — Administrator @ 3:23 am

Doing things
The Hard Way

Back bending is difficult, or it can be depending on how you do it.

I spent about ten years doing wheel pose(urdva dhanurasana or chakrasana) the hard way and mostly not enjoying the process and wishing for a simple, easy way to do this pose.

After ten years I have it.

The answer isn’t necessarily ground breaking or awe inspiring, but now I truly do understand how to make it easier and although my backbends are far from magnificent, I’ve helped a number of people get up into wheel pose who previously have never been able to get their head off of the floor. This is an indication to me that this technique works or at the very least is helpful.

Using
Your Legs
(the easier way!)

Previously when I did wheel pose my focus (and I’m sure that of many others) was on using my arms.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but if you have tight shoulders and weak arms it can be a difficult thing.

Somehow I came across the notion of using my legs.

Rather than just using the legs to push my hips up, I focus on using my legs to pull my hips forwards as well as pushing them up so that the weight of the body is off of the arms (or on the arms as little as possible) .

You can practice the necessary action while standing. Slowly push your hips forwards while at the same time reaching your ribcage back, and then smoothly stand up.

If you pay attention to your feet you may notice that by pushing your legs and hips forwards your feet may feel like they are pulling back against the ground. In wheel pose you can try to duplicate this feeling so that your legs pull your pelvis forwards.

How far forwards?

I’ve seen some people pull their hips so far forwards they have to lift their heels.

That is fine but not necessary.

Move your Weight
Towards your Feet

The more important thing is pulling your hips forwards so that most of your body weight is over your feet or moving towards your feet.

If you weight is moving towards your feet you can use your legs to pull your hips, ribcage and head up off of the floor. Then your arms are only along for the ride, guiding your ribcage and head off of the floor instead of pushing them up.

While this variation is challenging I’ve found that more people have found it easier than simply trying to use the arms to lift up.

What to do
Once you are Up?

Once up should your keep your weight moving forwards?

Once you are up, play around. See how it feels to move your weight forwards more and then see what happens when you move it backwards, so that it is over your hands. Or slowly move from one extreme to the other.

One benefit of using the legs in this pose is that you may notice a feeling of “energization” in your legs after doing the pose especially if you hold the pose for a hwhile or go up and down continuously while using your legs.

The feeling is similar to that which I’ve had after holding horse stance for a number of minutes.

Why might the legs get so energized? One reason is that you are using them to lift the weight of your body but another reason is that you are stretching the front of the hips, knees and spine all at the same time.

There is a little bit more to making back bends easier but for now focus on pulling your weight forwards by using your legs. This same action can help you when it comes time to standing up from back bends… if that is something that you really want to do.

Just as importantly it gets you used to the idea of options or possibilities. You can use your arms to lift up into wheel pose or you can use your legs. Having experience of both possibilities you can choose.

Forward Bends Revisited

Filed under: yoga tech — Tags: , , — Administrator @ 2:31 am

Where
to Put Your Weight

One of the things that I forgot to mention in my first article on forward bending is where to have your body weight. This pertains to the standing forward bend.

When doing a standing forward bend you can have your weight over the fronts of your feet so that your toes press down into the ground or you can have your weight over your heels.

I find it easier to relax my hamstrings when my weight is over my heels.

Learning
To Feel your Weight

To learn to feel these two options you can slowly rock back and forwards while standing upright and then try it while doing a standing forwards bend. You can have your hands on the floor or on blocks (or on your shins or thighs) to help support the weight of your upper body. Meanwhile you can rock your weight forwards while inhaling and backwards while exhaling.

While moving forwards stop when you feel your weight directly over the fronts of your feet. Moving backwards, stop when you feel your weight over the centers of your heels.

What do I mean by “feel your weight?” The part of your foot that your center of balance or gravity is over is the part of your foot that presses down the most. Simply feel the way your feet press down into the earth and notice where the most pressure is.

Activating
Your Feet

Generally I find that with my weight over my heels it is even easier to allow my hamstrings to relax, even when using my hands to support my upper body. However, with your weight over the fronts of your feet and your feet “active” you may also find you can relax your hamstrings.

To activate your feet use your ankles to roll your shins outwards. At the same time “press” the outer edges of your feet into the floor. Pressing the outer edge of your feet into the floor is not the same as lifting the inner edge of your foot! At the same time as you do this press the base of your big toe (the inside part of the front of the foot) into the floor. You should find that these two actions together create or reinforce the inner arch of the foot making it “shapely.”

You can practice doing this while rocking your weight forwards and then relaxing while rocking your weight backwards.

When you are comfortable with this action try to do it with the minimum muscular effort necessary. This is so that even with your foot active you can still feel both your feet and the way they press into the floor.

Foundation
For Change

So now, if you have your weight forwards while doing a standing forwards bend activate your feet and if you have your weight backwards then center it over your heels.

In either case what is important is that the hamstrings muscles have a firm foundation. One bone to which they attach has to be stable so that they can allow the other bone to which they attach to move. In this case since we are trying to tilt the pelvis forwards, the pelvis is the bone that moves and so we need to stabilize the lower leg.

With our weight over our heels we use body weight to stabilize the heel, ankle and lower leg. (If your two heel bones aren’t “stacked” then this might not be the case-so as well as having your weight over your heels try to align the bones of your heel. Imagine wearing stylettos (high heels with very pointy heels) and pressing down through the tips of the heels.)

With your weight over the front of your feet, then with active feet you also help to stabilize your lower leg giving the hamstrings a firm base so that they can relax. But if your weight is forwards and your feet aren’t active (or you are just using your hands to support your body) then the hamstrings haven’t got the foundation that they need and so they won’t relax.

Creating
Change

One final image or picture is to imagine yourself on the side of a steep cliff. With a firm foundation, something to grab onto it is a lot easier to relax (and not be scared) and you can look for your next handhold or foot hold. With nothing to grab onto or with what you are grabbing being very delicate, chances are you won’t want to move for fear of breaking your connection.

With a firm foundation you are more likely to be able to create the change you desire-hamstrings that can relax and stretch.

February 22, 2010

Forward Bends

Filed under: yoga tech — Tags: , — Administrator @ 4:40 am

Supporting
the weight
of the Body

Stretching the hamstrings are like having a baby holding on to your leg that won’t let go. You can’t shake the baby off unless it’s someone else’s kid and your really don’t like it. You have to gently peel the baby off your leg and sneak away when they aren’t looking.

Tight hamstrings are muscles that won’t let go. You might be doing a forward bend and you reach a certain point and they put on the brakes as if to say

“That is it, that is enough, you aren’t going any further (what are you crazy, what the hell do you want to touch your toes for in the first place? If you want to touch them bend your knees, or get someone else to touch them, like your manicurist… i mean pedicurist)”

Relaxing
the Hamstrings

Just in case you don’t know, the hamstrings are a group of three muscles whose belly lies along the back of the thighs. They cross the back of the hip joint and the back of the knee and can be used to bend the knee and/or pull the thigh bone backwards.

They can also be used to stop the pelvis from tilting forwards.

Doing a forward bend with the knees straight, the main goal is to tilt the pelvis forwards so that we lengthen these muscles. However, in order to lengthen them, in order to stretch them, they need to be relaxed.

By the way, in the picture, the hamstrings are the orange colored things!

Bending Forwards
is Uncomfortable

So why might the hamstrings be tense in the first place?

I know for myself that I am afraid of the pain. Bending forwards is uncomfortable. And maybe in the back of my mind I still have deep seated notions that I am still “inflexible.”

And perhaps I’m also of the deep seated belief that my hamstrings aren’t strong enough to support the weight of my body.

What do I mean by that?

Tilting the
Upper Body
Forwards

In a forward bend, whether seated or standing, we tilt the pelvis forwards. If we aren’t using our hands to support our upper body then basically the hamstrings are slowly lowering the weight of our upper body downwards.

The closer our upper body gets to our legs, the more we stretch our hamstrings but also the more difficult it is for them to control the descent of our upper body. And so they tighten up before we get to the stage where they are in danger of “busting.”

Giving the
Hamstrings
a Helping Hand

While stretching the hamstrings we can help make them comfortable with the idea of letting go by giving them a hand with supporting the weight of our ribcage.

Doing a standing forward bend we can place our hands on blocks or on a chair, and rather than resting our hands there we can use our arms to lift our ribcage just enough so that our hamstrings aren’t bearing the weight.

If you’d done a pushup you know that in a push up our arms bear the weight of our upper body.

Doing a standing forward bend we can use our arms in the same way-position them on blocks, a chair or the floor so that we can use them to support the weight of our body. Supporting the weight of our upper body with our hands we can then wait for our hamstrings to relax, and then we lower our ribcage just a little using our arms.

We bend our elbows slightly while still pushing our hands down.

Then we bend our elbows a little bit more, each time just lowering enough to stay shy of our hamstrings “tightening” up.

When we are sure that our hamstrings can stay “reasonably” relaxed we can then slowly lift our hands off of the floor while continuing to allow our ribcage to sink down.

Now we can use the weight of our body to stretch our hamstrings. However if we find we’ve gone to far to fast we can put our hands back down on the floor or on the blocks and go back to a position where our hamstrings can relax.

Seated
Front Bends

What about if we are doing a seated forward bend? We use our hands in the same way. But first of all, if your hamstrings are so tight you can’t sit with your spine vertical then you need to sit on blocks or a chair. You don’t “neeeeed” to but I’d recommend it for now. You can also use blocks to support your hands.

Whether on blocks or not (sounds like we’re servicing a car!) we can pull our hands in close to our pelvis (ie backwards) so that we can use our arms to help lift our ribcage.

Actually, we use our shoulders to press our arms down into the floor while at the same time lifting our ribcage up. We can then gradually lower our ribcage by bending our elbows but still using our shoulders to keep pressing our ribcage up. We may then reach a point where we feel comfortable relaxing our arms completeley at which point we can take them off of the floor.

Keeping our actions smooth we can then slowly reach our arms forwards so that now we use the weight of our ribcage and arms combined to stretch our ribcage.

Options!

So what’s the difference between reaching our arms forwards after having used the arms to keep the ribcage lifted as opposed to keeping them lifted in the first place?

For some of us we can lift our arms and allow the weight of our ribcage to lengthen our hamstrings. However some days (and some people) need to focus on relaxing their hamstrings first. If we go straight into “hanging” with our hands off of the ground then our hamstrings won’t relax or will take a long time to do so- if anything all we are doing is waiting for our hamstrings to tire out.

Supporting the ribcage first can help the hamstrings to relax sooner. Plus it can feel nicer.

Do you need to do it this way all of the time? Probably not. If you can feel your body you’ll notice when you need to use this technique and when you don’t have to.

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February 19, 2010

Failing Safely

Filed under: Yoga and Life — Tags: — Administrator @ 3:00 pm

As a parent one of my jobs is teaching my child how to deal with the things that scare her. We went through a stage where she would fall of the edge of the bed and so I  taught her what to do if she got into a similar situation again. Holding her gently I helped her learn how to slow down a potential fall or how to get back away from the edge of the bed to safety. My next step is to start taking her swimming again as soon as the weather warms up so that she can remain safe if she accidentally falls into water.

Teaching yoga and having my students practicing handstands and headstands without the use of a wall I have to do the same thing, teach them how to fail safely. For headstands the solution was relatively simple, I taught them how to do a forward roll so that if they fell from a headstand they could roll out of it. (I also taught them to make sure that the area they might fall down within was clear of any objects.) That was what I spent most of my time doing in the three or four months it took me to learn how to balance in headstand. I’d fall.  I would  try to go up with my legs straight. I would reach a certain point-perhaps legs horizontal, perhaps a little bit higher, and then I would lose it. Back to the drawing board.

Perhaps all that falling is what enables me to do it with such ease now even though I don’t practice it that regularly. So long as my students can fall safely, then they can practice headstand and learn to do it.

That’s another thing I get from watching my daughter who has just learned to walk. At one point she’d walk a few steps then fall. No problem, she’d just get back up again or if she was tired just go back to crawling. The really fun thing to watch is the smile on her face when she is up and walking. Just the simple fact of being able to stay upright (though she does look a little bit like a miniature frankenstein monster when she does walk) she enjoys, and now a whole new world of possibility has opened up. And falling regularly was all part of that process.

Handstand is a bit trickier to fall safely from, so one of the fail safes I teach my students is to walk on their hands with their feet against a wall. The idea then is that if they find themselves falling the wrong way they can walk with their hands to get some stability so that they can fall safely.

Sometimes it can be a bit more challenging to find a safe way to fail that still gives the student the experience they need to learn to do a posture without support. One possible solution is to take them all to the park where the grass offers a soft crash pad.

Why learn to fail? Why practice failing safely? So that we can get on with succeeding. Then a whole new world opens up to us. (and other parents suggest that now my daughter is up and walking trouble awaits-I think possibility awaits.)

On a final note, for somethings there are no “fail safes.” When it comes to the road and traffic, one thing I will have to teacher my daughter is the meaning of the words “No” and “Stop,” at least until she is old enough to understand the dangers for herself.

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