Pose of the Day - Dandasana (Staff Pose)

We spent a good portion of the weekend focusing on Dandasana, as the first active seated pose in the Ashtanga Yoga series.

It's easy and very complex at the same time. It's also great to balance all of our chair sitting. It's a handy pose to learn because you can do it almost anywhere, in any clothing, and it's not very noticeable. It's perfect to sneak into your workday or while watching TV.

Sit comfortably on the floor. You don't even need a mat but being barefoot is good. Stretch your legs out in front of you and bring them pressing into each other.

Ground your sitbones firmly into the floor and let the backs of your legs extend to push your heels away from you. Now bring your feet active, halfway between pointed and fully flexed. Let space spread your toes apart.

Firm your thighs and the tops of your knees. If you have shorts on, you'll actually be able to see your kneecaps firm. Roll your legs inward toward each other and press the backs of your legs toward the floor, pressing your inner knees toward the floor. (If your hamstrings are tight, you might not touch the floor. That's fine. Just get the feeling of that pressing action only to the edge of discomfort and not past it into discomfort or pain. If it hurts, breathe and ease back a fraction!)

Bring your hands flat on the floor alongside your body. Press through your hands to lift your torso and roll your shoulders back and down from your ears. Let your sacrum tilt up through your back toward your navel. This will lift your chest and heart.

Relax your neck and bring your chin gently forward and halfway down to your chest. Imagine creating a little catcher's mitt out of the curve of your throat. (If you care, that's activating Jalandhara Bandha, or throat lock position.) As you breathe, feel the energy move up your spine into that mitt and then back down your spine to the ground.

Up and down. Breathe in and out.

That's Dandasana.

Today's Pose - Bridge (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana)

Bridge is a mild inversion pose. Because it inverts our normal orientation, it gives the body a gentle break from gravity and relaxes the mind.

Come lying comfortably on your back with your feet firmly on the ground about foot length away from your butt. Arms come along your sides with palms up. Open your chest and root your shoulder blades into the ground, rolling your upper arms out.

Now use your hamstrings (back of legs) to draw your thigh bones toward the ground as your pelvis lifts. Lift through your pelvis and spine as your chest continues to expand and relax. Breathe deeply and comfortably.

Hold the pose, letting your heart move ever closer to your chin and throat. Heart higher than head, pelvis higher than heart, knees higher than pelvis. Your face, chin, throat, shoulders, neck and arms are completely relaxed.

If you like, you can support yourself in this pose with a block or firmly rolled towel below the sacrum (end of your backbone). Play with different heights. Play with letting yourself relax against the support. See how long the pose is comfortable for you. Can you feel your hips relax open as you breathe? Can you feel the inversion of fluids nourishing your heart, face and mind?

Namaste

A Good Thing to Remember

"Yes, honey is perhaps good, honey and patience." - Ursula, 1-23-08

A Yoga Narrative

Okay, I'll tell you another story that happened in Yoga Teacher Training on Sunday:

The afternoon was winding to a close, and S was wrapping things up. Instead of just letting us go an hour early, he wanted to lead us through meditation.

He spoke about the Chakras, the seven energy wheels that are aligned with our spines. According to him, Hatha Yoga came into existence as an offshoot of earlier practices about 1200 years ago with the description of these Chakras. I don't know the Sanskrit off the top of my head (yet), but the first Chakra is at the top of the head. The next is at the third eye or forehead. The next is the throat. The heart centers it all. Then the solar plexis has energy, so does a spot in from the navel at roughly our center of gravity, and, finally, the "lowest" the root of the spine.

So S was being S, making these grand pronouncements. "In my opinion, nobody has ever tapped into the energy of the lower Chakras," he said. "Well, only a few, and they've probably been corrupted by the energy. The energy of the lower chakras is as powerful as a train coming down the tracks. It's a good thing we can't access it, and most people probably shouldn't even try..." And so on and so forth.

I sat there churning this around in my mind. Is this true? I wondered. I thought of my own fairly limited meditation experience. I'm actually pretty sure that I HAVE tapped into this chakra energy. I've felt that. Besides why would there be all this energy inside of us if we couldn't access it? That makes no sense.

But S is very into the "danger" of yoga - he advises caution in everything he teaches. (Remember, he warned us that a side effect of breath practice might be death. Which was an interesting conundrum. Breathe and you might die; don't breathe and you will die!)

So he talked for about 15 minutes about all the dangers, then he said, "Okay, let's give it a shot!"

And I burst out into peals of laughter.

Which I think may have offended his sensibilites, and ruined the dramatic mood he had set. Defensively he said, "Well, it's no good if I warn you AFTER something happens."

So we meditated on just the lower three Chakras. Everyone seemed to make it through the experience undamaged.

Teacher training is fun!