Ashtanga Practice Notes

My daily Ashtanga Yoga practice notes with observations, questions, and some answers.

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Laghu Vajrasana!

I did Laghu Vajrasana! First time ever all the way down to the floor and back up! Putting the bolster between the knees to keep them slightly wider and to keep the feet stay parallel and not to cave in helped. I also used the same bolster for the dropback and was able to lift up - not all the way but I lifted up to the height that makes it possible to fall back down. ;)

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Ustrasana

Ustrasana, the camel pose, was not my favorite for a very long time. It was hard for me to get into it and I had lower back pain when I tried to hold it. It got significantly better over a year of practice.

In order to avoid the lower back pain in Ustrasana, the legs should be only the hip distance apart, not wider. The inner thighs should be squeezing inward strongly and press down hard to the ground, thereby creating a kind of rebound of energy going upwards through the spine at the same time. The hip should stay on top of the thighs and should not move forward past the hip. (This will cause hinging in the low back.) The bhandas should be engaged. All of these actions together should create a deep arch in the upper back that is supported well. Breathe into the pelvis and feel the back of the pelvis expand with air. (This further supports the lower back.)

Today I could deepen the arch in the upper back, and the result was a very awesome feeling of support as if there were a pyramid between the top of my arched upper back and the two feet.

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Headstand, Opening the Shoulders, the Wall

One of the online classes I practiced which introduces the beginning poses of the Ashtanga secondary series had this exercise to open the upper back. You begin in the headstand but in front of the wall. The distance is about the length of your leg. So once you go into the headstand, arch your back and take your feet to the wall. Lift up your head to strengthen and open your shoulder.

But the problem is once you are done, how do you get out of the pose? I remember feeling completely stumped and falling to the sideways once. It was not fun. Some day in the future, I want to be able to drop back from the headstand to the Dwi Pada Viparita Dandasana with the bent legs (which would be totally make doing the headstand in the middle of the room much less scary). So I am motivated to try this even though I am not entirely comfortable. Besides, it is supposed to be very good for the shoulder.

Today I tried this pose and was stumped again once my feet touched the wall. With the head on the ground, I did not now how to bring my arched back to normal and bring my legs down to the ground. I found that the easiest way to get out of the pose is to keep one leg against the wall and to bring down the other leg toward the ground slowly. Eventually this tips your balance away from the backbend and you can safely land.

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Dwi Pada Viparita Dandasana - the Cool and the Scary Part

I can now go into Dwi Pada Viparita Dandasana! Not the full asana with the legs straight yet. But now from the wheel (Urdhva Dhanurasana), I can put down my head and move my arms behind to form a headstand position. Dwi Pada Viparita Dandasana is a harder version of the wheel that requires a lot of upper back and shoulder flexibility. The fact that I can get into it is the cool part.

When I took a backbend workshop a year ago, I could not easily get into this position. Actually, I got into it, but then could not get out. So my friend Amy had to lift the back of my chest up, so that I could lift my head and come down.That was some scary experience and so since then I didn't try again.

Even though I can get into this position, I do not yet feel comfortable moving my feet and straightening the legs. My upper back is open enough and so I experience no pain at all. But when I put down my head and move my arms around, I feel the sudden fear. That's the scary part. I am not sure whether it comes from the way I rest my head or from the weak core. I will try practicing every time when I do the wheel and see how it goes.

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Bhandas and Breath

The idea of a bhanda is still somewhat elusive to me. But I feel it mostly in sun salutations when i jump back from the downward dog. If I happen to engage the bhandas correctly, I can float back and feel the little lift in the core.

I read that yogis are supposed to engage bhandas throughout the entire practice. This seems extremely difficult and certainly not possible to me right now.

But it is in the inhale that the bhandas are mostly lost. So in each inhale if I consciously try to keep the bhanda engaged, this should help in the long run.

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Breathing into the Pelvic Bowl in Dropback

By accident, I discovered today that when going down in the dropback, breathing full into the pelvic bowl to make it expand with air reduces the pain in the lower back significantly. Try it yourself and feel the difference.

Usually I get exhausted after trying three dropbacks but today I did five and was fine. It was exhilarating experience to drop back (half way) without the lower back pain. Strengthening the back muscles, engaging the bhandas (still elusive though), opening the upper back, lengthening and strengthening the psoas all helped greatly for the dropback. But the breath is still something I need more conscious work on.

I also forgot to press down through the feet strongly in today's dropback. So hard to remember all the moving parts until they become somewhat unconscious.

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Handstand - Head, Arms, Knuckles, Legs, and Toes

For a long time, I did not understand that in chaturanga dandasana, one's body has to be as stiff as a staff. Actually, the name, chaturanga dandasana, itself means the four-limbed staff and so this should have been obvious. But I just did not make the mental connection. When I was doing this asana incorrectly, my shoulder was round and my arms bore too much weight while my legs were not engaged and my quads were taking a holiday. The result was the pain in my low back caused by the lack of the midline bracing / stabilization (aka. failing to engage the bandas).

This same lesson applies to the handstand. when you go up in the air, your body has to be as straight and stiff (in the best sense of 'stiff') as the staff just as in chaturanga. This is easier said than done. When I was attempting the handstand in the past, my arms were slightly bent, my back arched, my head and neck moved too forward, and my legs weak and hesitant. I think that all of these make the handstand much harder to hold because the balance achieved this way relies more on the muscular strength than the correct stacking of the bones. And I am not the person with very strong muscles.

Keeping the whole body straight and strongly engaged from the bottom of the hands to the tip of the toes needs to be a very conscious effort, at least in the learning stage. At the prep stage, it is helpful to lift up the arms straight as much as possible and then turn the palms outwards. (Gymnasts hold up their arms and hands this way before going into the handstand.) When I tried this, I could feel the lower part of the upper arms engage and stretch all the way to the index fingers. (This is also the same position that your arms should take in the down dog to avoid the wrist pain.) If the arms can stay straight in the same way in the handstand, the shoulder would not sink down and bend the elbows as a result. Instead the armpits will expand and push and move the body's weight upwards all the way from the knuckles of the hands that are strongly pushing the ground. 

In order to engage the legs, the most commonly given tip is to zip up / engage the inner thighs. While the idea is understandable, how to execute this idea of engaging the inner thighs was elusive to me. So I tried to putting my feet 'en pointe' (as in ballet), and this worked very well for me helping me straighten the arms and push the weight upwards from the ground through the knuckles of the hands all the way to the tip of the toes.

And the third thing to do to take advantage of your bone structure in the handstand is keeping the head in the straight line with the arms, the shoulder, the hip, and the feet as much as possible. Try looking at the spot between the tips of the two index fingers instead of far forward from the hand as this can sink the shoulder down and arch the back.

I suspect that which shape of the feet - flexed, en pointe, or pointed but relaxed at the same time (which is seem most commonly) - depends on each person's body and the strength of her/his core. In my case, the feet en pointe seem to help me most in engaging the quads and keeping the legs strong. So whichever shape of the fee that does the same would be the most helpful for the person trying to improve her/his handstand. The ideal engagement of the legs in the handstand feels very similar to that in Salabhasana (locust pose) to me.

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Baby Bakasana - Where to Place the Knees

The other day, I have finally succeeded at baby bakasana. In order to lift up the feet, the head and the chin in particular have to go very close to the floor.

The trick for me was to move my knees to the armpits instead of against the shoulder. When I placed my knees in the armpits, I was able to lift up.

This was the same when I was learning bakasana. I was only able to lift up with the knees in the armpit initially. As I get stronger, I was able to lift up with the knees against the shoulder and then move the knees into the armpits. So probably the fact that I was only able to do baby bakasana with the knees in the armpits means that my core is still not strong enough.

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How Open Should the Hip Be in the Handstand?

Like many, I practice the handstand by the wall. My handstand is not very strong although it got much better over the last 2.5 years. I can now stay for a few seconds off the wall and keep the balance.

But it seems to me that since my lower back is still not strong enough, I experience great difficulty in pushing through the hands upwards in the handstand. Recently I found that my keeping the hip slightly more open in the front (resulting in the butts sticking out towards the back slightly) , I could maintain the balance a bit better. But this is not easy because it often makes me lose the strength in my back and the core and bend backwards instead of standing on my hands.

I also discovered that I hold the balance better with my feet slightly apart rather than together. Keeping them together makes the handstand much harder for me. But I know that one should do the handstand with the feet together, not apart.

So the puzzle to me is how to keep the hip (and the pelvis) open in the front while not losing the strength in the lower back. As I practice backbends more in the second series, I am getting more accustomed to keeping the hips rotated inward (to protect the sacrum). But it seems to me that I have to do the opposite to this in the handstand.

The other day, I practiced the handstand with my teacher. And I could literally feel his lifting my hip upwards away from my ribs. It felt like a very big 'away.' The teacher said "there it is." But the only thing I could feel was that my back was bending backward and me losing the core.

When I was starting to practice the dropback, I was unable to keep my lower back stable and to grow out of the lower spine to expand and arch my upper back. When my teacher tried to show this by physically lifting my upper back upwards physically out of my lower back, I could not really figure out what I was supposed to do and what he was trying to show me.

So there is a real chance that I may figure this out eventually. I suspect that my spine - particularly the lower back - is not strong enough to stay buoyant in the handstand.

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Chaturanga and Pick-up and Jump-Back

I have been modifying my chaturanga to avoid pitching the butt up higher than the butt and also rounding the shoulder below the height of the butt. This was very helpful for dealing with the shoulder joint pain and led me to the realization that I have to keep my quads and the whole front parts of the legs super strong while in chaturanga. 

I haven't done much pickup and jumpback recently because I have not been doing my full ashtahga practice - the primary and the second all the way to laghu vajrasana. I have been mostly doing just the second series up to laghu and skipping the primary due to the lack of time and the recent wrist/shoulder pain.

Today I did the full primary and found that my pickup and jumpback much improved. I cannot still jump back without touching the floor with the toes first. But I could feel that keeping the shoulder and the chest open and wide in landing on chaturanga from the jumpback is definitely the right way to do. It would still be a long way to a smooth pickup and jumpback for me. But it was exhilarating to feel the difference during the practice.

Pick-Up and Jump-Back By Maty Ezraty

http://www.ashtanganeworleans.com/Old%20Website/StudentSection/JumpBack-Maty.htm

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Shoulder and Quads in Chaturanga

I was starting to have pain in my shoulder joints. The cause was that those shoulder joints were brought lower than my hip when I do chaturanga. (My teacher pointed this out to me.) Once I started consciously keeping them above my butt, the pain subsided.

To break my bad habit, I started keeping my chaturanga higher trying to avoid rounding and collapsing my shoulder. The collarbones need to stay open as you bend your arms. Engaging the quads is essential in achieving this. Overall, you want to feel like a strong straight staff that is high in the shoulder and slightly lower in your butt and the lowest in your feet.

If your chaturanga doesn’t tire your quads, you may be collapsing and rounding your shoulders which can lead to the shoulder pain

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The Back Leg in Standing Poses

One of the new things I discovered is the importance of the back leg in standing poses. Somehow, I wasn’t able to pay attention to my back leg in standing poses until recently.

But once I started engaging the quad and straightening my back leg, I feel that it helped my upper back open more easily in the warrior one. Somehow the firmer grounding through the back leg also helps the twisted side angle as well. The distinct difference is felt when I bring my head down in the triangle with the arms stretched in the back. The straightened back leg makes the tricky balance in this pose much easier to maintain.

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Backpedaling the Dropback

I succeeded in a dropback back in last November (2012), but by early spring this year I completely stopped practicing the dropback because of the low back pain. It wasn’t even a lot of pain. But I felt that something was not right, and I noticed I didn’t enjoy doing a dropback. I was also moved onto the secondary series maybe a few weeks before I finally succeeded in dropping back alone. But I stopped at Laghu Vajrasana since Laghu was very difficult for me. I said ‘No’ to moving on to Kapotasana also. Since then, I mostly worked on getting better at Ustrasana and Laghu Vajrasana. The second series up to Laghu, however, significantly strengthened my lower back and legs.

Recently, I started practicing the dropback again. It means after doing three wheels, standing up (not from the wheel) and trying to go back a bit. First, I went back to the wall and going down a bit and coming back up and eventually going all the way down to the floor using the wall and coming back up. This was what I first started in early 2012. So I was backpedaling in my backbend quite a bit.

Now I go backwards with my arms completely stretched (away from the wall). This helps lifting up from the waist, which did not happen and I couldn’t do when I was having pain in the dropback before. Since I don’t go all the way down to the floor, what I do is to just hang back as much I can without hinging on the lower back.

The lifting up from the base of the spine is not a subtle feeling at all. I can feel the skin of the front of my body from the hip bones to the top of the ribs stretch “very” tight to create an arch in the back when I hang back. In the past, I was hinging rather than arching because my lower back was not strong enough to form and sustain the arch. To me, still the most difficult part is to move the arch from the lower spine upwards to the upper spine as if you were moving an imaginary small ball towards the behind of your ribs so the the energy would be behind the heart. I also have to remember to use the bandhas, and I am still unable to go backwards in one breath. I also have to remember keeping the back long and full when coming back up to protect the lower back. This is something I have to try very hard and am still just learning how to. I think I may have to also use more of my feet and quads, but I have not gotten a good clue on that yet.

Today in class I tried hanging back with my hands in a prayer and then bringing the elbows up towards the ceiling and then stretching the arms out and down. This was harder and requires a strong lower back, but the hands were brought much closer to the floor this way. I might start practicing this after a few times of hanging back with the arms stretched out first.

The good news is that now I can drop back half way to the floor without pain. My upper back is more open, and the lower back is stronger than before. Being able to physically lengthen and expand the lower back feels amazing, almost like a miracle.

My standup from the dropback is still nonexistent. I was able to stand up - although in a poor manner - also a year ago. So hopefully it will come back. Recently, my teacher started dropping me back just pressing down my feet and holding my ankles. This way, I am learning to stand up by pressing down my feet very hard.

Overall, my backpedaling in the dropback was completely worth it. I learned that improvements in an asana can take a few years, and backpedaling is sometimes necessary.

http://youtu.be/LszVuBxfx38

http://youtu.be/bZPFVITAUVs

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Wrist Pain in Adho Mukha Svanasana

When you have wrist pain, it helps to make the index finger spread away from the thumb a bit more than 90 degrees. The weight should go more toward the front of the hands where the fingers rather than towards the wrist. Spread the hands; do not round them as if you were trying to grip the ground.

Also keep the legs strong and the thigh muscle engaged. Move the weight away from the hands and towards the back of the heels.

Widen the collarbone.

Let the bottom of the armpits open but stay up with the shoulder bones moving down towards the tailbone tucked in.

Slightly lift the heels initially.

Widen the sit bones and push them back.

Collect and gather in the ribs; Keep the shoulder down and lifted

Tuck in the navel.

Engage the thigh to rotate the hip inward slightly and bring the heels down.

Press the heels down harder and lift the hip higher.

Tuck in the navel again; Make the lower back and the waist expand and elongate.

The chest is open but the shoulder is down and outwardly rotated; the lower back is long and slightly round.

Push away from the ground equally on all four.