Friday Q&A: Can Yoga Really Help Me?

Fallen Tree by Brad Gibson

Q: I have been getting the emails for some time and find them very interesting but have a question that has been nagging me for some time. I have been practicing yoga for years and have been teaching yoga for 10 years. I am now 63 and in the last 3 yrs despite my daily practice and veggie diet feel that my body has been deteriorating, i.e., increased aches and pains, worse in the morning, increased loss in vitality and recurring viruses, etc. I know I am getting old but I have always had faith in my yoga until the last year or so. Do you think yoga can really help with these problems in the way it claims to once we get older?

A: This question is what prompted Baxter to write his post What to Expect from Your Yoga Practice on Tuesday. But I thought it worth posting the original question for two reasons. The first reason is that this is not the first time we’ve received a question from someone who is having serious problems but whose description of their situation is too vague for us to provide a specific helpful answer. What we typically do in these cases is to suggest that the person be examined by a medical doctor to get a specific diagnoses. Only when there is a specific diagnosis is it possible for us to recommend specific yoga remedies. That's something for you all to keep in mind if you are having unexplained aches and pains, loss in vitality, recurring viruses, or any other troubling symptoms.

The second reason is that it may be be that you, as was the case with the person who asked the above question, have indeed been examined and nothing specific has been found wrong with you. In this case, it seems to me (and Shari and Baxter agree with me on this) that if someone has been medically checked out and they are perfectly healthy, but their yoga practice is be causing them to be tired and/or in pain all the time, it is probably a good idea for them to change their practice. While most folks out there don't exercise enough, there definitely are a few who overdo yoga! So it might be time to do different types of poses and/or sequences, at least for a while. This might mean a gentler practice, a practice from a yoga tradition different than the one you usually study, a break from standing poses or the poses that are painful for you, or studying with a new teacher. Or it might be good to take time off from active asana, focusing for a time on restoratives and relaxation until your body recovers. Sometimes a temporary break from yoga asana is even necessary (I've been there myself). I strongly recommend a private consultation with a teacher you respect—even if you are a teacher yourself—who can look at you with fresh eyes and make some recommendations for changing your practice. You'll probably have to experiment for a while to find out what's best for you, but I've personally found that a period of experimentation can be very fruitful for deepening your understanding of yoga.

And what about the answer to the specific question: Do you think yoga can really help with these problems in the way it claims to once we get older? I can say with complete confidence that all four of here at Yoga for Healthy Aging (and that includes, besides me, a medical doctor, a medical researcher, and a physical therapist) all do believe that yoga can help with these problems. That’s why we started this blog!

—Nina

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Featured Pose: Upward Bound Hands (Urdva Baddha Hastanana)

Upward Bound Hands pose

by Baxter and Nina

This simple pose allows you to stretch and strengthen your shoulders, arms, hands and wrists, providing the perfect antidote to working with your arms down by your sides all day. Raising your arms overhead with bound hands reverses the effect of gravity on your arms and reestablishes the full range of motion of your collar blades and shoulder blades.

This pose releases muscular tension in your shoulders and upper back from sitting, driving, and/or traveling, and builds strength in your shoulder girdle muscles. It is also helpful for people who tend to develop swelling in forearms or hands, or those who have undergone cancer treatments with removal of lymph nodes.

Version 1, in which your palms are turned up toward the sky, takes your wrists into extension, which is a good is a counter-pose for people who are working with their hands all day, whether typing at a computer or using tools for your job. In addition to releasing the wrists, this version stretches the inner surface of your forearms, which could be beneficial to people with golfer’s elbow (inflammation at the inner elbow).

Version 2, in which your palms are facing the floor, you get a good stretch on the opposite side of your forearm, which could be helpful for people who have tennis elbow. Because the yoga practice typically requires a lot of wrist extension (think Downward-Facing Dog pose, Cat/Cow pose, and Plank pose), Cat Cow, Version 2 of this pose is an effective counter-pose for yoga poses where you bear weight on your hands. 

Because both versions of the pose are beneficial in different ways, we recommend you practice both of them, either on the same day or alternating them. This pose takes up very little space, which is why we’re including it in our office/travel yoga practice. If standing isn’t possible, you can do the arm position from a seated position.

Baxter prescribes this pose for:

•    upper back shoulder and arm stiffness
•    as a counter-pose for kyphosis (Dowager’s hump)
•    elbow conditions, such as tennis or golfer’s elbow
•    carpal tunnel syndrome (or prevention of)
•    arthritis of shoulder, elbow, wrist or finger joints
•    dullness of mind or fatigue, (it is slightly stimulating)
•    weakness in the shoulder girdle area (it strengthens the shoulder and arm muscles)

Instructions:

Version 1: Start by standing in Mountain pose, with your feet about hips-width apart (or sit on a chair with your feet flat on the floor). Now, interlace your fingers and turn your palms toward your feet. Strengthen your legs, pressing from your hips into your feet. Then, on an inhalation, bring your arms forward and up. Lengthen your spine and lift your collarbones as your lift your shoulder blades. Move your arms toward a vertical position, keeping your head in a neutral position. Once you encounter resistance in your shoulders or upper back, resist the impulse to take your arms further back. Stay in the position for about one minute, possibly working up to two minutes.

To come out of the pose, lower your arms forward and down before releasing the clasp of your hands. Pause for a few minutes and notice the effects of the pose on your whole upper body (hands, wrists, arms, and shoulders).

Version 2: Start by standing in Mountain pose, with your feet about hips-width apart (or sit on a chair with your feet flat on the floor). Now, interlace your fingers and keep your palms upward. Strengthen your legs, pressing from your hips into your feet. Then, on an inhalation, bring your arms forward and up. Lengthen your spine and lift your collarbones as your lift your shoulder blades. Move your arms toward a vertical position, keeping your head in a neutral position. Once you encounter resistance in your shoulders or upper back, resist the impulse to take your arms further back. Stay in the position for about one minute, possibly working up to two minutes.

To come out of the pose, lower your arms forward and down before releasing the clasp of your hands. Pause for a few minutes and notice the effects of the pose on your whole upper body (hands, wrists, arms, and shoulders).

Cautions: If you have rotator cuff injury, approach this pose cautiously to be sure you don’t aggravate the injury. And even though this pose can be helpful for tennis elbow, golf elbow, and arthritis, please practice cautiously to be sure you don’t aggravate those conditions. Because this pose can potentially raise your blood pressure, if you have a history of high blood pressure, heart conditions, or strokes, move dynamically rather than keeping the arms overhead. Raise your arms up with an inhalation and then down with an exhalation.

Because this pose creates a backbend in the thoracic spine, those with osteoporosis or osteopenia should be cautious and aware as you go into the pose that it does not precipitate pain. Those with thoracic outlet syndrome should either skip this pose or do the dynamic version, moving in and out of the pose with your breath.

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Meditation and Brain Strength

by Nina

Tide Between Rocks by Brad Gibson

Recently I read an article on Science Daily called “Evidence Builds That Meditation Strengthens the Brain.” Naturally I was hoping that Brad would comment on the article (see here) and the original research (see here). But until then—oh, I live in hope!—I thought I’d share the links with you and let you know some of my own thoughts about it.

According to the article on Science Daily, Eileen Luders, an assistant professor at the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, and her colleagues, have found that long-term meditators have larger amounts of gyrification (“folding” of the cortex, which may allow the brain to process information faster) than people who do not meditate. They also found a direct correlation between the amount of gyrification and the number of meditation years, possibly providing further proof of the brain's neuroplasticity (its ability to adapt to environmental changes).

Particularly interesting was the positive correlation between the number of meditation years and the amount of insular gyrification. Luders said:

The insula has been suggested to function as a hub for autonomic, affective and cognitive integration. Meditators are known to be masters in introspection and awareness as well as emotional control and self-regulation, so the findings make sense that the longer someone has meditated, the higher the degree of folding in the insula.

The intriguing idea that your thoughts can affect the physiology of your brain is not a new one, however. Reading this article immediately made me think of the way Stephen Cope described samskaras in his book Yoga and the Quest for the True Self.

Yogis discovered that consciousness is dominated by highly conditioned patterns of reactivity—patterns that are deeply grooved, and very difficult to change once established.

Every action based on craving or aversion leaves a subliminal impression on the mind. These impressions are called samskaras, or literally, “subliminal activators.” Yogis sometimes think of these subliminal activators as being pressed into the “hot wax of the mind.”

Samskaras are like little tracks, little vectors, little ruts in the muddy road. The next time the car travels that road, these muddy ruts will have hardened into permanent fixtures, and the car wheels will want to slide into them. Indeed it’s easier to steer right into them than to try to avoid them.

Cope believes that with tapas, which he defines as “the energy of restraint,” we can start to avoid some of our harmful patterns of reactivity or samskaras.

I have said that samskaras are like ruts in a road, and that as the ruts deepen through repetition, it becomes inevitable that the car will slide into them unawares. Any intentional effort to restrain the car from slipping into the rut is called tapas.

Tapas requires a particular kind of attention—precisely the kind required when driving on a rutted road. We need to be awake. We need to be concentrated in order to avoid the edges of the ruts. And sometimes we need to pull the car wheels—with considerable effort—out of the ridges in the road.

And tapas, which is also a “burning effort,” is exactly what we need to establish and maintain a regular meditation and yoga practice, the very practice that may help us strengthen our brains as well as our bodies. To be continued....

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What to Expect from Your Yoga Practice

by Baxter

Several times a year, a particular query is posed to me by one of my students and it goes something like this: I have been practicing yoga for many years, advancing in my ability to do intermediate and sometimes advanced poses. I have been very healthy up to this point. I thought that if I did this and ate a healthy diet that I would stay healthy into my older years. Yet I just found out I have X, and I am confused and somewhat disappointed. I did not think this sort of thing would happen to me. Can I expect my yoga practice to resolve this issue?

Oh, does my heart go out to you! I totally understand where this perception comes from. It seems that in an insidious and unspoken way, we have come to expect that yoga is a kind of protective force field from the normal aging process. After all, our newspapers and magazines are constantly touting the health benefits of a regular yoga practice. And indeed, hatha yoga done regularly can help and slow down some of the usual changes that can happen in the course of a normal lifetime. But I, too, have had this encounter with the reality of my own mortality while in the midst of my yoga, and at first I was very disillusioned. 

Yet just a brief look into the history of important “enlightened” teachers of yoga in the 19th and 20th centuries reveals that despite reaching the pinnacle of yoga’s promised effects, some of these men died at surprising young ages. Yoga, despite the encouraging words from the Hatha Yoga Pradipika about longevity and destroying death, does not change the fact that we all age, get sick and die, as the Buddha observed on his first visit outside his cloistered youth in the palace.

Dry River Bed by Brad Gibson

This is why I believe we need to look deeper at the underlying goals of yoga that we can find in the Yoga Sutras and other important texts. They all talk of a higher psycho-spiritual aspiration that is the overriding objective of a deep and enduring practice: the union of our individual spirit (however you define that) with a kind of universal consciousness (however you define that!). Along the way, if you practice as guided by the tradition and your teacher, other beneficial side effects often occur: clearer insight into how things really are in your world, mental clarity on other issues, a deeper abiding sense of peace and interconnectedness with others and the world as a whole, and even a better sense of your purpose in life. 

Does that mean the Hatha Yoga practice cannot help with some healing and have other possible beneficial effects on your health, even with the arrival of an unwanted condition? Of course not!   We have featured many of the ways yoga can improve health in just a few short months. And even an experienced practitioner can have more to learn. So it may be time to find that teacher who can help guide you on this next part of your journey. There is nothing like working one on one with a gifted yoga teacher to open up new possibilities for you. 

And, finally, to get a truly amazing insight into this very phenomena, check out Esther Meyer’s essay in the collection of essays entitled Will Yoga and Meditation Really Change My Life? edited by Stephen Cope.

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In Praise of Chair Yoga

by Nina

Recently we’ve been featuring some yoga poses you can do while seated on a chair, such as a chair twist, backbend and forward bend. We’ve been offering up these poses as “office” or “travel” yoga, for those times when you don’t have the space or option of practicing on the floor. But it’s also true there are many people out there who cannot practice yoga standing up. They may have a chronic disease, such as Parkinson’s or Multiple Sclerosis, may have balance problems, or may be too weak to get up from the floor for any number of reasons. They may even be in a wheelchair.

To be honest, it’s only lately that I’ve come to realize what a godsend chair yoga can be for such people. As I’ve been learning more and more about the aging process, I’ve started to understand how important it is to keep moving your joints through their range of motion. If you don’t, you will continue to lose mobility, and very quickly (I watched my own father go through this when he stopped exercising). But if you do continue with your yoga, even while seated on a chair, you can help slow down your losses (and, maybe, depending on your condition, maintain or even regain some mobility). That was driven home to me this weekend when I took Shari Ser and Bonnie Maeda’s therapeutic workshop “Yoga for Neurological Disorders.” One of the students in the class shared her story with us. She is a middle-aged woman with an inherited form of Muscular Dystrophy who had been a yoga practitioner before she came down with the disease. As a participant in a study of people with the disease, she was told that keeping up with her practice during her illness was clearly helping her slow down the progression of her disease. She seemed both very committed to and very grateful for her practice. She was also an inspiration to others in the class, whether they were currently dealing with a neurological disorder themselves or were just, like me, interested in learning to help those who are.

Cat Pose in a Chair

And although I’ve read many books that talk about the benefits of chair yoga for people with chronic illnesses and even helped produce the photo shoot for one such book (Yoga As Medicine by Timothy McCall), Saturday was the first time I did a full practice of chair yoga myself. I have to say, I was eating a little humble pie during the practice, as some of the poses were more strenuous than I was expecting. One particular pose was a revelation to me. We did a version of Downward-Facing Dog where you sit on a chair facing a wall, far enough away from the wall so you can touch your fingertips to the wall when you bend forward. Start by sitting upright with your feet flat on the floor, hips-width apart. Then bending forward from your hip joints, bring your fingertips to the wall and walk them slowly up the wall, until they are in Downward-Facing Dog alignment, keeping your ears aligned with your arms. What a great shoulder opener and upper body stretch! I thought it would be wonderful for anyone who can’t bear weight on their hands due to hand or wrist problems, and I found it much more effective stretch—at least for me—than Half Downward-Facing Dog at the wall. My partner in the class and I decided to dub it “Quarter Dog,” and I hope to take a photograph of it one of these days.

If you are interested in learning more about chair yoga, Loren Fishman and Eric Small’s book Yoga and Multiple Sclerosis: A Journey to Health and Healing has some excellent examples (some even done in a wheelchair). And, uh, yeah, Yoga as Medicine also has a number of good ones. If you know of any other resources for these, do let me know!

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Friday Q&A: Hip Pain and Skiing

Q: I commented a while back on being old and having bad hips, but that was just basically a whine about pain. Now I actually have a real question. Last week I went downhill skiing in two feet of thick powder snow (very hard skiing). At the end of the day my hips felt great. Thighs and calves were pretty sore, but hips felt better than they had for ages. I think that this was the result of exercising each side equally—it was the only way to get through the powder without falling. How can I make sure in yoga practice that I am actually exercising each side equally? My teacher points out that each side may feel different in an asana, but that is usually the end of that. I understand that opposing body parts often "feel different" but is this a situation that we are not supposed to attempt to fix? I feel a great imbalance between right and left sides. Especially in the hips. What to do?

A: Your observation about symmetrical exercises making your hips feel better is very astute. Yoga is asymmetrical and that can be problematic for certain orthopedic issues. I am not a skier but what I can imagine is that the movement comes from weight shifting with the hips in a non-moving, weight-bearing position with the knees flexed and the ankles fixed within the skis. This position causes significant isometric muscle contraction to keep the joints stable. Muscle contractions increase blood flow to the area significantly, and if you had good alignment in your ski position, then the weight bearing forces were also nourishing the joint cartilage because of the increased blood flow. Proper alignment, with significant muscle contraction through all sides of a joint for a significant time period is what nourishes arthritic joints. You also did this activity for a SIGNIFICANT time, not just a 1.5 or 2 hour yoga class, which is not non-stop movement. Proper alignment, with significant muscle contraction through all sides of a joint for a significant time period is what nourishes arthritic joints!

So how to apply this to asana practice? One way might be to concentrate on “co-contraction” of opposing muscle groups when you are in standing poses, as well as in seated positions, inversions and backbends, that are specifically targeting your hips. Focus on activating your hip abductors, hip extensors, hip flexors, and hip adductors. Finding neutral in your hip joint before moving into an asana is also critical. Move your leg to a position without too much internal rotation or too much external rotation but balanced between the two extremes. Once you are in the pose, focus on isometrically contracting all the muscles that help you stabilize. Timing the sides also can be important, with a full 30-45 seconds on each side (use a kitchen timer as this time may be actually longer than you think). I would also recommend being careful to avoid pain in your hips going into or out of asana because this just increases the inflammatory response and causes more wear and tear on the joint cartilage.

—Shari


A: Dear Happy Hips,

My take on this is a bit different than Shari’s, so you’ll have to try both of our approaches to find out which is best for you (and your hips).

First off, it would be helpful to know more about your hip pain prior to this glorious curative day of hard skiing. Which hip hurts, which movements have been aggravating in the past, and how has your yoga practice impacted the typical course of your hip pain?

I have skied and also skied in powder, and although you have to work harder to get through powder conditions, there is actually much less joint impact than in usual conditions, as the powder softens each thrust of the ski into the hillside. So in one sense, you might want to see how your hips respond to normal ski conditions But, of course, be careful.

Also, there is a balance between external rotation of one hip as the other hip internally rotates, in order to keep your skis parallel as you cut side to side on your downhill trip. Rarely are your hips in neutral for very long. In addition, you are in constant movement at the joint, not only with the rotational movement of the joint, but with the flexing at the hips and knees that increases and decreases moment by moment. This dynamic movement is different than some yoga practices, which have a held static quality, as in the Iyengar system, as we have discussed in the past. And this dynamic movement may be a better type of way for you to work with your hip.

Although the joint is in constant flux while you are skiing, the overall muscle tone around the joint is consistently engaged, so you are not relaxing into the joints and letting the muscles be more passive. This may also be providing more support around the joint than say in Pigeon pose forward bending version, for instance.

How does this translate to your yoga practice? Well, first off, you may want to work on dynamic mini vinyasa flows that partially replicate your experience on the mountain. You may want to work with a local teacher who also skis in order to create some personal movements for your unique situation. And notice if long-held, static poses aggravate your hip, as this may not work well for you long term.

—Baxter

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Featured Sequence: Mini Office Yoga Practice

by Nina

Recently on Thursdays we've been featuring our essential office yoga poses and today is the day when we get to put them together into a sequence! This mini sequence is very well rounded, and even follows the format of traditional Iyengar sequence: a warm-up pose (Half Dog Pose) followed by "standing poses," a backbend, a twist, and a forward bend. As always, when you are practicing a sequence, feel free to skip any poses that don't work for you and to add in any favorites you can't live without.

1. Half Dog at the Wall (or desk, chair, kitchen counter, whatever). See here for details.

2. Standing Leg Stretches. See here for details and for the sequence of three leg stretches.

3. Seated Backbend. See here for details.

4. Seated Twist. See here for details.

5. Seated Forward Bend. See here for details.

We'll be featuring even more office yoga poses in the coming weeks, and our grand finale will be full-length office yoga sequence. But realistically, when we're traveling or taking a break at work, most of us only have time for a quick practice. So, enjoy! And if you have any fun stories about practicing office yoga under unusual circumstances, we'd love to hear them. I recently did some yoga on an airplane, and my favorite pose out of everything I tried that day was the standing forward bend I did in the corner at the back of the airplane by the bathroom, using a bit of wall space there to support my buttocks. Ahhh!

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Aging: Terms and Theories

by Nina

I’m old enough that I’ve started to focus on doing some of the things I’ve always wanted to do but never got around to. Some are big (writing a novel!) and some are rather trivial. One of the more trivial things that I somehow never got around to was listening to my husband and fellow blogger, Professor Brad Gibson, give a talk. He’s kind of infamous for talking really fast, jumping around the room a lot, and packing his talks with lots of information and jokes. Recently I got the perfect opportunity to finally check him out in action when he gave a talk on his research on aging and age-related diseases at a scientific symposium.

And, yes, dear readers, Brad was a hyper and funny as I’d been told. And since you haven’t heard from Brad in a while, I thought I’d take the opportunity to tell you a little about what I learned from his talk. He began by defining some basic terms that I thought might be useful for you to hear as well.

Aging is the process of a system’s deterioration over time.

Aging and Age-Related Diseases is the (mostly) undefined relationship of “normal” aging and diseases known to be highly associated with aging, such as cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, and type 2 diabetes.

Healthspan is the period during a person’s life during which they are generally healthy and free from serious or chronic illness. This is what most researchers in the aging field are focusing on increasing (as opposed to lifespan).

Compressed Morbidity is “The compression of morbidity occurs if the age at first appearance of aging manifestations and chronic disease can increase more rapidly than life expectancy. — James Fries (My translation: compressed morbidity means shortening the period of ill health that precedes a person’s death.)

Scientists understand that healthspan and compressed morbidity are important concepts because what would extending life be worth if it only meant 20 more years of serious illness and disability?

Muddy Road by Brad Gibson

Brad did make a number of jokes, but the thing that made me (and some of the audience) laugh the most was a slide about the theories of aging. He prefaced this slide by saying to his audience, as he’s said to you, that when he first came to the Buck Institute for Age Research, he assumed that scientists had a basic understanding of aging. Instead, he found that very little was currently known about aging. Then he showed a slide listing the following theories (those in bold are theories he considers the most compelling).

What is Aging?

Wear and Tear theory
Error and Repair theory
Neuroendoncrine theory
Redundant DNA theory
Genetic Control theory
Free Radical theory
Caloric Restriction/Nutrition
Cross-Linking
Waste Accumulation
Gene Mutation
Limited No. of Cell Divisions
Rate of Living
Hayflick’s Limit theory
Order to Disorder (entropy)
Death Hormone
Thymic-stimulatory theory
Mitochondrial theory
Autoimmune theory
Antagonistic Pleiotrophy
Senescence and Inflammation (SASP)Telomere Shortening
Others (Insulin, mTOR, etc.)

I don’t know about you, but I had no idea there were so many theories of aging and neither did most of the scientists in the room! (That's certainly something to keep in mind when you read about the latest anti-aging diet or supplements that are based on some theory of aging that some expert claims is fact.) Of course, while scientists don’t yet know the why of aging, we are all familiar with many of the what’s. For example, most of us understand that human beings typically lose strength and flexibility as they age (things yoga can help with, by the way). And I hope to have some posts from Shari Ser on this subject—what happens to us as we age—in the near future.

The next slide made people laugh, too, because it showed a worm looking young and fresh at 3 days and then old and wrinkly (for real) at 10 days

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First Day of Spring: More Thoughts on Warming Up

by Baxter

Happy First Day of Spring!

As usual, Nina did a bang up job yesterday of getting into the topic of warm-ups for your daily home practice, mostly from an Iyengar perspective. I wanted to add in that, as may have been obvious from Nina’s post, you start by thinking about where you want to head in your practice on any given day. I think of this as an opportunity to pick what I and others call a “goal” or “crown” pose or poses that I would like to explore in my practice that day. My goal pose is usually one that I am working toward feeling more open or stronger in, or one that I feel has more to be discovered than what I already know about it. Once I have determined that, I can begin to consider appropriate ways to warm my body up for my goal pose.

Spring in Northern California by Nina Zolotow
(yes, we do have seasons)

Nina suggested four possible categories of goal poses you might work toward: seated forward bends, seated twists, backbends or inversions. And with each goal pose category, she gave you several areas of the body that need to opened up to safely achieve those poses. However, you could have as your goal pose a particular standing pose that is particularly challenging for you, say Revolved Triangle, which is part forward bend, and part twist, requiring you to blend warm ups from both of those categories.

Nina’s focus was mostly on the concept of stretching and opening areas, but don’t forget that many of your poses require an equal amount of strength and stability in order to successfully do them, such as Handstand or Heron pose, both arm balances that may require cultivating strength prior to attempting the full pose.  For instance, I often warm up with something I call “sag and lift” that looks a bit like cat/cow, except the movement is isolated to the shoulder girdle, and on an inhale, you sag your chest toward the floor a bit, and on the exhale you strongly press the space between the shoulder blades toward the ceiling. 

If you were to look at the back of Light on Yoga, Iyengar’s classic book on yoga asana, you would see a whole series of practices listed there. What you might not see was any clear “warm ups” listed.  At least not ones that are not already stand alone yoga poses. By contrast, what you may have noticed in your public classes is that there are often warm-ups that don’t fit directly into what we could call codified yoga postures. In fact a few days ago, in Shari’s interview on abdominals (see here), she recommend pelvic tilts and pelvic clocks, which are actually modern “poses” from the worlds of physical therapy and Feldenkrais technique. All this to remind you that you can think outside the box as you warm yourself up for you goal pose.

And since I have studied not only the Iyengar method, but also from the Krishnamacharya lineage, I do a lot of “mini-vinyasa” to warm up for my practice. The reclining hip opener sequence we introduced for the back care practice is one example (see here), but you can make it even more simple by linking a starting stance with the full pose, and moving back and forth between them with your breath, typically for around six breath cycles. As an example, take starting on hands and knees, exhaling into Downward-Facing Dog, then inhaling back to hands and knees, repeating this five more times. It’s a great way to prepare for a longer held version of Downward-Facing Dog. 

As there are a lot of different ways to warm up and sequence a practice, I am sure we will return to the topic again before too long, so in the meantime, give some of these ideas a spin if you have not tried them in your home practice yet.

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Iyengar-Style Sequencing, Part 2: Warming Up

by Nina

As I mentioned in my post "Iyengar-Style Sequencing, Part 1", Iyengar-style sequences typically begin with starting or warm-up poses. Today I’m going to write a little about how to choose the appropriate warm-up poses for a particular sequence. One useful way to choose your warm-up poses is to think anatomically about the main poses in your sequence. Don't let that term "anatomically" scare you, please! Just picture the shape of the pose, and notice which parts of your body are stretched the most while you are in the pose. This will help you figure out which parts of your body need to be warmed-up for you to do your main poses most comfortably.

Bulbs About to Blossom by Nina Zolotow

 In the seated forward bends, four main areas are to target are:

• hips
• backs of legs
• torso/back body
• shoulders (you reach for or clasp your feet with your arms overhead)

So poses you might choose to prepare for seated forward bends would focus on hip openers to make the seated positions more comfortable, reclined or standing leg stretches, shoulder openers, and poses, such as side stretches and Tree pose that lengthen your torso, and stretches that open your shoulders in an overhead position. The standing poses with straight legs and forward bending elements, such Downward-Facing Dog, Standing Forward Bend, Triangle Pose, Half Moon pose, and Parsvottanasana, also prepare you well for seated forward bends.

For backbends, four main areas to target are:

• fronts of the thighs
• chest openers
• torso/front body
• shoulders

So poses you might choose to prepare for backbends would focus on lunges or Reclined Hero pose to stretch the fronts of your thighs, passive backbends to open your chest, poses such as Downward-Facing Dog, side stretches and Tree pose that lengthen your torso, and stretches that open your shoulders in the same direction they will go in the backbend (overhead and or behind your back, depending on the type of backbend). Standing poses that include backbend elements, such as Warrior 1, Warrior 3, and Dancer’s pose, also prepare you well for backbends, as well as Sun Salutations.

For seated twists three main areas to target are:

• hips
• spinal length
• spinal flexibility

So poses you might choose to prepare for twists would focus on hip openers to make the seated positions more comfortable, poses such as Downward-Facing Dog and Tree pose that lengthen your spine, and poses that gently twist, bend forward or bend back, to create general flexibility in your spine. Standing poses that include twist elements, such as Revolved Triangle, Revolved Side Angle, and Revolved Half Moon poses, also prepare you well for seated twists, as well as Sun Salutations. If you bind in twists, you could also stretch your shoulders in the behind your back position.

For inversions, three areas you should target are:

• legs
• shoulders
• torso

So poses you might choose to prepare for inversions should focus on reclined or standing leg stretches to make getting into the upside down position easier (and your legs lighter while you are upside), shoulder openers that open your shoulders in the overhead position, and poses such as Downward-Facing Dog and Tree pose that lengthen your torso. Standing poses that partial inversions, such as Standing Forward Bend, Downward-Facing Dog, and Widespread Standing Forward Bend, also prepare you well for full inversions.

These are just very general guidelines. For, as we always say, sequencing is an art, not a science, and different body types respond differently to various poses. Eventually you’ll start to learn which types of warm-ups are most effective for you, For example, if you’re tight, you may wish to stretch more than someone who is very flexible, and may want to warm up for a pose like Downward-Facing Dog. While someone who is more flexible maybe able to use Downward-Facing Dog itself as a warm-up pose.

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Workshops of Interest: Therapeutic Yoga Seminars

Our own Shari Ser and her co-teacher, Bonnie Maeda, RN, are teaching a series of therapeutic yoga seminars this spring at the Berkeley Yoga Room.

Yoga for Neurological Disorders on March 24, 2012
Yoga for Heart Conditions on April 28, 2012
Yoga for Breathing Disorders on May 19, 2012
Yoga for Sleep Disorders on June 16, 2012

These seminars are intended primarily for training teachers in the therapeutic uses of yoga, but all interested students are welcome to attend if space permits. For further information, see the Berkeley Yoga Room web site.

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Friday Q&A: Practice for All Seasons

Q: Practice and the seasons: Does your practice change with the seasons and if so how?

A: Where I live, there are seasons (though some people might argue differently), but rarely extremes of weather. But one summer day that was actually hot, I went to my regular Friday morning yoga class, expecting backbends because my teacher always teaches backbends the second class of the month. Our studio, though in a beautiful old building, had no insulation and very little climate control, with poor heating in the winter and no air conditioning in the summer, so it was unusually warm in the studio.

The teacher opened the class with a little smile, saying, “Today we’re going to do some nice cooling backbends.” Everyone laughed, because, of course, backbends are typically not at cooling. But guess what. We did do backbends, but our teacher modified his typical sequence so we did a cooler practice of stretches, passive backbends, and the less effortful, active backbends, rather than a “hotter” practice of standing poses and very active backbends.

Swimming Hole in Dripping Springs, Texas by Brad Gibson

That memory of that still makes me smile, but I bring it up today because I don’t necessarily change my practice with the seasons per se, but I’m definitely change my practice to fit the weather and the temperature in the space where I’m practicing.

Today is a cold and rainy day in Berkeley, California and my house is a little bit drafty, so I would incline toward an active, heating practice rather than a passive cooling practice. Trying to do, for example, a restorative practice in a cold room is not only very challenging because you get colder and colder the longer you stay still, but it is also not very effective, because being cold stimulates your nervous system, alerting your body and mind that you may in danger. So it’s very difficult to relax. On the other hand, the active poses warm up both you and the room quite nicely.

Likewise, being too hot is very stimulating for the same reasons; your nervous system warns your body and mind there may be danger. So when it’s hot, it’s a good time to do more passive and relaxing poses. Or, slowly work up to the active poses and take time to rest and cool down.

Naturally you don’t want to do only active practices all winter and only passive practices all summer, but as my teacher did that day, you modify any sequence by adding more cooling poses or heating poses to accommodate the climate, both outdoors and indoor. For your convenience, I’ve categorized the general groups of poses into Heating and Cooling.

Heating Poses:

Sun Salutations
Standing Poses
Active backbends
Headstand and arm balances
Twists and abdominal strengtheners

Cooling Poses:

Restorative poses
Reclined poses
Forward bends
Supported inverted poses

Some other considerations: Your body is stiffer when you are cold, so that’s a time when you may need more stretching. When it’s hot and your muscles are more relaxed, you may not need to stretch as much. The weather also influences how physically active you are outside the yoga room. I also tend to be more physically active outside during warmer, drier months, walking, gardening, and so on. So to balance my body on more active days, I’ll focus more on poses that complement those activities (see "Deciding What to Practice"). During the rainy season when I spent more time in the house, I’ll naturally gravitate toward more active poses to compensate for being more sedentary. However, some people may spend the winter skiing (yes, I’ve heard tell of that) and the summer hiding out in an air conditioned apartment (heard of that, too), so each person needs to find his or her own way with figuring out the best practice on a given day. 

P.S. Our Friday questions come from you, the reader. So send us your questions or concerns either by commenting on this or any other post, or by emailing us via the address you find on the Contact Us tab at the top of the page.

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Featured Pose: Standing Leg Stretches

by Baxter and Nina

The Standing Leg Stretch series, one of our five essential office yoga poses, provide the same hip opening and leg stretching benefits that you receive from many of the standing poses, while allowing you to keep a neutral spine. Even though you tend to feel all the stretch in the top leg, you get some benefits for the standing leg at the same time. So these poses are good antidotes for hip and leg tightness due to sitting, walking, or standing all day and for tightness in your lower back. They also take up less space than the standing poses, and you can do them in your office, airport, or anywhere there is a chair or even, if you are flexible enough, a desk, ledge, window sill, or dresser. If you have balance issues, you can do the sequence with your back or side near a wall.

As part of a larger sequence, this series is an excellent way to warm up for your standing poses.

Baxter prescribes these poses for:

•    leg tightness
•    hip or buttock tightness
•    low back pain
•    atheletes trying to improve their performance, including runners and bikers
•    improving balance for conditions such as osteoporosis
•    improving circulation in your legs
•    leg fatigue
•    antidote for a day spent walking or sitting

Instructions:

Variation 1: Leg to the Side (Triangle Version)

If possible, place the chair against the wall or make sure it’s in a stable position (like a bolted to the floor airport chair) or on a sticky mat. Then stand sideways to chair seat, about a foot and half a way (depending on the length of your legs) and a little bit behind it, with your feet pointing straight forward.

Keeping your left leg straight, turn your right foot out 45 degrees. Then bend your right knee and lift your right heel onto the chair seat (or, if you are more flexible, onto the chair back or a higher support). Next, straighten your right leg, keeping your hips parallel with the floor and squared with the wall in front of you, maintaining the natural curve in your lower back. Keep your hands on your hips and just work your legs with your torso in a neutral position. Or, you can inhale your arms out to the side, parallel to the floor, then exhale and tip your hips over to the side, as if you were moving into Triangle pose. A final option is to lift your arms overhead, as if you were in Tree pose. Hold this pose for 1 to 2 minutes (or work your way up to that timing).

Low Version

High Version

To come out, release your arms and bend your top knee a little bit before you bring your top leg back to the floor. Watch your balance during the transition. Repeat the pose on the second side. Then, after coming out, pause for a couple of breaths before moving on to the next pose.

Variation 2: Leg to the Front (Parvottansana version)

If possible, place the chair against the wall or make sure it’s in a stable position (like a bolted to the floor airport chair) or on a sticky mat. Then, stand facing the chair seat, about a foot and half a way (depending on the length of your legs), with your feet pointing straight forward. Keeping your left leg straight, bend your right knee and lift your right heel onto the chair seat (or, if you are flexible, onto the chair back or a higher support).

Then inhale and raise your arms overhead, reaching down through your left leg and up through your arms, and maintaining the natural curve in your lower back. (If you’re more flexible, you can bend forward from the hips and place your hands alongside your feet, coming into a forward bend, though you should avoid this version if you have lower back pain).  Hold the pose for 1 to 2 minutes (or work up to timing).

 To come out, release your arms and bend your top knee a little bit before you bring your top leg back to the floor. Watch your balance during the transition. Repeat the pose on the second side. Then, after coming out, pause for a couple of breaths before moving on to the next pose.

Variation 3: Twisting (Revolved Triangle Version)

If possible, place the chair against the wall or make sure it’s in a stable position (like a bolted to the floor airport chair) or on a sticky mat. Then, stand facing the chair seat, about a foot and half a way (depending on the length of your legs), with your feet pointing straight forward. Keeping your left leg straight, bend your right knee and lift your right heel onto the chair seat (or, if you are flexible, onto the chair back or a higher support).

Now take your left hand to your right outer thigh and your right hand to the back of your right hip. Establishing the strength of your left leg and the stability of your pelvis, on an exhalation, turn your upper belly and chest toward your right leg, maintaining the natural curve of your lower back. Alternating your focus, lengthen your spine on your inhalation and encourage the twist to the right on your exhalation. Hold the pose for 1 to 2 minutes (or work up to that timing).

 When it’s time to come out, first release the twist. Then, release your arms and bend your top knee a little bit before you bring your top leg back to the floor. Watch your balance during the transition. Repeat the pose on the second side. Then, after coming out, pause for a couple of breaths.

Cautions: In general, when doing the Version 1, watch for pain near the pubic bone, which might indicate overstretching of your inner leg muscles (adductors) and while doing Version 2, make sure your lower back is pain free, otherwise, pull back a little. If you have tight hamstrings, keep your top knee a little bit bent while still allowing a small amount of stretch in your raised leg. Be careful not to overdo—pain in your sitting bone is bad sign that you might be overstretching the hamstring tendon. If you have lower back issues, be sure to maintain the natural curve in your lower back while doing these stretches. For those with osteoporosis, you should do Version 3 with moderation, not going  into your full twist. Also be cautious with Version 2, making sure your spine is neutral if you take your pelvis forward.

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Yoga for Abdominal Strength

Seated Twist: Strengthening the Oblique Muscles

by Shari and Nina

We had a request from one of our readers for a post about yoga poses for abdominal strength, so I decided to ask Shari Ser, Yoga for Healthy Aging's physical therapist/yoga teacher for her thoughts on the subject.

Nina: Why is it important to include abdominal strengthening poses in your practice?

Shari: The abdominal area is such an important area of stability! The area carries a lot of emotional baggage for many of us (we feel a lot of frank emotional responses in our abdominal areas). And we need the abdominals to support our vital organs and to assist in supporting our spines. When the abdominals are weak, people may develop an overly arched lumbar spine, and when the abdomen is pendulous due to overweight or pregnancy, the abdominal muscles are in a constant stretch and in a weakened state. However, while many diverse health and alternative health practitioners agree that we need strong abdominals to be able to support our bodies in space and to move efficiently and safely, abdominal strength it not about how many crunches you can do or how flat your belly is, and hardness is not a reflection of strength.

Many abdominal strengtheners that people do are in essence hip flexor strengtheners, for example, raising and lowering the legs. But learning how to engage the deepest abdominal muscle, the transverse abdominus, is important. Yoga is valuable tool for developing abdominal strength and awareness because the way we move our bodies in various directions, often against gravity, allows us to develop both strength and flexibility.

Nina: What are some of your favorite abdominal strengthening poses and why?

Shari: My favorite pose to develop abdominal strength is Plank pose (the classic version with straight legs that you enter into from Downward-Facing Dog pose). But I also think a variation of Plank that Loren Fishman recommends is quite challenging, and I like it a lot because of the hand and arm protection, as well as spinal protection, which it provides. You start on your belly and come up onto your elbows (almost like you were going to do Cobra pose). Keeping your legs straight, curl your toes under and lift up into a half Plank position, keeping your knees slightly bent and making sure you are not overly arched. Hold the pose for 20 seconds. 

Full Plank Pose

 Nina: Where should the poses go in a sequence?

Shari: In general, I include abdominal strengtheners near the beginning of a sequence, as part of the warm up. In addition to the poses I mentioned previously, I also like pelvic tilt and pelvic clock variations as a way to engage the deep transverse abdominus and oblique muscles. If I am adding strengtheners, I will do various twists, which I call “Gay White sit ups” (I first did them in her class). You start lying on your back, with your knees bent and your feet on floor. With your hands cradling your head, bring your legs off the floor so your thighs are perpendicular to your pelvis and shins are perpendicular to your thighs (a 90/90 position). Now slowly bring one knee to the opposite bent elbow. Repeat on the other side. Alternate between sides until you feel fatigued, and then add two or three more rounds. If this is too difficult, then just assume the 90/90 position and hold it.

Another good option is to sit at edge of chair and do “let backs,” which allow you to engage the abdominals without having to get on the floor. Sit in an erect position and hinge back over your hip joints without moving your spine, keeping your torso stable as you move in your hip joints. Or, if you are comfortable on the floor, you can start in Boat pose (Navasana) and move your torso slightly toward the floor as you maintain spinal elongation.

You can also incorporate abdominal strengtheners throughout your sequence. I include abdominal awareness when doing balance poses like Tree pose because drawing up your pelvic floor with an inhalation engages the transverse abdominus, and I encourage people to engage the lower abdominals in Half Downward-Dog pose at the wall.

When you are doing Bridge pose, to work your deep core muscles, you can lift one leg at a time just a bit off of the ground without losing your core stability, as if you are marching in place. Seated twists (on the floor or in a chair), such as Bharadvajasana variations, work the oblique muscles, especially with an emphasis on spinal elongation.

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Restricting the Whirls of Consciousness, Part 2

by Baxter

Upside Down by Nina Zolotow

Nina did such a nice job on yesterday's post "Yoga Sutra 1.2: Restricting the Whirls of Consciousness" that I felt compelled to jump in and add my two cents. The tendency Nina identified for the mind to brood about the past or fret about the future is only of several dyads or other causes of our mental whirling, according to yoga's perspective. In fact, there are five main causes of affliction or klesahs that Patanjali identifies in the Yoga Sutras, and it is interesting to view any particular whirling difficult thought via his lens.

The first one, and the one that sprouts the others, is known as avidya, sometimes translated as misapprehension or an error in our view of reality. Yogis believe that we start out not quite understanding the world correctly, and out of that misunderstanding, all kinds of troubling thoughts arise, often connected to fear, jealousy, anger, greediness. One of the main problems is that we view ourselves as separate from all other people and beings in our reality, which almost guarantees conflict and struggle on some level. And therefore, because I don't quite view the world accurately, one of the first errors I make is to create this sense of I-am-ness, know as asmita, the second of the klesahs. This separates me, with all my opinions and ideas of who I am, and how I am different from you, with all my likes and dislikes.

In fact, out of my ego self arise the next two klesahs, raga and dvesha, or attachment (or things I desire or like) and aversion (things I dislike or try to push away). These two klesahs alone account for so much of our mental activity all day long: I want to do this, and a lot more or it!  I don't want to be doing this, I am bored with this, I wish I was doing that. You get the idea.

Finally, the yogis concluded that the preceding four klesahs create the condition of clinging desperately onto life, know as abhinivesha, even though we don't even really understand our reality clearly enough to know what we are clinging onto! And this desperate clinging can actually shut us down for living fully, as we become so fearful of aging, losing function, or death itself.

Oy, oy, oy! So what's a poor yogi to do? Well, the klesahs are said to exist in different states of activity, sometimes dormant, sometimes active, and sometimes influenced or attenuated by our yoga practices. I have noticed lately as I have been experiencing some increased effects of stressful changes in my life, that an active asana practice, guided relaxation via yoga nidra and breath awareness and mantra meditations have each been effective methods for attenuating the whirling patterns of thought that have been under the surface of my perception of stress. In other words, they seem to short circuit my mind's fruitless machinations, providing me with some temporary peace and quiet. And the more regularly I do my practice, the less frequent these particular upsetting patterns of thought happen. I even begin to notice that many of the thoughts are not even really true. I have also noticed that playing my violin for an hour, especially newer music I am not so familiar with, has a similar effect. If you find yourself under increased stress, instead of doing what a lot of my students seem to default to, which is to not practice as much, you might commit to doing a little yoga every day, and see if things don't start to shift for you, too.

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Yoga Sutra 1.2: Restricting the Whirls of Consciousness

by Nina

Spring Blossoms, Clouds by Nina Zolotow

My young cousin asked me last night about the history of the form of yoga that she’s been practicing lately. I told her that it was a very recent form of hatha yoga, but added that all the hatha yoga we’ve been doing in the United States was developed in the 20th century. We then talked about the part of yoga that was, indeed, very ancient, and I tossed out some of the definitions of yoga from the classic scriptures. One of them was this from The Yoga Sutras:

Yoga cittavritti nirodha

Yoga is the restriction of the whirls of consciousness.

I like this particular translation of sutra 1.2 because it translates the compound word “cittavritti” as “whirls of consciousness.” I not only find that very poetic, but also very accurate in terms of how the mind works. The word “vritti” has many definitions, including "waves" and "fluctuations," but whirls reminds me of the revolved yoga poses that also contain the word “vritti,” such as Paravritti Trikonasana and Paravritti Parsvakonasana. So for me, whirls evokes revolving, turning, and circling. And when we’re depressed or anxious or mentally stressed out, aren’t we tormented by the our whirls of consciousness, by negative thoughts and emotions that cycle over and over? What if I miss my deadline? What if the plane crashes? What if I can’t fall asleep tonight? Or, if only my lover hadn’t left me. If only I wasn’t so helpless/afraid/overwhelmed. If only my parents had loved me more.

In Andrew Solomon’s wonderful book on depression The Noonday Demon, he describes the difference between clinical depression and agitated (or anxiety based) depression, saying that clinical depression is an obsession with the past or, as I like to put it, all those “if only” thoughts. On the other hand, he says that agitated depression (or anxiety for that matter) is an obsession with the future, or as I put it, all those “what if” thoughts. Do either of those states of mind sound familiar? And if so, don’t you think it would wonderful to be able to “restrict” or “cease” or “quiet” those whirls of consciousness?

Yoga was initially developed (or perhaps “evolved” is a better word) for that purpose. Thousands of years of different kinds of yoga practice have resulted in a lot of different methods for “restricting the whirls of consciousness” or quieting the mind, including meditation, breath practices, and chanting, as well as asana practice.

And, for me, this concept is the basis for using yoga for your emotional wellbeing. When I teach workshops on this topic, I always talk about this translation of sutra 1.2. Because my general principle for using yoga for emotional wellbeing is simply this: Start by becoming aware of the vrittis, of the way your mind gets caught up in them. And then observe how different yoga practices affect them.

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Friday Q&A: Shaky Legs

Red Bud Tree in Transition by Nina Zolotow

Q: Shaky legs towards mid to end of practice (standing poses and prone, like locust with lifted legs), what makes this happen? (I'm guessing they are tired.) And how to address this? Is it just a matter of strengthening?

A: Dear Shaky Legs,

Let me begin by saying that you are not alone with this phenomenon. In fact, for the first year or so of my asana practice, I'd experience the same thing, especially in poses that were held for a long time. It would sometimes recur if the level of difficulty of my asana classes went up, such as when I graduated myself from the beginner level classes to the intermediate level. In all likelihood, the muscles that start to shake are becoming fatigued to the point that the normal sustained contraction cannot be held, so you get this on-off thing happening that is felt as shaking. It may be a build up of lactic acid in the muscles, the by-product of the energy used to contract the muscles, and evidence the muscles probably need a respite. This reaction usually improves as you practice more regularly and work on the offending poses a bit in your home practice. This will begin to increase your endurance and the shaking will be a fond memory of what it was like early on in your yoga history!

Sincerely,

Baxter

A: I, too, experienced shaky legs during my early years of yoga practice. Shari reports that fatigue causes “muscle fasciculation,” which is incomplete contractions because the muscle efficiency has been reached and it is fatiguing. She suggests that you honor the fatigue and rest your legs. I’d like to add that I think it’s not just a matter of leg strength per se, but rather than in yoga asana we’re using our legs differently than we do in walking, running, or other forms of exercise. The example you gave of Locust pose illustrates this, because we don’t normally lift our legs backward behind us. That’s why it is only by doing more yoga (and those very same poses that fatigue your legs) that you’ll gain more endurance in those poses. I myself noticed the shaking after the strenuous poses, when I was in an inversion, such as Shoulderstand or even in a resting pose. So you might experiment with doing leg stretches after the poses that make your legs shaky to see if that helps relieve the muscle tension and relaxes your legs (and leg stretches are great counter-poses for backbends, partly because they do relax your legs after their hard work lifting you into a backbend).

—Nina

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Featured Pose: Chair Forward Bend

by Baxter and Nina
The simple Chair Forward Bend, one of our five essential office yoga poses, is a safe forward bend for almost everyone. Because you’re bending your legs at the knees, you’re reducing the tension on your hamstrings and therefore allowing your pelvis to have more flexibility at your hip joints. In addition, because you’re resting your arms and head on a chair or desk and you’re not hanging in space, your lower back muscles can release more completely and relax more deeply. (Some of the seated forward bends with straight legs can aggravate lower back pain or disc problems because they pull so strongly on your back muscles and encourage the discs to move toward a posterior position, and you can sometimes over-strain your ligaments when you overdo.)

This forward bend can provide you a quiet moment in your busy day, and allows you to access the deep rest of conscious relaxation without lying on the floor, especially if you focus on your breath while you are in the pose. In addition, folding forward creates a feeling of safety and comfort for many people. And supporting your head enhances the soothing quality of the forward bend, so the Chair Forward Bend may even have a quieting effect on your mind and your emotions, cooling negative emotions such as anger and anxiety.

Of course the pose can be done anywhere you can find a table and chair, such as an office or a dining room, or you can do it with two chairs when there is no table available. (Nina used to practice this pose quite frequently when she worked full time for a software startup company for a few minutes of respite during a hectic day.)

Baxter prescribes it for:

• fatigue
• eye strain
• stress
• anger and/or anxiety
• sensory overload
• lower back tightness (if it feels good to you)
• hip tightness and increased mobility in hip joints

Instructions: Depending on your height and flexibility, move your chair one to two feet away from the desk or second chair where you will be resting your arms and head. Next, sit either in the center of the chair or near the edge, with your feet flat on the floor and about hip-width apart. If you are very short or tall, use a prop if necessary under your feet or your buttocks. Position your knees directly above your feet, with your legs parallel to each other.

Now, tip forward from your hip joints, keeping your back as straight as possible, and then rest your arms on the desk as shown below, and your forehead on your top arm. At this point, you can allow your back to soften and round a bit (if that is comfortable for you). Once your forehead is resting on your forearms, try gently pressing your head forward so your forehead skin stretches downward toward your eyebrows. You may find this enhances the quieting effect of the pose.

Stay in the pose from one to 10 minutes. (Nina’s experiments with Iyengar’s recommendations confirmed that three minutes is the minimum time to get the full “forward bend” feeling from the pose, though even a quick forward bend can be quite effective.) To come out, slip your hands onto your knees and use your arms to support yourself as you gently roll up to sitting, keeping your back muscles remain relaxed, long, and open.

Cautions: If you have a history of chronic low back pain or other back problems, be careful going into this pose, checking as you move into it to ensure your back feels okay. If moving into this forward bend causes a flare of discomfort, you should eliminate it from your practice. See "Featured Series: Low Back Care" for poses to help with back pain. You may also want to avoid this pose if you have severe arthritis in the hips or abdominal discomfort, but in general it is a very safe pose. If you have depression, forward bends may cause you to brood or to become more depressed. In this case, keep your eyes softly open, rather than closing them. If that doesn't help, avoid forward bends until you feel ready for them.

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Deciding What to Practice

by Nina

For Me, By Me by Nina Zolotow

After falling off the wagon, I did indeed pick myself up, dust myself, and start all over again (I even did some airplane yoga, including twists and shoulder stretches in my seat, standing twists and a wall hang using the wall in that tiny corner near the bathroom, a standing backbend in the aisle, and a long session of breath awareness back in my seat again). But then my first day home I had to decide what my first full practice would be.

Since my last few days were filled with a serious amount of walking, my legs felt stiff and tired, so leg stretches and hip openers sound delicious. Standing poses, well, not so much. And since I was bending forward a lot, moving boxes and putting things on shelves, etc., shoulder openers seem like a good antidote to the stress in my back and shoulders. And, finally, because I was under a lot of stress, I’d wanted to include my favorite inverted poses, including Headstand, Shoulderstand, and Legs Up the Wall. To prepare for the full inversions, it makes sense to do some partial inversions, including Downward-Facing Dog and Standing Forward Bend. And there it wisas, as easy as pie, my general outline for a post-walking-a-lot-and-helping-someone-move-then-taking-a-plane-ride yoga practice designed by me, for me. (And, of course, I can always—after some post asana assessment—change my sequence as needed while I’m in the middle of practicing.) Whew! I feel better already.

Of course, when you get ready to do some yoga, you can always just practice whatever you’re in the mood for. If you’re craving backbends or forward bends, just go for it. But if you don’t have a particular impulse and can’t decide what to practice, you can consider what you’ve been doing lately with an eye toward balancing your body.

For example, if you’ve been very sedentary for a long period, standing poses get your whole body moving, strengthening and stretching you at the same time. Backbends are also great if you need energizing after being sedentary and they help balance your body from all the forward bending of being seated, so you might want to do a full backbend practice.

But if you’ve been physically active at work or around the house, gardening, painting, or building, gentle stretches and twists can help release tired muscles and balance you out. The same is true if you’ve been spent the afternoon playing soccer, basketball or another favorite sport (dare I make a joke about how active baseball is—or isn’t?). And if you’re really exhausted from physical labor or outdoor fun, you may even just need to rest in your favorite restorative poses.

In general, just think of about doing the reverse movements of those that you’ve been doing outside the yoga room. And if you have some particular condition you’re working with (for example, improving balance, strengthening your core, keeping your joints mobile, or dealing with back pain), just weave those poses into your sequence as well. In the end, this is one of the main reasons why having a home practice is so wonderful. You can do exactly what you want or need on a given day, rather than hoping your teacher’s plans just happen to coincide with yours.

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