Old Moon Yoga

Half Way Up Flat Back

“Clive could you show us how to do chaturanga (Chaturanga Dandasana (Four-Limbed Staff Pose) properly?” It was a great question, on several levels. I have taught nearly 300 classes, led over 2000 Yogis in vinyassa flow sun salutations and never once stopped to explain the whole vinyassa sequence, and I call myself a teacher

“I have been doing yoga a while now and want to know if I am doing it right.” she explained. I had seen her in other teachers classes too. So it was not just me being remiss As a teacher it is great to have questions, we love it. In so many classes the feedback is limited to sounds effects. The grunt, or groan, the X rated moan and even the occasional cheer. For some reason people cheer when I get to pigeon in my classes, but I digress. We were already through the warm up, lots of chaturangas during the sun salutation sequences of course. Should I stop the flow now and teach yet more chaturangas? Of course I should!

When I started Yoga I went to a mixture of Iyengar and vinyassa classes. I learned the details of alignment from one and enjoyed the benefits of movement with breath from the other. Many Yogis find the vinyassa flow style works for them because of the “work out” aspects it brings. It is easy for the teacher, me, to assume everyone knows what they are doing.

So it’s time for

Old Moon Yoga’s guide to Chataranga Vinyassa

• From the forward fold come up half way to a flat back. The first stage is the jump back. Bend your knees deeply so that your hands are on the floor. Think crow but without the legs locked to the arms. In order to jump back you have to bring the weight forward to make room for your legs. As you lean forward towards push the legs back.
  Can’t reach the ground with your hands? Bend the knees more.
  Can’t bring weight into your hands without falling flat on your face ? Step the feet back one at a time. I do this at first anyway to let my legs and especially my knees warm up.

• 

  Perparing to jump back

  Your arms are already bent as you shoot the legs back. Keep them bent so you come straight into chaturanga. Use the arm as dampers to cushion your move.
  Arms not strong enough so you lock them straight? Jumping back to plank is not recommended. It jars the shoulders and can lead to injury. Just step the feet back one at a time until your arm strength builds.

• Chaturgana is performed with elbows close in to the body, it’s not a push up. Keep the elbows in close and reduce the strain on your wrists.

• 

  Chaturanga

  Most people just bend at the elbows and lower the chest between the hands. This is not good for the shoulders and leaves too much weight back at your feet. Rather bring the weight forwards so that the forearms are vertical with the floor. With the elbow at 90 degrees your weight will be very far forward. The body is about 8 inches off of the ground. This position is safer for the shoulder muscles to and takes less effort, once you get it.
  Don’t have the shoulder or arm strength to bring the weight forward? Lower your knees to the ground.

• The body is so far forwards in this pose there is practically no weight in the toes. Rolling over the toes (I am sure you have heard that command before) is easy now. No need to roll one foot then the other.

• From here upward facing dog is simply a matter of straightening the arms.

• With straight arms bring the shoulders back and the chest through. Push down with the tops of the feet. Don’t sink into your lower back, try to make the back straighter in this pose by pushing the tops of the feet down.

• Icing on the cake here is to look up too.

• 

  Up Dog, take a big breath in

  Lastly take a big breath in. So many people short change themselves on the inhale in upward facing dog. You are in the perfect position to take a long slow breath in. Enjoy it.

• From here either push back down dog or rebend the elbows, weight forwards remember, back to chaturanga, roll over the toes and take plank to down dog.

There is a whole sequence to jumping forwards and completing the sun salutation. That can be for another blog perhaps.

At the end of the class one of the regulars ,who has been doing yoga a long time, came up to me and said “I never understood how to roll over the toes before. It had always been to hard to roll them both at the same time.”

The lesson for me was clear, I need to slow down and teach more. If I am just there to call out the poses in a given sequence I might as well put a record on. Pick a pose each class, just one so we don’t loose the flow, and take it in detail. Slow down and smell the roses.

So easy a child could do it

Last week I googled “yoga crazy arm balance” looking for images to brighten up my blog and make it at least vaguely interesting to both of my readers. To my surprise one of the images was me! It was not a particularly crazy arm balance. In fact it was probably the simplest of arm balances, crow Bakasana (or Crane Pose)

When I wrote the crow blog I had in mind covering a series of arm balances with increasing degree of difficulty. I never imagined it would lead me to the opportunity to “star” in a google search result. Has this become the modern day equivalent of 15 minutes of fame everyone is supposed to have? A first page result on Google. Anyway with ego, mostly, in check I think it’s time to talk side crow.

Crazy Yoga arm Balance?

What is side crow? “Well it’s crow, on your side Avi.” Plagiarizing a line from the movie Snatch to make my point here. Side crow is just like crow but with both legs to one side. Most of the same core traits of crow apply here there are several recipes but for each one there are some essential ingredients. Don’t listen to all that talk about just balance and not really about core strength.

Ingredients

Core strength - Medium amount

Arm strength - Lots of

Wrist strength - Lots of

Ability to balance - Several heaped spoonfuls

Old Moon Yoga’s guide to side crow

Side Crow, using both arms

This pose has a lot in common with crow and other arm balances. There are some not so subtle differences though. If you can’t twist and put your elbows on your thigh, this pose is probably not for you. If you can’t curl your knees close to your chest, keep practicing crow for a little longer. Crow favors more body types and degrees of flexibility than side crow. This is my subtle attempt at suggesting if you have a belly in the way it might be worth working on other poses first

Variations on a theme.

Getting into this pose is usually taught with the Yogi squatting, balanced on the toes. In this position the legs are already in the right place but it is really had to balance on your toes, squat, twist to your left and gracefully fall sideways onto your arms.

The pose is usually taught balanced on one are too. Forget that at first, get balanced on both arms. Save the one arm version until you are younger, like the child in this picture.

• Start kneeling on the right leg with sole of the left foot on the ground. Your left thigh is parallel to the ground in this position. This is the thigh you are going to balance on.
• Reach up with your right arm and take the twist. Right elbow to left knee.Can’t get your elbow to your knee? sorry you are not ready for side crow.
• Now lock your left elbow into your thigh too. Both elbows into the thigh. Arms about shoulder width apart, well it’s hard to put them anywhere else when you are twisted like a pretzel.
  Can’t get your elbow locked in. You have two options. Give up, or attempt the one armed version.
• Spread your hands wide and start to tilt the body bringing the hands towards the floor. You are in the right body position for the pose. Just keep tilting towards the floor. The upper arms become the platform on which the thigh rests.
• At this point it’s a bit like a trust fall until the hands are on the ground. Make sure they are shoulder width apart.
  Don’t have the trust? Come on it’s not that far down? Still can’t do it? Sorry back to crow pose for you.
  Hurts your wrists? Practice crow, down dog, plank and other wrist strengthening poses.
• Now with hands on the ground keep leaning forward. Look out in front of you, way out in front. Keep moving the weight over your hands until the front foot comes off of the ground. You are all most there, breath
• From here a little more forward movement will bring the trailing leg off of the ground too. Your up!
• Bend the trailing leg so both knees are together and your there. Side crow.
• Try to land back in the kneeling position then try it all again on the other side.

Side crow legs wide Eka Pada Koundiyanasana

Need more poses for your next party?

From here there are other variations you can experiment with.

1. Straighten both legs to a pike position.
2. Take the straight legs wide apart. The left goes forward and right back and up. This is Eka Pada Koundiyanasana I (Pose Dedicated to the Sage Koundinya I)
3. If that is not enough try taking your legs into Tree pose

Party pose material side crow with legs in tree

Have fun with it, get someone to take your picture and post it to the web. Who knows your 15 minutes of Google fame may be just around the corner. I am off to try “crazy yoga party poses” as a google search:)

Tuesday Morning

Two minutes to seven and no one has arrived yet. The morning class looks like being a small one today. After getting up at 6:00am to be here it’s a little disappointing of course. My mind starts to switch gears. With a minute to go I am now hoping no one will show. I can have a little private practice and get to work early. Time to crank up the volume and indulge myself.

Worse case scenario? In walks a new student, struggling with the volume control and to find my most professional smile I welcome him. After the introductions I realize this is someone I have been conversing with via email for a few weeks. He is new to Yoga, worried about his ability to keep up, and possibly embarrassed if he is “not good enough”. Also a little intimidated by the ladies perhaps, which is why he was thinking of starting with a male instructor? The idea of yoga not being a competition is not something that sits easily with first time yogis. Ah well no problem it’s 7:00am and time to start class.

Worse case scenario….? One minute late, well the clock in the studio is really just an approximation so I may be being hard here, in walks one of my semi regulars. She has a beautiful practice developed over many years. The kind of Yogi that can do all the arm balances you can throw out and add two more in for good measure. Usually when she is in class I try to amp things up a little so she feels she got a work out.

This is going to be interesting. My two students are like chalk and cheese, nothing quite like a challenge to wake me up on a morning. “I’m not here, this isn’t happening…..” fills the room as Radiohead is still playing on the sound system. The complication with morning classes is they don’t come labeled as any particular level. It’s not a beginner class and not a level 3. So you get anyone who is willing to get up that early.

Teacher training never prepared me for this. “Teach your own class” That was the guidance. That’s fine if there is a room full of Yogis and one person is getting left out. I have two here. Yin and Yang, one struggling to step back and forward in vinyassa, the other can do more poses than I can. How do I make this enjoyable for both of them?

I love teaching, any and all levels. My Sunday morning beginner class is my largest of the week and I really look forward to teaching it. Later this day I sub a 2-3 class and have great fun too. Taking the two extremes and lining them up 3 feet from each other is a completely different challenge though.

The solution was to stick to the basic poses and offer variations of course. Throwing political correctness to the wind, my female regular gets as many adjustments as I can muster, while the male beginner gets hands off advice. (See a previous blog about my rule to never adjust someone during their first class.)

Class ended and each smiled and said they would be back. “We will see” I thought to myself, though I enjoyed class, it was neither one thing or the other. I am not sure I did enough to encourage the new guy back or enough to keep the semi regular from looking for other morning teachers.

Thursday Morning

2 minutes to and no one had arrived yet. It looks like classes will be small this week. I reach for the volume control on the sound system.

Best case scenario at this point? Then in walks a regular from my evening classes. Less than 12 hours ago she was in my last class of the evening. We joked about her coming this morning but I did not imagine she would, really quite a complement. Well either that or the fact the next Yoga studio is miles away in the next city Until now I have been the only one crazy enough for Yoga until 9:00pm followed by Yoga at 7:00am. I am impressed. She has a nice practice too. “Looks like it is going to be quiet” I say “anything you want to focus on?”

Best case scenario at this point? One minute past, well the clock ……oh right you know about the clock….. In walks my semi regular from the Tuesday class. Up until this point I did not know what I was going to teach but the Yang and Yang combination this morning allowed me to pull some sequences from some 2-3 classes I have taught in the past. It was a tougher class than I usually teach in the morning, but they both seemed to enjoy it.

So was it the adjustments that brought the regular back today? Possibly. So for savasana I give them both shoulder, leg and hip adjustments, followed by a little foot massage. Got to keep the “customers” happy

It was an interesting week for morning classes. I enjoyed them both, by contrast my evening class this week was very normal very usual. Teaching morning classes certainly keeps you on your toes and wakes you up.

Of course if no one shows there is always Radiohead and that volume control.

There are two things that help you stay in one position for long periods of time. Yoga of course, well at least the asana, was developed for the purpose of allowing a person to sit for long periods of time in one position. This week I discovered that stomach flu can have largely the same affect. Having spent a full day and a half practicing couch savasana I clearly had to miss my Saturday afternoon class but how would I fair with my largest class of the week, my Sunday morning beginner class?

The week had started really well. Samyama on Saturday night was special as usual. If you have not tried Samyama you really should. A room full of Yogis all doing their own thing to loud music. In the center of the room a square rug is laid out with grapes and strawberries and other opulent delights. We keep the doors closed and the lights low. Any passerby looking in would see a writhing mass of bodies all apparently high on something and feasting on fruits like a scene from ancient Rome. Samyama is culmination of the final three limbs of Yoga. The Samyama practice allows you to get that little bit closer to Samadhi. Of course to our passerby it must look like some kind of yoga orgy.

May be it’s time, Mr Passerby, to think about that beginner class you have been putting off.

I never get quite as deep in the poses, quite as lost in the moment, as in Samyama. The heat generated by so many energetic bodies in a confined space brings your body temperature up too. The temperature continues to rise until the music finally changes and brings us all back down to earth. Having reached the heights of release, the final savasna is deep and still. Great start to the weekend. I was ready for good week of Yoga.

The bug was strong and struck hard, just after my Thursday evening class. I was wiped out and as my temperature rose into the 100s I once again had that “out of body” experience. Was this natures Samyama? During my guided meditation at the end of class I often tell people for imagine their limbs heavy and drained of all energy. Well that was me. I had fallen on the couch and I could not get up. Could not lift a limb even if I tried. Apparently I did not need all these years of yoga practice. Just a visit from a suitable virus.

Sunday I was feeling much better and determined to teach my Sunday class. Although only firing 3 cylinders, I taught the class. As I have said in previous blogs my measure of a successful class is the length of time people stay motionless after the final Nameste. Today it was beautiful. No one in the class moved for what seemed like an eternity but was certainly close to a minute. This is a beginner class remember, half the time yogis don’t even close their eyes in Savasana. So I teach a better class when I am only half there apparently. Not sure how to take that:)

Perhaps my beginner class found their own Samyama today. I’d like to think so. As I said to a friend who was considering attending last week’s Yoga free for all. “You never forget your first Samyama.” Unfortunately you never forget you most recent tummy bug either. Way to many parallels for my liking but I will take Yogas version over “Natures Own” every time.