Back Bends and Kleshas

Heart Opener

After my students were set up in a heart roll this morning, I announced that we would be practicing back bends.  An audible moan arose which launched me into a discussion of kleshas, the Sanskrit word for “mental afflictions.”  The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali list five kleshas:  ignorance, identification with the ego, attachment, aversion and fear.   In practicing back bends, yoga provides a means to work with the kleshas, as we struggle with our limitations,  self-judgment, and  aversion.

I have never been fond of back bends and I’ve noticed that in the yoga classes I attend, backbends are often given short shrift.  Having flexible hamstrings, I love forward bends and, therefore, I do a lot of them.

Of late, I have come to realize that my body needs to do back bends.   My professional life was spent sitting in front of a computer.   In my leisure time, I am hunched over in the garden, in my car or reading.  My neck and shoulders gave indication of a problem many years ago but I did not have the tools then to understand or correct the problem.

Back bends strengthen the long muscles of the back  and those between the shoulder blades and increase flexibility in the thoracic spine which stiffens with age.   They are an antidote for too much time spent sitting.   When done correctly, they can also correct a common neck problem:  jutting or thrusting the neck forward.

When you practice cobra or locust pose, try this:  instead of initiating the lift with the neck jutting forward and the chin lifted,  think about drawing your internal organs into your spine.  Keep your chin level, your neck long and your gaze low.

Pain has one positive benefit and that is in bringing awareness to our bad postural habits.    When I lower my shoulders and draw in my neck, my spine lifts and my posture is elegant and dignified.   My neck, shoulder and back muscles are not having to work overtime to counter the weight of the forward head and my pain eases.

In doing back bends, begin gradually.  Practice with awareness and compassion to correct old habits and begin to heal.

Practicing Yoga at Home

I have been encouraging my students to practice at home, even for a few minutes several times a week, and promised them a sequence of poses to use.  This has proven to be more challenging than I initially expected when faced with the myriad of poses and particular individual needs.  So rather than to prescribe a particular sequence of poses, what I have in mind is to provide some guidelines to use depending on time available, energy level, and your body’s needs.

1.  Allocate a sacred space for your practice.   That does not mean that you need a room dedicated to yoga.  In fact, all you really need is an uncluttered space to accomodate your mat with a little more room for extending arms or legs.   You will also want a convenient place to store any props that you use:  your mat, a chair, blanket, strap, blocks.   That could be in a nearby closet or behind a screen.   If you have a cat, you might have to share the mat.  Cats love yoga!

2.  Choose a time to practice.   First thing after you get out of bed.  After your morning cup of tea and before breakfast.  Mid-afternoon between lunch and dinner.  Or before bed.  As long as your stomach is empty, the time is not important.  It helps, though, to be consistent as you create your habit.

3.  Limit your time at first.    Set aside only 15 minutes in the beginning so that you don’t feel overwhelmed.  Start with centering for a minute or two, coming into your space, your body and your breath.  Checking in with where you are and how you feel.  Assessing your needs at the moment.  Setting your intention.  Choose a favorite pose or two and explore it mindfully, watching your breath and noticing what emotions might arise.  Consider a daily Downward-Facing Dog.  Allow yourself at least five minutes to rest in Svasana before ending your practice.

4.  Warm Up.  Start with the easiest poses and gradually increase your intensity.

5.  Increase your time commitment.  Once you have formed a 15-minute habit, and you would like to allow more time for your practice, there are various ways to select your poses.  First, you could choose one pose from each of the following groups:  standing, sitting, reclining.  Or from forward bends, backbends, twists and inversions.  Or you could choose poses to create spaciousness in a particular joint.  Or maybe you would like to spend your time exploring just one or two poses with greater attention and curiosity.

6.  Restore.   If you are exhausted, do nothing but legs-up-the-wall.  This pose is particularly welcome after being on your feet for many hours.

7.  Capture moments throughout the day to work in yoga.  You can do neck stretches in the shower, tadasana while waiting in the grocery line, hand and wrist movements while watching TV, foot and ankle stretches while working in the kitchen; even a half dog at the kitchen sink or diningroom table.  There are endless opportunities to practice on busy days when it may be difficult to carve out even 15 minutes.

Here are some groups of poses from which you might choose.

Standing:  Mountain Pose, Tree Pose, Modified Sun Salutations; Forward Bend or Umpire Pose; Standing Lunge, Warrior I, Warrior II, Extended Triangle, Extended Side Angle, Downward Facing Dog or Half Dog, Low Lunge with Knee Down, Chair Pose, Half Moon Pose

Seated:  Easy Pose, Bound Angle or Cobbler Pose, Head to Knee Pose, Wide-Leg Forward Fold, Hero Pose, Staff Pose, Cat-Cow Pose

Lying:  Knees to Chest, Extended Leg Stretch, Figure 4 Pose, Happy Baby Pose

Forward Bends:  Standing Forward Fold, Umpire Pose, Wide-Leg Forward Fold, Head to Knee Pose

Backbends:  Bridge Pose, Sphinx, Cobra, Locust, Bow, Upward-Facing Dog

Twists:  Seated Twist, Lying Twist and variations

Arm Balance : Plank Pose

Inversions:  Legs-Up-the-Wall (caution:  do not practice this if you have glaucoma, detached retina, hiatal hernia or heart problems)

Restorative:  Corpse Pose, Legs-Up-the-Wall, Mountain Brook, Stonehenge, Child’s Pose, Supine Bound Angle, legs on chair

Your home practice will reward you with increased self-knowledge and enable you to gain more understanding and awareness when you attend yoga classes.

The Three Treasures

Browsing through my oft-used copy of Stephen Mitchell’s translation of the Tao Te Ching the other day, I came upon an earmarked page where  Lao-tsu refers to simplicity, patience and compassion as our greatest treasures.   It occurred to me that a reading of this passage in my next session of Yoga for Arthritis might be a nice introduction to intention.

As the days passed, I found myself coming back to the words and reflecting on their meaning in my life.

Simplicity.  I often joke that I don’t know how I ever had time to work.  There are so many choices on how to spend one’s time in “retirement.”  First, one could take up a new career and become a yoga instructor.  Or clean out the garage.  Or attend “learning in retirement” or other classes.  There are so many books to read,  meetings to attend, causes to support.   But is more really better?  From a personal standpoint, I found that I was so “busy” going and doing that I had no time to absorb and reflect on my experiences.  I began to eliminate one activity after another.  I am learning to ask myself:  what matters most to me?  What will bring me the greatest benefit?  In this  constant winnowing process, I am finding more peace and clarity.

Patience.  Ah, yes.  This one is more challenging.    The very, very slow driver, the speaker whom I am facing as my mind is drawn elsewhere, the aged  person in the cashier’s line who is fumbling for change.  We come upon these trials more often than we are generally aware.    In my more mindful moments, I can breathe deeply and try to imagine myself in circumstances where I am the one causing  impatience.  What it might be like to have someone slow down, listen and understand.

Compassion.   Empathy.  Understanding.  For others, yes, and also towards ourselves.    One place we can practice compassion is on the mat, becoming aware of our breath, understanding that we each bring to the mat our own unique body, mind, experience, and self-discovery.   Then we can take this understanding and experience out into our interactions cultivating compassion.

Leaving the Nest

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.”  Pema Chodron

Endings

Yoga teacher training has come to an end and like so many endings, this one tastes bittersweet.   We sat in a closing circle amid the sunflowers and offered our thoughts and gratitude, while passing the box of tissues.

And then we celebrated with food and drink and laughed until it was time to part.  When it was over, I paced the floor, not knowing what to do with myself.   So many conflicting emotions.  Joy, the sense of accomplishment, love and gratitude for teacher and tender feelings toward my fellow trainees, loss and uneasiness.  Too much to process all at once.

We are not quite done.    Before our 200-hour training certificate is issued, there are a few more classes to take, a class to teach at the studio, and our practicum to complete.

While our formal training has come to an end, we have committed to continue our study of yoga together.  There is still so much more to learn.

Thoughts on Teaching

When I made the decision to undertake training as a yoga teacher, I had been a volunteer yoga teacher at the YMCA for six months.  As I mentioned in my first blog post, my students were all seniors, many of them over 80 years and without any prior yoga experience.    My motivation was to learn how to help my students who had very tight hamstrings, back pain, and scoliosis as well as the usual issues of aging bodies.    I did not want to instruct them to do something that would have negative consequences.

Although I am no longer teaching that particular class, my goals have not significantly changed with respect to teaching yoga.   I believe even more passionately in the theurapeutic benefits of yoga for aging bodies and, as a senior myself, see this as the logical direction to pursue as a teacher.    I have experienced the gains myself.  It is unlikely you will find me teaching advanced backbends and arm balances.    But plank, downward-facing dog, lunge, triangle, the warriors….you bet.  Building strength, encouraging flexibility, improving balance.  Absolutely!

In addition to teacher seniors, I hope to teach beginner yoga classes to any age group and perhaps also classes or private sessions to address specific physical  problems or disabilities.

Isvara-pranidhana

Patanjali advocates following the guidance of those who have already “awakened” more fully through his sutras or wisdom teachings and the practice of sitting in meditation.

Isvara-pranidhana is the final niyama or internal discipline of the yoga sutras.  Chip Hartranft translates isvara-pranidhana as “orientation toward pure awareness” or “the point of focus to which the yogi continually returns in the course of practice.”  The word pranidhana alone means “surrender” or letting nature unfold exactly as it will without attachment or aversion.

We are asked to blog this week about surrender, specifically what we (I) are (am) willing to surrender.  It didn’t take me long to know how to address this topic.  I realized yesterday that in coming to the end of teacher training, I was having a great deal of anxiety about whether I would be successful in finding a job as a yoga teacher and wondering whether I was sufficiently prepared to be a teacher.   Then the light went on.   I have another few weeks of training and then either I will become a yoga teacher or I will not.  Why spend this remaining time worrying when it will serve no purpose?

This week I am surrendering angst.

Trikonasana: A Love/Hate Relationship

When I was younger, I used to love doing Trikonasana or Extended Triangle.  That was when my body was younger and suppler and before I really knew the fine points of this pose.

Later, I learned to reach forward into the pose, rather than simply coming down.   Fortunately, I was not one who was taught to imagine my body in a plane between two sheets of glass.

On Sunday, in TT, Michelle asked whether we liked or disliked this pose.  I quickly answered “dislike” and then we did Triangle in our Pose Lab.  To my surprise, I had it right.  I reached out with my right arm before going down and then rotated my hips to the right.    After partner work, I became more enthusiastic as I used my leg to push into my partner’s upper thigh to assist a hip rotation.  When we switched, she adjusted me to lift my chest upwards.  I found myself delighting in this newfound fondness for Triangle.

I taught Triangle to my YMCA senior class this morning.  As I stood before the class demonstrating the pose, and smartly “threw my hips” to the right (hint: never throw any body part), we all heard a cracking sound which arose somewhere in the vicinity of my greater trochanter and I smiled bravely and said “don’t do that.”  After limping around all day, I am not so sure that I love this pose afterall.

I won’t be doing Triangle for awhile.  In time maybe I’ll fall in love with it again.

Renunciation

Renunciation.  A word that in most minds probably has unpleasant associations.  It doesn’t sound like much fun.

Christine Feldman advises us to take another look.  In reality, renunciation is about wisdom, kindness, confidence, completeness.  It is a Buddhist practice of learning what it means to let go.  It is a practice of freedom, joy and peace.  It is about laying down our arguments to how things are, our stories about ourselves…”I am….”  “I have….”  “I know….” and venturing into what is unknown.

We human beings carry around with us a sense of lack, of insufficiency, restlessness.   We have a perfectly workable cell phone but we want the latest iPhone.   Or a newer car.  Or Lucy yoga pants.  There is always something more we want or, conversely, something that we do not want.   Joint pain, debt, extra pounds.  Perhaps, suggests Feldman,  in a moment, we can put down the wave of craving and aversion that is based on a rejection of self and in that moment be still, let the waves roll over and rest in “what is.”

Sometimes renunciation is involuntary.  People we love die.  We lose things, we become separated.  We don’t always get what we want so we come to associate renunciation with pain and loss.    Voluntary renunciation is a willingness to embrace what comes with impermanence.  It is moving into aligned rhythm and harmony with the way things are, always changing and impermanent, and feeling freedom.

In other words, love it deeply and let it go.

What would I be willing to renounce with respect to teacher training?  The longing for the perfect pose?  The expectation that I will be able to even achieve every pose that is taught?  The desire to be pain-free?

Buddhist practice.  Yoga practice.  It’s a life-long practice.

Restorative Yoga

Restorative yoga is a practice done with the intention of alleviating stress, comforting a person recovering from illness or injury, or simply rejuvenating when energies are depleted.  These adapted postures are passively supported with the use of bolsters, blankets, towels, blocks, straps, eye pillows, sandbags and chairs.   The body is placed in a comfortable position with all joints fully supported.  This passive stretching allows for longer holding of the posture.  The effects are both physiologically and psychologically subtle but very real.

Last week in Teacher Training, the class partnered up to practice setting up one another in our posture of choice.  I was placed in a reclined bound angle pose leaning against a bolster supported by two blocks.  A blanket roll was placed around my feet and tucked up under me.  My hands and arms were propped.  The process was one of constant inquiry and feedback.  “How do you feel now?”  “My shoulder is a bit uncomfortable,” I reply.  More bolsters and blankets and blocks until “Aah, perfect…blissful.”   Here is how it looked afterwards.

Our assignment this week is to practice a restorative posture at home and report on it.   My assigned “buddy” and I met and experimented.  Here’s what we came up with:

Side Corpse Pose

 

Supported Child's Pose

Supported Bound Angle Pose

Try any of these positions at home, preferably with a partner.  Be sure that no joints are left unsupported.  It is nice to pad the feet, hands, back and head, anywhere that touches the floor.  Then enjoy a snooze!