Asana Tutorial: Astavakrasana

Astavakrasana

Oh arm balances. How I love thee.
Arm balances require the combination of core engagement (including uddiyana and mula bandhas, arches of the feet and inner thighs), open hips and a bit of arm strength. It's very rare that I am unable to get into an arm balance because my arms aren't strong enough. This work comes from deep inside.

When I approach an arm balancing sequence, I plan accordingly. In an arm balance class, we would do abdominal strengthening and finding the core, mula bandha work, and a lot of hip opening. The additional work necessary for astavakrasana is twisting. Your torso ends up rotated almost 90 degrees in the final posture.
Here are some sequencing ideas for how to make your way to this lovely arm balance. 

1. Simple twist
Sit on a block (or two if your quads are tight) with your feet hugging in toward your hips. Check that all ten of your toes are pointing straight behind you.
Inhale to lengthen your spine and exhale to begin twisting. Use your opposite arm crossing the midline as leverage to help you twist deeply. Wait for the breath and only twist as your spine will allow. As you exhale, pull the low belly back toward the spine and notice if you have more twisting capability.


2. Vadrasana with Garudasana arms
Come back to center and re-lengthen out through the spine. Wrap your right elbow over your left and try to wrap your wrists and palms together. Isometrically press your palms and arms together to engage the arms and open the shoulders. Take 5-10 breaths on both sides.







3. Balasana with twist
Begin here in child's pose. Let the hips settle back toward the heels. Inhale to lengthen out through the spine and exhale to twist the torso to the right. Plant your left elbow to the mat and stack your palms. Use the connection of your elbow and shins on the mat to twist. Take 5-10 breaths and switch sides. Take several breaths in the center and note the difference between the two sides.

 4. Malasana
From child's pose, plant your hands under your shoulders and start to walk your hips back and your heels down. Try to keep the big toes touching. Your heels may not touch the ground which is fine. Hug your knees in toward your outer armpits and soften and ground through the hips. Press your palms together and extend your arms forward. Try to send the arms forward equally to the hips lowering. This will help your balance. Find the breath.

5. Plank variation
Walk your hands forward and place your elbows under your shoulders. Lengthen out through the legs and come on to your tip-toes. Curl your pubic bone toward your face and lower your hips. You should be one straight line from crown of the head to the heels. Fire up your thighs and draw the belly back toward the spine. Release any tension in the neck/shoulders. Breath?
You can release your knees to the mat if legs up is too difficult.

6. Tadasana with strap and block
If you don't have a strap available, a block will suffice. Bring the block up between the thighs as high as possible. Wrap your strap around the block and tighten. Ground through the feet and lift your arches. Draw muscle energy from the inner edge of the feet all the way up to the inner groin. Continue to draw up though the pelvic floor and low belly. Make the legs really strong and bring the head in line with the spine.

7. Standing Twist Shift weight into your standing leg. Again, lift muscle energy up through the leg by lifting the arch of the foot and following the line upward. When you are balanced, lift your other leg to a 90 degree angle. Flex that foot and bring your opposite hand to the outer knee. Use the hand at the knee as leverage, lift out through the torso with an inhale and exhale to twist. The extended arm is the final step and is pretty useful for balance. Take several breaths and do the second side. Pause in tadasana in the center and breathe.

8. Anjaneyasana with Twist
From downward dog or table step your right leg forward. Tuck your back toes under and send your back foot another several inches behind you. Lower your left leg to the mat and untuck your toes. Bring your head in line with your spine and soften and ground in the hips. Lengthen out through the spine. Feel the breath as the belly moves into the thigh. 

When you are ready, move your left hand to your inner right foot and begin to twist to the right. I like to use my right hand to press my right knee in toward the midline at first and then extend the arm.

9. High Lunge with Twist
You can transition directly into this high lunge from your low lunge, or step back and rest in a neutral position. Make sure that your ankle is directly below your knee. Lift the arch of your front foot and draw muscle energy up through the inner leg. Make your back leg really strong and lengthen out through the spine. Place your hand to the floor or a block at your inner front foot and begin to twist toward your front knee. The knee will want to pop out to the side---keep drawing it in toward the midline.  

10. Supta Gomukasana
Lie on your back and cross one knee over the other. Reach for your opposite feet. Curl the outer edge of the feet toward each other and make them very strong. Pull the feet toward your face. Notice if you create any tension in the neck and shoulders and try to release. Take several breaths here and do the second side.





11. Reclining Twist
Lie on your back, bend your knees and plant your feet. Lift your hips up a couple inches and move your entire pelvis 3 inches or so to the left. Extend your right leg on the mat, draw your left knee in to your chest and across the midline. You can work with a bent left knee or a straight left leg. Either way, place it on the block and soften your left shoulder down toward the mat. Feel your belly pressing into your thigh as you breath. Do both sides.


12. Hip opening into Astavakrasana
Sit with your legs long. Draw your right shin in toward your chest and place one hand to your knee and the other to your foot. Rock your shin back and forth, opening your hip. When you're ready, reach for the outer edge of your right foot and try to pull your knee toward the mat behind you. Keep the knee hugging into the midline. The next step is to hook the knee to the top of the shoulder.

Plant your hands firmly and start to lift your hips off the mat. Hook your left ankle over your right ankle. This should help you get some lift. Flex the feet a lot and squeeze the inner thighs toward your shoulder and arm. Keep pressing and engaging through the core as you start to tip forward.

And you're in!

End with savasana with the knee propped up on something (a blanket roll-up or bolster). Feel the breath and release.

Yoga in Action: Love in Your Heart

I am living with someone who has a very different life perspective than me. He's a super sweet guy--generous, friendly and interested. He also happened to end a very serious relationship recently. I thought he and I could commiserate in a similar way. Turns out it's not so easy.

Through my steady practice and work on the meditation cushion, I am able to see my breakup as something that happened. Not something that happened to me but as something that occurs when two people are no longer together. We had an amazing relationship. And I still love him because I loved him for 5 years, so why would that suddenly change?


Contrarily, this person is deeply full of hate. He feels extremely angry, bitter, resentful toward his ex-girlfriend and eager to move on. He goes on dates. He tries to make his ex jealous.

Now, I am aware enough to recognize that his actions are a result of suffering. A pretty typical human response to your own suffering is to try and make others suffer so that you'll feel better. The sanskrit word for suffering is dukkha. The pain and anguish of dukkha are the result of the first of the 5 kleshas (hindrances), avidya (ignorance). Suffering is caused by not having all of the information. By thinking that what you perceive as your reality is the reality.

There are many ways to combat the suffering that is the human experience. Practicing yoga allows you to understand your true nature. It brings to light that everything and everyone is interconnected. That suffering does not begin and end with you, and that when you feel deep painful emotions that there is a way out.

Through practicing yoga, we can begin to bring love into our hearts. Even if bad things have happened to us, even if we feel nothing but pain and sorrow, yoga offers us the possibility to lift dukkha and replace it gradually with sukkha (ease). That yoga offers us the possibility that we may move through the world on a foundation of love and ease is enough for me to get on my mat day after day.

Breaking the Karmic Cycle

The ancient yogis believe that through our lifetime(s) we play out a continuous cycle of action and the deep impressions that come from that action. In this way we relive similar scenarios of our lives over and over again. These actions (karmas) and impressions (samskaras) are so deeply rooted in our heart/mind center of consciousness (citta) that they come with us even as we reincarnate. The only way to break the cycle from continuing in the same way in thousands of different scenarios is to recognize that the patterns exist. And then to do a bunch of work by meditating and changing the flow of your energy (prana) so that you may form a healthier approach to the pattern.

This is heady stuff. And know that the above paragraph is very much "pop" yogic philosophy. But it's just a tiny introduction to get you familiar with the idea of:

We act (karma)----->> an impression is formed (samskara)---->> we act again (karma)


With the second round of our action, we have the choice to act even more from a point of a deeply rooted pattern or to recognize our tendencies and change the course of our action.

Here is a real life example:
I am someone who moves quite frequently. Every couple of years, I pack up all my stuff and forge a new life. Each time I move, I become more independent of my old self, develop new ideas from meeting new people and having new experiences, and discover more and more that I am the only person who can make myself happy. Okay, all well and good.
So, every couple of years, before I move, I come back to my hometown and re-assess. Or, the point would be to re-assess, but what plays out instead is a classic karma/samskara loop. It doesn't matter one bit how much work I've done on myself in my last city, how clear it was becoming to me that I am the center of my own happiness, how healthy I have been eating, none of it matters.
I get home and I start the loop. Go out too often, drink too much, butt-heads with my mom, put off visiting my grandmas, have the impression that someone else is going to be the thing that makes me happy. Over and over. It's like an embarrassing broken record.
And why?

These patterns are down in there deep. The first step to breaking from the norm of your karmic cycle is to recognize that it exists. You have to begin to notice yourself playing out the same situations in a variety of settings.
Examples could be
1. Your emotional reactions to certain stimuli (are they always the same rise to anger or instant sadness or extreme joy?)
2. Avoidance of, or head on confrontation to conflict (do you react the same way every time you have a head-to-head?)
3. Your habits whether they be bad or good (why do you continuously bite your nails or insist on an orderly household or take the same route to work every day?)
It's all about discovering why it is that we do the things we do.

And then maybe you can sit back and watch as, like clockwork, you get back on the same old horse and do it all over again. And perhaps, after you do that fifty or a hundred times, it may become clear that a change is necessary. Changing a habit pattern or a pattern of action is step two. A pretty simple way to approach this step is to try giving up a habit pattern that you know is not in your best interest. And when you find yourself doing it, take a moment of contemplation and try to understand why your habit pattern is getting the best of you. And then maybe you can decide whether or not the habit pattern should continue.

The point is that we have the capability to make changes. But we have to recognize that the process of uncovering our patterns and changing them effectively takes a fair amount of work. And I personally believe that it's worth it.
Next time I go back to my hometown, I can assess all over again.

Practice is the Salve

Thanks to my lovely friend, teacher, and general yoga inspiration Theresa Murphy, I have a title for today's post. My phrasing was "thank goodness for practice" but she took it to the next level. Deep bow for that.

So, those of you who know me probably know that I'm currently in a transitional phase (to put it kindly). My relationship of over five years ended rather suddenly and I was left a bit grasping for how to go on in my life. Being an adventure seeker combined with a big-time family gal, I opted to move several thousand miles away from my current home to live near my sister. So within the span of just two months I have experienced some heartbreak, the challenge of relocating and a whole lot of packing.

You should even practice when you go to India!

The main thing that I have been consistently grateful for throughout this period is my daily time on the mat and the cushion. My practice never even skipped a beat. Through all this personal turmoil I had the ability to find an hour or two of sweetness and stillness every day.

A month ago I went on vacation and saw a good friend of mine. She asked what it is that I'm doing for myself to get through this difficult time. I was at a loss for words, temporarily lost in the thought that perhaps I wasn't doing anything for myself when she interrupted my thoughts to remind me of my practice. It was at that point that I realized how reliant I am on my personal mat time and how much a part of me and my life it truly is. I feel blessed to have a disciplined skill set during this time.

In the future when I look back on this time in my life, I'll be able to do so with integrity and grace because I kept it real for myself. Practice is the salve for me.

Yoga in Action: Finding Joy in the Process

We are so "finished pose" oriented in this country. Nobody wants to be the schmuck who doesn't look like B.K.S. Iyengar in their one-handed handstand, right? It's pretty common to see an intense amount of strain from a student who just isn't ready to go deeper.
I always try to give a few options of steps along the way to a peak pose--something like, "your first option is to work pigeon pose, when you're ready, you can add pigeon with the thigh stretch and for those of you who are quite open in your shoulders, you might try eka pada raja kapotasana."

Inevitably these initial suggestions go unexplored. Everyone jumps directly into what they perceive to be the "final posture." They cram their legs and arms into extreme angles, forgetting entirely to breathe, or to be present or to find any joy in this process of yoga. And this is how injuries happen and this is how people come to the conclusion that they "aren't good at yoga." 

The process of joy in this one took some work.

When I went to India to study with the Mohan's (see a post on that here) I was struggling between an orientation that was largely based in asana (posture) and one that was more interested in the movement of prana (life force/energy). I had just come off a week-long tantra intensive that was very um, intense in the pranic realm. I had ruffled my accrued lifetime of yucky stuff (karma) and wasn't really sure of how to best proceed.

The man himself, Krishnamacharya

The Mohan's are like the most pragmatic yogis that you've ever met. They teach Yoga Therapy as developed by Krishnamacharya. You know that guy? The one who taught all the modern day masters?

Ganesh, the son of the Mohan's, is trained as a medical doctor and an ayurvedic doctor. So yeah, he's pretty into wellness. And he happens to be one of the best teachers I've ever had. This is why--he's incredibly thorough and every single thing that he instructs is based on breath. The reason that you would go to a yoga therapist and not a physical therapist is because yoga connects to the breath and it creates an energy (prana) in the body that you don't get from doing exercises alone.
Breathe! Be present! Find joy in the process!

That's the rub, people. The reason that yoga works isn't because people with flexible hamstrings have more fun (bumper sticker?). It's because yogis who practice regularly just automatically start to slow down and experience more of life. When you base your practice on your natural cycle of breath, and you really really pay attention, you can't help but be more aware. And when you become more aware, it's easier to realize to all of the beautiful things that exist in a day, or in a moment!
And in my experience it becomes easier to appreciate small things at first and then larger things like being alive, and having friends and family and the fascinating world.

The process of yoga is a process of tracking down joy--true inner joy that can only come from you. The next time you're in class and your teacher gives you options, maybe try the first, fully connected to your breath and fully connected to a sense of joy before moving on to step two.

Breaking from Daily Practice

Every time I go on vacation, I suddenly become someone who doesn't meditate. And every single time I feel annoyed with myself and lazy. And I feel less good in my brain and my emotional realm than normal. And I spend all day thinking, "I'll just do this one thing, and then I'll meditate."

So why in the hell can't I bring myself to do it? At home I am exceedingly disciplined, bordering on rigid, making time for meditation no matter what. Which brings the obvious point to mind--it's part of my routine and my day wouldn't be normal or complete without it. But if it makes me feel so sane and so joyful why not just do it?

Me, on vacation, meditating!

Yesterday I returned to my routine from a ten day hiatus, having traveled with my family and friends in Colorado. I did find sporadic opportunities to meditate while there, and some days were as good as any day on my cushion at home. But yesterday I got to sit on my cushion, with my mala, and read the Yoga Sutras and do my chanting, and do the whole routine, free from the eyes and ears of all.
Oh my. I spent the entire time with a giant smile on my face.

But I wouldn't have had quite the same experience, had I not taken a few days break. This break gave me the opportunity to reflect on how much I appreciate my practice and how good it feels as a part of my day. I think taking breaks from any constant thing that we do is a key to enjoyment of that thing. Now this observation may seem like a cop-out from someone who can't bring themselves to meditate while on vacation, however! the point for me is that I did come back to my cushion and will continue to do so regardless of missing days. And when I did come back, it felt like coming home.

Breaking from asana practice is also useful. It can be hard to recognize progress without stepping back to reflect and enjoy your effort. Every week I take at least one or two days to enjoy my morning without practice. Sometimes it's hard to step away, it can make me feel lazy or make my body feel stiff. But most of the time I am grateful to have a break and to enjoy the fruits of my labor with a morning to myself.

This is part of a larger practice of letting go. Accepting what is as it comes and learning to live joyfully regardless. Surrendering to the flow of life when necessary, and coming back to your cushion with regularity and devotion.

Slowing Down with the Breath

 

In the previous post (which you can find here: breath) I talked about several different approaches to thinking about the breath. For the next few posts, I will explore practical applications of some different breathing techniques and styles.

This post is specifically about ways to use the breath for calming, restorative, relaxing effects. If you tend to be someone who has trouble sleeping or relaxing, these techniques are ideal for you.

In slow, low to the ground practices of yoga, the simplest way to establish a calming and ground breath is to elongate the exhale. So if you count the beats of your breath and establish an even ratio, you would then lengthen out the exhale breath. Make sure to keep it sustainable--you don't want to end up with a 12 count exhale so that you're begging for the next inhale breath. I typically work with a 4 beat inhale to a 6 or 8 beat exhale in my personal practice.
Additionally, you can direct the exhale breaths downward, as though you're going to breath out of your pelvic floor. This type of breath corresponds with apana vayu which is a way to move energy toward elimination and grounding. So, in this type of breath, I inhale in and down from my nostrils to the pit of the belly and exhale from the belly out of the pelvic floor. Ten of these breaths will have you grounded in no time.
This breath work is most effective in slower styles, so it's perfect for these styles:

Yin Yoga (super long holds of five to ten minutes with passive stretching; intended to lengthen the connective tissue and to increase the flow of prana in the body)
Restorative (passive, relaxed long-held poses designed to "restore" the body)
Slow Flows (vinyasa styles with slower movement, longer exhales help to stay present and calm)
Meditation (deepening the breath can be effective in remaining present with your meditation)

Breathing this way is also ideal for the start of your savasana. It's a great way to get you tapped in to some grounding slowing energy before you drop in.
It's also perfect for falling asleep or falling back to sleep in the middle of the night. I find that just counting the pulses of my breath is automatically relaxing. Try this: roll on to your right side--this will encourage the flow of breath through the left nostril which is the yin calming side. Focus the breath on the left nostril, so try and breath solely in and out of the left and then use the technique above to lengthen the breath. I personally don't last long at all when I do this style of breath in the middle of the night.

One more thing to mention is a yoga style which combines slower breath with visualization.  
Yoga Nidra is yogic sleep which leaves the body and mind totally refreshed and renewed. It's fantastic. Here's a link to some practices on YouTube: yoga nidra

Happy Practice!