More Whoa!

Posted in ashtanga yoga on 06/11/2009 12:33 pm by karen

Hey you guys, I hurt! Sore, sore, sore! In good places, though — all the inflexible spots: mid back, shoulders, that kind of thing.

I thought about skipping this morning, but then I wanted to try Vanessa’s suggestion about getting into eka pada sirsasana. Which I did try. To some success. Except, um, when I went to grab my outer thigh on the outstretched leg, I couldn’t find the strap — LOL! Yes, I now need not only longer legs, but legs with a handy strap on the outside thigh, so I can grab and pull myself more effectively into eka pada sirsasana.

And then I realized that Patrick is right and that it IS really good to have a teacher. Because tomorrow I will use my right hand to bring my right foot to my ear like a telephone, then I’ll bring my left arm up and over my head to grasp the foot and pull it back behind my head, and then, when I need to use my right hand to grab my left thigh, I’m gonna say “Hey, hold this, will you?” and MM will hold onto the leg behind my neck so it doesn’t press forward and snap my head off. Thank you in advance, Muscle Man!

Oh, did I forget to mention that I am kind of scared of putting my leg behind my head? Yeah. I’m nervous about my neck. Yes, I know, the foot goes down more onto the shoulder. Except it doesn’t quite yet. I’ll be happy when one day it does tuck down more and I can quit worrying about my neck.

Still, worrying about wrecking my neck means I don’t have time to worry about popping my hip out of its ball and socket joint. So that’s something to be grateful for.

And who knew? As I entertained my little worries about neck and hips, the only thing that was really affected was my back. Which is sore now. Sore muscles in two neat little rows that run down either side of my spine, about three inches out from the spine itself. The soreness makes me keep wanting to bend backwards for relief. Ah, a self-sustaining cycle of increasing flexibility. Genius.

P.S. Pincha mayurasana is easy unless you put it at the end of a strenuous practice. Then it’s pretty challenging. Just sayin’.

 

30 Comments

  1. LOL, while you are at it, ask him to stick a thumb under your calf to help get it out of the way. That’s how I get some of my yoga bruises.

  2. LOL.. I can see you turning yourself into a yoga prop, attaching straps and handles all over..

    Do be careful with your neck in the beginning, it has to get strong. For me, it had to get strong enough to hold the leg back, because getting my shoulder in front didn’t start to happen till later. The lower back can also take a hit, so bandhas, bandhas, bandhas…

  3. Bandhas! God, is there no end to the things we must consider??

    Seriously, you put (past tense) your leg just on your neck and not on your shoulder? You are a brave woman. And your legs must be pretty long…

    Okay, so the bandhas. Yes, I try to hang in there with the uddiyana bandha. If I don’t, I get this wicked cramp that actually makes a knot in my abs that sticks out. What? TMI? ;-)

    Mula bandha though? I’m pretty sure my panic is overriding mula bandha.

  4. hi Karen
    i have to get ready for work, but, the most important thing in preparation for LBH poses is to open the bent leg out, not back. the movement is never in the knees, or rotation of the leg around the knee. the movement is opening up the hip and bent leg as far outward to the side as possible, then taking the fleshy part of the leg below the knee (sorry i’m challenged with the word. in street parlance in spanish it would be the batatas) – move it away as you get the leg to slide down the back. i cheated! calf is the word, as V. points out. move the fleshy part of the calf away so you can help get the leg down.
    hugs
    Arturo

  5. and as they say, you know that preparation of bringing the leg up and back behind the leg? it’s a hamstring stretch, not really a preparation for what has to happen in LBH poses. i do it, but knowing that it’s not really going to help with correct positioning of the leg. grab your bent leg at the thigh, pull outwards way way to the side, then bring back behind the head, try to pull your shoulder forward under the leg, move the calf flesh out with your fingers, hold the knee with one hand the foot with the other, straighten the chest upwards when the leg is in place, put hands in namaste. boy i’m a martinet. hugs

  6. I’m going to bookmark this post so I can refer back to it when I finally encounter this pose! There’s some good advice here!

    It sounds like you’re feeling your erector spinae (the es muscle group). They have been my nemesis through primary. I don’t have any specific advice (though sphinx, followed by child’s pose seems to be helpful for me).

  7. No, I don’t have long legs!! I used to think my leg was behind my shoulder, but when I really get it back there, what a difference. My first taste of the feeling was the dwi pada assist, where they hold your legs and you wiggle up through the spine… have you had that assist? THEN you can get your shoulders in front… and lust after that feeling the rest of the time, when you’re left to your own devices and feel all hunched up!

    I also think that although Arturo is right about the rotation, the hamstrings are involved too.. as I went deeper there seemed to be all sorts of ropey stuff in the back of my legs that would sort of uncomfortably pass over each other on the way back. But that has mostly gone away.

    Fun, fun…

  8. Uh, maybe I’m being really thick, but the leg DOES go behind the neck unless you are really, REALLY deep in the pose, no?

    Let’s take an example: this is what I consider Eka Pada:

    http://image03.webshots.com/3/7/62/50/6476250xbaTtgDwWJ_ph.jpg

    Calf behind the shoulder, yes, but ankle behind the neck.

    For the ankle to be behind the other shoulder, one has to get a really deep Eka Pada. Deep enough that it would allow you to do this fourth series pose:

    http://ashtangayoga.info/asana-vinyasa/advanced-b-series/09-Kapilasana-B.html

    I’d imagine this could take quite a while to accomplish. Susan can elaborate :-)

  9. I realize that we’re all boring Owl with this, but:

    YES to “being careful that it doesn’t snap your head off.” That’s the classic I’ve-just-started-doing-FBH feeling.

    YES to Susan’s “I THOUGHT I was putting it behind my shoulder, but” comment. I’ve gotten some shoulder REALLY behind the calf a couple times, and it so, so changes the pose! At the start, it’ll tip your head to one side, as the shoulder pressure is unbalanced, and you’ll know immediately, because the calf’ll turn your head for you. But LATER, somehow the knee seems to move FORWARD, and the leg almost begins to “float” behind the head and the pressure reduces massively. Yes indeedy, you lust after that once you feel it.

    Long legs: this is just trivia, but yep, I’ve got ‘em. I can hook my ankles over my head, totally above it, with knees behind shoulders. This makes Dwi Pada an UTTER pain in the ass, because I need not only to hook the ankles but to keep the knees as OUT as possible in order to keep the freakin’ FEET behind my head.

    Arturo’s .02 here (yes, you’re a martinet! That was wonderful!) about taking the FBH to the side rather than to the back, is good stuff too.

    Hey Kai, long time no see, good to see you around on comment threads :)

  10. Hey Karen!
    The neck fear will go away. I had a tough time with this pose, thought I’d never ever get it (now I love it)- the neck may be sore for awhile, but don’t let it scare you, it’ll get super strong and the hips will open. ahhhh!!! What a hip stretch. I’m not sure where my legs are, I just know they’re back there and it feels good. They only get cranked down the back like a bug when Mike puts them there.

    I get a weird popped out muscled in my abs too- not often, but it’s creepy when it happens. I think it happens when I try Karanda over and over and over.

    Patrick, we may need a photo of your long-legged Dwi Pada!

  11. Haha! Ok Liz, I’ll put it on the to-do list but it might not show til the end of the month. Basically, my feet can swing from Dwi Pada to Bhujapidasana, without touching my head. So my Dwi Pada is ALL about lengthening the spine to try to get an obstacle up there :-)

  12. Hi Vanessa,

    When I was talking about leg on the neck, I meant JUST the neck. Patrick has really long legs, and though I don’t recall if I saw him do an eka or dwi pada when we were at the workshop in Minnesota, I can easily imagine him being able to pull his leg across his neck without touching his shoulders at all.

    Patrick, could you put the baby down for a moment and take a picture of yourself with your leg on your neck but not touching your shoulders? And a dwi pada with your feet crossed a foot above your head. You can hold the baby for that one: we want to see him! :-)

    I think where I’m at now is that my calf is across the shoulder but still high up enough that it feel like most of the pressure is on the neck. I chatted with MM about it this morning and he said two things will happen to make this better: 1) my neck will get stronger, and 2) my hips will loosen up and my legs will be able to rest lower on my neck/traps.

    Oh, and Owl’s not bored — she’s yoga nidrasana-ing!

  13. :-)

    Ok, I’ll play. I believe Arturo is mistaken. The external rotation method is lovely, and maybe a natural next step from baddha k, which has felt wonderful but not totally natural in your case. However, for someone with extremely strong quads, as you have, it can also lead to trouble in the IT-band. In that case, the taking-the-leg-back method with minimal external rotation is very good. See the excellent thread in voices titled “There are two ways of doing eka pada.” I practice both ways. As long as the knees are safe, explore your options.

    It really takes time to strengthen the neck, Susan’s right. RF talks about how long-time yogis really damage our cervical spines in ways that make old age excruciating. I’m guessing your headstand is almost entirely supported in the forearms and shoulders… maybe it is time to begin experimenting with taking more weight in the head and taking longer holds.

  14. Oh, I see, I was just being thick! :-D

    As a short-legged person, I can’t imagine the knee being on the outside of my torso. From day one it has been squashed against it, firstly on the outside of my shoulder, squashing my shoulders really uncomfortably forwards in Dwi Pada (the hunch was terrible). The ankle used to then rest on the pointy bit at the back of my skull – this was very painful.

    Now that I can work on getting the calf behind the shoulder, the ankle rests behind the cervical spine. It did take quite a bit of strengthening of my neck before this was comfortable.

    Owl, regarding the two ways of doing it and you practicing both (I assume not at the same time :-P ), do you find that you tend to one or another depending on whether you are doing Eka or Dwi Pada? I’m asking because of my hip injury. It still hurts when I’m doing Eka, but Dwi Pada and Yoga Nidrasana are really quite uncomfortable and I wonder if it is because I’m not rotating externally nearly as much as for Eka Pada…

  15. I meant Dwi Pada and Yoga Nidrasana are COMFORTABLE – I’m fine in them.

  16. Yes, V! I’m with you: dwi pada and yoga nidrasana feel much better than eka pada.

    Oh Owl, I’ve been having such fun lifting my head off the mat in headstand. Now I have to go back to putting weight on my head. So sad. Still, it’s for a good cause. If RF says it, I’m in.

  17. Hah! Not so in my case: Eka Pada cozier, easier than either Dwi (hard to hook, hard to balance) or Yoga-ni (hard to get spine long; too much rounding, too much pressure).

    I wanted to look at it again before pointing folks to it, but there’s an Eka Pada pic (both upright and folded) in my FB pics. It might be informative as to calf-shoulder-head placement in my case, but all I can remember right now is that I’m getting some head-tilt from the calf’s weight (and from hip inflexibility that night) and so my expression is very “keep the leg there, keep the leg there, keep it there.”

  18. V, I’ve been mulling this over for a day and I just don’t know. The rotation answer makes some sense, but maybe there’s something particular in your bursa–some specific little angle–that is just sensitive in a really tiny way. It’s very puzzling.

  19. OK… there’s a lot to comment on here… first of all to say yes to the two methods, but also a million shades of grey. And five more poses in third series to play with, the advantageous placement seeming to vary.

    Next, WTF???
    ‘RF talks about how long-time yogis really damage our cervical spines in ways that make old age excruciating.’
    Owl, how can you just throw that out there so cavalierly? And no one comments!! Is RF old and in excruciating pain, or who is he talking about, and what does he say?? I’m not here to damage my spine and mess up my old age!

    I don’t want to damage my cervical spine. It does worry me when I see guys like David Williams who have a bit of a hunch. Basically, I want all the pressure in LBH BELOW the little cervical ‘hump’ so it makes my neck spring up straight. I’m going for zero ‘forward head’ in dwi pada, otherwise I can’t see myself carrying on over the years. I also want to lift out of that area more in shoulderstand.

    My issue seems to have cleared up and I’m going to have Saturday evening practice now :)

  20. ;-) Apologies for cavalier comment.

    First, very much agree with everything you say about how to practice FBH. I don’t want this to create any forward hunch, and wouldn’t put my legs back there if it created the dwi pada “forward head” situation. Why do that every day?

    RF’s lecture was in a workshop over 4 years ago in Santa Monica. I was new to practice and pretty horrified. I took it that he was talking about other long-term practitioners, not himself.

  21. “Why do that every day?” Uh, I guess one does it every day until s/he doesn’t get the forward head situation? Not everyone can get a straight spine and no pressure on the neck on their first Dwi Pada, you know :-D

  22. Right.

  23. Well, I think I’m on this trip for awhile. But if it starts to mess me up, out the window it goes and in comes intuitive self-practice….

  24. :-) Yes, well, I imagine SKPJ (and Krishnamacharya before him) would expect advanced students to be able to pursue practices that would benefit their bodies/minds.

    This reminds me of someone writing about RF’s studio, and how they were frustrated that he had people doing things other than just a traditional practice…

  25. Yes, but ironically, when I did a very shortened version of my regular backbend programme (five standard dropbacks, unassisted) while visiting there, the teacher (not RF) was visibly offended and essentially told me that I was showboating and selfishly distracting her. :-) What is seen as traditional when I drop in anywhere else was seen as iconoclastic and selfish in that context.

  26. Huh? How could that be construed as selfish or showy? I don’t understand. Were you supposed to just wait and be assisted?

  27. I honestly don’t know. The best I can make of it is that I looked and acted like an outsider, while I assumed that I was in a community space. I might have telegraphed some presumptiveness about practice, or something like this. It probably did not help that the bends are deep. As a teacher, it could feel like an assault to have that in your room. The commentary pissed me off at the time, but then I realized I would have received such a critique openly from a “famous” teacher… so why blow off this person? I have learned to be more sensitive about practicing in a way that works for the context.

  28. Hmmm. A deft teacher, famous or not, might simply ask you to do something else, no?

    :-)

  29. True. Maybe in trying to take responsibility for my own actions on this one, I’ve crossed the line in to taking responsibility for hers. Not so helpful.

  30. A sign of compassion!

    Tell Amma I said “hi.” :-)

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