Fearless Backbends

By Jason Crandell

Because we spend so much of our day hunched over a computer or moving forward, moving backward into a backbend is an unfamiliar feeling. And since our bodies and minds prefer to stick with the status quo, practicing backbends may trigger physical and psychological resistance. It's normal to feel frustrated, awkward, or even uncomfortable during your exploration of Cobra Pose and other backbends. Resistance is a natural part of breaking habits and moving into the unfamiliar, so be patient and compassionate with yourself. You aren't alone in your difficulty. With a little patience, curiosity, and practice, you'll learn how to navigate through your resistance. Here are a few suggestions for dealing with aversion and difficulty in backbends.

BEAR WITNESS Without immediately responding, observe the range of feelings that arise as you practice backbends. If there is a sharp, localized pain in your body, stop immediately. However, if you encounter mild physical or psych-ological resistance, be with it.Try witnessing your response to difficult feelings. Not only will you begin to see that resistance passes and transforms, you'll learn mindfulness, which is at the heart of the yoga practice.

SLOW DOWN Many of us go too far, too fast in our yoga practice. We prefer to accelerate through the learning, sensing, feeling process, and skip straight to the doing process. If you're having difficulty in a backbend, minimize the size of your backbend until it feels evenly distributed and healthy. Remember, you are searching for an even, graceful arc, not a visual spectacle. Besides, it's better to injure your ego than your body.

REPEAT REGULARLY The only way to learn a new pattern in the body and mind is to practice it consistently. Do backbends that feel appropriate to you as often as possible. Incorporate them into your yoga routine and daily life. You can do small backbends—like clasping your hands behind your back, lifting your chest, and simply stretching—sitting in your chair at work, waiting for the train, or standing in line at the grocer.

BE BRIEF It may be daunting to think about staying in a backbend for 30 seconds. But is it still scary if you hold it for, say, five seconds? Repeating your backbends more often and holding them for a very brief moment is an effective way to reduce your aversion.

BASK IN THE BEND Backbends are thought to be energizing, uplifting, and stimulating. After you finish a backbend, take a moment as you breathe to notice if your energy has changed. You may notice sensations immediately after a pose or later in the day—it will vary from day to day.

Upward Bowl or Wheel Pose

by Yoga Journal

Step by Step

Lie supine on the floor. Bend your knees and set your feet on the floor, heels as close to the sitting bones as possible. Bend your elbows and spread your palms on the floor beside your head, forearms relatively perpendicular to the floor, fingers pointing toward your shoulders.

Pressing your inner feet actively into the floor, exhale and push your tailbone up toward the pubis, firming (but not hardening) the buttocks, and lift the buttocks off the floor. Keep your thighs and inner feet parallel. Take 2 or 3 breaths. Then firmly press the inner hands into the floor and your shoulder blades against the back and lift up onto the crown of your head. Keep your arms parallel. Take 2 or 3 breaths.

Press your feet and hands into the floor, tailbone and shoulder blades against your back, and with an exhalation, lift your head off the floor and straighten your arms. Turn the upper thighs slightly inward and firm the outer thighs. Narrow the hip points and lengthen the tailbone toward the backs of the knees, lifting the pubis toward the navel.

Turn the upper arms outward but keep the weight on the bases of the index fingers. Spread the shoulder blades across the back and let the head hang, or lift it slightly to look down at the floor.

Stay in the pose anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds or more, breathing easily. Repeat anywhere from 3 to 10 times.

Mountain Pose - Tadasana

by Yoga Journal

Step by Step

Stand with the bases of your big toes touching, heels slightly apart (so that your second toes are parallel). Lift and spread your toes and the balls of your feet, then lay them softly down on the floor. Rock back and forth and side to side. Gradually reduce this swaying to a standstill, with your weight balanced evenly on the feet.

Firm your thigh muscles and lift the knee caps, without hardening your lower belly. Lift the inner ankles to strengthen the inner arches, then imagine a line of energy all the way up along your inner thighs to your groins, and from there through the core of your torso, neck, and head, and out through the crown of your head. Turn the upper thighs slightly inward. Lengthen your tailbone toward the floor and lift the pubis toward the navel.

Press your shoulder blades into your back, then widen them across and release them down your back. Without pushing your lower front ribs forward, lift the top of your sternum straight toward the ceiling. Widen your collarbones. Hang your arms beside the torso.

Balance the crown of your head directly over the center of your pelvis, with the underside of your chin parallel to the floor, throat soft, and the tongue wide and flat on the floor of your mouth. Soften your eyes.

Tadasana is usually the starting position for all the standing poses. But it's useful to practice Tadasana as a pose in itself. Stay in the pose for 30 seconds to 1 minute, breathing easily.

Ustrasana : Camel Pose

by Yoga Basic

Instructions

1. From Child or Hero pose, come up onto both knees, placing them hip width apart. Place the palms of the hands on the sacrum with the fingers pointed down.

2. Inhale and press the knees down reaching the crown of the head up to lengthen the spine. Exhale and press the hips forward, squeezing the buttocks and thighs and supporting your weight with the arms as you bend backwards.

3. Very carefully reach one hand down to the heel at a time, if you cannot reach the heels keep the hands on the sacrum. If it feels safe drop the head all the way back.

4. Holding tightly on to the heels with each hand, actively press the hips forward, lifting the chest up towards the ceiling.

5. Breathe and hold for 3-6 breaths.

6. To release: slowly bring one hand at a time back to the sacrum. With both hands on the sacrum, slowly inhale up, letting the head and neck be the last to come vertical.

Benefits + Contraindications

Benefits: Camel pose opens the chest, tonifies the kidneys and stimulates the respiratory, circulatory, nervous and endocrine systems.

Contradictions: Hernia,or recent abdominal surgery. Recent or chronic knee, shoulder, neck or back injury or inflammation.

Modifications + Variations

Modifications: A) Place folded blanket under knees or under the ankles. B) Use blocks next to the ankles or a firm cushion on top of the ankles to support the hands if you cannot reach the heels. C) Come up on the tip toes if you cannot reach the heels.

Variations: Keep the hands on the sacrum.

Vinyasa

Use one or more of the following postures to build a sequence leading up to this pose: Table, Hero, Child.

Use one or more of the following postures to build a sequence ending after this pose: Gate, Half Circle, Seated Yoga Mudra, Child, Rabbit, Supine Diamond.

For Beginners: Vrksasana

By Barbara Kaplan Herring
For many beginners, balancing poses are extremely challenging. Sometimes it is hard enough to do an asana (posture) with two feet on the ground, let alone to avoid toppling over while standing on one foot. The key to successful balancing lies in cultivating awareness of the midline (or median line) of your body-the vertical axis that bisects the face and neck, running straight through the center of the torso and pelvis and down between the legs into the ground.

To get a felt sense of your midline, stand in Tadasana (Mountain Pose) with your feet hip-distance apart and parallel, arms relaxing down by your sides, eyes closed. First bring your awareness to just the right half of your body: the right side of your face, the right arm, the right side of the torso, the right leg and foot. Be open to receiving whatever you may sense-feelings (strong or vulnerable, open or closed, focused or distracted) and also sensations, colors, textures, temperatures. Repeat this exercise on the other side.

Then take another breath and focus on your median line. What are you experiencing here? These sensations may be profoundly different, for your center can be a sacred place, untouched by the stories and variations of the left and right sides. My students have said that they feel equanimity, peacefulness, and truth when they focus on their midlines. Honor whatever you perceive. Vrksasana (Tree Pose) requires a sense of rootedness and centering down through your core. If you attempt to balance on your right leg with no sense of your midline, your weight will fall on the outer leg and outer foot, and the inner edge of your foot will lift. Before you know it, you will fall to the right like a felled tree.

Feet First
So let's work from the ground up to establish your foundation in the pose, the roots for your tree. Start by opening the doors of perception in your feet by rolling a tennis ball underneath one foot and then the other. To stimulate the toes and encourage them to spread, sit cross-legged with the sole of one foot facing the ceiling and lace your fingers in between your toes; work the base of your fingers down to the roots of your toes and gently spread your fingers. You can also kneel, curl your toes under, and sit on your heels for a minute. After these exercises your feet should be alive and ready to support your torso and arms-your tree trunk and branches.

To awaken your sense of the midline running down the inner legs, stand in Tadasana, feet parallel, and firmly squeeze a yoga block between your upper thighs. Firming the greater trochanters (the knobby bones protruding at the top of your outer thighs, about five inches below your frontal hipbones) toward the midline prevents your standing-leg hip from jutting out too far to the side and taking you off-center. As you gently squeeze inward, slowly lengthen down your inner legs into the inner feet. Then zip energy up the midline of your trunk and press the center of the crown of your head skyward. When you practice Vrksasana, your foot will take the place of this block, and you'll want to recreate the same current down your inner leg.

Another important element to feeling centered is abdominal tone, which provides the core strength necessary for the pose. If the abdominals are weak, the section of the midline that runs through the belly area remains dull and provides no support for the low back in the posture. If you know any abdominal toning exercises or asanas, such as Navasana (Boat Pose) or Ardha Navasana (Half Boat Pose), do them before attempting Vrksasana. Otherwise, with your thighs pressing into the block in Tadasana, practice gently drawing your navel back toward the spine and up.

Now let's try practicing Vrksasana at a wall. Begin in Mountain Pose with the left side about a foot away from the wall. Spread the right toes and emphasize the arches in both the inner and outer foot. Take hold of the left foot with your left hand and place the foot against the top of the right inner thigh. Situate yourself so your left knee firmly touches the wall and you feel held in place. Lengthen down your inner right leg and press the greater trochanters toward your midline. Then draw your navel gently in again and move the crown of your head up. Press your palms together in Anjali Mudra (Namaste) at the center of your sternum. Now you are ready to begin focusing on your midline, grounding through it and lifting out of it. Repeat the pose on the other side.Off the WallNow you are ready to try Vrksasana in the middle of the room. Fan out the toes of your right foot and ground the ball of the big toe and little toe, as well as the front of the heel. Make sure the knee of the right leg is facing straight forward.

Lift your left foot up to the top of the inner right thigh. The left toes should point down. If your foot keeps sliding, consider changing out of slippery tights if you are wearing them, putting on shorts instead and working on bare skin. If you're still having trouble and wishing for Velcro on your foot, practice with a strap around the left ankle, holding it in place with your left hand. It's also fine to practice with the left foot lower on the standing leg, at calf-height.

For those who have tight groins and inner thighs, lifting the bent knee too high may cause the spine to become swaybacked. If so, lower the foot against the standing leg and don't force the bent knee any farther out to the side than you can while still maintaining the parallel alignment of frontal hipbones.

Accentuate the pressure of the outer left foot on the inner right thigh so that the left knee comes more into the same plane as the left hip. This alignment will improve as your hips and groins open. Bring your palms together in front of your heart and isometrically press them together. Mirror this action by pressing the thigh into the foot and the foot into the thigh. The inward movement of your greater trochanters will help you with this. Feel how the tone in your midsection supports your balance. Keep your throat and eyes soft.

If you wish to go further with the pose, raise your arms overhead, palms facing each other. Relax your shoulders and tailbone down as you lengthen your spine upward. Breathe smoothly. If you find that looking straight forward is too challenging, pick a spot in front of you on the floor (about one body-length away from you) to gaze at softly.

For a few breaths, try to feel your vertical center, that quiet place of balance amidst the shifting energy of the left and right sides. Remember, there is no front to a tree. Relax your face, and from your awareness of your center, allow your attention and energy to radiate 360 degrees. Hold for 10 to 20 seconds, about three to eight breaths. With practice, you might work up to a minute on each side. Vrksasana strengthens and tones the legs and feet, opens the hips, groins, and chest, and fortifies your Muladhara (first or "root") Chakra. Through the practice of balance, you develop poise, concentration, and coordination-as well as steady and calm your mind.
Practicing Tree Pose brings you back into your body, connects you to the earth, and helps you experience safety and stillness. Though praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow may "come and go like the wind," as the Buddha said, happiness comes if you can "rest like a great tree in the midst of them all."

Can you tell me how yoga can help me to eat well?

Aadil Palkhivala's reply:

As an Ayurvedic practitioner, I believe that a yogic lifestyle and proper eating habits go absolutely hand-in-hand. I recommend that my students eat food that creates balance in their system, for balance and harmony are essential elements of yoga.

There is no perfect diet, and no ideal food. I encourage you to monitor your food intake to determine what works for you and what doesn't—diet has to be adjusted individually. There are, however, rules to go by. First, you should not feel sluggish or tired after a meal. If you do, change what you are eating until meals do not make you tired. Second, there should be no pain, bloating, or gas production after you eat. Third, your bowel movement should be easy and effortless, come out with minimal gas, and when examined, should be light in color, should have a minimal smell, should be smooth and well formed, and should float. The bowel will tell you whether the food you are eating is good for you or not.

General rules for eating include: Eat clean, organically grown food. Avoid all pesticides and artificial fertilizers as well as chemicals of any kind. Avoid tamasic and overly rajasic foods such as sweets, coffee, and alcohol. (In the Ayurvedic system the word "rajasic" refers to foods that are active or turbulent, and that may cause agitation, anger, or fear. "Tamasic" refers to foods that make one feel heavy, dull, dark, or lethargic.) Reduce meat and animal products intake to a minimum. Usually cow's milk is very difficult to digest unless it is organic and unprocessed; it should usually be drunk within 30 minutes of milking, while it is still warm. On a final note, there are certain body types that need a little animal product to feel balanced. Test your diet through the intuition that develops from the practice of yoga, and not what anyone believes is a yogic diet.

Eating right involves the process of eating as well as what is eaten. The yogi eats when he is calm and relaxed, and not when stressed or in a hurry. The yogini chews her food well and eats as slowly as possible, finding gratitude and joy while savoring each morsel. Eating should be done in a calm atmosphere in silence or with slow soft music. This aids digestion, since digestion is a parasympathetic activity, and loud, quick-beat music, tension, and hurry, all lead to a sympathetic nervous response.

In summary, trust your instincts as to what to eat. Eat slowly and peacefully, enjoying whatever is presented on your plate or banana leaf!

Forearm Balance Pose - Pincha Mayurasana

by Yoga Journal

Step by Step

Perform a modified Adho Muhka Svanasana at your yoga wall, with your palms and forearms on the floor. Your fingertips should be right at the base of the wall, and your forearms parallel to each other at shoulder width. This pose isn't quite as scary as Adho Mukha Vrksasana; it has a firmer base of support, and the head isn't as far away from the floor. But it can still be somewhat intimidating. To ready yourself for and secure yourself in this inversion, firm your shoulder blades against your back torso and pull them toward your tailbone. Then rotate your upper arms outward, to keep the shoulder blades broad, and hug your forearms inward. Finally spread your palms and press your inner wrists firmly against the floor.

Now bend one knee and step the foot in, closer to the wall (let's say the left leg), but keep the other (i.e. right) leg active by extending through the heel. Then take a few practice hops before you try to launch yourself upside down. Sweep your right leg through a wide arc toward the wall and kick your left foot off the floor, immediately pushing through the heel to straighten the leg. Hop up and down like this several times, each time pushing off the floor a little higher. Exhale deeply each time you hop.

Hopping up and down like this may be all you can manage for now. Regularly practice your strength poses, like Adho Mukha Svanasana (or the modified version that's the beginning position here), Plank Pose, and Chaturanga Dandasana. Eventually you'll be able to kick all the way into the pose. At first your heels may crash into the wall, but again with more practice you'll be able to swing your heels up lightly to the wall.

If your armpits and groins are tight, your lower back may be deeply arched. To lengthen it, draw your front ribs into your torso, reach your tailbone toward your heels, and slide your heels higher up the wall. Draw the navel toward the spine. Squeeze the outer legs together and roll the thighs in. In Pincha Mayurasana your head should be off the floor; hang it from a spot between your shoulder blades and gaze out into the center of the room.

Stay in the pose 10 to 15 seconds. Gradually work your way up to 1 minute. When you come down, be sure not to sink onto the shoulders. Keep your shoulder blades lifted and broad, and take one foot down at a time with an exhalation. Lift into Adho Mukha Svanasana for 30 seconds to a minute. We tend to kick up with the same leg all the time: be sure to alternate your kicking leg, one day right, next day left.