Category Archives: beginning

Notes from Minneapolis, 4/13 (part 1)

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What is yoga? Just a reminder….

Patanjali uses the term yoga in two related but different ways. The first and fundamental is yoga as ‘Self Realization’: yogash citta vrtti nirodhah; tada drashtuh svarupe avasthanam’; vrtti sarupyam itaratra, (Sutras I-2 – I-4). When the mind field is no longer distracted by confusion and delusion, one abides in the infinite spaciousness of being. That ‘I am’ open, unbounded, luminous spaciousness is seen (vidya), known (atma jnana) and this seeing/knowing is stable. (avasthanam). When not abiding, one’s identity is entangled in the world of forms (prakriti) and the formless (purusha) is obscured.

The second use involves yoga as a set of practices that lead to the elimination of the obscurations and the awakening to wholeness. Because the overwhelming majority of the yoga sutras are not about resting in stillness, but are addressed to acting in the world of forms, prakriti, it is possible to forget that ‘self realization’ is the true goal. If we are not alert, our self identity can wind up entangled in our practice and not our divinity. “I am a Christian”,  “I am a Buddhist”, ‘I am an Iyengar Yogi”, or whatever. This level of identity, full of thoughts, beliefs and dogma, leads to anxiety, (what if I am not doing it ‘right’!): fear (what if the community rejects me?); pride (our method is better than your method!) and many more such openings to suffering.

Practice is about finding balance and harmony in body, mind, spirit and cosmos. The Universe is non-denominational. Our cells are non-denominational. The organic intelligence, emerging and evolving moment to moment, from atoms to galaxies, is non denominational.  And the wisdom of the body lives this harmony moment to moment. All we have to do is trust (shraddha) that by dropping our attention into the organic realms (the feminine), feeling the inherent aliveness, and nurturing this connection so that it remains stable and conscious, our own innate divinity will shine through simply and clearly. Practice is not about the endless attempts to be redeemed from a flawed state (original sin?) but about helping to reveal our true nature as always being whole and complete (purna). With awakening, practice, and all of our life’s unfolding, becomes the spontaneous expression of wisdom and compassion that flows straight from the heart of the cosmos. This wisdom and compassion is available to everyone, everywhere, at all times and is used to help bring more light and love into the world.

The intelligence of life begins in the primal oceans we carry around in our cells and the body’s living matrix, Fluid Intelligence knows the rhythms of the sun moon and stars, of gravity and the innate wisdom of water. Can we begin to feel this? Can we discover our innate buoyancy that arises from our cells? Use a bolster, foam roller or folded blanket and explore the happy baby pose. Release hands and feet, arms and legs and allow them to feel like kelp floating in the oceans seeking the sunlight. Drift with the currents, keep releasing into the floor with the spine, spinal muscles and organs and feel the body melting.

Three energy states defined in the Yoga Sutras are: 1. too much, known as rajas; 2. not enough, known as tamas; and 3. just right, known as sattva. Too much includes muscular efforting, where the mind grabs onto the muscle tissue, and excessive tension anywhere, including sense organs and gut body. Not enough is dullness, heaviness without sensitivity, unconsciousness. Just right is the dynamic balance of weight and lightness, perceptual aliveness, effortless action, and a sense of continuous flow moment to moment. This is the state of integration, of moving into increased sensitivity and creativity. Dullness needs fire, dynamism and arousal to get the energy moving. Excessive tension needs water, cooling, quieting to slow the energy down. Learn to play with fire and water, monitoring and modulating moment to moment towards deeper and deeper levels of integration. Feel as free as a jellyfish or octopus (the original ashtanga yogis).

To bring this sensitivity into our human structure, we will utilize Tom Myer’s “Anatomy Trains’ model of fascial continuities to track our own lines of action and perception from cells and organs to structure (muscle/bone/fascia) and vice versa. We will begin in the feet, as tadasana is our home base for understanding the human body. The DFL begins on the soles of the feel witht he flexor muscles and tendons. This is where we get push of from the floor in walking, running or dance. Face a wall, place hands on the wall for balance, and begin to explore reaching down from the metatarsals, like ballet point without the big toe. The ankles rise, but let the heels hang down, even as they lift away from the floor. In other words, try not to use the gastroc/soleus muscles which attach to the heel, but these deeper muscles. As the heel lands, feel the sole of the foot lengthening, not the ankle collapsing. Keep the knees bent so the quads do not try to help, as they inevitably will. Repeat daily until action is clear.

Bring same action to the feet in dog pose. Notice the ankles, knees and hips of the dog as well as the length of the anterior spine and the freedom of the neck. (DFL). Makes it look easy.

From the feet we add the groins and pelvis in the standing forward bends. the primary action is extension through the muladhara learned in squatting. Babies find support when losing balance by activating the anal rooting reflex which awakens the tail end of the spine. We learn this in squatting, but if we have lost the flexibility, we can use ideo-kinesis, imagining a long dynamic tail emerging back from the pelvis. The grounding energy of the muladhara trifurcates (like Shiva’s trident!) into the two legs and tail. In tadasana, the three are parallel and you have a fish body. In forward bending, the tail (and entire spine) differentiates to allow length and stability. Notice how these guys use their tails to balance the weight of their torsos leaning forward. What would it feel like to have that energy available? Imagine a tail as long as your human spine, which makes your ‘human’ tail the center point of the spine and the fulcrum of a movement of the pelvis over the hip joints. Your long spinal muscles are not needed to move you in and out, up and down, if you use the tail energy. You can also imagine having your sitting bones elongating to help find the grounding/lengthening action of the muladhara.

In the next series of standing poses, the fish body series which includes trikonasana, parvakonasana, ardha chandrasana and vira, we add the adductors to keep the DFL engaged. The skaters action integrates the feet to the pelvis along the DFL as it involves the adductors, not the quads or hamstrings. Use a towel or blanket on the floor to practice pushing off on the back leg while the front legs bends and receives the weight of the body. If you are a well trained Iyengar yoga student, you will probably externally rotate the femur to do this and then lift the leg. Don’t !!! Internal rotation engages the adductors. Push down and into the floor like a skater pushing the blade into the ice. This is the action of the back leg in all of these standing poses. (and all legs in all poses to be precise). In figure skating, ardha chandrasana is know as a spiral, shown here by Ilia Kilmkin. Notice the lines of energy extending through arms, legs, head, eyes, crown chakra. In the yoga pose, elongate the inner back leg to lift it up. Don’t grip the outer hip muscles and crank the leg up. Elongate!

Maho Bay Yoga Intensive: Class Notes

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Maho Bay Yoga, March 3 – 10, 2013
(Next year at Estate Concordia, St. John, March 2 – 9, 2014)

Preliminary: Read “The Way of Liberation” by Adyashanti

Monday AM: 1st chakra, basic postures and energy lines of the week

1. opening meditation/invocation
2. Tadasana; activate feet, hips, circularize energies: add forward flexion, (uttanasana, prasarita padottanasana) adding tail to counter balance rest of spine. Find the Deep Front Line (DFL).
3. Skaters move to activate inner back leg through inner heel. Use a blanket or towel to slide more freely.
4. Begin trikonasana from same action, like on inner edge of ski or skate, so inner back leg is dominant action. Oscillate in and out, narrow range if necessary to find center point of balance.
5. Add parsvakonasana without losing trikon action. Now double action, bifurcating groins elastically. Repeat, in and out, up and down. Move in and out of pose smoothly, elegantly. Make whatever subtle alignment adjustments necessary to help ease of flow.
6.  Add ardha chandrasana to sustain double action plus balance. Don’t lift leg from outside but let it elongate from within, without losing continuous extension, through weight shift.
7. Add parvrtta ardha chandrasana to find rotation. Sustain all other lines of action while pelvis rotates. Keep head and hands quiet so they don’t try to help.
8. In either moon pose find navicular and cuboid bones and stabilize and stay. Then repeat while moving in and out of the moon poses.
9. Find navicular and cuboid in other standing balances, tree, baby natarajasana, etc.
10. Down dog.  Grow a tail to lengthen backwards. Don’t use chest or knees. Add one leg elongating and lifting. Like ardha chandrasana, grow longer through whole body.
11. Flip the dog by elongation out through hands finger, and head/ears/eyes, maintain double action to keep continuous flow.
12. Add contra-lateral dog, pigeon and lunge to discover same support of elongation and balance.
13. Head balance and sarvangasana, with variations (if practicing);  if not then  viparita karani, happy baby, variations on setu bhanda.
14. Savasana
15. Project for the day: find a tail in nature that speaks to you: fish, lizard, iguana, bird. Feel it, move with it.

Monday PM: Connecting inner groins to feet:

1. Questions on “WOL” Introduction”?
2. Lying on floor, feet to wall/railing, in a squatting position. Extend a line of energy from depth of inner groin through inner heel and beyond. Alternate sides, then both together.
3. Then same action in center of room, extending from groin to heel to lengthen leg, being careful not to active quad. Alternate legs, experiment with angles, then add deeper actions to open inner thighs and hamstrings.
4. When legs are long, come to lying half lotus and now extend from groin out through knee to open hips further. Change sides. If you can do lotus, do both legs at saw time. Be careful not to over arch lower back as the iliacus might not lengthen.
5. Return to first position and now extend from sides of diaphragm to inner heels. Feel that the feet are the roots of the diaphragm. Strengthen the energetic links.
6. Now add expansion of ribs. On inhalation, use hands to limit the movement of the lower ribs (the ribs attached to the diaphragm) so the bulk of the expansion takes place in the ribs above the diaphragm. On the exhalation, sustain the open ribs and let the exhalation come from an elongation of the inner /under part of the diaphragm as it rises up inside the chest walls.
7. Savasana: Let the breath find a new place of balance and ease.

Tuesday AM: 2nd Chakra, Sacral Area, Element Water

1. opening meditation/invocation
2. Tadasana, relax and open energy channels through legs and core.
3. Wide dog, openning groins, growing tail. Then in wide dog, add groin extension from Monday pm class, one leg at a time, inner groin extending to inner heel, back and forth.
4. Then, in wide dog, cross connect inner heel to opposite illium to begin to open sacro-illiac joints, differentiating illia from sacrum.
5. Then in uttanasana, lift one leg, bend knee, extend from groin to heel backwards, like half moon. Then extend from inside of illium out through inner heel to open sacrum
6. Then, trikonasana, finding first hip joint, then sacroiliacs of both front and back legs.
7. Same in parsvakonasana, VIra II, ardha chandrasana. Explore using railing for support in ardha chandrasana.
8. Down dog and variations, extending from illia.
9. Head and shoulder balance or viparita karani.
10. Savasana.

Tuesday PM: inner pelvis to feet and diaphragm

1. Questions on “WOL” Five Foundations”?
2. Anatomy exposition on i-pad. Find deep front line from feet to diaphragm. See the many layers from surface to interior. (Thanks to Stacy!)
3. Pelvis on block, knees bent, feet lifted. Raise and lower feet without having illiacus shorten, one foot at a time if necessary. Try with leg straight. Double action through center of pelvis creates more space for breath. Try without block.
4. Bridge pose, feet at whatever height necessary for spinal release. Connect diaphragm to feet, lift and open chest from the inside.
5. Breathing practice: expand upper ribs, resist lower ribs to keep diaphragmatic length to feet.
6. Savasana

Wednesday AM: 3rd Chakra: Fire

1. opening meditation/invocation
2. Jelly fish action. Begin in hands and feet. Tadasana, feel dropping and spreading (feminine) followed by gathering in and lifting (masculine) through arches.
3. Create same action in uttanasana, widening and spreading to go down, gathering and lifting to come up. Find out how you can use w/s to lengthen legs in uttanasana, not from quads!
4. Squatting: feel widening and spreading, g/l, as you go up and down.
5. Cat/dog stretch, working just the pelvic floor to create a pumping action. Then trikon, parsvakon, ardha chan, all from pelvic action.
6. Down dog, flipping dog, opening third chakra area through extension of core.
7. Sphinx, cobra, bent leg cobra on rails with lift, ustrasana (head on railing), salabhasana, dhanurasana, and any other back bending pose that inspires. Keep the lift coming up the inside, keep the grounding energies open.
8. Uttana padasana or fish pose, or variations
9. Lying twist (or any other)
10. Savasana

Wednesday PM:

1. Questions on “WOL” Three Orienting Ideas”?
2. Anatomy: Diaphragm- size, shape location.
3. Lying down, find elongation through legs and pelvic floor. Start with feet on floor, then bring knees to chest without losing extension. Then extend knees slightly keeping pelvic action.
4. Slowly extend legs further, coming into urdhav prasarita padasana and/or urdhva pascimottanasana. Keep chest/upper body relaxed and open. Move from core.
5. Then, place block or roll under pelvis to improve leverage, repeat above actions.
6. Then, with one leg in flexion, slowly extend opposite in wide circular arc to eka pada seth bandha. Repeat on other side. Go back and forth.
7. Then, create a side ways circle with each leg, watching where rotation of the leg happens. explore this on both sides.
8. Breathing: Widen ribs, sustain as long as possible during exhalation to deepen lift of diaphragm. Explore 3rd chakra region under diaphragm, including liver, kidneys, stomach, pancreas, transverse colon, keeping organ spaces wide and awake.
9. Savasana

Thursday AM: 4th Chakra, ribs above the diaphragm, shoulders, hands, arms

1. opening meditation/invocation
2. Tadasana, prasarita padottanasana,  trikonasana, parsvakonasana, ardha chandrasana…(review of first three days)
3. Standing twist on the rail (throwing the frisbee) integrating feet to hands in spiral through core. Feel coiling and uncoiling, not hyper-extension anywhere along the circuit. Four leaf clover image for 4 quadrants of chest/lungs/shoulders.
4. Hands and wrists inquiry: how to keep carpal tunnel clear, tendons into the bones at the wrist, wrist bones floating evenly.
5. Downdog, watch wrists, keep open. Add the flip to extend and integrate core. Balance front and back lungs.
6. Starfish pose, multiple vectors to open all directions. (variation of parvrtta parsvakonasana)
7. eka pada koundinyasana, bakasana, jumping back to chaturanga dandasana.
8. Head and Shoulder balance/viparita karani
9. Savasana

Side Bar: We can find some ‘loose’ analogies between the middle chakras, 2,3 and 4 with both Ayurveda and embryology. (Don’t get too literal, but this can be helpful to feel some connections. 2nd chakra, water element, kapha dosa (has some earth), and the endoderm or gut body. 3rd chakra, fire element, pitta dosha and the mesoderm or structural body. 4th chakra, air element (has some akasha), ectoderm or nervous system. I Ayurveda, these are the mutable elements. In embryology, these ‘derms’ define the first cellular differentiation and thus can be seen as three primary intelligences in somatic enquiry. And they are the chakras most connected to the larger movements of the body.

Thursday PM: more shoulders and arms.

1. Questions on “WOL” Meditation”?
2. Anatomy of shoulder blade, especially subscapularis and serratus anterior, to find analogies with pelvic bones. Notice inside of scapula is behind ribs!
3. Explore shoulder blade collar bone connection at ac joint: Lying down, extend arms straight up to ceiling. Lift from clavs, drop from scaps. From there rotate arms in circles, staying below the neck at first (out to side for circles). Then add over head..
4. Standing frisbee throw. Track sequence of movements/sensation to learn integrated action.
5. Limb-nation: Caryn’s exploration of sequentially letting go of each joint from finger tips to sternum, one arm at a time. Four sections, pair of partners.
6. Savasana

Friday AM: 5th Chakra: Throat/Neck

1. Opening invocation: Bring Mother Earth to each chakra, each chakra to mother Earth. Bring Father Sky/Heavens to each chakra, each chakra to Father Sky.
2. Spheres of awareness/sensitivity/energy flow, like snow man. Chakras 1,2, lower sphere, 3 and 4, middle sphere, 5 and 6: upper sphere. Differentiate each and balance.
3. Find the sinusoidal connections linking front to back and side to side.
4. Using vowel sounds to relax throat and neck.  A, O E, and diphthongs AO, AE. Explore mouthing as instinctive action of throat, like a fish or deer feeding.
5. Lying on floor, find skull bones, adjust carefully. By swallowing, find where trachea and esophagus separate. Feel front and back of throat. Open that space. Try in sitting.
6. Then tadasana and uttanasana. What happens to the spheres? Keep them open.
7. Same in trikonasana, parsva, ardha chan,  finding inner most energy channels to move neck/skull. Minimize outer movements, deepen awareness.
8. Down dog to tip the dog. open neck, throat and inner skull.
9. Headbalance, shoulder balance, viparita karani
10. Savasana

Friday PM: Mouthing as initiator of action.

1. Questions on “WOL”Inquiry”? Other questions?
2. Lying on floor, find wave down through feet and pelvic floor rebounding back to open jaws, mouth. Feel it as a rising that expands as it enters the lower pharynx and emerges.
3. If that is tricky, try as the standing spiral, but instead of throwing the frisbee, throw ‘your voice’ up and out into space. Use ‘ah’, ‘ooo’, wow, or any other vowely sounds. then orient to the food outside, like the turtles and fish as they feed. Compare left and right sides.
4. Then feel the rising as sound. Give it a ‘wow’ sound to mimic the shape.
5. What happens in uttanasana when you try the same action? Where does it get stuck?
6. Breathing: Lying in a comfortable position, trace breath from nostrils through throat and onto diaphragm. Feel how it passes through the throat. What parts of the diaphragm are touched by the breath, on right, on left? On front, on back?  5 – 10 minute enquiry.
7. Now compare that sensation to the rising sounds and mouthing. Can you differentiate the esophagus and trachea? Mouthing involves the esophagus, breathing does not. In breathing, can you have the same spaciousness in and around the esophagus as you do when mouthing, with out opening the esophagus? How does that affect the diaphragm? Explore again.
8. Then, feel the breath as it touches the lining of the nostrils. On the in breath, let the breath widen to touch the outer nostrils. On the exhalation, let the breath narrow to touch the septum. How does this affect the throat, the diaphragm?
9. Savasana: Rest in spacious emptiness.

Saturday AM: 6th Chakra: mid brain, corpus collosum, inner ears.

1. Opening meditation: Tune into the sound-scape. By surrounded by sound. Feel it coming from all directions. Let your whole body listen/hear.  Let your ears by like deer ears. or bigger! Let the expand and move, without turning your head or using the neck muscles. Let the right ear get even bigger and rest in the right ear. Feel the space. Then the left ear. Then both ears. Imagine the skull bones expanding to receive the sounds. Balance right and left. Feel the whole body receptive.
2. Tadasana, uttanasana, prasarita padottanasana, all feeling the inner ears, skull bones. If the groin pressure backs up, notice how that pressurizes the head/brain, sinuses/eyes/ears. Release the apana vayu into floor/space through lower chakras. Feel the freedom in the upper chakras. Don’t let the chest collapse. That will also pressurize the skull etc. Elongate as you move in and out. Don’t go past the point of collapse or contract. Stay in balance, in flow.
3. From Prasarita Padottanasana, enter into trikonasana, parsva, ardha, staying low, not coming up between sides. (Australian version!)
4. Then, from PP, parsvottanasan, parvrtta trikon, parvrtta ardha chandrasana, parvrtta parsvakonasana. Follow flow, balance the energies.
5. Down dog, flipping dog and variations (contra-lateral, pigeon, lunge). Maximize opening in throat and interior of skull. Open crown chakra to complete action.
6. Sphinx pose from mouthing, then inner ears. Compare. Not from spinal muscles. Don’t go too far into pose or you will lose inner awareness.
7. Head balance/shoulder balance or viparita karani, or any pose your intuition suggests.
8. Lying twist
9. Savasana.

Sat PM: 7th Chakra and Integration

1. Questions on “WOL”Contemplation” and conclusion”? Other questions?
2. Lying on floor, feet to wall/railing, in a squatting position. Extend a line of energy from depth of inner groin through inner heel and beyond. Alternate sides, then both together. (from day 1)
3. Center of room, extend legs from whole inner body, in all directions.
4. Raise pelvis on block, extend legs. Then ground feet, open chest, opening diaphragm, ribs, spine.
5. Seated twist of choice. Let body decide which side to begin. Assume basic position without effort or strain. Then:
Find first chakra. ask which direction it wants to rotate and let it go. When the movement is complete, invite the opposite rotation. Let the flow pendulate back and forth between clockwise and counter clock wise. Then let the two find a balance. Then
Move to 2nd chakra. Keeping first chakra awake and relaxed, repeat as above.
Repeat for all 7 chakras.
Repeat whole cycle for side two.
6. Savasana

Annapolis Workshop notes: Feb 2013

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See also previous posts from Detroit (Mobility, Motility, Stillness) and Concentric Circles 1, 2, and 3.

Key topics covered and more….

Meditation Practices

Opening meditation: Find your central channel, let it relax and open. Imagine a line of energy passing down from the heavens, through your crown chakra, through your core, through your root chakra and on into the earth. Allow the energy to also flow from the earth upwards through your core into the heavens. Feel the center channel filled with light. Now feel your weight and allow the earth to meet you. Let every cell and bone feel its own weight and surrender into the earth. From the downwards flow of weight on into the earth, allow a felt sense of lightness, of levity to also be felt by every cell, every bone, so the body feels as if it were floating, suspended, relaxed and alert. Feel alive.

Now notice your breathing. Allow the in breath and out breath to both flow effortlessly. Dissolve the boundaries of the skin and feel the body suspended in breath, floating in breath. Now bring your attention to you heart center, the center of all center of all centers, and let it rest there poised, balanced, still. Feel the stillness expanding, dissolving time and space, and rest in the infinite spaciousness. Now imagine a sphere of light surrounding you, with your heart as the center. Feel like an embryo in a womb or egg. Be nurtured by the light. Let it penetrate into your cells and let your cells radiate their own light outward. Rest in the infinite spaciousness, the all pervasive luminous emptiness of your own divine nature.

Wheel of Awareness: In Dan Siegel’s meditation exploration, we use the wheel as a visual metaphor of the mind. Around the rim of the wheel are located the various sources of the information streams that feed the brain. These sources include the five outer senses including sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch; the inner senses of proprioception and kinesthesia which feed information from the muscles, bones and joints about location and movement; the sense of motility from the organs, much of which is driven by the breathing; our emotional energies percolating up from the cells and organs; and the cognitive (word based) energies including the ‘monkey mind’. These sources stream to the hub along the ‘spokes’ and we use the hub to locate ‘awareness’. (Warning! All metaphors are limited. Useful but limited. Awareness is not confined by space or time.)

From the ‘hub’ of awareness, we direct our attention out the various ‘spokes’ to observe what is arising. We may notice the the process of ‘attention’ has a mind of its own and may jump from one spoke to another. Our discipline, (abhyasa), is to help stabilize attention, by bringing it to a specific spoke (dharana), keeping it there with some mindful effort (dhyana), and eventually having this become effortless (samadhi). Also we can cultivate a flexible attention that we can use efficiently as we take in the world without being ‘distracted’ by random sensations or thoughts.

In the ‘wheel of awareness’, we go back and forth, from the ‘hub of awareness’ to the various modalities out on the rim. What is most helpful is to really rest in the hub in between trips to the rim. Here awareness rest in itself. Awareness, not needing any information/objects of attention to sustain it, is still, open, unbounded by space and time. Patanjali call this drashtuh svarupe’ the seer resting it its own inherent nature, and uses this to describe the result of yoga. (PYS, I-3). Eckhart Tolle use the term ‘Now”.  Atman, Brahman, Presence, Primordial Being are some other ‘pointing’ words.

By resting in awareness, we learn to not be so reactive to what arises, so we begin to tease apart the many layers of reactivity that comprise the ‘vrttis’ Patanjali describes in the Samadhi Pada. We see the ephemeral nature of thoughts, beliefs, ideas, sensations and slowly disentangle our ‘self-sense’ from this transient world.

In a somatic based practice like hatha yoga, the information streams coming from the body/mind are cultivated, studied and refined. We learn to feel our way through the body and allow the wisdom of the body to reveal itself moment to moment. Most yoga students begin with the mind telling the body what to do because they have never been taught how to feel, how to listen to the body. As teachers we need to help the students develop the confidence to trust what they feel and to not be afraid of sensations that are less than pleasant. Those sensations are our teachers.

Meditation in Asana: Monitor and Modulate

Dan Siegel defines the mind as a self-organizing, emergent process that regulates the flow of energy and information within the body and within our relationships. Regulation is monitoring and modulating, monitoring and modifying. As this process strengthens, the mind strengthens, integration and coherence strengthens, and health and maturity emerge. This is Yoga!  This is what we teach and practice. We use the poses as vehicles to deepen integration in the mind/body. This is why attending to what the body is saying is crucial. Moment to moment we are linking the attentional regions of the brain with the perceptions, proprioceptions and the motor regions (the movement brain) so they become integrated, acting as a whole. Hebbs Axiom, neurons that fire together wire together, gives us a huge clue about why mindful attention to our practice is effective.

Beginning students try to think or remember their way through a pose. Refined practice requires self monitoring while exploring. What happens if I turn this foot out just a bit? What happens if I change this? Of course this involves pausing, noticing , feeling and not just doing. Perception must be cultivated, our perceptual field must keep expanding, if we are to grow as students and teachers. Iyengar calls this posing and then re-posing, but it is meditation in the posture.

Anatomy Trains

Tom Myers has developed a fascial mapping of the body that can be very helpful to yogis when seeking the energy lines that are integrative. We begin, as yogis, with the inner most line, the ‘deep front line’, as it integrates the visceral endoderm, the structural endoderm and the attentional ectoderm. No wasting time! It begins on the soles of the feet, travels up the deep calf, the adductors, hops onto the ilio-psoa muscles, joinds the diaphragmm pericardiam, inner chest cavity and throat. In tadasana, and all the standing poses we active this line in a slight plantar flexion action to awaken the soles. By using the wall and slowing down we can differentiate the deep front line (pressing down through the fronts of the feet) from the superfical back line (pulling up the heel bone. ) Find the metatarsals and tarsals including the navicular and cuboid (the balance bones), the talus and calcaneus bones. Feel waves of energy flowing through the feet. In triangle, parsvakonasana and ardha chandrasana, find the DFL as an extension through the back inner heel, inner leg and inner groin, as if pushing off on an ice skate. If you can, connect to the diaphragm and on into arms and skull. If you can, by-pass muscles and bones and extend from the energy line defined by the DFL.

Then, find this line extending out through the back foot in ardha and parvrtta ardha chandrasana, one legged dog, and the front walk-over into had stand. In the hand stand, use the lengthenning back leg to provide the power and lift. Let the hands land gently.

Matsyasana, Uttana Padasana the Sphenoid Basilar Junction
and the Superficial Front Line (SFL)

We want to open the upper portion of the SFL to help liberate our sense of the fish body, the spine without limbs. Begin lying with the knees bent. Roll the pubic bones towards the floor, lift the chest upward (without contracting the spine) and allow the skull to come into extension, chin rising up, like in fish pose. This will create a beautiful arc in the SFL. feel the double action of the two ends moving away from each other. This may not happen naturally in the beginning, as the DFL might shorten and pull the chin down. Try using a bolster and/or rolled up blankets to create this action. Keep the lumbar muscles relaxing. Or you can try starting from matsyasana, using the forearms to lift the chest and extend the neck, lengthening through the sphenoid basilar junction at the base of the skull.

When we add the arms and legs in uttana padasana we get to further release the back muscles. This is an excellent way to discover the layers of the throat and neck and open the anterior portion of the body. We’ll save the full cervical extension, setu bhandasana, for another (life) time.

Stacked Jelly Fish!

Here is an image to help unfold the endodermic intelligence. The diaphragm feels a lot like a jelly fish. The brain looks a lot like one! Mother Nature, loving to repeat shapes that work, uses this in the arches of the feet, the roof of the mouth flowing down the throat, the nasal passages curling across the floor of the skull and down into the throat, the aortic arch, and even, in a subtle way, in the one way valves of the venous and lymphatic vessels. Find the flow of energy (metaphor alert!) as the jellyfish undulates rhythmically. Trace it across the upper membrane and along any of the tentacles you can find.

Breathing Investigations.

Can we learn to differentiate ribs, spine, diaphragm, abdominal wall and head in breathing work? The average person off the street has a very tight restricted diaphragm and a breathing pattern that strains to breathe by trying to lift the rib cage up. This tightens the spine and the throat as well. This is why in singing and relaxation classes, students are taught to not use the ribs to breathe, but to use the diaphragm. This is called diaphragmatic breathing.

Yogis have no problem with this, but go much further. We use the standing postures to help open the diaphragm tremendously by linking it to the illio-psoas muscles and the lower DFL all the way to the feet. Groin opening postures are ideally diaphragm opening postures. We use bridge pose (and other back-bending poses) to use the DFL to further expand the diaphragm up into the chest and open the intercostal muscles. All of these will help soften the throat and eliminate the need to use the face and neck muscles in breathing.

In pranayama, we learn to delay the action of the diaphragm and let the laterally expanding ribs initiate the in breath. The perimeter of the diaphragm is then activated to lengthen down to the feet as the ribs continue to widen. This allows the lungs to expand fully. On the exhalation, the ribs are reluctant to release. The diaphragm, with the help of an activation of the abdominal muscles, begins to slowly release up into the chest cavity. As the diaphragm rises up, the ribs slowly begin to release in and down around the diaphragm. Find a comfortable position, lying or sitting, and explore your own breathing process. Stay soft in the eyes, ears and throat. Let the spinal muscles completely relax.

Notes for teachers.

Why do you want to teach? This is a personal question, and usually will not change over time, especially if you are born as a teacher. You can’t help it.

What do you want to teach? Music? Art? Science? Cooking? Yoga? Ah, yoga. What kind of yoga? Lots of brand names and approaches. Which of those is an expression of you, who you are in this moment? If you find yourself teaching for many years, you will find that your sense of what yoga actually is will evolve.  Hopefully you discover and develop your own unique approach to teaching. Ultimately, all of us are unique. Cloning does not work in teaching spiritual practice.

How will you go about teaching this? What skills, practices, investigations will you use to help in the awakening of the students who come to you? How will you integrate yoga philosophy, yoga science, meditation to the teaching? What poses will you emphasize? These answers will be constantly changing, if you yourself are practicing, inquiring, exploring the world.

We must also study the effects of the postures.  Where are the weak links in the body that might be compromised? How can you adjust or support the students to experience a healthy action? In which ways may the students misunderstand your instructions? Words are very limited in describing postural actions.