While practicing yoga, there is always somewhere to grow: to make
a pose more challenging, breathe deeper, to stretch a bit further out of your
comfort zone, and into a place of sweet discomfort. Yoga cultivates gentle
growing pains as it exerts the muscles rarely utilized in other activities. The
growth in your yoga practice can come in various ways. You might be able to
hold a balancing pose much longer than the week before. You might try “Crow
pose”—using your core and triceps to create a new stepping stone for your body.
What is the worst that will happen? That you might fall down? Fall down seven times—back up eight!
Now, I am not an expert
yogi—the following tidbits of advice are what I’ve picked up from yoga
instructors and I’m only sharing information that has worked for me to get more
out of standard yoga poses and, I hope, will work for you too!
"Yogahands" by lululemon athletica - SSC Yoga with Eoin Finn. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yogahands.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Yogahands.jpg
Good Old Fashioned Breathing
Especially in poses like Child’s Pose, filling your lungs slowly, your “Ujjayi” (pronounced “Oo-jai”) breath
should fill your body in three parts: belly, chest, lungs. You should feel like
you are filling up with air like a balloon. Then to exhale, your breath will descend
downwards from lungs, chest, into the belly. Think of the balloon deflating. Your
breath in and out may remind you of the ocean. When you are in Child’s pose,
focusing intently on your breathing can help relax your mind and body.
In my experience,
those rounds of deep breathing help me to let go of the outside world and to
focus inward on my practice. Yoga is internal, mindful, and it all starts with
one breath. Also, I find if I focus on
breathing and letting that breath go, I can get further into a stretch on the
exhale. Deep “ujjayi” breathing helps me release muscle tension and hopefully
gain more suppleness, grace, and serenity. I am not very “Zen,” so I need to deliberately
focus in order to “chill out” as my husband regularly recommends that I ought
to do;).
Chaturanga Dandasana
ften we descend into the Chaturanga, the “yoga push up” pose with
elbows pointed outward in a
traditional chest-driven push up, which relies on our biceps. It’s fairly easy
to gain bicep strength, right? If you
keep your elbows in tight to the body, as though they are glued to your sides,
you’ll quickly realize how the focus shifts to the triceps. More of a challenge?
Yes. Easier? No. Worth it? Let your tank tops be the judge. While coming down
from a yogic push up, stop prior to
reaching the floor, (no belly flop), and then pull up into cobra. So, instead of flopping to the floor, then peeling
ourselves up, we begin that pull up out of the pose before the pelvis descends to the mat.
Downward-Facing Dog
In a standard pose like downward-facing dog, you can focus on the
whole body: tucking the belly button in towards the spine, lengthening and
strengthening your legs by pedaling with your feet, spreading fingers wide, and
trying to keep the spine a straight line. Recently, I learned that by rotating
my upper arms externally, which an instructor assisted me with, you feel the
position so differently. PopSugar Fitness has some good yoga resources to check
out: http://www.fitsugar.com/Downward-Facing-Dog-2671016
Savasana
What about corpse pose, otherwise known as Savasana? You’re
supposed to just lie there, right? How hard can that be? Well, for busy people,
giving yourself the permission to just
be still and let thoughts float away like balloons at the county fair is tough.
It is hard to let go. When I am troubled by concerns during Savasana, I will
take my pointer and middle fingers together to press on the “third eye” (middle
of forehead/between the brows) asking for the divine wisdom to release my
burdens.
Faith and fear can’t co-exist.
If you are in a balancing
tree pose and you are afraid of falling, guess what will happen? Timmm-ber. . .
If you have faith that today you can find balance, stretch and wave your lovely
branches, well, aren’t you much more likely to hold that pose longer than
before? Have faith, not fear. In some ways, yoga is multi-tasking at its finest.
I am not overly fond of multi-tasking because I know it will just add to my
absent-mindedness (Hey, where did my purse go? Who hid my keys again?!) but
this is the best form. Here’s why: there is so much to focus on in a “simple”
posture that there is no time for self-consciousness; no room to worry about
error. Yoga pushes me to ditch perfectionism at the door-- along with my
sneakers.
With yoga, the goals are to improve, stretch, grow, enhance
balance and look within. Don’t we all need more of those goals in our lives? Grab
a little piece of Zen, however possible. You deserve it.