Yoga - am I doing it right?
Kia ora
As a yoga teacher I am often asked, "am I doing it right" or "but I thought it was supposed to be done like...". Often at after class coffee the discussion will be around some aspect of the teaching, and why it is taught that way versus other teachers and other forms of yoga.
This os one of those impossible questions to answer as a teacher for a couple of reasons:
1: I don't want to dis any other teacher and how they teach
2: There is no one correct way for everyone.
As an example Adho Mukha Svasana ( Downward facing dog)
I teach this with heels up, sitting bones up, especially for beginners who do not have the hamstring length to get their heels to the floor and keep their sitting bones up, I can't do it, so I figure most beginners can't either.
"I thought the heels were supposed to go down" is a common question. The yoga poses we see on social media or in books or calendars all show that.
My response is" try it with heels up and then heels down and tell me what you feel in each variation"
and then the discussion can begin as to what is the experience and what gives you the most lift or sense of lift in the asana.
I explain that what is on the ground presses down, in this case hands and feet, and everything else lifts up. If you are not getting a sense of lift, then look to what is on the ground.
This is a simplification of a more complex methodology of teaching, but essentially the same principle. Hence why all beginners classes are teaching how to access your hands and feet, ball of the foot and first finger and thumb knuckle pressing down give you access to lift further up.
Therefore we always start with what is on the ground and work up from there.
Of course you try not to spend all of your beginners classes doing hands and feet, because it would be boring, and frustrating, and who would come back for more of that? So lets do some asana.
In many of my classes I focus on one area of the body and do different asana to access that area, for example this mornings class we did the thoracic spine. How to access in you down dog, inversions, backbends and with supports like chairs and bolsters. The instructions are basically the same be it for and inversion or a backbend. Press into (what is connecting with the floor) to access lift, it is a series of instructions that can begin at the first finger and thumb knuckle, ball of the big toe and inner heel, or forearms and outer wrists or top of the foot and shins.
The hard part is getting people to break out of their habits and find access to that lift, for example most people walk with the weight to the outside of the foot (your shoes will tell you the story of where you put your weight when you walk, just look at the sole) so for a person who struggles to get the inner foot, I will ask them to lift the toes and lift the little toe side of the foot as much as the big toe side of the foot, the result is that the arch of the foot is activated and the inner leg comes online. Holding the feet like that through all your standing poses is the hard part, as soon as our attention is diverted to something else or another instruction further up the body, the feet go back to their habitual pattern. So mostly it is about creating new habits.
We never stop learning about ourselves through the practice of yoga. I have had a niggling shoulder injury for a few years now. Last time it went I was at teacher training with my senior teacher, she said to me "look to how you practice" so ever since then and through my healing I have so much of my attention in my right hand, forearm and elbow....aaaahhhh...there is a pivot of the elbow from the weight falling out of the inner hand when I load it up in arm balances.
My attention was so focused on kicking up into handstand that I let go the base I had set up in my hands and forearms, just to achieve the final asana.
And there it is in a nutshell, to focused on the final pose and not working with the methodology of working from the foundation up, building on a solid foundation for a strong house.
So in answer to the initial question "am I doing it right?" the answer is always the same " work it out on the mat through practice and understanding of the asana"....LOL... not very helpful right?
But there are never any simple answers in yoga, when we are on the mat trying different ways of doing asana (heels up or down? foot turned in or parallel?) spend the time to really understand what is happening in your body, cause and affect if you will.
The understanding of the asana deepens and we so focused on following the asana, that achieving the final aspect of the asana is less important than the integrity of the asana. Workshops are very useful for this level of understanding as we get to spend time figuring things out, we get to go deeper than we can on a 60 or 90 minute class.
Self practice also leads to a deeper understanding if we are not rushing our way through a sequence of asana. Rather than doing 20 different asana in a 1 hour practice, spend 1 hour working out 10 different variations of the same asana using different props. At the end of that 1 hour, we have a much deeper understanding of the asana itself and our ability to work within it.
Even if you only have 30 minutes a day, spend those 30 minutes deepening your understanding rather that making shapes. If you use Youtube for your daily yoga, going to class once a week to get adjustments is very beneficial to your practice, and reduces your risk of injury. Try different kinds of yoga and find one that works for you and your body, and always remember we are all perfectly imperfect, there is no good or bad, there is just you doing yoga :)
Namaste
As a yoga teacher I am often asked, "am I doing it right" or "but I thought it was supposed to be done like...". Often at after class coffee the discussion will be around some aspect of the teaching, and why it is taught that way versus other teachers and other forms of yoga.
This os one of those impossible questions to answer as a teacher for a couple of reasons:
1: I don't want to dis any other teacher and how they teach
2: There is no one correct way for everyone.
As an example Adho Mukha Svasana ( Downward facing dog)
I teach this with heels up, sitting bones up, especially for beginners who do not have the hamstring length to get their heels to the floor and keep their sitting bones up, I can't do it, so I figure most beginners can't either.
"I thought the heels were supposed to go down" is a common question. The yoga poses we see on social media or in books or calendars all show that.
My response is" try it with heels up and then heels down and tell me what you feel in each variation"
and then the discussion can begin as to what is the experience and what gives you the most lift or sense of lift in the asana.
I explain that what is on the ground presses down, in this case hands and feet, and everything else lifts up. If you are not getting a sense of lift, then look to what is on the ground.
This is a simplification of a more complex methodology of teaching, but essentially the same principle. Hence why all beginners classes are teaching how to access your hands and feet, ball of the foot and first finger and thumb knuckle pressing down give you access to lift further up.
Therefore we always start with what is on the ground and work up from there.
Of course you try not to spend all of your beginners classes doing hands and feet, because it would be boring, and frustrating, and who would come back for more of that? So lets do some asana.
In many of my classes I focus on one area of the body and do different asana to access that area, for example this mornings class we did the thoracic spine. How to access in you down dog, inversions, backbends and with supports like chairs and bolsters. The instructions are basically the same be it for and inversion or a backbend. Press into (what is connecting with the floor) to access lift, it is a series of instructions that can begin at the first finger and thumb knuckle, ball of the big toe and inner heel, or forearms and outer wrists or top of the foot and shins.
The hard part is getting people to break out of their habits and find access to that lift, for example most people walk with the weight to the outside of the foot (your shoes will tell you the story of where you put your weight when you walk, just look at the sole) so for a person who struggles to get the inner foot, I will ask them to lift the toes and lift the little toe side of the foot as much as the big toe side of the foot, the result is that the arch of the foot is activated and the inner leg comes online. Holding the feet like that through all your standing poses is the hard part, as soon as our attention is diverted to something else or another instruction further up the body, the feet go back to their habitual pattern. So mostly it is about creating new habits.
We never stop learning about ourselves through the practice of yoga. I have had a niggling shoulder injury for a few years now. Last time it went I was at teacher training with my senior teacher, she said to me "look to how you practice" so ever since then and through my healing I have so much of my attention in my right hand, forearm and elbow....aaaahhhh...there is a pivot of the elbow from the weight falling out of the inner hand when I load it up in arm balances.
My attention was so focused on kicking up into handstand that I let go the base I had set up in my hands and forearms, just to achieve the final asana.
And there it is in a nutshell, to focused on the final pose and not working with the methodology of working from the foundation up, building on a solid foundation for a strong house.
So in answer to the initial question "am I doing it right?" the answer is always the same " work it out on the mat through practice and understanding of the asana"....LOL... not very helpful right?
But there are never any simple answers in yoga, when we are on the mat trying different ways of doing asana (heels up or down? foot turned in or parallel?) spend the time to really understand what is happening in your body, cause and affect if you will.
The understanding of the asana deepens and we so focused on following the asana, that achieving the final aspect of the asana is less important than the integrity of the asana. Workshops are very useful for this level of understanding as we get to spend time figuring things out, we get to go deeper than we can on a 60 or 90 minute class.
Self practice also leads to a deeper understanding if we are not rushing our way through a sequence of asana. Rather than doing 20 different asana in a 1 hour practice, spend 1 hour working out 10 different variations of the same asana using different props. At the end of that 1 hour, we have a much deeper understanding of the asana itself and our ability to work within it.
Even if you only have 30 minutes a day, spend those 30 minutes deepening your understanding rather that making shapes. If you use Youtube for your daily yoga, going to class once a week to get adjustments is very beneficial to your practice, and reduces your risk of injury. Try different kinds of yoga and find one that works for you and your body, and always remember we are all perfectly imperfect, there is no good or bad, there is just you doing yoga :)
Namaste
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