Prajiats

Tight shoulders make for a difficult downward facing dog

I find tight shoulders on guys who do heavy lifting and people who have just started exercising. It makes for a very difficult downward facing dog. If you have tight shoulders you would find yourself not able to extend into a full down dog but instead fall somewhere in between a down dog and a plank. Your weight ends up more in your wrists and arms and it can get uncomfortable.

For many people simple alignment can remedy this. Make sure you come into a perfect -shoulders above the wrists plank pose first. Your butt should be in line with your entire body. This is your hand and foot position for face down dog -so keep hands and feet where they are. Now lift the hips for your down dog. Press the hands into the mat full, wide fingers -middle finger facing straight ahead. Reach the chest towards your thighs and keep hips high. You should be able to straighten out your arms and feel your upper arms externally rotate outward. Eyes of the elblows move forward, unless you tend towards hyper extending elbows like mine. (If you tend to hyper extend give yourself a micro bend in the arm, it shouldn't look noticeably bend.) Heels will reach downward but don't compromise having high hips in order to pull your heels downward. Also don't compromise having your hips high in order to straighten your legs. Hips high is more important. You can bend your knees a bit til you become more flexible. So one key point here when I spend bend your elbows and/or knees a bit if this applies to you....really its only just a bit! Micro bends!

Sometimes a simple physical adjustment can help. Come slightly forward on your down dog...now externally rotate your upper arms, then push back to downward facing dog. Here is where as a teacher I would simple press on the small of the back. Just on the sacrum area. Press slightly forward and then encourage the rest of the spine to shoot straight downwards toward the shoulders and arms. Sometimes physically helping the person to open up in the shoulder blades and relax the shoulders and upper back could help as well.

Now for those who are really really too tight. Let's take your down dog to the wall. Stand in front of the wall arms extended forward. Place your hands shoulder height, press palms into the wall as if was the floor. Take 1 or 2 steps backward, pull your hips back, press into your hands, drop the head and neck down. Really release your shoulder muscles here. This is great for beginners because maybe your shoulders are too tight and holding downward dog might be too much on your arm muscles and wrists. This is difficult because down dog should feel somewhat comfortable. I think of it as home base in my Vinyasa practice. Practicing this against the wall takes the pressure off your arms and allows your shoulders to still benefit from the pose! As you try to go deeper you can walk your hands slightly lower on the wall and feet a step or two further back.

Spring Cleansing!

We are conducting a community cleanse at Jai Yoga Arts. Each week for 6 weeks we will give something up in our diet collectively. This is obviously optional! But the purpose is to gain awareness of ourselves. How we related to these foods, how our body reacts without them or with them. Its a great way to discover a healthy way of eating without having to fast or really deprive ourselves in an unhealthy way.

So starting next Monday 1 week of no dairy! Want to take the challenge with us?! I will be blogging about my progress for the 6 weeks. At the end of 6 weeks you can come up with your own healthy cleanse or just fixing your diet according to what you've learned. At Jai those who want to, will work with our Ayurvedic counselor to begin a cleanse or find healthier eating habits.

Yoga awesomeness

more here

We can all afford to move over just 1 inch in life, no?

I love the studio I teach at. It's very community based and people act like it. We all clean up after ourselves, wipe down rental mats after using them, wash the cups that we use, answer the door buzzer when the desk person is busy, take our shoes off before entering. People at the studio are friendly towards each other and we all take class and breath together. We create this awesome union which is exactly what Yoga is.

I love all of these concepts but they are often lost because Yoga is so Westernized or New Yorkified. I've been to other places where classes are so crowded and people are not willing to move their mats over to fit another student in. Or worse, "yogi's" will fight over what they claim is "their mat space"! Who does that?! My class that I have been taking for years is generally full of pretty nice and giving people but this past week the class was so crowded we were mat to mat. 4 people came just as the class was beginning and my teacher really had to move people around to try to fit them in...2 of them couldn't take class. Sucks! But it was an interesting dynamic because a few people acted like they couldn't move their mat over an inch or two. One person even commented on how they wouldn't people to open their arms out if they were too close. And another person refused to move their towel out of the way to give better spacing to the person next to them. Look I get it, its your morning practice...but its not just YOUR morning practice...its all of ours. How do we continue to enforce this sense of community and union in class? Are we here for only exercise? Or are we here for Yoga?

East River at 6:25 am

That's some good stuff to wake up to.

The gifts of teaching

There are so many cool things about teaching Yoga. One of which is when your students teach you. I, for one, don't think of myself as a "teacher" but as more of a guide. I unfortunately wasn't born into being a mind reader even though I try as hard as I can to read people's energy while teaching class. I want to know that everyone is having a good time and feeling generally pleasant or at least neutral. That everyone is getting what they want out of the class. I don't want to distract people from their meditative state. By trying to read people's energy I always get a better idea of how the class can flow. Like when people are sweating hard and looking like they might be struggling I will say "skip the vinyasa if you like this round" or "if you want to skip a chattarunga do knees, chest, chin", but then the whole room is still doing chattarunga and powering through it...then I'll wait a couple of poses before child's pose.

My favorite type of students are those who have been practicing for a long time but show up to class and often do their own thing. They don't do all the poses I call out, and have their own variations. I appreciate this. And if I've never taught them before I sometimes wonder, "do they hate this class? is it too slow for them?"...when they come back I realize they're just in their own practice. Often they're my guide to teaching. They set the pace and the breath even if they're doing something different or more advanced. Its great to have this kind of Yogi in class because it sets a rhythm for the beginners.

Beginners teach me to use clearer language. If they're not doing what I said or something different its probably because I said it in a way they don't understand. This helps me to find the right language and better guide them through finding their body awareness.

Thank you to all my Yoga students for keeping me going and teaching me something too!

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FYI I am teaching Vinyasa Flow Yoga today at 4:30pm. Jai Yoga Arts.
There are still some heart-shaped cookies involved. :)

Flatiron/Union Sq

True story

1. Tall Yoga boys like heart-shaped cookies.
2. I bribe Yogi's with heart-shaped cookies and yummy tea to take my class.

Bodies Exhibit @ South Street Seaport

From the Bodies Exhbit
1. Fetus/Femur+Patella+Tibia/Heart+Lungs
2. Kidney + Heart interact.
3. Stomach/Hip/Fetal Skull