 |
  |
 |
|
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
Site Areas  |
store | | | articles | | | forums | | | studios | | | vacations |
|
yoga | massage | fitness | wellness | meditation |
|
|
For future visits, link to "http://www.YogiSource.com/forums".
Make a new bookmark.
Tell your friends so they can find us and you!
Coming soon ... exciting new changes for our website, now at YogiSource.com.
 Bhujapidasana for startersModerators: Moderators Jump to page : 1 Now viewing page 1 [25 messages per page] | View previous thread :: View next thread |
| Yoga -> Ashtanga Yoga | Message format |
iandicker |
| ||
| |||
| TampaEric |
| ||
| |||
| Nick |
| ||
    Location: London, England | |||
| |||
| joscmt |
| ||
I love that everytime I google a pose and look in google images Neel's photo is always there.. . smilin' away..... I don't really have anything to contribute though... I can't come close to doing this one..  | |||
| |||
| iandicker |
| ||
| |||
| Nick |
| ||
Location: London, England | ian****er - 2007-02-25 9:26 AM Nick, Oh dear! I've got my bum off the floor, but both hands and feet are still on the mat! Where should I be starting from in this posture then? I do lots of vinyasas in my practice, but I'm landing with crossed feet just behind my hands, so not really jumping through as yet. I fear that tittibhasana and the two asanas mentioned by Eric are not in my practice right now. I'm stopping at Supta Kurmasana. Ian Hi Ian, In that case, let's look at the L-plant-this is dandasana with the legs off the floor-try it with the legs horizontal, and then try to pull them up towards you-straight legs the whole time. This puts you in touch with the right muscles very quickly:-). If you do this instead of the normal variation, that should help build up strength and balance. What flexibility is needed? Well, external rotation at the hip joint will make it easier to lift the legs. And what strength is needed? I guess good, functional hamstrings will pull the feet closer. Much of the first series consists of forward bends, and balances such as bhujapid are no exception. The tendency in all forward bends is to elevate and protract (round) the shoulder blades. When both knees are behind the shoulders, the tendency to do this is even greater. When this happens, the muscles that would pull you up off the floor are stretched, or lengthened, when they should be contracting and pulling the shoulder blades inwards and downwards, with medial rotation. There is a concept called 'mechanical advantage' which would be very useful for yoga practicioners to learn. Basically, by moving bones, you are re-setting the positions of the origin and insertion of muscles, altering their length-tension relationship, and the influence of the muscle on our posture is then altered. You will see that the rounding of the shoulders also affects the length-tension relationship of your pectoralis major on the front of your chest, and indeed, the length-tension relationships of the muscles of your abdominal wall. So that when you perform bandha, it simply isn't effective-the wrong muscles are contracting, at the wrong time, with the wrong amount of force. What the above indicates is that far from rounding the spine to pull the feet off the floor, we should instead be using our core muscles to extend the spine (perhaps not that much, but the intention should always be there). This means that the spine is stabilised, which should mean that the hips and shoulders have to operate with greater dexterity-if you like, you could say that preserving the structural integrity of the spine brings greater functional ability of the hips and shoulders. I'm quite proud of that one, just made it up, just patting myself on the head (slapping sound  ). Doing bhujapid in this way also helps to understand the other bug-bears of astanga yoga-the vinyasa, tittibhasana, boat pose, bakasana, tortoise-probably every posture. So when you see me doing bhujapid, I would try to lift the feet up and bring my hips through my arms (like the lift through from downdog to sitting)-most students will do the opposite, as though they were lifting back in the vinyasa. This means that when I do tittibhasana, I will try to stretch my feet up to the ceiling, which again pulls the hips through the arms-the result?- stronger shoulders, a stable spine, and more active flexibility in the hips. I only do that when someone's watching . You will also find that boat pose is altered-rahter than the back of the spine being lengthened, it is kept 'straight.' Before we go on, make sure your pelvis is flexing in all the above postures-you will see that the tendency is for the pelvis to flex to a certain extent, but then for the spine to also flex, meaning that the joints of the spine and the SI joints are unprotected, either by virtue of their form or the changed length-tension relationships of the muscles that cross these joints-I read somewhere once that 95% of the joints in the human body are in the spine, don't know if it's true or not, never counted. In bhujapid, you will find that flexing your pelvis extends your spine and pull your feet towards you, again signifying greater active flexibility in the hips. The pelvic tilt means that the origin of the hamstrings on the sit-bones changes its position, encouraging the student to use the hamstrings to pull the feet closer-that should change the way you lift back in vinyasa. The end result of all this is that you should then have a route towards improvement by practicing astanga yoga. Without doing the above, it's like trying to drive a car in icy conditions-dangerous in terms of injury. Sorry to use technical jargon, if you need any clarification, these ideas are plastered all over the internet, but often require a certain knowledge of anatomy in order to understand them. So don't hesitate to ask. Nick | ||
| |||
| iandicker |
| ||
| |||
| Nick |
| ||
Location: London, England | Hi Ian, That's enough animal analogies, it's the human species we're looking at!! We need to be very specific, because sparse instructions have led to a poorly understood anatomy in the yoga world The pelvis and the hip are not the same thing! The pelvis refers to the two innominate bones that the normal world refers to as the hips-but the hip is actually the joint which is the articulation beween the head of the femur and the acetabulum of the innominate. So when someone goes to see a doctor and claims to have a hip problem, the first thing to do is question them about the site of pain. So this means that we have to talk about hip flexion and extension, which involves anterior pelvic tilt and posterior pelvic tilt, respectively. In a forward bend, there is what is called an extension moment on the pelvis, causing it to tend to posteriorally tilt oe extend. This means that the spine tends to flex. An anterior pelvic tilt in a forward bend will tend to align the SI and spinal joints, though demanding greater extensibility of the connective tissue and muscles which limit the ability to flex the hip joint. Good stuff. Nick | ||
| |||
| iandicker |
| ||
| Nick, Thanks for the clarification, still had to look up hip flexion on google images though! Where should I put my hands in l-plant? Ought they to be between my legs, or outside as in dandasana? I'm guessing that they should be forward of my hips for mechanical advantage. Does l-plant have a sanskrit name? I tried googling it, and the only 2 hits I got were posts by you on this forum!  Ian | |||
| |||
| Nick |
| ||
Location: London, England | Hi Ian, Same as dandasana-that way you can do it sneakily while everyone else sits down and has a rest Nick | ||
| |||
| iandicker |
| ||
| |||
| Nick |
| ||
Location: London, England | |||
| |||
| iandicker |
| ||
| |||
| Nick |
| ||
Location: London, England | Hi Ian, I knew you would ask that Well, what I would like to do is to tae a view at all the types of yoga practiced in the world-each one seems to emphasize a different aspect, and within each tradition you also get different means of accomplishing the same general body shape. So I could lay out my version of the down dog, but it's not much use unless your teacher uses the same rationale and methodology. But, briefly, I create a pulling action that tightens the flexor muscles of the hand on the forearm, which then exerts tension on the triceps, which then exerts tesnion on the latissimus dorsi, which then puts tension on the contralateral gluteus maximus, which then exerts tesnion on the hamstrings through their insertion on the sit bones. There, you did ask. More importantly perhaps, the action of the arms also creates another sling with which we can harness the body's movement and posture-the pectoralis major interdigitates with the oblque abdominal muscles which then merge with the muscles of the legs. It is true that muscles can be dissected surgically, but not functionally. So when you create this sling, you should see the abdominal wall brace-neither hollowed nor bulging with effort. If any other part of your posture makes this difficult to attain, change it. When you look up and jump forwards, the brace in the abdomen should remain-if it disappears, change the way you jump, which should veer towards lifting, otherwise you are like a waiter who throws the food across the restaurant, rather than using their balance skills to navigate their work environment. Doing the above should also help to emphasize the effects of ujjayi breathing-to many people spend time in this posture doing various forms of abdominal breathing-they cannot help it, their posture makes it impossible to do anything else. This is not bandha. Nick | ||
| |||
| iandicker |
| ||
| |||
| Nick |
| ||
Location: London, England | |||
| |||
| slowpie6 |
| ||
| |||
| Nick |
| ||
Location: London, England | |||
| |||
| TampaEric |
| ||
Yes, back to the original question  I was definitely taught to point the toes. This made a big difference for me and allows me to bring the chin down instead of the forehead. It is very tough to keep pulling in the feet. Sometimes mine feel like i have 10 pound weights on them! (for Nick) Sometimes I try to jump into it, but most of the time I don't so, I can't really commit on the best way to vinyasa into it. The vinyasas are there and I try them, but they are not as important to me was the postures. Ashtanga creates a balance between the flexible and strong. So, far my hardest work is in the strength. | |||
| |||
| Jump to page : 1 Now viewing page 1 [25 messages per page] |
| Search this forum Printer friendly version E-mail a link to this thread |
| (Delete all cookies set by this site) | |