Pet More Downward Facing Dogs Yoga Resolutions for the New Year Rerun

by Nina

Back in the Day: My Brother Danny and Our Dog Nikki

"Hear now the wisdom of Yoga, path of the Eternal and freedom from bondage.

No step is lost on this path, and no dangers are found. And even a little progress is freedom from fear." —The Bhagavad Gita

When my son was in the fourth grade, he came to me with a problem. His teacher had asked him to write a list of ten possible resolutions he could make for the new year, and the thought of coming up with ten things he needed to change about himself was making him utterly miserable. But to this dedicated student, skipping the assignment was not an option. “What can I do, Mom?” he asked me sadly. “Well,” I replied, “how about if you came up with some resolutions that would be very easy and fun to keep?” “Like what?” He looked at me doubtfully. “Let’s see,” I mused, “how about something like: pet more dogs?”

He lit up with a smile and then went off in much better spirits to write a list of resolutions for his teacher (and keeping the “pet more dogs” resolution throughout the year did turn out to be a lot of fun.) I’m bringing this up now, because if you are planning on making any New Year’s resolutions regarding yoga this year, I’d advise you to take the same lighthearted approach.

If you want to start a home practice, rather than deciding to do full-length class everyday—a rather overwhelming commitment—think small. As my son did, try to come up with a resolution that will be easy to keep and fun to do. How about:

1. Do one Downward-Facing Dog pose a day five days in a row for one week. (You can pet yourself afterward.) 
2. Look through a yoga book and find a picture of a pose you’ve never done and just try it. (Be sure to laugh if you get totally confused or fall out of the pose.) 
3. Download a yoga nidra practice or guided relaxation onto your iPod and try it once. (You might become addicted.) 
4. Clear some wall space, figure out what to use for props, and set yourself up for Legs Up the Wall pose at home. (If you decide to do again some day, you’ll be ready.) 
5. Practice seated meditation for five minutes a few times in a week. (If it feels good, try it for a second week, then a third, then....) 
6. Buy yourself an eye pillow and “test” it at once or twice in Corpse pose (Savasana). 

Anyway, you get the idea. The thing is, that resolutions that are too challenging and time consuming are likely to fail, while any small, easy, fun steps can help you get started on the path to a home practice. That’s what happened to me: I started practicing just a few poses at home, and gradually over time my practice grew organically. But even if your practice stays small, as The Bhagavad Gita says: “No step is lost on this path, and no dangers are found. And even a little progress is freedom from fear.”

Readers, I’d love to hear about any yoga resolutions that you’re making for yourself or that you’d recommend for others, especially some simple and/or colorful ones.

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Practice As Many As You Can T Krishnamacharyas Yoga Rerun

by Nina

T. Krishnamachrya in a "New" Pose

I thought this would be a good post to rerun this week because it may help inspire some of you to start practicing yoga at home or to change up what you're doing! —Nina

In my post Authentic Yoga, I mentioned that most of the yoga asana we do these days were invented in the early 20th century. In his book on the origins of modern posture practice Yoga Body, Mark Singleton focuses in particular on the innovations of T. Krishnamacharya, the teacher of three very influential 20th century yoga teachers who had a tremendous impact on yoga in the western word, Iyengar, Jois, and Desikachar. Krishnamacharya was clearly a genius, whose system, as Singleton puts it:

"can be fruitfully considered a synthetic revival of indigenous exercise (comprising yogasana alongside other types) within the context of Westernized curricular physical education in late colonial India."

Because so many people are reluctant to practice yoga at home due to concerns that they might not be doing it “right” or don’t have time to do what they would do in one of their full-length classes, it’s worth taking a little time to look at what Krishnamacharya (who was, for many of us, the original teacher of our teacher, or our teacher’s teacher) was doing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dear readers, he was making stuff up! For details you can see the wonderful book The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace by N.E. Sjoman. But for now let’s just look at this quote in Yoga Body from T.R.S. Sharma, one of a group of students at the yogasala in Mysyore, which confirms that Krishnamacharya’s teaching was intended to be, and in practice was, experimental:

"was innovating all the time in response to his students. He would make up variations of the postures when he saw that some of his students could do them easily. “Try this, putting this here, and here.” He was inventing and innovating. Krishnmachrya never emphasized a particular order of poses, there was nothing sacrosanct about observing order with him. He would tell me “practice as many as you can.”

The quote as whole really brings home the idea that, regardless of what we may have been told by certain teachers, the practice of yoga asana traditionally was not a rigid system that you have to follow or else it won’t be effective. And it seems to me, if you’ve been reluctant to practice at home due to time restrictions or concerns about doing something wrong, this quote contains a great motto for home practice in general: 

Practice as many as you can.

Since it is December already and you may be thinking about New Year’s resolutions, “practice as many as you can” also seems like an excellent resolution for starting or deepening a home practice next year.

P.S. Hey, Krishnamacharya's alignment in Utthita Parsvokasana (Extended Side Angle pose) in the photo above doesn't look the same as what I've been taught is "correct," so that must mean....

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What is an Advanced Yoga Practice Rerun

by Nina

Year-Old Snow and New Snow by Philip Amdal

A number of years ago, I encouraged a close friend of mine, M, to join me in taking Rodney Yee’s advanced class. Even though she had a muscular, athletic, and stiff body that made doing super bendy poses difficult, if not impossible, I knew that she understood how to take care of herself in class, that she would adapt the poses for her particular body type and keep herself safe, so I wasn’t worried about the class being too hard for her. She was interested, however, she expressed some concerns about not being “advanced” enough for the class. I decided to discuss the matter with our teacher himself, feeling fairly sure of what he was going to say. But what he told me when I asked him if she was “advanced” not only took me by surprise but has stuck with me all these years, transforming my thinking about the asana practice in general. What he said was this:

“Of course she’s advanced enough. M does yoga more mindfully than any student I’ve ever seen.”

And here I’d been thinking that being advanced meant being capable of doing difficult poses, like 10 minute headstands or extreme backbends, at some level or another! But doing yoga “mindfully”—now, here was goal we could pursue for our lifetimes and no matter our level of physical capacity was, we would always have the the ability to go deeper and deeper into the practice.

I’m thinking about this today because I’m helping a new friend of mine adapt her practice to allow her to heal from an ongoing injury. It’s taken her a long time to even be ready to temporarily give up certain poses and ways of practicing, because she felt such regrets about excluding poses from her practice that she used to be able to do with such great enjoyment. 

But as Baxter mentioned in his post on Wristful Wrists: How to Keep Your Wrists Safe, sometimes rest is the best way to heal from an injury. So being willing to adopt mindfulness as a goal in the practice rather than achievement is a necessary element in being able to heal from an injury.

People who are aging may find themselves in a similar position, not necessarily due to injury but simply due to the physical changes that come along with aging. To be honest, I used to have what I sometimes call a “semi-fancy” yoga practice. But in the last few years, I developed arthritis in my right hip that makes it impossible to do seated poses that involve a lot of external rotation. Lotus and half lotus are now impossible for me, and seated forward bends and twists that require certain leg positions are painful and difficult. And I now need props in many of the standing poses now. Still there is no question I consider my practice more advanced these days than it was in the years when I regularly took the East Bay’s most “advanced” yoga class.

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