Friday, May 11, 2012

How do you get into Tiriang Mukhottanasana without becoming a jack-in-the-box?

I just realized I haven't written about my practice in a while. Yes, I have read in some quarters of the blogosphere that blogging exclusively about practice is a big turnoff, and therefore a no-no. Honestly, I've never really understood this "unspoken convention" against blogging about one's own practice. Sure, asana is not all there is to yoga, but for many of us, it is the entryway to and is, in this sense, the foundation of our yoga practice. This is especially so in Ashtanga; what's an Ashtanga blog without at least an occasional post about the asana practice?

Wow, I can't believe I just spent an entire paragraph justifying what I blog about. Why do I do this? If this is my blog, I should be able to blog about anything I like, right? (There is, of course, the separate question of whether anybody will read what I blog about, but that, ideally, shouldn't be my concern...). So here goes. Actually, I'm not just blogging about practice for the sake of blogging about practice. I do have a real question for those of you accomplished backbenders out there.

Over the last two mornings, I have noticed that my backbends have become deeper. Well, maybe "deeper" is not the right expression here; my backbends have been pretty deep for a couple of years now (for instance, I have been able to grab my heels in Kapotasana for a couple of years now). I think it is more accurate to say that for the last couple of days, something in my middle or lower back (or wherever) has opened up in such a way that I am able to achieve the same depth with less effort. I don't know what's been causing this openness in my back, and whether it has anything to do with all the shit that's been hitting the fan in other areas of my life lately. Maybe it does; maybe when shit hits the fan, some of that shit goes to your back, and makes it more pliable. Possible, I think, although I have no solid theoretical basis for this. 

But anyway, there is one posture in which the effects of this openness have been most strongly manifested: Chakrabandha. Or maybe it's called Tiriang Mukhottanasana (TM). I don't know; I suck at nomenclature. Anyway, whatever it's called, here's what the "ideal" expression of the posture looks like:

 [Image taken from here]

In case you're wondering, this is NOT me in the posture (those of you out there who have read Light on Yoga will, of course, recognize this as Mr. Iyengar, circa somewhere in the 1960s).

If you practice in a mysore room, and are at the point in the practice where you have been doing dropbacks and standups for a while, you will know that whenever you get to dropbacks and standups (unless you happen to be, say, Kino MacGregor), the teacher will drop you back and stand you back up three times (or more). And then he or she will assist you into whatever expression of TM your body is capable of doing on that particular day. After the whole thing, you will come back up totally winded, and then surrender into Paschimottanasana heaven with the teacher "squishing" you.

Well, things are rather different with me, since I do not practice in a mysore room. Since I have been mostly practicing by myself at home for the last couple of years, whenever I am done with the three dropbacks and standups, I just walk my hands to my heels, touch them for five breaths, and then come back up. It seemed that whenever I tried to go further to grab the heels or ankles, my upper body would just pop back up into standing position like a jack-in-the-box:

This is my body on backbends. 
[Image taken from here]

But things have been feeling a bit different the last couple of days. As I said, something (I don't know what exactly it is) seems to have opened up somewhere in my back sufficiently to allow me to go deeper into this posture. This morning, for instance, as I was walking my hands to my heels, I felt this openness somewhere in my lower or mid-back, and I was able to touch my heels more effortlessly than usual. And then I thought: Well, why not try going for the ankle with one hand first? So, keeping my right hand on the ground, I walked my left hand further in and, voila!, I found myself wrapping the left hand around the front of the left ankle. And then I tried to slowly crawl my right hand in to achieve the same thing with my right ankle. And this is when my body became a jack-in-the-box again (except there was no box to be a jack in, but you get the idea...), and before I knew it, my body had involuntarily sprung up to standing. By this time, I was so winded that I decided to just call it a day and go into Paschimottanasana heaven, sans squishing teacher, of course.

So my question for those of you accomplished backbenders out there is this: How do you get into TM without becoming a jack-in-the-box?

12 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. Hello Grimmly, not sure why you deleted what you wrote. Would have loved to hear your take on this :-)

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    2. Wrote it on iPad Noble and it came out all over the place was going to rewrite it but the moment was gone. Basically along the lines of Snobbery can be found in the yoga/ashtanga world just as anywhere else and just to ignore it. That said I've recently moved out of a writing about asana phase (and I've been writing about little else for years) and am a little fed up of all the asana tutorials and 'how to' workshops (though would have loved all that a couple of years ( or even months :) back), cant watch em. So can kind of understand a little of where the snobbery or frustration is coming from but a little kindness wouldn't go amiss, why do people have to feel so superior, yogi's for heaven sake, how absurd is that. The post I just wrote on YS II:47 on asana shows that writing about asana and practice (working it out and through blogs even) is never to be dismissed. For now my own drishti might be elsewhere but it's always going to come back to asana and practice and what the hell is going on there.
      re the jack in the box. think i wrote a post on rubber band drop backs, where you start to go back then all of a sudden are thrown back up straight, called it the rubber band effect. I thought it was from having the hips just a little too high and forward, wonder if something similar is happening here with you where your trying to counterbalance just a little too much, relaxing that a little might help but I'm guessing can only touch my heels myself. Oh I also asked the question why Mysore is so bacbendcentric, why the focus on Tiriang Mukhottanasana there anyway, can kind of live without it though it would be pretty cool. Told you it was all over the place.

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    3. The rubber band effect... very interesting. You may be right that I may be trying to counterbalance too much; I'll explore this in my next backbending practice, and see what happens.

      I'm guessing that the backbendcentric-ness of Mysore may be due to the fact that primary series is so forward-bend-centric; the former serves to balance out the effects of the latter. Just my guess. Don't know this for sure.

      Yeah, there does seem to be quite a bit of snobbery/feeling superior/self-righteousness in the blogosphere lately. Makes the whole cybershala so much less of a pleasant place to be in. But then again, if my drishti/pratyahara were stronger, none of this would concern me in the least. Says something about myself, doesn't it? :-)

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  2. Hey Nobel, well some of us less than enlightened folks with little access to the Mysore room appreciate the practice notes. I'm afraid I can't answer your question, since I'm just beginning to touch my heels on a very good day, still waiting for the panic to subside. But it's interesting to hear how things might progress over time.
    But perhaps, after all, that is the answer. It's a bit of a panic, perhaps, this sudden coming out of the pose, and you'll just have to wait and see what happens. Keep doing it until the panic subsides and you can stay a little longer, come out a little slower. And do please post about it!

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    1. I could be wrong about this, but I get the sense that my sudden coming out of the posture has less to do with panic than with something purely physiological/anatomical: It's like once you are so deep into a standing backbend, your psoas/quads are being stretched to their maximum, and unless you really have a lot of length in these muscles, their default reflex reaction is to pull out back up to standing, like a pair of very taut rubber bands :-)

      But maybe this default reflex reaction IS caused by panic. Who knows?

      I'm happy to hear that you are also making good progress in backbending :-)

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  3. Yes, that's what I'm wondering, if it is this very deep fear ingrained in the body. Whatever, it will probably go away in time. Ask Kino! I checked out the video you posted of her in your next post and couldn't help but notice that the model's (Ana Guerra?) feet turn out in this very deep backbend. This is something I wonder about because David Garrigues emphasized proper technique with the thighs rotating inward, etc... but even starting with parallel feet by the time I drop back the feet turn out, so what i do now is turn them back in as I stand up. Which feels a little sneaky, like I'm trying to hide that they turned out.

    Another thought on Grimmly's comments, I'm not sure that's it's snobbery. I've been reading the notes on Angela Jamison's blog lately (http://www.ashtangaannarbor.com/wordpress/), and she says this:
    "...I’ll mention to you that it’s my practice not to talk about my practice, notably the daily fluctuations or close teacher relationships. Rehearsing or evaluating that stuff tends to generate all kinds of false, self-reinforcing stories, growth-limiting delusions, and energy drains from the rest of life/practice. It also builds up clunky baggage about being an asana person or a meditating person. Let’s travel light, and keep it simple where we can."

    Of course this doesn't actually stop me from talking about asana, but I see her point. It probably makes more sense from her context of having been to Mysore, with hundreds of students talking about their practice things could get a little out of hand. I think it makes less sense for those of us with limited access to a community of yoga practitioners. Feedback is helpful.

    Now I'm just delaying the inevitable, getting on my mat!

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    1. "couldn't help but notice that the model's (Ana Guerra?) feet turn out in this very deep backbend. This is something I wonder about because David Garrigues emphasized proper technique with the thighs rotating inward, etc..."

      I have the feeling that different teachers have different opinions on the importance of absolutely keeping the feet turned in from the get-go. I actually brought Kino's attention to this issue (my feet also tend to turn out) when she was dropping me back at her Richmond workshop last year. She said that over time, as I develop more length/flexibility in the psoas, the feet-turning-out problem will correct itself.

      But maybe David G has a different opinion on this. Maybe he believes that it is more important to keep the feet/thighs turned in from the outset, even if it means not dropping all the way down to the ground, in order to prevent the formation of bad habits.

      Actually, I personally think that perhaps there are certain body types out there (like Ana's) which are such that no matter how well-engaged and how well-turned in the inner thighs are, the feet will always tend to turn out *a little bit*. I am emphasizing "a little bit" here; no matter what your body type is, if you turn the feet out too much, you are inevitably going to lose the inner thigh rotation and compromise the knees. Actually, I also recently came up with this theory that this may be why so many people start to have knee issues when they start doing second: Due to inner/outer thigh strength imbalances, they fail to internally rotates their thighs enough in deep backbends like Kapotasana and TM, and this places tremendous pressure on the knees.

      Wow, you are really bringing out the Ashtangeek in me :-) This is why I love the cybershala.

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  4. I like to hear about your practice. I DON'T like all those 'stick up there ass yogi's' Just big ego's, no doubt!

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    1. Thanks for liking to hear about my practice, Helena :-) Hearing this makes me very happy.

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  5. Happy to bring out the Ashtangageek in you :-)!!!

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