Over a week has now passed since I started my yoga teacher training course. As I mentioned in my last post, the training goes far beyond the physical aspect of yoga (the asanas) and looks at the whole system of yoga (which includes pranayama and meditation).
That said, the training has still made some pretty significant changes to my asana practice. The changes haven't really been big ones - they have just been small refinements - but the impact they have had is quite remarkable. So here are the three things that I have learnt so far that have made the biggest difference.
1. Make friends with your bandhas
I had heard yoga teachers use the term "bandhas" berfore, but to be honest I have never fully understood what they were talking about. From what I could gather, engaging my bandhas somehow involved keeping firm through my belly. Which, it turns out, is kind of right. But it is not the whole story.
There are actually three bandhas - one at the perineum (mula bandha), one just below the belly button (uddiyana bandha) and the third one at the throat (jalandhara bandha). The idea is that, by engaging or contracting these three bandhas (which is sanskrit for "lock") while you perform your asana, you are able to control the flow of energy ("prana") throughout your body. This helps you achieve balance and also supports and provides stability during your practice. (This is a very basic description - this website provides a pretty neat overview of the whole bandha situation if you want to know more.)
Learning how to properly engage your bandhas is complex and takes a lot of practice (and I am definitely still at the early stages of this process) but there are a couple of simple adjustments that you can do in pretty much any pose that will start you on your bandha journey and improve your overall asana practice.
First, start by drawing your belly button towards your spine. You have probably heard your teacher saying this to you in class during certain poses, but it is good to get into the habit of doing this throughout your whole practice. As an extra benefit, holding in through your lower belly like this will support your lower back and prevent you from overextending your lower spine when you are doing backbends. (Particularly important if you are hyper mobile through your joints - this will save you from very painful lower back SI joint issues in the long run. And trust me, prevention is WAY better than a cure when it comes to your lower back!!)
Second, focus on drawing up through the crown of your head. Together with holding in your lower belly, this encourages you to lengthen out your spine and create space in your body. When you are doing this, your chest tends to lift up and your shoulders drop down, helping you to achieve better alignment. Obviously, extending through the spine won't always be appropriate - for example, it isn't much use when you are in bridge pose or shoulder stand - but it is really useful to keep your torso extended and open in a lot of poses, for example most standing poses, forward bends and even in downward dog.
The final adjustment to make is to lower your chin towards your chest and to gently draw the front of your throat to the back of your throat. This again helps with aligning your spine by bringing your head an neck into line, and also assists if you are doing ujjayi breathing (that raspy sound that your teacher will sometimes ask you to make with your throat while you breathe during your class).
I have found that just by focussing on these three small adjustments during my poses I am able to achieve better alignment - but with less thinking! For example, in downward dog my mind used to go through pretty much every muscle in my body as I tried to get them exactly into the right position. Now, I just focus on getting these three things right, and everything else just seems to happen!
2. Slow down
There is a tendency amongst a lot of modern yogis to move from one pose to another with great speed - particularly in vinyasa and other "power" yoga styles. Maybe we feel like we get more of a work out when we quickly flip from one pose to the next, or maybe it is just a reflection of our busy, overworked lifestyles. But the truth is we are doing ourselves an injustice by whizzing through our yoga sessions. If you have taken the time out of your busy schedule to do a yoga session, why do you want to rush it?
That said, the training has still made some pretty significant changes to my asana practice. The changes haven't really been big ones - they have just been small refinements - but the impact they have had is quite remarkable. So here are the three things that I have learnt so far that have made the biggest difference.
1. Make friends with your bandhas
I had heard yoga teachers use the term "bandhas" berfore, but to be honest I have never fully understood what they were talking about. From what I could gather, engaging my bandhas somehow involved keeping firm through my belly. Which, it turns out, is kind of right. But it is not the whole story.
There are actually three bandhas - one at the perineum (mula bandha), one just below the belly button (uddiyana bandha) and the third one at the throat (jalandhara bandha). The idea is that, by engaging or contracting these three bandhas (which is sanskrit for "lock") while you perform your asana, you are able to control the flow of energy ("prana") throughout your body. This helps you achieve balance and also supports and provides stability during your practice. (This is a very basic description - this website provides a pretty neat overview of the whole bandha situation if you want to know more.)
Learning how to properly engage your bandhas is complex and takes a lot of practice (and I am definitely still at the early stages of this process) but there are a couple of simple adjustments that you can do in pretty much any pose that will start you on your bandha journey and improve your overall asana practice.
First, start by drawing your belly button towards your spine. You have probably heard your teacher saying this to you in class during certain poses, but it is good to get into the habit of doing this throughout your whole practice. As an extra benefit, holding in through your lower belly like this will support your lower back and prevent you from overextending your lower spine when you are doing backbends. (Particularly important if you are hyper mobile through your joints - this will save you from very painful lower back SI joint issues in the long run. And trust me, prevention is WAY better than a cure when it comes to your lower back!!)
Second, focus on drawing up through the crown of your head. Together with holding in your lower belly, this encourages you to lengthen out your spine and create space in your body. When you are doing this, your chest tends to lift up and your shoulders drop down, helping you to achieve better alignment. Obviously, extending through the spine won't always be appropriate - for example, it isn't much use when you are in bridge pose or shoulder stand - but it is really useful to keep your torso extended and open in a lot of poses, for example most standing poses, forward bends and even in downward dog.
The final adjustment to make is to lower your chin towards your chest and to gently draw the front of your throat to the back of your throat. This again helps with aligning your spine by bringing your head an neck into line, and also assists if you are doing ujjayi breathing (that raspy sound that your teacher will sometimes ask you to make with your throat while you breathe during your class).
I have found that just by focussing on these three small adjustments during my poses I am able to achieve better alignment - but with less thinking! For example, in downward dog my mind used to go through pretty much every muscle in my body as I tried to get them exactly into the right position. Now, I just focus on getting these three things right, and everything else just seems to happen!
2. Slow down
There is a tendency amongst a lot of modern yogis to move from one pose to another with great speed - particularly in vinyasa and other "power" yoga styles. Maybe we feel like we get more of a work out when we quickly flip from one pose to the next, or maybe it is just a reflection of our busy, overworked lifestyles. But the truth is we are doing ourselves an injustice by whizzing through our yoga sessions. If you have taken the time out of your busy schedule to do a yoga session, why do you want to rush it?
You still get the same benefits if you take the full breath (that is, for a full count of four or so) to gently flow from one pose to the next. In fact, it often takes more strength and control to do your asana at a slower pace because you can't rely on momentum to swing your body into a pose. It also gives you more of an opportunity to get your alignment right.
The other benefit of slowing down is that it helps prepare yourself for meditation by really connecting your movement with your breath and allowing you to more deeply engage with the flow of energy throughout your body. Add this to the techniques set out in 1 above, and you are really getting somewhere!
3. Be still
When I hold a particular pose, I tend to spend the whole time constantly adjusting myself to move more deeply into the pose. I scan my body from bottom to top to bottom again, seeing if there is any area of my body that I can shift to improve the pose.
What this means though is that I never really get to just sit with a pose and enjoy it. I am always pushing, trying to get more out of it.
Now though, when I am holding a pose, I set my alignment up and then - I let myself just be still.
This is easier than it sounds - as an A-type, I naturally tend to want to push myself beyond my limits and to go further. But when I stop trying to force or further refine a pose, I find that I can actually enjoy my practice a lot more. I still work on my edge (that place in a pose where you feel challenged but not so challenged that you feel pain, you start shaking and/or your breathing gets shallow) but once I get there, I just surrender into it. And it feels goooooood.
I am really finding that just by introducing these three, relatively minor changes to my practice, my teacher training is already having a big impact. And these are definitely making me look at my asana practice in a different, more healthy way. I also find I am finishing my classes feeling more refreshed and balanced than I used to. And definitely feeling happier.
Which is kind of the point, right?
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