Category Archives: Viniyoga

To Sanskrit or Not to Sanskrit. A Pose by Any Other Name…

I look forward to answering your questions in this blog. Please feel free to leave a comment or e-mail your questions to tr***@***********ga.com.

Is this cat, table, or cakravakasana?

A Whole Life Yoga teacher training student asks: In some of the classes I attend, the teacher uses the Sanskrit names of poses; other teachers do not. Is knowing Sanskrit important for a yoga teacher?

Using the names of yoga poses, whether in Sanskrit or English, is a convenient shorthand—for the yoga teacher. It’s easier to say “Go into down dog” or even “Do adho mukha svanasana” than to describe how to do a pose correctly. Knowing posture names does not make you a good yoga teacher. A good yoga teacher can verbally describe a yoga pose to students who’ve never heard its name. And when we show off and use the Sanskrit names of poses, most of our students hear “whatchamacallit-asana,” anyway.

I rarely use Sanskrit when I teach. Using even English names creates more confusion than clarity. I remember telling students in class once to go into Uttanasana (a very common standing forward bend). One of my long-time students stopped moving, looked at me oddly, and said, “Utta-what?” Other times, English has been equally confusing. I’ve told students to do bridge, and people practicing on mats next to each other have done two completely different poses. I’ve said “Do down dog,” and half the class has gone into up dog instead. The examples are numerous, but one thing is clear: the shorthand may be convenient for me, but I’m not communicating to my students.

In Viniyoga, there’s an even more important concern. There are literally hundreds of ways to do any pose. If all I say is “Do warrior 1,” I haven’t communicated anything about proper foot placement, how to use the breath, arm positions, number of repetitions, how to engage the core, visualization, etc., etc., etc. The beauty is indeed in the details.

Sanskrit is a lovely language. If you study yoga–whether as a teacher or as a practitioner–you may want to learn posture names and other Sanskrit terminology. But a teacher needs to know how to describe the form, intention, and adaptations of a pose—in English.

Namaste

Tracy Weber

More information about Whole Life Yoga’s teacher training program can be found at our web site: Yoga Teacher Training in Seattle at Whole Life Yoga.

The Magic of Movement

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One of the key hallmarks of Viniyoga is its unique combination of movement, flow and stay. Some yoga lineages, such as Iyengar and Yin, focus primarily on staying in poses. Others, such as Ashtanga and Vinyasa, primarily flow from pose to pose. Viniyoga, on the other hand, uses stays in poses and flows between them. And we do something even more powerful: we move in and out of most poses before staying in them.

Each of the three—movement, stay, and flow—has a unique cost/benefit tradeoff:

Repetition:

Re-patterns dysfunctional movement patterns
Warms the entire body (especially when large muscle groups are contracted)
Warms and brings circulation to the specific muscle groups being contracted
Builds energy (especially faster movement)
Prepares the body to stay in a posture
Compensates for and erases residual stress

Stay:

Provides deeper internal organ work
Calms energy (especially in forward bends and twists)
Stretches muscles (Exercise physiology fact: a stretch needs to be held a minimum of twenty seconds to be effective.)
Strengthens muscles
Focuses attention internally
Allows for deepening micro-movements with the breath

Flow:

Significantly builds energy
Builds heat
Does not compensate for residual stresses as well as repetition
Compromises form, which generally becomes sloppier

What does all of this mean for your teaching and your practice?

Understand the tool you’re using and why you’re using it. If your goal is to prepare your mind for meditation, a strong flow class won’t work as well as a class that includes the interior focusing of stays. If you’re a beginner, start by learning appropriate form in individual postures before trying to link multiple postures together in flows. If you’re working to re-pattern negative movement patterns, use repetition in and out of a pose more than stay.

And remember: Each tool has its unique purpose and gifts. Over time try to explore all of them. One of the many beauties of the Viniyoga approach is that it skillfully combines all three.

Namaste

Tracy Weber

Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle, and join my Tracy Weber author mailing list for updates on my hopefully soon-to-be-published yoga mystery!

Extending the Spine in Downward Dog

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I’ve been getting a lot of crap—er, feedback—from my students about the cartoon banner on my author website. I’m actually quite fond of it, but my students are right: my cartoon self’s Downward Dog is, in yoga teacher-speak, “worthy of correction.” But at least the German shepherd looks good!

Downward Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana) is perhaps the most familiar of all yoga poses—and one of the most commonly misunderstood. Downward Dog strengthens your shoulders while stretching the backs of your legs, but those are only its secondary effects. In Viniyoga, Downward Dog is categorized as an extension pose, meaning that its primary intention is lengthening the spine. That amazing stretch you feel in your calves and hamstrings is just a side benefit.

The photo you see on the cover of Yoga Journal is only part of the posture. In Viniyoga, movement in and out of the pose is as important as staying. Movement contracts the muscles that will eventually be stretched, making them more like warm plastic and less like rubber bands. Western physiologists call this action proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, or PNF. (Though somehow I doubt that’s what the ancient yogis called it.)

Down-Dogging it the Viniyoga Way

Come to your hands and knees, with your knees about four inches apart. Your hips should be directly above your knees, and your hands should be slightly in front of and wider than your shoulders.
On inhale, lengthen your spine and tuck your toes.
On exhale, press down through your hands and feet, lifting your hips to the sky. Keep your knees bent and your chin slightly tucked. Focus on feeling length between the crown of your head and your tailbone.
On the following inhale, lower your knees to the mat again, bringing your hips directly above your knees and extending your spine.
Move in and out of this position eight times, wrapping each movement in each breath.
After the eighth repetition, remain in Downward Dog for several breaths. With each successive inhale, press down through your heels while simultaneously extending your tailbone to the sky. On each successive exhale, contract your abdominal muscles, feeling the strength of your core.

Hints:

Consider cartoon-Tracy a drawing of what not to do. In particular, do not lift your chin or round your lower back. Your chin should be slightly tucked and your low back extended.
Your heels do not have to touch the floor, and your legs do not have to completely straighten. Focus instead on feeling the length of your body from head to tailbone and from tailbone to heels.
To minimize wrist strain, spread your fingers and press your weight equally out through your fingertips.
Avoid pressing your chest too close to your thighs. This can hyper-extend your shoulders, which adds significant strain to your shoulder joints. Instead focus on feeling strength in your shoulders.

Happy down dogging, everyone!

Namaste

Tracy Weber

Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle, and join my author mailing list for updates on my hopefully soon-to-be-published yoga mystery!

Fitness, Yoga Style

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Students often ask me if yoga is sufficient to develop overall fitness. Put more directly, if I practice yoga, can I cancel my gym membership? I always cringe a little before answering. As a yoga studio owner, the answer that would benefit me most is an enthusiastic, unqualified yes.

Unfortunately, the true answer is probably not. Yoga is a valuable tool. It builds muscular strength, flexibility, and emotional wellness. It also develops an important component of fitness often overlooked in the West: respiratory fitness.

That seems like a lot, and it is. All of the above are necessary. But they are not the complete fitness picture. Western forms of exercise provide an important and missing piece: cardiovascular–also known as aerobic–fitness, which is an essential component of heart health.

Cardiovascular Fitness versus Respiratory Fitness

The cardiovascular and respiratory systems are separate yet closely related.

Respiratory Fitness (Pranayama, Asana, Respiratory Therapy)

Increases the respiratory system’s ability to oxygenate cells
Improves respiration rate, profusion rate and oxygen utilization at a cellular level

Asana and pranayama are excellent tools for impacting this–much better than Western aerobic exercises.

Cardiovascular Fitness (Jogging, Cycling, Zumba)

Raises the pulse rate
Strengthens the heart muscle and increases circulation

Yoga tools, including asana and pranayama, are not as well suited for this type of fitness as Western aerobic exercises.

Students often seem disappointed to learn this. After all, the ancient yogis used yoga (almost exclusively) to develop health and mental wellbeing. But those yogis lived in a different time, with completely different lifestyles. They lived very physical lives, practiced yoga, pranayama, and chant daily, and ate whole foods that were much less likely to cause heart disease than the overly-processed foods we consume now.

The typical American yogi, on the other hand is likely to work eight or more hours at her desk job, park as close as possible to yoga class, then go home to binge on potato chips while watching someone else chant on American Idol. Heart disease is epidemic in our culture. Frankly, we’d be delusional to compare our lifestyles to those of yogis thousands of years ago.

All that said, yoga is an important part of mental and physical wellness. I’d be the last one to minimize its benefits. Just ask my grandmother who died of emphysema, my friends with asthma, or my clients with anxiety and depression. Breathing is as important as life itself. In fact, breath is the essence of life,

Nonetheless, I still ride an exercise bike three times a week, and I wouldn’t consider giving it up, in spite of my yoga practice. I’ve never claimed that yoga is a panacea able to cure all ills—but it can do a lot. Not just for the body, but also for the mind. I hope you’ll make it part of your wellness routine.

Namaste

Tracy Weber

Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle!

Proper Form and Adaptations of Child’s Pose—Response to a Student Question

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I look forward to answering your questions in this blog. Please feel free to leave a comment or e-mail your questions to tr***@***********ga.com.

A Whole Life Yoga teacher training graduate writes: When I teach child’s pose, I have noticed that some of my students keep their back straight and hips hiked up in the air, almost downward dog-like. I’m not sure if this is a flexibility issue, or if they just don’t understand my instructions. Do you see this in your students, and if so, how do you address it?

I do see that pattern occasionally, and it can have several causes. Most yoga teachers think that child’s pose is a comfortable, forward-bended resting position—and it usually is. For some students, however, child’s pose isn’t restful at all; it’s confusing, uncomfortable, and frustrating.

The photo below shows a student doing child’s pose correctly. Note that her hips rest toward her heels, and her elbows and forehead relax comfortably toward the floor.

Yoga Pose -- Child's Pose

Sometimes, however, students touch their heads to the floor while pointing their hips to the sky. This places the spine in a subtle backbend, and usually isn’t the slightest bit comfortable.