Even though I practiced a lot of yoga, I was grounded when my knee was hurting. This is what made me realize that practices like astanga and western vinyasa classes are great during healthy times. But they don’t take care of you during difficult times. It is like having an exciting life when you make lots of money and hang out with all the cool people. When the times get tough, the cool people have vanished. Just one or two people still hang out with you. KYM is exactly the friend who saw me through the tough times. The therapy class designed for my knee injury at KYM helped me understand the healing power of yoga and the actual meaning of Vinyasa. For this, I will always be grateful to KYM. That does not mean I will not practice astanga or the North American Vinyasa. They are quite cool, I will give them that. I do enjoy them, but I understood more about actual Yoga at KYM.

I do hope my knee injury is so 2009. I want 2010 to be a year free of injuries, I will stay within my limits and still explore yoga to the fullest.

Patañjali at a Yoga school in Mysore.

]]> http://www.yogzilla.com/2010/01/13/so-2009/feed/ 1 http://www.yogzilla.com/2009/06/14/anatomy-of-the-center/ http://www.yogzilla.com/2009/06/14/anatomy-of-the-center/#comments Sun, 14 Jun 2009 08:38:05 +0000 Sraddhā http://www.yogzilla.com/?p=208 I am sure most people know this already. But, it took me a while to understand this myself. When I started a serious yoga practice last year, I got to know I cannot go into a sandwiched paschimottanasana as in classic pose. I mean, I cannot get my stomach completely on my thighs and have a flat spine.

Surrender is normally the word associated with paschimottanasana. My favorite teacher came over to help me figure out and she said I have backward tilted pelvis and that is why I am far from the sandwich and the surrender.

I heard about this condition for the first time and got me worried. Why does the pelvis tilt backward? Sounds scary. I have never had any problems in day today life with this condition except that I cannot do a sandwich in a paschimottanasana. I have never been after acrobatics in yoga. So, is this important? Yes. It is a sign of problems to come. Having all the joints of the pelvis work as it is designed, is quite important. If the joints cannot move as it should, the problems can be in the form low back pain, short muscles in the hamstrings which make you stiff over time by limiting the movement of the hip joints and a general dis-ease in the movements.

Then I learn that this is a common scenario for many desk jockeys. Under utilization of the core muscles is one of the main reasons for this. The weak abdominal muscles in combination with tight hamstrings can pull the pelvis backward over time. Even though a desk job is one of the main reasons for this, I think my case has another angle where I never paid attention to any of this. Not living deliberately and consciously with clarity is also a reason.

When I started learning kalari, my gurukkal would always tell me to pull in the lower abdomen. It should not be loose, but it should be taut. Pull it in, ribs on thighs. Kalaripayattu places so much importance on this. The loin cloth which the male students wear is worn quite snugly around the lower abdomen. A constant reminder to hold the lower abdomen in. This is quite similar to the uddiyana bandha of yoga. But, this is considered an advanced topic and normally yoga teachers do not bother with this in a group class. Most of the movements in kalari are hip oriented, having a great level of flexibility in the center of the body is vital.

Having a strong core is not only key to yoga and other physical activities, it is also essential for a sense of ease in day to day life. A strong core is also helpful in having a good balance and a gait. It took a while for this piece of knowledge to dawn on me. Now, I am consciously working on solving this. I see some improvements already in some poses. One of my enemy poses is turning into a friend. Chaturanga seems attainable now, I see light.

I had blogged about Chaturanga being a such a pain, in my very first post. It did not take a year to get this, but just a few weeks of conscious effort has me at this stage. Getting better at Chaturanga helps me enjoy Surya namaskars, which I would do grudgingly to get over to the interesting part of my practice. Now I enjoy Surya namskars so much, I end up doing many rounds of just Surya namaskars for my daily practice, which I have to correct.

Reversing the backward tilted pelvis will definitely take time. If it takes a decade in the making, it will take some time to correct this. So, patience is what I need to practice. And of course, detachment. Patañjali would be happy with the clarity in this post.

Now that I am not working, I have all the time at my disposal. I am not sure if that  is  such a good thing. Having so much free unstructured time does not mean that I am ‘doing’ more yoga. I think I am doing just as much when I was working full time.

Sometimes, when I get on the mat in the mornings, I get this feeling that I should read Sri Krishnamcharya’s books for the thousandth time to see how his practice was in Tibet. I need to figure out the specifics of a Kalari pose, was it 75 degrees or 90 degrees between the spine and the legs? Or how can I get the special powers as described by Patañjali. I think I should learn to levitate.

I hear myself thinking that I can anyway practice at 4 in the afternoon. Then at 4 in the afternoon, I have this big dilemma. Actually, in India nobody practices yoga in the afternoon, it has to be only in the morning. I think this is what I have read. I must skip now and get back to my morning practice. Then I have this strange amnesia in the morning, sort of like the ground hog day. I have missed practicing yoga many days, just getting in this kind of talk with too much time on hand. I finally exit the ground hog day realizing that this break time is so precious and make up for the lost time.

My conclusion is that if I work full time or not, I practice just the same amount. May be I practice just a little less, when I have all the time on earth. Then I hear a few of my yogi friends saying that they are skipping yoga as they are so busy with work. It will be easy to practice when they have a lot of free time. As far as I can see, this really is not an issue of time. If something is important enough, it will be done. This is most likely one of the obstacles, my man Patañjali talks about in his work. Fatigue or lack of time usually is a projection of the confused mind. That is when I get to Patañjali’s work and be so impressed with his thought process and always imbibe clarity.

Can the self guide itself out of its self created misery? To answer that comes Ground hog day. Enjoy!

I had never paid any attention to this phrase and quite disliked it. But now I think there is some truth to that. I will explain myself. I had access to the book Bhagavad Gita right from the time I have been a child.  My mother had a copy, my grandmother, my neighbors and just about everyone had a copy. Except my school, as it was Catholic.

At home, I was told not to expect any fruits after my exams. I would be sad as I love mangoes which would be the highlight of summer. Anyway, I had never bothered to read it until now and I was sort of afraid that I would never get it. I knew the gist of it (expect no fruits), but that’s about it.

Of late, I have the courage to read Bhagavad Gita, understand it and appreciate it. This is only because I started reading Upanishads at an ashram and I was getting the meaning the of what was explained. Then at KYM, I was introduced to Yoga Sutras. Ever since I had been to KYM, my life is divided into pre KYM and post KYM. I feel so different now. Something was just made open in my brain that I understand so much more.

Without this kind of help, if someone had told me about the Self and that it never dies or is never born, it would go right over my head. Like someone said something to me in French. Now that I am reading Bhagavad Gita and Yoga Sutras and enjoying it so much, I think the time must be right for reading these books.