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 anatomy part IVModerators: Moderators Jump to page : 1 Now viewing page 1 [25 messages per page] | View previous thread :: View next thread |
| Yoga -> Iyengar Yoga | Message format |
fechter03 |
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Extreme Veteran Posts: 475   Location: canada | i've been curious about pincha mayurasana for a long time now. i can do this away from the wall and hold it as long as i want.....as long as i use a block between my hands since my forearms tend to want to bring my hands together. i also used to use a strap around my elbows since they had a tendency to want to spread wider than shoulder width. i don't think the same action as with the feet are happening here. the feet tend to want to flare, i suppose partly because of the external rotation in the hips. in the case of the forearms, i can't quite figure out where the tight area is so i can work on it with the eventual goal of obviously doing the pose without the block between my hands. so, is it the shoulder muscles that are trying to bring the hands toward each other or is this action originating from the forearm muscles?? what's going on with the shoulder muscles here in relation to forearm position?? (hope that makes sense..  ) | ||
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| Anna Maria |
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| First of all: wow! I certainly can't do pincha mayurasana for a long time. My shoulder muscles start to hurt after 1/2 a minute or so - I guess this pose requires muscles that I don't use very often. I think that the hands are moving towards each other, when the weight is not distributed correctly. When I learned this pose, my teachers stressed the importance of really pressing down the whole hand, fingers spread and really focusing on the your thumb and index finger. Pressing the area between your index finger and thumb firmly into the floor provides good grounding. That works for me. I hope this helps  Edited by Anna Maria 2006-12-02 6:57 PM | |||
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| Nick |
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  Location: London, England | Hi Fechter, Sorry, this post got buried-hope you are still having problems with the posture-well, I don't, but you know what I mean  The troublw with using block and belts is that they don't always help, and may sometimes hinder-having a belt around the elbows sometimes makes students rest their elbows outwards, for instance. Here's a process: Put both elbows on the ground- Now lift one hand, palm facing the floor, and extend the index finger so that the hand faces outward-this is pronation of the forearm. The object is to pull on the elbows-you should find that as you pronate the forearm, you roll onto the inner edge of the elbow. Now, because the elbow is drawn forwards and inwards, you have helped to stabilize its position. If your elbows still flare when you lift up, you wil notice that the hands are pulled away from the new position in which you have placed them. Part of the problem, perhaps, is that people often do not commit enough weight onto the hands, so that they are pivotting around on the elbows-try to lean over the posture, sometimes I'll bring my body right over the hands, especially as I try to lift up into the posture, without jumping. I think the feet flaring can be related to the arm position, because as the elbows flare, often the lumbar spine hyper-extends, and the hips rotate externally to try to keep the line of gravity still running through the centre of gravity-i.e to help you keep balanced. We were discussing headstand on another thread, and I was trying to go through how we need to learn to pull into the posture-you will notice that the elbow seem to be pushed out-not surprising, as we push up into the posture. Hopefully the forearm rotation will induce a sense of you being pulled into the posture before you try to lift up. Will try to take a video later on, don't expect anything too pretty, it's a hard movement to do with control Nick | ||
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| Nick |
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Location: London, England | |||
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| fechter03 |
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Extreme Veteran Posts: 475 Location: canada | ok guys, i found this cool dvd that's exactly what i've been looking for. its entitled, "Anatomy for Yoga" (sorry Nick, someone beat you to it,  ). i haven't seen the whole thing yet, its 4 hrs long. so far it gives a description of how everyone's body differs in relation to asanas. it also confirms a lot of what i've been thinking about. it also got me thinking about the use of props, particularly straps. if you look at a pose like pincha mayurasana, the ability of the palms to face flat on the ground is dependent on how much the forearm can rotate with the elbow held still. once a limit is reached, the shoulders must then rotate and the elbows now move away from the body to allow the hands to go flat to the floor. the reason why the limit is reached in the first place is because of the bone structure of the person and has nothing to do with yoga at all (according to the DVD). the strap is used around the elbow to force the elbows to stay aligned with the body. the problem is that the strap is training the body to do something it will never be able to do; ie align the elbow AND have palms flat. so, are props intended to train the body so that one day, you'll no longer need them or are they intended to make up for anatomical deficiencies or both? | ||
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| Nick |
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Location: London, England | Hi Fechter, Usually, when I see someone who cannot keep their hands in front of their elbows, and their ability indicates that they should be able to do this, then I would say that their weight is being borne incorrectly by the supporting limbs-the elbow to the tips of the fingers. You would usually find that most of the weight is being concentrated at the elbow-it's then very difficult to keep the hands in place. Before I go into the pose, I bend my elbows to bring my body weight forwards.It is very difficult to lift into the posture if you keep your elbows at 90 degrees. I know that this is the way that is often taught, but as you usually (always) see that the technique forces the student to jump into the posture. At the moment of jumping, there is a sudden increase in the weight that is borne through the elbows, making the hands pull in towards each other. As I said, I think it's a good idea to let your shoulders move over your forearms. I often move backwards and forwards a few times, to strengthen the muscles that pull my arms above my head. In this way, you are training to lift your body weight, rather than propelling your feet towards the ceiling using the leg muscles. You will see that this method of moving is one that is usually endorsed by most disiplines of hatha yoga, but for some reason, has been dropped when it is too difficult to achieve easily. Ideally, lifting should be used for all the inversions, including the sun salutation-if this happened, there would be far less injuries, and a far greater increase in ability and performance, as students learnt to cope with transferring their body weight to different limbs in different postures. Sorry, just realized I was sprouting off. This is something I get faced with constantly, because students have been allowed to jump into postures from the word go-it really hasn't got anything to do with your question As far as props go, in scorpion pose, it would be great if you could attach an elastic rope to each finger, and then attach the other end to the wall in front. The elastic would be aligned to splay the hand out slightly. Then the student would be instructed to pull on the elastic with the whole body. This braces the muscles that stabilize the centre of gravity of the humnan body, thus allowing a more controlled movement to lift the feet off the floor-it is lack of stability that means that students become dependent on jumping into postures-and I guess you could say that perhaps it is your lack of stability in preparing to go into the posture which enables the hands to move. It is possible to put so much weight on the hands that you can lift into a handstand from scorpion. As you don't have the elastic, what you can do is put the elbows down on the floor, and then one at a time, pronate the forearm, and use the pronation to extend the index finger, as though you actually did have that piece of elastic. This should pull on the elbow, and you should let the elbow pull into the new position. If you do it right, you should feel the inside of the elbow (the medial epicondyle area) come into contact with the floor, rather than the back of the elbow (the olecranon process). Now, keep pulling on the elbow by bringing the hand towards the floor (you lifted it slightly at the beginning of the exercise-forgot to mention that). When you put the index finger down, you should feel that the base of the index finger is very firmly planted-specifically, I mean the distal head of the second metacarpal. If you can keep this pressure, your hand will not move. It's actually quite similiar to the way the human body transfers its weight mainly through the ball of the foot-your metacarpal head becomes the ball of the foot. When a walking pattern is dysfunctional, you often see this weight transfer become distorted, with more weight on the little toes than there should be-just an example. I sure hope this helps, and it's not your anatomy stopping you But I can assure that i have never met anyone in twenty years for whom I would say this was the case, barring those with shoulder injuries. Take care Nick | ||
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| kulkarnn |
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fechter03 - 2006-12-26 10:26 PM ok guys, i found this cool dvd that's exactly what i've been looking for. its entitled, "Anatomy for Yoga" (sorry Nick, someone beat you to it, ). i haven't seen the whole thing yet, its 4 hrs long. so far it gives a description of how everyone's body differs in relation to asanas. it also confirms a lot of what i've been thinking about. it also got me thinking about the use of props, particularly straps. if you look at a pose like pincha mayurasana, the ability of the palms to face flat on the ground is dependent on how much the forearm can rotate with the elbow held still. once a limit is reached, the shoulders must then rotate and the elbows now move away from the body to allow the hands to go flat to the floor. the reason why the limit is reached in the first place is because of the bone structure of the person and has nothing to do with yoga at all (according to the DVD). the strap is used around the elbow to force the elbows to stay aligned with the body. the problem is that the strap is training the body to do something it will never be able to do; ie align the elbow AND have palms flat. so, are props intended to train the body so that one day, you'll no longer need them or are they intended to make up for anatomical deficiencies or both? Dear F: If I am not wrong about assuming which DVD you are watching, I wish to state the following: - the dvd is quite good and does state its point quite well. - but, it states the same point again and again, and it does not have much other meat to it, in my opinion. What I mean is : It does not need 4 hours DVD to stress that point. - and, it has some small mistakes. The poses which it states that a person would not be able to do, can actually be done by that person with a good amount of practice. What I mean is 'while there is truth in the anatomical side of it', it is true that a practice can make that pose much better than what a person is currently doing. - however, the dvd does state the anatomical point well, and is useful to a person who can overdo with injury to try to get an impossible pose. | |||
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| Bay Guy |
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Expert Yogi Posts: 2479 Location: A Blue State | |||
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