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 Alignment at what price?Moderators: Moderators Jump to page : 1 Now viewing page 1 [25 messages per page] | View previous thread :: View next thread |
| Yoga -> Iyengar Yoga | Message format |
karmann |
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| Hungry Yogi |
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| fechter03 |
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Extreme Veteran Posts: 475   Location: canada | |||
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| tourist |
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Expert Yogi Posts: 8442    | |||
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| uhm, i might wager that this is not an iyengar perspective per se, but rather my perspective. all of the descriptions that you gave, they give me a sense of getting the overall structure and feel of a pose, while finding correct alignment/microalignment of each part, and gives a great sense of progress to the posture (that is, places to go as the body strengthens and stretches it's way into deeper expressions of the posture). so that is exactly how i teach. i'll put people in tree pose focusing first on hip alignment, then back/belly, and then moving the foot up the leg as the person gains the balance/strength and flexibility to do so. it's a process.  and, i teach "process oriented" so that people don't get attached to a pose looking a 'certain way' but rather being aligned a certain way and slowly unfolding. i dunno. i'm all positive about this.  maybe not what you're looking for? | |||
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| kulkarnn |
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karmann - 2008-03-10 6:44 PM tourist - 2008-03-10 10:17 AM Don't decide to experiment with doing halasana with your head turned to the side. Oh, killjoy!  i have a friend who was showing me halasana with his head to the side. scary scary scary... | |||
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| pretty much, i "always" do. i always seek to get the right alignment, that "perfect" alignment that may require big modifications such as shorter stances or what not. i do it all the time, tons and tons. that's my way. | |||
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| Nick |
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 Location: London, England | Hi Karmann, You've raised some good points. Bearing in mind that I teach neither Iyengar yoga or Astanga yoga, but I would say a hybrid of the two, with another contribution, that of human anatomy, I'll give my input. With tree pose, in Iyengar yoga, I was taught to bring the foot as high up the other leg as possible. In order to do this, most people will take hold of their ankle, by hip abduction, external rotation, and flexion, with flexion of the knee, as well. The ankle is also 'dorsiflexed' (i.e. the back of the foot is drawn towards the front of the shin). The trouble is, the objective then is to bring the ankle as close to the waiting hand as possible, so that the pose then becomes an action of the arm, rather than an action of the leg, which then becomes passive. The hip is then passive, and then you get the hiking of the hip in this pose. Perhaps if we only let the foot be placed on the side of the leg as high as the hip muscles can put it, then those hip muscles will also perhaps support good hip pelvic alignment? I think one of the keys to warrior one, as with most backbends, is to extend the hips-square is not enough. In fact, just holding the pelvis square may actually increase low back problems-because the hip muscles are not pushing us into the pose, then the spinal muscles may compensate, resulting in hyper-extrnsion of the lumbar spine. In warrior pose, you will often see that both hips are often falling forwards, especially on the leading leg, so that the lower spine becomes the hinge around which the body turns. It's important to keep the hinge in the next body segment down, at the hip joints. But your solution sounds good-over time, you can obviously work on getting the feet wider, but stopping when the hips are no longer able to extend. With trikonasana, you have to rememember that I am not bound by the rules of Iyengar alignment, and so I expect to raise eyebrows-scary thought, considering the size of Iyengar's eyebrows . I think that the instruction to keep the pelvis facing forwards is too one-dimensional for most students-the reason a prop has to be used is because the pelvis cannot be tipped completely over to one side if it stays in alignment with the legs-in most cases, anyway. In twenty years I've never met anyone that can do it. You would need very long arms and very short legs, and most probably something called hip anteversion would also help. As far as spinal health is concerned, performing trikonasana with the hips facing forwards and the hand on the floor is for most students, a no-no. Your use of the prop is then perfectly sensible. I prefer to use the 'hip drive,' in this posture and all others, to guide the rest of me through to a posture that is beneficial for health. As you can see, I've used hip drive in the other two postures as well. In my students, if their hamstrings are too tight to grab hold of the big toe, then I'll get them to bend their knee, and then over time, lenghthen the hamstrings. I think grabbing hold of the big toe is a huge part of this pose. Putting the hand on the floor often results in misalignment as we tend to support ourselves on that arm, and putting the back of the hand against the side of the shin, encourages us to push the hand back against the leg. Both these hand positions, then, serve to create crumpe zones in regions such as the shoulders, spine, and hips. But if you pull on the toe, with skilful posture, your body then get pulled towards better posture, and these crumple zones then get stretched out, so that the energy created by the posture runs through these crumple zones, rather than getting trapped within them. Hope that helps this debate. Nick Edited by Nick 2008-03-14 5:17 AM | ||
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| tourist |
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Expert Yogi Posts: 8442 | |||
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| Nick |
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Location: London, England | Hi Glenda, I would also say that is true, but surely it is only because of the present thinking on pelvic alignment within the pose? I mean, it's reasonably easy for a student of sufficient stretchiness, to use a medical term , to put one hand flat on the floor. There are several ways of doing this, the most important, to me, would be to form the posture in such a way as to encourage a neutral lumbar spine with a pelvic position which encourages a neutral spine. I reckon that with trikonasana being taught with the pelvis in the same plane as the legs, then for most, putting the hand on the floor is unfeasible and undesirable. But for those who choose to modify the pose by coupling the tilt of their pelvis with the neutral spine, and perhaps taking their feet further apart and making sure the heel is in line with the arch of the opposite foot, perhaps bending the knee if the hamstrings are too tight to allow the pelvis to continue moving us into the pose, which then creates a posture which is driven by the strongest muscles in the human body, the hip muscles. But I still think it's better to hold the big toe, and pull your body towards the fixed point-being careful to keep the ball of the foot squeezed to the floor. Take care Nick | ||
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