Focus Post Three: Getting Low - Chatarunga Dandasana

One of the most outwardly noticeable benefits I've gained from my yoga practice is toned arms. I've had a few people come up to me and ask what am I doing that has made my arms the way they are - the answer is simply yoga! My yoga practice includes a lot of sun salutations as is the tradition in ashtanga or power styles of yoga. After running through several sun salutations I will have done up to 10-20 chatarunga dandasanas or four point positions. Needless to say that's a great upper body work out right there. Besides the aesthetics, weight bearing exercise is necessary for building and maintaining healthy bones as we age.

Upper body strength can be a real challenge for some of us and it's important to do our poses with safe and proper alignment. Using full awareness and acceptance of where you are at physically will help you to choose your pose for any given moment in your practice. Of course we would all like to be able to instantly perform the hardest variation of a pose but the reality is, you must start from where you ARE before you can go somewhere new. I will include variations and options to lead up to a full chatarunga dandasana.

Begin in a solid plank pose. This means you are making one long straight line with your body, hands under shoulders, toes on the floor, just like the top of a push-up. Whenever you are in plank check that your hips are not sticking up in the air higher than your back, or sagging down to the ground. Hold your belly up and in towards your spine. Ideally, for chatarunga now all you have to do is bend your elbows! Sounds so simple. Of course it's a lot of work. Chatarunga should also be a straight line with the body but now your shoulders and elbows are level with each other. It can be tempting to dip the shoulders down lower than the elbows in this position which I didn't realize I was doing for some time until I checked myself out. So take a quick glance if you can or use a mirror for the first few times to get a sense of how low or not low that feels for you. When you bend your elbows, bend them straight back and not poking out to the sides, otherwise you are doing a push up. Imagine hugging your elbows against your torso.To help your upper body hold your weight so close to the pull of gravity think of reaching out through your heels and extend your knees so the legs send strong energy out through the lower body.

Now if you are in plank and the thought of bending your elbows is bringing images of face planting in the floor, then you are not yet ready for chatarunga. But don't despair, there are options as always! From plank, touch your knees down to the floor like a modified push-up. Keep your weight forward over your hands and simply lower your body down the ground WITHOUT sagging your hips down first. Keep that straight line feeling in your body and just lower straight down. Again keep energy in your toes, reaching out through the heels and don't let your feet fly up off the floor. If you want to try the next harder option before chatarunga, then start by touching the knees down, keeping your weight over your hands. This time as you bend your elbows (hugging them beside your body) keep your butt exactly where it is so that your chest touches down to the floor. If it helps, you can think of sticking your bum out slightly at the same time that your elbows bend. Now your toes, knees, hands and chest are touching the floor. By the way, don't forget to look forward for this one so you don't face plant. This may look a little awkward but the added challenge of lowering your chest down before the hips will build the strength you need in your triceps, chest and shoulders to prepare you for a chatarunga. Or, again, if you are aware of what your body is doing and you notice that your belly wants to sag down, then work on lowering straight down from the modified plank position.

If you truly want to build your upper body strength and develop a fluid transition between poses then practice your plank to chatarunga (or other option ) to the floor as often as you possibly can. If you are moving from downward dog to plank, lower down through your chatarunga option to your belly and then either push straight back up, or move into a cobra or up dog. Play around with variations until and above all stay present with your self. Find your point on the fine line between doing a pose properly and giving yourself just enough challenge to grow and build.

New Mid-Year Resolution or Oh My Gash These Jump Through Things Are Demoralizing

Okay, I have to admit I have not kept up very well with a recent resolution I made for myself. Several weeks ago I was sick with a hardcore fever and in the last few days of the sickness my dear partner took me to the beach to help cure my ails. While relishing the blue of the ocean, the refreshing salt in the air and the warmth of the sun I felt better in those moments than I had in the past several weeks! Of course as soon as I stepped out of the water I was back to blowing my nose every five seconds and wanting to conk myself out and escape from all physical sensations - lets just say the ride home was no fun, but still totally worth it for the moments of pure relief in that healing water.

In my blissful state of floating in that supportive ocean I decided I should try focusing on a more advanced sequence of yoga for my personal practice. I decided I would try sticking with this asthanga primary series that everyone's always talking about ;) When I first started learning yoga I taught myself from books when I was a teenager in highschool and the first book that changed my life was Journey Into Power by Baron Baptiste. His catchy inspirational phrases were exactly what I needed to hear in that time of my life and the power series he developed held just the right amount of challenge. Since then of course I branched out, completed teacher training, and tried workshops and classes in several different styles and traditions. There are still more I would like to experience but I know that when it comes to my own personal practice I gravitate back to the power series I first learned. 

I decided want to take it further now. I have an old print out of the primary series and found a video of the full series being done so I got a chance to see what the transitions were between postures. And HOLY COW, I now see why this "jump through" thing is important for this series. It's the transition between EVERY pose and every SIDE of every pose...okay, well not quite, but it seems it's done a hell of a lotta times!! Yikes! My first time trying to follow along with the video on youtube I realized this was a good decision since I can not do a jump through to save my life right now, and all this time I thought my upper body was moderately/decently strong. Nothing like yoga to bring your perception and expectations of yourself to a new place. 

So this resolution to work on the primary series will be tailored to what I am looking to improve upon: upper body strength, core strength, and balance. Oh and stamina. Yes. The last time I practiced the series I had company and it made a world of difference. When I practice by myself I realize my attention span is pretty short. But with my yoga buddy to join me (thanks Charlotte!!) we pressed on and did wayyyy more. Still didn't make it through every single pose, but then again I find doing four prasarita padottanasana and four paschimottanasanas and three janu sirsasanas a bit excessive in the hamstring department.

Today I have a free afternoon so I am going to plow forward (ah ah, plow pose! get it? ahhhhh) and attempt to get even farther through the series. I am NOT looking forward to my frustratingly clunky, floppy, uncoordinated jump throughs, but as Baron Baptiste said - do not despise the days of small beginnings. We all start somewhere.

Observer

I have determined, through reflection as well as through more obvious factual circumstances, that the main part I play in this life is one of an observer. From preferring to go off and wander up the big hill  in the school yard and sing songs to myself, or living as a foreigner in far away lands, I find myself falling into the category of "outsider" time after time. This is okay with me. It may have bothered me occasionally in the past, but I have come to accept this role and feel a safety here. I'm not saying that I go through life at a distance and separating myself and closing off. I have merely settled into this mind set of being ever so slightly stepped back from whatever I'm in.

What I mean is, I still enjoy being involved, being active, being out and about, as we Canadians are bound to say ;). But even while I'm IN something, I still have another set of eyes that I see through - an outsider's view. This is how I describe it and it's how I feel. I know it is just my perception, but I believe I come closer and closer to peace in fully understanding this perception. I'm sure many people who are labelled as "quiet" have this feeling at times due to our nature. I remember being told by my drama teacher in highschool that he could tell I was a person who took in everything around me; a person who internalizes. A person who internalizes doesn't always see a necessity to put extra effort into being heard and seen and otherwise be overly concerned with "output". I agreed with my teacher although I hadn't thought of it in those words. I liked that word though: internalized. It made me think of absorbing what is needed or beneficial, and rejecting or avoiding what is not. Nourishing the inner world. 

This tendency matches the kinds of things I am drawn to as well - dance (although it does usually have to be seen, it is more about the inner world than anyone who doesn't dance can begin to know), music (again usually heard but clearly a link to the inner world), yoga (duh), and enjoying the beauty and joy of nature and animals. When it comes right down to it, I think the world could use a little more observing. When we practice yoga we are learning to observe. We are asked to be IN something - a twisty pose, and yet stay aware of our breath and watch our thoughts and impulses without reacting right away. We are asked to sit or lie in stillness and watch our breath, feeling the motion and stillness at once. This is a state of observing, and according to Eckhart Tolle, the place where our true self lives. 

While, of course, life requires actions and reactions, there is also the need to BALANCE that with observation and non-reaction. Our day and age is one of hyperactivity, short attention spans, extreme highs and lows, good and bad tensions, etc. The trick is to level out the extremes. If we could all learn to take ourselves outside of the small pictures, maybe even step outside the big picture all together, we may find more peace. As an outsider, it is not my place to outwardly judge or control. I am not in a position to influence or change. I am an observer so the judging or changing will be within myself. The most I can do is to take in what's around, keep what I consider to be helpful and discard what I consider to be harmful. By observing as much as acting we can manage the extremes and move through life more easily. I am a huge fan of action - not the movie genre, although some are good. I fully embrace the drive to create, to improve, to communicate, to interact, to care, to try things. I just feel the QUALITY of our actions are being affected by a lack of observing before, during, and after.