Do you have anything to make music in your yoga practice space? Can you create a sweet and vibrant call to the space of meditation? Do you have a rattle or a drum to shake things and clear out energy? If you haven’t played with music as part of your practice, give it a try some time.
I contemplated long and hard about how to teach the Anusara principle of pelvic loop. If students are already tending to bring the tops of the thighs forward, without doing enough inner spiral enhanced by thigh loop (which together take the tops of the thighs back and apart and brings curve to the lumbar spine), it would not be helpful to invite them to engage in an action, which if done as a primary movement, will tend to take the curve out of the lower back and bring the tops of the thighs forward, making movement even more limited.
Even if we have the tendency to tuck the buttocks and tailbone too much, we are not necessarily engaging out core, and pelvic loop, when done in proper sequence, really helps us to affirm and find our own strength — and no one should miss out on the opportunity to do that. So crucial to thinking about pelvic loop (especially being myself a reformed “tucker”) are the following:
1. The loops are bilateral and can move separately. This means it is not just bringing the whole of the pelvis forward by a single, central big movement of the tailbone, but using the muscles on each side of the pelvis independently to engage pelvic loop.
2. Although ultimately, all of the principles are done at the same time, they are also done sequentially. A student said last night that doing pelvic loop in a seated position made her feel “lifted up away from the ground.” Once I said to remember that part of “opening to grace” is settling and getting heavy, and we always do “open to grace” first, she was better able to understand how to refine her seat with pelvic loop. Instead of lifting her thighs and pelvic bones, she left her bones heavy and drew her muscles in to firm the buttocks, tone the pelvic floor muscles, and lift the belly to support up-rising energy in the spine, which gave her a sense of power and upliftment, even as she kept a feeling of being rooted to the earth.
3. Last week I wrote and taught about using “thigh loop” to get out of our own way, to choose actively to tip the longest bones in our body into the back plane of our body so that we have more range of movement, freedom, and flexibility in our pelvis and low back. Only after we have made the physical and energetic shift of thigh loop can we really tap into and affirm our own power. If we are still jutting forward (literally and metaphysically) then when we try to tap into power, we will just get more in our way. When we have gotten out of our own way and moved into the back body, then we can better find our power. We still start in the back body, but we affirm the spaciousness and freedom we have created and are able to find a place of empowerment and soar. For example, it is my experience that taking the thighs back and apart is a big part of what gets us into arm balances, but firming the buttocks and engaging the pelvic floor and lower belly muscles that keep us up and give us the ability to choose where to go once we get there.
4. Off the mat, it may be nice to get out of our own way, but then what? Shedding or moving what is blocking or inhibiting us is not for the purpose of having nothing, but so that we are then able to affirm the worth of our own being and find our own power so that we can be more joyous and more generous.
The mahabhutas are the grossest, most physical of the 36 tattvas described in Kashmir Shaivism. They are: prithivi — earth or solidity; ap (or jala) — water or liquidity, agni (or tejas) — fire or formativity; vayu — air; akasha — space. When we practice asana, we can focus our practice on discovering one of the elements in our bodies and how we move. As we get more skillful, we can choose which element seems out of balance and emphasize one or the other to bring ourselves more into balance. This week, for example, I have noticed that my mind has been scattered and distracted because of all of the excitement of the Inauguration. After being blown about by the cold and the wind and all the excitement, I had gotten to airy (which is my tendency anyway). It is a good time, therefore, to explore prithivi (earth) in my practice. By emphasizing a strong foundation coupled with the Anusara principle of muscular energy, I can literally bring myself to a more solid, stable, and grounded state.
We can work with the tattvas as described above, to realign our energies so that our physical and mental state is more balanced. We can also explore the more concrete tattvas as we embody them to understand better how they are manifestations of the subtler tattvas — the tattvas that the great yogis who have described them would call more real and we dwelling in our bodies and minds might think of as observably less real. Where we can best appreciate and experience the relationship between the gross and the subtle elements is in meditation, and our asana practice can help lead us there.
Look forward this week to working with the earth element in your bodies and minds, practicing strong standing poses and shaping your physical and energetic bodies like clay. Use your earth nature to sculpt the art of your intention.
For suggested readings see my earlier post on the tattvas.
is that sometimes I love this crazy country (and the Dome).
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
After I have been working and studying intensely, I sometimes find myself called to lie underneath the cats and read fiction. Just because it isn’t hard work, doesn’t mean I won’t find treasures that further my explorations. This bit, for example: “Then he felt his heart floating again, sunlit and serene, impossibly heavy, impossibly light; he felt the earth itself balanced on his outstretched finger.” Patricia A. McKillip, Alphabet of Thorn.
