I came across a comment on a blog post here extolling the virtues of lunges in relation to Kapotasana. Seemed an interesting idea especially as I'm looking at ways to keep my legs straighter and hips more froward at the moment.
Nutating the sacrum has helped (nodding it forward), so too has relaxing the glutes and spreading the hip bones but while that seems to create more space for bending backwards it seems to make it harder to keep my hips forward. So if you can't use your glutes to get your hips/pelvis forward (because your relaxing them to open the sit bones) you have to look elsewhere.
I'd figured working on my Quads might help, sometimes I poke them very roughly before kapo to remind me to employ them more, and the lunge of course works them, but it also works the groin. Ahhhh the groin, never heard anyone talk about Kapo and the groin before this week. In the same comment linked to above, the writer mentions that Tim Miller employs groin stretches in his intro to Intermediate class, interesting no?
So in the video below I try adding a lunge each side between Laghu Vajrasana and Kapo. It seems to have some effect, I'm thinking of adding some more asanas this morning from the Vinyasa Krama Hanumanasana sub routine (which I usually slot in after the parasitas ) and see what effect that has.
You can see from the hesitation in the video that I'm still working out how I want to employ the lunge. I'm also coming back to standing because I'm still on the full vinyasa trip. The kapo felt comfortable so I did another one. There's a quick cut between them there as I have a bit of a cough and didn't want to subject you to it.
Backbends and a bit of a cough to not make ideal bedfellows.
My day off today so I can do an extended practice, seem to have got back into backbends at the moment and want to have another look at tick tocks. Plus, I haven't had a chance 'till now to get stuck into Tim Miller's Pranayama routine (kind of fond of my own though) so want to work through that, Same goes for chanting, been doing five minutes or so all week but want to get back to chanting the Yoga Sutras, surprising myself how much I'm enjoying that. Throw a forty minute sit or two into the mix and a fish finger sandwich and that's pretty much the day gone.
4 comments:
Hi grimmly,
I hope you don't see it as critizising. I can also be wrong. I was told to keep the elbows close the body when I do chaturanga dandasana. I see that your elbows point outwards, many do this so, perhaps never the attention was drawn to it. Just an idea.
And of course your kapo is great...
Constructive criticism is always welcome Ursula. You're right I do let my elbows drift out , don't I. Bad habit, good thing about Full Vinyasa though is that I do so many of the buggers that i should be able to break the habit pretty quickly. i'll stick a sign on the wall saying keep your elbows in. If you see me do it again, tell me off. I think I have a tendency to do it in Nakrasana, think somebody mentioned it then.
If you think that kapo is good wait till you see this afternoons post, just did my best yet, all thanks to boodiba's video.
I have been taught to allow the elbows go out a bit as the priority is to keep the shoulders up and back, not pointing down towards the ground. A good explanation from yoga+joyful living march - april 2008:
"Feel the muscles under and around your shoulder blades working to draw your shoulder blades firmly onto your back like magnets. These are the muscles that hold the shoulder blades in place, to complement the pushing action of the pectorals and triceps. If you disengage these muscles, your shoulders will immediately drop forward."
Good photos at end of article.
thanks for that elle. I think I do probably let my elbows stray out too far but I'm not comfortable keeping too close to the body, perhaps for the reason you point out. maybe the key phrase is 'a bit' i probably let them go out to far.
thanks for commenting on this, appreciate it.
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