I'd read 'push your hips forward' over and over again and wanted to shout "I'm trying, already". Your brain is telling your hips to move forward but nothing seems to happen, maybe it's something to do with having your head upside down.
I was over at Nappper's blog this morning, THE place to be for backbends at the moment, and came across this post. While talking about some backbend exercises she uses the expression 'come up from the hips first'. Well stop me if you've heard it already but for me this was something new, something I hadn't heard before, or perhaps I had but it's only now that I'm in a place where it resonates.
Come up at the hips first.... or start at the hips which is how I remembered it during practice this morning. Made a difference right away. 'Push your hips forward' is kind of jumping right in there, 'Start at the hips' is a little more gradual.....I don't know, it's softer somehow.
Not sure it shows up in the video but it felt smoother, almost effortless.
Before Paris I wrote about the disappearance of 2nd series dread and how I was almost afraid to take a day off Intermediate in case it came back. Well four days without a full practice while in Paris, Primary yesterday, this morning was my first 2nd series and am happy to say, dread free.
Back to the backbends, noticed this evening that the dropback comes into the first Vinyasa Krama Sequence 'On your feet', built around Tadasana. I'd forgotten, in the book the direction is to drop back with your hands close to your feet, so pretty deep back bending in VK.
10 comments:
great news on the dread free practice!, like the different wording too... there is so much inspiration going around in terms of how to verbalize the dropbacks, I am lucky to be living in these times :-)
Hi Grimmly. You are going to Ramaswami's TTC, right? I just conversed with Ricky Tran on Facebook. He says Ramaswami has an English translation of Krishnamacharya's Yoga Makaranda. Could you ask for a copy of it from him for yourself and me? I'd really love to have it! by the way I got both the "Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace" and the "Yoga Body" book as well, both are an interesting reading!
that's beautiful, Grimmly, your stomach looked so flat when your hands where on the floor, like forming a table. it seemed as if you were counting steps at the beginning when going from the wall to your dropback space. where you? it seemed like 5 steps.
i'll keep your comment in mind tomorrow - lifting from the pelvis first. my teacher seems to think my problem is tight shoulders in this asana practice. i'll check Napper's post too. have been traveling, so i have had no time to read the blogs till now.
cheers,
Arturo
Thanks Claudia, Arturo. Was so excited about how comfortable it felt coming up had to run and get the camera. Start at the hips is my new mantra.
Arturo, I like the idea of 'starting' at the hips.... that you come up there 'first'. That was the big difference for me. I find it difficult to actualize the 'push the hips forward' or 'lift the hips'. 'Starting' the work in that general area seems different somehow. it's as if the 'starting' comes before the lifting or pushing, a more general shift of attention or focus.....and then you move on to the pushing or lifting. Does that make sense I wonder?
Not sure how appropriate that would be GD, might be better to contact him directly via his FB fan page 'though he might prefer you to take the course so as to contextualize the material. My understanding is that it's a rough version, I'm not sure how it corresponds to the original text. I believe KYM are preparing a revised edition, heaven knows when it'll be made available though
Sorry arturo, it's three steps. Being so close to the wall seems to bring me down deeper. Think I might have got that from Boodie's Venki exercises.
Beautiful! Nice and soft. I can see the difference.
Start at the hips... then unfurl the spine.
It's interesting how an instruction can finally hit home when phrased a little differently.. you get something and go, 'oh that's what my teacher meant when she's been saying X to me all these months!' As a teacher I find it difficult to vary the ways of describing things, it's so easy to fall into our habitual ways of thinking/verbalising about them.... but I try.. Sometimes it seems like such a subtle little thing that makes the difference for someone, like here. I've experienced this many times myself!
Thanks Susan. One of the good things too about the international flavour of the blogosphere. Everyone exposed to different teachers with their different ways of explaining/teaching postures. The sequence might be the same (on the whole) as well as the general guidelines for approaching a posture but there are always these little differences. Contrast that with the Bikram approach where the dialogue is as fixed as the sequence, Been reading a Bikram blog about their TT and there's constant testing on the dialogue. I can see the argument for it, standardization and all that but I do like a degree of flexibility.
And then of course there's the non native speaker aspect, people explaining/expressing things in a second language, using it in a way a native speaker wouldn't dream of. Not always grammatically correct perhaps (whatever that means in the context of English) and yet sometimes almost poetic in it's capture of essence.
i like unfurl btw.
I nearly put UNFURL in caps :) Gives just the right feeling.
Thanks for linking to me over at the yoga brighton blog. I'm going to have to write something cheerier now for any new readers!
Have a good Sunday..
hi Grimmly,
I have continued to tune into your blog evergday - pretty much the first thing I do when I open my laptop - and benefit enormously from all your insights and experience. So firstly, thank you!
You may remember that I wrote to you several months ago having done my first drop back after poring over your videos...they are coming along pretty well althouhh my feet are a problem - way to wide and horribly splayed...but perhaps they're coming.
Hope you don't mind, but may i ask for some advice? Last Sunday I came up to stand from drop back for the first time (not quite sure what I'd been waiting for as I came up first time). However, I've done about three days of this now and I am finding the process incredbibly chaotic! I have to push with momentum after three rocks and coming up on the the third...but I either catapult forward at uncontrollable speed,or not come forward enough and nearly lose balance, or option three, my personal favourite (not) falling back hard on to my butt. Ow.
Know what to feel and where to focus on dropping back but don't know what I should be doing coming to stand. The only things my mind can process are push forward and with speed...cant feel either legs, bandhas, or feet really.
Any advice? I'm losing my nerve a bit!!!
many thanks,
KateR
Hi Kate, thats very kind of you to say that, thank you. I do remember your previous comment, it was on "Walking in Urdhva Dhanurasana 2, grazing the heel": back in November and you say your going to move on to trying to come up next. Took you six months, that's good going.
I suspect what's happening is that you were ready to come up, strong enough, deep enough UD etc and then all of a sudden the coordination came together and up you came. Trouble is it was unconscious and your not sure what you were coordinating with what. You can replicate it just but your shifting your focus from the rocking to the lifting, hips chin lower back... trying to find the key, what it was that made the difference. Doses that sound about right?
I don't think there is a key other than bringing everything together, getting the coordination right.
Actually, I take that back, I think there's often some missing piece and when someone tells you about it it seems to make all the difference and then you think that was the key thing, forgetting that you already had all these other pieces in place. Of course everyone gets different pieces at different times which is why we all think the essential ingredient/element/piece is something different.
So it sounds like you have all the pieces but just need to improve the control. I find the wall helps. I drop back and am close enough to the wall that when I come up, if I get it wrong i can tap up off it. That takes some of the pressure off/fear away allowing you to focus on control.
Eventually you wont need to rock back and forth but will be able to come straight up, that's only just happened for me now. The rocking is because your trying to get your hips forward, ( splayed feet does the same thing, I still have that ) as well as coordinate the lifting with the moment your hips get far enough forward.
So I'd focus on that, still use the rocking for now but try and make it smoother and focus on the hips/pelvis. use the wall at home for extra practice if you dont have use of one at the shala.
Look back too through some of my old dropback/ come up posts, some great comments and advice there. Good luck
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