CHAPTER 3. Asana Chapter 3. Asana 1 Yoga on High © 200-hour Teacher Training Manual Asana Warm-ups Sanskrit English Level 1 Hugging the knees/extending the arms and legs All 2 Number four hip opener All 3 Supta Padangusthasana Nose to knee pose Level 1 4 Vyaghra Kriya Cat-cow / “tiger action” All 5 Arm up the wall Level 1 Parsva Urdhva 6 Hastasana Standing side bend with lifted arms All 7 Parighasana Gate Pose Level 1 Hugging the Knees/Extending the Arms and Legs • Ask students to lie on their backs on the floor with their knees bent and notice the breath— when they are inhaling and especially when they are exhaling. Have their hands rest on their bellies. • As they exhale, ask them to hug the right knee to the chest. As they inhale, have them lower the leg and rest the hands back on the floor. With the next exhalation have them hug the left knee to the chest and as they inhale have them lower it again. Ask them to continue in this same rhythm based on their own breathing pattern. • Once students have the rhythm, which generally takes several repetitions, ask them to reach the arms out overhead as they inhale and to extend the leg along the floor, if that is comfortable. Repeat this action, keeping the rhythm going for a while, so that students can find the different parts of the action. It is initially confusing to do any action in coordination with the breath. Offer verbal images of the knees squeeZing the breath out of the body or the body opening like a flower with the arms and legs extended so that the breath feels like it is being pulled inward. Orient the students in the room so that you can make directional references (stretch your arms toward the back wall, for example) and they can know whether or not they are moving their bodies correctly. Chapter 3. Asana 2 Yoga on High © 200-hour Teacher Training Manual Continuing the Practice • When the theme is the natural curve of the spine, have students discover what their backs are doing in each of the different stretches. When the knees are hugged, the back tends to round and flatten into the floor, and when the arms are over the head the back tends to arch. For someone in good health this is fine, but those with any back pain should try to keep the natural curves intact. • During the weeks when you are encouraging movement in the ribcage in breathing, direct students’ awareness to the ribs. • Have students notice if they tend to speed up or lose their focus of attention. • This is a great pose to learn to coordinate movement with the breath. Finding the natural rhythm of the breath and then moving with it is very different from hugging the knee and then remembering to exhale at the same time. Number Four Hip Opener • Start this pose the first week of class as everyone has tight hips and many people have sore backs. • Have students lie on their backs with the knees bent. Open the right leg toward the floor and then cross the right ankle over the left knee. (No matter what language is used, someone will be confused; demonstrate this action to get the crossover right.) The right ankle should be on the left leg with the foot off the leg. For some people this first part is enough of a stretch, though most people will be able to go further. • If students are comfortable ask them to knit the fingers behind the left knee and bring the leg toward the torso. For increased body awareness, ask them to notice all the places that they are tensing unnecessarily. The jaw, the belly, and the shoulders are always good places to mention. Ask them to find the location of greatest sensation in their bodies, and sometimes ask them to describe what it feels like. • To bring your students out of the pose ask them to return both feet to the floor. For students who are very tight in the hips and who cannot take hold of the left leg there are several things they can do to relax: • Give them a strap to put around the leg • Put the foot on a block and have them relax the arms on the floor. The height of the block is determined by the tightness of the hip. The tighter the hip, the lower the block. Continuing the Practice Ask students to notice and try these things: • Are they shifting to one side? (They always are.) Chapter 3. Asana 3 Yoga on High © 200-hour Teacher Training Manual • Are they rounding their backs? (They are.) The number 4 warm up is a good pose to use to focus on the natural curves of the spine. Ask students to lengthen into the natural curves of the spine a little. In order to do this they have to let go of the leg a little. • What is the difference between allowing an opening to occur, supported by the breath, and overworking the hip area, thereby creating tension? • Can students allow a little movement in the pose as the breath comes and goes? • Are they actually allowing the opening to be in the hip or are they overworking somewhere else, probably by moving the pelvis into posterior rotation, in order in order to avoid the hip opening. They are trying to relax very strong muscles. • Is there contentment (santosha) and non-violence (ahimsa) in the pose? • After students come out of the pose, have them observe the sensations in their bodies as they rest for several breaths. Heat? Relief? Tingling? Relaxation? How is the breath? Supta Padangusthasana (leg up pose) • Have students lie on the back. Those who prefer can have the knees bent and the feet flat on the floor. • With a strap in hand, on an exhalation bend the right knee and put the strap around the sole of the right foot. • Extend the leg up toward the ceiling with an angle between the leg and the floor of around 90 degrees. • Some students will be so tight in the leg and hip that the raised leg does not reach up to 90 degrees. Trying to get the leg in the air creates more upper body tension than is beneficial. One solution is to have students bend the knee of the up leg. • Straighten the arms without tensing them or hyper-extending the elbows. Keep the shoulders on the floor. Loop the strap around the hands once so that the hands do not have to grip. • Keep both buttocks on the floor and extend through the down leg with the toes pointing up toward the ceiling. • Relax the body, and then relax the leg a little more. Hold the pose about 30 to 60 seconds depending on your students’ capabilities. • Lower the leg and do the other side. • You might do each side again. • This pose allows the students to explore moving into sensations of discomfort (not pain!) with full awareness. As long as the breath can remain relatively calm they can continue to deepen the stretch into the hip area. Then they can invite the breath into the hip so that it relaxes into rather than resists the opening. • In this pose students can learn to stretch one area (the leg) fairly strongly without asking other body parts to work as well. Chapter 3. Asana 4 Yoga on High © 200-hour Teacher Training Manual Continuing the Practice • Watch for the natural curves of the spine. The side of the lifted leg is often flattened as the student strains to get the leg closer to the body. • Focus on keeping the rest of the body even on the floor instead of placing all attention on the leg that is stretching up. • Allow a little movement with the breath. • Keep the belly relaxed. • Let the top of the femur extend away from the torso. • This is a great pose to learn our tendencies—am I pulling vigorously on the leg, or am I so floppy that nothing is happening? • Feel any amount of opening in the hip by reaching the raised foot toward the ceiling while keeping the back of the hip on the floor. You can show the sock stretch here. (In order to stretch a sock, it is necessary to anchor one end of the sock and stretch the other end away from it. If you simply lift the whole sock toward the ceiling, there is no stretch.) • Like many of the other warm-ups that we teach, this one can be done lying on the floor or even in bed. If a student does not have a lot of energy for their practice they can still do something. • As students get more familiar with the pose you can ask them to feel the effect of internal and external rotation of the femur in the hip socket. This helps them to prepare for the standing poses and releases very tight muscles in the hip area. Say something like this: “As the leg is up in the air, supported by the strap, turn the leg in the hip socket so the toes point toward the front door (or whatever in the room gives them external rotation.) This is called external rotation. Now, rotate the leg in the other direction so that the toes point toward (whatever is internal rotation.) This is called internal rotation. Go back and forth between the two directions several times.” Explain that this movement helps to stimulate the flow of synovial fluid in the joint itself, which helps keep the hip “juicy.” Using the whole range of motion of a joint helps to keep it healthy.