Using Earth"s Energetic Force
The word "yoga" comes from the Sanskrit verb, yuj, to yoke or unite.
In absolute ignorance and at the behest of my osteopath I took up yoga for the well-being of my body which is prone to structural insanity.
Many forms of yoga exist but because it was closest to my office I chose an Iyengar yoga school.
Iyengar yoga focuses on the body, on strengthening it, lengthening muscles, and developing a finely detailed awareness of the musculature and skeletal structure.
Poses are named and we are directed by the teacher, body movement by body movement, how to achieve them.
When I do what is asked and utilise the correct muscles to achieve the pose, I'm appalled by how incorrectly I have been using my body.
No wonder I became so out of balance that I no longer wanted to get up on the roof, or to leap from the dock down on to a heaving boat deck.
More importantly, I see suddenly that it's possible to regain balance, and with it my strength.
Our teacher is like a drill sergeant.
Fortunately she has a great sense of humour.
We all attempt the poses.
We use aids such as ropes, belts, wooden blocks, blankets, chairs and bolsters to achieve poses without risk of injury and to allow us to eventually manage without the props.
I knew Yoga could be a convoluted form of physical origami but I had thought of it as a new age form of soft exercise.
Imagine my shock when we were directed into one pose which required absolutely no movement, but had us panting, and sweating, heart rate up, and red in the face within seconds.
This form of yoga utilises gravity, earth's natural energetic force, to achieve alignment.
If the body is not aligned, ankles under knees directly under hips, tail bone tucked into the body, spine extending upward away from the ground, then it fights gravity.
And this makes sense.
If we are on the planet by virtue of gravity then we must stand out at angles to the planet.
Like the spikes of a sea-egg, we point into space with our heads and cannot help but act as gravity (energy) conduits.
Just as electricity needs to be grounded, we also need to "ground" gravity through our feet.
We ground the gravitational current by standing squarely on the ground, with all four corners of each foot.
Just to get a feel for it, try this most basic Iyengar yoga pose, Standing Pose it's called, Tadasana.
You'll be surprised.
Stand in your bare feet hip-distance apart.
Feel the four corners of each foot, little-toe side, big-toe side, inner and outer heels.
This is the interesting part, feeling each individual corner of your foot, simultaneously.
It doesn't matter if you can't feel it...
visualise the four corners of each foot...
your imagination will activate the correct muscles.
Shoulders dropped, shoulder blades sliding towards your lower back.
Try to feel your tail-bone tucking in.
Knee caps lifting up towards your thighs.
It's a very active posture but because you use gravity to achieve it, once the correct muscles have strengthened, you don't tire.
Lift your toes from the base of the big toe, spread them out, and place them down again (adds enormous stability).
These are not large movements.
Most are tiny adjustments.
Fine tunings, to create alignment throughout the body.
With practice, and it doesn't take long, Tadasana results in the natural posture required to utilise rather than fight gravity.
If our feet are not square on the floor and we sag in sections of our bodies, the conduit becomes faulty and energy is either stopped or misdirected resulting, I'm guessing, in much of the illness on the planet today.
How many corners of your foot are normally on the floor? Apparently Westerners have a tendency to walk on the little-toe sides of their feet and Easterners on the big-toe side.
Iyengar Yoga strengthens your musculature, ligaments and tendons so that you become physically capable of experiencing and practising alignment and thus being fully on the planet.
It also tones the organs and the digestive, nervous, respiratory and circulatory systems.
It works from the premise that you require awareness of your body to have control over it.
Once awareness of the gross body is achieved, then awareness of the subtleties of the breath which oxygenates each cell can occur.
Then you can really start living! Iyengar Yoga is not about achieving the pose, but working towards achieving it.
There's a big difference.
Since I started, (about 3 months of it), I have not needed to visit an osteopath.
In absolute ignorance and at the behest of my osteopath I took up yoga for the well-being of my body which is prone to structural insanity.
Many forms of yoga exist but because it was closest to my office I chose an Iyengar yoga school.
Iyengar yoga focuses on the body, on strengthening it, lengthening muscles, and developing a finely detailed awareness of the musculature and skeletal structure.
Poses are named and we are directed by the teacher, body movement by body movement, how to achieve them.
When I do what is asked and utilise the correct muscles to achieve the pose, I'm appalled by how incorrectly I have been using my body.
No wonder I became so out of balance that I no longer wanted to get up on the roof, or to leap from the dock down on to a heaving boat deck.
More importantly, I see suddenly that it's possible to regain balance, and with it my strength.
Our teacher is like a drill sergeant.
Fortunately she has a great sense of humour.
We all attempt the poses.
We use aids such as ropes, belts, wooden blocks, blankets, chairs and bolsters to achieve poses without risk of injury and to allow us to eventually manage without the props.
I knew Yoga could be a convoluted form of physical origami but I had thought of it as a new age form of soft exercise.
Imagine my shock when we were directed into one pose which required absolutely no movement, but had us panting, and sweating, heart rate up, and red in the face within seconds.
This form of yoga utilises gravity, earth's natural energetic force, to achieve alignment.
If the body is not aligned, ankles under knees directly under hips, tail bone tucked into the body, spine extending upward away from the ground, then it fights gravity.
And this makes sense.
If we are on the planet by virtue of gravity then we must stand out at angles to the planet.
Like the spikes of a sea-egg, we point into space with our heads and cannot help but act as gravity (energy) conduits.
Just as electricity needs to be grounded, we also need to "ground" gravity through our feet.
We ground the gravitational current by standing squarely on the ground, with all four corners of each foot.
Just to get a feel for it, try this most basic Iyengar yoga pose, Standing Pose it's called, Tadasana.
You'll be surprised.
Stand in your bare feet hip-distance apart.
Feel the four corners of each foot, little-toe side, big-toe side, inner and outer heels.
This is the interesting part, feeling each individual corner of your foot, simultaneously.
It doesn't matter if you can't feel it...
visualise the four corners of each foot...
your imagination will activate the correct muscles.
Shoulders dropped, shoulder blades sliding towards your lower back.
Try to feel your tail-bone tucking in.
Knee caps lifting up towards your thighs.
It's a very active posture but because you use gravity to achieve it, once the correct muscles have strengthened, you don't tire.
Lift your toes from the base of the big toe, spread them out, and place them down again (adds enormous stability).
These are not large movements.
Most are tiny adjustments.
Fine tunings, to create alignment throughout the body.
With practice, and it doesn't take long, Tadasana results in the natural posture required to utilise rather than fight gravity.
If our feet are not square on the floor and we sag in sections of our bodies, the conduit becomes faulty and energy is either stopped or misdirected resulting, I'm guessing, in much of the illness on the planet today.
How many corners of your foot are normally on the floor? Apparently Westerners have a tendency to walk on the little-toe sides of their feet and Easterners on the big-toe side.
Iyengar Yoga strengthens your musculature, ligaments and tendons so that you become physically capable of experiencing and practising alignment and thus being fully on the planet.
It also tones the organs and the digestive, nervous, respiratory and circulatory systems.
It works from the premise that you require awareness of your body to have control over it.
Once awareness of the gross body is achieved, then awareness of the subtleties of the breath which oxygenates each cell can occur.
Then you can really start living! Iyengar Yoga is not about achieving the pose, but working towards achieving it.
There's a big difference.
Since I started, (about 3 months of it), I have not needed to visit an osteopath.