Stoking the inner fire

Winter brings out the inner animal in many of us... I'm thinking grizzly bear. Not that we are (all) grouchy and irritable, though some of us get a little spiky when it's cold, but generally, that wish to hibernate, withdraw from the cold and just retreat inside, whether that's to the safety of the sofa, duvet, or pulling up our shoulders and huddling inwards in our personal space. When I look around at my students I see that last one so clearly and feel it in their tense upper back and neck muscles.

Tempting as it is to cuddle up in your cosy home when you get in from work, or stay in bed in the mornings, come stoke the inner fire (or agni) at a yoga class and you will walk out warmer, taller, more energetic and confident... and in fact more resistant to those winter bugs!  

Skeptical?
Using breath work and postures can stimulate the third chakra (or energy point), the solar plexus, which is our personal powerhouse and seat of confidence. While creating heat in the belly improves the digestion, which in turn strengthens the immune system.

Most of us humans (and bears probably) hold far too much tension in the belly — both physical and emotional, and releasing that can help not just with warming and energising the body but if you can release tension in the belly, your digestion improves and you can boost your immune system. In the Ayurveda system, a warm belly means a healthy gut and immune system and having a cold sluggish belly creates health problems.

Stimulating the prana, or energy in the belly, improves our moods, lifting anxiety, and depression. As one of my favourite yoga teachers, Bo Forbes, a clinical psychologist who mixes yoga with psychotherapy, explains in her courses, the "belly brain" or our enteric nervous system, holds 75% of our immunity. The system creates hormones, such as serotonin, which work to balance our moods. Most of us have noticed how being anxious, tense or upset, can cause stomach upsets and change our relationship with food, which in turn affects our health... 

So, where do we start? Put your hands on your belly. 
It is always good to start with some deep belly breathing, feeling the belly move into the hands on the inhale and soften towards the spine on the exhale. You can lie on your belly with a yoga brick lengthwise from just above the pubic bone to the lower belly, or over a folded blanket to focus your efforts. The light pressure increases the stimulation and gives greater feedback.* One you have got into an easy rhythm, you can add a gently mulha bandha, gently engaging the pelvic floor muscles (see my last post) and gently drawing in and up with the lower abdominal muscles, to activate uddiyana bandha.*

*Do not do this if you are pregnant or if it is the first few days of your monthly bleed, ladies. Stick with gentle breathing into the hands, and if there is a baby inside your belly, visualising the little bean and sending and receiving warm thoughts through your fingers and breath.

And, while your hands are on your belly, give yourself a belly massage. You can do this sitting up with a tall spine or lying on your back with your knees bent (still in bed is fine if you haven't made it out of the blankets yet!)
Gently massage the belly in circular movements moving clockwise to follow the direction on the large intestine. Belly massage is comforting, warming and great for wind and constipation, for babes and kids too. You can do this after your morning shower or bath using oil, too, and make it part of your morning ritual.

Let's hot things up — add breath of fire
Inhale through the nose and as you exhale strongly through the nose, draw the belly in and up, release on the inhalation. In breathe of fire you are trying to keep the inhale and the exhale even but short, so best avoided if you are asthmatic or suffer from breathing difficulties. As always, start very gently and slowly, and as you become more comfortable, increase the speed a little, keeping the same amount of power on inhale and exhale. Once you find your rhythm, you should be able to keep going for a few minutes without tension. Always observe your body and stop if you become breathless or your shoulders hunch! You can also add breathe of fire in dog pose during your sun salutations or posture practice. Breathe of fire is also known as bhastrika or breath of bellows, so the intention is to fan the inner heat, activating the navel centre.

Heating postures
Sun salutations are warming and energising, though some of you may want to start with gentle floor-based stretches on your back to ease tight psoas, hamstrings or lower back, and it's always good to add in a few rolling cats — on all fours — before you begin salutations, to ease the body into the day.

You can also add in heating breathwork during your asana practice (the postures).

Rolling cat
In Marjariasana, or cat posture, as you arch your spine towards the ceiling on your exhale, draw the lower belly in and up to stimulate uddiyana bandha (the body's upward lock) and draw the tailbone down. Sit back on your heels into child pose at the end of the exhalation, then draw your chest forward between your hands almost coming to cobra, on the inhalation — keep the belly lifted so you don't drop into the lower back! 

To take it further, arch the spine to the ceiling as you exhale, then at the end of the exhalation, draw the lower belly in and up to activate uddiyana bandha, and "on empty" tuck the toes under and lift the hips into downward facing dog (adho mukha svanasana). Your belly will disappear like an inverted bowl. When you need to inhale, come back to all fours and lengthen the spine (without dropping the belly!) Repeat 2 or 3 times.

Add in lunges — stepping forward with the right foot first, again to follow the workings of the digestive system, and add twists, remember to keep the spine long, with crown of the head reaching away from the tailbone, as you twist.

Boat pose with breath of fire 
Finally, as my ashtangis and vinyasa students know well, I love Navasana, the boat pose. You may want to sit to the front of a flat foam block if you have a pronounced coccyx or a bony bum! Engage your pelvic floor and stomach muscles and lengthen the back as you bend your knees and lift the feet and legs from the floor. Lift your chest and reach your arms out in front of you. Hold for a few breaths if you can. Keep your knees bent (and perhaps toes on the floor) if you have a weak core or if you feel it in your back. If you are fine, straighten your legs. And, if you want to really get the heat going, add in breath of fire here. No slouching, soft jaw and relaxed forehead, please. 

Breath and mudra
Finally, one of the mudras (symbolic hand positions) associated with restoring harmony in the inner powerhouse that is the manipura chakra is matangi mudra. To do it, sit with a long spine, bring your hands together and interlace the fingers, except the middle fingers. Extend the two middle fingers to touch. Hold your hands by your navel with the fingers pointing away from you, as you breathe in and out perhaps visualising the inner fire that you have created, burning brightly within. 

Matangi mudra - draw you hands towards your belly
as you breathe deeply into the belly

Warmer now?

Finding the master key

I love it when students ask questions in class. It rarely happens — other than when you are giving an individual assist or cue up-close. Kids do all the time and make comments when you teach them yoga. Youngsters are surprisingly intuitive and often ask why they should do something, where they might feel it or why so many poses have animal names. They love to communicate. But in flow and ashtanga classes, it’s a rare occurrence. Afterwards I'll always invite questions, but then the moment has passed.
Recently, I had a particularly intimate class setting during the improvements to the ashtanga studio at YogaHome when we were in a much smaller space, and it brought us all a little closer...


As students worked into Janu Sirsasana b, a seated forward bend where you are sitting on the heel (see below), I was reminding everyone that the heel presses gently into the perineum to encourage them to engage Mula Bandha, the "root lock", and one of my regulars looked up and asked "Should my heel press up my vagina?"

Mmm, not exactly... 

But great question. The short answer is the heel presses gentle into the perineum between the genitals and anus, encouraging a contraction of the pubococcygeus muscle (or PC) to be precise. However, it is hard to isolate the muscles of the pelvic floor at first. 

A little human geography lesson
The pelvic floor is not just one muscle but a hammock-like layer of muscles and connective tissues strung at the bottom of the pelvic girdle to support our organs. So how can we find mula bandha?

Pattabhi Jois (father of the ashtanga practice as we know it) was famed for saying: “squeeze the anus”, an instruction still given in some yoga traditions. While it's true, that action does put you in the right area and direction (drawing in and up from the pelvic floor), and for most students squeezing the anal sphincter will activate the right muscles too, it is far more subtle than that... as dealing with the body’s energy always is. Go ahead, as American yoga teachers like to say, and squeeze your anus right now, as if were about to break wind and of course you are too polite to let rip (and please remember not to in class). You can definitely feel a general lift in and up of the pelvic floor. Now you need to begin to refine your focus.

Location, Location

Bend in one knee, place hands flat
on the ground, lift up, slide
forwards and sit on your heel.

It is different for men and women. Women have three sets of pelvic floor muscles, the anal sphincter at the back known in yoga as ashwini mudra, the urethra at the front (sahajoli mudra) and the muscles around the cervix; men have two sets. Basically, the centre of the pelvic floor is the area we are concerned with here, the perineum located between the genitals and anus. So for men, contracting the perineum is to focus on the muscles between scrotum (genitals — vajroli mudra for men) and anus (ashwini mudra). As Swami Buddhananda says in his book, Moola Bandha the Master Key, "we are just not taught to do that in the way we are taught to isolate and use separate muscles of arms and legs. The pelvic muscles are mainly required for all subconscious and unconscious activity." This lack of conscious nervous control is why you will find it hard to pee and defecate at the same time… Yup, go ahead and try when you next need to!


Why do it? 
The pelvic floor has an important role in keeping sex organs of males and females healthy.
Any mum or pregnant woman will tell you that exercising the pelvic floor muscles should be done several times daily to counteract lasting effects of that downward push of the baby in pregnancy and childbirth and indeed of gravity. But slack pelvic floor muscles can lead to incontinence and sexual dysfunction for males too, and exercising the pelvic floor muscles is much easier and better for you than a prescription of viagra…
Just breathing properly puts pressure on your pelvic floor muscles since the diaphragm moves down as it contracts on the inhale to allow space for the lungs to fill. Regular rhythmic contractions of the pelvic floor will strengthen the muscles around your bladder, vagina or penis, but it has much more far reaching affects, according to some ancient texts such as the Gheranda Samhita, it can help destroy death and decay in the body, and thus hold back the signs of aging. It has even been linked with the expansion of consciousness.

Using mula bandha, or lifting the pelvic floor muscles, also supports and aligns the spine. Mulha means root and in yoga mula bandha is known as the root lock, the root being the base of the spine. Engaging it gently will also help to activate the lower belly muscles, initiating the lift of the next bandha the muscles at the lowest part of the belly or uddiyanah bandha (known as the flying upwards lock). Bandha is often described as a lock or bonding — bonding of movement with the breath and the awareness together, and thinking of it like this helps with understanding the more subtle side of the practice.

There are philosophical reasons for learning to control the pelvic floor muscles. Controlling your energy, being the most important. Prana is the upward energy and Apana the downward flow of energy. Simplistically, imagine a tube as the central channel running from your pelvic floor upwards.

According to ancient philosophies, one of the effects of mula bandha is to block the downward flow of consciousness which could lead to laziness, apathy and overindulgence, to name but a few slothful side affects of too much Apana in the body. So use of the bandhas or locks can be used to remove blockages in your energy channels, or perhaps just little kinks that prevent the natural and full flow of energy through the body.

While exploring the subtle side of the action, it's not a gripping in, but a gentle gathering, like pulling together the edges of a drawstring bag. Or sweeping in a mound of leaves... one of my favourite descriptions read somewhere. You shouldn't tense your shoulders or pull odd faces as you practice mula bandha. But I can't actually tell you what it should feel like in your body — especially if you are male, as I am not! Everyone should feel that for themselves, that is after all that is what yoga is about, becoming aware of different parts of the body, and learning to deal with discomfort, breathing through it and seeing how that makes you feel emotionally, rather than just a physical level.

Anyway, now we are back into the newly decorated, designated upstairs studio at YogaHome, or indeed in any of my classes, please feel free to ask that burning question. Just throw it out there... chances are someone else is wondering the same thing too!

Janu Sirsasana B: Smiling (though not laughing

manically) helps to relax the pelvic floor muscles, so
the right amount of pressure can be applied.

Sweet and sweaty

This (probably shortlived) heatwave we are experiencing, has been the perfect opportunity to experiment with how heat, and indeed sweat, affects your practice — and your emotions while practising. It's also been a reminder of which poses are easier to achieve and more comfortable while hot and sweaty — binds, many backbends and especially kukkutasana from Ashtanga primary -— the lifted lotus pose. Here, wearing shorts with slippery, yes sweaty legs, facilitates sliding the arms between the thighs and calves so you can press hands firmly into the ground and lift up away from the floor. 

In an exceptionally sweaty ashtanga class yesterday evening, my students were amazed to discover that some could achieve elusive postures they had never managed before.... and crucially they were also trying less hard! They were so hot, they had relaxed and found their movements took on a naturally flowing element... while water flowed from them!

Some of the balances were far harder to achieve however as slippery shins slipped off upper arms, as in eka pada galavasana and bakasana (crane pose) see below. And toes were harder to hold in binds, so belts came in very handy!

The other flip side is the tiredness which comes with practising in very hot conditions, and the possibility of irritation creeping in...  That's when staying mindful of your body and knowing when to back off and slow down, and when to use the heat is essential.

It is helpful to include rounds of the unpleasant sounding sitali breath ('s' is generally pronounced as a 'sh' in sanskrit),  otherwise known as cooling breath. Roll your tongue into a narrow straw shape (if you can, if not, draw your lips together to making a little circle as if you're sucking in through a straw).

Then, breathe in through the rolled-up tongue or pursed lips for 5 or 6 counts, hold the breath to savour the cooling air for just a second or two and exhale calmly and slowly through the nose. Repeat a few times to stay calm and cool headed. It also works when you are hot and flustered in the office, with your kids ... on the tube ;)

When practising yoga in the heat, it is also lovely to slow down your movements, visualise yourself moving through water as you take your vinyasas and focus on the calming, cooling breath. Mind over matter. But staying grounded by really using your feet and constantly coming back to feeling the sensation of the Earth beneath you and the space around you is essential to prevent feeling spaced-out and light-headed. Try it.

Personally I love to sweat when practising... not in a "hot yoga" studio I should add, but through the exertions of doing the yoga. It feels so good afterwards.

Enjoy the sun and your holidays and remember to keep practising when you are away... whether on the beach, a field, back garden, balcony... the more relaxed you are, the better!

Kukkutasana

Sitali breath

Kukkutasana and sitali breathing, courtesy of http://www.yogatrail.com/yoga-poses

What is it with the moon?

Friday 13th and a full moon — the omens were surely there! Halfway through the day one of my students emailed to say how sad she was to hear that a studio where I teach — and have been a member for many years—was shutting. Immediately. She’d really miss the classes. What a shock — I was reeling and sad because I will miss my friends and wonderful students so much, and also because no one had bothered to inform the freelancers working there, including me. Wow! Not sure if it was the news that may me feel so ungrounded. Or was it the full moon?

What is it about the full moon anyway? Some people find themselves full of boundless energy, others feel a little unbalanced, and others just heavy! Some people don’t notice anything at all. Maybe that’s because they are not used to closely watching their body? In the Ashtanga tradition, students don’t practice on the days of full moons or new moons. It’s a time to rest and observe the changes in the subtle energy in the body. What! Yes, I know… I was one of those yogis who’d turn up to my usual class and sigh heavily when told we would be doing a gentle yin practice instead of the full monty (aka the primary or secondary series)… Other students would roll their eyes with disgust when the poor teacher suggested we got bolsters and lay on our mats! Now I love the change of pace and chance to transform my body through passive release. (Though when I suggest a gentle approach in my classes on Moon days I am still met with fair few grimaces!)

Is there a reason for it? There’s a theory that because we yogis are just like other human people (in some respects!) we’re made up of 65 to 75 percent water, so the moon can have a gravitational affect on us, as it does with tides… so our energy peaks and wanes. The jury’s out on that one, but it is a nice connection to nature and a nice way to think about the peaks and dips in our energy levels.

I have a feeling I will be doing a few more days of grounding, calming practices before things get back to normal… 

Playing catch up

Who’s feeling frazzled? Is it just me or does time jump through some hyperdrive barrier and speed up as the end of the year approaches? There’s all that racing to get things done.. finish work before holidays, get pressies, see family and friends, fit in parties, and of course yoga! That’s even more important when life gets frenetic.

I am lucky to practice and teach different styles of yoga and notice the different affects on students—and myself. In fact I am just lucky to do yoga!

In ashtanga, and vinyasa flow classes—where us yoga teachers string together a sequence of postures to work on a particular theme—the breath is especially important to help the movements feel flowing and gentle no matter what postures are put into the mix.

Sometimes, especially in ashtanga, where you practice a similar sequence most sessions, it can be tempting to just switch off and you can get half way through your practice without realising what postures you have done! That’s cool if you are really lost in the breath, meditating on the inhales and exhales. It clears the mind and the practice becomes a kind of moving meditation and that’s what’s intended. But have you ever found yourself doing it almost on auto pilot? Taking that same 'I’m going to get this done’ approach to yoga as you do to shopping, and clearing the work load, or say cleaning! And maybe (gulp!) thinking about all these things while practicing, or worse while in Savasana! (Yup, I’ve spotted the occasional flickering expressions and frown lines creeping up while students are supposedly relaxing.) Sound familiar? If so, just watch and bring yourself back to the breath and the moment.   

Yoga is great for creating space in the body and the mind, almost a chance to step off the wheel for a  while. It can get us to focus, to be present in the moment, concentrating on the ebb and flow of the breath washing waves of calmness over us. And if you try some restorative postures in your yoga mix, you give the body and the mind time to unwind and release a little more. As long as you indulge yourself and get the right props so you are comfortable enough to just settle and be. OK, I’m ready to retreat from the treadmill and switch off with some supported forward bends over bolsters and blocks… and then I might just be ready to party at the weekend!

Don’t forget your yoga in the festivities!