Todd Caldecott interviews Alix and talks about the feet. Click the link for a 6 minute look at some simple foot exercises.

If you have been curious to start some simple daily/weekly cleansing techniques, here’s one that can serve you well. A pretty thorough look at Neti nasal cleansing. Try it out, neti pots are easily found nowadays. http://www.falconblanco.com/health/neti.htm

A good read by Judith Lasater on understanding how the Sacrum works, how to possibly heal any instability there and primarily, HOW TO PREVENT these problems from occurring in the first place. http://www.yogajournal.com/health/562

And if you are uncertain of where your sacrum is, how it connects to the pelvis, where your pelvic floor is and all that other stuff. Here’s a link to a page that will show you all of that stuff. It is pretty dry reading, well even the pictures are dry and uninspiring, but that’s not the point. Read and learn. http://home.comcast.net/~wnor/pelvis.htmhttp://home.comcast.net/~wnor/pelvis.htm

For all you people wanting to find and connect to the PF, (that’s pelvic floor for those in the know:-) check out whatkatysays.com it is such a valuable resource and has tons of great info on how to properly find things. How to use them and not abuse them. Here’s a link to a great one, using the typical yoga cat/cow position. http://www.katysays.com/2010/06/22/what-a-waist/

And, for those who keep wondering “where is my psoas, and what does it do for me?” Check out Liz Koch. She really rocks. http://www.coreawareness.com/articles/boxsquat/

Yoga and finding Expansion. 
by Kreg Weiss of www.myyogaonline.com

The function of our hatha yoga practice is to generate physical expansion and to facilitate circulation of positive energy with the end result being balance. This physical balance is then meant to deliver support for the mind and soul to experience balance and harmony as well. All too often, the Ego sneaks in during our Hatha yoga class and the intention of expansion becomes diluted with goals leading to postures that are driving damage and strain into tissues. By taking time before our practice to center and to experience the sensation of holistic, non-judging expansion, we offer our practice a foundation to grow from.

This centering exercise can be done any time of the day and is even beneficial when you need a break from working at a desk/computer:

*Come to comfortable sitting on a cushion or chair. Modify the legs so that your knees and ankles are very free to settle and release. Gently shift through your pelvis and clearly feel the rocking motion on the sitbones. Slowly decrease this motion until you find the center of the sit bones. The pelvis sets the framework for the rest of the spine and posture.

*With your pelvis balanced, notice how the belly and lower back retain equal expansion. The belly is long, but the lower back is not caved in nor belly pushed out. The lower back has length as well, but not generating a forward collapse into the organs. Equal space for balanced flow of energy.

*The natural, healthy curve of the lower (lumbar) spine now can be easily transmitted up into the remaining spinal curves. At this point, many people tend to drive muscular tension into the body to generate a lifting motion. To stay free, imagine your sit bones lightly sinking into the cushion/chair. This light anchoring or rooting allows the body to traction open. Keeping the front bottom ribs slightly contained, visualize two points: on the chest and directly behind on the upper back. Feel that these 2 points rise up at the same time without any tension or muscular contraction involved. With each additional lift through gravity  reciprocate with tissue release and softness. Feel as though the mid section of the body spreads vertically – keep your sit bone anchors intact.

*Now transmit this lightness further up through the top of the head. Play with the head position. Make subtle shifts back, forward, side to side until you find that the back of your neck is no longer required to hold up the weight of the skull.

*With this tension-free vertical expansion in place, keep breathing deep into the belly and bottom ribs. Explore how the vertical openness can be expressed in other directions.

*Fully relax the shoulders and arms. Elongate the neck and the upper shoulder muscles. Invite in horizontal expansion – feel that you can open the chest and collar bones while also opening the upper back – lower ribs still contained and lower torso balanced. Your body now opening right and left. Every adjustment feeling minute in motion, but profound in effect.

*The horizontal space can easily be brought into the forehead, especially between the eyebrows. Dissolve the vast number of muscles in the face: in and around the eyes, soften the cheeks and lips, relax the tongue, and become free all through the jaw and into the throat.

With all these expanding adjustments, the nervous system becomes more and more receptive to balance. When you find yourself sitting and collapsing, mind cluttering with negative energy, stop and find your physical space and bring this into the mind. Take the extra few minutes before each Yoga class to center and observe your capacity to expand without effort. Then invite this effortless quality into every pose. We often believe that we have to ‘push’ the body in order to progress. This Ego driven intention gets us nowhere. Consider running – you can easily see the difference between an experienced, high performance runner who moves with control, fluidity, and expansion versus another that runs with compression, tension and struggle. Who is receiving the benefits more readily?

Observe your yoga practice – from beginning to end – does each pose regardless if it is a forward bend, back arch, side stretch etc, bring the quality of space? Does your posture facilitate wellness beyond the physical? In order to bring forth balance and openness, we need to expand equally in all directions. If only one part of the body expands, another may be closing to compensate. Enjoy feeding reciprocating lines of gentle pulling into the physical tissues and feel the grace of space cascade throughout the rest of the practice and living. Notice how every yoga posture can integrate the qualities of your initial centering.

Breathe and Expand

Namaste,
Kreg Weiss

Subtle Rooting in Warrior Yoga Pose

Courtesy Kreg Weiss, http://www.MyYogaOnline.com

Our Warrior Yoga poses bring warmth, strength, and expansion into our yoga flows. These standing asanas offer higher levels of physicality, thus requiring fine-tuning and continuous attention to detail in order for these poses to deliver maximum benefits. Besides our requirement for proper alignment and energy locks, we can also apply subtle rooting effects to further improve the reception of benefits from Warrior poses.

Once we have properly aligned our lower limbs and have positioned the front knee over the heel (perpendicular line to act harmoniously with gravity), we can explore light variations of what can be termed rajastic rooting. In Ayurvedic philosophy, we strive to move into a sattvic state-an existence of calmness and harmony. Rajastic states are typically considered to be disturbing one from the existence of harmony-unfocussed states of creating heat. In the context of our subtle rooting, this rajastic rooting will be done so with mindful control, which will facilitate a sattvic state in later stages of the yoga practice.

As our heel floats over the knee in our Warrior pose, we can discernibly feel the effects of gravity. The quadriceps (thigh) and gluteal (buttock) muscles contract to hold the lower limbs in place. The longer we hold the pose, the more we develop our endurance in the muscle tissues. When the knee is taken into this flexed position against gravity, sheer forces act directly on the knee joint. If we start off the pose or collapse the pose so that knee drifts over the heel, the angle of knee flexion increases and the sheer forces increase in the joint structure. Over repeated applications of misalignment, the sheer forces may generate chronic injuries in the knee.

Rajastic rooting through the foot can help reduce the effects of sheer forces on the knee. We can feel the various pressure points coming into our feet-the toes, toes mounds, and heel. With controlled rajastic rooting, we wish to lightly feed down through the contact points with the intention of lightly pressing the earth away from us. As with the laws of physics, the earth reciprocates and presses back. This energetic pressure can be received up the body through to the crown. This energetic lift helps emphasis expansion in the pose, creates lightness, shifts us away from collapse and increases our endurance capacity.

More importantly, the rajastic rooting protects the knee. But in order for the knee to receive the full benefits of the rooting, we should be aware of exactly how and what the foot should be experiencing. It is very common for yoga practitioners to allow Warrior poses to ground into the toes-generally manifested as grabbing of the toes into the mat. This effect of grabbing creates tension in the arches of the foot and can often encourage the knee to collapse forward. Therefore, we strive to relax the toes, bring lightness into the arches, and to avoid rajastic rooting with the toes.

The ideal contact point to explore rajastic rooting is in the heel. With subtle pressure, we can ground down through the heel point while visualizing the knee floating back over the heel line. Many often feel a shift of energy out of the knee joint and into the quadriceps (thigh) muscle. The muscle takes better control of the standing pose and we experience less sheer forces in the joint. As we work through the heel, we continue to emphasis expansion in the foot, right down through the toe mounds and toes. This lightness, again, flows up through the vertebrae and often is received into face.

As we increase the depth of our Warrior poses, we continue to apply this rooting principle along with our protective core locks. The posture retains integrity and purpose. We can also appreciate how this rajastic rooting can be taken into other standing yoga poses like Chair Pose (utkatasana) and Crescent Moon Pose. Exploring and enjoying new techniques like rajastic rooting brings growth to our practice and encourages holistic progression.