The Yoga Blog

from a new teacher trainee, on the discussion of dharma

and i think a better translation of dharma than “duty” is “groove.”  not groove as in “rut,” but groove like on an LP: you’re the needle.  you move along the groove, music happens.  don’t travel in the groove, and you’re either just bouncing along the edge, around and around, or (if you’d been previously traveling along the groove for a while) making a horrific screech.  it’s binary, too: you can’t half-assedly follow the groove.  once you start on the track, you’re either in it making music or making a horrible noise.  and eventually you spiral into the center of the record.

This Week’s Pose: Adho Mukha Svanasana

I’ve struggled with adho mukha svanasana since I first practiced yoga in 2000. I’d get so nervous in the pose that my palms and feet would sweat, and I’d find myself slipping and sliding all over my mat. More recently, I’ve been working on bringing weight out of my arms to distribute it more evenly through my body.

In my drawing I show down dog the way I like to experience it—with weight balanced between hands and feet, a long torso, and a relaxed neck—so that the practitioner experiences the calm energy of this pose.

Adho Mukha Svanasana by Emily Sloat Shaw

A Yogic Approach to Facebook and Twitter

It’s the end of a long workday and my mind is reeling from 8 hours of e-mail, blogs, website updates, Facebook comments, and Twitter notifications. Many yogis avoid these communication channels like a plague—and with good reason. Without boundaries, technology can suck you into a torrent of distractions and reactivity.

But there’s also another side to technology. I first experienced it about a year ago when I watched Oprah and Eckhart Tolle’s webcast on A New Earth. As I watched, I could sense the enormous amount of people participating in the webcast. So many people were converging into one massive consciousness to talk about spirituality and truth.

Used wisely, social networking and technology have the potential to influence positive change and raise consciousness. That’s why boundless has entered the world of social networking. Please join us on Facebook and Twitter as we attempt to raise the consciousness of the DC metro area. Join the community, spread the word, and let our bits of wisdom (and occasional nonsense) infuse your online world with yoga.

This Week’s Pose: Uttanasana

Uttanasana by Emily Sloat Shaw

I’ve always enjoyed coming into uttanasana. My body moves naturally into forward folds. Bringing my head forward and down helps quiet my mind and senses. Like child’s pose, uttanasana’s effects vary depending on the practitioner’s intention. Uttanasana can be a short break between strenuous poses, an intense hamstring stretch, or a preparation for handstand when the torso and arms are extended towards the wall. By focusing on extending the front of the spine and opening the chest across the collarbones and from sternum to pubis, the pose becomes expansive as well as calming.

The Neck Bone’s Connected to the…Shoulder Blades?

On days that I get to lounge around the house, I like to flop upside-down over the arm of my couch and watch my legs float in the air. If I let them hover long enough, they come to rest in a bone-balancing-on-bone position and my muscles don’t have to work at all to hold my legs in the air.

Lately I’ve been looking for that same sensation in the way I hold my head on top of my spine. Especially when I’m concentrating on a task, I tend to jut my head forward, which makes the muscles in my neck work overtime to support my 10-pound noggin. Over time, that hurts.

In my search for balance, I found a particularly insightful article by Richard Rosen. He says that the root of the neck is between the lower tips of the shoulder blades. When I imagine holding my head from that point, I catch glimpses of the sensation I find so easily in my lower body when I’m upside-down on my couch. My head floats and an icy-hot feeling spreads up the back of my neck and the top part of my breastbone. That’s the sensation I get when a new area of my body wakes up.