Ok, I started doing this a few months ago, so I'll try and finish my posts about the different postures. Remember, these are just my experiences and data with the postures. If you have detailed questions ask your teachers!
Balancing Stick is "only" 10 seconds, but try timing it sometime and I bet you'll come up with more than 10 seconds. Some of my teachers like to joke that it's "10 Bikram Yoga seconds." For me, this posture is a great example of a posture that is much harder due to the sequence it's in. It comes after Standing Head to Knee and Standing Bow, which if you're working hard take a lot out of you. Especially if the room is hot, because you'll be nice and warm by the time you get to Balancing Stick.
First off, this is another posture where you have to put your hands above your head and interlock the fingers, palms flat. I feel like this doesn't get enough attention, as it provides a much better stretch if you get your palms flat against each other.
The second point is locking the knee. This often gets neglected (including by me) yet it's just as important in this posture as it is in Standing Head to Knee and Standing Bow. In fact, I've noticed that concentrating on locking the knee in this posture has helped me quite a bit in other postures where you have to lock the knee.
The other points of "T as in Tom" and "No broken umbrella" get hammered home pretty well by the dialogue, the key is maintain it for the whole time. This is one of the postures where you can't really see what you're doing too well, so it's nice if you can get someone to take a picture of you so you can see if you're a broken umbrella or not!
Next up...Standing Separate Leg Stretching.
Greg
When it's super hot and I'm dead tired I really do look like a sad soggy broken umbrella. :)
ReplyDeleteWhat is also essential is the straight spine. If it's bent, the posture is not done 100% correct. The locked arms, pulling forward and up, assists in keeping the spine straight. The more intense the stretch (opposing directions of the arms and the extended locked knee), the lighter the body feels.
ReplyDeleteForm comes before depth. I'd rather get my locked leg up 45º with a straight spine than go for a T with a bent spine.
This is absolutely my favorite posture to gape around the room in. I KNOW WE AREN'T SUPPOSED TO, but sometimes when I am super tired I sit it out and it is absolutely an eye opener. In no other posture, is it so apparent, that our bodies are so individually different. We are all the same in that we are trying, but the variety of broken umbrellas is so freaking cool. I love your posture discussions.
ReplyDeletethis is one of those postures I have to talk myself through. Cause my mind will tell me I'm tired and I can't make it through both sets. So there's quite a bit of self talk and focus often required to get me through.
ReplyDelete