SHOULDER SAVER - by Julie Gudmestad - Published in Yoga Journal, February 2008
Learning to engage and strengthen the rotator cuff muscles is crucial to preventing common shoulder injuries that plague yogis and non_yogis alike. If you know how to use these muscles the right way, your Down Dogs can help keep your shoulders strong and healthy for a lifetime.
The rotator cuff is one of the most important but widely misunderstood structures in the body. It gets damaged often enough that its name has become synonymous with injury. It's a group of four shoulder muscles that surround each shoulder—like a cuff. Boiled down to the essentials, its job is to support and position the ball that forms the head of the upper arm bone and fits in the socket of the shoulder joint. The shoulder is inherently an unstable joint, so building the strength of these supporting muscles is crucial. If they're weak or deconditioned, as is often the case, the shoulder is vulnerable to injury and pain, and the rotator cuff itself may tear.
You can remember the four rotator cuff muscles by the acronym SITS, for subscapularis, infraspinatus, teres minor, and supraspinatus. They all originate on the scapula (shoulder blade) and insert on the humerus (upper arm bone), near the humeral head (the ball that fits in the shoulder joint). The names of three of the muscles give you a clue to their location: subscapularis sits under the scapula, between the ribs and the front surface of the scapula. Supraspinatus sits above and infraspinatus sits below the spine of the scapula. You can feel them with your fingers: Touch one of your collarbones with the fingers of the opposite hand and slide the fingers straight up over the top of the shoulder. Then reach down the back about an inch or two; you'll find a ridge of bone that's more or less parallel to the ground. That is the spine of the scapula, which separates the supraspinatus and infraspinatus on the back surface of the scapula. The teres minor gives you no clues about its name; it just sits on the outer edge of the scapula, near the posterior fold of the armpit.
Shoulders 101
WHILE ALL FOUR MUSCLES work in concert to stabilize the shoulder, each muscle also helps support the shoulder individually. The subscapularis is a powerful internal rotator. Supraspinatus helps hold the ball up in its socket against the downward pull of gravity on the arm, and it initiates abduction, or lifting the arm up from your side, as in Virabhadrasana II (Warrior Pose II). Teres minor and infraspinatus are the primary muscles that control the external rotation of the shoulder. When they're strong and healthy, they help to protect the shoulder joint by positioning the ball in the socket while you raise your arm overhead. Conversely, their weakness can contribute to common shoulder problems such as shoulder impingement, tendinitis, and bursitis.
These important external rotators, infraspinatus and T. minor, are the part of the rotator cuff that is strengthened in Downward Dog. It's a good thing, too, because these days, the laborsaving products and devices we use make our arms and shoulders progressively weaker as the decades slip by. A weakened rotator cuff might lead to abnormal shoulder-movement patterns, which can contribute to inflammation and pain. Not only that, but weak muscles are likely to tear when you put a load on them that they aren't strong enough to handle. Sometimes the tears are microscopic and will heal on their own. But if the tears are bigger, a surgeon may have to sew the separated ends of the torn tissues together. Repairing a torn rotator cuff surgically, though, isn't a given: One doctor described the repair process as being like trying to sew up a run in a nylon stocking. The tissues of the atrophied muscles and their weakened tendons are just plain flimsy—liable to tear and difficult to repair.
So, a word to the wise: It's much easier to work your rotator cuff muscles, make them strong, and keep the tissues healthy than to have to see a physical therapist like me for shoulder treatment and rehabilitation or, worse still, to have to visit a surgeon. And it's in this way that your daily Downward Dog practice will really pay off—if, that is, you know how to engage infraspinatus and teres minor.
Right Rotation
PROPERLY ENGAGING THE EXTERNAL rotators takes some training. In fact, many students unknowingly let their shoulders slip into internal rotation in Downward Dog, leaving the external rotators lazy and inactive.
To get a feel for engaging the shoulder external rotators, stand facing a dining table or desk. Lean forward and place your hands on it, palms down and bearing a little weight. Now look at your elbows, noticing the crease on the inner sides and the point of the elbows on the outer sides. When you rotate your arms so that the elbow creases point forward, you will be externally rotating your shoulders. When you rotate in the opposite direction and the points of the elbows poke out to the sides, you will be internally rotating your shoulders. Play with this a bit by rotating in and out with this light amount of weight bearing, and you may even be able to feel the teres minor and infraspinatus contracting across the back of the shoulders as you turn the elbow creases forward.
Now go to your mat and do Down Dog. If you're a newer student or have tight shoulders, you may notice that they tend toward internal rotation, with the elbows sticking out to the sides and maybe even bent. Still in Dog, come forward a few inches toward Plank Pose and actively rotate the elbow creases relatively forward, so that they point toward your thumbs. Move back into Dog and try to keep some of this external rotation, though you'll have to give some of it up to fully open the shoulders. Maintaining some external rotation will keep the teres minor and infraspinatus contracting, and you'll probably notice more space opening up between your shoulder blades.
Once you've mastered keeping the external rotators engaged in Downward Dog, you can apply the action to more challenging poses such as Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Upward-Facing Dog Pose) and Chaturanga Dandasana (Four-Limbed Staff Pose). From Downward Dog, come forward into Plank Pose. Rotate the creases of your elbows forward and hold your elbows against your sides as you let down to Chaturanga, then glide forward into Upward-Facing Dog. As you actively turn your elbow creases forward in this pose, the external rotators will be contracting strongly, and you should notice that this action broadens and lifts your chest.
Now notice how this shoulder rotation affects the weight placement in your hands. If the shoulders internally rotate, more weight tends to fall onto the inner side of the hand—that is, the thumb and index finger; in external rotation, the weight falls more onto the little-finger side. Ideally, your weight should be evenly balanced between your inner and outer hand, so that as you externally rotate at the shoulder, you'll need to focus on actively pressing down on the base of the index finger and thumb. This action of the forearm and hand is called pronation.
Typically, pronation of the forearm and hand occurs when the arms are internally rotated. For example, as I sit at my keyboard right now, palms down, my elbow points are sticking out to the side, which shows how pronation is linked with internal rotation. But Downward and Upward Dog require us to break our usual patterns by linking active shoulder external rotation with pronation of the hand. As you practice connecting these opposites, perhaps you'll appreciate anew how yoga helps you to break your old, unconscious habits in every aspect of life—and replace them with healthy, conscious, and considered ways of living.
_______________________________________________________________________
A pose can have exquisite alignment and be balanced in its Action, but without a pure spiritual expression from the heart, it loses its power for deep inner transformation. A pure spiritual expression from the heart, it loses its power for deep inner transformation. A pure spiritual expression in a posture is an unfolding of the deepest qualities of the heart, such as love and joy, into the body and surrounding environment. These pure heart qualities make a posture sing with a beautiful inner music, which harmoniously joins into the grand symphony of life. This heart energy (pure attitude) is the key element that makes the practice of hatha yoga into a profoundly transformational art. A pure attitude during the performance of asana purifies the body and mind and lets the light of the heart freely shine out.
~John Friend~
Practice transforms us. We need to eat less, because we assimilate more and more and therefore there is a loss of unnecessary weight. We become more and more beautiful, our faces change and our walk gains in elasticity. Our way of standing is steady and poised, our legs are firmer, and our toes and feet spread out, giving us more stability. Our chests expand, the muscles of the abdomen start to work, the head is lighter on the neck (like the corolla of a flower on its stem moving easily with flexibility while the wind blows). To watch these enchanting changes is amazing. A different life begins and the body expresses a happiness never felt before. These are not just words it actually happens.
-Vandra Scaravelli, Awakening the Spine
Lila is the Sanskrit word for Divine Play, Life is about Infinite Play... Passion, Beauty, Creativity, Freedom & Joy in the Present Moment
Sublime teachings of Douglas Brooks
Tantra
* Tantra can be defined as "looming together weaving together." Tan - means "to stretch" or "to expand," while - tra means "to integrate." This definition of tantra can be used as a metaphor for discussing spiritual community. Each member of the kula might be seen as a thread, that when woven together becomes tapestry. Thread alone has very little function. It can even be lost or broken quire easily. The value of thread is found in its functioning together with other threads. Thread can be used to mend and it can be used to attach things together. When thread is woven into cloth, the cloth becomes infinitely more useful than a handful of single threads. It is the same for us within a sangha or community - we have the opportunity to be woven into a beautiful cloth. As we bring our individual skills to the group, the group becomes stronger and more functional for service. We, in turn, have function, purpose, strength and stability when bounded in such a way. This bounding creates a continuity of support even when we are not physically surrounded by the ones with whom we practice. This support becomes an internal sanctuary that backs us up and gives us strength to live in the world with values of a spiritual practitioner.
* Don't worry about being perfect. Step into your Beauty
* In your vulnerable moments you are held by the current, floating. In your empowered moments you swim with the current. In your ultimate moments you and the current are one. You don’t feel the difference between you and the current. That's Anusara.
* Kali says Stop asking what is not being offered, and to return to the realm of what is being offered.
* Truth is a plural narrative
* People aren't factual truths so much as what they can create as their narrative: people are the stories they tell about themselves and about others.
* When conditional love and unconditional love meet - that's intimacy
* the beauty of the Self is that it advances and progresses
* Shri is the unyoked potential of abundance, the certain prospect of creating value and maintaining worth, and the ultimate claim that hope will always fill the future with possibilities as yet undreamt.
* Receive it all and now you can step fully into it all.
* Certainty is more dangerous than ignorance.
Essence
The beauty of Anusara is that the essence is moving. The moving is essential.
Embracing that paradox is realizing that it wants to be mahadeva, the one who creates the world out of the choices that try to make the right choice. The optimal choice. While at the same time you have to defer. You have to give up to other peoples choices. Because you can become greater for that not lesser.
What do you want?
Learning to ask for what we want is at the very heart of a Tantric yogi. And if you can't know to ask for it you can't possibly know you can have it.
Nonduality
'Appa said, "you know what God says in the Bible?"
My ears all perk up. Because Appa talked about the bible like three times.
God said, "vengeance is mine".
And I said, "Appa why is that a good idea?
And he said, "Because it's not yours. Because it doesn't belong to anyone but god. In which case you don't get to have it."
So... I kinda like that, i thought OK i can live with that kind of god.
But what the tantra invites us to is the process of value that necessarily invites comparison.
Because there is no experience, the Tantrika says, that invites otherness.
Because one of the other things that the Tantrika's want to tell you about dualists is that if they are right there would be nothing we could do about it anyway.
So even if they are right we're not going to pay much attention to what they have to say because, swaha... i mean into the fire, gotta let go fo that. he's in charge - you're not. So... quit it. Get onto some other kind of yoga because even if that is your yoga the best you can do is stand up, sing, sit down and hope for the best.'
~~~~~~~~
Hanuman
When Hanuman rips open his heart Sita and Ram are already there.
He doesn't do it to hurt himself.
He does it to show you what could be in your heart if you are willing to open it.
How far are you willing to go?
That's all he wants to know.
~~D. Brks~~
Srividyalaya
Rajanaka QOTD (Dec. 29/11): We do not seek our freedom; freedom is our very nature. We seek to bind ourselves exquisitely, to hold and to be held in the very arms of Grace as she chooses to become us.
* Tantra can be defined as "looming together weaving together." Tan - means "to stretch" or "to expand," while - tra means "to integrate." This definition of tantra can be used as a metaphor for discussing spiritual community. Each member of the kula might be seen as a thread, that when woven together becomes tapestry. Thread alone has very little function. It can even be lost or broken quire easily. The value of thread is found in its functioning together with other threads. Thread can be used to mend and it can be used to attach things together. When thread is woven into cloth, the cloth becomes infinitely more useful than a handful of single threads. It is the same for us within a sangha or community - we have the opportunity to be woven into a beautiful cloth. As we bring our individual skills to the group, the group becomes stronger and more functional for service. We, in turn, have function, purpose, strength and stability when bounded in such a way. This bounding creates a continuity of support even when we are not physically surrounded by the ones with whom we practice. This support becomes an internal sanctuary that backs us up and gives us strength to live in the world with values of a spiritual practitioner.
* Don't worry about being perfect. Step into your Beauty
* In your vulnerable moments you are held by the current, floating. In your empowered moments you swim with the current. In your ultimate moments you and the current are one. You don’t feel the difference between you and the current. That's Anusara.
* Kali says Stop asking what is not being offered, and to return to the realm of what is being offered.
* Truth is a plural narrative
* People aren't factual truths so much as what they can create as their narrative: people are the stories they tell about themselves and about others.
* When conditional love and unconditional love meet - that's intimacy
* the beauty of the Self is that it advances and progresses
* Shri is the unyoked potential of abundance, the certain prospect of creating value and maintaining worth, and the ultimate claim that hope will always fill the future with possibilities as yet undreamt.
* Receive it all and now you can step fully into it all.
* Certainty is more dangerous than ignorance.
Essence
The beauty of Anusara is that the essence is moving. The moving is essential.
Embracing that paradox is realizing that it wants to be mahadeva, the one who creates the world out of the choices that try to make the right choice. The optimal choice. While at the same time you have to defer. You have to give up to other peoples choices. Because you can become greater for that not lesser.
What do you want?
Learning to ask for what we want is at the very heart of a Tantric yogi. And if you can't know to ask for it you can't possibly know you can have it.
Nonduality
'Appa said, "you know what God says in the Bible?"
My ears all perk up. Because Appa talked about the bible like three times.
God said, "vengeance is mine".
And I said, "Appa why is that a good idea?
And he said, "Because it's not yours. Because it doesn't belong to anyone but god. In which case you don't get to have it."
So... I kinda like that, i thought OK i can live with that kind of god.
But what the tantra invites us to is the process of value that necessarily invites comparison.
Because there is no experience, the Tantrika says, that invites otherness.
Because one of the other things that the Tantrika's want to tell you about dualists is that if they are right there would be nothing we could do about it anyway.
So even if they are right we're not going to pay much attention to what they have to say because, swaha... i mean into the fire, gotta let go fo that. he's in charge - you're not. So... quit it. Get onto some other kind of yoga because even if that is your yoga the best you can do is stand up, sing, sit down and hope for the best.'
~~~~~~~~
Hanuman
When Hanuman rips open his heart Sita and Ram are already there.
He doesn't do it to hurt himself.
He does it to show you what could be in your heart if you are willing to open it.
How far are you willing to go?
That's all he wants to know.
~~D. Brks~~
Srividyalaya
Rajanaka QOTD (Dec. 29/11): We do not seek our freedom; freedom is our very nature. We seek to bind ourselves exquisitely, to hold and to be held in the very arms of Grace as she chooses to become us.
Sleeping World
The Sleeping World functions according to laws of separation, competition, judgement, domination, submission and division. In terms of body image and self-esteem, the Sleeping World holds us hostage to ideals for the human body that are unrealistic, often unhealthy, and founded on a lack of respect for our essential worthiness or goodness. The diet industry, fitness industry, fashion industry, cosmetic industry, entertainment industry, and even the yoga industry, bombard us with images that narrowly define beauty, while setting an unrealistic value on its attainment. An inordinate amount of our time, money and mental, emotional and spiritual energy are spent in the pursuit of an essentially empty ideal. The Sleeping World is a big machine that functions to reinforce the myth of separateness, fear, and unworthiness, while convincing us that those meaningless pursuits will relieve our existential suffering. The machine tells us that the suffering we feel is due to the conditions such as our looks, our financial status and our psychology.
The Sleeping World hides from us the root cause our our suffering - our mistaken belief that we are separate from the Divine. With the true cause of our suffering hidden and our attention directed toward promised "cures" that actually only perpetuate our suffering, we stay forever trapped in a cycle of illusion and searching.
(from Yoga from the Inside Out - Christina Sell)
The Sleeping World hides from us the root cause our our suffering - our mistaken belief that we are separate from the Divine. With the true cause of our suffering hidden and our attention directed toward promised "cures" that actually only perpetuate our suffering, we stay forever trapped in a cycle of illusion and searching.
(from Yoga from the Inside Out - Christina Sell)
Om Namah Shivaya Gurave
This is a very ancient chant which encompasses some of the main, core teachings of yoga. It has been adopted by Anusara as it's primary invocation, chanted three times at the beginning of practice.
OM, OM, OM
OM Namah Shivaya Gurave
Satchitananda Murtaye
Nisprapancaya Shantaya
Niralambaya Tejase
OM
Meaning: (there can be many shades of meaning with sanskrit)
I bow to (Divine Consciousness) the true teacher within
I am pure awareness and at one with Source of all things
Forever expanding and fully peaceful
Depending on nothing else, I am radiant and powerful
When you hear the mantra Om Namah Shivaya being chanted, you can experience how natural and easy it is to chant the mantra, to be in the body of sound. It is so easy for the mind to relax and let go. You feel that you could continue chanting Om Namah Shivaya for hours. You have no desire to do anything else because chanting this mantra will purify you, will give you a meditation, will give you the experience of the Divine, will give you just about everything.
~S. Chidvilasanada
OM, OM, OM
OM Namah Shivaya Gurave
Satchitananda Murtaye
Nisprapancaya Shantaya
Niralambaya Tejase
OM
Meaning: (there can be many shades of meaning with sanskrit)
I bow to (Divine Consciousness) the true teacher within
I am pure awareness and at one with Source of all things
Forever expanding and fully peaceful
Depending on nothing else, I am radiant and powerful
When you hear the mantra Om Namah Shivaya being chanted, you can experience how natural and easy it is to chant the mantra, to be in the body of sound. It is so easy for the mind to relax and let go. You feel that you could continue chanting Om Namah Shivaya for hours. You have no desire to do anything else because chanting this mantra will purify you, will give you a meditation, will give you the experience of the Divine, will give you just about everything.
~S. Chidvilasanada
The Path of Discipline
Discipline gives total freedom;
it allows you to go beyond limitations,
to break through boundaries and reach the highest goal.
The path of discipline will not only save a person's life,
it will also give it meaning. How?
By intorducing him to deeper joys and deeper longings,
by creatinig a scilence in which
the whisper of the heart can be heard.
Truly, discipline is the road to liberation.
it allows you to go beyond limitations,
to break through boundaries and reach the highest goal.
The path of discipline will not only save a person's life,
it will also give it meaning. How?
By intorducing him to deeper joys and deeper longings,
by creatinig a scilence in which
the whisper of the heart can be heard.
Truly, discipline is the road to liberation.
When the mind is happy, it can experience the sunrise of supreme bliss shimmering in every particle of the universe. It can actually drink a fresh cup of joy every day and become insppired with new perception. It is willing to renew and love and respect with each dawn. It is ready to dive into the Great Void of liberation.
Tapas/tapasya (lit. heat) 1. Austerities. 2. The experience of heat that occurs during the process of practicing yoga. The heat is generated by friction between the senses and renunciation. It is said that this heat, called "the fire of yoga," burns up the impurities that lie between the seeker and the experience of the Truth.
On the list of niyamas is austerity, tapas, which literally means heat. This is the fire of yoga. First, it burns up the impurities in the body. Then it reveals itself as the great fire, the blazing light of the supreme Self. For a mediator, tapasya also includes accepting whatever happens as the best thing for your sadhana, and not being disturbed by any discomforts. inner and outer, that you may experience.
Austerity develops endurance, which is the backbone of yoga. In yoga, your need the power of endurance. Constantly enduring whatever happen, never falling apart. You should never give yourself a chance to fall apart because when you do, it becomes a tendency, and it happens over and over. Endurance is an invaluable quality that strengthens a mediator and helps him overcome the obstacles on the path. The path is strewn with many obstacles, so you can't let one obstacle stop you. You have many obstacles to overcome, so you must gain strength as you walk the path.
Even though at times you feel very tired and depleted, so tired that you feel you can't go on, even then, remember cleanliness, remember the purification that has already happened. Remember that austerity is good. It is the real fire that will burn the impurities and obstacles. Do not let yourself become completely exhausted. Without austerity, it is easy to give in to temptations and fall back on the indulgences that are so much a part of the lower self and the world of sense objects. So a yogi, a seeker, must always remember to ascent higher and higher. There should be nothing in the closet to revert to. Many people think if they put their bad habits in the closet, somehow no one will see them. Then, if they really want to indulge themselves, they can. But it's better to keep the closet clean.
Austerity has the power to mold a person into a sturdy vessel capable of holding the immense energy of yoga. This energy, this shakti, is very strong. In order to hold it, your need a strong body, a strong vessel. To sum it up, every part of your being profits from austerity, which curbs the appetites and purifies the will.
On the list of niyamas is austerity, tapas, which literally means heat. This is the fire of yoga. First, it burns up the impurities in the body. Then it reveals itself as the great fire, the blazing light of the supreme Self. For a mediator, tapasya also includes accepting whatever happens as the best thing for your sadhana, and not being disturbed by any discomforts. inner and outer, that you may experience.
Austerity develops endurance, which is the backbone of yoga. In yoga, your need the power of endurance. Constantly enduring whatever happen, never falling apart. You should never give yourself a chance to fall apart because when you do, it becomes a tendency, and it happens over and over. Endurance is an invaluable quality that strengthens a mediator and helps him overcome the obstacles on the path. The path is strewn with many obstacles, so you can't let one obstacle stop you. You have many obstacles to overcome, so you must gain strength as you walk the path.
Even though at times you feel very tired and depleted, so tired that you feel you can't go on, even then, remember cleanliness, remember the purification that has already happened. Remember that austerity is good. It is the real fire that will burn the impurities and obstacles. Do not let yourself become completely exhausted. Without austerity, it is easy to give in to temptations and fall back on the indulgences that are so much a part of the lower self and the world of sense objects. So a yogi, a seeker, must always remember to ascent higher and higher. There should be nothing in the closet to revert to. Many people think if they put their bad habits in the closet, somehow no one will see them. Then, if they really want to indulge themselves, they can. But it's better to keep the closet clean.
Austerity has the power to mold a person into a sturdy vessel capable of holding the immense energy of yoga. This energy, this shakti, is very strong. In order to hold it, your need a strong body, a strong vessel. To sum it up, every part of your being profits from austerity, which curbs the appetites and purifies the will.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)