I’ve played soccer most of my life, until last fall. My game has been dormant for about six months, probably more. In the meantime I’ve been exploring yoga. Last night I played, and the game went well. I applied stretching techniques from yoga to my preparation, andI felt great. I used pigeon and crane poses to prepare and open my hips.
My favorite pose for soccer preparation is the standing split, similar to airplane pose but with hands on my ankle. This allows an active stretching of my hamstrings, and activate other important muscle areas like my sacrum and calf areas. My theory around the active stretching is that it heats the muscles, and gives them a nice space to work in, but doesn’t leave them slack like passive (ie, classic…like toe touching) stretching.
Anyways, I felt great, played better than I could have hoped for the time off. But I unfortunately got a minor ankle sprain stepping across my body wrong…I guess I should add that area into my routine. I think it’ll heal quickly and I can play some more. In the meantime, I’ll be riding my bike and keeping up on yoga.
This is a pretty unique sequence. While some heroes like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan are nice to aspire to, I can’t imagine wanting to be like this dude. The ways he folds are amazing, but a bit painful looking.
I’ve been dealing with some aggravating injuries to my lowback, and for awhile I think my yoga practice was hurting rather than helping the situation. My hamstrings are very tight, and throughout my sports days, as I’ve discovered, I was stretching improperly.
Part of the problem was simply in the way I approached the forward fold (what I previously called “toe touches”). My goal was to get my fingertips to the earth in any way possible. I’d bend down, sink into my hips, grab onto my calves, and pull. The stretch would progress from my hamstrings up to my lower back. I’d feel it, and I’d pull. And eventually I’d touch my toes and beyond.
So, what’s wrong with this approach? It turns out that the back doesn’t like being stretched in this manner. There are all sorts of connectors and flexors with fancy names back there that prefer to be gently opened to wrenching. I could get away with this in my youth, but now it’s not so cool.
To improve my flexibility in forward folds, I’ve eliminated the “toe touch” perspective. Instead it’s a matter of lengthing the space between the backs of my knees and my gluteals. To do so, as I swan dive down (exhaling) into the fold, and find my easy limit. Not much stretch, and nothing in the lowback. Then I inhale to a halfway lift (which for me isn’t much different than looking up a bit). I tilt my tailbone upwards as much as possible, a motion that is nearly imperceptible, yet very significant. Then inhaling, I again go into the fold, bending my knees as much as necessary while focusing on the upward tailbone tilt. I’ll play around with the knee bend and amount fold to find a maximum stretch where I can feel a strong stretch in my hammies, and pretty much nothing in my low back except my breath.
I don’t make it as far, but it’s feeling a lot better, and I can really find some opening.
Yoga is tough for me. I feel like I’m in a constant battle against my body to attain certain positions. I know that this is wrong, and I try to relax and not force. Learning to use my breath has been the greatest tool in avoiding this battle. Attaining some approximation of the position, finding focus, and maintaining my breath.
Folding forward from staff pose is a great example of this. When I began my practice, staff pose (what I then though of as sitting straight up with extended legs parallel) was nearly impossible for me. I would hunch over, my hip flexors straining, shoulder muscles tense trying to levitate my upper body. But as I progressed through my practice, I found it easier to sit upright. I began to apply my breath, breathing into my hamstrings, hips, and low back. Holding the position with several breaths before attempting a fold on an exhale, lowering, holding the exhale, and attempting to find more space each inhale.
As I do this, my instinct is to battle myself. To reach forward and grab my feet, to out-muscle my muscles, stretching and pulling willfully to advance to where I think I should be. But now I seek my breath, and try to help my self-battle be a guide instead.
I still struggle with some of the simplest poses, finishing a session a sweaty mess, but I am seeking peace. And breath is making that possible.
Did some winter camping last weekend with some buddies and had the opportunity to share my practice with one of them in a breathtaking location. The Opal Creek wilderness area is not far from Portland, to the Southeast. We camped above the north fork of the Little Santiam River. While most of the weekend was mayhem a la dude weekend, Chris and I took some time Saturday morning to find our respective centers, stretch out, and release some of the previous evening’s toxins.
Our morning session was basically some sun salutations with a few twists and balances, closing with pigeon, but we skipped the rest because the mossy hill was steaming with humidity. We followed the yoga up with a short but steep hike down to the beautifully clear river where Chris flyfished and I took some pictures.
From an interview in the Sunday Times with Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan, his ten top life tips. Pretty interesting perspectives, and the interview itself is fascinating.
Scepticism is effortful and costly. It is better to be sceptical about matters of large consequences, and be imperfect, foolish and human in the small and the aesthetic.
Go to parties. You can’t even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia, send colleagues.
It’s not a good idea to take a forecast from someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease people who take themselves and their knowledge too seriously.
Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act — if you can’t control outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will always have the last word.
Don’t disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time. We don’t understand their logic. Don’t pollute the planet. Leave it the way we found it, regardless of scientific ‘evidence’.
Learn to fail with pride — and do so fast and cleanly. Maximise trial and error — by mastering the error part.
Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words ‘impossible’, ‘never’, ‘too difficult’ too often, drop him or her from your social network. Never take ‘no’ for an answer (conversely, take most ‘yeses’ as ‘most probably’).
Don’t read newspapers for the news (just for the gossip and, of course, profiles of authors). The best filter to know if the news matters is if you hear it in cafes, restaurants… or (again) parties.
Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel or a private jet.
Answer e-mails from junior people before more senior ones. Junior people have further to go and tend to remember who slighted them.
Individually, I don’t think any one is earth-shattering, but together they build a unique perspective. I think I’ll be rolling this around in my head for awhile.
After a long snowshoe trek yesterday on the north side of Mt. Hood, I was feeling pretty beat, my legs were worked over, and just generally body tired. My mind was racing pretty quick, and I needed a nice center, so thought I’d browse around for an evening practice to do at home.
I quickly came across moon salutations (Chandra Namaskar). These are apparently a Hatha-based series of poses intended to bring center and relaxation to the body. I found an audio product called Moon Salutations Flow #1 by Lisa Richards and purchased it for $2.95. The simple flow was not too different from a light sun salutation series, with an emphasis on opening up the backside, and was very nice for finding center.
Note to self: turn off randomizer in iTunes next time. The White Stripes are a bit abrupt at the close of relaxation.
I am curious what other options there are for recommended evening yoga. Something simple to tie my day together, to help me leave it behind, and relax my body in preparation for rest.
Group Centergy is fitness class offered by Body Training Systems, and is available at a number of gyms. It seems to be based on a combination of Yoga, Tai Chi, and Pilates principles. Being a commercial class, it has a more definite structure than some of your typical yoga classes. Instructors are certified by BTS. There are eight distinct sections in a given class, each set to a song with an appropriate tempo. The sections include a dance-style warmup, a folding track, a twisting track, abs, strength tracks based around sun salutations, warriors, and lunges, a balance track, and a rest track.
I’ve been really pleased with my Centergy classes. I typically show up for the class Saturday midmorning. It turns out that this is a perfect time for me to sweat out any toxins from my Friday night ritual abuse, as well as work through any kinks, and get a good sweat in. It also helps me avoid a huge breakfast, lately I’ve just been having a hard-boiled egg.
Because they are designed for mass consumption, the positions and motions used in Centergy are available to most anyone, though it could take you a few sessions to learn them and get used to the choreography. There are some modifications available, but the real focus in these classes is going deeper. Deeper lunge, deeper chair, deeper folds.
While these classes are great, you’re not going to find the creativity you find in a good yoga class. It’s a routine, or a few routines. This class is a great complement to a regular yoga program, but it’s not a replacement.
Today was a special day because they released the new Winter 09 choreography (in the video above). My local gym (I actually belong to two) had a big release party and we got to invite a friend, so we brought Leah along. They did a fun but goofy superbowl theme to it, complete with the instructors running around playing football. The previous night I’d experimented with making martinis, so I definitely needed to get my sweat on this morning, and I succeeded, following Centergy with a nice extended sauna.
I checked out the Yoga for Athletes class at the gym yesterday. It was my first visit, and a new instructor to me. Bonnie. Evil evil Bonnie. She seemed nice enough, but it wasn’t long before she had us squatting, and twisting, and squatting and twisting. One leg behind the other, squat. Hold it. This was new yoga to me.
Actually, it was a great workout. Bonnie (evil) took exercises that I’m familiar with and completely changed them around. Squatting, balancing, and twisting all at the same time was really tricky for me. But afterwards I felt really good, my legs were opened up in a different way.
Looking back, the pose was basically a modified eagle pose, including the arms. But it really didn’t feel like that at the time. To imagine it, cross one leg behind you, and then cross your arms like eagle, front leg and upper arm on the same side. Then squat so that your thighs are crossed until your legs are bent to their maximum. And stay there. Focus on breathing. Stay there. We were down for about a minute…it seemed like a long time. Now switch sides.
Possibly the most interesting thing about the class was her focus on the small things. Working the feet to lead to the hips. There was no pigeon. We spent a lot of time on our toes. Stretching and loading them.
I love the practice of yoga. I like the feeling of strength with balance. The feeling of clarity it gives me is amazing. I dig finding my edge. Unfortunately, my edge is pretty close to where I’m already standing.
Take child’s pose for instance. The relaxation pose, the one you’re told to get into to take recovery from ab work or a demanding sequence of sun salutations. Despite having worked at it for many months my feet don’t point and my knees don’t bend. Child’s pose is one of the most difficult of the basic poses for me to assume. I just can’t get my sits bones to lower down.
But this is what I love. I’m improving. Those sitters are getting closer to my heals. I can sometimes put my hands back without toppling forward.
And even better, I’m more in touch. My awareness of the muscles in my legs, the kinks in my feet, the angle of my hips, the strength of my core. Breathing is now an action verb! It’s something I do to something.
For now, I’m going to keep breathing into my feet, into my knees, reaching my hands forward and pressing firmly back. I’ll get there. And the next part of my journey will begin. I’m in no rush, but I work to it and welcome it. And I welcome you, please share your experiences, thoughts, and insights.
