The geometry of downdog requires one to have strength and flexibility in the shoulders and the backs of the legs in order to stabilize a significant portion of body weight through the arms and wrists.  To do this safely requires activation of key muscles and an understanding of where parts of the body are in space, and in relation to each other.  It requires us to learn how to FEEL where we are so that we can adjust our alignment when something doesn’t feel right.

Adho Mukha Svanasana

But getting into this shape is not so easy.  We start somewhere like this:

And then we start to move closer…

and closer …

This is where a lot of people end up staying.  As we start to make our way further into the shape, sometimes we need a couple of tips to get all the way there.  So, here are some things to think about as you feel your way deeper into downdog:

• Take a hips-width stance – Instead of keeping your feet together, separate them at least hips-width distance apart to give your hamstrings some breathing room.
• Bend your knees – If the backs of your legs aren’t warmed up yet (ie. the beginning of class or if you have super tight hamstrings), be nice to yourself – bend both knees.  Then you can start to play with length by bringing movement into your downdog, bending and straightening the legs.
• Send energy through the legs and heels into the floor, but if your heels aren’t touching down, don’t force them.  As the backs of your legs open up, you’ll get closer.
• Pull your belly button into your spine (activating your deep core) and lengthen your tailbone towards where the ceiling meets the wall behind you (keeping your spine in alignment).
• Press index knuckle and base of the thumb into the floor to get the weight off the pinky side of your hand.  This also helps energize the forearms towards each other to help stabilize your hands and arms.
• Open shoulders away from the ears – external rotation away from the ears, create space between arms and ears.

Some additional modifications for your downdog:

• Floor Extenders – put blocks under your hands to give yourself more space.
• Keep your knees bent
• Practice pulsating in Anahatasana to open up your shoulders and your chest: round the spine and then lengthen the heart to the mat with forehead or chin on the floor depending on how much flexibility you have in your neck.

Anahatasana Pulse:

As you feel your way into a deeper shape, start to listen to what your body is telling you.  Tuning-in to what you’re feeling is the first step towards embodying asana.  Embodiment is our goal – to tap into ourselves at a deeper level through yoga; to feel energy moving through us in the shapes we create.

Let Your Heart Be Known, Steve Gold

Resolution, Thievery Corporation

Give Me One Reason, Tracy Chapman

Desh Nayad Feat. Lital Gabai (feat. Lital Gabai), EarthRise SoundSystem

El Capitalismo Foráneo, Gotan Project

Dramastically Different, Beastie Boys

Little Nature, Chris Joss

Esta Noche, Federico Aubele

One Step Closer to You, Michael Franti & Spearhead

Cleopatra In New York, Nickodemus & Carol C

Este Momento, Federico Aubele

Solar Spirit, Asiatronic

You Gonna Love, Sacred Spirit

Universe & U, KT Tunstall

Diamonds In the Sun , Girish, Donna Delory, Hans Christian, Mario Abney, Jeremy Ruzumna & James Harrah

Om Namah Shivaya, Steve Gold

And a little something for Dr. King on his Day:

Karuna Sagari Ma, C.C. White

Tell Him, Lauryn Hill

Take Your Time, Al Green

Share Your Love With Me, Aretha Franklin

Georgia On My Mind, Ray Charles

Surrender, C.C. White

New Years Altar

For us, New Years Day (whether its Lunar or American) is a time to honor those who have come before us– elders, the recently departed, and ancestors.  When I was a kid, we would get dressed up in our traditional Korean outfits and go over to my aunt’s house for rituals and celebration.  My aunt would prepare an altar with pictures of the departed, plates of delicious Korean food, a special rice cake and dumpling soup, fruits, and rice wine, and each of us would bow before the alter to show our respects.  We would give pause to let the departed souls have the first helping of goodies, and then we got to eat (and let me tell you, my aunt makes the best Korean food ever).  Later, we would bow to our parents and other elders to wish them many blessings for the New Year.  In return, they gave us envelopes of money (this was the best part).  Nowadays, we don’t get dressed up or get money in return for bows, but we still prepare an altar and eat in remembrance of our family.

This year, as I enjoy the homemade everything that my aunt prepares, I better appreciate this part of me – my cultural heritage and its traditions – as an anchor that helps defines who I am.  I enjoy taking the time at the start of a new year to honor my family members, some of whom I’ve never even met, that in some way have made it possible for me to be HERE.  As the flow of life sweeps me forward, I may forget about them from time to time, but I know that I will get to remember them at the turn of every year, and that they will give me strength to be who I am today, who I will be tomorrow, and who I will be at the end of another year.

Happy New Year!

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been revisiting Bhujangasana (cobra pose).  I don’t know how many countless times I’ve done “plank – chatturanga – updog – downdog” without really thinking about it.  I would always go for Urdhva Mukha (updog) instead of Bhujangasana because I thought it was the more advanced asana.  But this automatically generates the thought that Bhujangasana is somehow lesser than Urdhva Mukha.

We dismiss Bhujangasana to be a stepping-stone to something better and we really just want to do the more difficult asana.  We think that if we can do the more difficult one, then we are “getting better” at yoga.  But, as my teachers have taught me, Bhujangasana is not lesser than Urdhva Mukha.  In fact, learning and integrating the key actions of Bhujangasana into your practice will advance your backbend practice, and dare I say, your arm balances as well.  Shocking, isn’t it?

So, from the pinky toes on up, here are some things to think about in Bhujangasana:

from Yoga Journal

1. Press the pinky toes down into the mat and activate the calves and the shins while keeping the ankles straight.  This helps you find your inner thighs so that you rotate them towards the midline.
2. Lengthen your tailbone to your heels, relax your booty when you rise so that you don’t crunch into the lower back.
3. Spread the fingers wide apart and press the base of the thumb, base of the first finger, and knuckle of the first finger into the floor.
4. Check that your elbows are going straight back,not out to the sides.
5. Lift from the back of the heart, not with the chin or by cranking into the lower back.
6. Keep a little bend in the arms so that you actually feel them working.
7. Press the forearms towards each other while opening the chest and roll the shoulders down the back and press them into the midline.

When you activate and lift from the places that are meant to strengthen and open, this will feel like the “harder” asana.  Bhujangasana has been an enlightening teacher for me.  My backbends have felt lighter and my arm balances more stable all because Bhujangasana has taught my body where to be strong and where to release.

Going back to the basics and relearning key actions with the awareness of where you’ve been is how we advance in any movement-based practice (whether its yoga, dance, sports, etc.).  We don’t advance in a straight line, we advance in a spiral – you return to the basics with a higher base of knowledge then the last time you were there.  Now you can understand the movement better and can go deeper.  That’s how we “get better”.

So, maybe the next time you come to the mat, choose Bhujangasana instead of Urdhva Mukha, and see what awakens for you.

After the call, I felt thankful for all that yoga brings to enrich my life, but I’ll admit, I wasn’t feeling totally connected.  I didn’t feel an ever pervading one-ness.  But the next night, I went to see my tango teachers who are visiting from Buenos Aires, and after seeing them, I was lovingly swept up into the collective flow.  It just goes to show – there are many roads that lead us to the light.

So, to explain – for me, and many others, tango isn’t just something fun to do on a Saturday night, it’s something that becomes a part of who you are.  You invest HOURS of blood, sweat, and tears (literally), and a whole lotta $$$ into the endeavor (classes, private lessons, trips to Buenos Aires, and most importantly – numerous pairs of beautifully handcrafted stilettos).   We do all this for the possibility of a few minutes of transcendence.  You and your partner create a one-of-a-kind improvised dance, all in the flow, communicating with each other solely through intention and movement, all the while using the movement and music to express yourself and your emotions.

Women Love Shoes

Now, this doesn’t happen with everyone you dance with, or even every time you dance with a certain person.  It happens when both people are in the flow, when they resonate with the music, when they are relaxed, when they can feel and feed off each other’s energy.  That’s when creativity takes over, and that’s when its magic.

So finally, after watching my teachers dance, and dancing a bit myself, I remembered what it’s like to be connected to that collective consciousness and how much I love being a seeker of the flow.   Watching my teachers dance, I could see the energy between them, around them, and in their incredibly smooth movements.  Sharing that experience with them and the rest of the audience reminded me that all over the world, on any night, you can find people connecting with each other and beyond through these movements.  I can go anywhere in the world, dance with a total stranger and feel this connection.  How cool is that?!

There are so many ways to drop into the flow, and I feel so lucky to be a student of both yoga and tango – to have these amazing vehicles to experience the flow in such a deep way; to experience the one-love of a collective consciousness.

The lamps are different,
But the Light is the same.
One matter, one energy, one Light, one Light-mind,
Endlessly emanating all things.

~ One One One, Rumi

For example, there is something awesome that can happen between downdog and plank that you can miss if you’re not paying attention.

Between downdog and plank, there is literally an active unfolding of the body.  If you activate the body during this unfolding, your arrival in plank can feel totally light and strong at the same time.  As you unfold, you pull the leg muscles into the bones, zip-up the belly, and press the ground away from you to counteract the pull of your hips towards the ground.  Now in one straight line, you can sustain here because your legs and core are activated and you don’t feel as much strain in your shoulders.  Then, as you slowly lower to the ground, still pressing the ground away and maintaining all that you feel in plank, you can keep that feeling of lightness as you lower.   The lightness feels so amazing here because it is deep; it’s coming from the inside out.  You’ve tapped into the energetic body – its not just physical anymore.  It feels amazing to be that light – and you got here simply by slowing down to activate the space in between downdog and plank.

In a flow practice, all this happens in the space of an inhale and an exhale.  Transformation can happen in these sweet little moments because, in the flow, every moment is an opportunity to re-connect to Prana and be awakened.

So what is Prana?

Prana is often used to describe the breath, but it is much more than that.  Prana is the sweetness; it is the all-pervading intelligent energy of everything.  Its what makes flowers bloom in springtime and leaves burn vibrant in the fall.  Its what makes you who you are, and me who I am.  We are living Prana in every moment, but we forget, and through our practice we can find these little spaces in between where awareness lights us up.

But remember, there can be sweetness in everyday in-between spaces too.

As you move from one thing to another, can you find something sweet along the way?  Walking down the street, can you appreciate a smile of recognition from a passing stranger?  Driving home after work can you be “that” girl/guy singing and dancing along to your favorite jam while stuck in traffic?

Last week, with each new obstacle thrown at me, I could feel myself forgetting what it was like to be me.  I was already depleted, and as I tried to push myself through one more week, more obstacles appeared.  I could feel my mood fall as the rain came down.  I could feel fear, drama, and insecurity rise as I grasped at the threads of what was left of me.  With vata fueling the fire, I could feel my now deranged pitta lashing out through words, thoughts, and tone.

With everything in my yoga toolbox, how do I get outta this mess?  Throughout the week I tried all kinds of things – restorative yoga, abhyanga, hello kitty stickers, butternut squash soup, more sleep.  But sometimes the mind is so strong; it knocks over the pitta pacifying massage oil and spills it all over the bathroom floor.  The roller coaster was already down the first big drop and it just kept going.  Drama after self-created drama went the week and my morning rituals weren’t doing anything for me anymore.  Drama is an addiction and my mind was hooked.

All this, and I had an audition at the end of the week.  As the time approached, I pushed myself to create a good sequence, worried that I would mess up, wound myself up that I wouldn’t be good enough, that I wouldn’t be what they wanted.   With the week unfolding as it was, I almost scared myself out of going, but I went.  Of course, it wasn’t as scary as I had made it out to be in my head.  When it came down to it, I just taught.  It wasn’t exactly what I sequenced, and I could hear the nervousness in my voice, but I let go of control, and just let whatever was going to happen, happen.

I went home exhausted and said goodnight to the calamitous week.

All weekend I focused on nourishing my way back to myself.  As it turns out, all I needed was an hour of good ol’ pranayama to put me back on track.  Kapala Bhati is what really did the trick.  After two rounds of 100, I felt energized again, I could feel all of my cells vibing, my spine awake, and I remembered that I had been here before, that this is where I find myself.  Then today, on this bright and shiny Sunday, I had the pleasure of taking class with a gifted teacher friend, and now I feel like myself again.

This whole experience brings me back to a discussion with one of my teachers about what it means to be fearless.  She explained that fearless doesn’t mean being without fear.  Being without fear is more like recklessness – she likened this to covering yourself in honey, running out into a field of wildflowers and then expecting the best (hahaha!).  But rather, fearless is being scared as s*&#, pausing, and then going ahead anyway, come what may.

Too bad I remembered this after my audition, haha!  Nevertheless, my teacher’s words helped me see that my mind isn’t too strong, that I am not the sum of all my self-doubt and insecurity, that even when I have a week full of fear, I can still be fearless.  I can find my way back to myself and I can be free.

When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on that bus so many years go, her single action ignited a revolution.  She was tired of giving in; giving in to the old ways that she knew in her heart to be wrong.  She said, “no.”  Her simple refusal carried profound meaning and gave rise to the entire civil rights movement.

Each of us has it within us to create a revolution; to bring positive change to our own lives.  Yoga shows us that this is possible.  Through yoga, we become aware.  Through awareness, we can navigate change.  We can evolve over and over again into something new.  Through our thoughts and actions we can break the old patterns and find new ones.

Maybe it starts with a simple breath, pulsation, a lengthening of the spine.  It’s doesn’t have to be big.  As you move through asana, see if you can notice a place that feels like an old groove.  See if you can back out of that pattern and say, “no, let me bring something new into this space.”  Let me start my own revolution.

Day after day we drag ourselves to work and back home again, and even though it can start to feel like a rut, every day there is something that is different, something that is new.  Can you start to become aware of something new and savor that newness?  Can you bring awareness to the old patterns and find newness to get you out of that groove that no longer serves you?

I recently visited the new Dr. King memorial, and inscribed on one side it says, “Out of a mountain of despair a stone of hope.”  Change can come whether we’re ready or not.  It can come in the darkness of all possibilities (good or bad) – when things can go either way.  In the face of transition, how do you access and activate that which is inside you – the courage inside you – to be that stone of hope in your own life?  The universe needs you, it needs all of us, to stand up and be there for ourselves.

One of my favorite things to do in all seasons, but especially in the cool/cold months, is abhyanga – ayurvedic self oil massage (take a moment to read through the link if you aren’t familiar with abhyanga).

It has really helped me relax and calm my frayed nerves in times of stress.  When I’ve been very stressed out, I definitely do abhyanga every night before bed as part of my evening routine.  Both during the stressful time and afterwards…especially afterwards.  After your nervous system has been on overload and has pushed you through, that’s when it really hits you.  You feel spent, depleted, and have a hard time recharging.  A friend of mine described this perfectly to me the other day.  She said, “I feel like a cell phone.  I plug in to recharge and the next day I’m dead after 20 minutes.” I recommended abhyanga to her and after just one night of it, she loves it.

Whats not to love?  The ritual of abhyanga is just so luxurious; its all about self-care and self-love, total “me time”.  The warm oil penetrates deep past your skin into your muscles and joints to really bring juiciness back into the body (no lotion can do that, ladies.  If you want glowing skin from the inside out – abhyanga is the way to go).  Add a nice shower onto that, and you are ready for a good night’s sleep.

Being Pitta-Vata, I use Pitta Massage Oil w/ Coconut Oil in the summer and warm months, but as we start moving into the cooler months I will be bringing Sesame Oil and Vata Massage Oil back into rotation.  Gotta take care of that Vata – don’t want the wind blowing on that Pitta (fire) and making me pitta deranged…again.  I’ve had enough of that this summer with my skin.  It’ll be interesting to see how my skin transitions into Fall this year.  So far, so good.

Anyway, abhyanga has saved my soul countless times this year already, I highly recommend it!

I Heart Abhyanga!