Yoga - (3/10/13)

Upward Dog
yogajournal.com/poses/474


Downward Dog:
yogajournal.com/poses/491


Today was the first session of Yoga I'd done since last year, so I felt how much my body needs work again after how long it has been. I'm so glad we worked on more of the technique of Ashtanga Primer Yoga as I spent nearly all my time in 1st year not knowing if I was doing the warm up sequence, ie: downward dog/upward dog correct or safely. 


I realised the very small details made a lot of difference for example, when in downward dog, it's best to keep your arms at a 90 degree angle and not let your back sink to the floor, when moving through from upward dog to downward dog.

I always did this in 1st year, and as a result of correcting this, it enables the spine to lengthen and not contort. Even the small detail of rolling through the toes correctly, it put me in a position to lengthen the spine, which in turn, meant my legs weren't stretching too far back for upward dog. This needs practice to gain fluidity.

In partners, when looking at each other in downward dog, the key points of the technique were to make sure you're not letting your feet 'fly back' too far when jumping into downward dog, keeping your fingers spread apart as wide as you can. Over extension of the legs can restrict your back from straightening and stretching.

Holly pointed out to me to release the tension in my shoulders, which is a place I notice I hold a lot of tension anyway, in all aspects of dance, which is a subconscious habit to be aware of.

I also had to bend my knees a little to gain that length in the spine while in the downward dog position, as I think I was locking my knees a little. She also pulled my hips back slightly to gain that length, which pushed a boundary with my back, as I didn't think I could go that deep into the stretch.

Surprisingly, I feel I was quite good at the technique of breathing. I didn't always breathe equally with the inhale and exhale but whenever my breath did stop, I would pick it up as soon as I noticed. As for my core and allocating that, the position of where it is in the lower stomach confuses me and I was concentrating on the breath more so, and neglected the core. Maybe this is something that will become clearer as time goes on.


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