Online Classes: Who Knew They’d Work So Well?

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If you’d have told me even just a year ago that I’d be doing the bulk of my teaching online via Zoom, let alone having success with it, I’d have thought you were nuts. And yet, here we are coping with this new reality, however temporary, in the myriad unexpected ways in which we have ALL adapted our lives, and our livelihoods. And here I am teaching several hours a week on Zoom.

To be honest, teaching by way of a conferencing app was not a new idea to me. Just weeks before things shut down last spring I was discussing doing that very thing with a client who was already looking for ways to both help me open up business ortunities and help himself avoid having to fight traffic getting to our office every week. What has been unexpected, and pleasantly so I should add, is that I’m teaching remotely AND having a great deal of success doing it.

Helping more than one client out of chronic, stubborn back problems stands out for me as a shining example of what kind of success is possible working via Zoom and the degree to which my therapeutic skills have developed to allow such success. Sure, having the ability to see bodies up close and in person and to provide hands on guidance are notable and significant absences from my sessions, but their very absence requires that both my verbal cueing AND my clients’ attention be that much sharper and more focused. Thus the very disadvantages of using the app foster opportunities that lead to better than expected positive outcomes.

Without a doubt the most unexpected positive outcome I’ve experienced thus far working online is the success I’ve had teaching group classes via Zoom. This has been unexpected for a variety of reasons. For one, just the fact that I have no real ability to see what students are doing on the screen of my laptop when I have multiple images up seemed an immediate problem when I started. Second, the near total absence of any real interaction with my students left me to wonder how much of what was coming out of my mouth and through the internet was really reaching people. As a Tai Chi teacher friend of mine put it, there’s no “chi” coming from the students.

When I started teaching groups on Zoom, I felt awkward, isolated and uncertain. But gradually I became used to the format, regularly pushing the boundaries of what I would normally teach in my in person group classes and regularly receiving feedback that ranged from the very positive to the positively glowing. As I began to see that not only were students getting something out of the online classes but were in fact getting A LOT out of them, my confidence grew and I began to find teaching online not only doable but fun and rewarding. Now I can say that for myself and for many of my students these classes have been one of the unexpected silver linings of this pandemic.

When I first started the classes, I asked students not to invite their friends and family to join for fear that anyone unfamiliar with my approach would be overwhelmed in the classes and much more likely to get injured. I still have this concern, but I’ve had very few complaints about injuries, even among the handful of students who joined us that had not had much experience working with me in the past. As a result, like so many things over the past 8 months, I’ve rethought my earlier position and have decided it’s time open the classes up to more people.

In fact, with the feedback I’ve gotten over the past few months I feel it would be a missed opportunity not to give more students the chance to “attend” one or more of the 4 online classes I offer each week. So if you or someone you know would be interested in trying a class, I’d encourage you to contact me directly via email for details on how to join and to address any questions or concerns you have with me beforehand.

You can access my schedule HERE.

And you can find my contact info HERE.

I have had students from as far away as London, UK take my classes, but if you’re in a part of the world that makes it difficult or impossible to take my “live online” classes, I do have a library of recorded classes available.

I also have an on-demand course called DNS & YOGA INTRODUCTORY SERIES you can take with follow up classes available. This is a great option for anyone with little or know yoga experience looking for a way to get started. You can access the course HERE or contact me directly for more information.

One of these days this pandemic will be over and things will start getting back to normal. Before that happens I hope you’ll take the opportunity, if you haven’t already, to see why students taking my classes are offering so much praise. So feel free to get in touch and make arrangements to take a FREE CLASS with me soon.

In the meantime, I look forward to “seeing you” in class!

DNS & YOGA 5 Class Intro Series – Digital Version NOW AVAILABLE!

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DNS & YOGA 5 CLASS INTRO SERIES –

NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE!

$108 – Buy Now!

  • The course is APPROPRIATE FOR BEGINNERS who are in reasonably good health.

  • This content of this course is intended to prepare a student of ANY LEVEL for practicing yoga in a way that is safe, effective and health promoting.

  • If you have concerns about whether the course is appropriate for you, PLEASE CONTACT ROBERT with your questions and concerns.

  • Anyone who pays the course fee is eligible for a discount on individual sessions (contacts me for details)

  • If you would like additional help during or after the course, I am available for one to one 30 or 60 minute sessions.

I’ve been teaching yoga now for over 25 years and have been studying and practicing yoga for closer to 30 years, and while I can’t claim to have made every mistake possible as a teacher and a student, I’ve certainly made my fair share. As one of the greatest teachers I’ve ever had the privilege to study with, the late Swami Dayananda would say, when we make a mistake the mature response is to ask ourselves “what can I learn from this?”

Learning from mistakes

Answering that question in most circumstances is never easy, but in yoga it can be particularly hard. Yoga is challenging and complicated, and there are very few teachers who have the special combination of knowledge, experience, insight and skill to effectively guide students in the right direction. Thus a common theme during my tenure as a yoga student and teacher has been a failure to understand what I should learn from my mistakes, and therefore a tendency to keep making them.

I spent many years in a fairly advanced yoga class with a teacher who does have that special combination of abilities, but even in that environment I saw students who’d been practicing for decades making mistakes that I’d been making and that I understood needed to be corrected. Ultimately I realized that I needed to take a new approach to yoga if I was going to learn the lessons I needed to learn and find my way forward.

When I began studying bio-mechanical alignment I realized something very important about yoga. When we as students start learning yoga, typically in a group class with an instructor whose abilities are unknown to us, we bring all of our bad habits into the class. It’s up to the teacher to reveal these habits and provide us with alternatives to them. It turns out that very few teachers are skilled at doing this, not because they don’t have the interest but because they typically don’t have the right training.

DNS & Yoga

Upon discovering Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization (DNS) I realized I’d found a methodology that fit yoga like a glove. The early developmental movement patterns that DNS employs through specific postures and movements are not new to us. The patterns that DNS helps to reawaken in us have, for the majority of us, always been there. This means that the changes we seek in our breath, body and mind are to a great extent a revealing of what’s already there and don’t require us to learn something completely new.

Over the past few years I have been tirelessly developing an approach to yoga that is fresh and exciting while rooted in a place fundamental to who we are as humans living in the world. Every day I find myself not so much learning something new but finally grasping postures and principles that I’ve had bits and pieces for a long time but was missing the key piece I’d needed for the unifying whole.

Learning DNS while relearning yoga has been endlessly engaging and enlightening for me as a student and as a teacher, and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to share it with you. This course is a culmination of decades of study and work. I hope you will consider taking it and recommending it to your friends and family.

 

Success in Yoga: Applying DNS Principles to Classical Yoga Postures For Better Asana

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As I continue to explore the various ways that Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization (DNS) informs my movement and that of my clients, I continue to be impressed with how well DNS complements my practice and my teaching of yogasana (yoga postures). Classical yogasana are varied and complex, but they are always informed by the movement skills we bring to them. If those skills are limited or flawed in some way, so too will the be postures. When our movement skills are intelligent and aware those qualities will also be expressed in our asana and they will help us to bring our postures to life.

Thus far, after more than 25 years of study and practice, I have not yet found an approach to yoga that complements my practice and my teaching and that facilitates deeper knowledge of the subject the way that DNS has, and there’s every indication that will continue. As my knowledge and understanding of alignment, movement and asana grows I hope to share more of what I learn with you in the form of the posts and videos that Tiffany and I are creating and making available here on our website.

The following video shows part of sequence I’ve been working on for a while now and one I’ve begun to share with many of you in our sessions. If you are unfamiliar with the content, this video is by no means a substitute for skilled instruction. If you wish to explore the postures demonstrated in the video, I would caution you only to do so if you’re already familiar with these postures and to avoid continuing them if you experience any pain or are recovering from an injury that would make such postures inappropriate. Of course feel free to contact me for help or advice!

A Case for Yoga: Improving Strength, Mobility and Overall Health

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As a yoga teacher I’ve been advocating for a proactive effort to increase flexibility in the body for more than 2 decades. Yoga is generally seen these days as a valid way of increasing flexibility, but not necessarily one that offers the complete complement of physical benefits regarded as essential for overall health and wellness. For instance, many yoga students feel they need to engage in other activities for cardiovascular exercise, such as spinning, Zumba or running, to keep themselves healthy. Yoga, it appears for these folks, is not enough.

A decade or so ago when yoga was still “the new kid on the block” in the fitness industry, it enjoyed a sort of “cure for everything” status that temporarily shielded it from the responsibility to deliver on that promise. Now that yoga has slipped from it’s peak of popularity into the ever expanding menu of fitness options, it is held to the same standards that other types of “exercise” are and its strengths are weaknesses as an exercise form, depending on the type of yoga or the skill level of the instructor, have become more commonly known and accepted.

One strength of yoga that appears to be gaining ground in the scientific community and with the public is its efficacy in reducing the effects of stress and as a contributing factor to overall health and well being. A 2012 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) found that, among the people surveyed who practiced yoga, 94% said they did so for “wellness-related reasons – such as general wellness/disease prevention or to improve energy,” with 82% of the respondents saying that it “improved their overall health” and 86% saying yoga reduced their stress.

I should point out here that the benefits of yoga reported above, along with other benefits reported for its positive effects on back pain, sleep, menopause, diabetes and other chronic disease and weight loss are mainly anecdotal. There is limited scientific support for nearly all of the claims made in yoga magazines and websites. But for some of these claims, such as yoga’s efficacy in building strength, the benefits are clear and undeniable.

The fact is, yoga postures done correctly place mechanical loads on our muscles, ligaments and bones in controlled and specific ways, and this type of loading, as dictated by the laws of our physical universe and the biological nature of our tissue, increases the load bearing capacity (ie- strength) of these tissues quite effectively. Without a doubt, yoga makes us stronger.

So if there is at least some evidence, even though mostly anecdotal, that yoga is good for stress reduction and overall health and well being, and clear evidence that yoga can be an effective way of building strength, then I would argue that latter is closely related to the former. The fact that yoga helps build strength is the reason that it helps with stress reduction and overall health.

This is because our overall health is largely defined by the health of our tissues. What are we but a highly complex arrangement of tissues and extra-cellular fluid (leaving aside the mind and the soul which are a subject for another time). We cannot be healthy and have a significant amount of unhealthy tissue in our body. Conversely, our overall level of tissue health is directly related to our overall health in general. The healthier our tissue is, the healthier we are.

So what exactly does strength have to do with tissue health? The answer lies in understanding our tissues on both macro and microcosmic levels. If for instance I want to strengthen my legs and hips I might choose to do more standing postures. The mechanical loads these postures place on the muscles and other tissues in my legs and hips will help these tissues handle loads better, thereby making them stronger. But what happens to the individual cells in the various tissues in my legs? I would argue that these same postures also improve the strength of the individual cells in the tissues that make up my legs and hips. This is due to a phenomenon knowns as mechanotransduction.

Mechanotransduction occurs when a mechanical stimulus is converted into a set of biochemical reactions and corresponding a cellular response. This cellular response can vary depending on the type of cell and stimulus, but generally involves enhanced gene expression and positive physical changes to the cell. Scientifically, mechanotransduction is a concept still in its infancy in terms of study and understanding, but the studies that have been done suggest that mechanical loads on the microcosmic level mimic those on the macrocosmic. That is, mechanical loads that make our muscles and bones stronger also make our cells “stronger” in the sense that they improve their adaptiveness and enhance their functional role in our bodies.

Therefore I’d suggest that “weight bearing exercise”, which is basically deliberate mechanical loading of our tissues, not only has the potential to build strength and resiliency in that tissue but also, as a result of mechanotransduction, similarly loads our cells and stimulates greater responsiveness and resiliency on the cellular level, improving the health of those cells, the tissues they make up and our overall health in general.

I place “weight bearing exercise” in quotations here because it can and does mean more than it’s common interpretation suggests. Sitting for example, can be a kind of “weight bearing exercise” in the sense that it places mechanical loads on the tissues of our hips and legs and, if done in the right way, has the potential to make them stronger and more resilient. On the other hand, sitting can and often is counterproductive in this regard because it is not done in the right way, or is done for too long, and will in this case damage tissue health by limiting mechanotranscduction and impairing tissue health.

This brings me back to the importance of flexibility, or as I prefer to think of it, mobility. Having good flexibility means having functional mobility which is the ability to mobilize the body in a variety of ways. Mobility allows me to move more of my joints and tissues through their various ranges of motion and this means a wider and more varied distribution of mechanical loads to more of my tissues. A major benefit of mobility therefore is the stimulation of mechano-transduction in more of the cells in more of my tissues and an improvement in the healthful expression of those cells and those tissues. Floor sitting done properly, for example, can be and effective way of improving the mobility of the hips, knees and ankles and can therefore promote the health of the tissues in the lower half of the body.

A less obvious benefit to functional mobility is the enhancement of my cardiovascular system. Improved and varied mobility of the body generally improves the mobility and more specifically the elasticity of my arterial system, helping to normalize blood pressure and reduce the effects of various types of stress on vessel walls. This particular benefit of functional mobility, which incidentally is facilitated rather well by regular and correct practice of yoga, improves the responsiveness and resiliency of my cardiovascular system and prevents chronic diseases related to it.

I’ve tried here to make a case for yoga as having the potential to be as complete as any other form of “exercise” for promoting and maintaining health. It’s reputation for helping mainly with flexibility and stress is a very limited view that fails to tell the whole story of its full potential. This potential, to literally enhance and maintain our tissue health on the cellular level, is open to anyone willing to spend the time and energy to learn it.

Warrior 1 (virabhadrasana 1) – Set Up and Cues

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Arguably the most challenging of the classical standing postures, virabhadrasana 1 or “Warrior 1” places great demands on our pelvic and trunk stability, along with the strength and mobility of the hips and shoulders. This posture requires the ankles and feet to work well, and that our spinal column has good mobility.

When doing Warrior 1, we must maintain constant awareness of where all of the various mechanical loads are placed, and thus Warrior 1 also poses a great challenge to the mind. We must remain present at every moment we are in the posture, both for safety as well as a successful outcome.

Warrior 1 includes a back bend as one of its key elements. If you have a low back injury, I would not recommend learning this posture on your own. PLEASE SEEK A SKILLED INSTRUCTOR FOR HELP.

Even if you’ve had experience with the posture, I would encourage you to watch my video on stabilizing the lower back for backbends before watching this video for a better understanding of how to approach the back bending element in Warrior 1.

Applying DNS and Core Stabilization in Yoga

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Several years ago when I was deep into Katy Bowman’s bio-mechanical approach to postures and movement I began to better understand some of the postural habits and faulty mechanics that were impacting my health and the health of my clients. It became clear to me that it was these habits and their frequent repetition while standing, sitting, squatting, bending forward and walking that lead directly to the manifestation of the chronic injuries and pain patterns that are epidemic in our modern lives. I also understood that if we were to overcome our injuries we needed to address them at their root cause by changing the way we move.

As this understanding came into focus, I started to take a closer look at the yoga postures I was doing and teaching and I had a realization. Those of us who do yoga tend to bring the very same postural patterns and poor mechanical habits we use in our daily lives into our practice of yoga postures. Therefore going to a yoga class often amounts to simply finding new and interesting ways to reinforce our patterns and promote our injuries.

This opinion is partly based on the fact that yogasana or the practice of yoga postures is extremely difficult. The posture themselves are for the most part so complicated and demanding that anything approaching mastery may arguably remain elusive for most. Yet it is also this degree of challenge posed by yogaasana which is the very thing that makes it potentially so powerful. If I manage to master even one posture I will have overcome much of my habituation, physically and mentally.

With the manifestation of this view I began changing my approach to practice and to teaching. I started introducing simpler postures that were more accessible and less physically demanding. I also began to emphasize the development of movement skills that could be applied not just to yoga but to the movements we do all day long. After all, what good is my trikonasana if I can’t bend forward properly to pick something up or squat down to use the toilet.

I then reintroduced some of the classical postures, not so much as postures to be mastered but rather as opportunities to apply the skills learned in the simpler postures to decidedly more challenging ones. The classical postures put the skills we learn in the simpler postures to a strong test, and they provide an opportunity to apply multiple skills at the same time. I liked this approach and still do, but until recently I felt there was something missing.

With the addition of my DNS training I feel I’ve found that missing piece. It’s the skill that integrates all of the other skills and organizes them into a cohesive whole. It’s the skill that transforms a set of applied skills, movements and stretches into a true asana – a posture that expresses both stability and ease. That skill is the skill of stabilizing the pelvis and trunk in a way that not only allows but in fact facilitates free movement. This skill is true “core stabilization.”

The DNS approach to core stabilization is not something I ever learned in a yoga class, but it applies to yoga wonderfully! I feel strongly that it’s a skill that has the power to transform any yoga practice. And for those who don’t practice yoga, proper core stabilization will improve whatever movement practice or sport they choose to do, not to mention greatly improve the movements they do outside of any structured class or activity.

I’ve begun to post a series of short videos in which I offer an approach to setting up some of the more common classical yoga postures. The videos also include some voiceover cues for guidance. My approach to each of these postures emphasizes core stabilization as the foundation for each. I don’t necessarily use the term “core stabilization” in the video, but hopefully as you watch these you’ll begin to understand what I mean when I say “stabilize” or “stabilize the pelvis” or “stabilize the lower trunk,” and you’ll begin to apply this in your own postures.

Before watching these videos I recommend watching the more basic DNS videos that are already posted. It’s important that you understand how to breath diaphragmatically and to establish intra-abdominal pressure before you can do the kind of core stabilization I am referring to in the post and in the asana videos. Just click on the links above to view those videos before moving on to the others.

If you’re new to yoga, these videos are not meant for you. They are intended for students will some experience. If you’re an experienced yoga practitioner or teacher, I ask that you keep an open mind. The feedback I’ve been getting these days from the experienced yogis that find their way into my classes is that I’m doing something very different from what they’ve been taught before. Hopefully this makes for a great reason to take an interest and see what might be of value and not a reason to reject it simply because it doesn’t sync with past experiences or understanding.

Whatever your view, my practice and my teaching have always been and always will be a work in progress. Therefore I welcome your comments and look forward to hearing from you and getting your feedback. No doubt your input will help me refine and improve my practice and my teaching moving forward.

Namaste’

Stabilizing the Lower Back for Back Bends

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Over the last decade as I’ve been exploring different approaches to movement, I’ve always found myself coming back to my yoga practice asking the question “how does what I’ve learned inform my approach to yoga?” For the most part I’ve consistently found that new knowledge from different perspectives has facilitated greater insight into many classical yoga postures and, simply put, allowed me to perform many of these postures better and safer.

Because my personal practice and my teaching have placed greater and greater emphasis on postures that maintain a neutral spine, I must acknowledge that this approach has been at the expense of a great many important postures, arguably the postures that most distinguish yoga from other movement practices. The postures most conspicuously absent for a long time were “forward bends” and “back bends,” the two classifications of asana that involve deliberately moving the spine out of neutral and into flexion and extension respectively.

More recently, as I’ve begun to emphasis stabilization of the spine rather than neutrality, it has opened up my practice and teaching playbook to forward bends and back bends once again. And once again, I find I am understanding and performing these types of postures better than ever before, albeit with a bit of rust to work off. Back bends in particular have been a thrill to come back to and to perform with the ideal combination of safety and efficacy that I believe is essential to the practice of any asana.

One simple posture has laid the foundation for me to reintroduce more back bends into my practice and my classes. It is a posture that can be done by just about anyone, and I’ve even found it accessible to clients who are in acute back pain (although I wouldn’t recommend that someone in acute back pain use it without the help of an experienced instructor). This posture can be done on its own or used as an effective set up for any back bending asana. It is particularly useful for preparing the body and mind for prone back bends such as salabasana (locust), bhujangasana (cobra), urdhva mukha svanasana (upward facing dog) and dhanurasana (bow).

Take a look at the video above where I demonstrate the posture I call “3 Month’s Prone.” This video shows a limited view of the posture for the purpose of highlighting its key feature. For a somewhat more detailed video on this posture and a more complete view, refer to an earlier video I posted which you can find here.

As always, if you are uncertain of your ability to do such a posture, or if you have an injury to your spine, CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR BEFORE ATTEMPTING!

 

Dinacharya and the Fall Season

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Northern California is for the most part a pretty dry climate, but our fall season can be brutally so. By October we typically have not had any rain for several months and the heat of summer has dried up much of the moisture in the environment. When you add in the effects of our “Indian Summer” with it’s hot temperatures, dry winds and exceedingly low humidity you have a formula for serious vata derangement.

Even as I write this I can feel how much dryer my sinuses are compared to last week when we had that welcome, but unusually high humidity and tropical rain. I can feel the dryness right into the back of my throat, and I can’t seem to put enough lotion on my hands. My experience tells me that these are mild but significant early signs that excess vata is starting to weaken my tissue a little, and if I’m not careful I may succumb to a cold or begin having digestive issues.

Vata or vata dosta is a fundamental physical and psychological energy that helps to move anything that needs moving. Vata is responsible for the movement of our food through the digestive track, for moving the nourishment we receive from our food into and through our bloodstream to our tissues, for moving nerve impulses from our brains through our nervous system and into our muscles and skin and for moving our thoughts so as to enable thinking and conscious action. Vata dosha is light, dry, cool and lacking in it’s own source of stability.

When vata is elevated it acts like a dry wind, weakening tissues and making them more vulnerable to degradation and possible infection. Inappropriate diet or lifestyle choices or external factors such as the weather or season can disturb vata in us and this may begin to negatively affect our health. The effects of elevated vata dosa are subtle at first. Perhaps I’m having more gas than usual, or I’m a bit constipated. I might notice my skin is a bit dryer than usual or I feel a bit agitated mentally and am having trouble relaxing fully or sleeping restfully. Whatever the signs, it’s when these signs first appear that we have a chance to make choices that will offset this excess vata and prevent it from having a more significant impact on our health.

One of my favorite concepts from ayurveda is dinacharya or “the daily routine.” Outlined in the ancient ayurvedic texts, dinacharya is a way for each of us to begin each day in perfect balance with the natural world. Most of the elements prescribed in this daily routine are simple, practical and obvious. They include waking up early, washing our face, drinking water, using the toilet, brushing our teeth, bathing, dressing and exercising. Some activities prescribed in dinacharya are less obvious but no less practical, such as acknowledging the new day, however we may choose to do this.

One daily routine outlined in the classical texts that is not commonly practiced in the western world is the application of oil to the head and body. I call this self oil massage or self abhyanga. Self abhyanga is not complicated. It simply means covering the body from head to toe with a significant amount of oil, ideally one that is suited to our individual constitution. After the oil is applied, preferably in a warm environment, it should be left on for 10-15 minutes, if possible, to allow time for it to absorb through the skin and into other tissues in the body. After this time it should be cleaned off the body during a warm shower or bath.

Oil is frequently used in ayurveda because of the way in which it penetrates into tissues. If the oil has herbs cooked into it, then the oil acts as a carrying agent to deliver the herbs and their properties to specific tissues. More generally oil is used to add liquidity and stability to tissue that may be in need of it. One application of the use of oil that I find particularly helpful is nasya or the placing of oil into the nose. Nasya helps to keep sinus tissues moist, healthy and well functioning and when certain herbs are cooked into the oil the practice can also improve the voice, vision and enhance mental clarity. Placing oil in the nose is also one of the daily routines outlined in the classical ayurvedic texts.

Application of oil is also a simple and effective way of balancing vata dosa. The heavy, moist qualities of warm oil can help to balance the dry, light and cool qualities of vata. Therefore I feel that it is the dinacharya practices that involve the use of oil and which I’ve outlined above that can be particularly useful for us Californians during the fall season.

Here are some more details on how to do self abhyanga and self nasya. Since everyone’s constitution is different, contact me or another qualified ayurvedic practitioner for choosing the best oils for you.

Self Abhyanga

Fill a small plastic bottle such as a travel bottle for shampoo with a food grade oil appropriate for your constitution. If you’re not sure which oil to choose, contact me for help.

Boil some water to warm the oil. Meanwhile, place some old towels (that you don’t mind getting oily) on the floor of your bathroom. Warm the room up so that you not only won’t get cold being in there for 15-20 minutes, but may even have a chance to sweat a little.

Place your plastic bottle of oil into a large coffee mug or similar. When the water is at or near a boil, fill the mug most of the way up or until you’ve covered enough of the bottle to warm the oil well. Take your filled cup and warm oil into the bathroom and place it somewhere convenient.

Begin to apply the warm oil, starting at the crown of your head and working downward. Make sure you use enough oil on each part of the body that the skin there cannot absorb all of the oil you apply. If you have time, rub the oil in using longitudinal strokes on your bones and circular strokes on your joints. Don’t worry too much about getting this right.

When the body is completely covered with oil, leave it on for another 10-15 minutes. You might enjoy doing some yoga postures or other simple exercise, pranayama or breathing exercises or sitting for meditation. When you’re ready or running out of time, take a warm bath or shower and clean off all of the oil. You will likely need to shampoo your hair twice to get all of the oil out.

Self abhyanga can be thought of as an act of self love. The experience should be nurturing and not feel rushed or in any way an imposition. If you’re stressed and/or don’t have time to approach it in this way, leave it until you do.

Contraindications for self abhyana include: skin rash, menstruation, cold and flu

Self Nasya – applying oil to the nose

There are various medicated nasya oils in the marketplace. Typically these have nervine sedative and/or nervine tonic herbs cooked into them. The one that we sell at Alignment Lab and that we recommend is produced by Banyan Botanicals. If you are unsure of which medicated oil to use you can contact me for help. If you feel uncomfortable with using medicated oils you can also use plain sesame oil.

Self nasya works best if you’re lying down and have time to let the oil penetrate deeper into the sinus passages. Warm the oil to body temperature or slightly higher but NOT until it’s hot. Lie down on your back and place several drops of the warm nasya oil in each nostril as outlined in the product instructions. If you’re using plain sesame oil use 8-10 drops.

Remain in a reclining position for 1-5 minutes and relax, giving the oil a chance to penetrate deep into the sinus passages. If you’re using a medicated oil and wish to facilitate the nervine effects of the herbs in the oil, stay 5 or more minutes and give the oil a chance to penetrate even deeper.

*The nose is considered a direct pathway to the brain, and this can be an effective way of delivering the herbs and their properties to it.

For the quickie version, place some warm oil into the palm of your hand. This can be done, for example, during your self abhyanga. Dunk your pinkie finger into the oil and rub it gently into your nostrils. Repeat this 2-3 times for each nostril while “sniffing” the oil with moderate force to get it to move higher up into your sinus passages. Massage the inside of the sinuses to help the oil penetrate in.

*This quickie method can be helpful for keeping the sinus passages moist and enhancing their ability to resist environmental irritants.

The dinacharya are a wonderful way of making health and wellness a part of each and every day. Even if you don’t have time to do every one of the activities prescribed, just having these routines as a touchstone will be a powerful and supportive resource for you. I have learned a lot and received many benefits from practicing these daily routines and I’m confident you will too!

Extended Side Angle Posture (utthita parsvakonasana): Set Up and Cues

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Side angle posture is one of the more challenging standing postures because of the strength that it takes to keep the many loads it places on the body well distributed. I believe the cues in this video are helpful for improving and ultimately mastering the posture.

Setting Up Triangle posture (utthita trikonasna) with the Wide High Squat

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Since expanding my training into DNS I’ve refined my approach to every yoga posture that I do and teach. Much of these refinements have come in the way I set up each posture. This video demonstrates a set up for triangle posture and provides some additional instructions for performing the posture that build on the set up.

The entry and exit points I use for Triangle posture and other standing postures is a posture I call the “Wide High Squat.”  This posture is shown in the two photos below. The “Wide High Squat” facilitates some important alignment elements that include organizing the shoulder girdle, aligning the head and upper thoracic and aligning the pelvis and the ribcage.

In order to clarify a key element of this posture, the photos here show before and after versions. In the first photo I have moved my hips back with a small amount of bend in the knees to facilitate a maneuver I call “uprighting the pelvis.” This maneuver aligns the pelvis with the ribcage so I can begin to stabilize the lower trunk. In this first photo I have not yet “uprighted,” thus the anterior or forward tilt in the pelvis and the hyper extension of the lumber spine.

In the second or “after” photo I have now “uprighted” by posteriorly tilting the pelvis and removing the excessive lordosis in the lumbar spine. This allows me to distribute my intra-abdominal presser evenly in the lower trunk and pelvis. I can then begin to activate the stabilizers in my abdomen, waist and lower back and pelvis to maintain the intra-abdominal pressure as I move to initiate and perform Triangle.

Notice I have NOT moved my pelvis forward, only rotated it posteriorly. This is the key! If the pelvis translates forward when you attempt to upright it, you’ve failed to upright from the hips and you won’t be able to stabilize properly, If this happens, nothing else you do in Trikonasana will really work. You must upright the pelvis for success in this and other standing postures!