Gem Maryan Yoga

Kapotasana has always been one of the hardest asana for me. I’m back in second series, and this is a wee tutorial from where I am right now.

Some of the difficulty is skeletal. The spinous processes are the bony points you can feel down the back, and the space between each vertebra changes how much extension a spine has. Shallower spinous processes and more room between the vertebrae tend to make backbends easier, and contortionists usually have some skeletal variation like this.

Limb length matters too, because longer arms and legs make the deeper shapes easier by proportion.

The rest is all work. Uddiyana bandha, the transverse abdominis, and mula bandha, the pelvic floor, need to stay active so the stress spreads across the whole torso and the lumbar spine does not take it all. I draw the hip bones in, press my p***c bone forward and up, keep my glutes working without gripping into the sacrum, and lift through the ribs. When my lower back hurts, I’ve lost the shape and I come out.

It is not pretty and it is not what it used to be. I measure it by how it feels in my body and how I feel afterwards.

I hope this helps a little 💕

Two students in savasana. Both still. But completely different things are happening inside.

In the Tao Te Ching, the valley spirit is the root of heaven and earth. Eva Wong, in Cultivating Stillness, writes in her commentary that we are created from the descent of heavenly breath and the ascent of earthly vapour, and that we emerge from the union of yin and yang.

The valley has a particular quality of stillness: steady and open to its environment. Sattvic. Yoga, when practised over time and with consistency, can help to cultivate this quality.

But not all stillness is sattvic. Some have a tamasic quality: the breath shallower, the belly held, the body trying to MANAGE stillness. And over time, this costs the body something. In nervous system science, we would call this allostatic load.

Then there is the rajasic stillness that never quite arrives. The student who leaves when it is time for savasana, because they simply cannot rest. Sometimes this is because the practice has not been fully resolved. No time has been given to descend from the peak, and the body is still at the top.

The valley does not manage the descent. It receives it. Savasana is not where the practice ends. It is where you find out what the practice did.

I’d love you to join me for a free lecture on 16 June, 7 pm UK, where we talk about the NS science and bridge the gap toward the philosophy of practice.

link in bio.

Reclined Butterfly, Sleeping swan, Supported fish. Fifty minutes of Yin with a nervous-system focus, targeting all those areas that can hold chronic tension. Perfect if it turns out to be a wet weekend… let’s hope not.

I am hoping you can’t hear my belly having a wee rumble in a few places :-) haha…needless to say, I was totally in the practice, and my body was letting me know ;-)

The full class is in the free library. Ad-free, no adverts, no interruptions.

Register once, watch anything.
Link in bio, under Free Resources.

The goal of yoga practice isn’t calm. Here is what it actually is....
A body doesn’t become regulated through stillness. It becomes regulated through moving fully, and coming back to baseline.
Abyhasa is the practice of return, Vairagya is the release of any particular outcome. The Yoga Sutras were describing a well regulated nervous system centuries before we had the science to measure it.
Free lecture, 16th June, and the link can be found on my website, which is in my bio.
I’d love to have you there.
, abhyasa vairagya yogandscience deesideyogainstitute

The goal of yoga practice isn't calm. Here is what it actually is....

A body doesn't become regulated through stillness. It becomes regulated through moving fully, and coming back to baseline.

Abyhasa is the practice of return, Vairagya is the release of any particular outcome. The Yoga Sutras were describing a well regulated nervous system centuries before we had the science to measure it.

Free lecture, 16th June, and the link can be found on my website, which is in my bio.

I'd love to have you there.

,