How to do Warrior 1 (Virabhadrasana I)

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Warrior 1 (Virabhadrasana I) is another great pose (asana) for counteracting the sitting position. This asana opens the hip flexors and strengthens the legs.

Instructions for Warrior 1 (Virabhadrasana I)

Begin in Downward-Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Savasana).

Inhale: Step your foot forward between your hands dropping the back heal of you back foot to the floor. If you need some assistance with this drop your back knee to the floor and use your hand to help you step your foot forwards. Bend your front knee to 90 degrees or less (ensure you don’t bend your knee more than 90 degrees). Draw your knee and quadriceps upwards and straighten your back leg ensuring the back edge of your back foot stays connected with the floor

Exhale: Stay where you are with your hands on the floor on either side of your front foot.

Inhale: Raise your body to an upright position and sweep your arms overhead. Draw your tailbone towards the floor. Spin your little fingers toward each other and bring your hands together in prayer above your head. Keep your shoulder blades down your back. Shoulders are away from your ears and you have a nice long neck. Gaze up at your thumbs but be careful not to crush the vertebrae in the back of your neck as you do so.

Ensure your front shin stays vertical, widen your stance as needed to ensure your knee does not move forward past your ankle. Engage the muscles of your abdomen, lift mulha bandha, and lengthen through the sides of your body. Draw your lower front ribs in and down toward your belly. Lift the crown of your head towards the sky lengthening your upper body.

Hold for a number of breaths.

Exhale: Bring your hands down either side of your front foot and step back to downward dog

Repeat on the other side.

When to avoid Warrior 1 (Virabhadrasana I)

This asana should be avoided if you have:

  • High blood pressure
  • Heart problems
  • If you have shoulder problems keep your raised arms parallel (or slightly wider than parallel) to each other.
  • If you have neck problems keep your head in a neutral position and don’t look up at your hands.

How to adapt Warrior 1 (Virabhadrasana I)

If you are unable to do this pose practice Crescent Lunge. If you are unable to step to Warrior I from Downward Dog then you can step one foot back from standing. Ensure your feet are about a legs length apart.


The full Crescent Lunge pose

Benefits of Warrior 1 (Virabhadrasana I)

  • Stretches the chest and lungs, shoulders and neck, belly, hip-flexors
  • Strengthens the shoulders and arms, and the muscles of the back
  • Strengthens and stretches the thighs, calves, and ankles

How to do Crescent Lunge pose

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This pose is a great preparation for Warrior 1, it is also an intense hip flexor stretch. Crescent lunge allows you to go as deep into the hip-flexor stretch as you feel comfortable. Having your hands overhead also gives you the added benefit of opening the heart and chest – another area that gets tight from lots of computer work. A great way of counteracting the sitting position.

Instructions for Crescent Lunge pose

Begin in Downward-Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Savasana).

Inhale: Step your foot forward between your hands. If you need some assistance with this drop your back knee to the floor and use your hand to help you step your foot forwards.

Bend your front knee to 90 degrees or less (ensure you don’t bend your knee more than 90 degrees) and come on to the ball of your back foot.

Lift your back leg, drawing your knee and quadriceps upwards and straighten your back leg. A variation of this pose is to drop your back knee to the floor (if you haven’t already), if you do this you can un-tuck your back toes and rest the top of your back foot on the floor.

Exhale: Stay where you are with your hands on the floor on either side of your front foot, the ball of your back foot on the floor and your back leg lifted (unless you are doing the variation with the back knee on the floor).

Inhale: Raise your body to an upright position and sweep your arms overhead. Draw your tailbone toward the floor. Spin your little fingers toward each other, opening your arms so your palms face each other. Alternatively you can bring your hands to your hips or raise your arms to ‘cactus arms’. If your arms are raised overhead gaze up at a space between your thumbs but be careful not to crush the vertebrae in the back of your neck as you do so.

Ensure your front shin stays vertical, widening your stance as needed to ensure your knee does not move forward past your ankle. Lengthen through the heal of your back foot. Engage the muscles of your abdomen, lift mulha bandha, and lengthen through the sides of your body. Draw your lower front ribs in and down toward your belly.

Lift the crown of your head towards the sky lengthening your upper body and draw your shoulder blades down your back.

Hold for a number of breaths.

Exhale: Bring your hands down either side of your front foot and step back to downward dog

Repeat on the other side.

When to avoid Crescent Lunge

This asana should be avoided if you have:

  • High blood pressure
  • Heart problems.
  • Knee injury
  • Spinal injury

How to adapt Crescent Lunge

If this full pose isn’t accessible to you or you find balancing in the full pose a challenge you can drop one knee to the floor resting the top of the back foot on the floor. This can also be a nice variation if you are warming up for your practice.

There are also variations for the arms, you can leave your hands on your hips, bring you arms to ‘cactus arms’ or bring the hands overhead for the full pose.

Variation one: Crescent Lunge pose with back knee on the floor

Variation two:Crescent Lunge pose with hands on hips

Variation three: Crescent Lunge pose with cactus arms

The full Crescent Lunge pose

Benefits of Crescent Lunge

  • Stretches the legs, groin, and hip flexors
  • Opens the front torso, chest, and shoulder
  • Helps the front of the body to expand, which increases energy and reduces fatigue
  • Improves balance
  • Improves concentration

How to counteract sitting all day

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If like me you are winding down from the weekend and preparing for Monday morning and another week sat at your desk then maybe, like me, you also have lower back issues. The BAD NEWS is it may be your desk job causing these issues… the GOOD NEWS is you can do something about it.

Over the next few weeks I’ll post a series of blogs looking at how to counteract sitting all day with some easily accessible yoga poses that can stretch and strengthen the hip flexors. This can help to better align your pelvis and start to ease those pesky back niggles.

When we sit all day our hip flexors shorten, this can affect the position of the pelvis, which then affects the position and movement of the lower back.

How do our hips work?

There are several muscles that cross the front of the hip to create hip flexion pulling the thigh and trunk toward each other creating your standard sitting position. The most important of these muscles is the iliopsoas, which is actually two muscles, the iliacus and the psoas, which lie deep in the back of the abdomen.

Yoga Journal summed this up really well saying: “If you looked at the front of a body with the internal organs removed, you would see the psoas lying alongside the spine, attached to the sides of the lumbar vertebrae. The iliacus originates on the inner bowl of the pelvis. Both muscles cross the floor of the pelvis, emerge at the outer edges of the pubic bones, and finally insert on the inner upper femur (thighbone).”

Why does sitting cause back problems?

It is often a lack of hip flexibility that causes problems. By sitting all day we leave the muscles in a contracted position for a long time, so they get shorter limiting your ability to fully extend (straighten) your hip.

If the iliopsoas and other hip flexors are tight they pull down and forward on the pelvis, which tilts the pelvis forward and compresses the lower back. This can cause overarching of the lower back or ‘swayback’ which can cause increased pressure on the lower spine resulting in discomfort and worse cases an increased risk of arthritis in those joints.
Yoga poses to counteract sitting

There are numerous yoga poses that can help.

Cresent Lunge pose

This pose is a great preparation for Warrior 1, it is also an intense hip flexor stretch. Crescent lunge allows you to go as deep into the hip-flexor stretch as you feel comfortable. Having your hands overhead also gives you the added benefit of opening the heart and chest – another area that gets tight from lots of computer work.

Find out in detail how to do Cresecent Lunge pose.

Warrior 1 – Virabhadrasana I

When done correctly warrior 1 is a very slight backbend which opens the hip flexors and strengthens the legs. As with Crescent Lunge it also opens the heart.

Find out in detail how to do Warrior 1.

Boat pose – Navasana

This is an abdominal and deep hip flexor strengthener. It can be incredibly intense so use a modified version if you find it too much for your lower back.

Find out in detail how to do Boat pose.

Reclining hero pose – Supta Virasana

This is an intermediate pose. DO NOT perform this pose unless you can sit your buttocks relatively easily on the floor between your feet and without any discomfort in your knees.

Bridge pose – Setu Bandasana

Yoga poses that focus on the lower back such as the Bridge Pose can help to alleviate back pain. This pose stretches and strengthens the back and abdominal muscles and opens the hip flexors allowing you to stretch the whole front of the body. It is also a great counter pose after Navasana.

Yoga – it makes you happy!

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Twelve years ago I was an uptight stress-head waiting to explode at any moment.

I was ‘happy’ that way – it was familiar and comfortable. But friends and family were staying away and my home was a hive of stress and negativity. I had to change. But how…?

I found myself in an Ashtanga Vinyasa class, not because of any deep knowledge of the benefits of yoga, but because I was quite bendy and I liked to keep fit. Unbeknown to me I’d stumbled into a practice that would change my life…

I didn’t realise it at first, but a very welcome side-effect of my new-found love of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga, was a gradual stilling of my mind. The practice teaches you focus and concentration, which inevitably finds its way off your mat and into your daily life.

The Hatha Yoga Pradipika, a 15th century manual on yoga, explains: “Hatha Yoga [which includes Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga] is the process of establishing perfect physical, mental, emotional and physic equilibrium by manipulating the energies of the body. It is through Hatha yoga that one prepares for the higher spiritual experience.”

In Muktibodhananda’s commentary on the Hatha Yoga Pradapika he adds: [Through the practice of Hatha yoga] “One becomes open to greater experiences even if these are not sought after directly. The side-effect of creating a harmonious psycho-physiological balance is definitely a worthwhile fruit.”

It seemed that a practice initially about a bit of stretch and keeping active had begun to change the essence of my being.
Looking deeper

I delved into yoga theory and philosophy. I wanted to know how this mysterious practice worked? How could I be so different just by spending and hour and a half on my mat a few times a week? What would happen if I practiced more?

As I studied more and looked harder within myself I realised that the battles I was having on my mat were often the same battles I was having with myself (and sometimes others) in my daily life. My practice was teaching me far more than concentration and focus on a sequence of movements. It was forcing me to confront myself, and gradually opening my eyes to a whole new way life. I realised had a choice and I could choose to be happy.

For years I’d been blaming my bad moods and negativity on other people’s actions, thinking other people were in some way responsible for making me happy. Realising that happiness had to come from within me was a key moment. After that I started learning how to create my own happiness.

In Satchidananda’s commentary on the Yoga Sutra, a 2,000 year old text on yoga, he says: “A happy or unhappy life is your own creation. Nobody else is responsible.” Adding: “We attach ourselves to pleasure because we expect happiness from it, forgetting happiness is always in us as the true self.”
Yoga makes you happy

I was constantly looking outside of myself to pleasurable experiences, exciting adventures or to my partner, family or friends for happiness; without realising the only path to true happiness was to look inside myself.

But finding the stillness needed for self-inquiry is easier said than done, especially if like me you have a very active mind. My mind was constantly working at a million miles an hour, to-do lists compiled in my head for a myriad of different activities and commitments. On the odd occasion I’d try to still my mind and meditate I would give up frustrated at not being able to tame my ‘monkey mind’.

So before I could discover the path to my own happiness I first had to create a mental environment that allowed me see the way – which is where my yoga practice came in. And still does today.

Yoga is a journey. Twelve years on my practice is about spiritual and philosophical discoveries, self-study and continued learning. Physically my practice still looks similar, but now every moment is about stilling my mind because it is the stillness that allows everything else to manifest.

For me the key teaching of yoga is found in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra 1-2: “Yogas Citta Vrtti Nirodhah – The restraint of the modification of the mind-stuff is Yoga.” It was when I started to realised that I could use my yoga practice to calm and still my frantic mind that my journey of self-discovery and happiness began.

How to do Bakasana (crow pose)

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Begin in a squat position with your feet together and your heels slightly lifted.

Inhale.

Exhale: Widen your knees and place your hands on the floor at shoulder width ensuring your fingers are well spread. Lift you buttocks, come onto your tip toes and place your shins on your arms with your knees as close to your arm pits as possible. Lean further forwards to transfer your weight from your feet into your hands. Lift your feet off the floor and hold, looking at a spot on the floor in front of you. More advanced practitioners might want to straighten their arms.

Hold for a number of breaths.

Exhale: Bring your feet back to the floor, lift your hands and return to the squat position.

When to avoid Bakasana

This asana should be avoided if you have:

  • Hypertension (high blood pressure)
  • Heart disease or cerebral thrombosis
  • Carpale tunnel syndrome
  • You are pregnant

If you suffer from spondylitis (inflammation of the joints of the backbone) only practice under the guidance of a trained expert.

How to adapt Bakasana

This asana is a beginner arm balance that can lead on to more advanced asanas. If you are worried about over balancing and hitting your face / head on the floor place a cushion or bolster in front of you to give you more confidence.

If you have problems lifting your feet up from the floor start by squatting on a block so you begin with your feet already a few inches off the floor.

If you are unable to raise both legs from the floor at the same time lift one leg at a time, keeping the other on the floor, and hold the pose in this position for a few breaths.

Benefits of Bakasana

  • Strengthes the arms, especially the wrists and shoulders
  • Improves balance
  • Strengthens the abdominal organs
  • Balances the nervous system
  • Stretches the upper back
  • Opens the groin
  • Improves the digestive system
  • Can reduce heartburn
  • Over time this asana can make you feel strong and confident
  • Regular practice can help you develop a deeper trust in yourself, which can help with the confidence to take up new challenges.

The Monk’s Tale

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The Monk’s Tale by Nathan Tamblyn

The Monk’s Tale is a really sweet self-published collection of original readings, fables and meditations told from the perspective of a monk as he seeks to understand the nature of life and happiness.

It gives an extraordinary insight into how we can avoid unhappiness and unnecessary frustrations and stay happy. One of my favourite quotes from the book reminds us that our pre-conceived ideas and the situations we find ourselves in have a huge influence on how we see things.

“Good describes a situation in comparison with its opposite. Not only that, but what is good or bad also depends on context, which itself is changeable.”

Throughout The Monk’s Tale book gives us wonderful little lessons told through the eyes the monk, these are followed by easy to understand explanations of what the tale teaches us.

I thoroughly enjoyed this read, and have found myself thinking about the lessons many times. It is a simple but mindful book that I dip back in to from time to time.

Well worth a read.

How to do Marichyasana C (pose of Marichi)

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Begin in Dandasana (seated with your legs straight out in front).

Inhale: Bend your right leg and place the foot flat on the floor as close to the buttocks as possible.

Exhale: Turn the body about 90 degrees to the left so the chest comes beyond the bent right thigh. Bring your left arm across the body, bending at the elbow, and bring the upper arm to the outside of the right leg. Place the right hand on the floor behind you.

Inhale: Sit tall ensuring both buttocks have even contact with the floor.

Exhale: Use the pressure between the left arm and right thigh to rotate the spine to the right. Manoeuvre the left arm so the inner elbow comes around the shin and the forearm can reach the inner thigh. Slide the left hand around your back until you can catch the right wrist with the left hand.

Inhale: Stay where you are, ensure you are sat tall:

Exhale: Increase the twist (if comfortable / appropriate). You can increase the twist each time you exhale.

Hold for a number of breaths.

Exhale: Release the bind and return to Dandasana. Repeat on the left side.

When to avoid Marichyasana C

Avoid this pose if you have:

  • High or low blood pressure
  • Migraine or headache
  • Insomnia
  • Diarrhoea
  • You are pregnant

How to adapt Marichyasana C


Marichyasana C modification

This asana can be very difficult to access. Many practitioners will not take the bind and will instead bring the upper arm to the outside of the leg and breath here increasing the twist with each breath.

It can be challenging to maintain an upright spine if one or both buttocks lift when one of the legs is bent. Use blocks to raise the buttocks. Use one at first, but if this is not sufficient arrange the blocks in a pyramid so you can sit on the top block and place the heal of the bent leg on the bottom block.

Benefits of Marichyasana C

  • Improves the elasticity of the spine
  • Removes the rigidity of ligaments connected to the ribs.
  • Massages and stimulates abdominal organs
  • Can help alleviate backaches caused by muscular tension and pain in the hips
  • Massages the abdominal area
  • Can help relieve constipation and other digestive problems.
  • Combats fatigue
  • Can help with lower back ache and sciatica

Hatha Yoga, the report of a personal experience

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Hatha Yoga, the report of a personal experience by Theos Bernard

This is a fascinating book recounting a personal experience of the practices within the Hatha Yoga Pradipika (HYP). Theos Bernard explores the bredth of yogic practices from asana (posture), kriyas (purification), pranayama (breathing), mudras (gestures) to Samadhi (bliss).

Some of the practices in the HYP, certainly the more unusual kriyas, are rarely taught or even practiced in the West, so this book offers a rare experiential account of Bernard’s path. His experience takes you far beyond what most people in the West understand yoga to be about.

His acutely observational accounts of his training and practice are recounted with a great openness, demonstrating his curiosity about the teachings. He tells how he once stood on his head for three hours; how he learned to swallow a surgeon’s gauze four inches wide by twenty-two and a half feet long, to soak up the contents of his stomach (a kriya called dhauti karma), He also recalls how he cut the lower tendons of his tongue (khecari mudra) as well as taught himself to draw up water into his colon and expel it (basti kriya).

In addition, there are also 36 black and white images in the back showing Bernard demonstrating various asana.

The book has extensive footnotes from the HYP and also the Gheranda Samhita and Shiva Samhita comparing how the different practices are described in these ancient texts. These are fantastic for anyone with a keen interest in philosophy and the practices as described in these texts.

It isn’t too heaving going (if you miss out the footnotes) and is accessible to most people with a reasonable level of yoga knowledge. However it doesn’t have a glossary which can make it difficult for anyone who doesn’t already have a good grasp of yoga terminology.

For a basic understanding of the HYP this is an excellent read.

Equanimity of mind is yoga

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The first time I read sloka 2-48 in the Bhagavad Gita it resonated. Firstly because it felt like the objective of my yoga practice, but also, for me, it contains many of the teachings of yoga within.

For me yoga is the realisation that I am not my mind, coupled with a complete evenness of being in body and mind. That’s not to say I, or anyone else, can achieve that all of the time – we are all human! For me having equanimity of mind is about watching my thoughts and choosing actions and reactions with a clear head. It is about always trying to be centred and grounded, and appreciating everything around me without being affected by what is beyond my control. Much easier said than done!

This passage is saying that achieving equanimity is about living a life that enables evenness of mind regardless of the circumstances. It is not having attachments to anything that can become desired by the senses and lead to citta vrttis, or ripples in the mind.

Equanimity of mind is hard

Attaining total equanimity is remarkably hard. For example I am attached to my family. With family life inevitably comes events and circumstances that cause citta vrttis. A disagreement with my partner, the death of an elderly relative etc.. So the literal realisation of the sloka is perhaps best left to renunciates who can leave their families, and all other worldly attachments, and spend their lives in meditation.

For me the reaslisation of equanimity comes with yoga practice and is about achieving a degree equanimity of mind on and off the mat. It is about taking the equanimity you find on your mat out into everyday life. That is why this passage inspired the name of my teaching practice.

If at the end of a yoga session, whether Karma Yoga, Hatha Yoga, Bhakti Yoga or any other, your mind is stiller than when you began you have achieved a level of equanimity. If you can take that into you daily life then you are a living embodiment of this teaching.

Of this sloka Satchidananda in his 2013 commentary of the Bhagavad Gita says: “Keep up that tranquillity while allowing prakriti, or nature, to function though you.”

Coconut crack

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This is a really simple recipe that doesn’t involve any cooking (well, not much!) and it tastes great. I love to call this crack because it can be incredibly addictive! My friends love this recipe.

I make this in bulk and freeze it. It can be eaten stright from the freezer and tasts great with strawberries.

Ingredients

500g desiccated coconut
390ml agave or maple syrup (using more or less will dictate how sweet and sticky your bars will be)
200ml coconut oil (melted in a pan) or use virgin coconut oil.
15ml vanilla essence / extract
1 tsp salt

Method

  1. Combine all the ingredients in a food processor, or mix by hand.
  2. Squish the mixture into any small container. You want it to be tightly compact and firm on top.
  3. Place in the fridge for an hour (or freezer for 15 minutes) before trying to cut into bars or squares.
  4. If freezing consume within three months.

I find this can often be quite sticky and doesn’t hold it shape too well, but that doesn’t matter because it tastes delicious.