The Hot Yoga Doctor – Free Bikram and Hot Yoga Resources › Hot Yoga Doctor Forum › Injuries, Restrictions, Ailments, Pose Modifications › Lower back › locust pose
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Hi Gabrielle, thanks for all the advice on Locust pose. I am finally able to get and keep my legs straight up and down in Locust pose, (I was determine to get this pose after seeing pictures of Mary Jarvis). My questions is concerning technique, I am still doing it with a slight burst of energy in the beginning, and slightly bent legs, so some teachers say, even though I am straight up, in the air, getting there is bad technique. They say it should be a slow, straight leg, lift all the way to the top. When I try it that way, I get to the point where most people get and get stuck, I understand everybody’s frustration, because the dialog is very general and it take some extra teacher coaching/time and work to get this poster, but most of the instruction and help I received, taught me how to get to the top, but left me with a jerky technique.
Any advice on that slow lift to the top?
Some things teachers tell me to try, is
very slowly coming out of it and lowering the leg, which I do with lots of control.
But this doesn’t seem to be helping me in the lifting up part.thanks.
Hi Willie
Thank you for the great detail!
Can you answer me a few questions please?
Where are your arms and hands?
How are you using your arms, your hands, your fingers?
How well seated are your shoulders on the ground?
Are you talking single and double leg lift or just the double?
How are you using your breath?See you back here
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Thanks for responding:
Where are your arms and hands?
Arms are under belly and pinkys are touching per dialogHow are you using your arms, your hands, your fingers?
Begin by pressing fingers hands into the mat, to help shift weight to arms and forward to shoulders.How well seated are your shoulders on the ground?
Slight gap between neck and floor, still stretching forward, but nice base with bottom of chin/neck and shouldersAre you talking single and double leg lift or just the double?
I am referring to the double leg lift.How are you using your breath?
The breath is a mystery for me in this poster,
I try taking deep breath before the lift, and sometimes I hold it then lift, sometimes I let it out 1st, then lift, then breath in, I can’t seem to breath out while doing a steady lift.Thanks
Hi Willie
Yikes, forgot to respond!! I hope I can make amends.
Arms are under belly and little fingers touching as per dialog can be one of your problems. Possibly your main problem.
>> Usually is when we look at people having issues with this pose. What you will find when you look at the Salabhasana threads on this forum is that I strongly suggest you externally rotate the arms instead of rolling them in under you to get them to touch. Externally rotating the upper arms seats the shoulders in a more effective way. It will have your arms landing underneath you at the same time as positioning your shoulders further apart and forming the crucial platform across the chest against which you will find lift. You will be able to ground the area effectively by using your arms and the lift will become easier.With the use of your arms, your hands, your fingers:
>> Rather than pressing fingers into the mat, try pressing your arms and shoulder/chest platform into the mat. It IS different to what you are doing. Shifting the weight is not this conscious rolling movement to the front. It’s more that you focus on using the leverage in your arms and not your hands. Your arms end at your shoulders and the shoulders are spread outward.If you have my book to refer to then take a look at the photos on the bottom of page 217 because they show on the left what most people do, and then how you should look with your shoulders and arms effectively placed for best leverage (in the right image).
Shoulders on the ground:
>> Aim for that solid platform from shoulder through chest to other shoulder.A common mistake is to just lift the single legs up because it’s pretty darn easy to do that. However, what I always suggest is that you use the single leg lifts as a technique check on the double leg lift. PRESS the hands and arms into the floor even for the single leg lift. Also you’ll find that you really can remove the use of the non-lifting leg from the equation and only activate the lifting leg. Without using your arms you will be involving the other leg.
Using your breath
The breath is a mystery for you here so then Willie I suggest for the single leg lift use an inhale to lift your leg. Keep breathing and lower the leg on the exhale.For the double leg lift inhale as you squeeze the bottom and lock the legs and point the toes and start to press your arms and hands and shoulders into the floor. That’s the set-up on the inhale so then consolidate the position and EXHALE TO LIFT. The action will help you to activate your core and focus your energies to lift much more easily. Let the legs stay straight and long no matter what. Don’t worry if it’s not high. The main thing is to work on the technique and lift. They’ll get higher over time. Don’t be surprised that with the new focus on technique that for the first time you don’t go as high. You may very well have been compensating for poor body geometry and leverage points by bending and rocking up your legs. It’s very common.
I hope the detail makes up for the tardiness of my reply! 😉
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Thanks for the reply Gabrielle, I have been following your advice and tips, but mostly I stop worrying about it for a while. Seems like when I am really concentrating on it, and thinking of the tips, the legs and lower body, seems like it weighs a ton, and I never shift my weight to the front, and its just a power lift and struggle lifting my legs up straight into the air. But when I relax, and picture my legs in the air, in the final destination, my body gets in the right position and it seems like the legs just float up effortlessly, so I am happy to stay here for now.
A side note, when I was little, my mother use to lift, and hold my legs up in the air, while I practice leg stands. When she past a way, and I started doing Bikram Yoga, it would remind me of that time. So in class when I am really enjoy the moment, I say “lift my legs mamma”. So this asana is very special to me and the mental aspects and emotions I have doing it, takes me other places, some times I can smell the food cooking and see my mother (in my mind) holding my legs and the clothes she was wearing that day.
Not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing, because my mind has gone to another level/place and we are suppose to be in the room, in the present…Well I am still in the present, just brought a memory from past to the present and sort of merged them during class..lol.
Take care.
thanks
Hi Willie
I do love that story about your beloved mamma! It seems to me that the inspiration of that is allowing you to get out of your head for the pose and make it happen with more ease – automatically. That sounds perfect to me. The more you do it now, you’ll just start to notice little tiny details. So for example, you’ll notice if you had your legs locked the whole time or if they started with a bend. Or you’ll notice what part of the cycle you started your lift. Was it exhale? From there you’ll build up your ability to better do your pose each time.
Those visualisations you are having are helping you. And even though ideally one would rather be present with everything that is going on right then, that is unrealistic. We are human and there is nobody you will meet who can keep total focus for 90 minutes. It’s the nature of the human mind. So have the goal of being present. And understand that you will move in and out of presence. Paradoxically, it is the moment that you notice that you are not present, that you are indeed present.
Thanks for the response!
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂 -
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