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Hi Vanessa
The solution is to separate your arms equidistantly under the body. People with large busts often have this issue (and other related issues).
You should not continue to have such pain in your arms. If you have been searching the forum on this pose you’ll note that I have specific instructions about bringing your arms towards each other but at the very same time making sure the shoulders externally rotate. This makes a better platform of support across the shoulders. The big mistake many, many people make is to try to get the arms together while bringing the shoulders closer together.
It would be absolutely fine to have the arms alongside the body (symmetrically) say, with thumbs and forefingers just under the hips – if that’s what it takes to create the ease in this pose. I don’t mean that the pose will be easy. I mean that there should be no struggle. Just good old fashioned CHALLENGE. While it can be uncomfortable, you should not be feeling this pain.
Focus on shoulders spread (externally rotate the arms), arms symmetrically under or next to the body (whatever position works) and then in the single leg lifts press your arms and shoulders into the ground for a much more satisfying lift.
Over time you will feel much more able to bring your arms inward toward the centreline. It will be a progression of arm placement that will happen naturally with no artificial milestones to satisfy such as ‘baby fingers touching’.
Come back and let me know how you go!
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Hello Sarah
Thank you for posting! It’s great that you have started practising and that you have good body awareness. I think you are on track.
Please go and check out this very recent post called Help With Balance. I go into foot position and why often it is necessary to have a space between heels … and sometimes the feet will be completely separated. No one has the same conditions in their body and physiology as the next person.
Go take a look at the detailed responses and please let me know how you go. I am happy to give more ideas if necessary.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: Un Expected Benifit #10971Thank you Chloe
So eloquently and inspirationally put!
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: Thyroid Issues #10969Hi Sejal
Can you please tell us what exercise or activity you undertake now (and how often and for how long)? How active are you? What’s your stamina like? What happens when you exert yourself?
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: Taking it off #10968Thank you Joel
I love reading your updates!
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: Can yoga help one gain height? #10964Hi Rohan and Kerrin
I can attest that it is possible for some to actually become slightly taller. The brightest example in my memory is of a woman in her late 50s who went to class every day for several months and her improved more erect posture had her gain over 1/2 inch in height. This was measured by her physician. I am speaking of a friend/student who also attended my teacher training program so it’s not just a ‘he said she said’ story!
I hope that is suitably inspiring to you!
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: Neck Pain/Trouble Relaxing Shoulders #10963You are ever so welcome, Mary Beth
Thank you
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: Taking it off #10958Hello Joel
Thank you so much for posting. I had drafted a response the other day and decided not to post it. Then today you reflected some of the principles of my answer: You are experiencing what appears to be an increasing self-acceptance. First step seems to be that one realises that everyone else is not looking at others. Then one realises that it is becoming easier to ‘confront’ the person in the reflection! Everything is on target. I look forward to hearing more, if you’re willing to share.
It really seems that everything is on schedule! 😉
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Hi Kristin
Well, that is interesting about the bare skin contact!
The 105 temp must be quite constant. That’s good that the thermostat is publicly visible. I am of the opinion that 105 is a little high! but it does depend on the humidity factor. Do you know what the humidity % is? (Have you heard of ‘heat index’?)
If, on contact you are getting a rash then the studio floor is not clean. It may look that way. Maybe they are using a mop to wash the floor. Some floor mops are just good at spreading the dirt around!
Perhaps you can ask the studio what they are actually cleaning the floor with and ask to see the actual bottle.**
2 Questions for you:
1 >> During which poses is the floor contacting the skin?
2 >> Have you ever thought of using a super-sized towel to avoid contact with the floor?Smelling sweat in the air is normal for a studio particularly following a class before the room has been aired. If you go to class in the beginning of the day and the smell is strong then that may be significant. Perhaps you can suss out how they air their studio between classes and overnight. If they have no windows and only one door they would have to have some pretty heavy duty fans. But I am very limited on what I currently know about the space! Baby steps eh? See what you can glean from the situation.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂**Tea tree, lavender and eucalyptus oils are great cleaning. Anti mold, anti fungal, natural antiseptics that smell fresh and clean. I spray my yoga mats with a solution of a mix of any combination of these oils.
in reply to: Prostrate Health and How much Heat? #10953Hi Tim
So, thank you so much for your kind words. Thanks for the review too. I really appreciate it.
To answer your questions:
1 >> I hope your condition has been improving with your continued practice. The bikram or hot yoga poses are great for creating holistic health in my opinion. This ‘claim’ seems to be supported anecdotally.
Disease or conditions seem to occur when there is an imbalance in one’s body. If one can create balance – with all systems working better or optimally – then conditions seem to resolve.
As such there are not really any particular poses that will work for prostate health. I would recommend attending the whole class and gauging your improvement.
2 >> It seems you are doing the right thing to heat your practice space. If you look in the main sections entitled “The Heat” or “Practising at Home or Travelling” you will find some recommendations listed. As I do not live in the US I may have access to different hardware to you.
3 >> I don’t think you need to have 105 degrees. That’s an arbitrary figure that somebody else came up with several years ago. It’s now legend that Bikram decided that temperature. What you want is a heat and humidity level that helps you feel hot and one in which you sweat a bit! Typically if you can get a temperature of about body temp along with humidity of 50-60% you will be very satisfied.
The great thing is this: If you want to have the perception of increased heat without heating very high, then raise the humidity. The lower the humidity, the higher you need to heat the room to feel the same feeling of heat. If you research the term ‘heat index’ here on this forum, you will find more details about it.
Excessively high heat has an adverse effect on the body. However slightly raised heat (of say 105 degrees) for 90 minutes several times per week can actually cause a chronic low grade condition of heat exhaustion. This is very common.
There are many issues that I won’t go into in depth here, but they involve the body’s difficulty in keeping the core temperature down, one of electrolyte consumption and of hydration. Elevate the heat unnecessarily highly and all of these things become involved. I haven’t discussed the way that the body tries to lose heat to stay at the right temperature but keeping the studio temperature at a sensible heat will allow all mechanisms to work well.
Hope that helps. Happy dancing!
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: Neck Pain/Trouble Relaxing Shoulders #10952Hello Mary Beth
The answer is actually fairly simple for you! Hallelujah. Will it be worth the wait? I do hope so :red:
You are stacking the cards against yourself because of something that is being said to you that nobody who actually can do this pose actually follows.
What’s this you ask? And so you should.
There is a command that says: “Interlock all 10 fingers underneath the ball of the foot, including the thumbs”.
What you actually have to do is “interlock all 8 fingers to the webbing, place them under the ball of the foot. Make sure your thumbs are also under the foot and do not lay on top.”
In effect when your fingers interlock to the webbing they form a platform on which your foot rests.
If you interlock the thumbs as well the hands come together. Much tension is introduced. This tension radiates from fingers and thumbs through the hands right up through to the shoulders.
As the muscles in the neck and the head and the shoulders are all interconnected you will find that your neck pain will never resolve if you cannot remove the tension at its source.
You can, even while you sit at the computer, put this theory into practice. I am not going to complicate it by asking you to bend over, placing hands under the foot. But just for a moment sit there and interlock all 10 fingers. Imagine you are putting them under your foot. If they weren’t already tense before your visualisation, then they certainly will be now. Notice how your arms lock even through bended elbows.
Now relax those thumbs so that they are not interlocked. Press your hands towards each other but feel the relaxation in your hands and how you are able to keep the hands firmly interlaced yet without tension.
Next when you are in class, try something new for me (well it’s for you actually).
I ask you to do this for a few classes so you can absolutely make sure that you are NOT in any way, standing on your hands. Your hands are not supposed to hold your foot up. The command to bend over and pick up your foot can cause this problem.
Try this: Bend up the leg to 90 a degree angle and flex your toes back towards your nose. Stand there, engage your core. Then exhale and round down and with your 8 fingers interlocked, place all 10 fingers underneath your foot which is already in position. Maintain that relaxation in your hands, arms, shoulder and neck. Looking forward will be much easier now because your neck is relaxed.
Let me know if you need more details. I really will get back to you, I promise
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: help with balance #10951Hello everyone
Even though much has been broached, here are a few specifics that could help round out some points.
[strong]On locking the knee[/strong]
@cynclaire2 Just in case it wasn’t specifically said in response, you are correct to pull up the knee cap with the help of the quadriceps muscles. Just straightening the leg to lock the joints is damaging and what you need is for the muscles to create space in the knee. You will feel more secure.[strong]On the effect of extra weight on the joints[/strong]
You mention you may be carrying some extra pounds. This can put more stress on the knees than one imagines. I remember what it was to be pregnant and realising that my body felt extra stress particularly around the knees. It doesn’t take much to make that difference.[strong]On suggestions for foot position and bunions[/strong]
May I make a suggestion or 2 for you to try? This suggestion can also be applied partially to those with bunions and so you should be able to filter if this is for you or for Kristin or anyone else.The command to stand with toes and heels together is easier said than done-well, for most people. We have feet of different shapes. If you have bunions and you stand toes and heels together your knees will turn out and this will in turn affect your hips.
That triangular shape found in most feet (as feet are not parallel sided objects) is exaggerated in people with bunions, but most people have this ‘flaring’ shape of the foot. This affects one’s poses.
What needs to be understood is the intention of the poses or movements. Rather than thinking toes and heels together, think of knees facing forward. For my feet, this means my toes line up right to the ball of the foot (about 1/3 of the length of my foot) and then my heels are just a half inch apart.
If one has bunions then the foot is rather more triangular in shape. The foot being wider at the bunions means the feet flare outward. This has an effect on physiology but it also has an effect on balance.
When feet are forced together instead of finding optimal foot position (or optimal postural position) then ankles can kind of smash together. With heavier folk flesh can get in the way. All of these things serve to change the postural dynamics. For a most common example, you may have heels and toes together and then your legs or legs and ankles come together too. Your balance is determined by the way your legs slam together. But because it is fundamentally unstable, the moment you lift one leg you feel the imbalance and then your body does all sorts of things to compensate and to try and force balance.
Feet flaring (because of incorrect foot placement of heels and toes together) will make certain poses like Half Moon harder to balance but poses on one foot, such as Standing Head to Knee, EASIER to balance (I can explain that even though you may initially disagree). Neither of these scenarios really grows your practice.
The best way to develop your balance is to make sure the foot and knee point forward.
I run workshops exploring this and all the intricacies, working out what works and doesn’t work and determining what ‘cheats’ your body has worked out to do to cope with the poor position. These ‘cheats’ are unconscious but are most definitely there.
If one is carrying extra weight and that weight means their legs are more sizeable then standing with toes and heels together is simply making balance difficult. And I can assure you if you’ve ever seen someone try to practise with toes and heels together and you invite them to introduce a little space between their feet (either just by making the feet and knees face forward, or if a more severe problem where the feet need to come apart altogether an inch or so) that they will INSTANTLY find their practice more manageable. But MUCH MORE important than that is that they feel that NOW they suddenly understand what it means to participate more fully in the class, that they understand what it means to LEARN balance. Up until that time they have found their centre of balance is way out and well… as I said, there is a ton of stuff to this balance issue. I could go on! :cheese:
By the way nobody has ever corrected me (or my students) at any studio for my foot position. (No, they don’t all know I am a teacher. I like my practice to be my own so the less people know the better!) I am sure it is because my toes are together and my poses are strong and precise.
The idea of opposing forces is a way of verbalising what I like to call ‘traction lines’. There is definitely an element of pose activity that one needs to look for in each position. You can do the yoga without them and you will feel ok. But once you find them then your satisfaction levels climb sky high!
In Standing Head to Knee regarding opposing forces:
The opposing forces that are also good to be aware of are the ones where the hands pull back against the ball of the foot contra the force of the heel pushing forward toward the mirror. Kristin, is your opposition of heel forward and stomach backward a visualisation or do you actually feel it as a tractional effect. I feel the traction of the interaction of the hands and arms and leg which I look for. I am interested to know more of your strategy.
@bunni, if you’re losing your balance in SHTK, I would like to know if your back is rounded when you move your leg forward. Please let me know what exactly you’re doing.
Standing Bow: Try finding the traction in the body first by pressing the leg back. Don’t bring the body forward even the tiniest bit. Once you are in the fullest expression of the kick that is when you PIVOT the body around the hip. In this way you’re not actually charging your body forward at all. Try it. You will find your body in balance every moment of the pose! It’s a much better pose, I promise! 😉
Okey dokey, I am running out of room. Haha. I hope this provokes some good discussion or some great pose breakthroughs
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Hi Kristin
Any updates? What other solutions have you tried? (Apologies for not getting to this sooner. I hadn’t realised that nobody had responded to your question.) What concerns me most is that it is the areas not covered with clothing that are affected.
So now a couple of questions:
>> Is this a strict observation that ONLY the areas exposed are affected?
>> How clean would you think this studio is? So for example, do you smell the sweat in the air that has not cleared from the studio simply because of a preceding class? Or is it that the studio has wet patches of carpet that have not been attended to? Stuff like that. Your studio may have a wooden or rubber floor. Perhaps we can know a little more about that.
>> Maybe you can tell me whether you have any awareness about how hot the studio is. I am not sure it is heat related because of the position of the rash but I don’t want to discount anything. Sometimes the best way to know if it is too hot is a) if you have NO indication of the temperature (studios can hide a gauge), b) windows and doors are constantly being opened or closed during class to ‘manage’ the temperature, c) regular students and not just newbies are taking time out of class, unable to get through a whole session without stopping for a break.I hope it’s not too late for you to enter back into this thread. I will look out for your reply
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Hi Mette
You are obviously quite upset about your experience. I want to make sure that we are on the same wavelength, so I don’t want to make any assumptions.
Can you please answer some questions for me?
>> How many classes have you gone to (and over what period of time)?
>> If releveant: How many per week?
>> Are you able to say what poses you could be feeling more anxious in?
>> Which poses do you not feel any anxiety in?
>> What poses are you unable to feel your arm and leg?
>> Did you mean it is on the right side that you cannot feel your arm and leg?
>> Which poses seem to make you more hypersensitive to sound?For the moment Metta, please try to avoid making comparisons between your meditation and yoga experiences. I think we’re going to get to a place where you see that they are very different for many reasons. I look forward to reading your responses to the above questions and anything else you feel is relevant to recount.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Hi Vijay
Ooooops. Missed that question about the raised shoulders.
It’s a very complex anatomical issue. Raising shoulders amongst many things engages accessory respiratory muscles located in the neck and upper ribs. In effect they engage your sympathetic system (fear, flight, fright) and can prevent you from breathing deeply into your lungs. Accessory breathing muscles work in place of and in conjunction of the primary breathing muscles and thereby prevent full and deep breathing. It can markedly confine breathing to the top of your lungs and engage neck muscles to breathe! That is quite independent of position. You could be curled up or stretched up or in a back bend. In each case, raising the shoulders will make breathing less effective.
There are actual physical connections that are related to the way the ribs, diaphragm and core muscles work to create a deep and relaxed breath. It’s very intricate and wonderful. You can see that it has a lot to do with the functionality of the whole body (effective breathing and movement and posture).
The tightness around head, neck and shoulders creates tension (naturally :P) rather than length. While many believe they are getting more length in their arms by being able to reach up further, that is completely artificial.
The length you are after is from your shoulders and shoulder blades, extending up through to the finger tips. The more you can drop the shoulders while simultaneously reaching up, the longer your arms and the longer your neck. The moment your chin drops, or there is tension in your neck and shoulders you have an issue (easily fixed!).
Use the position of your head and chin, the sensation of tightness as your barometer. Loosen your shoulders and reach up. If your chin drops or you sense tightness, bend the arms a tiny bit, re-extend. If your arms are not completely straight but your chin is up then you are still able to reach up and stretch while still being able to breathe effectively, physiologically and fully.
In this way your arms will straighten in a very short amount of time.
If one continues to squeeze the head with the arms and the chin drops and there is tightness the muscular tension will NOT disappear and breathing will always be hampered to some degree.
I hope that was what you were after!
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: sleep issues #10940Hello Andrea
Just a little shout out to you to wish you well! Are you sleeping any better now?
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: Knee swelling and Numbness #10939Hi Kelly
Can you tell me if you’re the same Kelly that started this thread because I can see two names klizgodin and rk1114?
My personal timetable has meant a lack of forum answers for a month. Stuff happens, right?
So please Kelly, (or is that Kelly and Kelly 😉 ) would you please give me an update as to your current knee-status? Did you start Bikram yoga? If you did then you would know the pose names or recognise the poses on this website and I can make recommendations for you.
And if your knees are still stiff and swollen, I would like to know if that is due to just yoga, or if there are conditions in your out-of-yoga experiences which are informing your knee problem.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: Wobbling during pranayama #10938Hi Robin
I have a question for you and some homework! Please go and watch the Free Video called “Great Posture From The Ground Up”. That’s your homework. Please apply the feet positioning information. In the majority of cases ankle squeezing can create a problem with balance or impede a sustainable ‘ecological’ balance. So check that out.
Can you tell me if you are aware of where on your feet you are balancing? You see I think most people think of ‘the foot’ rather than the inside, the outside, the front, the back, the inside front of the left foot, the outside front of the right foot or other myriad examples. Obviously one can be quite specific IF one can determine where the weight actually lies. Are you aware for example if your toes are gripping the floor (as is often advised)? What can you tell me about your feet? It may be difficult for you to ascertain because the attention is really taken up with head and arm movement while doing Pranayama, so just do the best you can. 😉
See you soon
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: 10 months of hip pain #10936Hi Kristin
Well! You got me! My bad. I didn’t answer. I have had to minimise all computer work for several months (and in fact longer!). Unavoidable interruptions to yoga-life and yoga-forum-life as we know it. I may be back to normal soonish. I imagine with your great experience and understanding of your own body that ‘pushing through it’ meant something akin to mindfulness in the pushing through. Pushing through means different things to different folk.
I am very pleased you have resolved the issue. If you want to say what you did for each pose then that could help others.
FWIW I should be back on board answering more forum posts pretty soon. It’s been a big year for me (and I mean 12 months not just since January!).
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: help with balance #10931Hello Carl and Tim
Thank you for the question and the answer. I don’t like to be contrary but I do believe that there may be a LOT more to the balance issue than meets the eye.
Tim is correct on the locking of the knee. It can provide stability that may be missing. The core strength is important and also contributes to stability. The fixed point focus is partly correct. Focus should be easy, gaze soft in one general direction without ‘burning a hole’ in a spot.
I think that Carl – and anyone who still has issues balancing after 9 months – is experiencing issues with pose technique likely both general and specific. While yoga should be challenging it should not be a struggle.
Using toes to dig and grip the floor is a sure sign that something needs to change. That change can be TINY so do not despair.
What I propose is that you tell me which poses you find your balance issues in. Tim, if you’re willing you might participate by saying which particular poses your tootsies are digging in! 😉
As in 95% of cases such as this, when a question is asked, the answer does not lie where one might expect. As I said, the answer can be simple and very easy to implement.
If I may suggest, take a look at a couple of my Free Videos, right here.
In particular “Great posture from the ground up” may give you some fine clues.
See you back here :cheese:
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: Some thoughts on rabbit #10929Hi Aaron
I agree with you! The recited script emphasises things that mislead the student. I have been to classes where I have seen students being complimented for a Rabbit pose where I could see them jamming their heads downward into the floor. My point? It takes quite some experience and understanding to be able to see the weight distribution, the body mechanics and the traction lines.
The other problem is that what the student thinks will get them out of trouble (to stop them rolling forward) is actually what will cause them to roll forward. The pose has counter-intuitive aspects that require surrender.
Well done for working it out.
For those that don’t quite get this pose, or it’s not the super satisfying pose it should be, then I am positive that there is at least one small thing (and maybe more) that you can do (that may not be that far away from what you’re already doing) that will make THE difference. You’ll ‘get’ it and it will be oh so worth it!
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: INCREASED APPETITE!!! ANYONE? #10924Hi Sally
Your nourishment choices are completely up to you. If you’re listening to what you need then that is the best thing you can do. Raw, cooked, combination, veg, vegan, paleo, whatever labels you want or even types of eating you adopt, it really doesn’t matter. It’s completely up to you. I do recommend incorporating lots of salads! But right at the moment I don’t think that’s the issue for you. It’s just filling that hole and feeling satisfied. Many people have issues in their first weeks of practice and they do settle down in a short time. So don’t be too concerned.
Doing 5-7 classes of hot yoga per week is really a lot. If you’re also going to gym then you really are doing a lot of exercise. (Well done!)
You seem to indicate that you are not worn out but just hungry. That’s really a great sign. There are a number of things I can think of to suggest. One of those is to manage hunger with some small amount of snack (fresh fruit or vegies or nuts or something similar). I would probably choose one type of food to keep it simple. Perhaps a bag of almonds or other type of nuts with no dried fruit. Or an apple or 2. Or some carrots or something like that. If it has to be cooked food for you, then choose something completely uncomplicated that fills the space! The simpler the better. If you are at home, you could make yourself a green smoothie. Or a vegie juice.
The other thing I am thinking is this: During the first 2-3 weeks of a hot yoga practice people’s systems – in the course of heat acclimatisation – adapt to the new conditions physiologically. In the course of those first few weeks they do in fact
lose more salt than regular yogis who have been practising for longer. So what I am saying is that your systems are upset more now than they will be over the next few weeks.Keep up the sea salt intake (even put a pinch in your water in class and your bottle during the day, with or without a drop or 2 of lemon juice if you need the flavour). The effect on your whole system may make a significant difference.
If you find that the sea salt (or commercial – aka expensive – electrolyte) that you add is not helping, then consider just for a week, give up the gym and do just the daily hot yoga. See if that makes a difference. If that doesn’t make a difference, then give up the yoga for a few days while only doing the gym and see if that does it.
Your caloric intake really does need to match your increased exercise habit. In summary: Try the simple snacks, the sea salt in the water, and if you need to, drop one of the exercise routines for a few days to see if your hunger goes back to normal. If it does, you probably are not eating enough. So add something in the interim rather than getting used to enormous meals. Large meals could be a habit that challenges your body shaping goals long term.
Some teachers are bigger than others. That’s how the world is! :cheese: It’s hard to imagine that someone doing this for ever would be overweight, but imagine we do. Some teachers teach more than they practise. It is intriguing how we can sometimes wonder about the whys and whats of so many things! We can never know anybody’s ‘story’. Heck, sometimes we don’t even know our own! Don’t be concerned. Enjoy the yoga and the way you feel more and more comfortable in your own skin, whatever shape it’s in!
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: INCREASED APPETITE!!! ANYONE? #10922Hello Sally
I am not surprised if you are hungry. It seems you are doing a LOT of exercise. I do need to ask you: How many times per week are you going to the gym?
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: sleep issues #10920Hi Andrea
So pleased you have solved the puzzle by realising that the drugs you were taking (beyond the reported HRT and thyroid medications) could be involved. Nice detective work!
Keep us posted please! I am sure there are others ‘out there’ who have (had 😉 ) similar issues.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: Post-yoga flu symptoms #10911Hi Guy
Thank you so much! :cheese: Seems as though you have a formula that’s working for you! I am really pleased it’s working out and look forward to more updates. Variety is (sometimes) key when you are practising at home (given that most practise to audio classes it really helps to have a choice).
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂 -
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