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in reply to: So what do you wear? #5852
Hi all
I would prefer that this stays on topic (regarding clothing!) so I will point you to some practical tips on triangle pose here: Slipping and Sliding Feet (some ideas about exactly where to place the weight on the feet and other ideas that may help you, Gavin).
People buy non-slip towels for a number of reasons: not just for triangle pose. 😉 I have never used a grippy towel but towels are props just like your mat is. If you are stepping out to the side of your mat without a towel then in effect the carpet is a prop. If one’s towel is not long enough for their warrior poses (regardless of whether they turn to the side or use their towel across the mat) then they really do have to choose the same surface for both feet.
So Gavin’s slipping may be because he has one foot on the towel and one on the carpet. And hence this could be the reason he has thought he needs a longer non-slip towel. And yes, it could also be technique (very likely). I agree with you Niki that students think they need more props when they are beginners. This could be one of those times! Do you remember when your towel would get all messed up and now it stays neat and needs no rearranging?
Oh, yeah, and if anyone has pictures of people doing yoga on ice rinks barefoot I sure would love to see them. Brrrrrr! Chalk that one up to a bit of folklore methinks. 😆 At least we all understand the message.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: inversions #5843Both of them! How curious.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: So what do you wear? #5841Hi Jeffrey
You mentioned before that it was when you widen your legs that your pants move. This is really going to come down to cut and what fits your body. In effect when you try on your yoga pants you had better do a triangle pose in front of a mirror. :cheese: Should make quite a scene.
I have bought Robert really nice yoga shorts on occasion. He had to keep them for swimming only, because of the ahem… exposure. 😉 It is really case by case.
Good luck and have fun choosing!
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: arthritis on toes #5836Hi yogini
I was also wondering about gout and other crystallizations in joint spaces. Just thought I would throw that one in!
It is possible that you need more yoga. I think it could be worth increasing your weekly classes. Try going to yoga 4-5 times per week for a month and see if this helps. A month trial is a finite time period. Back off from fully loading your toes in Part 2 Awkward on days that you have to. And by that I simply mean lift the heels slightly less, or if you can lift them high just don’t lean as much into them.
You can also exercise those toe joints without so much weight bearing while sitting to try and work into them without pain and without focusing all your weight there because your bottom will be supported. Equally you can use your hands to support you when you are standing at a bench and rising up on your toes.
Since you have pain daily in these areas and if it is definitely arthritis then I am sure that these efforts will help you. Another thing would be to check out your diet. It could be worth looking into alkalinizing your intake! If you need help with that come back and I can give you some search terms. A good place to start is getting rid of meats at least as a trial (that is of course if you eat flesh products). This was just a hunch, of course I have no idea about your diet – something I thought worth mentioning.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: Feel tingling in fingers #5833Hi Mohan
Humble apologies that I haven’t had it on my radar to answer all your questions. I will get around to it in the next couple of days.
How are you going, has the tingling feeling still been visiting you?
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: inversions #5828Hi Siobhain
Just wondering if your students are concerned or just you! I would be concerned too. Is it perhaps that they are unable to draw in enough breath? It could have something to do with having the chin tucked along with the challenge of the pose. How long are they holding this pose? It really is a troubleshooting exercise to start with. You can encourage them to experiment with different lengths of holding (the pose, not the breath 😉 ). Also I would investigate their breathing techniques. To help you could use the video Effective Breathing In Hot Yoga as a starting point. Find out what technique they are using in this pose and see if it is effective for them. Well that’s just a few thoughts. Get back to me and we can explore this further together.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: New to Yoga #5820Hi Devikar
Welcome to the forum.
I am wondering if you’ve already started practicing yet! Sometimes just practicing is the trigger for using your intuition and wisdom to choose what is best for you at any given time. We all lapse into interesting eating habits at some time. I don’t think you should overwhelm yourself with too many rules. You will find that things fall into place. If you need some guidance maybe check out some food combination principles. Many people find that works for them (as I do!).
You can practice the poses here at home. There is plenty of guidance available on the forum so take a good look around. There’s also the timing sheet for suggested times to hold the poses. Have fun!
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: I hate to admit this, but… #5816Hi decatur1945
I look forward to the update on the Tuesday appt. Maybe it’s just skeletal muscles calling out!
As for the ED I had a student who was mid to late 60s that was not bashful at all in telling me that his wife was very grateful for his yoga practice because he no longer needed Viagra. He even let me interview him for an article in the local newspaper.
Another wonderful thing about this person’s journey is that he used his hot yoga to prepare himself for his open heart surgery. His specialist and the care staff all commented on how quickly he was able to recover from his operation.
I am hoping that other men who may have experienced improvements in ED can share with decatur1945. If you don’t want to do that publicly you can use the Private Messaging system. I have a feeling that that support would mean a lot.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂You are amazing, Robert!!! I love the list of improvements. That kind of attention, that kind of tuning into your body is obviously paving the way for many more improvements to come.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: Pain where leg connects to body #5801Hi Christine
Since your post, has there been any improvement or change? If you have a muscle injury it may be being aggravated by your stretching and you could have some scar tissue in there that needs resolving. Have you seen a physical therapist yet for a diagnosis and to give you exercises to strengthen your muscle? It sounds as though you could have weakness and injury that needs intervention.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: Ravenous for sugar post bikram #5798Hi Jeffrey
I think the instructions are a guide. You can add more than the advised amount. If you add another sachet you will probably just find you have expensive urine! :cheese: I hope that doesn’t need an explanation.
I add more water than the advised amount for the Ultima product because the stevia aftertaste bothers me if it is too concentrated.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Hi Kathie
May I ask you whether your doctor thinks the origin of your problem is the bunion condition, or is it due to activities in an athletic past? Or do you think it is something else again?
During what poses are you particularly feeling it being aggravated? For example you may find you can’t go as high up with the heels in Awkward part 2. What about regular non-yoga activities like walking, do you feel your pain then?
Did your doctor recommend surgery for the bunions and did (s)he say that if you had the surgery that the turf toe would resolve?
What support are you getting at the moment in the way of orthotics or cushioning (or ?) and is that helping you?
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: knee prothese or replacement! #5793Hello yogini
It is fine to use your towel or strap to grab your ankle or foot in Standing Bow. Please try to gently point your toes if you are grabbing around the ankle. The reason is that in order to hold the strap in place, students will often unconsciously flex the foot. Also see if you can maintain your arm externally rotated just as you would for the normal pose so that your shoulder doesn’t roll inward and forward.
Is it the pressure and resultant discomfort through your knee that makes it difficult in Fixed Firm or Tortoise? Or is it a limitation in the bend that makes it impossible to sit with hips on heels? Has your doctor mentioned what kind of range of motion you can expect or work toward, or even a limitation that they expect you can’t go past?
Leaving your legs straight out in front of you or at some angle is fine. If that’s all you can do then that’s all you can do! There are plenty of people who can do Head to Knee with one leg extended and still get the benefits because of correct technique. Conversely there are plenty of people who bend their other leg in who don’t set the pose up properly. How to set it up correctly is widely misunderstood by many. There are some pointers on the forum for you to check into.
Keep me updated and get back to me on those questions above for those 3 poses you mentioned.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: Nausea in Ustrasana #5792Hi Chris
This doesn’t sound normal at all. I would really encourage you to get it checked out professionally. If it is nothing then we can look deeper. For the moment I would certainly need more details.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: I am quite overweight and doing hot yoga #5791Hello Kelly
Have you had time to search through the posts on Standing Bow? There are plenty of tips in there!
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: arthritis on toes #5784Hi Luna
I have a some questions:
I know you have been practicing for a while, but how frequent are you practicing? How long has this problem been bothering you? Are you sure it is arthritis? Do you have any other problems with any other joints?
You mention extreme pain and that is obviously not good! Where else are your toes bothering you? Other poses? Walking? Or just part 2 Awkward?
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Hi Jeffrey
The buzzing, honking, loud singing noise that some people make in Pranayama is absolutely unnecessary. If you check out the video mentioned above you will find a demonstration of how to do it with a maximum of results for the effort expended. FWIW: If I make “that weird sound” it actually makes it harder for me to draw my breath in more deeply.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂You’re welcome…
As far as your feelings that the teacher is singling you out without mentioning your name… :cheese: Congratulations you are on your way to learning how to cope with feedback without reacting. You’re not quite there yet. But see if you can check into your own process. Notice too that when feedback is given if you can tell when it can apply to you or not. You will get to a point where whether it does it doesn’t apply to you, you will simply check into your body and work out whether the adjustment is to occur, where and how.
I can assure you that no one is there thinking “oh there she goes again, doing it wrong – I am sick of hearing that adjustment” ;). That just doesn’t happen. For the most part we all go through a similar process in class.
Namaste
Gabrielle 😉Hi Nynn
It’s a kind of ‘each to his own’ recipe. Many people use the yoga to cross train – for example training for triathlons and balancing it out with hot yoga. And many others start with the yoga to supplement their exercise and then give everything else up.
There are those that you will find on this forum that run, do kettle bells, swim or any other number of supplementary exercises including the morning walk.
Here are possibly a couple of relevant questions for you:
>> How many times per week are you practicing?
>> How well would you consider your breathing technique to be in class (and out of class)?I would really encourage you to firstly consider your experience as a one-off! It may help you let it go and move on and stop you anticipating its return if you have any exertion.
I would explore your breath. You may simply need to focus more attention on your breath. It took me months to do this. Check out the video: Effective Breathing In Hot Yoga for some pointers.
There is also the possibility that you could look into certain pose techniques. It is possible to find ways to tweak your technique so that you find the appropriate challenge in your poses. This will also affect the way you breathe. Are there any poses that you don’t quite ‘get’ or that feel good but you know there is something that you are missing?
That’s good for starters methinks… Welcome to the forum
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: Weight loss and Bikram- What to eat? #5751Thanks Randy
You are right! I believe that if you can manage your nutrition with food rather than supplements then that is superior to taking powders or tablets. Coconut water is great but I agree, if you aren’t in Thailand or somewhere the coconuts are fresh and you can pop a straw in (and also spend less than a dollar 😉 ) then I am sure there are other choices you can make.
Taking supplements may be necessary if you have a very regular practice (say 5+ classes per week) and/or if you are showing signs of nutritional lack (tingling extremities and other muscle function or nerve transmission problems, excessive tiredness, other signs of dehydration and so on).
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Hi Mindy
You know what? I have a video that will help you a great deal (well, I hope so!). It will give you the science behind how to breathe as well as some practical tips and techniques. Here’s the link here: Effective Breathing In Hot Yoga.
On the main page where you find all the other free technique videos currently available. Check them out here: Hot Yoga Doctor Free Technique Videos.
I hope you find them useful
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: Feel tingling in fingers #5746Hi Mohan
Doing a strong Pranayama exercise like Bhastrika is more likely to cause dizziness or a light feeling in the head. In fact it seems that hyperventilation is quite common with this particular exercise and why it is often performed sitting down.
Here are a few questions for you:
>> Does this tingling happen with any other type of exertion?
>> How many cycles of breath are you taking?
>> How long is each inhale and each exhale?
>> Does it happen straight away (from the first breath)?
>> Has it happened for the whole 10 days?
>> Does it happen EVERY time?
>> Is the tingling getting worse? Does it get worse towards the end of each session?
>> Where are your hands in this exercise? Are they relaxed and in your lap? What are they doing?
>> Is the tingling ever anywhere else besides the fingers?
>> How long does it take for the tingling to disappear once you’ve stopped the exercise?
>> What other kinds of exercise do you do? Is it possible that you are lacking electrolytes and are in need of supplementation? Nerves and muscles need certain essential minerals etc to function. Tingling can be a sign of something missing from your constitution.Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂in reply to: Weight loss and Bikram- What to eat? #5744Hi Jeffrey
Regular electrolyte powders or tablets will do. There are simple and cheap varieties available that are very basic, right up to your more complex formulations. You can search on the word “electrolyte” and you will come up with some very recent conversations.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂 -
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