Release Valves

(Reflections on daily personal practice at home and participation in an all-level class at Whole Life Yoga on Saturday, 7/18, taught by Sharon, 10:45 a.m. -- noon.)

When I attended Sharon's late-morning class on Saturday the 18th she included utthita trikonasana in the standing sequence, and probably the peak posture as well. As it happens, this is a movement I do regularly in my daily personal practice as well, so I'm familiar with its inherent difficulties.

The biggest problem I have with utthita trikonasana is a tendency to move the upward-facing arm out in front of the body when coming out of the posture. In fact, this seems to be the most troubling and persistent problem I deal with in any of the various movements common to Viniyoga, with the possible exception of the universal and ever-popular hunching the shoulders toward the ears on forward bends. Other than that, I have a slight tendency to stick my butt out when releasing from this pose, but that's not nearly as pronounced as the problem with the arms wanting to come down at an outward angle as opposed to staying within a vertical plane.

This is a particularly important posture for me to perform properly, because it's been so instrumental in helping me to recover from a shoulder injury I sustained in a fall in the snow last December, which still nags a little sometimes. So I try to pay attention to the proper form, in order to get the full daily benefit of this very complete lateral bend and cervical twist.

I seldom do parivrtti trikonasana (and we didn't do it in Sharon's Saturday-morning class), but when I do I've noticed a tendency to buckle the right knee and rotate the right leg inward when twisting left, and use the same release valve on the other side, although it's not as pronounced when I'm twisting to the right. That's surprising, because I can't twist to the right and raise my right arm in that posture without experiencing a bit of shoulder pain.

In jatthara parivrtti, the universal release valve is bringing the right shoulder off the floor when twisting left, and vice-versa. But as I learned in class when demonstrating this pose, it's not a bad idea to let that happen within limits in order to increase the intensity of the twist. What I found in that demonstration is that working to keep the shoulder glued to the floor or, on the other hand, allowing it rise in an uncontrolled manner, are both ways to undermine the optimum benefit of the pose by restricting the twisting movement of the spine.

We did jatthara in Sharon's class toward the end of the session that Saturday, and I applied what I'd learned in class to maximize the benefit of the posture.

Other than what I've noted above, release valves I've found myself using are:

*Hunching the shoulders toward the ears on forward bends or other postures where the arms are swept up over the head;

*A tendency to collapse the chest over the abdomen on forward bends (especially pascimatanasana), particularly if the shoulders are already hunched;

*Letting the arms trail behind when coming up out of forward bends, causing a tendency to bend from the waist rather than the hips.

I'm sure I'm using other release valves as well that I haven't noticed, and that haven't yet been pointed out to me.

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