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You Yesterday · Divas That Care Network

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's Divas the Care Radio.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Stories, strategies, and ideas to inspire positive change.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Divas that Care, a network of women committed to making our world a better place for everyone.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is a global movement for women, by women, engaged in a collaborative effort to create a better world for future generations.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: To find out more about the movement, visit divas that care.com after the show.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right now, though, stay tuned for another jolt of inspiration.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Namaste and welcome to the Divas That Care Network.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Jiraquel Rose, owner of Airs Above Yoga, and you are listening to Above the Ground Podcast.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is your first time tuning in.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Our network is in its 16th year and listened to in over 30 countries.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: I would like to personally thank you for giving me the gift of your time.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: As always, it's my honor to hold space with and for you.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And our theme for this series is like my whole bag, like what I'm all about generally at life, coming from the background of an only child, and that is collaboration over competition.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: In yoga, at life, you know, blessed or, you know, being an only child is kind of a double-edged sword, right?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's wonderful in lots of ways.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And in other ways, like I have no concept of what it would be like to have a brother or sister, right?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't really need to share my things at home.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I got all of the love and affection from my parents that I wanted.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: There was not a lot of competition there.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I always participated in sports that were, you know, like more single, like skiing, horseback riding.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like I wasn't much of a team type of person.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And not to say that teams aren't crucial and important, working together isn't super important, but it's a different mentality.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't have a concept of what it's of the siblingness of the world.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, but it did give me, I think, you know, a good standpoint to come from this place of, you know, I'm not competing by nature.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm competing with who I was yesterday, not anybody else, because that's their path and their purpose and and not mine.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, and I think there's a lot of people that I've seen, anyone can see it if you go to a yoga studio, a big enough class, you know, you see, and there are mirrors, mirrors in yoga studios or something that I think are a sticking point for people and instructors.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: They have benefits for a hundred, like for sure.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of instructors don't like them, and some students don't like them because you get a lot of this.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And for those that are not watching, I'm doing like a downward dog with a with a neck turn looking into the mirror to see how I look compared to everybody else, or you know, and that's that's the you know the opposite of yoga, right?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like it takes you out of your body, it takes you out of the present moment, puts you into your head, which is exactly what we're trying to avoid.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think that for yoga specifically, the conversation for collaboration over competition is so just in alignment, right?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: But with that being said, as an asana episode, which the first episode of every series that we go through is an asana episode.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's about the postures, it's very hard unless you're talking the only, you know, it's a little bit too tongue-in-cheek, it's a little too perfect, but the only one that really tracks is when you're doing partner yoga, right?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And partner yoga is a beautiful thing.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, there are lots of, you know, kind of flying poses where you can rest your hips on the feet of your partner and fly, if you will.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: They hold hands and your legs are outstretched.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you can do inverse child's pose, you know, you can do inverse um back bends, inverse wheel bending over.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: There, there are lots of different ways to do partner yoga.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that's wonderful and beautiful and a wonderful thing.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I love the little sunshine of my life kind of coming through the window as I record this.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: So pardon me for the little added bit of sunshine on my shoulder.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but essentially, I don't really want to get up into that aspect of it for a very specific reason.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: I would rather talk about the collaboration of the instructor-student relationship.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And more than that, the importance of having an instructor, whether it doesn't have to be private, I know that's not necessarily something that is affordable for everybody, or something that necessarily I would always advise that if you can afford it, 100% do it.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if if you are just looking at an instructor in the room with eyes on your body, is a hundred times better than a mirror.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't have either, a mirror will do in a pinch, so you can see where your body is in space.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: But even myself, most human beings, unless they have eyes in the back of their head, which would I think render them not a human being, they don't necessarily know where their body is in space.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you think of like, I always like to use the the idea of the cat behind the couch that thinks it's hiding and you can see its entire backside and tail flicking, right?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's that's a human in a yoga pose, essentially.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, I think I'm hidden.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I think I'm doing it right, but you're you may not be.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, you can do it in front of a mirror, but then you're looking at yourself and you're not fully and I shouldn't say that, I'm gonna rephrase that.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's wonderful to check yourself in a mirror if you're practicing at home with a video online without an instructor present, like you're watching a downloaded video of a yoga class and participating, right?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's have a mirror, it's better than nothing, 100%.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure that you're not missing out on the pose by looking in the mirror.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: If my suggestion would be to pause the video if you have that capacity, look in the mirror, set yourself up, play the video so that you actually get the moment of awareness, body awareness, mind awareness of where you are in position with the pose with the mirror, but that you don't go, okay, on to the next.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: They've moved on.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now I don't have time to actually settle into the pose properly because I was busy checking myself out in the mirror, right?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where it gets a little bit tricky.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And while the mirror is great to kind of highlight the instability or the one-sidedness, or, you know, whatever pose might, whatever body, whatever area of your body may be less cooperative, because we all have those less cooperative areas, um, out of alignment would be another way to phrase that.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: The mirror will help you to look at that.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: But there's no substitute for an instructor who knows what they're doing.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason for that, obviously, other than the schooling that instructors go through, is because the instructor is able to offer you solutions.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: And there are two things that came to mind when we had when I was thinking about how to put this episode together, because like I said, usually I would talk about asanas.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I I really, it's so important to me to go over.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: There are two stories that I'd like to share.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And they both have to do with students that students, not even necessarily students of mine, um, but yoga practitioners, uh, yoga students that were one was actually taking a class online.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: So she wasn't even in an active class, she was watching a video, you know.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let's say it was on YouTube.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm on YouTube, it's fine.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but she was complaining in a space that will remain nameless that she hurt her shoulder.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I happened to be overhearing the conversation.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And at a certain point in time, I raised my hand and I said, Hey, I'm a yoga teacher.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Can I help you?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I got the okay to be a supportive of that space.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I gave a solution to this woman that was not only not technically yoga, and I will explain what it was, but because of my experience with my injuries, my own rehabilitation, and the way that I had to modify poses to make it work while I rehabilitated from my different injuries.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now, does every yoga teacher have injury stories and had to go through their own process?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily, but any yoga teacher with their salt who's gone through the process of anatomy physiology studying, the process of understanding the poses and how to break the body mechanics of the postures down, should be able to at least highlight the issue that you're running into.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a typical one.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is the lack of upper body strength and the dumping into the shoulders during chaturanga.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like it's like the main yoga injury, right?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: The main yoga injury is right here and right here because you're you're doing this.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and by doing this, it means dumping all of your torso weight into your shoulders, having your shoulders drop below your elbows.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: So my solution to this for this woman, which she said in the moment when she practiced it, helped her, is the same solution that I have for everyone.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's how I teach a vinyasa class to people who who are not prepared physically to do a proper chaturanga.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if you I don't want a blanket statement, but chaturanga, chaturanga dandasana, you never actually touch the mat.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's a big distinction, it's why I don't like knees, chest, chin.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: So if we're gonna have a conversation about yoga asana and collaboration, I'm gonna pick apart knees, chest, chin.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason for that is you're not actually training the muscle groups to work people up into a proper chaturanga.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Proper chaturanga is I it's hard, I can't do it with my neck injury and and and I lift weights multiple days a week.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot do a proper chaturanga dandasana because it is that strenuous.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: It is holding a forearm style plank with your thumbs and wrists in line with your elbows, and you are only the length of your forearm off the floor.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: The rest of your body weight is being locked in by your inner thighs and pressing out through the heel.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it is an entire body plank, and I could probably hold it, but I have lumbar spine issues as well.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not, it would be very contraindicated for me as a practice to move through a traditional vinyasa.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's it just would be based on what I have going on in my body.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people look at it and then they think they're doing it right and nope, they're not doing it right.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean to, this is not a judgment of anyone, this is not a critique of anyone, this is the reason why yoga instruction is so important and why real injuries can happen when you don't have a qualified instructor.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not hating on instructors either, but I'm saying, like, when you're doing everyone says, Oh, I'll just do yoga at home on my computer, it's free.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Please, please don't do that.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Or do that, but go to a go to a class and and have a conversation with someone like yours truly or any other qualified instructor and say, Hey, I want to make sure that I'm doing this properly.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if I'm not doing this properly, can you please give me some steps to start to build body strength in the necessary places that I'm going to need to do this properly properly if that happens to be a goal of yours?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the big I'm going to break this down.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: So if we're going to have, we're going to have an asana conversation because it's an asana episode.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'm going to break down is very simply the distinction between chaturanga dandasana into upward-facing dog.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not even going to get like the rest of the vinyasa with the down dog and the actual moving into a plank position.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't, that's that's not actually, I should rephrase.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: There is a lot of lower back injury that can occur from coming inappropriately from upward-facing dog to downward facing dog.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: You not 90% of people dump all of their body weight into their lower back and then like peel themselves up by their butt, and it's not great for their body.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I'm not trying to critique it.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying I've seen it, other people have seen it.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's been noted that when you don't have the strength to move through it properly, your body muscles its way through the only way it knows how.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And unless you've trained it, it doesn't know what it's doing.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's nobody's fault.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to learn.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why I'm so adamant about please go to yoga class, please have an instructor.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: If it's not private, go to a class.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Ask questions before and after, not in the middle, but ask questions.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like these are very, very important for your own.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yoga is so wonderful for your health.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: When we're talking about collaboration, so as not to forget the point, it is collaboration between your body, mind, and spirit, soul, whatever you want to call it.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: It is a it's a unification of all of these things.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: It is creating a flow state in the moment.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: It is a beautiful, wonderful practice.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: That is why people have this kind of weird thing.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone will go to Pilates without kind of this stopgap, but yoga has a stopgap.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm I feel like it's because of that spiritual element that scares people away.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: But the it's that very element of, like I said in one of my more recent episodes, not wanting to face yourself or not wanting to open the door to that.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: It can be scary.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think Pilates has that connotation, whereas yoga absolutely has that connotation.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: So there is an element of that.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: But what I love about it is is the physicality of it, right?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: As you start to confront yourself, you're meeting, it's it puts you in a vulnerable place.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: This whole conversation about not having the strength as a as a as someone who I in the past I have 100% practiced vinyasa, and I will say that I probably appropriately was able to do chaturakada dasana into upward-facing dog.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: 85, 90 appropriately.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, pretty, pretty darn well uh in my in my day before before the injuries and the falls that I had.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um I would say that probably there was a little more dumping into my lower back than I'm than I'd like to admit.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I had I had the the hold and the the hold of the chaturanga and the flow into Upward Dog really relatively well established body mechanics-wise.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it took a lot of strength.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I and it takes a lot of practice.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is a practice.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: All of these things are a practice, but the collaboration, there's two when you're talking about yoga.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's two big ones for the individual, for the yoga practitioner, not the yoga instructor.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's for the practitioner, there's two.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's you and your higher self, you and your body, your mind, and soul.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's you with yourself.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: That is the first and foremost.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's what puts it in alignment with other individualized um modalities, whether it be skiing, whether it be like I mentioned earlier, horseback riding, figure skating, you know, these these individualized you versus yourself, right?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, sure, you're competing with other people, but you're only as good as you are the day before, right?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Or the day after.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you meet yourself where you are every day, face to face, the good, bad, and the ugly.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: You just do.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and not every day is the same.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: You might be able to do a pose one day.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: It feels great.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: You feel you feel if you want to bring the compet competition part out, you feel like you nailed it, right?
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next day, something you sleep wrong as you get older, and you wake up and you're like, oh my God, ow.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And and the pose is not not for you on that day.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then you are just square meeting yourself right in the right in the big fat mirror, right?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's just not happening for you.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to be okay with that.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: You just do.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: That is where that vulnerability comes in, is this this resignation or this acceptance of the lack of perfection?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you are not perfect, you are whoever you are in this moment, and your best shot is to get to that next best moment, wherever it may be.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not a straight line, it's not, it's it can even be cyclical, right?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how many times did I have a fall where it was like, oh, here we go again, like back to slow walking on the treadmill till I can start to use my arms and legs again?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's so for whatever your trajectory, the bottom line is that that is the confrontational aspect of yoga.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: The competition is only with yourself, it should never be with anybody else.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the collaboration is also with yourself.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it has both.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're talking about that aspect of competition, it's only competition with, I mean, it's hard to compete with yourself in the moment.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's competition with your idea of yourself, and that's where the vulnerability hits you, that's where the confrontation hits you, that's where the ego rears its ugly head, right?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and makes you feel bad about yourself because you did this, you were able to do this, and now you can't, right?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: You could do this yesterday, and now you well, that's not constructive for anybody.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are able to come to the space of being in your body, the collaborative aspect, and channeling your higher self, closing your eyes, not even looking, as you have the balance to do it, closing your eyes or lowering your gaze and not even looking at the other people around you, not even looking at yourself in the mirror if you have enough of a practice where you can flow comfortably, um, and moving through the postures and creating it's a moving meditation.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it is.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, at least the flow classes are any of the classes can be, but flow classes for me have always felt more like a moving meditation because you just you know what's coming, you know, for better or worse, nine times out of ten, when you're in a vinyasa class, you kind of there's a flow to it.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And as you get into that flow, your brain shuts down, your body turns off, you're in that present moment, and hopefully you're not looking around the room, tweaking your neck and downward-facing dog, trying to see what everybody else is doing.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Does it happen?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Of course it happens.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: But the goal is to be meet you where you are and feel, not think.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: The ego comes into play when you start the thinking.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: You want to feel the practice, you want to feel your body, you want to be with your body in the moment and really experience it for all it is without that ego and without that judgment.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the competition versus collaboration side of the individual practice.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: When we get back to the collaboration of the instructor and the student, that is huge because that's how students can build on their practice, practice safely, and actually begin to please their ego, which you know that's not the reason why, but to build on their practice to become better than they were the day before, to become stronger.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even want to say better, stronger, more flexible, more in tune with themselves, more able to confront themselves with grace and with kindness and without that ego jamming you could do this before down your throat, right?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're trying to avoid.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the reasons that this chaturanga comes into play and why knee's chest chin is such a in my mind a poor training mechanism, is because it is knee's chest chin is one way that a lot of schools of thought have taught the modification.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And modification is the key word for collaboration when we talk about this.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Modification of the postures is why you go to a class.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: You can also watch videos online, but uh it's so much better to be with a person in a room, even on Zoom potentially, but in a with a person in the room is your best, best option.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the modifications are the reason why.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: So knees, chest, chin is literally exactly what I said.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of coming from your your plank, your staff pose, your your your full plank with your arms extended, balancing on your toes, you drop your knees to the floor, and then you for I don't know why, and frankly, you know, I'm sorry to the for to the person that created the idea of this, you bend your your chest first, drop your shoulders beneath and and scoop your entire torso towards the floor to get your torso down.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Here's my argument against knees, chest, chin.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're not really building strength so much in the upper body.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: You are dropping your shoulders below your elbows, which is where that rotator cuff, where that that brunt injury, that weight-bearing injury in the shoulder occurs for people that don't have the upper body strength to support their torso.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you wind up I don't understand the benefit.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: You're hollowing out your you're you're using you are using your lower bront.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: You are using your core to make this movement happen, but it's not mimicking the movement of chaturanga.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, it's it's not setting the body up to be able to achieve chaturanga.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: It is a mod it's in my mind, it's a modification that is a it deviates from the path of building, building to get to the pose.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: So the way that I taught for this woman who who had was complaining about her shoulder pain in Chaturanga, shocking, was how I was able to build strength back up.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the the key thing here is basically it's it's similar to what we and I don't love this term, what they used to refer to.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna date myself back, and I mean I don't know how long they referred to it, but when I heard it, it was like you know, like the 80s and 90s, was like the woman's push-up, air quotes for those of you that are listening.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that is where you're doing the pushup on your knees.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: But there are two crucial parts of this.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: The first part, well, three.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: There are three crucial parts of this.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: The first part is you have to bring your entire torso forward so that you your arms wind up slightly back so that your hands are in alignment.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that's part one.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't do that, you're not going to set yourself up appropriately.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Part one, you have to lean your whole torso more forward so that the angle of your torso is more of a 90 degree instead of a tabletop where your knees and your hips are straight up over your knees.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: First of all.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Second of all.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: As you move into that position, you still have to have the tricep strength to help you lower yourself down.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a tricep push-up essentially.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Chaturanga is a tricep push-up.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: So for a lot of women, females, I will say that's an area potentially that's that is if you're not a practicing yoga, yogini, that you may not have a lot of strength to start.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you, if you, I'm gonna get this is where it's not yoga anymore.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you broaden the arms out, there's more surface area to get you up and down.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: I still like people to practice tricep style so that they're in a proper chaturanga form.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing is you can't let your hips, you can't let your lower back hollow.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to be in tabletop, right?
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Here are my hands, here are my arms.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: For those of you that are watching, I'm doing hand puppets at this point.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we've come to.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: We're doing hand puppets.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you are going to do it properly, you're gonna come to that 90 degree, your arms are gonna bend straight back, and you're gonna lower like this.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: What you don't want is for this to happen, and that happens a lot until you build the strength in the core to support the lower back.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, all of that being said, where I'm gonna get the shade and where and it's and I'll take the shade, it's okay, is to come up out of it, right?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that's how you lower down into what would be cobra, not up dog, right?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you come up into up dog, then you're flipping the feet and you're coming, you're coming up into your updog, and it's it's gonna be a broken up version version of vinyasa, it's not gonna be fluid, and that's okay.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: As you come into down dog from up dog, you need to flip your feet from the tops of the feet to the balls of the feet or the big toes, flip under.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: People have rolled.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: I used to roll, it felt really great until one day it didn't, and it really didn't, and it hurt my foot for many, many months.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I have thoughts on the rolling of the feet.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'll leave it at that.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you flip the feet over and you just send your hips straight up, and you're not using your core and your inner thighs, and your inner thighs, I will, I will unalive under this flag, your inner thighs are part of your are part of your core.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: They are your inner thighs to your pelvic floor are part of your core.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: That that that grip in, that up and in feeling starts with some inner thigh work.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're not using the full pelvic region to help draw your hips up from an upward dog, then you're gonna dump a lot of your body weight into your lumbar spine and it's gonna feel like garbage.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And over time, it's gonna create disc issues.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: I said it.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: I said what I said, even in cobra, especially even in cobra, because in cobra it's even more broken up, and this is where we're training people from, this is where we're moving from, is cobra comes before updog.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you can't do updog, you do cobra.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And to get up from cobra, it's even it's it's pure arm muscles pressing the floor away, the hips are sagging down, and then you're just thrusting your butt up in the air, and it's it's just bad, it's not good.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason for that is because of the lumbar spine.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's not not about the aesthetics of it.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's about the fact that you don't have the core strength to get yourself up there.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: You wind up just musc, just muscling.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Your body puts itself in the position monkey see monkey do.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: So unless you have an instructor to help you work through this, again, why I'm why I think it's so important.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: This to me is huge, huge, hugely important for the safety of someone who wants to establish a proper practice.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I I'm worried I'm gonna scare people away by having this conversation, but it needs to be had, and so I'm sorry, but I'm again, I said what I said.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: So from this idea of getting down properly in a modified chaturanga, this is where the shade comes in.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Getting up from Cobra.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Cobra, cobra is easy enough to to work through, right?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't've even gonna get into it.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: As you come back down onto the floor, in a traditional chaturanga, you never touch the floor with your body, which is what the big difference is.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Your shoulders never go below, they should never go below your elbows.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: You are in one line, shoulder to elbow, you flip the feet, you press up, the torso comes right up in the up dog, you bring the toe torso back to you know a relatively chaturanga position, back to parallel to the floor, and it's a core tuck, a pelvic tuck that draws draws those hips up, a little bit of leg strength, press yourself up and back down.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're facing dog.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's beautiful, it looks great, power to you.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you are working towards that and you're not there with the strength, and you're on the floor coming from cobra to up dog, generally it looks like belly button and chest up in the air, hands pressing into the mat, hips sagging, and then and then being thrust up and back, and it's it's it's not great.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also much harder with your elbows in.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: So here's my shade.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: When I tell people who may not, when I cue people to get back up into up to downward-facing dog from Cobra, from the floor, and this is from my own neck experience with my you know, my not have my unhappy herniated disc in my neck.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: I tell them to take their hands wide, I tell them to come into a proper push-up.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Their hands may even come closer to their shoulders than their proper in alignment chaturanga hands, right?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: So they're gonna come out, they have that extra surface area, they're still building strength through the back, they're still building strength through the triceps, they're still building the strength, but they're now using the entirety of their back muscles to get themselves up.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: In my mind, this also frees up their core and their lower abdominals so that they can keep their knees down and they can draw the lower abdominals in and then get that core engagement.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I will stand behind someone and have them keep pressing into me to feel that they're using the muscles of their core to support their lower back on their way up.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that's how I teach it.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not the end-all be-all yoga instructor by any means, but I have had a lot of injuries and I do know my way around a pain point in the lower back or in the shoulder.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: So this again comes from pain and trying to get back into postures that I used to be really good at, says the ego.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I have some experience with it and years of physical therapy.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: So there is, you know, there are reasons why I'm gonna say this is not, and I will tell them this is not traditional yoga.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is not how traditional yoga would tell you to get into this pose, but this is how I believe you can build the strength necessary to start to work towards the proper chaturanga from the ground up and to safely get from the ground into downward-facing dog.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's story number one.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Story number two, I will keep a little bit a little bit quicker because I think I did the deep dive into that, into that soapbox moment that we've all just shared together.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the second story is slightly more recent and comes from someone with wrist issues.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I tried to modify a vinyasa class for wrist issues.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're not aware of that, vinyasa is pretty much mostly on the wrists, right?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so if you're not going to do that, then what are you going to do?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we went from downward dog into dolphin.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now I will say two things as a yoga instructor who knows their body and has neck injury.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: I love dolphin.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Dolphin, over and over and over again instead of downward-facing dog, put a little bit of a hurting up my neck.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I should have done a little bit better for myself.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: I should have known a little bit better, but I did it anyway.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, because that's the type of teacher I am, and I was like, this is what we're gonna do.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: But so, what did what did we do?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: We did a practice that was certainly broken up, it was certainly not the typical flow that you would experience in a traditional vinyasa class.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: But we were able to move from downward-facing dolphin, right?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: So we were able to come into dolphin, and we were able to come from dolphin into sphinx, and we were able to come from dolphin into dolphin plank.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we were able to make a modified vinyasa practice that I was able to teach this individual with wrist issues so that she knows now if she wants to go to vinyasa class, she has a series of asanas that she can plug and play.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: And when everyone else is doing a quote-unquote proper vinyasa flow, she can come into dolphin, she can move through dolphin plank, she can come down into Sphinx, she can come up with Dacobra if she wants, but she can work on her forearms and her forearm strength and and eliminate the wrist issue, not eliminate it, but protect the wrist and still enjoy the practice.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, like I'm not I'm not magical.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone can say, Come into dolphin instead of downfrazing dog.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone can do that.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a simple modification.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is that's the collaboration that you get from an instructor being in the room, is you get, hey, this you get that individualized care.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, this is this is my this is my issue, this is what I'm dealing with in this pose.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: These are the poses that trigger my body in this way.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the instructor can say, Oh, okay, I've I've I know about that.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: Here are some things that you can do to change it.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: And modifications are huge.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: They are huge.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: They are how you get a practice to work with your body so that you feel good and accomplished.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I said accomplished.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's that ego creeping, creeping in one more time.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: But essentially, that's the main point, right?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's the goal.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is in my mind to be able to feel the practice, be in the practice, be in your body, be out of your mind, love yourself, meet yourself where you are, and let that confrontation come to you with just a little bit of grace.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I will leave you with this.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: There is no better collaboration than you will have in this world of you and yourself, because at the end of the day, you are you are your best cheerleader or your worst critic.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Your ego is your worst critic, your higher self is your best cheerleader.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: I vote always listen to your higher self and not your worst critic.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: The competition is probably with your ego, but it is with you and yourself again, and it should not be with you and anybody else, because their path is not your path, your body is not their body, your strengths are not their strengths, and your weaknesses are not their weaknesses.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I've used the term weakness, I'll throw the air quotes out there again.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: It is between you and yourself always.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Always.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you will compete with yourself and you can be better, and you can fall into that ego trap if you want to, or you can choose your higher self.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: Laugh when when laugh when you just can't do what you did before, right?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like have have that grace to just not take it so seriously and just be in the moment with your body in the pose, breathing.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, being on your yoga mat and breathing is doing yoga.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Breathing is doing yoga.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: So collaborate with yourself, remove that idea of competition so that you can collaborate with your best self and everybody else around you.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I will leave you with that.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I just want to tell you how much I appreciate each and every one of you for sharing this space with me and ask that you please feel free to share the same with your loved ones.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: For more goodness, follow me on all the socials at Above the Ground Podcast and visit my website, airsaboveyoga.com.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: As always, don't forget to check out my other episodes and all of my amazing sisters at the Divas That Care Network.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: You can find us on Spotify, Odyssey, Apple, Amazon, iHeartRadio, BuzzSprout, and anywhere else that you might feel guided.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Again, my name is Jiraquel Rose, owner of Airsabove Yoga, and you are listening to Above the Ground Podcast, where every single day is a good one.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: This show was brought to you by Divas That Care.
• 34:01
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