Basic Practice: Spiraling the Legs and Torso (Standing Poses)
The practice begins with seated poses to wake up the ankles, feet and knees. It follows with reclined poses to stretch out the backs of the legs and to open the hips in outward rotation. After that come lateral standing poses, in which the theme of the day, the spirals in the legs and torso, can be optimally employed. It ends with restorative poses to settle and center the system.
Advanced Practice: Creating Length to Twist (Twists)
This advanced twisting practice begins with standing poses to open up the backs of the legs and the back of the torso and follows with twisted variations in inversions. After some floor poses to reintegrate the limbs into the torso and to allow the spine to lengthen in the horizontal, Jathara Parivartanasana (Belly Turning Pose) is introduced to restablish the twisting of the torso. This is then taken into seated twists and Parshva Bakasana (Side Crow Pose).
Intermediate Practice: Torso Spiraling (Twists)
This practice begins with lateral standing poses that are not considered to be twists, but that have a spiraling action in the torso, the pelvis and rib cage turning in opposite directions. In poses such as Utthita Trikonasana (Extended Triangle Pose), the cue is often given to square the hips, or to push the hip of the back leg back. This only serves to limit range of motion in the hip joint, putting unnecessary strain on the knees and lower back. Allowing the pelvis to follow the feet with a slight turn creates a tremendous amount of freedom in the lower half, while spinning the rib cage back to the lateral position activates the spiral in the torso that is an essential feature of functional contralateral movements such as walking and reaching.
Basic Practice: Lengthening the Sides and Spiraling the Torso (Twists)
This basic practice begins with a short seated sequence to establish the spiraling actions of the torso that will be explored in the practice. It follows with poses to soften and widen the buttocks, lengthen the torso and open the armpits, connecting the limbs into the sides. A short sequence of lateral standing poses come after. A seated sequence in the chair takes the twists deeper before closing with few symmetrical poses to balance out the torso and restorative poses to settle the nervous system.
Basic Practice: Softening and Widening the Hips and Buttocks
This practice features standing poses and twists. As you go through the sequence, consider the following points:
- Lengthen the sides of your torso, keeping the back and chest equally wide to create a long and evenly balanced spine.
- As you twist, when you turn your chest in one direction, turn your hips in the opposite direction so that the twist happens safely in the middle of the torso.
- Allow yourself to be supported by your inner thighs by narrowing and lengthening them. From that support, allow your buttocks, outer hips and lower back to soften and widen.
Basic Practice: Lengthening the Inner Thighs and Softening the Outer Hips
In this sequence, think of lengthening the inner thighs, as in the previous practice, while softening and widening the buttocks, the outer hips, outer thighs and lower back.
Think of softening and widening the entire side body from the outer hips all the way up to the highest point of the armpits.
Thanksgiving Special: The Idle Hands Practice
The big day is over and you still have a long weekend ahead of you. You’ve got time on your hands and an abundance of energy. Time to put it to good use. This practice has a little bit of everything in it: inversions, standing poses, core work, back bends and twists. Feel free to cut it back according to your capabilities and the time available to you. You might try doing about half of the poses in the practice today, half of the poses tomorrow and then have a go at the whole thing from beginning to end on Sunday.
Thanksgiving Special: The Fire in Your Belly Practice
In just two days’ time you might be finding yourself sitting in front of a table spread with all sorts of delicious holiday foods. If you’re like me, even if you put just a small helping of everything on your plate, you’re still going to end up with a huge plate of food. This practice is designed to open your abdomen, tone your organs and increase blood flow to your digestive tract, stoking your digestive fires in preparation for the occasion.
Modify the practice according to your capabilities and the time you have available, but try and keep at least one of each of the different kinds of poses: standing, abdominals, twists and inversions. (more…)
Basic Practice: Softening the Hips and Buttocks in Twists
In this sequence, consider the following points:
- Lengthen the sides of the torso, keeping the back and chest equally wide to create a long and evenly balanced spine.
- As you twist, when you turn your chest in one direction, turn your hips in the opposite direction so that the twist happens safely in the middle of the torso.
- Allow yourself to be supported by your inner thighs by narrowing and lengthening them. From that support, allow your buttocks, outer hips and lower back to soften.
Intermediate Practice: Wrapping the Intercostal Wall
In this practice we will think about organizing twists from the intercostal wall:
As you progress through the poses, organize the head and neck from the soft palate and the front of the spine, as we have been doing.
Balance the rear intercostal wall to an even tone as we did in the last practice.
Whenever the torso needs to turn, initiate the movement from the intercostal wall. When twisting to the right, for example, wrap the left intercostal wall around the lung from spine to sternum. Widen the right intercostal wall back and out into the ribcage to finish the gesture. (more…)
© 2010 Witold Fitz-Simon.
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