These yoga poses: can you do any of these

[shootingstar]

http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/training-fitness/enlighten-your-ride-with-yoga

I guess the purpose of showing these more advanced yoga poses is to promote the coolness of yoga at the magazine's web site. Maybe I don't enough about yoga levels, but can any TE member here do any of these manoeuvres now?

[Crankin]

Those are all super advanced poses, I'd say.

[Helene2013]

Sure! Anytime! NOT! I don't think I'd be able to cycle after all that. haha

I took yoga for a long time and never got that advanced.

[rebeccaC]

I do the side crane/crow after some preparatory poses when doing balance work.

I’m a believer in the ‘finding a rhythm in bicycling is very yoga like’

kelli refer’s ‘pedal stretch breathe: the yoga of bicycling’ is good for examples of poses that most can do pre/during/after a ride.

eta...the link to bailey's instagram (http://instagram.com/patbailey/) page takes you to some really interesting images!!

[OakLeaf]

They're really all much more about balance than they are about strength. And I would consider them intermediate, not advanced. I think anyone who's been doing yoga for a while and attempted any of these unsuccessfully, either didn't have a good teacher, or didn't have enough of a sense of humor about their practice to keep trying ...

I can do side crow and handstand at a wall. Can't do handstand in the middle of a room, but either is the person in the illustration! I can do pincha mayurasana, but I'm not confident enough to attempt it without a wall (though most of the time I can get and stay up without touching the wall). Headstand I can do in the middle of the room, but I've been practicing it less since my neck/shoulder injury, in favor of handstand and pincha. And I've only been doing yoga for about five years, and not terribly consistently either. But I have a good teacher.

I don't know what that one is that looks like an open wheel against a wall but I've never tried that!


ETA - did it say she lifted her bike into handstand with her feet? In that case no I cannot do that!! It looks to me like someone hung it there after she was up....

I can't do sundial YET. Teacher says I'm close ... but I'm close in the same way I'm close to handstand, I think if I keep tapping my foot against the floor (sundial) or the wall (handstand) I'm never going to find the balance ... I'm closer to being able to do eight-angle pose, but it really depends on how I approach it. Again ... all about balance, not so much about strength.

I would recommend Iyengar or Anusara to anyone interested in getting into yoga. Some styles really neglect alignment, and if you don't have alignment, the only way you can find your balance is by sheer luck (plus it makes it a lot easier to get hurt).

[Crankin]

Well, when I was doing yoga regularly for 2+ years, I never even saw any of these poses in a class. And most of the classes were intermediate or mixed level.
My balance sucks, and while it has improved tons, from cycling, yoga, and x country skiing, I would not attempt any of these. There seems to be a lot of these poses around on the web lately. I think it's kind of funny, since in my experience, most people can't even hold tree pose for more than 2 seconds.

[OakLeaf]

!

What I said about good teachers, I guess. I can't remember exactly how long after I started yoga that I was successfully doing side crow and wall handstand, but I know for sure that it was in my teacher's first studio location, and she was only there for two years, meaning I'd been taking classes there at most eight months total before I could do those, and possibly much less. Last week, we were in Tree for three minutes each leg. It was Reggae Friday and a lot of us had our hands in the air swaying to the music. Standing balancing poses are a lot about the feet, and that's something that yoga has taught me tons about, that's been just HUGELY beneficial in the entire rest of my life.


As far as "levels," I don't know, but the video series I do when I'm away from my studio, these are all level 2 in a 3-level system (except for the open wheel thing, that I don't recognize - but I just did notice she's doing it in freakin' cycling shoes, which means she has no traction on the wall and she's holding her body weight with her core only, not with her feet. That IS strength!! But in the same way as acrobats' strength, yogis' strength incorporates balance, so she's distributing the load throughout the fascial chain.) In the video series, most of the level 3 stuff I'm nowhere near able to do.


Remember, yoga is a lot more like painting or math than it is like weight lifting. I wouldn't consider someone "advanced" who'd been practicing yoga consistently for less than 15 years, and by the nature of it, such a person probably wouldn't consider herself advanced. It's a lifetime of learning about the self. "Intermediate" is a broad and probably unfortunate term, just to distinguish someone who knows the names of the bandhas and the more popular asanas from a complete novice ... but could encompass a very wide range of actual knowledge and ability ...

[Crankin]

I guess I was happy doing the poses I did... I never really saw yoga as something that I wanted to get super advanced at. I mean, it did what I wanted it to do; calm me down, stretch, and add a different dimension to the other stuff I do. Of course, I am famous for not wanting to have to "train" or really work too much at improving any of the sports I do, but I really did improve at yoga just from going consistently. I still practice at home 1-2 times a week. Just easy stuff, though.
My teachers were all Kripalu trained and I thought they were great. They paid attention to alignment. I've only done a really easy beginner class at the gym I go to now. The teachers also seem good, but it's so crowded, I don't go much.
I am thinking about rejoining my old gym in the fall and yoga is one of the reasons. I went to a studio the summer after I left my old gym; I did a very intense yoga/meditation class for 8 weeks, which I loved, but then the place moved and it was too far away.

[shootingstar]

As a young teen, I could do the crow pose (lst photographed post in link) without knowing it had a name. You know as a kid, you just fool around with movements.

I will never want to do a headstand...having a head injury for me, just has made me not want to try stuff involving weight on my head. Just a few wks. ago when my brain was still
healing, I discovered I slept more fitfully/feeling refreshed by sleeping right side of head vs. left side where I was abit hurt, etc.

I had my lst physiotherapist appt. post accident this week. Her first movement tests to determine my wrist injury....were some yoga like simple hand movements. :) Seriously.

The simple yoga balance exercises I did a few years ago by balancing on 1 leg standing, will become useful for me later once my rehabilitation is more underway and probably long term.

[OakLeaf]

As far as the popularity of yoga among devotees of other sports, I think there are a lot of reasons. The physical/injury prevention/performance enhancing type reasons I mentioned are some of it. But then there's this (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/18/how-mindfulness-can-jumpstart-our-exercise-routines/?ref=health) also. Yoga I think is the antidote to the kind of people who run with headphones on, etc. One *does* have to be present in one's body to balance ... I don't think there's any way around that. Which is not to say that there are a lot of different reasons why some people's balance is naturally better than others'.

(I just gotta say ... I don't think too many people teach headstand with weight on the head any more. I know there's a style of headstand where you do weight the head and neck, but I've never been in a class where it's taught that way. That *is* pretty risky.)

[Aromig]

I've been working on just regular crow forever ( I could do it a few years ago, but then was injured and didn't practice for a long time and now I'm working back up to it)and can't hold very long and I sure can't do side crow or many others. I think the rest are pretty advanced.

I've been reading the posts about whether this is advanced or not, and I think it just depends on what kind of a studio you go to. Most of the studios around me have larger classes so you do a lot of sun salutations and warrior series but rarely do the harder yoga poses because the class is just too crowded and those are harder to do that way. I know this isn't the norm -- while traveling I was in smaller classes in bigger rooms and they'd have a section of the class where we'd all move along a wall and practice whatever balance poses we were working on and the teacher would go around and work with people individually.

That's what I love about yoga -- I'm always getting something out of it no matter where I am in my practice.

I run our firm "wellness" program, and we have a yoga instructor come in three times a week at lunchtime. Everyone loves when not many people show up and you can get a private class.

[OakLeaf]

See though, if they're just this asana, that asana, are you ever learning anything? There are years of intricacies in a sun salutation, and again, there's just no way you can do one in good alignment without putting a lot of attention into foot placement and hand placement. In a gym setting, a lot of the teachers just don't even know enough to make good corrections. That's not limited to yoga - but yoga is one of those things where there ARE good, dedicated studios in addition to junky gyms. It's a lot of why I got away from group fitness. Too many people want to just go and sort of put their bodies in ways that sort of look like what the instructor is sort of doing, and don't care whether they're injuring themselves or just not getting the benefit of what they're doing. Too many authorities will certify instructors without any kind of proof that they can see and correct a student's alignment. Bleh.

[emily_in_nc]

Uh, no.

I've done yoga for maybe 1.5 years total (with a big break in betweeen the 1+ year and the several months I've returned to it here in Mexico), and I can't do any of those poses. My instructor could do all of them and more, I'm sure. He is an amazing yogi. I am what I would consider an "advanced beginner". :D

[Helene2013]

...In a gym setting, a lot of the teachers just don't even know enough to make good corrections. That's not limited to yoga - but yoga is one of those things where there ARE good, dedicated studios in addition to junky gyms. It's a lot of why I got away from group fitness. Too many people want to just go and sort of put their bodies in ways that sort of look like what the instructor is sort of doing, and don't care whether they're injuring themselves or just not getting the benefit of what they're doing. Too many authorities will certify instructors without any kind of proof that they can see and correct a student's alignment. Bleh.

You nailed the reason I don't do gym group anymore. Injuries I live with today, were probably caused by over-doing some moves for such a long time, the wrong way.

Knowing now what I did not know then (so easy to say with some knowlege now) I would have taken a personal trainer like the one I have now instead of the hundreds differents classes of steps, aerobics, military cardio, you name it. She's a physiotherapist/kinesiologist and the trainer for the elite triathlon team we have in town. Every move she makes me do is shown to prevent injuries or alleviate what I must live with now. If I can't do one move (ie, proper squats due to lack of knee cartilage), there are other options that are safer in such situations. Rarely you'll see this in group class as they have no time to watch all students. Some will...but most stay in front and shout! And because we do not want to look like a "fail" to others, we just push ourselves but the wrong way. Just to do the same. Which we should not be doing.

[OakLeaf]

I realized in class today (which wasn't very mindful, but as hard as I tried my head kept coming back here :rolleyes:) - anyway, I realized that what I was trying to say was that it's all about the fundamentals.

Yoga fundamentals are just movement fundamentals. But in most gym classes, nobody wants to take the time for the basics, if the instructor even knows how to teach them. By contrast, there were six people in my yoga class this morning, most of them were about at my level with one or two much more experienced yogini, yet the teacher took the time to have us all put two fingers of one hand on the distal forearm of the other, to imprint the feeling of lifting the wrist and hollowing out the palm - just as an example of how she cues and imprints the basics in every single class no matter how experienced the participants.

Between downward facing dog, handstand, and crow (either forward or side), there's very little difference in skill or alignment - and what difference there is, is mainly a matter of confidence. To an uninformed person, you can look like you're in downward facing dog when your hands are collapsed, but if your hands are collapsed in dog pose, you're risking a shoulder injury especially as you progress through a sun salutation, and you're pretty much guaranteed to struggle in crow. Handstand takes a little bit more core strength and a little bit better spinal alignment, but really, handstand shows you where your weaknesses and imbalances are when you're upright, much more than it requires anything that we don't need to stand correctly in one place right ways up.

Same thing, if the teacher isn't checking your pelvis tilt and your thigh rotation, or all three arches of your feet, you can look like you're in mountain with your feet collapsed, but you're going to struggle in tree.

If the teacher has moved the class through poses that people can look like they're doing them, without covering the basics first, well then there will be a problem getting into poses that you can't fake quite as easily. Sometimes it's because the teacher doesn't even know the basics, sometimes it's because they've given up on participants who don't want to learn them. Either way it's a recipe for injury.

But that's why I said that all the poses pictured, with the possible exception of the open wheel thing which I forgot to ask my teacher about today, are really intermediate poses, because they require very little beyond good hand and foot placement.

[rebeccaC]

I was proactive in my search for a good teacher when I moved here. It took me a few different classes and research to find a teacher who had the training, inspired and empowered me and made me feel safe and comfortable with their teaching style and interaction.
Most importantly find out what kind of training she/he went through and if they continue to study with their own teachers. They should make you feel comfortable and be easy to approach with any questions you have. Whether your goals are spiritual, physical and/or emotional, you want to know that you are getting somewhere. A good teacher is one who has the training, personality and patience to help guide you along your journey.

This saying is on the wall of my teacher’s yoga room because it is on her teacher's wall…
”It is the teachers foremost duty to give you back your intelligence, to return you to your heart, to encourage you to access yourself. They do this by being who they really are and by being completely honest and compassionate with you”