These yoga poses: can you do any of these

[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 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.