Karma Yoga

Taking time to serve children of Bodhi Home, Penang

A breather...

A breather....such an apt word for yoga teachers and yogis :) We all need to take a break now and then to get a better perspective of reality and look at life with fresher eyes. As my trainee teachers should know, it is all about manas, cit-citta, citta prasadam, ananda, sukham, all beautiful words that make up our reality. And svadhyaya will show us the way to a better world, namely one that is within us when our vrttayah are stilled.

Show-off adjustment

Hey Dante, you get the same effect if you asked Ken to bend his knees and you pull his hips back to straighten out his back. No need for this acrobatics :)

Fine details

What's the difference between straight spine and concave spine? What are the anatomical benefits and set-backs of each? (Exam questions)

Basics....

To do a good downward dog, start from the basics. Do a good table. What are the six checkpoints????

Sexy legs

Legs are important because .... they take us where we need to go in life. Also something about philogeny recapitulates ontogeny....(yeah, can't spell).

It never looks the same in books....

Yes, it can be difficult to make the leap....especially if one is visually challenged. Gianinna trying to draw Raymond's subscapularis and having difficulty in visualizing Raymond's scapula from the inside of his body rather than the more familiar superficial back piece...

So we made 3D models with mahjong paper. Ken said he felt like he's in a design course. And I said that if I had been the one to design the human body, I would have done things slightly differently....

More anatomy fun

Relating what you see in textbooks with what you see in your yoga students' bodies is a HUGE leap. So we practice on each other.

SURFACE ANATOMY

(1) Locate the landmarks: eg occipital bond and mastoid

(2) Move to activate the muscle groups you are interested in

(3) Trace the outline of the bunched up muscles.

(4) Consult a textbook (Netter's is a very good one) to see if you are on target (roughly).

Most important is, do the asana associated with the muscle group you are interested in and FEEEEEEL it.

2D and 3D

Above: Kai Li's sternocleidomastoid

I often wonder how people learn anatomy from textbooks. 3D is so different from 2D. Like the trapezius muscles, for example. Do you know the upper fibres over the shoulders like a shawl, to finish on the clavicle, around 1/3 to the edge? Beautiful! (Though in the pages of a book, they look flat like a diamond shaped pancake).

As for serratus anterior and posterior, the actual layout get even more complicated.....what fun! Is it necessary, I hear you ask. Of course! Because if you pull your serratus, it hurts when you breathe, and it feels like heart attack.

I love anatomy!

Yogic holiday

People often think that they have to go on a 'specialist' holiday (eg retreat) to get the benefits of a spiritual R&R. Indeed, we at Sun Yoga have organised some wonderful yogic retreats in the past, where acharya are woken up at dawn for sadhana, followed by yoga and more yoga and more yoga.

But really, anywhere can be a yogic holiday, it's all to do with attitude and intention....that's me exploring Northern Cyprus, living the humble life, eating traditional peasant food cooked in clay ovens and spending lots of time in reflection and giving my thanks for having so many kids and so much love in my life. There is no nightlife or fancy places here, but life is so much more meaningful in the absence of modern artifice. Life is so much better without the trappings that traps us in this sometimes mindless reality.

Try living simply, wherever you are.....start today