Fill 'Er Up

Nothing like a fiery Argentinian M.D. yoga master to rock your practice. During extended trips to India, Ranjani Cobo studied with Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois, B.K.S. Iyengar, Sri Desikachar, and Indra Devi. In Calcutta, she treated leprosy patients alongside Mother Teresa and the Sisters of Charity. Worldwide, she championed the healing power of food long before the term “integrative nutrition" was coined.

Ranjani is one of very few women whose practice includes the advanced series of Ashtanga Yoga. Last Tuesday evening she was at Junction Center Yoga—a beautiful barn-turned-studio in Egg Harbor, Wisconsin—to share some wisdom with eight spellbound students, including (yippee!) me.

For nearly three hours we listened, flowed and learned while she performed adjustment wizardry on poses from Utthita Parsvakonasana (Extended Side Angle) to Adho Mukha Vrksasana (Handstand). Think winged chiropractic asana. Ranjani’s postural assists were precise, confident and liberating. Her physical mastery breathtaking. But, days later, it’s the sound and effect of her breath that still echoes.

Her breath sounded primal, an amplified audible energy that lifted her body through poses more airborne than earthbound. Imagine Darth Vader as a chuckling, mewing, dancing force for good. It wasn’t enough just to listen, we all started to breathe, really breathe. Each inhale opened space between grounding and freedom; each exhale unlocked tension and expelled inhibition.

She’s physically diminutive, Ranjani. But when she breathed, she outgrew the studio, then the whole barn. Next time you practice, picture rafters, a far-away ceiling, a well-worn wood floor. Then feel what happens when you fill the space with the sound of your breath.

Hip Hip Hooray

In yin yoga it’s called Shoelace Pose. In yang styles, it’s Fire Log. In sanskrit it’s Agnistambhasana. In my practice it’s known as Goodbye Mrs. Williams.

Think of an expanded Sukhasana (Easy Pose), with the lower legs (knee to foot) stacked one on top of the other, like two logs. Once the legs are positioned you fold forward from the groins, bringing your hands, or perhaps forearms, to the floor in front. (Yoga Journal’s website has a step-by-step description of the pose’s finer points and nuances).

Shoelace-Fire Log-Agnistambhasana-Goodbye Mrs. Williams is a hip-opener. The hip and pelvic girdle’s intricate web of muscles, fascia, connective tissue and ligaments specialize in holding tension, trapping pain and restricting movement. Hip openers, especially this one, are like skeleton keys that unlock these hidden caches of discomfort, and I don’t mean just physical ones.

Depending on your anatomical structure and degree of flexibility, Shoelace-etc. Pose varies in intensity. The first time I held the pose yin-like, for several minutes, it felt like electrical charges were firing deep into both hips. It was like hovering on the edge between noooo and yessss. Three minutes into the pose, the voice of Mrs. Williams, my nasty 5th grade teacher, reprimanded me one last time for misspelling Illinois (Illinios) on my year-end report. And then she took her black-framed glasses and metal rulers and left for good.

You’d be surprised at what strange, hurtful and occasionally silly stuff we carry locked in our tight hips. Spend some time in Agnistambhasana and you may release your own Mrs. Williams, whether or not your spelling improves.

Bookends

We know we’re taller in the morning than we are at night, after the compressive stresses of the day have weighed in. (See Monday’s blog). Now imagine what a day’s worth of interaction, decision-making and experience-processing does to our emotions.

Emotional compression is just as natural a reaction to the stresses of daily life as is gravity-driven physical compression. You may wake in the morning feeling expanded and energetic only to sense the day’s events slowly eroding your optimism and sense of well-being. Add gray skies (yup, we get ‘em in the Bahamas, too) and occasional illness, whether minor or serious, and it gets tough to hang on to happy.

Unless you’ve got a pair of bookends.

Whether you think of them as mini-meditations or simply reflective moments, bookends are a way to bracket each day with conscious intention. Here’s how they might look for you:

After waking, sit quietly for five minutes or more. Inhale a sense of expansiveness into your whole inner being. Welcome light through every pore and feel for a cellular shimmer. Just as you might at the beginning of your yoga practice, set a gentle intention for your day, like: laugh. Now take an emotional snapshot of how you feel right now and file it somewhere; you’ll come back to it.

Before going to bed, sit quietly for five minutes or more. Inhale and expand. Welcome peace into your body and mind. Release the day. Gaze at the morning’s emotional snapshot until you recognize yourself. Sweet dreams.

Tall Drink of Water

Tomorrow morning when you first wake up, lie flat in bed or on your mat and enjoy a full body stretch. Feel tall? Maybe even taller than you felt the night before? You are.

After a night of sleep has allowed time for fluids to rehydrate disks and joints, we humans start the day about 8mm, or .3 inches taller. But before you think about buying longer jeans, remember gravity. Throughout the day, gravity gradually compresses the cartilage separating the bones of the vertebrae and joints. Like a sponge, water and synovial fluid are squeezed out every time we sit, stand or move. There are other contributors too, like how we hold our bodies upright in space (posture) and how we use those bodies to perform daily activities (muscle tension and imbalances).

Yoga, particularly restorative, lying-down postures, can mitigate this daily, progressive scrunch. If you ever get antsy at the end of a practice or class, ready to bolt to your next activity, consider the benefits your body receives when you lie quietly in savasana, deep relaxation pose. Imagine your vertebral disks plumping with water, your knees and shoulders receiving vital, restorative fluids. Add the gift of a gravity-free break to the soothing balm of a quiet mind.

You can probably keep the same jeans, but you might end the day feeling as tall as you did when it started.

Dolphin Salute

“If you want to swim with dolphins, they’re headed your way,” my neighbor called to tell me. I grabbed sunglasses on my way out the door. From the bluff I could already see them, four dark shapes moving sometimes in unison, sometimes in sequence but always in perfect energetic flow.

I was tempted to grab a swimsuit and camera, but these wild ones don’t especially like company. Instead I sat on the wood bench perched on the bluff’s edge and watched them swim by.

It’s like a breath, the way they move, first arcing above, then disappearing beneath the water’s rippled surface. One minute they look like a polished quartet of Sea World stars, then one dolphin nudges another and choreography dissolves into play. Through it all, they’re probably chattering, that clicking rap that lands somewhere between whistle and R2D2. Blink again and four dorsal fins are lined up as one before diving deep this time, and out of sight.

Next time you do a sun salutation, try channeling the gentle miracle of dolphin. Let your breath find full expression in movement linked with play, fluidity and some silliness. Imagine you’re underwater and feel its cooling support. Shiver. Swan dive into standing forward bend. Undulate between down and up dog. Flick some water onto your mat.

Listen for the sound of nearby dolphins and your own laughter.

Third Island?

Washington Island, Wisconsin: that's one.

Crooked Island, Bahamas: that's two.

The third (eye)land? Think of it as the view between.

Traditional Indian yogis identified seven main chakras (powerful energy centers) in the body, vertically ascending from the spine’s base to the crown of the head. Your yoga practice recharges and balances these centers, unplugging stuck energy and enhancing the flow of prana: life force.

The third eye is the sixth chakra. Balance this chakra and expect to see more clearly, dream better, get a handle on your life’s big picture.

This blog is inspired by my experiences as a yoga teacher, student and practitioner on Washington Island, Crooked Island and in studios, living rooms and on beaches between. Each week or so I’ll write about yoga/life/health issues as they come up in teaching and practicing. Along the way I hope you’ll ask questions or make comments of your own that I or someone in the group can respond to. Much as yoga unites body, mind and spirit, I hope Third Island Yoga will link and enrich our experiences of yoga wherever we are.

So, to get started, place your index finger on your third eye - the point right between your eyebrows. Close your eyes for a couple of breaths and imagine this point glowing with indigo colored light. Open slowly to a view of Third Island. This is the land of intuition, invention, possibility. The land where anything can happen.

Namaste,

Mari Anderson