Basic Techniques in Sarvanga Yoga

So we've touched on some of the basics already.  Breath-Body Synchronization, Weight even across foundation, Ullolas and their ability to invite more sensitivity.  Another biggy is Minimum Necessary Muscular Effort (MNME).  Now the commonly used cue is effortless effort.  This would be fine but for the fact that its very unclear.  It leaves the practitioner guessing.  MNME states what is really required.  It means that when applying muscular actions in yoga we have to apply enough effort as necessary and not a scintilla more.  Some effort does need to be applied.  The amount of effort required will very greatly for practitioners depending upon a myriad of qualities that differ between individuals.  For example a practitioner who is new to yoga may need to apply much more effort to achieve a certain goal as compared to a more experienced practitioner who may be more flexible and stronger.  Though this is the case, it is still true that yoga may be accessed any time by any person.  Still it is good to know how MNME works and that it is something that will change as you practice.  In other words, each individual's body is different.  One may be stronger the other more flexible.  One may be sick and another more healthy.  Regardless, as each learns to apply MNME they find that the practice is easier and more accessible.  Using enough effort enables us to have the stability that we need and enables us to move towards the necessary alignment.  Using too much effort will result in a tightening of the body.  A simple way to get an idea of this is to hold out one of your hands in front of you.  Open your hand with a lot of force.  The palm may even round a bit as the finger tips curl back.  Notice how tight the back of the hand is.  This is not yoga.  Then relax the hand.  The fingers go limp & the back of the hand rounds.  This is not yoga either.  Then activate the hand and engage the muscles so that the hand is open with the fingers and thumbs spreading apart but in a way that causes no strain in the bones and tissues of the hands.  This is MNME.  Once learned in the hand, it can be applied through the rest of the body.  Learning to apply this in the rest of the body requires feeling for this neutral quality throughout the body.  When the leg is straightened, it is done so that there is no tension in the ankle, knee or hip.  When the muscles of the arms are being used, they are activated without strain in the wrists, elbows or shoulders.  After a few weeks of becoming familiar with this quality throughout the body the practitioner can use it to guide her or him through yoga poses and movement.  Once applied in the whole body simultaneously the state of yoga is invited.  With this qualiity of MNME present throughout the body it will be easier to feel the ramifacations of actions throughout the whole system.  One misleading tendency in modern yoga is to habitually associate specific action with localized results.  Really, every action affects the whole body.  We want to keep joints as open as possible when in poses.  However, there is a point at which opening one joint will start to close another.  So we must open all joints to the degree possible and this means sensing how the joints relate to each other when applying actions.  If we think of poses in terms of opening specific parts of the body we move away from yoga.  A major aspect of this cultivating MNME relates to accessing spirals in the body.  Spirals can be applied in the arms and legs.  The spiral dynamic is expressed in the hands, feet and torso when the Bandhas are applied.  In our next post we'll get into the bandhas and how they relate to practice and the experience of yoga.  For now, enjoy your time on the mat and everywhere else.

Sarvanga Yoga Applied on the Mat

     As mentioned in the last post I'll will clarify and flesh out how to access these principles on the mat.  We've already mentioned the importance of sensitivity on the mat.  Sensitivity is cultivated by inviting practitioners to feel what's happening when they undertake actions.  This may sound obvious and you could say that it is happening to everyone who gets on the mat and starts exploring.  However, real sensitivity means that the practitioner is feeling more and more at deeper levels and applying action accordingly.  In other words instead of being overly dependent upon the instructor you could say that one is learning to feel their way through practice rather than being directed through it.  This means that the practice is coming from the practitioner, from their own sensation.  Go to any number of yoga classes and see how this simple principle is being violated.  Its often unconscious and unintentional but it has the effect of taking people away from yoga.  Let me say here that the criticisms that you'll find throughout my blog are not intended to malign people.  They don't stem from my own insecurities.  Many folks in the yoga world are well intentioned and enthusiastic.  However, we need more than that.  These problems that are common in yoga today are simply facts that any honest observer can see for themselves if they look at the wide array of yoga practice in the marketplace objectively.  What commonly happens in yoga classes is that the practitioner is instructor dependent.  Now of course some of this will happen with all yoga especially in the beginning.  But good yoga instruction will wean the practitioner off of dependency and into self practice.  If I allow my students to depend on me to much, they'll never feel things for themselves.  This does not mean allowing the practitioner to injure themselves.  In the beginning much care must be taken to instill prudent action in the practitioner.  This can be done without cultivating dependency. 
     The best way to cultivate sensitivity in the practitioner is to have them practice Ullolas.  In a later blog I'll go into this more deeply.  For now suffice it to say that ullolas are wave like movements between two or more poses.  For example to move from balasana (child's pose) to satangasana (all four position, table) and back again is an ullola.  It is not uncommon to move back and forth between these two poses 20 times.  If this movement is just one among many as it would be in chandra namaskar (moon salutation) then its easy to slip by it without learning much.  If its done in the ullola approach where you move in and out of the same pose many times, you can learn a great deal about sensitivity.  The variety of ullolas is limited only by your own imagination.  So play around with this idea.  Get into a stance like you're preparing for Utita Trikonasana, then move into it and back out again on the breath.  Exhale into and inhale back out of it.  Clarify the bandhas while you continue to move.  Synchronize the movement with the breath so that at the end of the inhalation the movement stops and at the end of the inhalation the movement stops.  Notice weight distribution in the feet as you move and keep 1/2 of your weight in one foot and 1/2 in the other foot.  This last point alone is almost universally forgotten in yoga classes.  It is often alluded to by the instructor but never enforced and consequently people don't learn it.  In people's eagerness to get their hand to the floor all kinds of compromises are made in terms of weight distribution across the foundation, collapse in the joints especially the knee and hip over which one is bending, and a loss of the bandhas which endangers the health of the back.  With the ullola, because you keep moving, you can't settle into an unhealthy position.  Rather, one must maintain integrity to be able to move in  and out of the pose smoothly.  Once this is learned one can move onto holding the pose with integrity.  Needless to say, it matters not whether the hand is on the thigh, knee, shin, ankle or floor.  What matters is what the practitioner is feeling across the foundation, in all the joints, and how the breath is affected by the maintenance or loss of the bandhas.  Let's end for today and we'll continue in the next blog with clarifying the bandhas. 

Applying the principle of Sarvanga Yoga in practice and instruction.

      To continue from the previous blog some questions might be;  How can we provide yoga instruction that invites practitioners to rapidly experience a unity that is already present yet unrecognized?  How can we do this without taking detours down the side roads of diversification?  First we must cultivate the practitioner's sensitivity.  Without feeling, nothing can be done.  The rampant injuries occurring in the yoga world indicate that sensitivity is lacking.  Any yoga practice that is causing injury reveals a tremendous lack of sensitivity.  This is a trap I've fallen into myself.  So step one is cultivating sensitivity.  This means that practitioners must learn what it feels like to apply an action in one part of the body and feel those effects throughout the rest of the body.  Practitioners need to explore the application of effort and learn to apply action with the minimum necessary effort possible.  There are qualities we want in a yoga pose or movement that require action but this action must be applied with awareness and often it is not.  This can be learned in a few weeks with proper instruction though minds that are thoroughly enamored with popular yoga trends are the most resistant.  As sensitivity is being embraced, we can begin to explore alignment and foundation principles.  Alignment is not a god.  It is important and there are certain poses that need alignment for injury to be avoided.  Nevertheless it is only part of the picture and if it is overemphasized it becomes a barrier to yoga.  Sensitivity is the quality that allows us to find the right alignment for our individual bodies without injury.  Proper foundation is of course important and must be understood somatically so that poses can express their full integrity.  Here we lapse into the relevance of the bandhas in this approach.  The bandhas which are themselves frequently mis-taught are recognized as adjustments that are made in the torso.  Their expression is the result of certain muscular actions made in the lower abdomen and upper half of the torso.  However, their dynamic can also be applied and experienced in the limbs, hands and feet.  Sarvanga Yoga refers this principle.  The term Sarvanga Bandha means bandhas throughout the limbs.  In this approach when referring to the bandhas, we mean actions made which affect relationships between the pelvis, ribcage and the spine in addition to actions that are being made throughout all limbs of the body.  When the limbs are active or muscularly engaged, broad and long they are expressing the dynamic of the bandhas.  When the hands and feet are active, broad and long they are expressing this principle.  So we begin to see that this principle of Sarvangabandha is a way to have the muscular body applying effort in a unified, comprehensive way.  This is extremely powerful.  It can be learned relatively quickly and provides a ready gate to the recognition of unity.  Where other approaches work in a step by step fashion sometimes directing attention here and sometimes there in the body this principle of Sarvangabandha ensures that unified application of effort which necessarily invites unified awareness will be present regardless of the pose, movement or yogic technique.  The only task left is to be very careful with the instructions we are using in class.  Instructions must be simple, direct and clear without any possibility of confusion so that practice time is not spent in trying to guess what the instructor is saying.   Actions and their consequences must be understood by the instructor so that there is no misleading of practitioners down the vague road of metaphor, artistic interpretation or fantasy.  In future blogs we'll explore in more detail what this instruction looks like for instructor and practitioner.

What is Sarvanga Yoga?

     In a way it is unfortunate that yoga has sired so many new styles.  Perhaps it is good that various styles which emphasize limited aspects of yoga are able to speak to specific groups that might not otherwise be drawn to yoga.  However, generally speaking, the stylization of yoga has resulted in a watering down of principles and movement away from the source.  With that in mind, why Sarvanga Yoga?  Due to current marketing trends and business environment it is necessary to label one's product.  If I were to advertise Yoga with its singular, accurate name only, its unlikely anyone would ever look into it further.  In addition the term Sarvanga strikes at the heart of this problem of diversification that is so often the result of modern yoga.  So while Sarvanga Yoga might suggest just another style, its actually an approach that is intended to invite and allow the practitioner's rapid, safe, practical expression and experience of yoga.  This is significant in that much that is out there that is identified as yoga is rather a collection of techniques geared towards realizing popular goals like strength, flexibilty or a more peaceful mind.
     Sarvanga means throughout the limbs.  This can be interpreted in two ways.  Limbs can refer to the limbs of the body or the limbs of Patanjali's eightfold yogic path.  When referring to the body, Sarvanga Yoga, means that all actions are applied in a manner that recognizes the whole body to the degree possible.  Though this principle is given lip service in many styles of yoga, an objective assessment of related instruction and its consequences reveals that diversification and localization of awareness is being fostered rather than unified awareness of body.  This fact cannot be overemphasized as it means the difference between a yoga practice that invites one to yoga and something that is called yoga practice that leads one to diversification while promising unity.  When referring to Patanjali's yoga, Sarvanga Yoga suggests the unity of the eight limbs.  Because most of us operate in and consider normal a dualistic framework, one can recognize how rare it is for someone to actually grasp the principle of unification, what it represents and how one would convey it without compromising its actual meaning.  To put it simply, the eight limbs of Patanjali's yoga interrelate and cannot exist without the others.  When one is present the others are also present.  Though this aspect of the eight limbs is often referred to in yoga book introductions, it is rarely fully understood.  The dualistic tendency is to see the eight limbs as steps which must be followed in a sequential, linear manner so that they will unfold or be revealed to the practitioner accordingly.  But the word limb was specifically chosen by Patanjali to convey the interrelationship between these aspects of yoga.  Therefore rather than looking at these aspects of yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, samadhi as steps, we can see them as facets of the same unit which when neared reveals them all.  Once this is grasped, it can be recognized that instruction must be geared to facilitate the recognition of yoga.  It must also be noted that yoga need not be complicated.  Though many egos are making lots of money suggesting that yoga is complicated and can only be achieved through vigorous, complicated regimes, the truth is that yoga is here for all and its not dependent upon physical, mental or spiritual ability.  In our next post we'll get into how this might affect actual yoga instruction.