In my last post I made an observation. In standing head to knee some constestants in the New England regional championships appeared to tighten their thigh muscles all the way up to and including the gluteal muscles. One of the people following this blog, Jennifer, commented on how she relaxes her gluteal muscles when standing on a locked leg. I have been focusing on that topic since.
When I am in the first part of the posture, before my elbows bend down, my butt is tight for sure. However, a little relaxing goes a long way when getting chest down, head down and touching forehead to the knee. Same applies in standing bow pulling pose. When I set up and lock my knee, the gluteal muscles are tight. However, getting the upper body down parallel to the floor produced a loosening of those muscles (I'm really resisting tight ass jokes here folks).
I have asked a four of my student with a good standing head to knee pose if they tighten the gluteal muscles. All said they had not even thought about it until I asked and then said they were relaxed after focusing on them.
There's a nice discussion in the comments section of the last post as well.
Let's go to the source. What does Bikram say?
Pretty much "lock your knee". Bikram does not get into long discussions about minutiae. As I recall, he doesn't much engage in banter. He will very quickly say something like, "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT LOCK YOUR KNEE MEANS"?
Bikram does say "Contract the thigh muscle, whole kneecap lifts up".
My kneecap barley moves, oh well.
The original director of my studio, Bikram Yoga Northampton, was Karen. When I was a student there, I once asked Karen about some arcane details in a posture. I always remember her response. Karen replied that Yoga was preparation for meditation. If after class you felt quiet and more relaxed you did it right. Too much attention to too many details becomes a distraction to the meditative aspects.
Karen made a good point. However, like many in Bikram World, I like to examine details too, it's fun. But I am going to recommend that we do not over think the lock your knee thing. Play with it like I am doing. I have been waiting until I am in a locked knee position and the I bring attention to my glutes to see what's going on.
My next post will be about attention, focus and consciousness.
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ReplyDeleteI read a great book about start-ups the other day that said there are two kinds of vision that you need to be successful: microscope and telescope. I just loved that. So concise and accurate. Sometimes it's detail, detail, detail, and then other times, just back up and look at the freaking picture.
Oh yeah, and I think I was washing my hair or something this morning when it occurred to me that we'd never specified whether we were talking about the first stage or the final stage of H2K, which as you say, are two TOTALLY different things.
I keep peeking over my shoulder waiting for Diane to whack me upside the head. LOL. Sounds paranoid, but MAN does she have a strong radar!!
Thanks for the update, Charlie! I don't know if I am consciously relaxing my glutes in this pose now, but it was something that I felt wanting to happen within my first few months of practicing - during some classes, I would feel my standing-leg glute tighten, and I would think "dialgue says thigh muscle only" and relax the glute. Now it is just habit and I hadn't thought about it at all until you brought it up in your post!
ReplyDeleteInteresting that you mentioned the two different parts of the posture. I am going to keep playing with it both ways in both parts of the posture.
Thanks again for the update!
Standing head to knee! Different for me every single day! One day I can lock both knees, get my elbows down and my chest down. The next day It's all I can do to just kick out with good form. Go figure huh? I'm on day 6 of the Challenge so hopefully by the end I'll make some changes!
ReplyDeleteGreat to see you at the Quincy studio for Sherie's class this afternoon. Great energy in the class huh? Hope it was a good one for you!
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