Yoga Poise | Yoga Studio Location | Brigitta Tummon | Iyengar Yoga Teacher | Cape Town

Invocation to Sage Patanjali by Iyengar
	Yogena cittasya padena vacam (yo-gay-nuh chih-tah-syuh pah-day-nuh vah-chahm) malam sarirasya ca vaidyakena (mah-lahm shah-ree-rah-syuh chuh vy-dyuh-kay-nuh) yopakarottam pravaram muninam (yo-pah kar-oh-tahm prah-vah-rahm moo-nee-nahm) patanjalim pranjaliranato'smi (pah-tahn-jah-lim prahn-jah-leer ah-nah-to-smee) abahu purusakaram (ah-bah-hoo poo-roo-shah-kar-ahm) sankha cakrasi dharinam (shahn-kah chah-krah-see dar-ee-nahm) sahasra sirasam svetam (sah-hah-srah sheer-ah-sahm shvay-tahm) pranamami patanjalim (prah-nuh-mah-mee pah-tahn-jah-lim) Hari Om To the noblest of sages, Patanjali, Who gave Yoga for serenity of mind, Grammar for purity of speech, and Medicine for perfection of the body, I bow, I prostrate before Patanjali, Whose upper body has a human form, Whose arms hold a conch and disc, Who is crowned by a thousand-headed cobra, O incarnation of Adisesa, my salutations to Thee.
FURTHER YOGA READING
A Mindful Stretch by Roger Cole Use your awareness to deepen your poses. Yoga is not about stretching: it's about consciousness. Yoga techniques, whether they focus on body, breath, or brain, seek to cultivate an expansive, quiet state of mind. When we practice the poses, however, the main thing on our mind is often the intense sensation of the stretch they create. It can be hard to get beyond that to experience the postures as anything more than physical exercises aimed at wrestling an uncooperative body into unusual positions. A surprisingly helpful way to move toward a more conscious, calming asana practice is to study the physiology of stretching. Science and yoga converge on the same conclusion: The most effective and fulfilling way to lengthen your muscles is to lead with your mind and let your body follow. AT FULL STRETCH Stretching is good for you, as long as you don't overdo it. Physically, it keeps you flexible enough to take your joints through their full range of motion, which is essential to their health. Mentally, it relieves tension and promotes relaxation. Your nervous system uses the stretch reflex, a specialized reflex that regulates the length of your muscles. Whenever you elongate a muscle beyond a certain preset length or unconsciously stretch it too fast, this reflex makes the muscle automatically contract so that you can't lengthen it any further. You feel the reflex in action, for example, when you go into a forward bend, sense a strong stretch in the backs of your legs, and cannot bend any deeper into the pose. The stretch reflex allows you to hold yourself in a fixed position, like keeping your trunk upright while standing, without having to constantly think about it. Although this automatic stabilizing function is absolutely essential in daily life, you have to use your conscious intention to override it whenever you move into a new position, especially an extreme one like a yoga asana. Two techniques for moving past the limits ordinarily imposed by the stretch reflex are the adaptation method and the anticipatory release method. If you apply them with diligence and focus, you can dramatically deepen both your yoga postures and your state, of mind. Before you apply these techniques, it's helpful to understand how the stretch reflex works. The stretch reflex is initiated by sensors, called stretch receptors, which are embedded within muscle. Whenever you stretch a muscle, you also stretch the sensors, which stimulates them to send nerve signals to your spinal cord. These signals electrically excite spinal nerve cells called alpha motor neurons. If the excitation is strong enough, the alpha motor neurons send return signals back to the stretching muscle. If the return signals are strong enough, they make the muscle contract, preventing it from lengthening any further and often bringing it back to its original length. Both the adaptation method and the anticipatory release method work by reducing the strength of the signals coming from the stretch sensors. Reducing the signal strength makes stretching physically easier because it prevents or delays the reflex muscle contraction that limits muscle length. It also makes stretching feel less intense, because much of our conscious sensation of stretch arises when stretch receptor signals reach the brain. A muscle's stretch sensors are housed in structures called muscle spindles. A spindle is composed of several very tiny' muscle fibres with nerve endings attached to them. Pulling on the nerve endings sends electrochemical signals that travel along nerves all the way to the spinal cord. There are two ways to pull on the nerve endings within a spindle. One way is to elongate the entire skeletal muscle, thereby lengthening the whole spindle and everything inside it. The other way is to contract the tiny muscles inside the spindle, which are arranged so that they tug directly on the nerve endings. The muscles within the spindle contract when spinal neurons called gamma motor neurons tell them to. Gamma motor neurons answer to commands from the brain. You activate them whenever you consciously choose to contract a skeletal muscle, and you inhibit them whenever you choose to relax the muscle. Different stretch receptors respond to stretching in different ways. In some cases, the longer the receptors, the stronger their signals to the spinal cord. In other cases, the faster you lengthen them, the stronger their signals are. Once stretched, however, all receptors adapt, meaning that if you hold them at a fixed length, their signalling slacks off over time. This is the basis of the adaptation method of stretching. SLOW THE STRETCH When you elongate a muscle using the adaptation method, you approach it the way you would approach a skittish wild animal, moving very gently and gradually, taking care not to "startle" it into contracting. To achieve this, you move extremely slowly to minimize the response of the speed-sensitive stretch receptors. And, you stretch only a tiny bit at first, so you barely stimulate the length-sensitive receptors. You then hold completely still in this mildly stretched position until all the receptors adapt, and the already weak signals they are sending to the spinal cord subside to an even lower level. Once this occurs, you slowly move a tiny bit further into the stretch and wait patiently again. If you repeat this sequence carefully, you can gradually move into a very deep stretch without ever activating your stretch receptors much, so you don't set off a reflex muscle contraction, and you never feel a strong sensation of stretch. The key to the adaptation method is your mental focus. You have to be extremely attentive, sensitive, and patient to make it work. Here's how to apply the adaptation method to Prasarita Padottanasana (Wide-Legged Standing Forward Bend). Stand in front of a chair with your legs spread wide and your knees completely straight. Bend forward just far enough to rest your hands on the chair back or chair seat without feeling any stretch at all in your legs. Now tilt the top of your pelvis forward as slowly as you can. The instant you sense even the tiniest stretch anywhere in your legs, stop and hold as still as a statue. Neither deepen nor release the pose in any way. Watch and wait, focusing all your attention on that weak sensation of leg stretch, which should be pleasant and so mild as to be nearly undetectable. Hold still until the feeling of stretch eventually subsides. This may take anywhere from 15 seconds to a few minutes. When it occurs, move, ever so slowly and carefully, slightly deeper into the pose, until you re-create exactly the same tiny amount of stretch you felt the first time. Again, hold stock-still and wait for the infinitesimal yet pleasant stretching sensation to subside before moving slightly more. Repeat this cycle over and over, shifting your hands to the floor if necessary, to very gradually bend forward as far as you can. One beautiful thing about this method is the philosophy it expresses. It works only when you completely focus your mind and wait patiently. It is nonviolent because it never forces your muscles, yet stretches them deeply. It is non greedy because it focuses on realizing fulfilment in the present moment. At every stopping point, you seek only to enjoy the pleasant stretch of that moment, and when that sensation subsides, you move forward only to return to the same enjoyable place of stretch again. In this way, you are truly; practicing asana (one translation of which is "steady, comfortable seat") because you are content at every stage of the pose, yet you continue to progress further and further into it, all the while maintaining a constant, peaceful state of mind. SEE THE STRETCH In the anticipatory release method of stretching, you consciously desensitize the stretch reflex in the muscles that you are about to stretch. The key is to inhibit your gamma motor neurons. Inhibiting the neurons relaxes the tiny muscles inside your muscle spindles and allows you to move into a pose without putting enough tension on the stretch receptors to trigger a muscle contraction. To do so, first envision where you intend your bones to end up (for example, sitting bones lifted high in a standing forward bend). When you do this, your brain automatically anticipates which muscles need to let go and inhibits the appropriate gamma motor neurons. Creating a visual map also helps you intentionally relax the muscles that you intend to lengthen � for example, your hamstrings and inner thigh muscles in the Wide-Legged Standing Forward Bend-which can further inhibit the gamma motor neurons. To practice the anticipatory release method, prepare for Prasarita Padottanasana, but this time do not put a chair in front of you. Instead, put your hands on your hips. Bend partway into the posture in one continuous movement, tilting your pelvis forward from your hip joints, and stop when you feel a moderate stretch in your legs. As you move, create a mental map of the places where you feel the most intense stretch. It may help to think of them as a pattern of "hot spots." You are content at every stage of the pose, yet you cont inue to make progress. Those are the places where the signals generated by the muscle spindles are strongest, meaning that their gamma motor neurons are most in need of inhibition. Create a clear memory of this mental map, then come up partway out of the pose, just far enough that the stretch disappears. Now bend forward into the pose again, but this time, imagine moving your sitting bones smoothly, without hesitation, to the final, lifted position. At the same time, deliberately relax all of the hot spots-the places that stretched most strongly before. The idea is to release the muscles in an orderly way in order to facilitate the intended movement. This doesn't always work the first time, so if you still feel the same old pattern of stretch, come up and try again. When you succeed in releasing your leg muscles in anticipation of the stretch, you'll go deeper into the pose and you'll feel less sensation in the former hot spots. But a whole new pattern of hot spots will pop up elsewhere on your legs. This means that you have gotten past your initial tight areas and are now stretching new ones whose spindles need releasing. Make a mental map of the new places, remember it, come up partway out of the pose, and repeat the same process to release the new tight spots. Do this several times to consciously ease yourself deeper and deeper into the forward bend. The adaptation and anticipatory release methods work beautifully, but there are other ways to quiet the stretch reflex. Whichever method you use, practice attentively and be responsive to what is happening in your body and mind, rather than to what you expect to happen. This is truly conscious practice, and so expresses the essence of yoga. (copyright) Roger Cole, PhD, at www.rogercoleyoga.com, is a certified lyengar Toga teacher and sleep research scientist in Del Mar, California.

Invocation to Sage Patanjali by Iyengar

FURTHER YOGA READING

A Mindful Stretch by Roger Cole