After five years of practice, I recently learned that I do not have my head on straight. The teachers always say “where your eyes go, your body will follow,” but apparently for me, where the eyes go, the neck follows. I have been over extending my neck, craning it up to the ceiling, especially in the spine strengthening series, but also in the forward bend to Standing Separate Leg Stretching Pose. No wonder my neck and shoulders hurt so much in these postures.

It is hard to explain, but this example may help. In Full Locust Post, when you raise your eyes to the sky to help guide your body higher, I was simply craning my neck up. Sure, I could see the ceiling because I was tilting my neck and my eyes came along for the ride. What I should have been doing was keeping my head straight while looking up with my eyes, and using my back strength to raise my body higher to better see the ceiling. Oops… I guess that is why they call it a practice.

This new awareness came out of my recent yoga retreat. I am sorry if you are sick of hearing about the retreat (my family definitely is!), but it has gotten me thinking about a lot of things. If you are not sick of hearing about it, you can read about it here and here. Anyway, I learned to get my head on straight at this retreat. It was not a Bikram retreat so the postures were different and one of the teacher’s favorite postures was called the forward fold. It is as simple as it sounds. You start from a standing position and fold your body forward from your hips while keeping your back straight. Your arms hang at your sides and glide down to touch the floor at the end. Well, simple or not, I was doing it wrong. My back was curved into a back bend rather than being straight and my neck was tilted up towards the sky.

As the retreat week went on, I learned to see my head as an extension of my spine, keeping it still and straight through the bend. I also learned to engage my abdominal muscles to better support my back and keep it straight too. This was a big change for me, although so obvious, now that I understand it.

I have been working to apply this new-found straightness to my Bikram postures this week, and it has made a big difference. My neck looks much more natural in the postures — not as tense, although I never really noticed the tension before. My spine strengthening series has also taken a turn for the better. I’m not sure why I get more height holding my head straight, but I do. It is also a lot less uncomfortable now that I am working the right muscles rather than just straining. My shoulders used to ache in these postures, but now they feel like they are opening up. I am very happy about that.

All of this has also helped me to get my head on straight in another way. I always believed that since Bikram yoga works all the muscle groups and systems in the body, it was all I needed to do for my yoga practice. But I now have a broader view. Mixing it up at the retreat helped me identify muscles I was underutilizing and highlighted a bad habit I had developed. I wouldn’t have seen this without the shift in perspective that came from trying a different form of yoga. I guess it is time to add some different styles into my yoga mix.

Fellow yogis, do you have your head on straight?

My grip has been slipping in class lately. I wonder if it is the extra humidity in the room for winter, but whatever the reason, it has helped me to realize how critical the grip is to the integrity of a posture. Without a steady grip, the posture cannot develop and deepen. There is no stability, and without stability, there is no opportunity to push ourselves forward and grow.

I have always been very focused on my grip. I make sure there is a solid intertwine of the fingers and thumbs, all the way to the knuckles. As extra glue, some teachers recommend touching the fingertips of the thumb and index fingers (on the same hand) together to lock the grip in place. I like to do that. I also like to switch up my grip in the second set of each posture. See my post Switch Up Your Grip For a More Balanced Practice for more on this. I think it adds another layer of discipline to the practice, stretches the body more evenly, and creates a stronger grip overall since it works all the fingers evenly.

But even with all that focus, it has become challenging for me to maintain my grip throughout the length of certain postures. It is most noticeable in Standing Head to Knee. When I first kick out, my grip is solid and firm, but by the end, my fingers have sometimes slipped so much that only the very tips of my fingers are still interlaced. Also in Standing Bow Pose — at the start of the posture, I have a solid hold on my leg at the ankle, but by the end, it may just be the fingertips. On the floor, this sometimes happens in Bow Pose and Head to Knee with Stretching Pose.

Today I may have had a breakthrough, however. I began to gently squeeze the tips of my fingers onto the outside of the opposite hand like they were latching onto the hand itself rather than just the other hand’s fingers. In this way, I got the whole hand involved in the grip. I am hoping this will help.

Thinking about my grip in class got me thinking about the grip we take on things in our life as well. In Bikram, the best grip is strong, yet flexible so it can hold the posture steady, but allow it to deepen. Hold on too tight and the muscles won’t relax and stretch as the posture dictates. Hold on too loosely and you will lose the grip and fall out of the posture.

Same as in life. How steadily we hold fast to those we love, and to what we care about helps define who we are and shapes our behavior and relationships. Hold on too tightly and you can smother growth and drive important people and things away. Hold on too loosely and the connection is lost. I love when my practice informs my life like that.

Fellow yogis, how do you get a grip?

I love standing bow pose.  I love the balance of it as you reach forward and kick backward simultaneously.  I like the feeling of grace as you hold your chest up high and proud, but bend your body down to exercise your heart.  I feel strong in this posture even if my body sometimes struggles through it.

Last week in class, the teacher had us all take a step back in this posture so that we could move forward in a better way.  Many of us were bending forward in the fuller expression of the posture, but our hips were not aligned.  She had us stay straight up, kicking and reaching but in an upright position allowing our hips to remain parallel to the front mirror.  In only the final seconds did she have us bend forward to exercise the heart.  Not many of us could bend down as far with our hips in this proper alignment, but we were doing it the right way and getting greater benefits.  I certainly felt a deeper stretch in my hips and back and a more stringent call on my abs to support my body.

I have been trying to replicate this process in my practice since that class.  I feel the difference in my body, but I also see the difference in the mirror.  My posture is not as pretty as it once was, not as fully extended, but I have decided not to care.  I know I am getting the benefits and that is the point.  It will be pretty again, although it might take a while.  Doing it the right way to get the health benefits is more important than the short-lived gratification of a pretty posture looking back at me in the mirror.

That got me thinking about how important the ability to go back to move forward is, both on and off the mat.  It requires discipline, self awareness, and the ability to delay gratification, many of the things needed for success generally.  It is something I am trying to teach my school-aged children.  For example, I make them recopy messy homework assignments so they are neater and better organized. Going back (recopying) to move forward (learning how to do neat and organized homework).  While they are not thanking me for this now (at all!), I hope that longer term, they will be glad they have the skill and discipline required to do homework properly, so they get the full benefits, just like I hope to do in standing bow.

Fellow yogis, do you have a posture where you need to go back to move forward?