Saturday, March 03, 2007


bad poses make me sigh

since the whole job-husband thing can really get in the way of the coffee-yoga thing, not to mention the blog-maintenance thing, it's been a while since i took a good look at my detailed stats.

but what i learn today is that i may be (for now) the top search for "yoga blog" on google. well, that changes with the famed "google dance," i know.

anyway, thanks to you readers who continue to make the links that support the coffee-yoga connection (sorry, spiros!). i'm grateful.

many yogis and yoginis have written me in the past to ask why i don't offer fun pics of myself demonstrating various poses -- those who have been in classes with me often suggest, for example, that i post my popular ashtavakrasana.

but i don't do this for several reasons, including that: pose attainment ain't the goal of yoga; poses that work for me may not work for you; some alignments are better (less injurious) than others, but no one (unmodified) alignment is perfect for every body; i'm not a yoga teacher and have no desire to give a false impression; this blog shouldn't be a mirror (if i want a mirror, there's a widget for that).

one of the things i hate about so many supposed yoga blogs is that the give really terrible instructions and the pix are just bad, bad, bad.

for example, let's take fitsugar's uttanasana. those pix are not so good.

the top pic shows the model standing in an unbalanced way (her pelvis seems overly tipped back and her weight doesn't look centered through her feet, leading me to think she's not lifting her arches to work through the mid-line or standing all parts of her soles), her lumbar is too curved in, and she's sticking her rib cage out, instead of knitting it together and keeping it in. the model doesn't demonstrate a straight spine or tall, hollow core -- i don't think there's any uddiyanabanda there.

further, i don't like the relationship of her head and neck. she appears to be hanging her head back, cranking her neck, to look at her hands, instead of integrating her neck as part of her straight spine. she should be elongating up the spine to the ceiling with her head, as if a golden string were pulling her up.

then, she should gently tilt from the jaw slightly, just enough so she can catch her hands with her driste.

as for the second picture, if she's going to bend her knees to put her hands on the floor, i think she should already have softer knees on the way down. she's just tugging on her hamstrings here, to my mind, for no benefit.

further, her arms are too far out to the side. as you float down on the exhale, your hands should stay in the farthest edge of your peripheral vision. (if we wanted to get detailed, i think you should actually see a certain angle on the pinkie side of the hand.)

and again, i think she's sticking her rib cage out too much on the way down. i won't go on, i think i've made my point here.

so you see, with already more than enough bad pose pix on the web, why would i want to contribute to that? wouldn't it be better to recommend that people work themselves in person with a reputable yoga teacher?

oh yeah. ..

Tags: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

posted by fortune | 9:27 AM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 2 comments