Awakening the Spine: Shala Teaching
With Diana Christinson, Pacific Ashtanga Yoga
Diana begins a new semester of study at the Shala with Vanda Scaravelli's book, Awakening the Spine. Diana demonstrates spinal awakening through utthita trikonasana and paschimottanasana.
Awakening The Spine by Vanda Scaravelli
The book we are reading for this semester is Awakening the Spine by Vanda Scaravelli. There are 10 books that I want in everybody’s yoga library and this is one of the 10 that you will purchase and keep for many, many, many years. If you loan it to somebody you have to get it back.
The premise of her book is the idea that one of the best things, one of the most beneficial aspects of the yoga practice, is how we’re going to lengthen and awaken the spine.
Vanda does a really beautiful job. There’s just very nice pictures and a sort of stream of consciousness the way she writes. The best thing about the books are the pictures of her. Vanda Scaravelli, she’s an Italian yogi, started when she was 40 years old and there are many beautiful pictures of her. I don’t know why I always have to demonstrate this - in her black tights and black turtleneck with wiry gray hair and beautiful wrinkles. I used to, I haven’t recently but maybe I should start again, take pictures of her in a backbend in her little turtleneck and I would make small copies that you guys could put in your wallets and stuff because these pictures were taken probably when Vanda was in her late 80s. It’s just a beautiful inspiration for all of us, kind of a little nice picture of her doing her yoga and how beautiful and graceful and healthy and vibrant she was and how we can all do that.
The premise of her book is the idea that one of the best things, one of the most beneficial aspects of the yoga practice, is how we’re going to lengthen and awaken the spine.
Vanda does a really beautiful job. There’s just very nice pictures and a sort of stream of consciousness the way she writes. The best thing about the books are the pictures of her. Vanda Scaravelli, she’s an Italian yogi, started when she was 40 years old and there are many beautiful pictures of her. I don’t know why I always have to demonstrate this - in her black tights and black turtleneck with wiry gray hair and beautiful wrinkles. I used to, I haven’t recently but maybe I should start again, take pictures of her in a backbend in her little turtleneck and I would make small copies that you guys could put in your wallets and stuff because these pictures were taken probably when Vanda was in her late 80s. It’s just a beautiful inspiration for all of us, kind of a little nice picture of her doing her yoga and how beautiful and graceful and healthy and vibrant she was and how we can all do that.
The Idea: Lengthen and Awaken Our Spine
The idea of our yoga practice is that we are going to lengthen and awaken our spine and that’s one of the ways that we are going to continue as Vanda to be really healthy in our lives.
I want everyone to stand up for a minute and do a very simple demonstration.
- I want you to bring your feet together as we do and just kind of bring the arms up loosely and then bring them back down.
- And again, bring the arms up loosely and bring them back down.
- One more time just to get the idea here and bring them back down.
Now I want you to ground through your feet, slightly lift the toes, pull all the way up through mula bandha, extend the arms down at your side. I want you to think of pulling your arms through water, you’re down at the bottom of a pool.
- I want you to inhale the arms wide and reach up as high as you can and exhale and pull them down through your heart.
- Inhale wide, push down through the feet, as wide as you can, as high as you can, and exhale it down. Good, one more time.
- Inhale wide all the way up and down through the spine and sit down.
Energy Moving Through the Spine
Obviously, we’re talking about the spine.
What was the difference between the first and the second Sun Salutes? What did you notice?
Focus?
Yes, definitely changes your focus from just waving your arms around.
Anything else about the spine?
Energy. Absolutely.
We’re going to talk a little bit about that this week, starting tomorrow, about the energy. But yes, there’s energy moving through it. They’re just basic elongation, right?
I like that Vanda uses the word awaken. I know it’s not very anatomical, you know, but there is something that happens, kind of more captured with the word “energy” when we started pushing down through the feet and reaching our arms up. You felt not only that elongation but some energy moving through the spine.
What was the difference between the first and the second Sun Salutes? What did you notice?
Focus?
Yes, definitely changes your focus from just waving your arms around.
Anything else about the spine?
Energy. Absolutely.
We’re going to talk a little bit about that this week, starting tomorrow, about the energy. But yes, there’s energy moving through it. They’re just basic elongation, right?
I like that Vanda uses the word awaken. I know it’s not very anatomical, you know, but there is something that happens, kind of more captured with the word “energy” when we started pushing down through the feet and reaching our arms up. You felt not only that elongation but some energy moving through the spine.
Energy Channels
In Yoga we always talk about the Nadis. What are the Nadis?
The energy channels.
In yoga we say there are how many of those in our body? 72,000. It’s the number everyone should know if they study at Pacific Ashtanga Yoga Shala.
There are 72,000. The most important one, if you don’t know any of the other Nadis, is called Sushumna Nadi. Where is that located? The spine. It runs from the very base of the spine all the way through the crown of the head. That is the most important meridian, or Nadi, that we have that we want to run energy though.
So the yoga practice has a yoga breath called ujjayi breath and the idea is that there’s a movement to it. We say a wind or a vayu, a direction of the prana.
The inhale, what direction is the prana moving on an inhale?
Up.
When you inhale, the prana moves the sushumna nadi all the way through the crown of my head. As I exhale, the prana pushes back down to the base of the spine. The idea is as we were showing, that we’re going to lengthen and get energy moving, kind of waking us up from the inside.
When we all started our yoga practice (before) we were waving our arms and our legs around more. I always describe it more like a puppet - we’re moving more from our limbs. But as you really advance in your yoga practice and you understand what we’re doing, you realize we really move more from that center, that elongation, that breath movement from the center place that starts in mooladhara and moves around. What I want you guys to think of is exactly is what we did standing should be how we do every standing pose.
I will use utthita trikona-asanas as an example only because sometimes I feel sorry for utthita trikona-asana because it’s never on the front of Yoga Journal magazine. Why? It’s not that exciting.
The energy channels.
In yoga we say there are how many of those in our body? 72,000. It’s the number everyone should know if they study at Pacific Ashtanga Yoga Shala.
There are 72,000. The most important one, if you don’t know any of the other Nadis, is called Sushumna Nadi. Where is that located? The spine. It runs from the very base of the spine all the way through the crown of the head. That is the most important meridian, or Nadi, that we have that we want to run energy though.
So the yoga practice has a yoga breath called ujjayi breath and the idea is that there’s a movement to it. We say a wind or a vayu, a direction of the prana.
The inhale, what direction is the prana moving on an inhale?
Up.
When you inhale, the prana moves the sushumna nadi all the way through the crown of my head. As I exhale, the prana pushes back down to the base of the spine. The idea is as we were showing, that we’re going to lengthen and get energy moving, kind of waking us up from the inside.
When we all started our yoga practice (before) we were waving our arms and our legs around more. I always describe it more like a puppet - we’re moving more from our limbs. But as you really advance in your yoga practice and you understand what we’re doing, you realize we really move more from that center, that elongation, that breath movement from the center place that starts in mooladhara and moves around. What I want you guys to think of is exactly is what we did standing should be how we do every standing pose.
I will use utthita trikona-asanas as an example only because sometimes I feel sorry for utthita trikona-asana because it’s never on the front of Yoga Journal magazine. Why? It’s not that exciting.
What happens in all the standing poses is we want that same elongation, right? What I notice a lot of times in people’s practices, no matter where your flexibility is something like this happens, and I’m just talking about my spine right now, or the spine. So, what’s happening? What’s the problem here?
You notice my energy is kind of going down this direction. Again, I don’t have to take my toe, maybe I’m going to bring my hand here. I’m going to do that same lengthening in the spine from the very base of my spine. It has to travel then through the crown of my head. The neck is long for that to happen, rather than this - I’ve lost it, it kind of went dead through here. All the standing poses, right?
The cool thing about the Ashtanga practices is we add vinyasa to add to that physical and energetic benefit to it. This movement we have, let’s say prasarita padottanasana a, the way we come into the pose is from standing. We inhale and then we exhale, and then we inhale and then we exhale. The idea is we want to take from the base of the spine to reach all the way through the crown of the head. If you’re really getting the full benefit for the vinyasa it should be mooladhara all the way through the crown.
How do I exit? Same thing.
You notice my energy is kind of going down this direction. Again, I don’t have to take my toe, maybe I’m going to bring my hand here. I’m going to do that same lengthening in the spine from the very base of my spine. It has to travel then through the crown of my head. The neck is long for that to happen, rather than this - I’ve lost it, it kind of went dead through here. All the standing poses, right?
The cool thing about the Ashtanga practices is we add vinyasa to add to that physical and energetic benefit to it. This movement we have, let’s say prasarita padottanasana a, the way we come into the pose is from standing. We inhale and then we exhale, and then we inhale and then we exhale. The idea is we want to take from the base of the spine to reach all the way through the crown of the head. If you’re really getting the full benefit for the vinyasa it should be mooladhara all the way through the crown.
- I grew it long, just like when I waved my arms.
- When I want to exhale, I take that length all the way forward into the pose and then I have one more vinyasa.
- I have another chance to get that elongation, that long spine from the base all the way through the crown that I take into the asana for four breaths.
How do I exit? Same thing.
- I inhale - elongation of the spine
- Exhale - I keep that elongation of the spine.
- Inhale, I come all the way up.
- Remember we’re to reach through the crown of the head to really complete that.
“If you’re really getting the full benefit for the vinyasa it should be mooladhara all the way through the crown”
I need someone to demo.
We’re going to do prasarita padottanasana and I want you to watch her spine. There’s a lot of things we can talk about, but mainly we’ll talk about the spine. In prasarita padottanasana we have soft-up position (we’re doing “this is what we don’t want you to do” first.) and then paschimottanasana. Again, if we’re looking at what’s happening in the spine, her spine is completely rounded and it’s dead.
Now she is going to do “good” paschimottanasana. Soft-up position really sets up the spine. This is what I want you to all see that we’re going to actually use this in standing poses as well. Paschimottanasana starts with your feet active, the arms are really activated by pulling the shoulders back so the legs are active strong in the front lengthening in the back.
This is what I want all of you to see, I can’t adjust you all like this today but I want you to imagine that I am.
We’re going to do prasarita padottanasana and I want you to watch her spine. There’s a lot of things we can talk about, but mainly we’ll talk about the spine. In prasarita padottanasana we have soft-up position (we’re doing “this is what we don’t want you to do” first.) and then paschimottanasana. Again, if we’re looking at what’s happening in the spine, her spine is completely rounded and it’s dead.
Now she is going to do “good” paschimottanasana. Soft-up position really sets up the spine. This is what I want you to all see that we’re going to actually use this in standing poses as well. Paschimottanasana starts with your feet active, the arms are really activated by pulling the shoulders back so the legs are active strong in the front lengthening in the back.
This is what I want all of you to see, I can’t adjust you all like this today but I want you to imagine that I am.
- I have my hand on your lower back.
- I’m pulling it up and when I want to pull my hand up, it elongates the back of your spine all the way through the crown of the head.
- Then take my hand, lovingly as only a yoga teacher can do, put it right on your stomach and hollow it like carving a pumpkin.
- Then I lovingly put my hand right under your chest.
- This is an important part - I’m going to lift that middle part of your spine from the front from right below your toes.
- I’m going to lift it up and lift all the way through the spine through the crown of the head.
Lengthen From the Inside
What happens a lot of time is our mid-back is just dead. There’s not a lot of energy. There’s not a lot of movement. It’s kind of a little bit stagnant, right? So we want to, as we progress in our practice to really articulate things more from the inside rather than the outside. The more advanced when you practice you can feel yourself pick up through here and lengthen from the inside, all the way through here, through the crown of the head.
Now she goes into paschimottanasana and a lot of beautiful things are happening. She’s using her arms to activate the spine. The feet are very active. She has the energy moving all the way through the crown of the head. Pata-drishti serves her here and she keeps that beautiful link of energy. Thank you.
Now she goes into paschimottanasana and a lot of beautiful things are happening. She’s using her arms to activate the spine. The feet are very active. She has the energy moving all the way through the crown of the head. Pata-drishti serves her here and she keeps that beautiful link of energy. Thank you.
We have to constantly check in with what we’re doing. “
I always say when I practice on Wednesday with the class, I do primary series with a class, and if you guys ever practice next to me I can come into a forward fold to about here but I never do. I never do because I would lose so much in that. When I do my forward folds, if you ever practice next to me, I’m usually about here because this is where I can get the most activity and the most benefit. That’s what we always have to think of. We’ve been talking about that in our practice, you know, yoga’s meant to benefit the energetic body, the physical body, the spiritual body, so we have to constantly check in with what we’re doing.
Today, throughout the practice, I want you guys to really think of my loving hand at your lower back pulling up. Even try this now, just for a second.
Again, the prana today is going to be inhale - move the prana up, exhale - moving the prana down.
Samasthiti
Today, throughout the practice, I want you guys to really think of my loving hand at your lower back pulling up. Even try this now, just for a second.
- At the same time the second hand comes and pulls the belly in, equally as loving.
- Then right from below this chest area, lengthening this out.
- You want to feel like you’re pulling up, rather than forward as you come into these poses.
Again, the prana today is going to be inhale - move the prana up, exhale - moving the prana down.
Samasthiti