you asked

When I do child's pose or Bikram's wind removing pose, I get a very uncomfortable pinching sensation in my hip joints. While my Bikram instructors tell me that it's to be expected, it keeps me from truly being able to relax. Am I doing something wrong? Is this something that will get better over time? Is there anything I can do to reduce or eliminate the sensation? What exactly is causing that sensation, anyway?  -Elaine

a yogi answers

Hi Elaine!

Sounds to me like it is our old "friends" the psoas and iliacus. I use the term "friends" jokingly here, as these are notoriously tight muscles for those of us in the West, as we spend most of our days sitting, whether at desks or in the car commuting. The psoas and iliacus are the primary hip flexors. Their function is to lift your leg in toward your chest. The psoas and iliacus are sometimes collectively referred to as the iliopsoas.

The first thing I want you to become aware of is your natural standing posture. Do you tend to arch your low back, allowing your low belly to (for lack of a better word!) pooch out a bit? By engaging your abdominals while releasing your tailbone towards the floor, you will help take pressure off these already overworked muscles. Next, in the two specific poses you mentioned, I recommend taking a hand towel and rolling it up, placing it in the hip joint to create more space when you fold forward. You can use a rolled up blanket if a towel is not big enough.

A great pose to stretch the back leg muscles is Lizard Pose, or Utthan Pristhasana. To get into this posture, come into a low lung, ensuring the front knee is tracking over the front ankle. Bring the heel of the front foot an inch or two to the outside of the mat. Place both hands to the inside of the front leg. Next, slide your back knee behind you so that the knee cap is behind the hip; the thigh bone should be in a diagonal from the hip to the knee. Untuck the back toes so that the top of the foot is down. If it's available, you can come down onto your forearms or a block to deepen the lung; then begin to lengthen the pubic bone toward the navel, extending your heart to the front of the room. Hold for ten deep breaths, switch and repeat.

The last point I want to leave you with is that in yoga, we should absolutely be working - this is how we build heat and create space - but never at the risk of injury or harm to ourselves. We yogis call it "tapas": purification through fire. However, the overarching principle above "tapas" is "ahimsa." Ahimsa means doing no harm. It is a very fine line we straddle, especially those of us who have more rajasic practices such as Ashtanga, Power Yoga, and Bikram. But, this is where we learn to practice our yoga. Can we practice strongly, but softly, as well? Can we push ourselves, but not beyond the limit of no return? Can we leave enough space so that we actually have room to grow and go deeper? Backing off is sometimes how one can end up going deeper in the long run. Because our bodies are like everything else, they do not respond to force. Yet if we are patient and loving and compassionate, they open up like a lotus flower and we take our practices to a whole new level.

I hope this helps!

- Sarah Ezrin, lululemon athletica Brentwood ambassador

more about sarah!

I am a yoga instructor from Santa Monica, CA. I teach at Bryan Kest's Power Yoga studio, as well as a few other top studios and gyms around the Los Angeles region. My daily practice is Ashtanga yoga. I feel very strongly that our mats are just a microcosm for our greater lives and that through learning how to cope on our mats, we can learn how to better deal in our lives. However, we must remember everyday that it is a path and a process, and one I know all too well That's why they call it a practice! More Sarah here: www.sarahezrinyoga.com

what is ask a yogi?
Ask a Yogi is a yoga advice column. If you have a yoga question for a lululemon yoga ambassador, please email askanexpert@lululemon.com.

you asked...

I’ve been into hot/Bikrams yoga for a few years now. I use to go 3 to 4 times a week. I was absolutely addicted! I’ve since scaled back to 2 or 3 times a month. I’m hoping to ramp that back up to weekly and eventually a few times a week; like when I first started. I was wondering if it’s ever ‘unhealthy’ or too much to go to hot yoga a couple times a week? Is it bad for your body to be in the class environment, sweat as much as you do, etc. that often? - Andrea S

a yogi answers

Hi Andrea,

I don’t believe practicing hot yoga 3 to 4 times a week is necessarily bad for you unless you have a medical condition such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, an eating disorder, sleep deprivation, heart-related illness or are pregnant. Make sure that you are drinking plenty of water to replenish the fluids that you’ve lost during practice, and, like all experienced yogis, just listen to your body.

If you feel like you need to lie down and rest, do that. Don’t worry if the rest of the class is in Dancer’s pose, and you decide to go into Child’s pose. I suggest you consider diversifying your practice by taking other types of yoga classes such as power, vinyasa, Anusara or Iyengar classes so that you do not get burned out on one particular type of yoga. Hot yoga is a wonderful detoxifying practice but it does not build your upper body strength like some of the other styles, and I have heard some yogis say that since the asana sequencing does not change much from class to class, it is nice to mix it up with other yoga styles. All yoga is good, so mix it up. Good luck and I hope to see you in one of my hot classes!

- Danielle


Does Camel pose make you feel sick?

you asked...

I was wondering why Camel pose makes me feel nauseous. Especially at Bikrams, but really in any yoga format. I have been told that it could be because it is a very vulnerable position when your heart is exposed. Is this true?? - Lindsey

a yogi answers

Hi Lindsey,

I am not sure if the position of the heart has anything to do with the nausea experienced in Ushtrasana (Camel pose) but believe it may be due to not breathing fully, misalignment in the posture or a release of emotional issues, which can happen in many different yoga postures, even Balaasana (Child’s pose). Camel pose helps us open up the thoracic spine where most of us tend to be relatively tight as compared to our cervical spine (neck) and lumbar spine (lower back).

To avoid nausea, make sure you maintain a deep and effortless breathing pattern and that you are not dropping your head too far back and compressing the cervical spine; keep the shoulder blades hugging together as you support your lower back with your hands; keep lifting the sternum up to avoid compression in your lumbar spine; and come out of the pose slowly while maintaining a steady flow of breath. As your body works itself into postures, emotions tend to come up. If a situation is bothering you off the mat, it can affect your body and practice. So keep breathing deeply and never force your poses.

I hope I provided some helpful pointers to help you in this posture.

- Danielle
http://daniellemikanagel.com/

Lara challenges herself and gets into a headstand for the first time.

Tonight was a landmark in my yoga practise. I got into a headstand for the first time on my SECOND try. On my FIRST try I enthusiastically flung my sweaty legs into the air. While they made it up to my intended vertical position, my lower body then continued on, collapsing to the right of my Manduka Mat, legs flailing and knocking over the woman in the calm and steady headstand beside me. In the end we both ended up in a heap on our respective mats.

I was mortified. This woman is the yogini with the perfect full lotus I had admired in my last class. I was the newbie who only recently touched her toes without bending my knees. I apologized to sink back into child’s pose and lick my wounded ego.

After the class I turned to her to apologize once more. “Think nothing of it! Ask anyone, we’ve all been there!”, she said to me laughing. Feeling like she was someone that could understand, I explained this feeling that I've been having, like I am on the brink of being able to push to that next level in my practise, that I KNOW my body can do it but I just need that extra little support (and room around my mat) to get there.

The woman asked me if I wanted to try again with her help. I said “Yes!”

I set up my arms and placed my head in between them with my new yoga buddy standing by, ready to catch me. I raised my left leg, then right leg halfway up. Feeling confident, I slowly raised them up to vertical once more. I tried! I did it! It felt amazing to do something that had scared me! And I made a new yoga friend!

Tonight I was reminded to not be satisfied with things as they are. If I want to grow as a person, as a yogini, I need to take more risks. I will fall again when I try a headstand, once, twice, likely a whole lot more - but that’s ok. The worst thing that my mind could conceive of happening when I envisioned trying to do a headstand happened tonight. But instead of it being a bad thing, it opened up a door to an opportunity where I made a new friend that helped me to experience my yoga practice at a whole new level of engagement.

What are you afraid of doing? Who do you need to help you get to that next level?

I love food, I hate to run, and yet I run to eat.

I am purely motivated by the extra allotted calories I can intake if I put myself through a tough workout. The motivation for my first half marathon was the vegetarian quinoa burger, French fries and chocolate shake at Burger Lounge I knew was waiting for me post-race. I was enraged when the race was over and I was so tired, cranky, and overall blistery that consuming the glorious meal took way more energy than I had left in my body.

I am a pretty healthy vegetarian who is not afraid of chocolate and thus not exactly gracing the cover of Shape magazine anytime soon. For some people, working out is second nature. To me it's a chore and never easy. So believe me: finishing a half marathon was a BIG deal.

It has been a couple months since my first half marathon and I am "training" for another one coming up in 3 weeks. Unfortunately, my legs recently entered into depression and I have found every excuse in the book not to run in the last couple months. I should be running right now, but here I am typing away and wondering if they make some sort of Prozac or depression medicine for your legs. Instead, I go to the best form of therapy I know: hot yoga.

One of my favorite instructors was gently taking to us in savasana yesterday about how sometimes your body shuts down and will not allow your mind to control it the way it wants to. Sometimes your body needs a break and if your mind won't listen, your body will find it's own way of slowing down. I nearly started crying. Just hours before I had tried running 3 miles and ended up walking 2 of them and was left feeling lazy and deflated. I do not claim to be an elite runner by any means, but I do know that you have to get off your butt to actually kick it.

I make a lot of discoveries in savasana as just then I realized that I was really fortunate to be a running yogi, and that is okay to slow down every now and then. Going to a hot vinyasa flow yoga class after a 9 mile run feels like a reward rather than a workout, and it is a practice I think a lot of runners would benefit from. Sure, running competes with your flexibility and ability to get into certain poses, but take your ego out of it and discover the heavenly place that is child's pose. If it weren’t for yoga keeping my legs flexible and loose during my half marathon training, I really do not know how a below average runner like myself would have survived. Go on and run that half marathon, and then take a deep breath and relax in child's pose for a little while. You earned it. (By the way - a chocolate shake has no calories after a half marathon).

Namaste.