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Improve your Back-bends
Since many students have repeatedly asked me about improving their back-bends, I have decided to provide some tips. I hope these will also benefit other students of yoga in exploring the limits of their own body. When I first opened a yoga book, I thought that I would never be able to achieve even a quarter of what was illustrated. My back was very stiff and I thought that only people who had trained from early childhood could perform postures such as scorpion, full bow, full locust or full wheel. When I discovered how pleasurable a good yoga practice could be - especially one with back-bends - I started to practise every day. After just 10 months, I was able to perform these poses. Unfortunately, I didn't have an instructor at that time and I injured my back. There's certainly no way to improve if you can't even practise anymore! For this reason, I'm also including a few tips to avoid injuries.
• Daily practice is the key to improvement. If you don't practice back-bends, you won't improve on them, it's that simple. But I don't advise practising more than six days in a row. That is, once a week on every seventh day you should take a break from any deep back-bend. Devote that day instead to forward-bends. I personally do only leg-behind-head positions on that seventh day. Feel free to design your own programme or attend only gentle classes such as Yin or Gentle Flow on that particular day.
• Don't practise the same back-bend every day. Back-bends are aplenty and diverse - take advantage of such variety! The most well-known are Bhujangâsana the cobra, Dhanurâsana the bow, Shalabhâsana the locust, Chakrâsana the wheel, Râja-Kapotâsana the king pigeon, Ushtrâsana the camel, Natarâjâsana the dancer, and Vrishchikâsana the scorpion. Practise Bhujangâsana, Dhanurâsana and Shalabhâsana one day with a special focus on Shalabhâsana. And you can follow the same programme for two, three or even four days. Then practise other back-bends such as Ushtrâsana, Râja-Kapotâsana and Chakrâsana, with a focus on Chakrâsana, for example. If you don't have much time, I advise you to practise Chakrâsana the wheel.
• To go deeper in a posture and perfect it, practise it several times in one session. Consider the first time a warm-up. Don't hold the pose more than a few seconds. The second time, stay in it a little bit longer. The third time, go as deep as you can. If your back muscles are still not complaining, go for a fourth time. Under the guidance of an adept teacher, you can practise up to 20 repetitions of a deep back-bend. In Patrick Creelman's teacher training, for example, there are always two or three sessions where students practise 15-20 reps of the wheel.
• Use the breath. As you already know, breathing out lets you go deeper in forward-bends. With back-bends, it is the opposite - we go deeper when inhaling. This is to protect the spine. Remember with cobra (or upward-facing-dog) in the Sun Salutation - you are…inhaling. This applies to all other back-bends, even if they are not part of the Sun Salutation. Hold the pose for several breaths and each time you breathe in, back-bend a little bit more. When you have reached your maximum, hold the pose for a few more breaths.
• Back-bends are best practised on an empty stomach. Don't eat for at least three hours before practising deep back-bends, but make it four or five hours if you can. This healthy habit is also an indirect means to controlling one's weight. It is not necessary to lose 2L of sweat to control or lose weight (even though that may help!). There are other ways.
• Recognise and respect your individual ability to avoid injuries. We all back-bend differently. Some have their limits here, some have their limits there. Last week I went to Sudhakar's class in Hong Kong and on the mat beside me was Vikki Ng, a Pure Yoga student who won the yoga championship in India (see the article 'Pure Yoga celebrates 3 Champions'). When we started doing back-bends, I was reminded of that truth. What is a deep back-bend for me is a warm-up for her. It has nothing to do with how 'good' we are. It simply means that we have to work with what we have. We have to know our limits and work with them, not with the limits of someone else. If you don't respect your limits, you are bound to injure your muscles or even worse, your spine! Yoga is not only about bending backward or forward. Yoga is also about respect - the respect of others, of nature, etc. And it starts with respecting your body. Work at the edge of your maximum with mindfulness and patience. It takes a long time to perfect an asana - sometimes 10 or 20 years. When I found that my back could bend, my deepest longing became to bring my feet to my head. I was doing hundreds of Bhujangâsanas and hundreds of Dhanurâsanas. As a result, I injured my lower back so badly that for two full months I was not able to bend backward at all. Don't make the same mistake. Do it in moderation and go 'slowly but surely'.
• Release after back-bends with a good twist. Ardha-Matsyendrâsana is often practised, but a standing or reclining twist is also a good option. If your back feels painful and yet you think that you can go a little bit deeper in your back-bend, twist to the right and left as much as possible, then resume your practice where you left off.
• Maintain a balanced practice. For each minute spent in a back-bend, you should spend a minute in a forward-bend. By twisting your back and practising forward-bends, you should avoid any kind of discomfort or injury - and gradually be able to go deeper and deeper in your poses. A good and long Pashchimottânâsana, Padottânâsana or Janushîrshâsana at the end of your session is all you need. If during the day, after your practice, you feel tension in your back, don't hesitate to do one of these three forward-bending poses at any time. Just sit down and practise Pashchimottânâsana for 5 or 10 minutes.
• Find pleasure in your practice. Don't practise to show off or to prove to anybody that you can do it. Practise to become a better person and to feel good. During practice, we should not feel pressure or too much strain. We should be enjoying what we are doing. Find pleasure in every breath, or rather - since it is the subject of this article - in every back-bend. And you will find the path.
Steeve
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