HOME HOT YOGA
  • About
    • Bikram Yoga
    • Pregnancy Yoga
    • Private Lessons
  • Blog
  • JOIN TODAY
  • MEMBERS AREA
  • D.I.Y. HOT ROOM
  • Contact
  • BIZ COACHING
  • SHOP

POTM: Standing Head to Knee pose/ Dandayamana Janushirasana

8/1/2018

0 Comments

 
As Bikram yoga teachers, so many students tell us this one is their "nemesis!" And we get it. SHTK not only requires you to use a ton of physical strength and stamina to develop your own flexibility, it also calls upon 110% of your will power, integrity and mental fortitude to stick with it, try the right way and not give up. The good news is, by using those aspects of your body and of your character you are building them up, and they (like this posture) will only get better with practice.

Health benefits include:
  • Raises heart rate to improve cardiovascular fitness
  • Tones legs muscles, especially inner thighs and quadriceps
  • Stretches hamstrings, shoulders lower back
  • Improves abdominal strength
  • Interlocked finger grip strengthens fingers and hands
  • Locking the knee strengthens the muscles which support the knee joint
  • Promotes self discipline, determination, concentration, patience and faith
How to do:
Standing Head to Knee can be best understood by dividing it into a progression of stages or steps. Keep in mind that while we identify 4 main "steps" in the posture, there are a bazillion mini-steps along the way, and any one of the steps may take you weeks, months or years to master. For example, between grabbing your foot and locking both knees, you may find your maximum expression of the posture somewhere in-between for quite some time. No worries: as long as you try the right way and you don't give up, that's the ultimate destination!
  • Step 1: Grab your foot. Shift your weight onto the standing leg and grab the (soon to be) kicking leg foot in front of you with all 10 fingers interlocked. Hold underneath the ball of the foot, about 3 inches below the toes. Don't lose this grip. Your kicking leg knee should be bent, the heel should be directly below the knee, and the thigh should be a bit above parallel to the floor. How high your thigh is will depend on your anatomy. Be sure your head is up so you can focus one point on your standing knee in the mirror, without straining the neck too much. Lock the knee to the best of your ability.*
  • Step 2: Kick. From Step 1, inhale and slowly, gently extend the kicking leg heal toward the mirror, keeping your toes turned back toward your face. Keep kicking the heel forward until your both knees are locked and your legs form an upside-down "L" shape. Don't lose your grip. Let your shoulders be pulled forward by the strength of your kick, and you will get a great stretch for your shoulder muscles in this 2nd step. The feeling should not be that your arms are holding up the leg- but rather that the kicking leg is pulling your shoulders forward. Note: You do not need to wait until your standing knee is locked before you begin to kick! In fact, if your standing knee has to bend a bit for you to achieve Step 1, kicking out even a little bit may actually allow you to lock it all the way. And it will definitely take some pressure out of your lower back.
  • Step 3: Bend your elbows. Only if both knees are locked and you can balance there comfortably, start to bend your elbows down toward the floor until your elbows touch your calf muscle. Try to get them to go below your calf muscle! This 3rd step stretches the hamstrings, shoulders and lower back a lot. Be sure not to lose your grip, and continuously keep kicking your heel toward the mirror while you bend your elbows down.
  • Step 4: Forehead to knee. In the beginners class, we only practice this step during the 2nd set of SHTK. If your elbows are touching your calf with both knees locked, slowly bring your body down, chest down, head down, round your spine to look at your stomach and touch your forehead on your knee. Shifting the focus of your eyes like this is supremely challenging! Be sure to keep kicking the kicking leg forward and locking both knees continuously to create a solid foundation.

*You want me to lock my knee??
Yes. But let's make sure you understand what we mean by that. In Bikram yoga, to "lock the knee" means 3 things: Straight leg (full extension of the knee joint) + thigh muscles (including quads) contracted + body weight even on the foot. Check out our post on the subject for more!
Eyes and abs!
Balancing on one foot is a big challenge for many beginners. Remember that your 2 best friends on your "balance team" are your abs and your eyes. So always keep your abdominal muscles pulled in firmly, and maintain your one point of focus on your standing knee throughout the posture.

Breathe normally
Breathing properly is key. If you’re working on Step 1, simply breath normally with an engaged core. If you are kicking out into Step 2, inhale slowly by the nose while you kick your leg forward. Take another deep inhale when your both knees are locked and exhale as you bend your elbows down for Step 3. Take another deep breath and slowly exhale again as you tuck your chin to your chest for Step 4. This focused breathing keeps you calm and maintains oxygen moving through your body to feed your muscles. It also assists with the stretching and rounding of your spine and ribs.

Enjoy!
Finally, the real secret to mastery of Standing Head to Knee is: attitude. Relish every step of the magical journey, because every step has something to offer your body, mind and soul. And more than anything, this posture demands that you activate and cultivate the connection between those! That's part of what makes it so tough, and that's also what makes it so... yoga.
0 Comments

Leaping

11/4/2015

1 Comment

 
Since our Founding Memberships went on sale a few days ago, seven people have purchased year-long memberships to a yoga studio they have never seen, because it isn't even built yet. I haven't met most of these people, but I can tell you they have a lot to teach us. They know how to do possibly one of the most important things in human life: They know how to leap.

You know, leaping. Like when you come to a giant, muddy puddle at the foot of your driveway, and the whole world is waiting on the other side- but you're not wearing your rain boots and it's hard to gauge the depth or whether your legs are long enough to make it across. It's tempting to walk around. Or even go back inside and wait for the sun to come out and dry things up! (Heh. Can you tell I'm originally a Californian?) Anyway, those are very practical solutions, and there's nothing wrong with them. Some of us, though... maybe we back up a bit, get something of a running start- and we leap the hell over that puddle and get on with the day.

Bikram Yoga St. Johns was a leap for us. When we found out we were going to be parents, my first impulse was to say "Let's wait with the business." We were going to have a baby to consider, after all! I wanted to go back inside and wait till the puddle dried, get an office job and put the kid in daycare. Save money. Play it safe.

It can be that way with the yoga sometimes, too. For many of us it was a huge leap to get to that first class, that's for sure. We had to get over worries about the heat, the fear of being vulnerable and sweaty in a room full of the beautiful people, concern that our bodies were somehow not up to the task- we had to let all that go and just leap ourselves into the hot room. And there are days like that even after practicing for years- coming back after an illness, or maybe just feeling really out of sorts and like we might not make it through two sets of half moon. If we go to class, we risk feeling uncomfortable, imperfect, even having to sit out a posture or three. On those days it feels much safer to stay on the couch and scroll through Facebook and let the hours pass us by.

But. Do you remember how you felt after your very first class? Have you had one of those "iffy" days, and then you go to class anyway? I know I have, and I've never regretted it. It's not always pretty, but in my experience you always feel better when you leap.

It certainly would have been easier for us to put the studio on hold. Sometimes I wonder if it would have been more responsible. But that puddle wasn't going anywhere! And did we want to teach our children to play it safe? That seems less responsible.

I'm not concerned about this community at all. It is being founded as we speak by people who are not afraid to take a chance. These people will build the kind of community that jumps in with all it's got. They will inspire new students to try that scary first class, they will make our studio vibrate with an adventurous spirit. Together with them- with you- we are setting exactly the example we want to set for our daughter.

Together, we will make this the best leap we all ever took!

Picture
Photo Credit: Ken Banks. https://www.flickr.com/photos/kiwanja/12249230503/
1 Comment

"Success" by Berton Braley

10/14/2015

0 Comments

 
A recent conversation with my husband, uploading stories onto our Testimonials page, teaching several classes this weekend full of super-motivated students, and  watching my 1-month-old daughter's efforts on her movement mat have all got me thinking about: perseverance, drive, dedication. What great feats we are capable of when we pour in everything we have! Here's one of my favorite poems on the subject.

Bikram Yoga St. Johns
Success

If you want a thing bad enough
To go out and fight for it,
Work day and night for it,
Give up your time and your peace and your sleep for it,
If only desire of it
Makes you quite mad enough
Never to tire of it,
Makes you hold other things tawdry and cheap for it;
If life seems all empty and useless without it
And all that you scheme and you dream is about it,
If gladly you'll sweat for it,
Fret for it,
Plan for it,
Lose all your terror of God or of man for it,
If you'll simply go after that thing that you want,
With all your capacity,
Strength and sagacity,
Faith, hope and confidence, stern pertinacity,
If neither cold poverty, famished and gaunt,
Nor sickness and pain
Of body or brain
Can turn you away from the thing that you want,
If dogged and grim you besiege and beset it,
You'll get it!

- Berton Braley


0 Comments

5 Ways Bikram Yoga Will Change Your Mind

10/7/2015

1 Comment

 
Even if you've never taken a Bikram yoga class, you can probably imagine a few ways sweating your guts out for 90 minutes a day might change your body. (Weight loss, lower blood pressure, increased stamina, improved digestion, anyone?) After all, Bikram yoga is a hatha yoga practice, meaning a practice of physical postures, called asanas, and breathing techniques, called pranayama. And hatha yoga offers tremendous health benefits for all the systems of your body. But that's not all, folks! By attending to your physical practice, you also cultivate certain qualities of mind which have the power to absolutely transform the way you see the world and the way you live your life:
  1. Concentration. This word literally means "the action of bringing to a center." By fully focusing your intention on the specific work at hand- be that locking your knee, keeping your breath steady, or focusing at one point on your forehead in the mirror- for just a few seconds at a time, you are training your mind for ever more demanding feats of "bringing to a center" which are called for in daily life. While all traditions of hatha yoga develop concentration skills, Bikram yoga adds some bonus challenges to your concentration in the form of heat and dripping sweat. Lucky you! With a regular practice, you will find yourself more able to focus on the tasks you tackle outside of the hot room, resulting in more efficient performance in all areas of your life.
  2. Faith. Plenty of faith gets practiced in Bikram yoga classes every day: faith that time did not stop and the 90 minutes will eventually end, faith that the room is only 105 degrees and not 2000 degrees which is what it feels like, faith that the teacher is not actually trying to kill you, etc. The most important, though, is faith in yourself, that you are capable of more than you think. The more you remind yourself of that, you become capable of even more.
  3. Self-Discipline. Move with the instructions, not before and not after. Wait until "party time" to drink water. Stand absolutely still between the standing postures. Don't. Wipe. The. Sweat. Lie still like a corpse in savasana. Don't. Wipe. The. Sweat. The instructor might remind you, but she's not going to come over and slap your hand if you reach for a sip right after half-moon pose, and she couldn't breathe for you even if she wanted. In the hot room as in the world outside, you are the only one responsible for your actions. Bikram yoga is your opportunity to practice repeatedly choosing the best actions to take.
  4. Patience. First class ever? Tight hamstrings? Bad back? Knee surgery? Coming back to yoga after having a baby? Just having an especially rough day? Bikram would say, "Take it easy, honey." And for many of us that can be the most difficult thing! Patience involves faith and self-discipline, too. In Bikram yoga, while the postures never change, you yourself are very different from day to day. Patience is crucial in the hot room to protect you from injuring your body by pushing too hard, too fast- and to keep from judging yourself harshly if your postures are not yet where you think they should be. Cultivate patience with yourself, and you'll find patience for others is quick to follow.
  5. Determination. All of the physical, mental and spiritual benefits of Bikram yoga are yours for the taking, but they hinge on this: you've got to stick with it! One class alone might make you feel fantastic right away- it might even work out that kink in your neck or get rid of your hangover from the night before- but lasting results require the determination to keep coming back to class. A few times a week, ideally. Even when it feels hard. Even with a kink in your neck. Even with a hangover! And when you come to class in whatever state you may be, each and every posture asks you not to give up. We even allow plenty of time in each posture, so if you fall out you have a chance to practice your determination and try again. Determination is also essential to practice all the other qualities of mind: you have to stay determined to concentrate, determined to have faith, determined to exercise self-discipline, determined to be patient with yourself. Your determination will be rewarded with successes great and small, and (like the yoga itself!) once you make it a habit it will aid in every challenge you face.

How has Bikram yoga changed your mind? Leave a comment. We love to hear from you!

Bikram Yoga St. Johns
1 Comment

    Author

    HHY Founder, Yoga Business Coach, yoga-doer and life-lover, Kay Afif!

    Picture

    Archives

    September 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015

    Categories

    All
    Abdominals
    Addiction
    ADHD
    Aging Greatly
    Anatomy
    Anti-racism
    Anxiety
    Ardha Matsyendrasana
    Arthritis
    Athletes
    Awkward Pose
    Backbending
    Back Pain
    Balance
    Balancing Poses
    Beginners
    Benefits
    Bhujangasana
    Bikram
    Bikram Yoga
    Black Lives Matter
    Blood Pressure
    Blowing In Firm Pose
    Body Image
    Bow Pose
    Breathing
    Bursitis
    Business
    Camel Pose
    Cardiovascular
    Cause
    Challenge
    Chilblains
    Children
    Chronic Back Pain
    Circulation
    Cleaning
    Clothing
    Cobra Pose
    Community
    Concentration
    Coordination
    Covid 19
    Covid-19
    Dandayamana Dhanurasana
    Dandayamana Janushirasana
    Deep 6 Rotators
    Degenerative Disc Disease
    Depression
    Determination
    Diabetes
    Digestion
    Doing Less
    Eagle Pose
    Early Morning Class
    Early Morning Yoga
    Ehlers Danlos
    Elbows
    Electrolytes
    Emotional Benefit
    Equipment
    Faith
    Fibromyalgia
    Fixed Firm Pose
    Flexibility
    Floor Series
    Focus
    Forward Fold
    Front Side Compression
    Frozen Shoulder
    Full Locust
    Garudasana
    Goals
    Gratitude
    Grief
    Guest Post
    Habits
    Half Moon Pose
    Half Spine Twist
    Half Tortoise
    Hamstrings
    Hands To Feet Pose
    Hatha Yoga
    Headache
    Head To Knee Pose
    Healing
    Healing Injury
    Health
    Heart
    Heart Rate
    Heat
    Herniated Disc
    Hhy To Go
    Hips
    Hives
    Home Hot Yoga Studio
    Home Practice
    How Yoga Works
    Humidity
    Hydration
    Hyperextension
    Hypermobility
    Immune System
    Inflammation
    Inspiration
    Interlocked Finger Grip
    IT Band
    Joint Pain
    Joints
    Kaizen
    Kapalbhati
    Karma Yogi
    Knee Pain
    Knees
    Lateral Flexion
    Lock The Knee
    Locust Pose
    Logistics
    Longevity
    Mask
    Meditation
    Membership
    Mental Health
    Mindset
    Mistakes
    Moderation
    Motivation
    Nervous System
    Normal Breathing
    Nutrition
    Online
    Osteoarthritis
    Overuse
    Pain Relief
    Parenting
    Patience
    Photos
    Poetry
    Posture
    Posture Of The Month
    Practice
    Pranayama
    Pregnancy
    Products
    Quit Smoking
    Rabbit Pose
    Racial Equity
    Rajashree's Pregnancy Yoga
    Raja Yoga
    Recipes
    Recovery
    Relationships
    Relaxation
    Research
    Respiratory System
    Routine
    Running
    Safety
    Schedule
    Sciatica
    Science
    Scoliosis
    Self Care
    Self Discipline
    Self-discipline
    Self Realization
    Situp
    Sit Up
    Skin Health
    Sleep
    Social Justice
    Speaking Up
    Spinal Stenosis
    Spine
    Spine Twisting
    Spondylolisthesis
    Spondylosis
    Stamina
    Standing Bow Pulling Pose
    Standing Head To Knee
    Standing Separate Leg Head To Knee
    Standing Separate Leg Stretching Pose
    Stiffness
    Strength
    Stress Relief
    Stretching
    Student Of The Month
    Students
    Studio News
    Summer
    Surgery
    Sustainability
    Sweat
    Swelling
    Teacher Feacher
    Technique
    Teri Almquist
    Testimonials
    Tips
    Tourniquet Effect
    Transformation
    Tree Pose
    Triangle Pose
    Trikonasana
    Twisting
    Utkatasana
    Video
    Videos
    Visualization
    Weight Loss
    Wrists
    Yoga
    Yoga Story Of The Month
    Zoom

    RSS Feed

Log in for online yoga
We are an independently woman and veteran owned business. 100% of your investment stays with our company. No franchise fees or royalties are paid to any person or entity.
Picture
Terms / Privacy
  • About
    • Bikram Yoga
    • Pregnancy Yoga
    • Private Lessons
  • Blog
  • JOIN TODAY
  • MEMBERS AREA
  • D.I.Y. HOT ROOM
  • Contact
  • BIZ COACHING
  • SHOP