Healthy Living Club

Step by Step

1.Stand in Tadasana (Mountain Pose), with your feet separated a bit wider than usual. Exhale, bend forward to Uttanasana (Standing Forward Bend), press your hands to the floor outside your feet. Then with your knees slightly bent, slip your right arm to the inside and then behind your right leg, and finally press the hand on the floor just outside your right foot. Work your right arm across the back of the right knee, until the knee is high up on the back of your right shoulder.

2.Brace your shoulder against the knee and slide your left foot to the right. Cross the left ankle in front of the right and hook the ankles. Lean slightly to the left, taking more weight on your left arm, and begin to lift your feet a few inches off the floor.

3.With the right leg supported on the shoulder, exhale and bend your elbows. Lean your torso forward and lower it toward parallel to the floor; at the same time, straighten your knees and extend your legs out to the right, parallel to the floor (and perpendicular to your torso). Squeeze your upper right arm between your thighs. Use that pressure to help twist your torso to the left. Keep your elbows in close to the torso. Look at the floor.

4. Hold for 30 seconds to a minute. Then straighten your arms slowly, lift your torso back to upright, bend your knees, unhook your ankles, and return your feet to the floor. Stand back and rest in Uttanasana for a few breaths. Then repeat the pose for the same length of time to the left.

Step by Step

1. Squat down from Tadasana with your inner feet a few inches apart. If it isn’t possible to keep your heels on the floor, support them on a thickly folded blanket. Separate your knees wider than your hips and lean the torso forward, between the inner thighs. Stretch your arms forward, then bend your elbows, place your hands on the floor and the backs of the upper arms against the shins.

2.Snuggle your inner thighs against the sides of your torso, and your shins into your armpits, and slide the upper arms down as low onto the shins as possible. Lift up onto the balls of your feet and lean forward even more, taking the weight of your torso onto the backs of the upper arms. In Bakasana you consciously attempt to contract your front torso and round your back completely. To help yourself do this, keep your tailbone as close to your heels as possible.

3.With an exhalation, lean forward even more onto the backs of your upper arms, to the point where the balls of your feet leave the floor. Now your torso and legs are balanced on the backs of your upper arms. As a beginner at this pose, you might want to stop here, perched securely on the bent arms.

4.But if you are ready to go further, squeeze the legs against the arms, press the inner hands firmly to the floor and (with an inhalation) straighten the elbows. Seen from the side the arms are angled slightly forward relative to the floor. The inner knees should be glued to the outer arms, high up near the armpits. Keep the head in a neutral position with your eyes looking at the floor, or lift the head slightly, without compressing the back of the neck, and look forward.

5. Stay in the pose anywhere from 20 seconds to 1 minute. To release, exhale and slowly lower your feet to the floor, back into a squat.

Born in London, Angela Farmer was raised by her mother until she was eight, when her father returned from fighting in World War II. Her family belonged to the Church of England, but Farmer struggled to find religion there; she found it more readily in nature. Similarly, Farmer finds her yoga not within the walls of traditional, established yoga schools but in the individual, inner body. “One”s life is written into one”s body,” Farmer says. “If you dive deep enough in your yoga practice, your whole history is in there.”

You went to Pune, India, to study with B.K.S. Iyengar in your 20s. How did you grow from that experience? In my 20s, I had two things in my vision: to get married and do yoga with Iyengar. But while I was in India, the man I thought I would marry sent a letter saying he was going to marry someone else, and my projection on Iyengar fell away after a few months, so I literally felt that I had nothing to live for anymore. I felt like a cigarette stubbed out under someone’s heel. It turned out this was the best state to be in. I had nothing to aim for, nowhere to go. I was empty, and India came to me.

What’s it like teaching alongside your partner, Victor van Kooten? We’re together 24 hours a day. You have to watch that you don’t lose yourself. Victor is very clear anatomically. I tend more toward creating an atmosphere where people feel safe to start opening up and to explore.

How did the yoga school in Greece come about? It came to us, really. A friend took us to see an olive grove in the middle of this magical valley on the island of Lesvos. The farmer needed a dowry for his daughter’s wedding—so we signed the documents on our way home! We had trouble with archaeologists for a year and we kept having to change the shape of the building. But the end result is more beautiful than we could have imagined. It must have been Ganesha!

You are a model of aging gracefully, of being strong yet also soft and feminine. Thank you! The thing about aging is, you make friends with yourself. You can finally meet yourself in a loving way. And as I’ve gotten older, I like that there’s a side of me that can take care of a situation. But I see too many women who feel that in order to be free and independent, they have to be like men. That’s a misunderstanding. To be a powerful woman you don’t have to be aggressive or forceful. Like a tree, you have to find your roots and then you can bend in the wind.

Do you think contentment shapes who we are as much as our pain does? Absolutely. They go hand in hand. Intense joy has a tinge of pain, and vice versa. Gathering the bits of myself that got lost, suppressed, injured, and abused in my life has given me such joy. Contentment does need to be cultivated. To be “content” means we’re aware of our content. You feel full—content—when you open up to yourself and dive in.

He could be living the rock ‘n’ roll life: Growing up in England and in Malibu, California, in the shadow of his musician father, Saul David Raye spent an insomniac youth working in recording studios and touring with bands. But in his 20s, he took to yoga and meditation and eventually cofounded the Sacred Movement studio in Los Angeles. Today, the music in his life comes from a harmonium, and if he’s on tour, it’s to teach his unique form of Thai yoga therapy.

How big a part did music play in your upbringing? I grew up in the music business. My dad was a jazz musician in London in the 1950s. He built an amazing recording studio on the beach in Malibu, and I worked there for almost 10 years. It was a studio for hire, and we recorded everything from Olivia Newton John to Kiss to jazz and voiceovers. I loved it.

Did your father also play a part in setting you on your life’s spiritual path?My dad went in and out of yoga a lot, but he definitely had a big influence on me, mostly through his connection with the Buddhist monk [Bhante] Yogavacara Rahula. He invited Rahula to be my first dharma teacher.

And you followed Rahula to his monastery in West Virginia when you were 23. Were you thinking of being a monk? I considered becoming a monk and lived like one for a year?and again later in Asia. But I had a really strong desire to have children and felt that by staying in seclusion I was hiding from something. I left because I felt my calling was to be in the world.

How did you discover Thai massage? I was on my way to India to study yoga therapy and I ended up visiting a friend in Thailand. I saw a woman performing it on the beach one day, and it was amazing. It looked like a yogic dance.

You say that Thai massage is connected to yoga. How so? The root teachings of Thai massage are in yoga, Ayurveda, and Buddhist practices, so it’s really a sister art of yoga. You physically manipulate energy channels, the same meridians you work on in a yoga class or acupuncture session, according to a person’s constitution and unique needs. You clear the channels to stimulate someone’s prana flow to increase vitality. It’s like having a yoga class done on you.

Where are you when you’re not teaching? The center of my life is my family. I have three little boys: eight, five, and 22 months. It’s a lot of boy energy. We live in a two-story house on a big piece of land in Topanga [California]. It’s like a sanctuary?with toys and diapers everywhere.

So, did your life change when you became a father? It’s like my heart blasted open. For me, having children was by far the deepest experience of my own heart that I’ve ever had. And it’s an adventure that just keeps unfolding. Every phase is more interesting than the one before.

When Erica Kyriakatos awakens on a winter morning to the hush of new-fallen snow, she’s thrilled to see how the familiar landscape of home is transformed. Kyriakatos, a vinyasa flow teacher in Cranford, New Jersey, loves pulling a cozy hat over her ears, slipping on a pair of fuzzy boots, and heading outside for a walk in the white-frosted world. There’s just one drawback: For most of the season, her skin pretty much turns to leather. “My whole body seems to dry up,” she says.

The dry, chapped feeling that many of us live with during the colder months is something that the therapies of Ayurveda, India’s first form of medicine, are uniquely suited to address. That’s because Ayurvedic remedies treat not only the symptom of dry skin but also the underlying imbalances that can cause it.

Ayurveda recognizes three basic energies of life: The first is known as vata; the second, pitta; and the third, kapha. Vata also means “wind” in Sanskrit, and vata’s sensory qualities—dryness, coolness, mobility, lightness, unsteadiness, and roughness—are much like those of the wind. In late fall and early winter, as the air turns dry, leaves drop, temperatures cool, and winds shift, our world naturally buzzes with vata’s energy. We’re more likely to face vata imbalance now than at any other time of year.

“When vata is aggravated, arteries, capillaries, and nerves become dry and won’t work properly, affecting your circulation,” says Archana Rao, an Ayurvedic doctor at Safronya Ayurvedic Retreat in San Rafael, California, explaining the theory behind dry skin. “Your hands and feet become cold. Skin becomes rough and dry. Your heels may crack or your lips peel. Inside and out, we’ve got to calm that vata down.”

Rao’s skin-soothing recommendations are based on two Ayurvedic principles: limit exposure to vata’s qualities and increase exposure to those substances and experiences that are the opposite of vata. So in late fall and early winter, we should nurture ourselves with foods and sensations that are warm, stable, heavy, smooth, and grounding.

Warm oil is a natural opposite to vata. One ancient practice, abhyanga, is traditionally performed by two therapists who massage warm sesame oil all over the body, using sweeping strokes to redirect vata’s energy into a healthy pattern. “[Abhyanga is] the No. 1 technique for calming vata,” says Naina Marballi, Ayurvedic physician, esthetician, and founder and director of Ayurveda’s Beauty Care Spa in Manhattan.

Oil well

While it’s a treat to receive abhyanga from trained therapists, it’s also a gift that you can give yourself. The oil itself does wonders for parched skin, but the benefits go deeper. The word for lubrication in Sanskrit, snehana, is also the word for affection. Vata dryness tends to come packaged with vata-type mental states such as worry and insecurity.

Abhyanga calms the mind, leaving you feeling grounded yet focused and alert, and with balanced emotions. It’s also revitalizing, supporting stable energy levels during the day while promoting easy, restorative sleep at night.

Face Time

In Kerala, India, where I spend part of each year, Ayurveda is still very much a part of daily life. On a recent visit, traditional healer S. Sanjeev Kumar sat down with me in the front room of his thatched house and called his wife, Bindhu, and her amma (mother) in from the kitchen. Together they gave me a rundown on their favorite homemade emollients. One in particular, Kumar said, is easy for Westerners to make at home.

“First heat some whole cow’s milk in a small pot,” he said. Double-checking his instructions with the women, he went on: “Let a skin form on top, remove the skin, and place it in a small saucer. As soon as it is cool, add a few drops of lemon juice.”

“Ah?” he queried, turning to the women. Bindhu’s amma had mentioned something, and Bindhu repeated her words to Kumar. “OK,” he added. “You can use a little lemon juice or a little rose water. Then take the back of a spoon and stir this into a creamy paste. Smooth the mixture onto your face or any dry skin, and leave it on for 30 minutes to 2 hours before rinsing with water. This special cream of the milk is very nourishing.”

Kumar’s wife and mother-in-law smiled. “Your skin,” he said, “will become lustrous once again.”

Almond Joy

Another simple potion is a paste of warm water and almond meal, which contains fatty acids that help keep skin smooth. (Don’t use hot water; it strips skin of its natural protective oils.) Making the almond meal is easy: Use a food processor, blender, or coffee grinder to pulverize raw organic almonds into a fine powder. (Be sure to pulse the mixture for a few seconds and then pause, so you don’t end up with almond butter.) Refrigerate the powder in a clean glass jar. It will keep for about three weeks.

When you’re ready to use it, pour a teaspoonful into your palm, add a little warm water, and blend that with your finger to make a paste. Smooth it onto your face, massaging in gentle circles to enhance circulation and exfoliate dead skin cells. Then rinse with warm water and moisturize as you usually do.

To smooth rough elbows, knees, and feet, mix together two parts mung- or garbanzo-bean flour with one part full-fat organic yogurt. Let this mixture sit in a bowl for 10 minutes, then massage it with circular motions into your rough spots. Let it dry, and leave it on your skin for 30 minutes or so. Rinse with water, and then do your usual moisturizing routine.

Nourish from Within

Other Ayurvedic therapies for dry skin work from the inside out. “When someone comes in with dry skin,” says Cheryl Silberman, founder/director of Kanyakumari Ayurveda Education & Retreat Center in Milwaukee and a clinical Ayurvedic specialist, “the first thing I ask is’How much coffee are you drinking?’People drink more coffee in winter, and caffeine is a diuretic, purging water from the body. It has a direct impact on the nervous system, upsetting vata’s normal regulation of circulation, forcing the fine capillaries of the skin to dilate and constrict unnaturally.” Silberman suggests drinking frequent servings of warm water or warm spiced milk throughout the day in place of caffeinated drinks.

What you eat can make a difference, too. “When there is dryness, a person should try eating regular warm, moist meals such as thick soups and stews, lightly spiced,” Silberman says. “Dry skin usually responds well to plenty of fat intake. Adding ghee (clarified butter) to meals can really help.”

And while ghee does contain saturated fat, you’ll find that a tiny bit goes a long way. Ghee is sold at health food stores. (For more on ghee, including how to make it, visit yogajournal.com/health/ghee.)

“Increasing essential fatty acids with oils like borage or hemp is great, too,” says Silberman. “Walnuts are a good source of healthy fat, and soaking them in water overnight makes them really easy to digest,” she adds.

When Kyriakatos added vata-balancing practices to her winter routine—getting into the abhyanga habit along with eating regular meals of warm, moist foods and sipping warm water throughout the day—her dry skin lost its roughness and turned soft and supple.

“It has helped with so much more than just my dry skin,” she says. “I feel more grounded, even with my crazy schedule. It’s really amazing.”

This time of year you might find that you’re eating more, sleeping longer, moving slower, and gaining a few pounds. According to the principles of Ayurveda, this is your body’s way of staying warm during cold months. When the weather turns chilly, agni (digestive fire) intensifies so you can process and enjoy winter foods, which are higher in fats, proteins, and complex carbohydrates—think nuts, root vegetables, sweets, and dairy products. When agni is strong and balanced, it assimilates nutrients from these foods to create a protective layer of warmth against winter wind and cold. You will also experience more energy and mental clarity, a healthier appetite, and immunity from illnesses. While it’s true that, thanks to agni, your body can handle heavy foods, eating too much of them can dampen the digestive fires. A weak agni contributes to lethargy, congestion, lowered immunity, indigestion, poor circulation, aching joints, and even depression. Take care to limit your intake of sweets and dairy, which are likely to cause congestion. And instead of grazing all day, space your meals at least three hours apart, eating your heaviest meal at noon, when agni is strongest. (This is also the best time of day to eat holiday baked goods.)

To balance agni, incorporate warming herbs and spices—basil, cardamom, cinnamon, clove, fennel, ginger, mustard seed, nutmeg, oregano, pepper, and thyme—into your diet. Agni-stoking spices make a great addition to traditional wintertime foods such as porridge, savory stews, chai tea, and mulled cider.

At YogaWorks, we’ve developed what we call the “shoulder girdle” mantra to describe the actions to take to keep your shoulders in alignment in this posture and many others. We call it a mantra because it is a series of instructions that, once learned and understood, can serve as guidelines to illuminate and transform your practice. Unlike a traditional mantra, it has no spiritual component—just a set of orienting principles that you can come back to again and again, especially when you find yourself at a loss about what you should be doing with your shoulders in a given posture. The mantra is based on correct alignment in Tadasana (Mountain Pose) and can be applied to a multitude of poses.

Play with it here in Parsvottanasana (Intense Side Stretch) as an opportunity to discover the back-bending elements that make this forward bend so delicious, and then see what happens when you thread it through the rest of your practice. You may find it very useful!

“Extend your sternum away from your navel.” This helps to create length along the front of your body, as in Upward Bow Pose.

“Spread across your collarbones.” This establishes breadth across the front of your body, as in Low Cobra Pose.

“Draw the heads of your shoulders back to align with your side body.” This keeps the pectoral area open and broad, as in Camel Pose.

“Soften your trapezius muscles, and release them down your back.” This helps to prevent the buildup of tension in the upper back, as in Bridge Pose.

The standing pose Virabhadrasana II is standard practice in most yoga classes. But few yogis know the tale of its genesis. In Hindu lore, the powerful priest Daksha threw a huge sacrifice and invited everyone—except his youngest daughter Sati and her good-for-nothing yogi husband Shiva, whom Daksha despised (even if Shiva was supreme ruler of the universe). Sati was livid. In one version of the story, she stormed over to the sacrificial fire and threw herself in to teach her father a lesson; in another, her ire was so intense that she spontaneously combusted. Shiva was devastated by his beloved’s immolation and went berserk. When he yanked out a tuft of his hair and beat it into the ground, up popped a nightmarish creature with “a thousand heads, a thousand feet, a thousand eyes, a thousand hands, with fangs terrible to behold.” It was armed to the teeth and invincible. Meet Virabhadra, whose name means “blessed hero,” though typically it’s rendered into English simply as “warrior.” Shiva dispatched Virabhadra and an army of demons to pay Daksha a visit. Happily, Shiva’s wife gets brought back to life, and Daksha’s whupping teaches him humility (he loses his head and winds up with a goat’s as a replacement).

We recreate the image of Virabhadra in three incarnations of Virabhadrasana, designated by Roman numerals (I, II, III), in which we stand like mighty warriors. Our focus will be on II. Virabhadrasana II is an excellent way to stretch your groins and, even though both feet stay on the floor, improve your balance. You can also, to a lesser extent, strengthen your arms and open your chest. Yoga master B.K.S. Iyengar points out in his book Light on Yoga that Vira II “tones the abdominals.” It’s also a nice way to strengthen your legs and make them shapely.

LEGWORK

It’s important in Vira II to bring awareness to the head of the femur of the front leg; it’s the little ball on the end of the bone that plugs into the hip socket and swivels like a joystick. You also need to pay attention to the outer heel of the back foot, just under the outer ankle bone.

To work on proper front leg alignment, try a simple chair-supported exercise. If you’re tall, you might need a blanket; if you’re short, grab a block. Set the chair on your sticky mat, near the front edge, with the back of the chair facing the right edge. Face the front edge of your mat and sit on the chair with your knees over your heels, shins perpendicular to the floor. Ideally your thighs will be parallel to the floor. If you are tall and your knees are higher than your hips, use a blanket to raise your buttocks until your thighs are parallel to the floor. If your feet don’t reach the floor (typical for shorter students), put the lift beneath your right foot.

Swing your left leg around the seat, straighten the left knee as much as possible, and step the ball of your left foot onto the floor near the back edge of the mat into a lunge. Rotate your torso away from the chair toward the left, pivot on the ball of your left foot, and press your left heel to the floor so your foot is angled slightly toward the front edge of the mat. Align the middle of the right heel with the middle of the left foot’s inner arch and adjust your inner right thigh more or less perpendicular to the front edge of your mat.

BE A WARRIOR

In Vira II, you take the stance of a strong warrior. You balance your weight between both legs, and your torso rises up evenly from your hips. On the chair, avoid leaning forward or back. Burrow the base of your right palm into the hip crease between your front thigh and pelvis and push down against the head of your thighbone. Push into the crease, not farther down the thigh. Ideally you’ll feel the back of your thigh press firmly against the seat and, in response, your spine effortlessly lengthen upward. Draw your right hip point away from your thigh, lengthen your tailbone down, and shift your shoulders so they line up over your hips. After a minute or so, release your hand yet stay here, sitting heavily on your thigh. Bend your left knee, swing the leg back to where it started, turn the chair 180 degrees, and repeat on the other side.

In the full pose, many beginners depend on their muscles to sustain the position and quiver uncontrollably after a few seconds. Then things go downhill. Try to recreate your chair-supported experience, so that some of the support is shifted to your bones, and your muscles can release. Then you can sustain the posture almost indefinitely, needing to come out only for meals and to attend yoga class.

Like other split-leg standing poses, Virabhadrasana II is anchored and stabilized by rooting the outer back heel into the ground. Many beginners have tight groins, so bending the front knee buckles the back knee, which pulls the outer back heel off the floor. Think: What would happen to a tree deprived of its roots? Before you bend your front knee, “dig” your outer back heel into the floor. As you bend your front (right) knee, have an imaginary friend resist that movement by pulling on a strap on your left groin. Your left leg will move physically through space closer to the floor; but energetically it opposes the movement and keeps your outer back heel rooted.

GET HIP

Stand sideways in the middle of your sticky mat, facing a long edge, and step your feet apart. Ideally, your feet are wide enough apart so that when you bend the front knee and position it over the heel, the front thigh is parallel to the floor. With your hands on your hips, turn your back (left) foot to the right 30 degrees, your right foot to the right 90 degrees. Align your front heel and your back arch.

Don’t push the left hip back, away from the long edge of your mat. Many teachers have you square your pelvis toward the wall your chest is facing; I teach the pose slightly differently to create more width and ease in the lower back. As you bend your front knee, roll the back hip forward a fair amount and rotate the front knee out, toward the pinky-toe side. Once the knee is thus aligned, you can take the back hip back a bit, but be sure your front knee doesn’t buckle in toward the big-toe side of your foot.

Inhale, consciously grounding your back heel; on an exhalation, bend your front knee over your heel. Aim the inner knee toward the pinky-toe side of the foot to avoid swiveling your knee inward as you bend it. Now sit your right femur head on the imaginary chair. Then lift your right hip point away from your thigh, tuck your tailbone, and position your shoulders over your pelvis. Align the inner right thigh with the long edge of the mat.

To get your thigh parallel to the floor in the full pose, hang a sandbag on a yoga strap from your front hip crease. Want to go further? Inhale and raise your arms out to the sides, palms down. Press into the back heel and reach actively through the back arm, as if your left arm is trying to pull your front knee straight. You can gaze over the front arm, but if you have neck issues, simply look straight forward. Hold for 30 seconds to a minute, inhale and straighten your front knee, release your arms, and turn your feet forward. Never come out of this posture by shifting your weight forward onto the front leg. After a few breaths, repeat on the left.

This pose looks like the mighty warrior Virabhadra emerging fearlessly from the earth and should be a big part of your practice. It increases flexibility and builds strength, physical endurance, and willpower—which will serve you well throughout your practice and your life.

This time of year you might find that you’re eating more, sleeping longer, moving slower, and gaining a few pounds. According to the principles of Ayurveda, this is your body’s way of staying warm during cold months. When the weather turns chilly, agni (digestive fire) intensifies so you can process and enjoy winter foods, which are higher in fats, proteins, and complex carbohydrates—think nuts, root vegetables, sweets, and dairy products. When agni is strong and balanced, it assimilates nutrients from these foods to create a protective layer of warmth against winter wind and cold. You will also experience more energy and mental clarity, a healthier appetite, and immunity from illnesses. While it’s true that, thanks to agni, your body can handle heavy foods, eating too much of them can dampen the digestive fires. A weak agni contributes to lethargy, congestion, lowered immunity, indigestion, poor circulation, aching joints, and even depression. Take care to limit your intake of sweets and dairy, which are likely to cause congestion. And instead of grazing all day, space your meals at least three hours apart, eating your heaviest meal at noon, when agni is strongest. (This is also the best time of day to eat holiday baked goods.)

To balance agni, incorporate warming herbs and spices—basil, cardamom, cinnamon, clove, fennel, ginger, mustard seed, nutmeg, oregano, pepper, and thyme—into your diet. Agni-stoking spices make a great addition to traditional wintertime foods such as porridge, savory stews, chai tea, and mulled cider.

Here’s how to treat yourself:

• A warm room (ideally, the bathroom)
• 2 to 3 ounces untoasted, organic sesame oil
• 1 small glass bottle with cap
• hot tap water (in a bowl or sink)
• 1 old towel or mat that you don’t mind staining
• paper towels

Warm It Up. Pour oil into bottle and cap tightly. Place bottle in hot water until oil is warm.

Rub It On. Undress completely and stand on towel or mat.

Pour a little oil into your palm. Test it first on a small patch of skin; if you experience any irritation, try a different oil, such as coconut or sunflower.

Apply the oil to the crown of your head, using your fingertips to move outward in circles. (If you’d rather not get your hair greasy, you can massage without oil.)

Apply the oil from head to toe, working downward until your entire body is anointed. Massage it into your skin for 10 to 12 minutes, giving each part of your body adequate attention. Use long strokes up and down your arms and legs, and circular strokes over your joints, chest, and abdomen.

Soak It In. Sit quietly on the edge of the tub with your eyes closed for a few minutes, breathing deeply while your skin takes in the nourishment.

Wash It Off. Pat any excess oil from your skin with paper towels. Be sure to dry the soles of your feet before stepping into the tub or shower, so you don’t slip.

Cleanse your skin with warm water and a gentle soap. If you have oil in your hair, apply a mild shampoo and rinse well. Pat dry with a fresh towel. (Don’t put an oily towel or mat in the dryer; it could cause a fire.) Dress, smile, and greet the day—grounded, warm, and balanced.