Anatomy workshop

Wow am I tired today. The workshop started yesterday evening, and will continue over the weekend. This morning I had to teach my class at the gym, so didn't get to go, but was there since after lunch till 5 pm.

Most of the stuff covered on bandhas I kind of know already, but its good that its been clarified altogether in a class. Only thing I find a little unused to is the way the trainer said to do downward facing dog. I've always done it with a slight internal rotation of the legs and feet, but apparently we should remain in neutral and not inward rotate. Also we were told to do downward facing dog without lifting the sit bones too high as that will not allow mula bandha to engage...I'm pretty much used to the lift the sit bones high version. Also I feel that by contracting the bandhas so strongly in downdog, my back was actually rounding instead of lenghtening....I'm not too sure what to think of this..

Other than that I did get some useful teaching cues to that I could include in my classes. As for so other things like not lifting the chest in poses, because this will not be good for breathing, I'm again not sure what to think...I've been used to a diet of being told to lift the chest by almost all my teachers...hmm.

What I did find quite interesting was that the trainer's comment that most yoga teachers and practitioners tend to have flattened thoracic spines. I'm one of those people with flattened spines I think. I have a very curved lumbar spine and a straight thoracic spine as opposed to the convex shape that most people have. Over the years of yoga somehow I think I've learned to stop standing by jutting my ribs out and swaying the back, but my upper spine remained very straight and doesn't really curve forward much. In fact I recently discovered that this was abnormal because 2 of my teacher's commented that my back doesn't round much and looks really flat in flexion. This apparently contributes to my problems with lifting in arms balances like bakasana, tithibasana, and even forward bends like supta kurmasana and karnapidasana. Apaprenly other people can round their backs very easily and I can't.

I've actually tried to do the back rounding thing more often recently, with poses like the hare pose, and karnapidasana. I'm not sure if my spine is permanently flattened..its would explain why I have a good time with backbends but not flexion of the spine.

More updates tomorrow...