 Good morning everybody. It is Thursday morning. Once again, I'm about to start my practice I'm in my kitchen in front of my dog bowl About to get going and this afternoon our brother this evening around 6 p.m We're going to be doing a live today where I'm gonna be answering your questions about yoga Most of the questions I got are more Philosophy-based and just general how to start all that kind of stuff so that I can do from my desk I did a get a couple more questions Regarding alignment and anatomy in the practice and so I thought I would go ahead and shoot another Little video before I start my practice so that you guys can kind of see what I'm talking about If you missed the first video about the wrist I will place that down in the description box below because nine times out of ten The protraction and retraction of the shoulder is going to be the issue that you're actually dealing with That's causing intense wrist pain. So once again, we have to get rid of this idea that if something hurts or is uncomfortable We shouldn't do it. The body again is just something that's indicating where there's misalignment, right? And so if there is some discomfort that our pain and the wrist Many things mainly your shoulder is out of alignment. So it's affecting the weakest joint, which is your bigger wrist, right? Or you're just working through stuff because sore muscles are a part of the change, right? Like every time you do any type of exercise be it yoga asana or anything else the soreness you feel is actually your muscles so when you're in the process of Moving your body in that action Your muscles are actually ripping apart and they have to rebuild and when they rebuild that's when we get stronger And so soreness is 100% a part of the process and it's not something to take too too seriously Don't not practice or exercise because you're sore as I said, I think last week Some of my best practices I've had have been when I have been immensely sore But when you get going on your mat and the blood gets pumping and the sweat starts coming usually that soreness starts to dissipate a little bit And as I tell my students, I've been literally sore for 15 years straight So the body is always in a state of fluctuation and change and that's just something we have to honor within our own practice So one question I got from one of you guys which was an awesome question And I'm really grateful you brought this up because I probably would have just not even thought about it Even though this is kind of a common thing too, and that's hyper extension One of you asked about your elbow Hyper extending or not being able you're feeling that pain and that is actually pretty common too. I hyper extend I'm a bad hyper extender So usually I'll catch myself hyper extending in my elbow and in my knees And so if we're looking at the body What we're trying to do is to create these direct pathways of energy within our physical body So again, the physical body according to the yoga sutras We're working off of the theory that runs with property parusha and Ishwara property is your nature. It's your body It's it's everything. It's the earth. It's the trees. It's the birds Parusha is like the soul or the almond that the thing that's observing and creating right and then Ishwara is God So the nature of the property is an expression of the soul So you it's the Shakti so you have the Shiva Shakti if the Shiva is the pure essence of soul And the Shiva are to me the Shiva is the poor Full essence of soul in the Shakti is that which expresses itself. Yeah, does that make sense? And so with that being said even though even though our body and our Eternal self are two different things. They're one in the same within this life. However Within saying that there's always a but but however Our human suffering comes from misplacing our identity, right? So our human suffering comes in fact that we think that our body is what's permanent when our body is just an experience For this life and then the next life or soul will create another body another Shakti So what is hyper extension so again when we're working with the body and we're working with this energetic idea of the energetic body Directing physical body. We want to create these values these pathways within the body If you're following along with the Magdalen manuscript series we're doing She talks about this in the channeling the guy who channel there talks a lot about this They talk about it there through Tantric sex in my lineage of yoga. We don't talk about it through sex We talk about it through just through physical doing it yourself, right? It's the same thing. So we have that Shishu now, which is the name Naughty that runs through the spine, right? And we have the two nostrils. So the left nostril is feminine. The right nostril is masculine That's why I have my nose pierced on my left side because I'm female, right? I got this pierced in India, right? And so these nostrils swerve down these Pathways all the way up and down Shishu now again Shishu now runs along the spine It's an energetic pathway that runs up the neck into the Pineal glands. That's why we say the eyes are the tops of the spine where you direct the eyes is where the energy is going to flow So we have drishti in the yoga practice Okay, so when we're working through our awesomeness or and I think this can happen in any type of exercise not not necessarily Just yoga asana. We're trying to direct our energy into particular pathways Yeah, so we have this word and in America, everybody says it wrong. They say Hatha yoga H-A-T-H-A or in the south it's Hatha yoga Okay in Sanskrit the T-N-E-H don't make the th sound That's only in English and so the proper pronunciation of that in Sanskrit was Hatha yoga Hatha yoga sun moon Apana Prana right because the sun is the pranic The aponic is the moon the pranic energy is the rising energy your sweat You know that rising energy the aponic is the downward energy, right? So like for women This is why women are considered aponic. We are able to have babies. There's nothing More forceful and a downward energy and an aponic energy than pushing a human being out of your body Does that make sense we see it in our body types as we spoke about in the last video with our shoulders Women are stronger in the legs and they are in the arms and so they tend to drop into their weakness Which is their shoulders right whereas men are stronger in their arms I mean I as a woman love a man's arms big strong arms, right? So and they're they're more linear in their body. They don't have hips They're more linear whereas women are more reciprocal. They have more of a moon type essence to their body Okay, so but with it with that being said every individual carries both, right? And so when we're moving through an awesome practice what we're doing is we're moving our energy and We create these shapes in the awesome to practice to create different openings now and some postures You will have a bent elbow or bent knee which Closes off some energy those are purposeful But in postures where you're not supposed to have a bent elbow or bent knee It's gonna cause a problem and so if we think about a hose like in the garden Yes, you turn the hose on and if the hose is bent anywhere It's the water's not gonna get to the spout, right? And so that's what we have to think about in our body So what happens with hyper extension is that my elbows bent this way right now? But if I hyper extend it's going to bend the other way So let me show you what I mean by that. I can move my elbows. Some people can't do this Right that shows me and if I were my own teacher, which I'm not my own teacher that shows me a hyper extend So my elbows have the propensity to do this So you see how it's bending the other way For me that feels like a straight line, but it's not it's bending too far this way So I have to be aware of that in my practice and I have to actually pull it into an alignment Now for me the sensation of that now feels bent, but it's not bent, right? I do the same thing in my knees I have to be very careful about making sure that I'm not Hyper extending in the elbows and in the knees now the thing about hyper extension Okay, then the big thing about any type of misalignment and this is where the problem really comes in You can do a posture misaligned a thousand times and be fine But then a thousand one times you're not fine Okay, so the body will be able to endure stuff for a little bit But it will eventually it will react to to the misalignment And so if you are someone who hyper extends you just have to be aware of that that's part of your work in this life It's just to be totally aware of where that pattern of energy is coming and how it's moving through your body And so if you are experiencing some elbow pain and it's not coming from your shoulders You are protracted. You're strong. Look at your elbows. Make sure you're not hyper Extending your elbows or same thing with your knees with your knees. You're not hyper extending your knees Also, I had a question about Chaturanga and I told you guys in the last video wasn't even going to do Chaturanga because The proper Chaturanga is going to take some time to build up to all right Especially for women men are going to get this a whole lot faster than women do and I would rather as a teacher You pull back from Chaturanga Then do like a Chaturanga seizure where you're dumping your weight into your shoulders One thing that they'll tell you to do in more contemporary yoga classes like vinyasa flow versus the traditional yoga like Ashutama What I do is they'll tell you to drop your knees. So let me see if I can move my So sometimes in vinyasa flow teachers will tell you to drop to your knees if you're a woman to take Chaturanga, right? I'm going to tell you not to do that And this is why I don't want you doing that when you drop your knees to the ground You are releasing your hamstrings When you release your hamstrings, you are releasing mollibunda when you are releasing mollibunda You're heading into a flop shop with no control and you're heading into potential injury So what so now what if you're saying well, what if I can't lower Chaturanga without lowering my knees? Well, this is what you do. All right, so Chaturanga what I'm gonna have what I have my students do Come to your plank position. And if this is what you can do right now You just stay here and then you come to up dog from here in a sun citation, okay? But over time as you're getting stronger, you're slowly slowly Slowly slowly gonna start to roll down to Chaturanga. Does that make sense? It's like lifting weights you want to go to the gym and pick up, you know 20 pound dumbbells if you've never lifted weights before no You're gonna start with like two pounds three pounds four pounds five pounds and build up same thing except for in this practice You're holding your own body weight. And as we talked about in the last video if you are not strong enough if you're not strong enough in your Shoulders or your shoulders are not Protracted and your legs are not if your legs are not engaged you're gonna do this and That's gonna end up causing an injury So we want to work and just go as slow as we need to to build that strength properly So that there is no injury that's going to occur in your body This is also gonna help your core kick in your core has to be a part of it. It's a whole body movement It's not just an inch Chaturanga same with back vents The arms are really just levers. That's all they are It's really coming from the strength of the legs the stomach and the back Okay, and so you can do also what you can do. I have I showed you guys a block Last week, but I'm gonna show you the ball if you got kids So it's just an outside recess ball You could put the ball in between your legs to the one place You don't want to put your ball is between your knees because if you squeeze in between your knees That might cause some issues put it in between your inner thighs Squeeze the ball so that you you understand how important the legs are right if you squeeze that ball That becomes super easy to do. Yeah, because the legs are now supporting your body weight So I hope that that makes sense Another thing don't be afraid to make mistakes mistakes are how we learn You know, I've learned way more in my life from mistakes that I've made In life and in practice In my life and in my practice Then things that I have gotten right Okay, and I for a long time in my practice Was not using my legs and it caused some issues and it wasn't until My original teacher david gary pointed it out to me and had me work against the wall Pressing my feet into the wall to make sure I get my legs activated That it started to make sense to me and I started to get stronger And then my practice started to become more fluid and I started to tap into something that's deeper Than just the physical body. There's more subtle body, right? And so just keep looking at the stuff if something feels Wrong in your practice misaligned Research it figure out what's going on. You can ask me more questions in the comment section if you want to So, all right, I hope that makes sense. Once again, sorry I don't have any makeup on and there's no special lighting in here because that's literally Still dark outside and dark 30 in the morning and I'm about to start my own practice, but Um, I will be on live later tonight at six o'clock eastern time So you can join me there to answer the rest of your questions. I hope you guys have a wonderful day