Seeking advice

[Guest guest]

Hi all,

 

I've been having trouble with performing sitting postures lately. I started

practicing dharana in Siddhasana about 6 months ago. At first I wasn't

overly concerned with keeping my spine straight as this was virtually

impossible without having my knees way off the ground. So I worked on just

loosening up my ankles and groin. After a while I could hold the pose with

relative comfort for half an hour but my spine remained horrendously bent.

Unable to correct this I decided that having a straight spine was more

important for meditation than the specific pose so I switched to Sukasana.

For a while everything seemed to be going well, but gradually my knees and

pelvic area got progressively tighter. It's reached a point now where even

sitting in ordinary cross legged fashion is painful. I find this extremely

perplexing as the posture was originally effortless to assume and I was

under the impression that daily practice would only make it easier. I can

sit in padmasana with relative ease although holding it for an extended

period puts strain on my knees so I haven't pushed it to much.

 

Also, I developed a rather large bump on the back of my neck. I'm not

entirely sure what the cause is. I practice Sarvangasana going into Halasana

for about 15-20 mins daily and I practice Jalandhara bandha whenever

performing breath retention. I also do neck rolling exercises as part of my

warm-up. I know the obvious solution would be to suspend all neck related

practices until it goes away, but I am very put off by anything that

interferes with my sadhana so I've avoided this in the hope that another

solution will present itself.

 

Any comments/advise would be much appreciated.

 

:-)PLUR(-:

[Guest guest]

Hi -

 

I've been a list member since January, but have not actually introduced

myself. I've just been silently observing (part of my Pisces nature, I

guess). I've been practicing (not as diligently as I'd like) kundalini yoga

since I stumbled across Gopi Krishna's Kundalini book, which I found

fascinating. I have found many of the postings here to be quite interesting

and I have saved many of the messages. Things have been too quiet, so here

goes...

 

My burning question is, has anyone found a way to sit in any of the various

cross-legged asanas comfortably without having ones feet fall asleep? After

about 20 minutes, the foot underneath invariably does this and, needless to

say, this is quite distracting.

 

Sat Nam!

 

/Karen

 

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[Guest guest]

Hello Skylined,

 

I had the same problem when I started doing yoga. Two things I discovered

are - number one, the pain will go away as you continue practicing (your

muscles and ligaments are adjusting to postures they had not been used to

before so it is a sort of "muscular fever" even though you feel your bones

are hurting). And number two, that it is better to keep the correct posture

for as long (or as little) as you can (this means both the correct leg

position and the spine position as well), rather than keep the wrong posture

(such as a bent spine) for a long time!

 

Try to increase gradually (a minute per day kind of thing) rather than go

for the half-hour "full course" right away. It worked for me. I hope it will

help you as well.

 

Sat Nam,

 

Alina

 

Skylined <mdunn

 

 

> For a while everything seemed to be going well, but gradually my knees and

> pelvic area got progressively tighter. It's reached a point now where even

> sitting in ordinary cross legged fashion is painful. I find this extremely

> perplexing as the posture was originally effortless to assume and I was

> under the impression that daily practice would only make it easier.