Lessons in Opening the Back

My back has opened in remarkable ways in the last couple of years, and it occurred to me the other day that it might be useful to trace the invaluable lessons I have learned from my wise teachers, and how those lessons have collaborated to make space in this spine.

1. A few years ago, Jill Manning told me to release my tush in backbend. I have been releasing it in every backbend I do since then. And it hasn't always been easy (Laghu Vajrasana is a particular challenge for me), but it has consistently asked me to use my legs for strength, helped me to access the length of my quadriceps, and directed energy to the top of the back.

2. When teacher Luke Jordan was working with our community, he often guided us through drop backs by asking us to place thumbs to chest, then to nose, then to forehead, and then back. This gradual process helps to maintain an opening in the upper back, and to slow things down: the drishti, the breath, the opening of the thoracic spine.

3. Beloved teachers David Keil and Greg Nardi both shared critical wisdom about rotation of the shoulders, and thus the opening of the upper back and chest. My teacher for the last year and a half, Greg Nardi, suggested that I practice Kapotasana by first doing B, then A, then B again, and to allow the elbows to bend so that the shoulder can safely rotate externally. He also told me to be mindful of the external rotation of my shoulders in Surya Namaskara, Virabhadrasana, and Utkatasana. And he directed me here, to David Keil's wonderful article on shoulders in Downward Dog.

4. It was teacher David Garrigues who emphasized the importance of alignment in Chaturanga, and here, I think, is a place where back bending can gain so much of its development, but where we tend to rush through the practice. Strength builds in the legs, belly, and upper back when we exhale and engage in that downward motion of Chaturanga, and that strength can work to open space in the upper back when we use it and the breath to power us back up into Upward Dog. And every deepening Upward Dog is a deepening in the back bending sequence of Second Series, and of drop backs. It begins right from the beginning of practice.

And that is also something I have learned even more acutely in the last year: Ashtanga is a system. Trust it. Practice, and the opening of space is coming.



Kapotasana — 36 Weeks from Rebecca on Vimeo.