Janu Sirsasana C - like 'ouch'

[Guest guest]

Okay hands in the air if u really care. who

doesnt hurt in this fearsome posture??? okay so that

must mean im doing it wrong but what oh what oh what

is this posture doing tucked away in the first

series? <br><br>my knees may be shot to pieces from

cycling (strained ligaments , torn quads) but this

posture just feels plain wrong. is it gonna be a slowly

slowly slowly (and lots more of that) until it comes?

perhaps im not understanding. is it that i need to work

more on easing up my ankles and then let the knees

follow?<br><br>my padmasan is fairly strong but this monster, eeeek

.. . . take it away. perhaps i can do squat thrusts

instead in this one. dear Mr J may i have your

permission. . . <br><br>ineednojanusirsanac

[Guest guest]

I am not that far in the sequence right now, due

to a mess I did with my practice when I started

doing astanga. So I don't do "the monster"

yet.<br><br>However, some years ago, when I was still stuck to iyengar

yoga, I once fell from the stairs and sprained my left

ankle - ouch! For one year I had problems bending

forward in ardha baddha padma paschimattanasana without

feeling excruciating pain. But - slowly slowly slowly - I

did the posture nonetheless. To ease the pain I used

to place a wooden block under my left knee. It

helped, and now I am able to do the posture without using

the block. <br><br>Maybe temporarily placing a wooden

block under the knee of your bent leg would also help

in your case... (yes, it's true that astanga doesn't

make use of props, but I think they can be helpful if

you have suffered an injury).<br><br>And yes,

definitively: youneedjanusirsanac.

[Guest guest]

Do not - I repeat - do not force your knee in

Janu Sirsasana C. If your knee hurts at all, you

cannot yet do the necessary rotation at your hip joint.

You do not want to injure your knee, believe me.

People more knowledgeable than me can tell you which

asanas will help you to gain flexibility for the hip

rotation.

[Guest guest]

here is what helped me in my practice of janu

sirsasana c:<br><br>place the weight evenly on the ball of

the foot; often when working on this pose, the weight

rests on the "pinky"-toe side, this risks hurting our

little balance friend. for a while, i would lift my hips

off the ground with my hands and make sure that the

weight was evenly distributed and that the foot was

properly cradling the opposing inner thigh. then, i began

slowly lowering my hips, pulling the heel even higher

into the abdomen.<br><br>key to this and subsequent

full expression in this pose (as in the previous "a"

and "b") is pressing with the foot into the inner

thigh, allowing you to roll the hip open, so that both

the sit-bones are firmly on the ground and the knee

is also resting on the ground.<br><br>again, this is

my experience and it has seemed to help others in

their practice. i hope that it leads you to a contented

exploration.<br><br>by the way, from what i can garner, it prepares the

ankles and hips for later poses.<br><br>bhavatu savva

mangalam.

[Guest guest]

I am not knowledgeable, but I suppose the astanga

series are devised the way that every posture in the

sequence prepares your body for the pose that follows.

Janu sirsasana B for example stretches & strengthens

the ankle joints, preparing you for janu sirsa

C.<br><br>The standing poses especially are famous for

releasing the hip joints through the extension of the

legs.<br><br>Better then to master sufficiently all the previous

postures in the sequence before attempting the monster.

[Guest guest]

Thank you all for your thoughts on JS c. just to

add to my conundrum. . . <br><br>when I was a

teenager my mum told me I had child bearing hips. 'but

mum! im a man' i told her(she refrained from telling

me i was a boy, but the damage was done). now last

year i attended a lino miele workshop and after having

a quick look around the penny dropped. I have been

blessed with very flexible hips so that even after this

winter nursing injuries and abstaining from ashtanga i

can pretty much get the full hip opening of baddha

konasana. consequentally i wonder if the pain im getting in

JS c is more to do with my hip flexibility sraining

my knee.<br><br>umm. . . does that make sense. im

VERY conscious of my knees having had heaps of

injuries. in fact awareness of injuries is a great way of

curbing my 'must get that pose' ego. im happy to admidt

to myself that if i try that im going to end up

limping, so just relax. <br><br>all is coming

eh?!<br><br>anyway thanks all once again<br><br>iguessineedjsc #23

[Guest guest]

ashtanga style asana series are good for those

they're good for. but if pain and injury visit the

novice, perhaps one should rethink one's practice. sounds

like a lot of people suffer from throwing themselves

into sequences rajasically, competitively, with a

charming "i can do this as well as anybody dammit"

attitude. ouch indeed!<br><br>anything wrong with warming

up to it -- just trying the postures separately,

perhaps in modified form to begin with, so the body and

mind might have time to adjust to them without

resistance, discomfort and injury? why not a few weeks of

simply placing the sole of the foot on the inside of the

thigh of the extended leg, bending forward to where

it's comfortable, and holding on with both hands to

the foot or somewhere up on the extended leg where

one can be "stable, comfortable ... release all

effort" as the ashtanga of the yoga sutras instruct us,

just breathing deeply while the body finds the posture

in its own time? just a thought.<br><br>now then,

since BONEs are being thrown, i have one to pick with

you: child-bearing hips?! on a boi-eeee??! dude, that

is just so gai-eeeee!!! must we hear of your

gai-eeeness again and again? surely your phrase

"child-bearing hips" could only be meant in a homo-sekshist gay

homo weirdsexual way. come on, be honest!

"childbearing hips" is as sekshoo-el as that superfreak talking

about "CHURNING the ETHER" -- so that's what they're

calling it now. IMHO. =)

[Guest guest]

janu c seems to be a bugger for lots of folks,

but avoiding it is not the answer. For a year, I've

had to put a sandbag or half block under my extended

leg's butt cheek, concentrate on the rotation of the

hip, and keep the back straight, with no forward

bending till the prop is gone, which is starting to

happen on my left side. This posture, with

perserverence, will do wonders for the feet and the hips. No

need for extra postures if you carefully work with

this one. Of course, this is only my personal

experience.

[Guest guest]

"im VERY conscious of my knees having had heaps

of injuries."<br>Seems like takeitup once posted

some good stuff about the relationship between fear

and pain. Maybe he will show up again and refresh us.

Through yoga, I am noticing that some injuries and pains

are not really physical problems, they are anxieties

and other mental tensions showing up in the body. And

the more hyperconscious I am of a given area and

think of it as weak, the more likely it is to feel

pain. Still, I'll agree with the chorus: Never Force

Your Knees. But if any of the above intrigues you and

you want to investigate your pain, I can't recommend

Dr. John Sarno's book Healing Back Pain enough.

revolutionary way to look at (some) pain, not just for backs

[Guest guest]

>> Seems like takeitup once posted some

good stuff about the relationship between fear and

pain<br><br>... message #664 for example.<br>(See

<a href=http://www.alanlittle.org/yoga/indexA.html

target=new>http://www.alanlittle.org/yoga/indexA.html</a> for more of the

wise words of takeitup, SPW and

assorted other folks. Sorry. Haven't blatantly

self-promoted here for a while, and I feel the need to get my

hit rate up a bit)

[Guest guest]

thanks for the reminder about your index.<br>664 wasn't the one I was thinking

of, so I went and found it, #4573. The whole thread is pretty interesting.