ScafFolding before Forward Folding

root down to rise up

In learning, and then going on to teach, yoga I developed a means of evolving initially challenging postures through what I call scaffolding. In this case when I say ‘challenging postures’ I mean the seemingly-simple act of sitting up tall with legs extended long in front! Doing this without losing the natural curves in the spine, especially the lordosis in the lumbar (low) back, is challenging for many, if not most, people.

Languaging is so key (click that verbified version of language for more on that) - not only in teaching, but also in living consciously.

How we say what we're doing is how we're doing it.

So I take issue with people saying, "sit up straight" or "straighten your spine". When the spine is healthy it is not a straight vertical line from tailbone to skull, but rather a serpentine one. It curves towards the front body in the low back and the neck, and then curves towards the space behind you in the sacrum and thoracic (ribcage) areas.

In order to get this healthy snaking of the spine when we're sitting on the ground with legs long in front, we need to be on the “sitz bones", or ischial tuberosities. We need to be sitting on the bottom of the pelvic bowl - not on the tailbone - otherwise we’re tilting the pelvis backwards which collapses the lumbar spine and impinges the vertebrae.

Everything above this foundation also collapses. Generally what prevents this forward pelvic tilt is tightness in the hamstrings. When I began a steady self-practice 24 years ago I could not honestly sit tall with my spine in healthy curves and my legs out long in front. And I don't like compromising.

So I did two things. I bent my knees until I could sit tall with lordosis in my lumbar spine, but kept my feet engaged as though the 4 corners (big toe ball, little toe ball, inner heel and outer heel) of each foot were pressed against a wall. I also used my hands behind me to push the floor away and leverage my weight forward onto my sitz bones and out of my tailbone.

This use of the arms to more correctly align the spine is what I call scaffolding - creating an outer structure to support the development of the inner structure until the inner structure is strong enough to support itself. What does this mean in terms of sitting up tall? The work that the arms are doing is eventually absorbed by both the core strength (all the way around, not just front abdominals) and the legs strength. The legs are learning to leverage the way the arms are - to press down into the foundation of the earth in order to leverage up away from it.

I don't often lead with anatomical language because I find this can be alienating. Unless you know the anatomical words, it can feel like the teacher knows your body better than you do. This dynamic only perpetuates the ‘external expert’ dynamic that is not helpful when we're cultivating inner awareness and wisdom. However, I do bring the anatomical terms in when it helps to develop that inner eye.

Tubers are root vegetables like potatoes, yams and, in Aotearoa, kumara. Tubers grow under the earth and yet sprout up through the earth to leaf above ground. Our own tubers, or tuberosities are of the ischium (see the image below), the bottom back portion of the pelvis. The bottom tips of the ischium are called ischial tuberosities and are under the butt cheeks; they are what we sit on when we sit up tall and don't slump back onto the tailbone. The spine then becomes like the sun-reaching stems and leaves that arise out of the root system of the pelvis.

This is an eventual process, depending on where your body awareness, strength and flexibility are to begin with. It took me 2 years of nearly-daily practice to move towards having long legs while still sitting up tall on my ischial tuberosities without compromising the healthy curves of the spine. It was out of this persistent practice and the evolution I witnessed in myself that the phrase I live and teach by emerged -

trust the longer journey…

Think of how you can't erect a house in one fell swoop. It takes time, and the foundation is where we begin. What is on the ground? And what is the relationship with the ground?

Those of you in the northern hemisphere are in the last days of Deepest Winter (at least in MYOGA Seasons' view of things), and it's here that we learn to sit tall in Dandasana or Staff Pose. I love how much sacred geometry is in this practice as we inquire into creating a right angle between torso and legs - an L shape with the body.

We explore this angle not only in Dandasana sitting upright, but then lying down with legs in the air, in Down Dog, and even balancing on the tripod of sitz bones and tailbone in Upward Facing Boat. What scaffolds can we utilize in each variant of this right angle and its differing relationships to the earth?

On a more metaphorical level, what supports do you offer yourself as you accept where (and how) you are right now, while also moving towards greater alignment with where (and who) you'd like to be?

Living is a dynamic dancing between acceptance and willfullness.

I experience this in teaching both hemsiphere Seasons at the same time. We're currently wrapping up our hybrid of Deepest Winter and First Summer and I'm fascinated by how much overlaps in these seemingly-opposing seasons. First Summer is seated in the powerhouse centre of Manipura chakra, our fire in the belly to nourish, digest, and commit. There's willfullness here, yet we’re balancing that with awareness and acceptance of reality, of what-is.

MYOGA Seasons’ Deepest Winter is seated in Sahasrara (such a fun word to say) chakra where we encounter unity consciousness through acceptance and boundlessness. It’s a curious marriage of opening and also engaging. Which is what yoga is - a balancing of engaging and releasing, simultaneously, perpetually.

If you're keen to experience any of this on the mat, I teach live (virtually) each Sunday 6pm UTC, which is Coordinated Universal Time (I love the thought of that). Message me at melissa@myoga.co.nz for the Zoom link.

MYOGA Seasons are not publically available but most other modules I have developed are freely available on my YouTube Channel. You're welcome to them. I think of these online recordings as training wheels for self-practice and I still use them myself so I can immerse myself in the inner focus without thinking about the sequencing.