Perhaps this is akin to the Ashtanga complaint '"My arms are too short to jump back" but there's a voice nagging away at me, a whispering imp on my shoulder, "Your lats are getting too big for binding". I sort of want to be the skinny, stringy, sinewy yogi, the guy with the fingernails at the top right of my blog perhaps, but it seems it's not to be, my genes have other plans. Was saying to another blogger yesterday, wouldn't mind a buddha belly but a 42" chest doesn't fit the profile ( something like that). And the chest, it's growing, the pranayamam, Ashtanga, they both seem to be conspiring, 42" is with the tape pulled tight, I'm being generous.
The picture btw is from July last year (only good back shot I could find), just after getting back from the VKTT course when I was probably the lightest I've been in years, 75 kg (just checked, 76.5 currently), yet still the lats.
I don't get it, I'm a veggie, I eat little, twice a day, I avoided the Arm balances from 3rd, changed my jump through to straight legs ( less work on the upper body), cut out fancy handstands, but still the lats, what do they live on ,what do they eat.
Of course the truth of the matter is, they don't seem to make a difference, can still bind at the wrist in the Marichi's, Purna M, Passasana and what have you, just as with the gnashing of teeth about our arms are being too short, this is no doubt just another paranoia.
I'm reminded now of Touchdown Todd (?) the ex US football player on Larry's The Rocket II Video, now that boy had lat's mine are latte in comparison.
Anyway it's an Ashtanga rest day, always a little out of sorts on rest days. Some pranayama perhaps, a little VK is called for .
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You must be kidding me. I know soooo many dudes who would kill for bigger lats (their dream is to look like an upside down triangle). I guess we all often have a dream body type that doesn't necessarily corresponds with what our genes dictate.
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dear Grimmly
it's all the exercise you did growing up, plus some genetics. i tend to have huge thighs and part of it is genetic. i also want to be stringy and thin, which is why i eat moderately.
cheers,
Arturo
I see body dysmorphia is not exclusive to women anymore.
My teacher is always telling us we need to focus on the lats - use them in lifting up, down-dog, any posture with arms raised (i.e. use the lats, not the shoulders), etc. Mine have got bigger from ashtanga, but don't think it's much to worry about - what stops me binding as well as I should is, I think, tightness in the shoulders and chest, and not as much rotation in the pelvis area as I should be able to get.
Teacher's logic is that using the lats saves the shoulders from injuries, and the classic mistake is to overuse the shoulders.
BTW, I definitely think my legs are too long and arms too short - a chimpanzee body is a clear advantage in most postures, and in a full forward bend my head is at knee level, whereas the more simian amongst us have heads to shins...still, it takes all sorts.
This is funny. One of the things I noticed a while back is that yoga (both asana and pranayama) is not giving me the slender body that most associate with yoga. Instead it's giving me stout limbs and a big barrel chest. My lats, and torso in general, are huge. I can feel my poor lats being squished when I don my sports bra for practice. I don't mind the muscle, but the biceps do get in the way of binding.
Perhaps, I'd have liked them in my late teens and early Twenties Yyogini but here I'm reflecting on the idea that they might be an inconvenience for binding. Don't REALLY wish I was the skinny yogi, though sometimes it might be nice.
Salvinder, do you think it's polite to spam a blog in this way, surely it doesn't reflect well on the place your trying to promote.
Interesting Arturo, i did some jobs in my youth where my lats got so big I could hardly put my hands in my pockets. Again, don't really want to be stringy and thin.
Hey, V. Don't really fit the dysmorphia model though with all these half naked videos and photo's in public domain. My response to my changing physic from the practice but also from ageing is generally amusement and curiosity. Was aiming for a light tone here of mock despair.
Really interesting Darshan, thanks for this, wonder if I've always naturally used my lats for some reason and if it's protected me somewhat.
Nice lats, sorry I cussed you.
It is curious Megan, don't think I ever really expected a cliche yogi body ( or particularly wanted one) but didn't expect the one I seem to be ending up with.... just for a little yoga.
Wait till you hit 3rd and all those arm balances....couple of months the rate your going.
Interesting stuff on the 'classic' body - you notice (I know I shouldn't, but anyone who claims not to compare with others in class is lying IMO, although I'm getting better at focusing on my practice and ignoring others) that probably 80% of female ashtangis have the pipecleaner body which makes all the bending and binding easy. Self-selection I think, rather than the ashtanga practice leading to that body - people with other body types will be more likely to give up and go elsewhere. Having curves or an hourglass shape is not really that conducive to all that twisting and binding. Also a factor, possibly, is that a lot of ashtanga people tend to be ex-dancers, where the same bodyshape is prevalent.
However, that same bodyshape is perhaps less likely to come with the strength required for stuff like shoulderstand, headstand, navasana, etc, or the arm balances - see a lot of waving around here from the pipecleaner types where the more solidly built do better. Beginners of this shape also seem to struggle with chaturanga, which for the chunkier is usually not that hard.
Interesting to think about how yoga might have been influenced by the body types of those who developed it - Indian men tend (when young) to be very skinny. Indians in general have very flexible hips (sitting on the floor and squatting to do work, go to the toilet, etc), and relatively long bodies compared to legs.
"80% of female ashtangis have the pipecleaner body"
You clearly haven't been to my shala.
Sure, every situation/shala is different, but Youtube would seem to support the pipecleaners in the majority theory I think...
I wouldn't take youtube as a statistically significant sample. I've been to shalas in a few countries and have always found bodies of all sizes and types. Sure, heavily obese Ashtangis are in the minority because either they give up or lose the weight, but curvy Ashtangis? Plenty. And I've seen a lot of them binding, no problem.
Don't go to Shalas as V will tell you : ) Darshan but all the Ashtanga bloggers I know seem to be completely different body types, of course that's only a statistical sample of ten to twenty.
I do remember reading once that More women practice primary than men, Intermediate is about the same but more men practice 3rd...no idea if this is true or not.
OK, we'll agree to disagree on the average body shape of ashtangis.
Interesting what you say on the ratios - certainly the case that there are many more women than men at the shala I go to, but I think more women than men do yoga anyway, in the UK at least (have heard there's more of a balance in the States).
Can certainly believe that more men get to the harder series - from what I've seen in videos (never seen anyone do higher than second in real life), the higher series have a lot more arm balances in them, which must favour men with their naturally stronger arms and shoulders. There's some mean hip stuff there too though right - some of which makes me feel a bit queasy, if I'm honest (feet pointing in weird directions).
Did a bit of reading up on lats and what they do this afternoon - may be obvious, but never realised before that tight lats can be a block on all sorts of asana, from warrior 1 to the back bends, and I can kind of relate to that feeling of having a tight t-shirt on that pinches under the arms when trying to straighten them out fully in those postures...
I agree, there's definitely self-selection on youtube! Not at the shalas I've been to though, and you can hardly extrapolate like that, they're two completely different things. Also you might see me and my 'pipe cleaner body' and think I 'self-selected' for ashtanga, but what you wouldn't know is that I've been doing it for years and would look completely different if I hadn't.
How do the lats get in the way of binding?? They just need not to get tight. It's the part of my body that needs constant stretching out the most. I'm happy with that, it means I am working correctly :)
Morning Susan, shouldn't we both be on the mat, stalling here ; )
Yeah I mention 4th paragraph down ' Of course the truth of the matter is, they don't seem to make a difference...' and that it's probably akin to the ' my arms are too short for jump back myth'
They just seem to be getting bigger this week, M mention I'm looking 'beefy' : ( and it was a mental, hey what's with lats already'.
Did put me off 3rd arm balances but I came to terms with it in an older post, figuring that despite bulking up I still do seem able to bind my Purna M so it's probably fine.
Plan is to do this month of Led Primary then a month of Led Primary plus 2nd ( I mashed two of Jois' videos together), Third month will be led 2nd, then in the fourth add the first half of third and finally switching back to full third in August.
See if I can tidy the whole thing up and get back on count by the end of the summer, besides never did much of that doing a series and a half before splitting thing.
OK to practice!
Practice starts at 8, leaving in a moment :)
Come on world tour in August and practice live with Sharath!!
Be nice to come down for one of the days he's here, the Friday perhaps, will look into it. Really nice atmosphere from the NYC one which I practiced with again this morning
I also dig the sinewy figure that Asian girls are famous for. Alas, am no longer so. With Ashtanga, while I'm toning up, I think I'm getting muscular, especially in the arms.
So, for me now, it's bye bye sinewy. I'm probably a curvy yogini now. I accept that. Because in exchange, I get strength.
Jumping in late but I have to agree with V and Susan. Come to my studio in NY, you'll see LOTS of different types of bodies. I see a ton of 'pipecleaner' girls who are very inflexible and plenty of heavier girls who bind everything just fine. I find that ashtanga 'self-selects' more for personality than for body type.
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