Iyengar Class Observation: Gathering Between the Shoulders

Tonight I visited Sheila Bunnell's Iyengar Level 1 class at Binghamton Yoga.  I consider her style to be the closest thing to body engineering that we have at our studio.

Sheila's focus tonight was a what she described as the action of "gathering" the skin & muscles between the shoulder blades - not the bones - just the soft tissue.  That entire area is covered by the Trapezius and is shown in this graphic:

Controlling this area produces at least three great results:

1. Opens the chest, 
2. Allows the shoulders to rotate freely, and
3. Lifts & supports the spine in backbends.

To access this area, Sheila worked through the following sequence:

• Started on back (knees bent & feet flat) with three blocks of support: two next to one another sideways and the other behind that on it's side.  We then laid back so that our entire upper rib cage (and trapezius) covered them with the head held higher by the third.  We then stretched our arms to the sides in a T with the palms up and activated the fingernail side of the hand to draw the shoulder blades back into center.  The ribs pressed down into the shoulder blades and the shoulder blades pressed up into the ribs - this action was repeated in nearly all postures.

• Next pushed the blocks away and laid flat on our backs trying to recreate the same feeling without the blocks.  After a few tries, we moved the arms straight behind us, palms still facing up, and then lifted our hips until our hands connected with the earth.  At that connection we held it and tried to lower our butts back down.  That action is extremely difficult and created an amazing lengthening in my side body ribs & armpits.  This is one thing I need to do more often.

• Come to standing and put arms out in a T to recreate the gathering.  Then work through Urdhva Hastasana, Utthita Trikonasana and Virabadhrasana I.  Each demonstrating the value of the gathering in maintaining the posture.

• From standing, put loop around the wrists at shoulder-width distance.  Press gently out into the strap to activate & gather - then lift arms in Urdhva Hastasana.  Repeat both Utthita Trikonasana and Virabadhrasana I.    After repeating Virabadhrasana I several times Sheila had us work into Virabadhrasana III in two different ways: one with arms straight in front using the strap and the other out to the sides like airplane wings.

• Virabadhrasana III demonstrated that the same gathering action we're using in our shoulders needs to be adapted to the hips & pelvis.  So, we worked on Virabadhrasana III with blocks under our palms (arms straight) and just focused on the gathering (a.k.a. compacting) of the hip.

• Coming to the ground we sat with with legs parallel and bent at knees.  Sheila had us put a rolled blanket behind our knees to challenge the relaxation of our legs, but I didn't see how that had much to do with the gathering.  Anyway, from this position we came into Gomukhasana arms several times.  Then we did Dhandasana to counteract the knee bend.

• Next we formed Virasana - interlaced our fingers and lay the top of our hands on top of the crown of our heads.  Relaxed briefly and then attempted to lift the hands from the action of pulling the elbows together and gathering the energy of the back as we had down on all the other postures so far.  We did this twice on each side and then we used Dhandasana to counteract the knee bend.

• Nearing the end of class Sheila needed a twist to release any tension we may have created while gathering the muscles & skin of our upper backs.  So, we sat on the edge of a stack of blankets and pulled our legs to one side to set up for Bharadvajasana.  We did this twice using different hand positions for each.

• Finally, we pulled in a chair and put a blanket on it.  We then laid on our mats with the chair off the mat but under our legs - right up to the knee crease.  This created a nice firm base for our legs.  Then we let our arms fall laterally into a standard Savasana pose - onto which Sheila placed a sandbag on our palms.  The legs raised felt great - it relaxed any lower back tension and created the calm one gets from an inversion.  The sandbags added a sense of comfort.

The actions of this practice helped me lift the bottom of the back ribs up toward the gathering point and the top of the shoulders down toward the gathering point while simultaneously broadening the collars bones and rotating the tips of the shoulder blades toward the gathering point.