I read some where that it was Napoleon who said “Everyone has his price”, true dat. But how do we know that our limit is, and how does that relate to our yoga? This is what I call the tipping point. As I've been teaching lately, this idea of tipping point and when to say when, has been coming up again and again. I felt it was time to talk about it in detail. For each of us, and in every yoga pose, the tipping point is different. And that's why it's worth reviewing.

One of the best things we learn in our yoga is to listen to our bodies. It is a valuable tool. And what one person feels in one pose can be completely different for someone else. Even in the most basic pose like child's pose, everyone looks different and everyone feels something different. There are general places where most of us feel certain stretches, but it varies widely from individual to individual. For example, in downward facing dog pose. Most of us feel dog pose intensely in the backs of the legs, in the hamstrings and/or the calves. Some people feel hamstrings a lot, some feel calves a lot. Some students feel the arms and shoulders, or their low back. It doesn't mean that the students who don't feel their hamstrings are doing the pose wrong. Each of us comes to yoga with our unique bodies. The important bit is to notice what YOU feel and approach YOUR tipping point. One man's ceiling is another man's floor.

OK, the tipping point. That is the point of the stretch where you are at maximum intensity. You have pushed your body to its most intense stretch. You feel the stretch (where ever you feel it) at it's most intense, on a scale of 1-10 its a big old 10. You can go no further. I'm not saying that's a bad thing to do, but I am saying as we practice, we need to approach with awareness and discernment. What happens if I go to the place where I feel a 10 and back off to a 7 or 8? What happens if I back off to a 5 and stay for a longer time? Those results and body responses will vary from pose to pose, based on where you feel the stretch and it's intensity.

I have also begun to see a pattern, based on what students tell me and what I feel in my own body, on what's most effective for certain stretches. For example, the 4 places where stretches are really nasty, where I see eyes popping out of heads and I see lots of strained faces are these 4:

1. Downward facing dog (and other hamstring stretches) 

2. I.T. band stretches, aka your outer thigh (taking a straight leg across the mid-line of the body, or rolling over the I.T. band on a noodle). The I stands for ilium, or the crest of the pelvis, and T stands for tibia or the outer shin bone, and the I.T. band is a large strand of fibers that run from the hip to the knee and tracks the motion of the leg.

3. Deltoid stretches, where you feel your outer shoulder (taking one arm behind the back, raising the hand between the shoulder blades)

4. Quadricep stretches (where you bring the heel up toward the buttocks, stretching the front of the thighs)

Let's call these 4 stretches the attention grabbers. When you do them, you know it, and your attention is focused intensely there because you feel so much. What I find when doing attention grabbers (on myself or with students) is that it's more effective to do them at level 6 or less, and stay longer in the pose, and use the support of props. Think of the attention grabbers like a frightened animal, like a dog or a horse. When you see a scared dog, you shouldn't rush up to it and get all up in it's face, even if you are being friendly. The dog will bite you, because it feels threatened. That's how the body responds when we do attention grabbers. If we only push to our maximum, then the body gets the signal that this is scary and it will respond by tightening up to protect itself. It's not anything you have to think about, it will happen automatically without your knowledge. That's where we need to develop awareness and learn to approach our tipping points calmly.

Now let's approach the scared animal, we'll use the horse this time, and the I.T. band stretches as our examples. 

Lie on your back and take your straight right leg to the ceiling. Now take your right leg over to the left side, keeping the leg straight, do not bend your knees. The right hip can come off the floor, but the legs must stay straight. You'll notice that your leg probably doesn't move very far across the mid-line, over to the left side. But when it does, you feel an attention grabber... hello sailor! Most people feel this stretch intensely from the right hip, deep in the right buttock area, and along the outer right side of the leg, the outer thigh. Sometimes the hamstrings are involved too, but generally to a lesser degree. It's the I.T. that has our attention big time. Now let's compare that I.T. stretch to our scared horse. If you went rushing up to a frightened horse, how do you think it would respond? I'm guessing not favorably. If it's scared already, then you coming at it with a lot of energy and intensity will only serve to scare it more. Now approach the scared horse calmly, slowly and with sensitivity. 1^st off, the horse will feel your energy and notice the change. If you are calm, the horse will begin to calm down too. Now continue to calmly interact with the horse, aware that you are being gentle and sweet. Say things like “nice horsey”. The horse will respond in kind and soften and open to your approach. Like the saying goes, 'you get more bees with honey than with vinegar'... right sweet cheeks? The body is the same, especially when it comes to the attention grabber stretches, but based on your body, any stretch that you feel intensely, should be approached using the scared animal technique.

Photo of student doing I.T. stretch with support of wall. Keep in mind that this student is flexible enough to take their foot to the wall with the leg at a 90 degree angle. Most people will not be able to do that. See * to find out how to
keep your foot from slipping on the wall.

Going back to our I.T. stretch, let's try again calmly. Lie down on your back with the left side of your body parallel to a wall, about 1-2 feet away from the wall. Take the right leg up toward the ceiling, leg straight, and rest the right foot on the wall, as you take the right leg across the mid-line, to the left. If you are tight in the hamstrings, * you may need to put a piece of sticky mat under your foot in order to keep the foot from sliding, *or use a belt on your foot to hold it in place, *or place the back of a chair or other prop against the wall for you to rest your foot on and stop it from sliding. The goal is to support the weight of the leg, so you can do the stretch without the stress of holding the leg up. In case you have not noticed, our legs are heavy. If you have to hold your leg up for more than one minute, you won't get much stretch. If you support the weight of the leg by resting the foot on the wall (and another prop), then you can stay longer and deepen the stretch. But again, this is an attention grabber stretch and should not be done any higher than level 6 intensity. More is not more with attention grabbers. You get more stretch by working at a lower level of intensity, using props for support, and holding the stretch for a longer period of time (1-5 min). I know what I just said may sound counter intuitive, but trust me, when it comes to attention grabbers, we have to work smart. Our bodies will open more when we approach calmly, with awareness. If all we do is push and force, the body will tighten up like a scared animal. And then we are not doing yoga. Let's not do that to ourselves. Be gentle and kind, and reap the rewards.

I encourage you to try this technique out and ask questions, of yourself and the teacher. See what happens. Develop your awareness. You will be pleasantly surprised by the results, and your body will thank you by causing you less pain. I'm all for that. Who's with me?!! :)

 Love and Light, Jo