My troupemate requested this practice last time we got a big snow, and I've finally gotten around to writing up this practice. We just got majorly dumped on, and although I have the good fortune to have an awesome HOA that shovels straight up to my doorstep, I still had to help my husband dig out his car from the communal lot. Here's a short asana sequence I cooked up that will stretch out and restore your overworked shoulders and back:

Tadasana (Mountain Pose)
Always a good place to start. Shake out your fingers and wrists to open them up and get some fresh blood in there. Reach one hand out, palm away from you, fingers toward the floor. Use your other hand to pull your fingers back, stretching the forearm, wrist, and bicep. Repeat with the other arm.

Utkatasana (Chair or Mighty Pose)for 5 full breaths.
Yes, I know you're tired but this will warm you up quick!

Uttanasana (Standing Forward Fold)
Soften your knees and allow your back to round. Walk your hands up your shins if it's too much on your back.

Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Facing Dog)
Melt your heart towards the floor. Five breaths or more.

Balasana (Child's Pose)
Widen your knees so your torso and forehead can come all the way down, making your spine as long and round as possible. Hang out here as long as you like.

Seated Shoulder Openers
Press your hips back over over your heels and sit in Virasana (Hero's Pose) Vajrasana (Lightning Bolt) or Sukhasana (Easy Pose). Interlace your hands behind your back. Squeeze your shoulderblades and elbows together, then, as you lift your heart, lengthen your hands down towards the floor. Hold for a few breaths. Bend your elbows and take your hands to one side of your waist. Squeeze the elbows together and hold, then take it to the other side.

Gomukhasana (Cow Faced Pose)
Feel free to skip the hips, if you're not feeling it.

Janu Sirsasana (Head of the Knee Pose).
Just because it feels good.

Jathara Parivarttanasana (Revolved Belly Pose
Lie down and take a nice and easy supine twist.

When you're ready, peel yourself off the floor and have a cup of something hot!

I've been working on hanumanasana (The Yoga Splits) recently. Hanuman (aka The Monkey God) was the devoted servant of Rama. When Rama's lady, Sita, was kidnapped, Hanuman leapt from south India across the sea to Sri Lanka to find her. The pose is inspired by this gigantic leap.

Cool story, right? I mean, that alone makes me want to do the splits!

I have had a couple dreams in which I executed hanumanasa to the fullest expression. It happened with such clarity that I actually would go to my studio in the morning and try it out. You know, just in case my hamstrings were divinely inspired to grow overnight. Unfortunately, they're as tight and uncooperative as ever and I have to make modifications and work on the pose like a normal person. At least while I'm warming up my body and easing into the pose I can envision myself as a leaping monkey-goddess, even if my body's not quite on board yet.

Take a listen to MC Yogi's take on this great story! Rock on my monkey friends!

I always give my students the opportunity to request things they'd like to work on, because hey, it's their class and I want to make them happy! Finally someone took me up on it. One of my students wants to work on handstand. Handstand, I think is special, because it represents a mile-marker in strength and also in overcoming fear. Perhaps only I say that because it is definitely the scariest inversion for me personally! I've been playing with inversions a lot in my practice lately, doing prep poses to build strength and mobility around my shoulder girdle and upper back, as well as core-strengthening poses for stability. As for full-on inversions, I've been mixing it up between pincha mayurasana, headstand, and handstand. I've been playing with different ways to move into them to see what feels good to me and which way might be most appropriate approach for this group of students. After taking an inexplicable hiatus from inversions a while ago, I am having tons of fun exploring this area of my practice again. This is making me curious about how other people practice!

Some teachers and traditions teach inversions at the wall. This is how I learned. It is all about kicking up and using the wall for support and then learning to shift away from the wall for balance. Other instructors teach inversions in the middle of the room, building strength and balance by practicing the actions required for the inversion, and not necessarily going all the way.

Which way did you learn? How do you practice now? Do you prefer one way over the other?

One of my favorite yoga bloggers just posted an excellent perspective on why you might be slipping around on your yoga mat in your practice.

I teach hot yoga classes and this is an issue that comes up a lot! Sometimes it is the mat that's slippery, but sometimes it's actually you that's slippery one! If you've got a quality mat and you're still lacking stability in your postures, Mr. Om Shanti addresses how to check the execution of your asana to help correct your slipperiness.

To his list I'll add Vrksasana (Tree Pose). Some people will try to hike up their pants leg to solve slippery pants syndrome. Of course, if you're sweating a lot your bare leg might also exhibit slippery leg syndrome. Here's how to correct this problem without fretting about your outfit!

First, take a nice solid Tadasana. Take a few breaths and connect to your inner stability. Grow roots through your standing foot and allow your other foot to become light. Trace your leg with your hand from your thigh towards your shin and place the sole of the foot on the inner thigh (or shin). Now, focus on strongly squeezing your inner thighs together. This action will result in your lifted foot pressing into the thigh as the thigh presses back into the foot with equal strength. Your foot should stay in place! Now that you don't have to worry about that wandering foot, tuck the tailbone towards the ground, lift the heart towards the sky and spread your arms wide and high, celebrating your newfound stability in vrksasana!

I have noticed in my own practice, and even more as I am now a teacher, there are certain poses that the ego likes to claim as mile markers, that we often find ourselves using to compare to other yogis or even just to judge ourselves. First, it really does no good to compare your self to anyone else. Your practice is just that. It's YOURS. Your body is differently shaped. You have unique talents as well as unique challenges. In addition, self-doubt and fear inhibits our practice even before we attempt that challenging pose or dare to go deeper into a familiar one.

My recent work on pincha mayurasna has prompted me to write a bit more deeply about inversions, because it can be so easy to get hung up on this class of poses and frustrate yourself when results don't happen immediately.

My very first time attempting headstand was terrifying. I had just started a session of yoga classes with a new teacher, and he talked us through it. I couldn't do it, and came up to the instructor after class, pretty much freaking out and scared I wasn't "good enough" to keep up with the class. He was confident that I was at the right level and encouraged me to stick with it.... and I did! I took a very long time for me to be able to get there, but I did eventually get the point where I could get up into headstand and hold it (and on a good day, I'm even graceful about it!)

Inversions can be very intimidating and really, more often it's the mental rather than the physical that is the challenge. So I present to you...

Inversion Mantras

• I am strong. If you're not sure about this, see your instructor. Most likely the answer will be yes, you are strong enough to hold your own weight in some way. We often doubt our own strength and it's a wonderful thing to realized your own power!
• I am light. This one is trickier. A fun thing to practice is to hang out in downward dog and kick your legs up, one at a time or together. Imagine your hips filling with helium and floating up rather than kicking with your feet. When your upside down, imagine a string pulling your tailbone towards the sky.
• It's OK to fall down. I have been known to do the following things when I wipe out: say "OOPS!", scream, crack up laughing. If I'm at home, I also occasionally build a fort of pillows and blankets to make me feel better about falling over because I'll at least have something soft to land on.

As for me, pincha mayurasana is coming along and I can kick up pretty consistently. I'm still working to find my balance in the pose, and I'm having a blast playing with this one!