Exciting personal news: I believe I may have located my “sit bones”! The yoga instructor kept mentioning them, and until recently I thought that was her special word for “butt”—but, unless I am still mistaken but in a different way this time, I think I have discovered what she means, and it is Not Quite the butt! Or, like, it’s the butt, but not the way I would usually sit on my butt. And the reason it’s exciting is that it is a small development that makes some yoga stuff easier / work better, including sitting cross-legged, which I still can’t do easily, comfortably, or for long, but can do noticeably more easily, more comfortably, and longer with practice and WITH LOCATING (I think) MY SIT BONES! Or at least being in the NEIGHBORHOOD of my sit bones!
I have discovered that I don’t like anything the instructor refers to as “flow.” It seems to mean “doing the same set of poses over and over again, but too fast for me, so that I feel upset and frustrated and left behind, and also as if I am not doing ANY of the poses correctly, and also it’s boring.” I can see how, in the future, if later on I can do the poses easily and rapidly, it might feel meditative and nice to do them in a loop like that, but that is not where I am now. Right now I want to take plenty of time to get arranged in a position and do all the little adjustments to make it as right as I can make it, and then I want to stay there for awhile and “breathe into the upper back” or “feel that generous stretch in the trap” or whatever (don’t tell me what a “trap” is: I’m trying to learn from context, as with sit bones). Today I stopped a video halfway because we were doing a cobra-plank-downward-dog-lunge loop that was making me feel yucky and unhappy, and I switched to something for the neck and shoulders, which was really nice until she shared that someone she knows says that neck pain comes from “not seeing both sides of the situation.” Sigh.
The “flow” is part of surya namaskar (sun salutation). You can skip anything you want to skip, of course, but if you’re curious the “flow” part she’s talking about is high plank/low plank/up dog/down dog. It’s part of the sun salutation series, sometimes shortened to “flow” :)
My yoga teacher uses flow any time we are moving through a sequence of poses with one flowing right in to the next, not just the sun salutation flow. I was curious if that was her quirk after reading your comment, so I asked Google. Yogapedia seems to confirm her use of it.
Flow can also be used to describe vinyasa yoga (vinyasa means “to place in a certain way”) which is often shortened to “flow yoga.” It can also indicate flowing from one standing pose to the next, guided by breath. Some yoga teachers describe their classes as simply “flow.” Many use “flow through your vinyasa” yo mean the part of the sun salutation series I mentioned. That was too much information, I realize now 🤣
That sounds different than the thing I stopped doing today: the one I was doing today included cobra and some lunges, and only one kind of plank, and the two kinds of dog were downward and three-legged.
I do that neck video frequently (the routine itself is very helpful!) and that line about not seeing both sides of the situation annoys me every time. No, actually, my neck pain stems either from being super stressed and busy at work, or from sleeping funny on it. Or maybe both, because I’m over 40, so save the woo, Adrienne.
The threat of woo is what has so far prevented me from attempting yoga at all. I am staunchly anti-woo.
Same, same. I love that video–it’s the one sure fix for the particular pain I get between my shoulder blades and neck–but I always stop the video before that sentence because it makes me hate her. That’s the benefit of doing the same videos over and over…I can skip the annoying bits.
I hear you that you’re trying to learn from context, but a quick review of the skeletal and muscular system was very helpful when I was new to yoga. It was a lot easier to figure whether I had the posture correct when I knew the words she was using. (Sitz bones is an actual anatomical term, for instance.)
IT IS SITZ BONES AND NOT SIT BONES!??! ::mind blown emoji::
I also don’t like the quick flows. My favorite yoga is yin yoga- holding the poses for longer stretches the muscles differently and feels amazing.
Ooh, you might like hatha yoga, which involves a lot of long holds rather than quick flows. Maybe try searching for videos with “hatha” in the title?
I second this. Also, hatha focuses pretty intensely on correct form so it can be very beginner friendly because there are lots of helpful cues.
I just hang out in Down Dog or Plank pose while Adrienne does the “flow” and I’ve been doing it with her for 18 months or so – I don’t really see myself ever getting to the flow. But everything else feels pretty great so I try not to get grumpy about it. :)
Bikers talk a lot about sit bones- they’re what should be on the bike seat, not the squishy butt part. If you really want to find them, pretend you want to buy a bike and get a professional “bike fitting”! (Don’t do this, you’ll feel very awkward and anxious and won’t enjoy it. But.)
I’m actually glad you mentioned this. I have been doing yoga forever (lots of Adrienne) and usually *think* I’m sitting properly but with a little googling this morning, it looks like I may not have really been on the sit/Sitz bones properly! The More You Know! Thx!
So I do Pilates rather than yoga at the moment but in the videos I use, flow seems to be what you describe, a series of flowing movements from one step to the next. Which on the one hand, I quite enjoy because it keeps my heart rate up, but on the other, like you I sometimes need more time to make sure my foot spacing is right or I’ve got my balance, and then I get wobbly and stressed. There’s one particular bit with a lunge that then moves into a one legged-stick-the-other-leg behind you and lean forward thing where I just end up falling over repeatedly. It is not my finest hour! And my balance isn’t terrible generally, but the speed of it and wanting my knees in the right position for the lunge part messes with me every time.
But in general I find the repetition stuff good for abs and flutes, really hard for lunges and balances.
Glutes! Not flutes! Arghhhh autocorrect
I knew what you meant, and could have sneaked in and edited the comment—but FLUTES is so delightful there. GOOD FOR ABS AND FLUTES!! I love it so much.
And now for another embarrassing confession: the first and only time I’ve consistently done yoga it was with an instructor with a very heavy accent and for months MONTHS I thought she was saying “hip bones” every time she was saying “sitz bones” and I was so friggin confused. Just mystified how my hip bones were even remotely related to the moves in which they were mentioned.
This makes me really wish I knew you in real life because the yoga class I take sounds like it’s exactly the type of class you would enjoy. It’s so exciting when something the instructor says finally clicks. I remember one of my first practices my teacher told me I should feel my hips pulling in and I was like “uhhhh…my hips don’t do that” she just laughed and told me not to worry about it and just “feel” the pose,etc. A few classes later I found myself pulling my hips in and literally blurt out in class “oh my god I can feel my hips pulling in!” Gotta love mind-body connection.
On a completely unrelated note I recently started taking a wheel-throwing pottery class. I went back and read your old posts about your experience because I remembered lots of people had good tips when you were struggling and I wanted to go in with that knowledge. As usual the comments were so helpful and I am really enjoying the class – even though I am definitely not good. However I had completely forgotten that Paul took one class and threw THREE nice pieces. Are you kidding me?!?! My first class I could barely center and managed to “make” a very ugly and thick cylinder. So I just wanted to declare my annoyance at him with his natural ability several years late.
I STILL HAVE NOT REALLY FORGIVEN HIM
I have done yoga off and on for years and am very familiar with the term “sit bones” or “sitz bones”, but I can’t really feel myself sitting on them, and it wasn’t until I was reading about how to properly size a bicycle saddle that I found out exactly what they are (the two bumps at the bottom of your pelvis) and how to locate them. Here’s a link with a diagram and measuring method: https://blog.bikefit.com/sit-bones-width-measurement-and-bike-saddle-selection/