These are my notes from Day 2 of the Opposing Forces immersion with David Garrigues at The Shala in Fort Greene, NYC. Day 1 notes are here. This session was titled “Backbend Essentials.”
Note: Unfortunately I lost all the notes I took during the class due to a potential bug I found in the Things app on iOS, where I was quickly jotting things down. Frustrating but c’est la vie. The notes below are reconstructed from memory, a few hours after class.
We set ourselves up in plank, and then did simple head nods. The key here was to practice having the nose leading the way — by going out, up, and over. The drishti also follows this up and over arc. I imagined the nose making a crescent moon paintbrush motion, arcing softly yet decisively through the air.
In the upper spine, you want to feel a lengthening sensation, instead of any compression in the neck. For me, this meant being more conscious of my scapula and clavicle and how they were supporting the movement.
It was a good reminder that backbends exist on a spectrum. This is the foundation to master first.
Don’t add load to dysfunction!
David mentioned several times that the upper chest is what we want to open, specifically calling it the “armpit chest.” You do not want to flare the lower ribs, so keep the ribs knit. Allow the upper spine to lengthen and unlock instead. This subtle distinction changes the quality of every backbend.
Next we did urdhva mukha svanasana (upward-facing dog) where he proposed an alternate way to roll over the feet. Instead of moving the whole torso forward and using that to “flick” the grounded toes back, he suggested just “flicking” the toes back first while keeping the rest of the torso stable. That way when you come up for up dog, your arms maintain their straight vertical line.
I liked this modification, and I’ll continue doing this going forward.
Strong legs throughout, with a slight internal rotation or grounding quality. The legs really do hold everything together.
We practiced shalabhasana with a blanket placed under the psoas. Relaxing the psoas this way allowed the glutes to do more of the work and was a great way to bias the posterior chain.
David said this several times:
Poses are meant to be held more than just 5 seconds a day!
The Ashtanga vinyasa system can sometimes encourage constant flow in the sequencing. But these workshops reinforced that the real work happens when you stay and practice chunking and redoing transitions and poses.
In ustrasana, a few key cues:
We also worked through laghu vajrasana, dhanurasana, and urdhva dhanurasana — each one building on the principles above.
This was the insight that stuck with me most.
David said that Hatha yoga mastery is learning to ground the thighs and femur properly. I’ve come across this advice in the past, but it was nice to reinforce it in this workshop. This is a pulling down of the quad muscles back into the bone — sort of absorbed into the femur and hamstrings.
I’ll leave you with this quote from David.
It came after an attendee asked a question about wanting to modify the practice for her needs, and David replied in a very supportive and liberal way, contrary to the often dogmatic rigidity of certain other “modern” teachers (aka the “Ashtanga police”).
After the class laughed, almost with relief, at this permission to “break the rules”, David followed with:
You can do whatever you want… (pause) as long as you are willing to face the consequences.
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