Yoga for a Healthy Lower Back (8 page)

I already mentioned that the hips are a major physical support point in your body, where the gravity that works on your upper body is transferred and distributed through your legs. This transfer of energy is deeply meaningful in the vocabulary of yoga practice, where it is called
apana vayu,
the downward, grounding energy of the lower abdomen, hips, and pelvic diaphragm.

This grounding, rooting action is the inherent nature of the energy of the sacrum and hips. It is the essential energy that connects you to the
earth, and it is responsible for the elimination of waste from your body (and yes, I mean physical as well as emotional or spiritual waste!).

The best way to illustrate the importance of hips to this core concept is to trace the path of a breath through the lens of energetic movement and thus explore the yogic concept of
vayu,
the Sanskrit word for “wind” or “flow.”

The yogic tradition explains the flow of energy in the body in this way: When you inhale, the energy of your chest, called
prana vayu,
expands and flows from your upper torso downward.
Prana vayu
can be translated as “the flow of subtle energy” in Sanskrit. You may recall that the word
prana
on its own refers to the universal, ever-present energy also referred to as “life force.” It flows from your upper chest to your lower chest, and then down into your abdomen and hips, all the way to your pelvic floor.

As you exhale, the flow of energy reverses its course. It turns upward and rises from your pelvis into your abdomen and chest. Though we all know that our breath physically leaves our bodies through our mouth and nostrils, energetically speaking, the flow of a pranic exhalation continues to travel up to the crown of the head, where it unites with the energy of the cosmos.

As you exhale and energy flows from the hips up into the chest, the prana and apana vayus meet and unite. When your exhalation pulls some of that apana vayu energy up from your hips and abdomen, your upper and lower bodies become energetically connected at your heart center, called the
Anahata Chakra
in Sanskrit. This means that as you breathe, you can open your heart and feel all that lives within it; you can be in touch with your emotions, understand them, and express them in positive, constructive ways.

But this union is difficult when the energy of either the prana vayu or the apana vayu doesn't flow properly. In that case, the flow of energy becomes blocked or stuck, and because your energetic body feeds your physical body, that blockage can leave you feeling tired, sluggish, generally out of sorts, or downright unwell. Thus, your hips, the home of apana vayu in your body, have a critical role in your overall health.

Thinking of your hips and pelvic bowl as the container that holds the energy of your apana vayu means that caring for those parts of your body is essential, not only for your hips' well-being but for the well-being of your whole self. It's like tending to a pot of beautiful roses. In order for the roses to bloom, the container has to be wide and strong enough to support and feed the roots, lest the roots choke and wither. The roots also need to grow
into soil that's treated with watchful and attentive care. If they don't, the plant becomes malnourished and depleted, failing to produce its gift of elegant and stunning blooms.

One of the most important purposes of practicing yoga postures and breath exercises is to tone and open the physical body, which helps bring about the optimum flow of energy between the upper and lower bodies. Then you create a free flow of energy throughout your body, a smooth and balanced exchange between the apana vayu and the prana vayu.

Envision yourself as the gardener of your hips and pelvis. Commit to fostering a vessel that is healthy and strong, ready to receive life force. Nurture the soil in your container, feeding it with the flow of prana, the nutrient the energetic body craves. The care you give your hips can produce seeds of wellness that will mature within your sacrum and the rest of your lower back. Let the strong roots of this energetic vine flow down through your hips and legs and ground you to the earth. Let its tendrils gently grow outward until they extend throughout your whole body. Then imagine them opening into full, beautiful blossoms of vitality and well-being in both your body and your mind.

Chakras: Your Energy Centers

I mentioned the Anahata chakra, or heart center, and its relationship to the flow of the prana and apana vayus. Now let's go deeper to examine how the chakras are another lens through which we can understand the central role of the hips in the health and wholeness of the body.

The yogic philosophical concept of chakras is that they are energy centers that dwell at specific points within your body (
illustration 6
). These are not physical points per se, though each occupies its own general physical region. A useful way to understand chakras is to think of them as centers of spiritual energy that distribute and balance prana, or life force, throughout your whole being. Like the physical areas in which they reside, chakras can be healthy or blocked, fluid or stiff, open or depleted.

Two of the seven main chakras are located in your hips and sacrum, where we will take the first steps on our healing journey (
illustration 7
).

The first chakra is the
Muladhara,
or root, chakra, which exists between the base of your spine at your tailbone and your genitalia. The energy of the Muladhara chakra is the energy that grounds you to the earth—the word
muladhara
can be translated as “foundation.” The concept
of “grounding to the earth” might be starting to sound familiar at this point. If so, good—that means you're understanding the theme of hips as a crucial center of health for your whole back, and in fact for your whole body.

When the Muladhara chakra is open and functioning at an optimal level, you feel secure and balanced within your body and mind; your roots are firmly connected to the earth, you feel secure that your basic needs will be met, and you feel confident in your ability to take action in your life. In yogic art renderings, this chakra is often represented by a yellow square surrounded by a vermilion-colored four-petaled lotus flower, a lovely reminder of your role as the “gardener” tending to your body.

Within this chakra lies the dormant energy called
Kundalini
(Sanskrit for “coiled one”), which is thought of as a sleeping serpent, your source of transformative, fundamental spiritual power. Awakening this chakra symbolically uncoils the serpent, allowing your spiritual power to rise through the rest of your chakras and bring you to a place of deeper, higher consciousness and connection. Throughout this book, we will continue to explore the concept of your Kundalini energy as we bring health all along its path, from its root to the top of your spine.

Illustration 6. The 7 Chakras

The second chakra is the
Svadhisthana Chakra,
or sacral chakra, and it is one of the most important focal points of our work in this chapter and throughout this book. The Svadhisthana chakra resides above the root of the genitals and below the navel, somewhere in your lower pelvic area forward of your sacrum. We will explore this chakra more fully in chapter 3, but it is worth introducing now because it is such a close cousin to our current focus, the hips.

The Svadhisthana chakra is the symbolic home of water in your body, an image I love as a statement of purpose for our work together: to create physical, energetic, and emotional fluidity throughout your sacrum, hips, lower back, and by extension, your whole body. But this fluidity starts with hip health, and it cannot come without the earthiness of well-grounded hips. A strong anchor through the base of your hips provides a secure and firm point from which to take action, from which to build smooth flexibility, strength, and litheness.

Illustration 7. The Muladhara and Svadhisthana Chakras

With this understanding, we can view the sacral chakra as a place of open-mindedness, mental freedom, and fluid creativity. A common visual image of the sacral chakra is an ocean-blue sphere with a yellow-gold crescent moon within its center, surrounded by a red six-petaled lotus flower. The image of the moon is a metaphorical reinforcement of this chakra's association with water; it is the source of what one writer calls “emotional tides.”
³

The relationship between the Muladhara and Svadhisthana chakras is a central one in your body's journey toward health. Just as the ocean tides ebb and flow over the surface of the earth, the fluidity of Svadhisthana continually swirls through the hips and around the sacrum with the support of earthy Muladhara. The stability of Muladhara is the platform over which Svadhisthana flows, while Svadhisthana's liquidity hydrates and nurtures Muladhara. It is a perfectly paired relationship that continually balances the respective qualities of stability and fluidity. Now, through breath and yoga practice, you will create and expand the balance between the strength you need to have stable hips and sacrum, and the fluidity you need as well for ease and comfort of movement.

Bandhas: Your Energy “Locks”

Bandha
means “bond” or “binding” in Sanskrit. In yoga practice, a bandha is a purposeful energetic lock in a specific part of the body that helps you hold in your body's energy, distribute it evenly, and link it all the way from the base of your hips to the crown of your head. It is not to be confused with an energy “block,” which is an obstacle to flow and health. To the contrary, a yogic “lock” is a subtle yet powerful containment of energy, one that frees your body to connect fully through all its parts.

There are three major bandhas:
Mula Bandha
(Root Lock),
Uddiyana Bandha
(Abdominal Lock), and
Jalandhara Bandha
(Chin Lock). You'll learn about Abdominal Lock in chapter 5 and Chin Lock in chapter 6. Right now I'll introduce Root Lock, a powerful source of energetic support for your body in your hips near the Muladhara chakra. (Do you recognize the Sanskrit term
mula
? It means “root” in the context of both chakras and bandhas.)

Physically speaking, when you practice Mula Bandha, you create a subtle contraction of the inner musculature at the pelvic floor and lower abdomen, which anchors the pelvis and supports the lower spine. It is an excellent way to develop inner strength in your pelvis and bring your spine into alignment.

You already know that Kundalini energy exists in the Muladhara (root) chakra, and that yoga practice awakens this fundamental spiritual power. Along with conscious deep breathing, Mula Bandha, or Root Lock, is a vehicle through which Kundalini awakens. The subtle contraction in Root Lock lifts the grounding energy of the Muladhara chakra into the Svadisthana (sacral) chakra, where it mixes with the fluidity of the hips and starts to rise up the central energetic channel of the spine, called the Sushumna (more on that in chapter 3). This contributes to the process we discussed earlier, that of uniting apana vayu (the energy of the lower body) with prana vayu (the energy of the upper body).

Root Lock is a powerful way to ignite your spiritual power, opening the path for that power to flow and evenly distribute itself throughout your body. I will reference it many times throughout this chapter, so please read on to get a good foundation in how to practice it.

How to Practice Root Lock (Mula Bandha)

Sit on the floor or in a chair, whichever is more comfortable for your lower back. Place your fingertips next to your hips and gently press them down to encourage your torso to lift up. Close your eyes and draw your mind down into your pelvis. Visualize your tailbone, pubic bone, and two sit bones as a diamond shape that forms the base of your pelvic bowl. You can refer to
illustration 2
for a refresher on the locations of these bones. Energetically draw your tailbone and your pubic bone toward each other, and where those actions meet, lift up toward your navel. Draw the area just below your navel back toward your spine, as if gently tugged by a string. Visualize where these two actions meet, and lift that point up toward your chest. You should feel your hips become firm, but not gripped or hard; visualize the clear, brilliant light of your diamond reaching up like a shaft of radiant energy, illuminating your inner body.