Skip to main content

🐱🐮 flying cat cow principles

4👑☸ → ☯🦍 → ⚔️🛡️ → 🐱🐮 flying cat cow  


Image result for cat cow yoga 

One of those is cat pose, the other is cow, I'm not sure which is which.


Image result for indian cow doing cow stretchImage result for indian cow doing cow stretchImage result for indian cow doing cow stretchImage result for cat stretch

Image result for cat stretch



video clips of basic cat/cow movement


https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PcC6DO3s7do2lfWHrjXYlzHdgOxZR5zK


The basic 🐱🐮 cat/cow principles

* too much tension: The way I see most people do it, there's too much tension and force getting into the pose.
* from my point of view, the basic cat cow, the way most people do it, is they move from one stiff tense posture, into another stiff tense posture, using force. If you watch a cat or tiger do the move, their bodies are much more loose, like a bag of water being stretched and reshaped, rather than a ball of stiff clay that needs great force to put into the posture.
* so the first big tip to get the most out of this move, don't try to muscle your way into maximizing the curvature of the spine to match the pictures of what flexible people are doing. Instead, close your eyes, gently flex your spine back and forth and let the curvature naturally increase as your body warms up, and over days, weeks, months, as you develop flexibility to increase the curvature without using force to make that stretch.

don't brush it off as a beginner move

Don't think just because you're an expert in yoga, flexibility, qigong, that the cat/cow move is only for beginners, or old people, or injured people recovering from severe back injuries. This is a great move as a warm up, as a basic body check to see the spine is in good working order before you do the more challenging advanced move you like to do. It's also something you can do without hands while on a long drive and your back is getting stiff and tired, etc.

why this move is great

* there's a reason most back physical therapy programs incorporate some version of cat/cow. It's safe and highly effective

* Before I do any challenging yoga pose, I'll do a quick cat/cow or something equivalent just to make sure all systems are go, everything is loosened up before getting into a deeper stretch. So in a sun salutation sequence, in between up dog and down dog, I'll often throw in some cat/cow improvisation.

* subtle medusa principle: using the cat cow off the rails version (see below), you can work in some subtle stretching and angles you don't hit if you stick to the conventional yoga playbook. 

first improvement: continuous flow

make it into a qigong gentle flow
* cat/cow flex: A much better way to do the cat/cow pose sequence, is to do it in a relaxed way, with multiple repetitions in a set. For example, flex between cat and cow pose 18 times, experimenting with how many breaths you hold each pose, maybe 10% of the time experimenting with a full stretch using some force like the conventional way the move is done. The other 90% of the time, focus more on passaddhi/pacification/relaxation, smoothness, flow, release of tension while doing the movement at various speeds.

second improvement: around the world

* don't just flex cat/cow forward/backward spinal movement. Do it side to side, and then hit all 360 degrees around the world.
* make circle movements with your hips and tailbone  as your doing these stretches to really open a whole world of stretches not in the basic cat/cow.


third improvement (advanced level): gorilla jazz improv

* while doing basic cat/cow flexing around the world,  incorporate other types of qigong movement like neck circling, turtle qigong neck and spine undulation. To give your spine an infinite variety of subtle stretches.

I'll make a video one of these days to demonstrate an example of this.


you can do 🐱🐮  in all postures


*including from cross leg sitting on floor such as

🧘🐢FLT

* sitting in a chair
* standing with hands free, you don't have to brace your hands on your thighs or back
* lying down. Like it's 2am, time to wake up, you're in the sleeping bag and its cold. Do 36 cycles of cat/cow to warm up.

why do I call it "flying" 🐱🐮?


Because I'm taking a simple basic idea, and turning it into a powerful principle that you can apply throughout the day in any posture, taking it off the rails of the limited basic, liberating it, letting you fly, letting you soar and accomplish much more in loosening the spine than you thought possible. With good spinal health, good health in general, good samadhi is possible. You can not have  good samadhi without a certain degree of spinal health. 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Advice to younger meditators on jhāna, sex, porn, masturbation

Someone asked: Is porn considered harmful sexual.activity? I don't have a sex life because I don't have a partner and I don't wish to engage in casual sex so I use porn to quench the biological urge to orgasm. I can't see that's it's harmful because nobody is being forced into it. The actors are all paid well and claim to enjoy it etc. The only harm I can see is that it's so accessible these days on smart devices and so children may access it but I believe that this is the parents responsibility to not allow unsupervised use of devices etc. Views? Frankk response: In another thread, you asked about pleasant sensations and jhāna.  I'm guessing you're young, so here's some important advice you won't get from suttas   if you're serious about jhāna.  (since monastics are already celibate by rule)   If you want to attain stable and higher jhānas,   celibacy and noble silence to the best of your ability are the feedstock and prerequiste to tha

illustration of Buddha Gotoma where he looks like a human being

Illustration by Bhikkhu Vimalo from a BPS postcard wishing a happy vesak   More images where Buddha looks human: https://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/2021/02/where-are-buddha-images-and-statues.html Buddha and Arahant images that look like real humans

1min. video: Dalai Lama kissing boy and asking him to suck his tongue

To give more context, this is a public event,  * everyone knows cameras are rolling  *  it's a room full of children * the boy's mom is standing off camera a few feet away watching all of this * the boy initiated contact, he had already had a hug with Dalai Lama earlier and then asked Dalai Lama for another hug which triggered this segment  17 min. video showing what happened before that 1 min. clip and after, with some explanation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT0qey5Ts78 16min talk from Ajahn Acalo with his thoughts on Dalai Lama kissing boy, relevance to Bhikkhu monastic code, sexual predators in religion in general, and how celibate monastics deal with sexual energy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK2m0TcUib0 The child's comments about the incident in a filmed interview later https://www.marca.com/en/lifestyle/world-news/2023/04/18/643eba5d46163ffc078b457c.html The child: It's a great experience It was amazing to meet His Holiness and I think it's a great ex