Skip to main content

sitting: yoga wedge and elevating spine


In contrast to the zabuton problem (see sitting posture: better off without zabuton, the p...), which decreases the desirable 90deg, if you're lacking in flexibility you want to go the other direction to relieve work and strain on core and lower back, which is to increase the angle from 90.

#1 the best, the simplest, cheapest, and most versatile way to accomplish this is sitting on a folded blanket. You can control the height and dimensions easily.

#2.: a yoga wedge, a 10$ piece of equipment works really well.  The improvement it offers over #1, is that it smoothes out, reduces and nearly elimnates the pressure points excerted on your legs,  created in the transition point between blanket and floor. 


I bought 3 different brand wedges from walmart.com, have tried it out for about a month now. I don't need a wedge if I'm warmed up, spine is loose, legs and hips are soft and loose, but on cold days, or if I'm doing a really long sit and my spine starts to get tired, then I'll slip in a wedge for the low vertebrae spinal support.

You can see the dimensions and weight of the wedges here:
https://www.walmart.com/search/?cat_id=0&query=yoga+wedge

I bought the gaiam foam (2in high), hugger mugger foam (2in high), hugger mugger cork (1in high).

Gaiam and hugger mugger foam are almost exactly the same dimensions, both made in taiwan, for all we know maybe even the same exact thing. Probably not eco friendly material, but it is very light, and more comfortable to sit on than the harder cork.

But the cork wedge, what's nice about it is it's real natural material, porous insulating material, so it's breathable, warm air gets trapped inside. Downside is it's a lot heavier than the foam if you plan to transport it around frequently, and cork is easy to break and chip away (already accidentally chipped a fragment off the corner).

Hugger Mugger Cork Yoga Wedge cork, 1in high 
Hugger Mugger Foam Yoga Wedge hugger mugger foam (2in high)


Comments

  1. Very Very Informative Blog..!!! Keep Writing and Sharing The Amazing Content

    Best Yoga Foam Wedges

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

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

SN 48.40 Ven. Thanissaro comments on Ven. Sunyo's analysis

This was Ven. Sunyo's analysis of SN 48.40: https://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/2024/05/exciting-news-honest-ebt-scholars-like.html And here is Ven. Thanissaro's response to that analysis: I think there’s a better way to tackle the issue of SN 48:40 than by appealing to the oldest layers of commentarial literature. That way is to point out that SN 48:40, as we have it, doesn’t pass the test in DN 16 for determining what’s genuine Dhamma and what’s not. There the standard is, not the authority of the person who’s claiming to report the Buddha’s teachings, but whether the teachings he’s reporting are actually in accordance with the principles of the Dhamma that you know. So the simple fact that those who have passed the Buddha’s teachings down to us say that a particular passage is what the Buddha actually taught is not sufficient grounds for accepting it. In the case of the jhānas—the point at issue here— we have to take as our guide the standard formula for the jhānas, a

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