embodiment etudes

We have moved up the body from the feet and pada bandha, the pelvic floor and mula bandha, the thoracic diaphragm and uddiyana bandha, the thoracic inlet, the shoulder diaphragm, the dome of the armpit and hasta bandha.  Now we begin to move into the neck and head.  Our next structure to explore is the horizontal doming structure of the vocal diaphragm in the larynx.

Gently find the thyroid cartilage in the front of your neck.  It is more commonly referred to as the Adam’s apple.  And then begin to make various sounds noticing what you feel in this area of your body.  Perform a series of stops or consonant sounds to feel the articulation of the vocal folds.  Now practice your ujjayi breath, allowing the vocal folds to softly hug the air as it passes through the trachea.  Be careful not to strain.  It really isn’t necessary for your neighbors to hear your yogic breath.

This is a complex little area of the body and I will admit my limited understanding.  For more anatomy of the vocal diaphragm and the thyroid and cricoid cartilages, view Ackland’s Video Atlas of Anatomy.

But for our purposes, there is a web of small muscles, referred to in the above diagram as the ventricular fold, that give you a right and left half of the dome.  Begin to feel the full 3-dimensional space of the dome of the throat and begin to align that dome over your other doming structures as you explore neck and head alignment in your poses.

A couple of poses in which it is very difficult to find head placement are triangle pose and half moon.  As you tilt your body into its side plain, feel the length from tail to head and keep the vocal diaphragm in relation to the thoracic inlet as you rotate it through space to look up at the hand.  This will become even more clear as we add the domes of the palate and cranium.

Happy practicing!