I recall one time before yoga classes when Chona and I were chatting. I commented how is it that she is able to sit with soles together and manage to get her knees to the floor in the Bound Angle Pose and the Cobbler with head to floor while I can only manage it several inches off the floor.

Chona gave it some thought and replied that it was probably because she was often sitting on the floor in this position in her younger days at her lola’s.

I never forgot that comment and it has made me conscious that now with my office work, I am almost always seated on a chair for hours on end. And it was not just seating on chairs. Even visits to the bathroom meant sitting on a Western-style toilet. Everything was OFF THE FLOOR!

Then I came across this Yoga Journal newsletter that stated: “People living in floor cultures have more supple joints and stronger backs, not to mention far better posture.” The article recommends spending more time on the floor — squatting, kneeling or sitting — and over time, it will make one’s joints loose enough to improve one’s yoga practice.

An article by Andreas Kluth, “Ditch Your Chair” reinforces the benefits of floor sitting. She observed that it was on her tour of duty in Asia that she noted how supple Asian women were as they went about their work from the floor. Wait a minute…I’m Asian and I live in Asia. But everything around us has been so Westernized that we forgot we came from a floor culture!

Here is a part of Andreas’ article:

“Whenever I sat down with people on the floor in Asia, the differences between my creaky Western body and theirs became evident within minutes. First I got fidgety. Then I started writhing. My discomfort perplexed and entertained entire villages. By living in a floor culture, they had kept their joints supple and their backs strong. By comparison, my leg joints felt like cement, and my back—though toned superficially from gyms and sports—was limp. I had all the telltale signs of being a chair-sitter: tight hip flexors and rotators, a flattened lower back, and weak abs.

I got sufficiently annoyed to change all of this only after I started practicing Ashtanga Yoga. It irritated me that I couldn’t get into Padmasana and its fun and inspiring variations in the primary series. So I asked my teacher what to do. He told me to bid chairs farewell and to sit on the floor in postures familiar to students of Paul Grilley’s Yin Yoga, such as Pigeon, Double Pigeon, and Half Lotus.

From then on, I spent at least an hour every day on the floor. Progress was measurable only by the month, but my connective tissue slowly relented. As it became easier to hold a pose for a long time, I would start holding it even longer. Soon I was working from the floor all day. To her credit, my assistant got over the initial shock and soon enjoyed this liberating eccentricity. Since I was not putting my full awareness into my breath, I did not call my new habit “yoga.” But it was making me flexible.

Within five months, I was in Padmasana. Moreover, my practice has become more fulfilling, my joints have softened, and my back has gotten stronger. The experience has left me more patient with my body and also more determined. Last July, I left Asia to open a new office in California. It consists of two tatami mats and no chairs.”

This was enough for me!!!

Lately, I have been reading newspapers from my bedroom floor either with legs in Wide-Angle Seated Forward Bend or in Hero Pose.

 

…and I intend to do more reading and activities from the floor.

See you there! And watch those hip flexors and joints open up!