Archive for the ‘Yoga Blog’ Category
yoga “undoing”
Leahm on 4:12 pm April 16th, 2010 / 3 Comments »
Cool–definitely excited to be blogging on the Boundless site. I’ve long wanted to chat with others about a question that has nagged at me since I began the teacher training program. I was a pretty avid exerciser before I began the program–gym, running, soccer, whatever. Mostly in the name of liking to eat/not wanting to get fat. (Also because of health, but…) Anyhoo, once I started the program, I had much less time to work out. Which leads me back to the liking to eat/worried about the pound-packing…’cause I’m just not as disciplined as Mr. Iyengar says I should be. (in fact, i have to blog at some point about my “anger” at being told what to do/not to do when it comes to eating/lifestyle.) The dilemma goes further, however, because even if I do exercise outside the studio, I often feel guilty about it–that is, I feel like I’m “undoing” all the yoga–making my muscles short and squat, tightening up what I’ve worked so hard to loosen and lengthen. What do others think/do?
OK, so today I got up and I am so uninspired. I don’t want to do any yoga. I don’t want to get on the mat. I don’t want to study for the teacher training course. I just don’t. I’ve been in this place before, and I imagine many others have as well. Sometimes there is this resistance. So what to do?
Sometimes it works just to get on the matt and start going through the poses. At some point, something usually clicks and the mental and physical states begin to align and I get back into my practice. But sometimes, like today, that doesn’t happen. In fact, I am writing this now after coming “off the mat” and as a means of avoiding asana! So then what?
Something I learned a long time ago that has been a tool that has been handy is to “act as if.” What does that mean? That means that even when I don’t feel like it, I acknowledge my feelings, maybe check in to see if there is something the feelings are telling me that I need to pay attention to, and then go ahead and ‘act as if’ everything were “normal” and do what I have to do anyway. This applies to yoga, to work, to being kind, to everything in life. Some days, I am angry or upset, but I try to ‘act as if’ with others, so I am treating them well, not taking something out on them or using them as a sounding board so I can dump my stuff. Sure, there are those days when I might just laze around on the couch all day or indulge myself in some other way. But ‘but acting as if’ can help me keep a one time occurance from becoming a habit.
So, even writing this blog is ‘acting as if’ because I made a commitment to the teacher training, my practice and to Boundless to do this once a week. So I’m going to post this and get back to the mat!
Of course mindfulness save time
kim on 1:05 pm April 16th, 2010 / Be the first to comment! »
I hope you like this!
A pain in the skull
kim on 3:25 pm April 14th, 2010 / Be the first to comment! »
So I was moving quickly from unshowered to showered to kissing baby to feeling guilty that I’m leaving at all, to the car to Connecticut Avenue where I hit a wall of traffic at 10:02 am. I was already late for the yoga class I take on Wednesday mornings, with this woman who should have droves of people studying with her, and I suddenly realized that it was more yogic to slow down and not go to class.
Before I realized all the other things I could fill with my time, e.g., post this blog, return some overdue calls and emails, and spend some quiet time alone thinking about the move Boundless is about to make, I felt a release of tension in the back of my skull. My whole body felt so much better at the decision not to race into class — to hurry up and relax, of all things. I also felt both my eyes relax back into the head, and, of course, those lovely “should”-ers, the shoulders, soften.
Of course it’s possibly a bad business decision to post this fact on my business’s website, but sometimes going to yoga class is less yogic than going to yoga class. The body never lies, so check in always and it will tell you the truth.
Lori’s Advanced Sequence 4/11
kim on 4:29 pm April 13th, 2010 / Be the first to comment! »
So this is how we’re doing advanced asana classes now. Following is the sequence Lori taught Sunday, 4/11. It will inform my Thursday, 4/15 class, and Saturday, 4/17 class. I am still working out screen shots: Please note savasana followed halasana. Click the image below to enlarge.
Desk Jockey Spine Straightening, 1
kim on 12:54 am March 31st, 2010 / Be the first to comment! »
A friend, John, asked me over the weekend what to do about the pain in his low back. This happens often, because so many people have back pain. John’s problems come from years of sitting slouched in school and work chairs. And all the other chairs. Different from Angela’s back, John’s back is seized up and tight in his quadratus lumborum, which is extremely common for guys.
Following are literally the A, B, and C of the problem, and the two things John can do — five minutes a day! — to alleviate or remove the pain in his back.
A: The low back and butt have become one. The above-mentioned quadratus muscles become weak and tight, and as they are the hamstrings of the back, they tighten all the way to the backs of the knees. Think of how you look sitting in a chair (better yet, feel it).
B: The low belly and inner groins are dropping away from the spine. Everyone who owns a chair deals with this. The belly organs need to lift away from the pelvis via the abdominals and better action in the thigh bones: We need to stand through the pelvis, on the legs. What we do today is collapse into the pelvis and on to — almost all of us.
C. The outer hips/thighs grip to try and bring the belly and groins back in. This area is also to a degree an extension of the low back and butt. However, the body is very intelligent as it seeks to solve its own problems before it tries to get your attention. In this case, the outer hips/thighs are gripping in an attempt to make the abdominals engage so that the belly and groins move back into the body.
All desk jockeys need to do #1 and #2 to lengthen their spine and feel better in their back and posture overall. Five minutes a day, with conscious breathing, and a regular class with a well-educated yoga teacher is all it takes.
for weak and/or injured backs (for angela)
kim on 3:51 pm March 29th, 2010 / 1 Comment »
A bright new student of Boundless recently asked me what to do about her back problems. A few years ago, she injured her back and has “babied it,” which has led her to become weak in her the core and tight at the site of the injury and around it.
Angela is not that different from more than 90% of Americans. With a tight back and weak core, her problem is exacerbated every time she sits down in any chair or seat — as long as she sits without thinking about what she’s learning in yoga class.
I told her I’d post a few stick-figure shapes to help guide a 10-15 minute practice at home a few times a week. This work, coupled with regular yoga class attendance (twice or three times a week ideal), is the best investment anyone can make in the healthy longevity of their spine.
Here they are:
slow lane
kim on 1:48 pm March 10th, 2010 / 1 Comment »
In a previous post I suggested a couple of after-swim poses, which I did again yesterday, and which felt great again.
Yesterday, after an all-night bender with the daughter, I was exhausted and honestly interested in splashing around in the pool instead of trying to keep up in the Medium Lane. (That organization, by the way, seems to keep people sane in an East Coast Pool. Otherwise, Grandpa with the snorkel isn’t in the way of Type-A-even-in-water-Guy lapping everybody in .5 seconds).
So it was Grandpa and me. He, with the snorkel and flippers, and me, with the bags under my eyes and a kickboard. This Pitta woman has a hard time slowing it down, and later, in yoga class as my teacher instructed this pose and this pose and this pose, I was, again, in the slow lane.
I am slowing down, of course, because I just had baby, and the first of the problems in a postpartum body is a weak core. Add bouncing baby 10+ hours a day, and you’ve got a tight neck and shoulders, and often, low back pain.
These physical issues, though, sound like a lot of America. So it occurred to me yesterday, as I observed the others — from pool to yoga classroom — speeding past me and creating shapes beyond me, that there are advantages to slowing down and looking around.
Slowing down gives you the opportunity to create a reality with (probably, but not always) more intention, and in the asana (pose) context, it gives you the chance to observe more deeply what what’s really happening in your body. To be sure, John Schumacher was instructing poses deliberately and slowly, and most of the class had few problems manifesting his information. But what worked for me in class, especially, was watching the others make these shapes based on his instructions, and to imagine that information ultimately making its way into my body.
I will find these shapes soon by taking it slowly. You will, too.
why to stay on the ground during your period
kim on 1:59 pm March 5th, 2010 / 2 Comments »
Often, female students ask why they shouldn’t invert during their period, i.e., why they can’t do headstand, handstand and shoulderstand.
The flow leaving the body during this time of the month is in part expelled by the body, in part pulled by gravity. To turn that process upside down is to interfere with nature.
The subtler reason not to turn upside down is that menstruation is a time to turn inside. Ever since I read this book, I’ve believed that women best serve their bodies by slowing down during the first few days of their period, and by staying internally focused during the week of expulsion. This means: sleeping more, drinking caffeine and alcohol less or not at all; drinking more water; sitting home on the couch instead of going out (dancing, for example); eating comfort foods; etc. We benefit by listening to the inner body, which is hard at work getting rid of toxins and experiencing loss–a typically welcome loss, to be sure.
I should have known I was not suited for Wall Street when I started advocating then to my friends about taking a rest during this time. They thought I was crazy. My suggestion was–and still is– that women all be given one day off a month, to work from home, call in sick, cancel travel and meetings, and generally truncate anything that would involve external focus and effort. I believe sincerely that women would have fewer PMS symptoms, have easier menstrual flow, conceive babies more easily, and eventually understand their bodies so well that menopause would not be the “terror” that it is believed by many to be.
So. We can start in yoga class by being honest about our cycle, observe the temptation to do what “everyone” else is doing (remembering, of course, that all asanas, especially and including all the inversions, were designed by and for men), alert the teacher to the fact of our menstruation, and rest in one of these three poses. There are loads of others, but these in particular enhance flow, settle the mind, and allow us to examine more deeply the all powerful abdominal breath.
If you have questions, ask them here or come to my classes and ask.
