Welcome to the Living Practice – March 2002

 

Yoga and Toning by Sam Dworkis, MS, LMT

Website Review by Dr. KEV

Yoga Therapeutics by Debbie Grossblatt

Tension Headaches delivered by Jillian Pransky

An Open Heart is the Soil Necessary for Growth by Steven Ott

March’s Pose contributed by Yoga Journal - Vrkasana

A Note From Yogaeverywhere

Yoga eVents for 2002

Past Issues of the Living Practice

 

Namaste Lovely Readers,

Time gracefully passes and even though my yoga practice enriches my life, there are still some days that continue to be a challenge. Like climbing mountains, for me the way up is as lovely as reaching the peak. However, coming down is where my practice lies. Usually I just jump, sometimes float with my eyes closed and then there are days when I am miraculously pushed, as I silently chant “trust trust trust” during my fall.

 

What I have recognized this month is the power of a descent. Forgiving into descent can teach us to ascend with ease. Like spring falls into winters hands, a child learning to walk or a handstand, Adho mukha vrksasana. Learning to land quietly and controlled allows us to recognize what links are used to ascend effortlessly. Try it!  Why not fall into gravity mindfully. Practice pay attention to falling and the feeling that rise. For example falling in love. Falling asleep. Falling into your entire body. Fortunately God gives us the opportunity to fall frequently through out the day. Perhaps with this new awareness, days become less challenging and more interesting. And remember for those who were raised with the nursery rhyme “Humpty Dumpty’, who needs a “shell” anyway!

 

With love and gratitude for your support,

Megan

 

Yoga and Toning by Sam Dworkis, MS, LMT

(Please share with your non-yoga practicing family and friends)

Approaching middle age and beyond affects our youth, vitality, and our firm and youthful-looking bodies.

As we age, skin loses its resilience and begins to wrinkle and sag. Before we know it, our face is affected; excess skin gathers around our bellies and on the backsides of our arms. It reminds us that if we don't do something soon, we'll look much older than we feel.

 Although cosmetic surgery can restore our youthful appearance, it cannot reverse ageing. We might look better, but it doesn't improve health. An argument can be made that improved appearance makes us "feel" better, but looking good is; well, only an illusion of good health. There is no substitute for actually being healthy.

Loss of body tone is a natural phenomenon of ageing and goes beyond making us look older. It impedes circulation and contributes to ill health. There are many ways to counter the loss of body tone and improve circulation. Most involve physical activities; such as running, jogging, racquet sports, swimming, gym workouts, and so on.

All are effective, yet not everyone wants to be outside during inclement weather or have gym or swimming pool access. But a principal impediment to maintaining a disciplined exercise program is that the older we become, the more difficult is to maintain a regular workout. The body resists and there is never enough time. It always seems like more we need to exercise, the harder it is. Yet in order for exercise to be effective, consistency over time is required.

When time is limited, we usually focus on one or two activities and tend to "just do it" without an appropriate warm-up or cool-down. In a best-case scenario, "just doing it" leads to boredom and a worse case scenario leads to injury. Although cross training is essential for maximizing physical health, we don't make time for engaging in multiple sporting activities much less take time for effective warming-up, and cooling-down. This is when yoga can be extremely valuable.

Not only is yoga a fabulous cross training tool for virtually all sports, it is in itself, a total fitness package encompassing hundreds of different exercises, both aerobic and non-aerobic.

Yet yoga goes well beyond athletics. Through its controlled and precise breathing; and through its strengthening, stretching, and endurance building exercises, your entire body is toned. Circulation is stimulated and the mind relaxes.

Yoga especially affects fascia, which is the "bag that holds your body together."  Fascia totally permeates your entire body. It encapsulates everything; muscles, organs, glands, nerves, and it is also the "fabric" that lies directly under your skin. When fascia loses resilience through ageing, it contributes to sagging skin.

An appropriate yoga practice therefore helps restore and maintain vibrance of fascia and improves overall circulation (these mechanisms are further explored in my website,  www.extensionyoga.com ). Therefore, when the fascia directly under your skin becomes more resilient, your overlying skin responds and likewise, appears more vibrant.

Sam Dworkis is author of ExTension (Simon & Schuster 1994) and Recovery Yoga (Random House 1998). He instructs individuals and small groups in Wellington, Florida, conducts yoga trainings nationwide, and may be reached through his educational website,  www.extensionyoga.com

 

Yoga Therapeutics by Debbie Grossblatt
I would like to share my experiences with you from a past teacher training intensive at the Kripalu Center in Lenox, Massachusetts. Valerie Kit Love, an occupational therapist and a very experienced Kripalu yoga teacher, was the instructor for the four-day workshop called "The Anatomy of Movement "(i.e., the biomechanics of yoga). We were fortunate to have two additional teachers, one a trained physical therapist and the other a chiropractor (both were experienced yogis).

 

So you can imagine that there was much discussion about joints, bones and muscles and how they work to facilitate movement in practicing yoga. We learned that the safety of the student comes first and that striving to perform picture perfect postures as seen in books and on videotapes by STAR yogis and yoginis is not what yoga is about.

Valerie told us many times, "When in doubt about the safety of a certain posture for a student, just don't do it." We learned how important it is for a teacher to understand traditional biomechanical placement and the actions that encourage proper postural alignment and the necessity to transmit this information during a class. Valerie indicated that many teachers may be teaching without providing a basic understanding of why and how postures work and because of this students are doing the postures without an awareness of what is actually happening to improve their physical well being.

Over the past decade I have tried to determine what is it about yoga that makes it so good for so many people. Valerie provided me with a very sensible answer. She explained that as we move our muscles over a period of time, little adhesions form. Yoga acts as a self-Rolfing technique allowing the fibers of the muscles to slide pass each other ultimately improving the
glide of tight fibers so that they become free and open allowing oxygen-carrying blood to penetrate and nourish the cells. This could be one of the most important therapeutic benefits of yoga that students can experience as they practice the postures.

In my five years of teaching classes, numerous students have asked me about how to release a tight low back and how to get those "tight muscle fibers" to stretch and open. Luckily a number of us asked this same question. Valerie replied that the root of this problem could be very tight gluteus maximus muscles, a.k.a. as the buttocks, and that Westerners have this problem because we hold our hips rigid when we walk. She recommended practicing the child and pigeon postures to help release the gluteus maximus and increase flexibility of the low back.

 

Since child's is very simple to perform and the pigeon is not, I will provide a description of how to do the child's. First, kneel on the mat on your shins. Then stretch the upper body forward and rest the forehead on the mat. Place the arms on the floor along side your head with the palms down. Relax and breathe deeply through the nostrils. Turn your face to one side and rest on your cheek if you like.

Hold for at least 30 seconds and rise up and repeat. Do this least three times lengthening the time until you can hold the posture about one minute. To reap the benefits of this posture you must practice it on a regular basis until you can feel the release of the tight areas of the low back.

Valerie also stressed synchronizing the breath with each posture to ensure sufficient oxygen flow and increased energy (prana) to the body. So next time you do an asana/posture - think about your breath, inhale deeply through your nostrils expanding your diaphragm and exhale twice as long when releasing the posture. Take a few seconds and notice how you feel. Create awareness for yourself every time you do an asana and notice where you feel the stretch and the creation of inner space and peace. This is the essence of yoga therapy for all to enjoy. Namaste! Debbie

 

Debbie has studied yoga since 1991and is affiliated with Susquehanna Health and Wellness in Timonium, Md. She graduated from the Integrative Yoga Therapy teacher training in 1997 and interned with two local nursing homes and the International Association of Yoga Therapists in San Francisco. Her classes focus on precise biomechanical alignment, increased strength and awareness as well as the management of stress.

 

An Open Heart is the Soil Necessary for Growth by Steven Ott
The emergent values of a spiritual person living from an open heart are service, sacrifice, and surrender. They are at once, values that we must aspire to, and values that we must hold onto in the face of adversity, even when we may not quite understand them. We can intellectually understand the values of service, sacrifice, and surrender, but to truly understand them we must experience them. And when we experience them we come to understand that they are in fact not what we thought they were.

These values threaten our core understanding and force us to deeply change. Persons that are truly growing spiritually are by nature constantly facing their own assumptions about themselves and the life around them. If they are truly doing their inner practice then the awakening of deeper spiritual insights are consistently challenging their understanding of the world, requiring a continual re-definition of their values, without every compromising on their true essence.

These three spiritual values actually correspond to stages of growth. While each one is more predominant in different stages, they are all in operation at all times.

During the initial stages of our spiritual development it is very important to focus on bringing our attention, our intention, and our effort inside. We work to develop our awareness of our inner self. But since the world is non-dualistic we must also extend that energy into the world. We do that by service - doing for others and opening to life as we find it. The willingness to serve carries us beyond the patterns that we are accustomed to and tests our values.

As we become stabilized in our own center our internal efforts shifts-from a focus on doing a practice to a focus on offering ourselves into the process of transformation, from inside out. This requires sacrifice. Sacrifices of our own will to the will of the Divine - our life becomes an act of devotion. Like the process of tempering steel to give it strength, sacrifice deeply solidifies our values.

In the more advanced stages of our development we become immersed in the flow of creative energy, surrendering ourselves to further its unfoldment. You become an observer of the universe expressing itself. The true value that is being expressed here is that we live and work in the world from a deep internal state of surrender, without exception. We live in unconditional surrender.

Once You Have It, You Want to Give it Away

Service, sacrifice, and surrender are all about giving. So you could say that giving is truly the fundamental core value of a spiritual person. In giving, we are not diminished-in fact we become whole and full of love. In giving we live from the heart of the divine.

Steven Ott resides and teaches in Berkeley, CA. A practitioner and teacher of Trika Yoga/Kundalini Yoga for thirty years,  he studied under Swami Chetanananda and also studied directly with Swami Rudrananda for several years before his passing. Steven was initiated as a teacher in 1972. The practice here is an ancient tantric work that allows each experience Kundalini, the energy or life or the divine. (510) 486-1966.