Welcome to the Living Practice – October
2002
Editor’s Letter with Megan McCarver
Yoga Can Both Reduce and Increase
Distress By Sam Dworkis
Enhance Your Eyes Through Exercise!
Ujjayi Breath and Orcas by Richard Reiter
Healthy Habits by Megan McCarver
Music Review
A Note From YogaEverywhere
Yoga Classified
Past Issues of the Living Practice
Dear
Lovely viewers,
Last
week I had the pleasure to study four days in a row with a dynamic Iyengar
teacher, Gabriella Guibilaro. Gabriella teaching style is with precise
instruction delivered with pure love and joy. She was very valuable for my
personal practice and to my teaching skills. Here in sunny California, we live
in a yoga Mecca where great teachers come to share their wisdom and we do not
even have to travel half way around the world. What a blessing.
loving is being in love,
megan mccarver
Yoga Can Both Reduce and Increase
Distress By Sam Dworkis, MS, LMT
I recently read an article titled: “Body never forgets yoga
theory, but I forgot about the pain. ”It is one in a series written by Lisa
Pierot, a woman with breast cancer. There are two compelling aspects about the
article: Firstly, Lisa lives day-to-day with an illness that’s a “ticking time
bomb.” Secondly, in spite of her illness, she refuses to consider herself a
victim.
Lisa has a website www.themetastaticlife.com/ and in
it shares a weekly personal article. She says she doesn’t consider herself
courageous, but is just a survivor sharing her story. I think Lisa Pierot is
more. She is an inspiration.
Consider this: She is a woman who sees life’s fragility much
more clearly than most of us (and to personalize this thought...much more
clearly than I as a person with MS), and she refuses to allow illness to stop
her from living life to her fullest.
In any event, her article is about stumbling onto a yoga
book she used in college 25 years ago and describes her desire to reacquaint
herself with yoga’s many benefits. Back then, she mastered the book’s 28
exercises in as many days and lavished herself in yoga’s many rewards.
Thinking she could re-instill those wonderful feelings of
physical, emotional, and spiritual centeredness, she “tried” to again master
yoga as she did when she was younger, but soon discovered her body wouldn’t
cooperate. Instead, the harder she tried, the more she hurt herself and
unfortunately for the majority of us, this happens far too often.
I was particularly moved by some of her humorous comments;
for instance, “I am no quitter! I’m going the distance. I will get this if it
kills me, and I’m not ruling that out as a possibility."
Humor aside, I noticed that she is expressing an
underlying anger that the very same yoga she did in college is now failing her when she needs it the most. In fact, that very same desire and
motivation, which so strongly helps her cope with her illness, is working
against her yoga.
I’ve learned a great deal about yoga through my formal
education that includes anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology; and through both
my personal yoga practice and teaching. But to be honest, I’ve learned more
about how yoga works (and doesn’t work) through my own illness and ageing
process.
Of this I am clear; when our body is distressed, we
accelerate that distress when trying to improve ourselves through any physical activity, including yoga.
That is not to say we shouldn’t exercise. We must exercise if we want to
improve our health. But when distressed, we need to work more intelligently;
definitely not harder.
When we are ill or injured, exercise must be adjusted and
adapted in order to reduce stress;
not exacerbate it. After 27 years of studying the mechanisms of exercise, I
keep returning to yoga because when appropriately
practiced, yoga both maximizes our physical potential while at the same time,
yoga reduces our physical and emotional distress.
Sam Dworkis, MA, LMT, is author of ExTension (Simon & Schuster 1994) and Recovery Yoga (Random House 1997). He now teaches individuals and small groups in Wellington, FL and yoga seminars nationwide. Sam may be reached through his educational website: www.extensionyoga.com.
Enhance Your
Eyes Through Exercise!
Besides getting enough of sleep, you can do this simple exercise everyday to
keep your eyes bright, healthy and glowing.
The method: While lying down or in a sitting posture, place
your middle fingers between the brows, above the bridge of the nose. Place
your index fingers at the corners of your outer eye.
Squint the lower eyelid upwards and feel that eye muscle
pulse. Squint and release ten times, focusing on the pulsing each time you
squint.
Now hold the squint and squeeze your eyes tightly shut while
counting up to 40.Focus your mind on the outer eye muscle pulsing. Be sure to
keep eyes squeezed shut very tight as you count.
Don’t forget to open your eyes after counting!
The result: The muscle surrounding the eyes, which are
responsible for opening and closing, get thoroughly exercised.
Blood circulation in the eye area is enabled and this
facilitates the strengthening of the upper and lower eyelids.
Under-eye puffiness is reduced.
Under-eye hollows are uplifted
You’ll look wide-eyed and your eyes will sparkle!
The frequency: For best results do it twice in a day.
To rectify deep hollows or severe under-eye puffiness,
under-eye droop or to enlarge the eye socket, do the exercise twice in a day.
Note: Puffy eyes in the morning?
Just do your exercise twice. This will brighten your eyes instantly and banish
the look of fatigue.
Ujjayi
Breath and Orcas by Richard Reiter
We are floating in kayaks on the Johnstone Straight in Vancouver BC, and a pod
of Orca whales is heading towards us. PpppPOOOH !!! The sound is percussive and
powerful. You heard it first and turned your head to see the spray and the
tall black dorsal fin before the Orca swims below the water again. The
sound is so powerful that it echoes off the steep hills behind
us. PpppPOOOH !!! So much air going out (and in) in one strong sound.
As the first pod passes by, we hear more sounds echoing off the straights
coming towards us. And more! Suddenly we are in the midst of a rare gathering
as a large part of the resident community of Orcas swam north together. Fins,
tails and flashes of black and white danced before our eyes. We float
along for the next hour as more than a hundred Orcas swim past us out to the
ocean.
Yet what is truly captivating is the sound of their breathing. We are
surrounded by sound. It is behind us, in front of us, across the channels
and we can hear it all. PpppPOOOH !!! You can hear them close by, and
surprisingly far away too. Suddenly, there was so much sound we couldn¹t keep
track of them all. We just listen and turn to look at each passing pod.
PpppPOOOH !!! It is a hypnotic, powerful, rhythmic and meditative sound
that is exciting and relaxing.
As the group passed by, our guide turned the kayaks south to start paddling
again but we lingered, and listened, and breathed silently until we had heard
the last faint PpppPOOOH in the distance.
Richard Reiter wears a suit and tie and works for Bloomberg
News in New York City. He wanted to cut the soles off his shoes, sit in a
tree and learn how to play the flute. Instead, he treasures rare moments of
escape like paddling with the Orcas.
Healthy Habits by Megan McCarver
Hi YogaEverywhere viewers ... if you
have not already incorporated this in to you life style, try it for thirty days
and may it become a healthy "habit" you’ll want to keep!
It is our true nature to be rich with the treasures of
pleasures. Create your own "pleasure chest" by listing activities and
people that give you healthy pleasure. Now make a pleasure list of activities
and people that would give you pleasure if you had time to receive from them.
Let go and try to incorporate a few more treasures of pleasures into your
present life!
Megan is the founder and creator of www.YogaEverywhere.com.
She presently teaches privately to students in the LA area and is available to
teach yoga for corporate seminars. Her specialty is introducing people to the
yoga community in a gentle and kind fashion and working with the senior
spiritually matured population.
Music Review
Appropriate music during
your yoga practice should not demand your attention nor should it distract you
from your breath. Music to enhance your practice should stabilize your
attention and support your breath. Here is this month’s pick for your yoga
practice music collection.
Yoga on Sacred Ground is composed of seven tracks aimed to open and
stimulate the seven charkas of the listener. A blend of Eastern melody with Western
mind. Enjoyable for practice,
teaching and listening. Two thumbs up!
Name of CD : Yoga On Sacred Ground
By: Chinmaya Dunster