Living Yoga

A fun exercise for opening up those tight muscles behind the shoulder blades and building upper body strength.  Find a wall and do the L Shaped Handstand.

I’ve mentioned before how much my mental state and life has changed by meditating daily and can’t say enough about it.  I highly recommend trying it and you can begin with as little as five minutes a day.  To me, meditation is just as important as physical exercise.

Check out http://home.att.net/~meditation/MeditationHandbook.html for information, basics and techniques on beginning a meditation practice.

Also, check out the Meditation Station for 108 meditation techniques!

These links should get you started on your path to inner peace.  Gotta go meditate now.

Thank you www.gelisy.com/meditation.htm for the photo and more info on meditation.

If you’re expecting there’s no need to shelve your yoga practice and if you’ve never tried it, what a perfect time to begin!  Practicing yoga during pregnancy is a great way to prepare the body for labor with hip opening poses and deep breathing.  There are specific guidelines for moms-to-be and I highly recommend finding a prenatal yoga class if you’re new to yoga completely.  But if you have a regular practice and don’t have prenatal available to you, you can go to a beginner class and make some modifications.

These may be obvious tips, but I’ve had to remind pregnant women about these things in my classes:

-    Avoid lying down on your abdomen once you have a “bump.”  No on the stomach poses or chaturanga to upward dog.

-    Avoid closed spinal twists that twist towards the opposite leg.  Keep your twists on the open side, so in a regular class, you’ll most likely twist in the opposite direction of everyone else.

-    Keep the legs/feet wider apart in forward bends either on the floor or standing to avoid compressing your abdomen.  For example, during Sun Salutations your feet will be wider than hip width and you’ll step right back to downward dog with a wide stance.

-    Standing balances should be done next to a wall for comfort. Your balance will be off, especially in the later months, so be safe and have a wall within reach in case you tip forward.

-    No inversions except for legs-up-the-wall pose.  Really, no going upside down because the blood will flow AWAY from the womb.

-    Take more breaks than everyone else if you’re taking a regular yoga class.  Sit back on your heels in child’s pose and breathe to cool down.  It’s important to keep the womb and baby cooler even if you’re used to working out harder.

-    Avoid any heating breath exercises, for example, Breath of Fire or any kind of breath retention exercise.  Cooling breath exercises are great like Lion’s Breath.

-    Avoid deep backbending. A bridge pose is okay but deeper back bends like wheel pose and upward dog should generally be avoided.

And listen to your body.  If something doesn’t feel right while you’re pregnant, then it’s better to be safe than sorry.  Take this time to relax into a gentle, hip-opening yoga practice for a healthy mom and baby.

I wish a dollar could be deposited into my retirement account for every time someone said to me something that sounds close to this, “You know, I really have been wanting to try yoga but am just too scared to take a class.” It’s frustrating for me to hear now, who knows how many yoga classes and a teacher training later, but I do remember feeling that way myself in the beginning.

Good thing there are countless DVDs available so you can get the feel for yoga on your own before hitting a class with thirty students packed in a room. So here are a few beginner yoga DVDs that, although I haven’t seen them and can’t vouch for them personally, got overwhelmingly great reviews on Amazon.com.

Oh, and these covers don’t actually have beginner yoginis on them, so don’t freak out if your poses don’t look like theirs.

Yoga Journal’s: Beginning Yoga Step by Step Session 1-3 (3 DVD Set)

Yoga For Beginners (2006)

Just in case you thought you could say, “I’m just too big to do yoga. All those yoga people are thin.” Try the next DVD…

Yoga: Just My Size With Megan Garcia (2005)

I wish everybody would take yoga so they could get a deeper understanding and awareness of their breathing when exercising.  Of course, if it just isn’t your thing and you don’t want to, I can’t make you.  But if you aren’t going to take yoga and you’re one of those people I see panting and heaving while doing any form of cardio exercise, then please learn more about proper breathing technique so you can allow your body to relax and become stronger.  Putting unnecessary stress on the body by pushing so hard that you’re out of breath is counterproductive.  Exercise should feel good.

And your life should feel good.  This weekend, take a breath.  Whether you’re running, watching a flick at home or going out for drinks with the girls, take a deep breath and enjoy the moment in a weekend free of stress.

Thanks stottpilates.com for the photo.

I always thought the name was kind of silly but this Gate Pose is a wonderful side stretch for beginners or advanced practitioners.

Last Saturday I had a long day of standing without getting the opportunity for my daily yoga practice and come evening time I was beyond tired.  Yet my body was still craving my daily practice to release some tension from the day.  So I did a slow fifteen-minute, restorative and absolutely delicious sequence that went like this:

I began in Childs Pose (below) for about a minute and then made my way into Down Dog (below, 2nd pic) and took the time there to stretch out my legs and back.

Then I took a Pigeon Pose (below) on the right side for a few minutes.  Being that I wasn’t totally warmed up I didn’t go as deep as I normally would.  You can use props or blankets to support you here.

And then into a gentle Cow Face Pose (below) without the arm variation, just the forward bend, for another few minutes.  And then back to Down Dog.

I repeated the Pigeon and Cow Face hip openers on the left side.  Back to Down Dog.

Then it was time to lie down on my back (what I had been waiting for all day) and stretched my tight hamstrings using a strap, holding each side for a minute or so.

I closed with a supine spinal twist on each side and a Savasana (below, can be done w/o props, too).

If you’re pooped and your body is physically tired, some gentle stretches and resting postures are important for allowing your body and mind to unwind.  Try this sequence or make your own delicious mix!  For more detail about the postures, see Yoga Journal’s guide to yoga poses.

Thank you Yoga Journal.com for the photos that weren’t of me.

Obama’s historic win last Tuesday reminded me of my teacher training. A little over four years ago I was in the midst of my yoga teacher training when George W. Bush won his second presidential election. As a woman born and raised in a diverse California city, now living in NYC, an artist, actress, vegan, moderately feminist, and a yogini…there should be no doubt that I’m absolutely liberal. Most of us in that training were, too, and in a deep funk after learning that we’d have Bush and could expect war in Iraq for another four years. I was having a really hard time accepting it and wanted all the votes in the too-close-to-call red states recounted.

Our senior yoga instructor at the time, who had at least 20 years of yoga practice under her belt, was discussing with us how the practice of yoga has helped her to let go. Letting go as in not getting stressed about situations that are out of her control and continuing to live her life as she is meant to. She said, (and I’m going to seriously misquote her on this because I don’t remember her exact words but it was to the effect of) “For example, this President we have now. It is what it is. There is some higher force that guided him into office and there is some reason that he is to be our President right now. And it’s important to just accept that.”

On November 4th, 2008, as I was watching Obama’s first speech and shedding tears of joy I remembered what she said. And she was so right. Bush’s disappointing (for many) second win, the war, and the economic downturn inspired so many Americans to become passionate about voting in 2008, to elect a president that will make a positive change and to embrace the first African American president. Had John Kerry won in 2004, things would have turned out very differently last week and there was a positive conclusion to Bush’s eight years in the White House.

Whether you’re a yogini or not, sometimes all we can do is have faith that when something doesn’t go as planned and it is out of our control, to let go and accept that it is what it is. Trust that there will be and seek a positive result in the end that is ever guiding us towards peace. Namaste.

Thanks to libertyfilmfestival.com for the photo.

If you’re looking for a way to browse all the many yoga podcasts, both video and voice, available without having to search key words or navigate through recommended videos then look no more! Podcast.com makes viewing super easy by putting all yoga related podcasts available on one page at:

yoga.podcast.com

See which podcast have released recent episodes or just click on any title to see all episodes available and to subscribe. I had no idea there were so many yoga podcasts out there on such a wide variety of topics. And if you have a podcast, you can submit it directly to them as well.

Videos are a great way to begin a yoga practice if you’re shy about attending classes, that’s how I began. So check it out!

Namaste and enjoy!

Just a little nugget from The Secret Power of Yoga by Nischala Joy Devi to take with you into your weekend.

Sutra II.14 says:

“Karma bears fruits according to the type and quality of the seed planted, and the care given to its growth.”

This weekend, no matter what your plans, give each moment quality and care & may each seed you plant bear beautiful fruit.  Namaste.