KonaYoga.com

Understanding Movement

"There is a great difference between knowing and understanding; you can know a lot about something and not really understand it." - Charles Kettering

The Anatomy of Movement by Blandine Calais-Germaine, was one of the first books I bought when I started taking yoga classes.  I'd study the meticulous drawings and slowly etch the actions that my body was designed to perform, in my mind.  

Some movements were easy and those that involved my hip joints were baffling. It has taken years of practice for parts of my body to comprehend what my eyes first read. I can't stop now, though. All parts of me are progressing; I think I read that somewhere.

 

 

 Image: buechi , iPhone 4S

 

Related articles

Sparks of Divinity

Yoga Books

I attended Steve Salkin's workshop on shoulders this past Sunday at Big Island Yoga Center and really enjoyed it. We went through a long list of stretches and techniques to address the muscles in and around the shoulder girdle.  If you'd like to receive notice of his next class in Kona, sign up for notices through the BIYC website.

One of the things that has always caught my eye there, is the collection of books on yoga that are for sale. It has to be the best on the island. They have always maintained a wide selection, even better than what Borders used to carry. 

A good time to go take a look would either be a few minutes before or after a class. Check their schedule and maybe you'll find a class or two. There's even a free class the first Sunday of every month.

Related articles

Yoga's Caution

Three Simple Things

Take It Off Hawaii

Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.

-Jim Rohn

"Take It Off Hawaii" is getting ready to launch this year's ten-week challenge. Between September 6 and November 10, participants will have the chance to rack up Lifestyle points by creating healthy habits in eating, exercise and stress reduction.

Teams of 4 to 10 participants will begin the challenge by registering their starting weight and blood pressure. Team members will then be able to earn points based on a pre-determined list of "good" lifestyle habits such as eating a minimum of 5 vegetable and fruit servings per day (1 point) and taking 10,000 steps (5 miles) per day (2 points). For the complete list, see Lifestyle Points.

"Last year, more than 1,000 pounds were shed by the participants of Take It Off Hawai'i," said Robin Mullin, executive director, Five Mountains Hawai'i," but there are many other benefits that "outweigh" the weight loss. Participants reported higher energy levels, lower blood pressure, and overall profound changes in their lives. This was accomplished through programs that focused on nutrition, activity/exercise, stress resilience, and a bit of friendly/healthy competition."

I'm a board member of Five Mountains Hawaii and this year I've decided to form a Kona Yoga team. I'll be creating and teaching some flowing yoga sequences that could be used to gain physical activity points, as well as  organizing walks and weekly support meetings.

If you're interested in joining us, please send me an e-mail: [email protected]. Teams are limited to ten participants and I have five spots remaining. If you live off-island, you can still participate online with all of the forms and resources made available by Take It Off Hawaii.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Take It Off Hawaii - 2010 (guavabee.com)

Of Hooks and Things

I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.

-Mae West

In her article titled "Don't Bite the Hook", Pema Chodron defines the Tibetan word shenpa as the root cause of aggression and craving. Someone says or does something and you immediately react with anger or distaste.  You feel a sensation in your body and without thinking, you scratch the itch or feed the craving. The hook appears and you bite without thinking. Some things are just charged with energy that forces you to respond (almost like a reflex) and you say and do things that you ordinarily wouldn't.

"It's a quality of experience that's not easy to describe but that everyone knows well", writes Chodron. I think Flip Wilson's character Geraldine, tried to explain it best by saying, "The devil made me do it!"

Chodron offers meditation as a way to learn to open and relax with all of the hooks that may appear, without picking and choosing. We can learn to diffuse the charge if we catch shenpa at an early stage, she says. I think we can also do it while physically active and moving through life.

Jehangir Palkhivala has suggested that we allow ourselves to experience santosa, or contentment, before trying to move deeper into a yoga pose: count three breaths, enjoy where you are in the present and then move and make any adjustments on the fourth breath. It takes away the urge to go directly to the edge only to hang out with the discomfort of your efforts or anxiously await the next pose. Instead, you have a chance to appreciate each step along the way.

With enough practice, it will translate as well to life off the mat. The hooks will become more visible, even when disguised by bait, and there would be no need to avoid temptation. Until then, we practice.


~~~~~~~~~
~Read "Don't Bite the Hook" by Pema Chodron in Tricycle Magazine.
~Watch Flip Wilson tell a short story about Geraldine and her preacher husband. You Tube, 2:45.

 
Image: Shumata on Flickr

Moving to the State of Balance

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.- Thomas Merton

This is what balance actually feels like to me: all of my physical, mental and emotional pieces are vying for order and stability.  After years of teaching and practicing the most fundamental pose in yoga, Tadasana, I can accept the dynamic physical actions that are necessary to simply stand upright and balance. In other areas, I for one, spend more time moving toward the state of balance than residing in any particular territory. But with practice, it gets easier.

Lessons just seem to present themselves, like this past Saturday.  I declined an invitation to spend the entire day lounging at the beautiful Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, where I'd be with friends, develop a darker shade of tan, read a book, laugh, eat and be merry. But, I also wanted to go to the Farmers Market in Keauhou, I had a class to teach and blog posts I wanted to write before my upcoming family vacation this week. So I leaned a little to the left.

Then as it happens once every three hundred and forty-five days or so, no one showed up for my 10am yoga class. I took it as an invitation to get a two hour head start on my writing so I leaned the other way and felt as though more time poured back into my side of the hourglass. At least, that was until I realized that my blogging service was not fully functioning. I couldn't write any blog posts.  My ankles quivered as I abruptly stopped moving forward.

Thank goodness I have things to fall back on. I've got a hard head and a chest full of wants and wishes. I stubbornly refer to roadblocks as simple detours and when refused one menu, pull out a cookbook. Those are not the traits of a more intelligent or developed soul, no. Just the reflexes of someone who insists on moving to the state of balance.

I ended up learning how to create and install widgets on my blogs and at the end of the day, I was grateful for all of the detours. You know, I don't think I'm ready to live in the State of Balance, yet. At least not full-time. I'm beginning to enjoy the challenge of leaning from side to side, going forward and falling back because I can create my own landing space. As one of my yoga teachers used to say whenever we struggled to stand on our hands or heads, "Don't worry, the floor is always there!"

Original Photo: Heidi Vickery-Uechi

Breathe Deep and Do Not Gather Gloom

Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts.-Thich Nhat Hanh

As I mentioned on Friday, slow, deep exhalations have been the focus during all of my classes this week. The instructions were quite simple but not everyone found them easy to do. When I said, "Take a deep breath", some people inspired deep and filled their lungs to capacity within two or three seconds. Others took a deep, short inhaling breath followed by a forceful, quick exhaling breath.

In an effort to illustrate what I consider to be a deep breath, I put my hands together (left hand-palm down, right hand-palm up) and held them out in front of me with my elbows out to the side. When I inhaled, I let my hands separate in sync with my breath and brought them together as I exhaled, slowly. My breaths were not as long as those demonstrated by B.K.S. Iyengar (You Tube, 02:41), not even close, yet many felt them to be much longer than their full breaths.

During the course of a restorative class, folks were able to experience deep breathing with their chests expanded, as well as while bending forward with their foreheads resting on a solid surface. Postures were modified for each of my classes. In Tuesday's Mother Sequence class, we practically doubled the length of the sequence by paying such close attention to lengthening our breaths. In all other classes, I asked them to hold the restorative poses for 24 breaths. As the not-so-innocent-bystander, the results to me were well, breath-taking!

I am blessed with the most receptive, trusting and honest group of yoga students. Each person was responsible for the length of time they spent in each pose and they of course knew, that the winner was not the first one to finish. Also, the last one up was often the one who fell asleep!

What we did receive was greater insight into our abilities to focus, breathe deep and relax. We could all use more practice. The "three soft oms" at the end of class were definitely much longer and we spent 90 minutes doing something positive about our air quality. No one ranted about the vog, they were just focused on 24 slow breaths with exhalations that reminded them....to relax.

Photo:zoethustra

John Leebold, in India

John Leebold rang me (Australian for "called me on the phone") last week and he's still in India. He's attending classes and assisting Guruji in his therapeutic classes at the Iyengar Institute in Pune. 

Ray Madigan and Shelly Choy, co-directors of the Manoa Yoga Center have also arrived so they'll have a chance to discuss John's next visit to Hawaii this coming March.

Staying in an apartment very near to the institute, John's internet access has been spotty but we were lucky to get a decent Skype connection last week (9:30pm my time, 1:00pm the next day in India). The city was preparing for Diwali,the Festival of Lights. "It's very noisy here! Fireworks going off all the time," John reported. "Keep your headset handy, I'll call back soon."

Absorbed by His Teachings

Happy the man whose lot it is to know
The secrets of the earth.
He hastens not
To work his fellows hurt by unjust deeds,
But with rapt admiration contemplates
Immortal Nature's ageless harmony,
And how and when the order came to be. -
-Euripides (480-405 B.C.)                                                                                       

I am blessed to be in a yoga workshop for a consecutive weekend. This time the teacher is Aadil Palkhivala. The first time I attended one of his workshops, I had been attending weekly yoga classes for just a few months. Everything he said then, absorbed me. Nearly eighteen years later, his talks still absorb me.

Aadil pointed out that "one salient point of an intermediate yoga student is a constant awareness of the impact their presence has on the environment." The environment includes other beings as well as the earth.

"All their thoughts, words and actions are of value, or at least of care," Aadil continued. He gave us an example of the way we leave our shoes or sandals at the door of the yoga studio. While their placement may not be of utmost value, we should care for the safety and ease of those who come after us. Will they be inconvenienced or in danger because of our presence?

While the end result (constant awareness of our impact on the environment) beckons us toward an ideal, it is the intention of our actions that Aadil underscored. It is not about the tons of plastic bottles that you recycle or the barrels of oil you save with your hybrid car. It's about "the stuff that you do when no one is watching."

This practice embodies the true concept of saucha. "The most common translation of saucha is cleanliness. But saucha, at its root, is concerned with keeping different energies distinct. Saucha ensures and protects the sanctity of the energy around us." (1)

Aadil's brilliance as a teacher is that he is able to teach multiple levels of truth couched within each lesson. Like a set of Russian nesting dolls, each lesson contains another, and another, and another. How could I not be absorbed?

Experience Aadil as he speaks about Diversity and Choice of yoga styles in this video by Yogamates.com.

Photo:R J Ranjith

(1) Excerpt from Teaching the Niyamas in Asana Class by Aadil Palkhivala. Yoga Mentor, an on-line newsletter for teachers.

                   

John Leebold's Blog

In the few days that he's here in Kona, John's decided to start blogging! He's sifting through photos and learning the ins and outs of Typepad features.

His aim is to keep the yoga community informed of his whereabouts and to share some of his travel-teaching-experiences. Keep checking the blog for additional cities and yoga studios where you can meet up with John. As well as for some of his personal photographs of B.K.S. Iyengar.

View the blog and save this address: www.johnleebold.typepad.com