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Injury Pain and Healing

Yoga as Prevention of Injury:  Practicing  yoga  on a regular basis improves the health of  your  bones while strengthening  your  spine and muscles.  It also works the tendons and ligaments, making them less susceptible to breakdown.  Yoga  improves  your  flexibility.  These  yoga  benefits work together to  protect your  body from  injury . The three most common types of injuries:  sprains, strains and tears in their muscles, ligaments, and tendons.  A strain occurs when a muscle or tendon has been overstretched  most common in the lower back and hamstrings.  Sprains occur in ligaments which connect two bones together in a joint.  Pulls or tears in muscles are caused by overloading a muscle and extending it beyond its functional capacity. muscle pulls and tears occur most commonly in the hamstrings, quadriceps, calf back and groin, but still are a...
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What to Practice: Energy and Matter

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Week #4 The Play of Matter and Energy What to practice There are a number of ways to think about structuring your home practice. Today we are going to talk about ways that you can structure a home practice so that you might practice "every day." Generally speaking, practice come in two types: Structured and Free Sequences. Structured Flow : are sequences which are set. This means that you do the same practice everyday. Advantages:  If you learn the sequences, you do not have to think! Then you can focus on whatever you are trying to access, learn, develop focus in as you practice.  Even if you like to vary your practice, it's nice to have a structured BASE that you can riff off of and that has different DURATIONS this way you can start you practice without thinking and end your practice when you are "finished" Disadvantages you may risk repetitive movement you may become complacent in your experimentation Intuitive Flow : Sequences are ...
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Modes of Practice

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THE KINETIC CHAIN Week #3 Modes of Practice and Kinesthetics KINESIOLOGY: the dynamics of movement Kinesiology  is the study of the dynamics of movement. This knowledge can be indispensable in encouraging the coalescence of the body needed as a foundation for exploration of deeply embodied states of consciousness.   Toning the Spine It is practical and essential to yoga practice that the spine be strong and maintain its curves...this process I call "toning the spine." When the curves of the spine are maintained, the force of movement is distributed properly throughout the body, avoiding injury,  and one is able to take a FULL UJJAYI BREATH. Curves of the spine and development The spine develops curves in utero, and then after birth. When a child is born, they have lived as a fetus in fetal position! so their spine is in KYPHOSIS (convex). The initial process of development  Maintaining natural curves of the spine Symmetry and Al...
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Internal Alchemy of Practice

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USING YOUR BREATH What does breath do? breath moves the body Vayus inhalation and prana and udana vayus:  exhalation and apana and samana vayus Mula (root) moves forward (I) and backward (B) with breath breath is the communication between your mind and your body GRACE What is grace? using just the right amount of effort to complete a task/movement/posture only what is essential moving with your breathing breath leads movement (starts just before the movement does) spiritual grace and physical grace...are they connected? imagining your essential self/nothing that isn't you = self-realization evenness of breath coupled with evenness of movement equals evenness of mind FLOW Flow (inner focus)  is a state where the right amount of effort is applied, no more or less, creating a single minded focus (eka grata) so that the body moves as one coalesced piece. (peak experience) needs a certain amount of challenge to maintain interest ...
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Start Where You Are

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Where are you? Understanding where you are is the key to creating a safe and enjoyable practice that will advance you to the "next level." What that next level is, depends on where you start. Being clear about where you are is an important component of self awareness and self knowledge. There are three types of people: those who think they are less capable those who think they are more capable those who know where they are. Capability is a subjective term which is often misunderstood, as is "advanced" practice. ADVANCED PRACTICE is defined as practice that exists on subtler and subtler levels it is not the ability to achieve a posture (shape) it is not inversions it is not being the strongest or most flexible it is the ability to understand the workings of one's mind and body and deeper levels it is the ability to control and channel one's breath for different purposes it is the ability to regulate one's own practice to fit on...
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Five Week Home Practice Plan

This course is designed to allow you to progress your home practice (and practice from home) using tools and techniques from both traditional and scientific perspectives. Each week we will learn a concept for practice and address each topic specifically from the perspective of you who are taking the course, so get your questions ready! On of the beauties of Hatha Yoga is that as a somatic practice, it acknowledges the interrelationship of BODY, MIND, and SPIRIT and explores the interactions and relationships along the body-mind continuum. The practice of Hatha Yoga has grown substantially in its contemporary form incorporating much from modern western science. This epitomizes the evolutionary nature of yoga and the IMPORTANCE OF CONSTANT QUESTIONING, VIGILANCE AND FEEDBACK in the process. We grow from constant attunement to the flow of our lives and our living embodied selves. Our bodies constantly adjust to our internal and external states...so a meaningful practice is a constant...
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