Yoga with friend

My friend came over this evening to practice yoga with me. I recently found out she is interested in it. We did asanas for about an hour and then we talked about yoga. I think I overwhelmed her with info as we talked about some history of yoga that I know and gave her a list of recommended reading. I like having someone to talk to about it.

Nauli this morning

JT got up extra early this morning. I did nauli again. The up and down felt good, but the rolling nauli--both ways--was really difficult today.

Teacher Training in one week

I paid for my seven day intensive teacher training course this evening. Wow! one more week. I'm very excited. I started doing more online research about yoga. My motivation is high. I found a little piece about yantra yoga, which includes a little bit about bio-rhythms. I found a few places that chart bio-rhythms. If they are true, then my emotional and physical rhythms are pretty well in the gutter next week for teacher training, but intellectually, I'll be "all systems go!" Ready to learn, just not practice.

108

A Yoga Mala has 108 beads. I learned why in this nice article "Meaning of 108 Beads on a Mala" by Swami Jnaneshvara Bharati. In it, it lists many reasons why 108 is so special. The swami does maintain that, "Regardless of the meaning of 108, it is important that if a mala is used to count mantras, the mantra be remembered with sincerity, devotion, feeling, and full attention."

Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana

What a mouthful! Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana literally means "extended hand big-toe posture." It is the title of tonight's blog because for the first time in six years, I felt solid in this stance during tonight's practice. Not exceptional, mind you, but solid.
Worthy.
Progressing.
Good.

Create a Yoga Practice for Kids (book)

I picked up another interlibrary loan today; this one came all the way from Virginia! Create a Yoga Practice for Kids by Yael and Matthew Calhoun. This one offers yoga classes in a learning plan format and states the benefits of each pose in the plan. It also groups the plans into common themes like "Poses that get wet" and listing all poses that have to do with that theme like Fish Pose or Frog Pose. I like this idea as it helps children reinforce what they are learning when they can extrapolate the new topics to things they already know about and do everyday. The plans are geared to older children...maybe 8 or 10 and older, depending on emotional maturity.

Anticipatory Anxiety

A few months before JT was born, I began to worry. "What if's" filled my head: "what if I don't love him?" "What if I begin to ignore my older son?" I knew these were normal thoughts. In the seventh month, my doctor and I discussed and scheduled a planned c-section. I had a date that my son would arrive! I had mixed feelings about this and started to dwell on the c-section procedure. During a regular appointment, I broke down crying in front of my OB. She asked me if I would consider seeing a therapist. I said "but isn't this normal to be emotional?" She said that at this time, I should be experiencing euphoric feelings as my body was pumped with good-feeling hormones. Since I experienced some "baby blues" after my last birth, my emotional state now increased my risk of a deeper depression post-partum.

I planned to see a therapist. Even against my husband's wishes. He felt talking to a therapist was invasive on our privacy and a sign of weakness in the relationship we had. He felt that I should be able to talk it out with him and get over it that way. This made me feel even worse. I decided that my well-being, and the well-being of my family, were too important to NOT go see a professional.

My therapist was wonderful. In our first visit, she gave me a term for what I was feeling: anticipatory anxiety. It is the anxiety that one experiences before starting a challenging activity. Typically, this pre-event anxiety is much higher than what one actually ends up experiencing during the event. Once I had this term, I felt that I could better handle my emotions. The c-section went just fine with fewer complications than I anticipated.

As one resource states, "Why do we experience anticipatory anxiety? I think it’s because the panic response is over-zealous about doing its job: trying to locate any danger, in order to protect us. When it can’t find any danger in the present, it looks into the future...Each time you actually start the new activity–bringing the activity into the present–the anticipatory anxiety fades away."

Yoga teaches us to be in the present. I have thought about this with regards to my tendency to worry about things that may happen in the future. Focusing on the present and being here, calming my mind from the bombardment of worries I hear and read about, should help me better control this anticipatory anxiety in the future.

Nauli goes on

Still practicing Nauli in the mornings. Even when I am out late celebrating a friends' wedding and getting in at 3:00AM.

Storytime Yoga (book)

I have been doing my research on preschool yoga and have been finding that a lot of yoga practices for children incorporate stories or books. I checked out Storytime Yoga: Teaching Yoga to Children Through Stories by Sydney Solis from the library. It had some nice stories and corresponding poses, but it was not quite for what I was looking. For preschoolers, I think pictures play an important role. This book had few pictures.

Practicing Nauli

We were supposed to practice nauli at least 5 of 7 days before next yoga teacher's session. I finally did it this morning.

Debt to nature

“As long as we breathe, as long as we eat and drink, we have to do something, because consciously or unconsciously, we are taking something from the Nature....and we have to return something to Nature. Otherwise we become debtors. So the air, the light, the water, the food, everything that we get from Nature, we convert into energy and utilize that energy for the benefit of the world. Something comes in, and in its place something goes out—we become only the channel. Then we are not debtors."

This is an excerpt of this week's words from Satchidananda. I think there are many levels of what we do to decrease our debt and I think about how people become debtors. Just living peacefully with others is one way to give back to Nature. Sharing, caring, loving--very easy to do. Having a job and family is another level, teaching them to care and love. A higher level would be community service or volunteering to help others who can not help themselves.

Someone who is debting themselves would be someone who is stealing, hoarding, or in constant anger at the world. Someone who places to much attachment on things would increase their debt because they would not be happy. A terrible debt to Nature is harming someone or taking a life.

Pranayama Saturday session

These are my notes from the pranayama session I attended today.
Prana = Life force, Energy
Yama = Control, restraint

In addition to today's workshop, I found much background information about pranayama on this Web site. When practicing pranayama on your own, it is best to pick one form and practice it for several months instead of several techniques at once. When teaching pranayama to people, talk them through every step, including counting pauses between breaths (a count of 3 or 4). But remind students that they can pause longer or shorter as they feel is necessary in their practice.

Practicing pranayama may be easiest to do when sitting in lotus or laying in savasana. Especially for a beginner, practicing pranayama in poses is more difficult, requiring more focus on breath and pauses as they may not be even. For instance, in handstand, I found my breath easy to exhale, harder to inhale. In triangle, lungs had less capacity for movement, and even less so in reverse triangle. In reverse triangle, I could only inhale and exhale about half to three quarters the amount, and I had to breathe normally once in a while.

It is important to remember that as with all yoga, nothing should be forced. Pranayama should not be practiced if your nasal passages are blocked and it is not recommended for pregnant women as the developing fetus needs as much fresh oxygen as possible and holding your breath reduces oxygen flow in the blood.

As we have already learned in practicing yoga, we inhale and exhale ujjayi breath through the nose. This is important for keeping the breath hot. Heated breath heats the body, including muscles for greater endurance and flexibility, and the circulatory and nervous systems to purify from toxins whether they be mental or physical. Anytime we breathe through the mouth, it begins to cool the breath and the body. Inhale through nose, exhale through mouth--or even a backwards breath such as inhale through mouth and exhale through nose (this is rare, awkward...purposefully done in swimming or done as one "bites their tongue"). Breathing through the mouth only is "panting" as dogs do to cool off. More about cooling breath is found at the bottom of this post.

Puraka Kumbhaka Rechaka Kumbhaka
This basic pranayama technique focuses on the four stages of breathing: Inhale, Pause, Exhale, Pause. During this breathing, the three bandhas are locked during the pause. So, the technique is Inhale, Lock Bandhas, Pause, Release Bandhas, Exhale, Lock Bandhas, Pause, Release Bandhas.

Many "how to" yoga pages explain that pranayama techniques should be done with a 2:8:4:8 ratio, but we discussed that pranayama can be altered to one's needs. Any and all secdtions can be altered. A long inhale, short pause, long exhale. A short inhale, short pause, long exhale. Etc.

Viloma Pranayama
Also known as "three-lobed" pranayama, it is done by inhaling and exhaling in thirds, with a pause between each third of the breath. The ways of practicing this pranayama are:

1. Inhale in thirds, exhale normally
2. Inhale normally, exhale in thirds
3. Inhale in thirds, exhale in thirds

Generally, people may find it easier to practice the inhale, but can ease themselves into practicing all three forms. Someone pointed out that the lung has three lobes.

Assisted Ujjayi Breathing
In a seated lotus pose, we took turns using two people to assist our ujjayi breathing. Sitting on opposite sides of our body, the assistants held our abdomen and/or chest and back in three ways:

1. In the first posture the assistants both held the front of our abdomen, low between the pelvic "scoop" and the lower back slightly above our coccyx. They squeezed in to support the breath.
2. In the second posture one assistant continued as in the first posture, the other assistant held two or three fingers (the thumb and pointer or thumb and pointer with middle) from one hand on the upper chest, just under the collar bone, and the other hand's two/three fingers were on the upper back symmetric with the front hand. When the person inhaled, the top two hands were lifted to assist the chest in rising, and the lower hands were squeezed.
3. In the third posture, one assistant continued the two/three finger upper assistance as in the second posture, but the lower/ab assistant changed posture. The lower hands were placed on the left and right sides of the pelvic scoop with thumb in the front and other fingers in back. This assistant has to move to the front of the breather to get the right posture.
   

Bhastrika Pranayama
Also known as "bellows breath", like the tool used in fanning a fire with air. It is a forced inhale and exhale. It is a long, full breath, working the breath. Some who practice this type of pranayama find the eyes tingle, a light-headed sensation (but do not do this form of pranayama to "pass out") and they may feel the upper lip and cheeks tingle or go numb.

Kapalabhati Pranayama
This form of pranayama is also known as "skull-shining" or cleansing breath and the effect gives the practitioner a clean energy rising to the skull. It is done by inhaling to full, and "punching" the exhale out. When I tried this, I felt a small inhale naturally with each exhale punch. I thought this was incorrect so I focused on not letting any air back in on the exhale. I found I could not exhale very long, a few seconds maybe. Later, I discussed this with other student and they explained that there is some inhale, which allows one to exhale for several minutes.

Nadi Shodana(Anuloma Viloma)
Alternate nostril breathing seems to have a few names and various ways of practicing it. As nadi shodana, it is called nerve or energy purification. To practice this technique, fold the middle and pointer fingers of your right hand. Use your right thumb to close the right nostril and inhale through the left nostril. Immediately close the left nostril with your right ring finger and little finger, and at the same time remove your thumb from the right nostril. Exhale through the right nostril. This completes a half round. With the ring and little fingers still on the left nostril, inhale through the right nostril. Close the right nostril with your right thumb and exhale through the left nostril. This completes one full round.

It is believed in Ayurvedic medicine, which is closely followed by many ancient yogis, that we don't breathe equally with both nostrils. One nostril is dominant at certain times of the day than the other--following a natural, circadian rhythm that alternates approximately every two hours in people in good health. It is also believed that this nasal cycle corresponds with brain function. As we have learned in anatomy class, the right side of the brain controls creative activity, while the left side controls logical, verbal activity. We also know from anatomy that the physical sides of our body (ie right and left) correspond to the opposite brain lobe. Therefore, when the left nostril is dominant, the right side of the brain is predominant. Similarly, when the right nostril is dominant, the left side of the brain is predominant. Yogis also believe that the clear right nostril indicates a more aware mental state, and the clear left side signifies a more relaxed mental state.

Testing this theory, I found that during this exercise, my left nostril was blocked although many attempts to clear it were futile. That being said, I noticed that I was very alert and ready to learn. Later, I came home and felt a yawn, I wanted to relax. I tested my nostrils and sure enough, the left one was miraculously cleared, and the right side was blocked.

There are more facets to the Ayurvedic theories behind left- or right-side dominant nostrils which we did not get into. Such as breathing in through the left, out through right can help calm you down and conversely, in through right and out through left can help you increase your energy level. But the summary of this is that by practicing alternate nostril breathing, one can rebalance a disturbed nasal cycle.

Buzzing of the bees
Kathy mentioned that exhaling of the "M" of "OM" is a form of pranayama called the buzzing of the bees.

Cooling breath techniques
We practiced sithali, a cooling pranayama technique where the tongue is curled and you inhale and exhale through the mouth. It is called "teeth-hissing" for the sound you make while inhaling. Some resources mention that you exhale through the nose, but I think it depends on how fast you want to "cool" whether you exhale through the nose or mouth. We tried two techniques: curling the tongue back so the tip is flat back and inhaling through the left and right sides of the tongue and then curling the tongue sides up like a tube and sipping the air in through the tip like a straw. In both techniques, I could feel the air cool my mouth. The first technique I felt it more in the molars and cheeks and the second technique the cooling air went to the back of my throat.

What is yoga?

I ask this question frequently. I read the answer in books. It is something that is not tangible, not definitive and not unigue. But it is a process, a philosophy, the answer is all around us and a part of us.

I just read one guru's explanation that helped bring me closer to my answer: Yoga teaches that the happiness we seek is within us as our own True Nature. What has been preventing us from experiencing it is the restlessness of our minds. The teachings and practices of Yoga work together to bring the mind to a state of clarity, focus, and tranquility. In that state, the peace and happiness that is within can be realized.

I send my thanks to Rev. Jaganath Carrera, founder of the Yoga Life Society, for publishing this insight.

Lack of Children's Yoga Teachers

I went to Kathy's house today to pick up some resources to help learn about and teach
children's yoga. Some old books, some games like Bingo, flash cards, activity books. Then we talked about the fact that YVT is not able to consistently offer yoga classes for young children. It seems that the instructor's energy fades over time. I can see how that can be, esp with children in the toddler stage. These kids just want to explore the room, the props, and themselves. It can be frustrating for an instructor who is not mentally prepared for complete chaos. It also struck me as odd that the YMCA did not have these classes, or that they were looking for someone to teach them. I reason it is for the same reason, it's hard to keep a teacher who does children's yoga.

Adho Mukha Vrksasana

It seems that every week I can tell that Adho Mukha Vrksasana (downward facing tree; handstand) is getting stronger and stronger. Tonight, it felt even better, and I barely had to touch the wall for support. I feel the center of my body being pulled up when I reach "apex", and I could stay up for almost two breaths!