we are free, we have always been free

october has been a dense and challenging month for me.

the best parts have been early bedtime, regular pilates privates, regular iyengar classes, amazing clients and their stories and their progress, weekend with jai uttal....

i took a pilates private with kathy in which i finally addressed the issue of butt flesh direction, specifically in certain exercises. if you want to know what i mean more specifically, please ask me. in a previous class with kathy we pondered the idea of the "neutral spine" and whether or not that is an actual position of the spine, or if it is a window of positions for the spine... so maybe there is more than one neutral-- a lightly more anterior pelvis neutral and/ or a slightly more posterior pelvis neutral. a range of neutrals. maybe with the ideal neutral in the middle.... and then what happens when you strengthen the core muscles (psoas, transverse ab, multifidi) in neutral vs. in a posterior pelvis vs in an anterior pelvis. kelly kane says strengthen in neutral. but maybe it depends on which spine position reveals the most weakness.

also spend a weekend in hilton head island for my cousin's wedding. hilton head is a little like a golf-tennis disney world. unfortunately there isn't a big interest in organic food there. but it does have a gorgeous beach. it rained pretty much the whole weekend but i got some good beach time in with uncle bobby and christo. christo is a totally amazing acrobat and he was doing tricks on his bike on the beach that blew me away. such fearlessness. bobby mastered a few himself. me? im a scaredy cat. riding the bike against the strong wind was an amazing hamstring work out. and the sand patterns from the wind were insanely beautiful. all in this monochromatic gray landscape-- beach and sky and rain and puddles. i was covered in mud, and must admit, really liked that part.

weekend chanting with jai uttal and daniel paul was awesome. i met a harmonium teacher and ill start next week. time to learn some chords! i am mesmerized by jai. dare i say that i had a kirtan climax on saturday night during the radhe chant. the rhythm, the built up energy, the laughter.... sunday night was a little low, naturally. i can't wait for guatemala!

last night a client asked me "what is yoga?" which started a really cool conversation that im always able to find massive amounts of energy for. yoga is a state of being when a person experiences themselves as their true nature... when a person ceases misidentifying with all the layers of themselves that they ultimately are NOT (ego, personality, thoughts, feelings, body, etc) and corrects this misidentification by finally identifying with their most true and essential aspect of being: Atman, or Sat Cit Ananda (eternal bliss consciousness) -- so when one experiences this truth in the moment, that person is in yoga.... the methods or techniques for facilitating the accessibility of this experience include the physical practices, the mental practices, the lifestyle practices. so we need to understand the context in which asana is practiced according to the ancient purpose of yoga. asana is a tool... to free the nadis, to clear the central axis, which are prerequisites for the kind of mental, physical, emotional clarity needed to fully engage in feeling the Truth. i am afraid that many yoga teachers do not have the ability to articulate this context and this background. it is fundamental to the tradition. if we are going to use the word yoga, let's know what it means. (there are other ways to describe it besides the one above that are just as valid and historically and philosophically accurate). and so, when one has this experience of one's own true nature, which is pure and eternal and divine and awake and intelligent and not separate from the true nature of the universe and not separate from the true nature of each living being... then one becomes free, liberated!

the storm this morning is powerful and other wordly... maybe a message from vaikunth.

Strengthening the weak for tensegrity

I had a breakthrough with my right shoulder last week, which has been my tighter and less mobile shoulder for years. It felt for a long time that my right shoulder was much stronger, more massive (surely because of my right-handedness) and less flexible, especially when in external rotation. I would feel limited in poses like full kapotasana, pinchamayurasana, and urdhva dhanurasana... It's also the tighter shoulder for both the bottom and top arms in gomukasana. No matter how much I stretched that shoulder it wouldn't seem to let go or improve it's range of motion or it's comfortability. It never hurt or felt injured, and does have general openness relative to most humans, but after years of practice and rolfing had not found the same movement and freedom as the left shoulder.

On Tuesday I took an amazing class at the iyengar institute with james murphy. He taught some very detailed shoulder, arm and upper back activations and alignment principles-- I felt the muscles around my shoulders working very hard in new ways, new muscles being utilized... In some ways this work felt easier for my left shoulder, which I had previously labelled as weaker and more open-- but it was actually stronger in this particular way- which I feel is in the way of using deeper layers of muscles, or perhaps had to do with being able to differentiate muscles more easily and clearly. My right felt more stuck together and weaker with these particular alignment actions.

After the class and even moreso the next day, my right shoulder was moving and adjusting in an incredible way- popping into place in a way that I've been waiting years for-- had a lot to do with the relationship of the head of the humerus to the socket. I felt free and open in that right shoulder, had more range in the ways I was previously stuck. It became clear to me that waking up and bringing life and contraction to the weak and dormant muscles in my right shoulder created a more balanced joint: created a joint with more tensegrity, in which the joint has equal and balanced tension on it from surrounding muscles... (Rather than having lots of tension in one direction or at one layer and then little tension in the complementary direction or layer.) It is this balance in strength around the joint that pointed to, supported and
allowed flexibility and mobility. This equal tension created by strengthening the weak allowed the joint to sit in it's optimal position, therefore initiating optimal function.

I realized that it wasn't stretching that was ever going to "fix" or "open" my shoulder. The strengthening work-- not for power, but for balanced tension around joints-- is what will bring the openness we all want.

This is Rolfian for sure in concept: tensegrity, balancing flexors and extensors, balanced muscles around joints for mobility rather than valuing uncontextualized efforted power. But the method in structural integration is: as tension and twists in fascia dissapear and let muscles return to and unwind into their optimal positions, the intelligence of the body be invoked and will awaken the muscles that weren't working before.

In yoga, there is a different approach: actively align and adjust the body (which requires exercise and exertion), follow specific and scientific patterns of muscle activation to isolate and engage muscles, especially those that need it most... and this will balance tension around joints, which will help muscles and fascia to find a new and better positioning.

Both are valuable approaches, and most effective when one engages in both.

from the center to the periphery and back

in yoga we can practice stretching our limbs from the center to the periphery-- from the core to the fingertips and toetips.  from the midline to the outsides of the body.  then we can travel our awareness from the periphery back to the center, connecting the limbs firmly back to the trunk.  so we have the radiance of expansion simultaneous to the firmness and stability of being whole and connected.

when we stretch to the fingertips and toetips we embody the process of giving ourselves fully outward-- being in relationship to the external world and penetrating it with vigor and fearlessness.

when we gather prana back in from the fingertips and toetips back to the trunk, we are learning to travel fully inward, to become intimate with the depths of ourselves, and to sometimes contain our resources.

we don't want to remain in a mild distance both from ourselves and from the world... let's go fully in and fully out!

Observation and Activation

This week I've been thinking about the depth and length of the ribcage.  

In class at Jaya on Wednesday I talked about creating/ visualizing/ activating a wind of prana originating from the space behind the naval and then climbing that force up through the inner trunk, filling up the entire space of the trunk, spreading out to the inner walls of the body, and traveling up inch by inch through every latitude of the ribcage.  The inhalation can facilitate this lifting and spreading, all the way up through the collar bones, the throat, the head and beyond the physical body.  

In yoga practice we observe, we surrender into receptivity and non-judgmental awareness in the moment.  We watch and yield.  

In yoga practice we also create.  We activate, visualize, imagine... we internally generate qualities and sensations.

Yin/ Yang

Ha/ Tha

Today I launched my new website www.consciousbodynyc.com and this blog!