Archive for the ‘Yoga Geekiness’ Category
Okay, fascinating article in the NY Times Well blog today. Beloved Husband has had some bizarre muscle cramps recently, and HEAB’s blog yesterday mentioned loving pickle juice way back when! http://heathereatsalmondbutter.com/2010/06/08/the-iron-results/
Back to the bitchin’ yoga schedule — will discuss that tomorrow! Pickles today!
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/phys-ed-can-pickle-juice-stop-muscle-cramps/
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS
Stockbyte/Getty Images
Recently, 10 healthy male college students filed into an exercise [...]
I’m spending some time each morning right now working through Andrew Biel’s Trail Guide to the Body. If you haven’t encountered it yet, well, it ROCKS. Totally. I heard about this book for a few years from massage therapists, Pilates peeps & physical therapy students, and yes, it is as good as all that. Wow.
The [...]
Last month a friend pointed out something I’ve frequently kinda thought, but never quite put into words. Namely, that each yoga style has characteristic injuries.
It makes sense. There are particular things emphasized in the different styles, common cues, often common personalities attracted to the style.
But I can’t definitely make a statement on that because of course [...]
Not Dungeons & Dragons, though there’s nuthin wrong with that.
Dizziness & Downloads.
Very separate topics, but two short bits I wanted to share before getting on the road again (this weekend, Burlington, VT!).
Dizziness is one side effect I have from the medications I’m on.
(See
http://autumnlotusyoga.omblogger.com/2010/02/07/medication-update/
and http://autumnlotusyoga.omblogger.com/2010/01/14/outing-myself/)
The meds are amazing in many many ways. Predominantly, they quiet [...]
The pose continuum is much like the spacetime continuum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime_continuum
I am such a geek.
Actually, it’s a concept born in my head in response to some yoga cliches I keep hearing & can no longer agree with or support. Yes, the ever popular “There is no such thing as a perfect pose” and “There is [...]
In Forrest yoga the theme of a class frequently is focusing on bringing healing/breath/freedom/energy to some chosen spot in the body. It may be an injury or just an area that needs attention. A pretty good-sized area, too. Like your lower back, or neck or shoulder or front of the chest or whatever.
But this also begs the question: [...]
Nicole Clark led the second workshop this past Sunday at Back Bay Yoga, focused on the power of touch. Nicole is a powerful Forrest teacher as well as touch therapist, trained in craniosacral therapy among other modalities. She is also a gorgeous Brooklyn girl. This manifests in stick straight black hair, dark lipstick & a fabulous Attitude with [...]
This past weekend I got to spend almost all of Sunday at Back Bay Yoga doing two amazing workshops. I’ll pass on the gems from the first one today. Not even gonna try to give everything that happened, but just a few of the bits I found most useful/interesting.
Christine Raffa from Raffa Yoga in Providence, RI [...]
Truth in sourcing — this comes from February 2010 Allure magazine, page 90. (Yeah, sue me. I don’t always read the Bhagavad Gita when on the T. Though it has happened on occasion. :)
But the magazine does cite a study that supports what I’ve often felt, and it is always nice to be scientifically proved right. 
“Exercising in class or with friends produces more pleasure than working out alone. In a study at the University of Oxford in England, 12 rowers had higher increases in endorphins (as indicated by their ability to tolerate pain) when they trained in groups of six than when they trained by themselves, despite equivalent workouts and effort. Endorphins are believed to play a role in social bonding, notes Robin Dunbar, professor of evolutionary anthropology at the university. These natural painkillers can help you exercise longer and harder and boost your immunity…”
Okay, not endorsing the whole “exercise” and “pain” association with yoga, BUT! Frequently class is a huge upper, and doing asanas with others produces more pleasure & we’re also able to access more/different experiences than when alone. It’s just plain interesting to apply the endorphin/social bonding aspect to group practice — pleasure in practice & community enhancing chemicals, all for free in the body!!
Practice yesterday was teaching a super fun inversion class (more on that later this week; I’ll post the sequence) and taking Vanessa’s Hip Hop, all at Back Bay. Today there’s volunteering, sweaty class & maybe more Back Bay! Go endorphins!!
It’s been a busy week, physical & emotional practice-wise, & I am Wicked sore. (That’s an official Bostonianism for ya. Having lived here almost six months, we were granted dispensation to use Wicked without irony by the city government.
Did 30 minutes of back releases & now the blog post & then going off to cavort in Epsom Salts.
The link between blogging & yoga is something that doesn’t seem to cause a whole lot of examination these days. I missed the nascent & even pubescent days of blogging. Now, we all blog about everything. Got an interest? Pet peeve? Obsession? Blog about it. There’s an academic/spiritual/obscene/all-of-the-above (yahooooo!!!) blog for you & if there isn’t one out there, start one!
But I really do think of blogging as a part of my yoga practice, right up there with asana, pranayama, neti, seva, blah blah blah.
(That was just a warm-up. I am about to quote the Sutras, in Sanskrit, to illustrate my point. Really, mostly to demonstrate that I can, in fact, do something other than curse & neurose. 
Patanjali, Section II on Practice, Verse 1: Tapah svadhyayesvara pranidhanani kriya yogah.
According to the translation I own, (not being a Sanskrit scholar, quoting really is just for show , ” Accepting pain as help for purification, study of spiritual books, and surrender to the Supreme Being constitute Yoga in practice.”
(Thank you Sri Swami Satchidananda. BTW, I like your beard.
Acccording to my interpretation of this (different thing than quoting or translation, please note), blogging fits kinda like this.
1) Tapas — a form of discipline or burning out to create purification. Writing is a part of daily discipline. Somedays good/bad/ indifferent but always a form of creating space, clearing out the pus & puke to which flesh is heir. And, also, sometimes a form of self-mortification along the lines of public flagellation (so many possible bad typos with those two words… pause to think about it…
2) Svadhaya — study. Can be looked at in different circumstances as study of Self or Self-Studying-Spiritual-Stuff. Swami definitely leans to the latter, but he is a Swami, not a mere navel-gazing mortal. In this case, blogging I feel works as both. The self-study (narcissism is the Freudian vs. Sanskrit term is obvious. The self-studying-spiritual-stuff is partly I think from trying to encapsulate & interpret/think out loud & put out there the spiritual bits absorbed along the way. Like reading back your study notes. And it’s also from reading other people’s blogs. Seriously. I don’t presume my ramblings are anywhere up there, but I do know that I’ve learned much from others in the cybershala. How can the study of another human’s heartfelt soulsearching self-practice be anything other than sacred?
4) And the Surrender to the Supreme Being… that must mean the Internet. Or WordPress. Obviously.
The other level of Sanskrit I can throw out there in relation to blogging is Sangha. The creation of community.
On the Forrest level — here’s my personal Sanskrit-to-Forrest translation. (Note that it is much shorter & uses plain Anglo-Saxon.
Blogging: A commitment to investigate, articulate & communicate your process opens you up to yourself, others & the mysteries of the earth. Asking your Spirit “What the Fuck?” is a tool to use on & off the mat.
But that’s just based on my perspective/motivations for participation in this phenomenom. I’d be very interested to hear from others in some form (email, post, comment, energetic transmission on how their blog fits with their yoga practice overall.