Class extras for rexburgyoga.com

This is the text Leslie is using this summer.
I like it because it is a general all around guide for yoga postures and philosophy. It doesn’t go too deeply into anything, but covers alot of things including breathing, chakras, Ayurveda and aromatherapy. The pictures are of a variety of body types and I like that too.

Shelly and Leslie and Gaylene have both recently certified in two different techniques and they would like to announce that both will be available for private yoga sessions using these modalities.

Restorative Yoga

“Taking time out each day to relax and renew is essential to living well.” Judith Lasater, Ph.D., P.T.
Restorative yoga is based on supported physical postures that when practiced regularly, assist in helping to heal the effects of chronic stress.

Stress is the product of the “fight or flight” response. When unchecked the sympathetic nervous system responds by increasing cardiac output, blood pressure, tension in muscles and shallow breathing. Continuous exposure to this kind of chronic stress is harmful to the body’s natural healing proprieties.
The parasympathetic nervous system or relaxation response allows your body to lower blood pressure, heart rate and respiration. This response is also known as the “rest and renew” stage when the body has time to heal and restore.

Shelly feels strongly that we must give ourselves permission to slow down, to get off the “gerbil wheel” or habit of daily stressful living and recover. This can be accomplished by learning skills to begin to take responsibility for our health and regain abundant and purposeful living again. Both Shelly and Gaylene have recently received their Relax and Renew teaching certificates under Judith Lasater, Ph.D., P.T. Both are available for private and group sessions.
Please call 356-6307for Shelly and 356-0404 for Gaylene

ER Yoga

ER yoga is pain relief yoga. Physical pain is many times caused by stress – emotional stress. Isn’t your headache worse when you think about dealing with that difficult person at work? ER or Emotional Recovery Yoga is a three step process: identify individual emotional stresses, remove them quickly, then practicing gentle yoga postures and breathing to help relax the body and anchor the new balanced energy in the body. If the body is relaxed, the body is not in pain. This is how ER yoga works as pain relief.

An ER yoga session is a private individualized session because each person perceives experiences different than anyone else. Leslie is certified in the Emotion Code and this is the protocol used for releasing trapped emotions. A permanent discount for an ER yoga session is available for all students of Rexburg Yoga. $15 for a 45-50 min session. leslie@rexburgyoga.com or 356-9163 for an appointment.

Center is not a place but a dialogue. Your dialogue with the floor and sometimes with the wall. The dialogue between your mind and your body. A playful dialogue. A relaxed dialogue. A curious dialogue. Can you observe and respond? Pose and repose? Can you be in the pose instead of doing the pose? Can you let yourself shimmer in the center?

Rodney Yee

Tuesday July,6 8:00 am – 10:00 am
Class led by Shelly

Wednesday, July 7th 2 options

Cycle & Yoga with Shelly
Meet at 7:30 am at the Sugar Salem High School parking lot by track.
We will be going on a 17 mile loop.
Yes, you can do it!
Or
Walk & Yoga with Leslie
Meet at the Nature Park at 7:30 am
by the main pavilion and parking lot.

Thursday, July 8 8:00 am – 10:00 am
Class led by Leslie

The cost is the same as normal – $6 drop in per class. So for this whole event if you have not paid for the month, the cost is $18.
Please email Leslie or Shelly to sign up for the bike or walk on Wed.
leslie@rexburgyoga.com

Namaste!

The word Bandha means “voluntary contraction of a group of muscles.”  The Mula Bandha is the contraction of the perineum or the zone between the genitals and the anus.  Be patient in acquring this skill it can take years of practice and the key word is cultivation.  It is a journey of concentration and diligence.

One way to begin this work is to start with exhalation.  As you do this you begin to engage the pelvic floor drawing it up towards your navel.  Try to maintain this contraction for about six seconds while breathing in and then our for another six seconds.  Make the breath calm and smooth and slow.  This is not about holding the breath.                                                                                   

Some of the benefits include internal heat for the body, vitality, and strength coming from the center or core of the body.  Over time you may feel a greater sense of lightness and support in your yoga poses.  The following is an easy way to begin this process.

Kneel in Hero pose.  Take time to  find your neutral lumbar curve.  Relax your abdominal muscles while you establish slow but moderate breathing out your nose.  Allow your ribs to expand breathing with the diaphragm.  On the out breath, gradually start to contract your perineal muscles.  This could feel like stopping the flow of urine.  As you do this, keep breathing.  After two or three breath cycles, relax.

I made some mp3 audio files for some family and I will share them here too. There will be 3 eventually. Each one is about 7 minutes long of a guided breathing practice. It was made to help remind the body, thru a calm and centered breath and gentle movement that the world is a safe place to be. I hope you enjoy

Go here.
Its called Guided Breath 1

May 2010 finds us exploring the core muscles of the body; the soft structures in the front body. We have explored 3 postures this month:
lolasana, mula bandha (root lock or kegels) and yoga roll ups.

The previous months we have learned the metaphors in the structures of outside support and movement in the world – feet, legs, hips and spine. These are all outside structures of support.

We have a totally different metaphor this month and lolasana is very different and much more individually accessed and practiced. The change and difference is that the core of the front body, digestives system and abdominal muscles are all soft tissue and internal.

There are many messages in the 3rd chakra solar plexus or the core but the one I want to focus on this month is that balance and maturity in the solar plexus means we no longer need outside institutions, people or influence in order to determine our own beliefs.

Each of us have our own internal guidance system, our gut, our stomach. This area is a 2nd brain, helping us to make wise choices, if we listen.

The message in this part of the body is to trust your own wisdom. act out of personal integrity. Give up and release the idea of who you are “suppose” to be and you might find the indigestion going away. Choose and follow your own beliefs based upon what your gut tells you. This is an internal focus.

As you practice these core strengthening poses like mula bandha and lolasana there is no way for a teacher to see from the outside if you are doing it correctly. It must come from an internal feeling and trust. This is practicing with integrity.

April is our month for low back care.
The low back is part of the second chakra or energy center along with hips and pelvis. Think of these metaphors for a clue about the message in the low back:
I’ve got your back.
I’ll back you up on that.
He backed me into a corner.
These have to do with working with a partner and either having support, or not.

Three pieces to this puzzle and if either piece is too little or too much, then second chakra issues will eventually surface – one of those being chronic low back problems.

A partner This is a business partner or a love relationship partner.
Money. This is financial support and the ability to bring forth the abundance of the world.
Love Matters of the heart: Marriage, commitment, sex, children.

If you have chronic low back issues, carefully examine these three pieces and you will likely find something is out of balance. Your body is sending the message to change the dynamics between love and money.

Our feature pose this month is the balancing cat. There are many variations to this posture but it is a gentle and very effective way to strengthen the core muscles of the body including low back and abdomen.

A Yogic Approach to Back Pain
Suffering from back pain? Yoga can help.
By Timothy McCall, M.D.
Each year, millions of Americans suffer from debilitating back pain. Despite Western medicine’s phenomenal advances and powerful technology, two of the most commonly prescribed solutions—painkillers and surgery—do little to address the underlying causes of pain and can potentially cause side effects. In truth, a one-size-fits-all solution is impossible given that the causes and manifestations of pain—arthritis, strained ligaments, scoliosis, and herniated disks, to name a few—vary widely.

But as many practitioners can attest, yoga can offer effective healing that’s relatively free of side effects. The key is to proceed with caution and be willing to treat your healing as a process. It will likely take time and perseverance to find a treatment program that is help- ful. Here’s how I suggest you get started.

RULE OUT SERIOUS CAUSES. While potentially life-threatening causes of back pain, such as cancer, infections, and rupturing aortic aneurysms, are a lot less common than muscle spasms and sciatica, you should check with your health care practitioner to make sure it’s safe for you to practice yoga as part of your healing program—especially if you are over 50 or if you have worrisome symptoms like fever or unexplained weight loss.

TREAT THE INITIAL INJURY WITH CAUTION. When tissues are acutely inflamed or when you’re feeling a lot of pain, it’s important to proceed slowly. Aggressively working to improve strength or flexibility at this stage can backfire, causing even more pain, inflammation, and injury. However, studies have shown that strict bed rest causes more harm than good. Try breathing exercises and a gentle asana practice as soon as the first day of pain.

FIND AN EXPERIENCED TEACHER. Back problems are complex, so it’s important to find a teacher with adequate training and as much experience as possible. A yoga therapist not only will suggest exercises but will be able to create a unique and personalized program that’s appropriate for your levels of fitness, strength, and flexibility as well as your medical condition. By observing your practice and tracking how your body responds, he or she can gauge which elements are likely to be helpful and determine whether modifications are necessary.

BALANCE STRENGTHENING WITH STRETCHING. Doctors often prescribe stomach crunches to prevent future episodes of back pain. From a yogic perspective, such an approach is imprecise. Indeed, doing too many stomach crunches or other ab exercises can increase tightness in the hip flexors, like the psoas, potentially exacerbating back problems. The yogic approach is to determine which muscles need strengthening and which ones need stretching and to design a program to address those specific needs.

MAKE YOGA YOUR ALLY, NOT YOUR ENEMY. Avoid poses that could make the problem worse. If you have a lumbar disk problem, be careful with forward bends, particularly those that include a twist, like Janu Sirsasana (Head-to-Knee Pose). Also take care during transitions, when attention tends to wane: Avoid sudden changes of position and try stepping rather than jumping into poses.

CONSIDER PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS. While I don’t believe that stress, anger, and other emotions are typically the sole cause of back pain, they can play a role. Psychotherapy as well as yogic tools such as svadhyaya (self-study) and meditation may help.

In the Yoga Sutra (II.16), Patanjali taught that future suffering can be avoided. When applied appropriately and intelligently, yoga not only can help you recover from back pain, it may prevent it from recurring.

Timothy McCall is Yoga Journal’s medical editor. To suggest story ideas for future columns, e-mail drmccall@yogajournal.com. You can also find McCall through his Web site, www.drmccall.com.

November/December 2004

A request has been made for suggestions for music. A page will be permanently created for that. The link is over on the right-hand menu bar. The link will always be available and easy to find, even after this blog post goes into the archives.

What are some favorite music that we recommend?
Here’s some choices.
A great place to download music at a reasonable price is legal sounds. You pay a fee up front and then download until your money runs out. So I would only choose that option if you are regularly getting lots of music downloads. If you just want a few, then just go with Amazon music downloads.

You can listen to clips of the music here to see what you like. These are chosen particularly for relaxation pose

From Leslie: In previous posts, I have shared the message and metaphor behind different body systems and sometimes when we have pain or an illness settle into that part of the body, it is a message that we need to examine how something in that area of our life is out of balance.

So what is it that causes the pain or draws the illness or discomfort to that spot? In my experience in working with energy medicine, it is just that – energy. Energy that has quit flowing. Energy stopped up like a dam builds up pressure and can cause the normal flow of energy to be diverted thus creating imbalance, or just the pressure of built up energy causes pain.

Our thoughts are energy. A thought causes a chemical reaction in the body and thus we feel the thought and we call that emotion. Energy in motion – emotion. Most of the time thoughts, chemicals, hormones, emotions are processed, digested, and let go from the body, but sometimes they stay around and settle somewhere in the body. The place these trapped emotions lodge are because of inherited weakness, or because of that metaphorical message the body is trying to send the conscious mind.

It is easy and fast to identify and eliminate these trapped emotions and get the energy flowing freely again. There are several methods. The one I use currently is from Dr Bradley Nelson and he calls it the Emotion Code. If you’ve got some pain in these areas that we have covered, feet, knees, legs and you would like to explore if you have some trapped emotions there, let me know and we can energy test that before or after class.