Class extras for rexburgyoga.com

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.

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

Moving up the body from the feet, knees and legs, we will learn about the structures of the sacrum and hips.

The hips, sacrum, pelvis, low back area is moving into the 2nd energy center with the most concentration of energy in the pelvic organs and systems. The message of this energy center is one of partnership, creation, choice, and ethics. We create new life, we create money and wealth, and partnerships in marriage or business.

The metaphor in every joint of the body is one of accepting and embracing change. The hips are the largest and most powerful joint so the metaphor is about having fear or faith concerning making the major decisions of life. Pain or illness in the hip area is a message that there is fear concerning a major life decision, or that it feels as if there is nothing to move forward to.

Those major life decisions usually have to do with money, career, family, marriage, basic ethical beliefs and the ability to make the choice for yourself in these areas.

Think about the major decision of life – marriage, career, schooling, a new business, a new baby, retirement, to stand up for your beliefs or prostitute your beliefs for money. These are the messages in the 2nd energy center. Partnership, creativity, ethics, choice.

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.

The article that we are drawing from this month on knees comes from Yoga Journal

We will be learning and doing chair and eagle pose as our featured poses for the month.

It is possible to injure or slow down healing in the knees practicing yoga. You do that by practicing mindlessly, and without care or by greed. A greedy practice would be wanting to go farther in a pose than is appropriate or trying to look like someone else in the room. In addition to being moderate and practicing with care here are the 8 ways to protect your knees during a yoga practice.

1 Avoid hyperextending. When joints are overly mobile and flex too far back, they’re hyperextended. In the knees, hyperextension often occurs in poses in which the legs are straightened, such as Trikonasana (Triangle Pose) and Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Bend), putting an unhealthy tension on the ligaments. If you’re prone to hyperextension, keep a slight bend in the knees during standing poses and keep your weight evenly distributed among the four corners of your feet. In seated forward bends, place a rolled-up sticky mat or towel under the knee of the extended leg or legs.

2 Start with your feet. Proper alignment through the feet is the key to building strength evenly in the ligaments on both sides of the knee; when all the ligaments are equally strong, the kneecap glides effortlessly up and down and the cartilage doesn’t get worn down. Separate your toes and press actively through the four corners of your feet in every pose, even inversions. If your feet are out of alignment, your knees are going to suffer.

3 Keep your knees in line. When moving into deep knee bends, such as Virabhadrasana II (Warrior Pose II) and Parsvakonasana (Side Angle Pose), first align your bent knee over your ankle, then draw your kneecap in line with your second toe. Maintain awareness in your back foot, pressing down evenly, while lifting up from the arch of your front foot. “If you let the arch drop, the knee falls inside the big toe, and you’re set up to suffer a number of different kinds of overuse and acute knee injuries,” says Angela Smith, a professor of orthopedic surgery.

4 Tune in to subtle signals. “Oftentimes, the knees don’t give immediate feedback,” explains Iyengar teacher Joni Yecalsik. “Only later do you realize you’ve gone too far. When it comes to the knees, the sensation that would normally proceed the red flag is the red flag.” If you feel achiness when you come out of a bent-knee pose, you may have worked too hard.

5 Build strength by balancing. Balancing poses, especially those that require moving through a bent standing leg, such as Garudasana (Eagle Pose), are especially beneficial. “Very dynamic balancing protects the knee against future injury by training the functional alignment, not just working the muscle,” Smith says.

6 Be prop-friendly. When it comes to seated asanas, nothing makes a tight knee happier than a bounty of props. In Virasana (Hero Pose), try raising your seat with blankets or a block. Anytime the knees are deeply bent, such as in Balasana (Child’s Pose) or Marichyasana III (Pose Dedicated to the Sage Marichi III), pressure can be relieved by placing a rolled-up washcloth as far into the knee pit as possible before bending the joint.

7 Warm up with hip openers. “If your big joints aren’t open, your small joints will always take the stress,” yoga instructor Sandy Blaine says. “Many people hurt their knees doing Lotus when their hips aren’t ready.” She recommends warming up with hip stretches like Baddha Konasana (Bound Angle Pose) and Gomukhasana (Cow Face Pose).

8. Lift the quadriceps muscle on the front of the thigh. This pulls the kneecap right into place and stabilizes the knee joint. Do this in all standing poses where there is a need for that stability but also in seated,reclined and supine poses, so the leg muscles can be strengthened isometrically.

The focus for Yoga for Optimum Wellness this month is legs and knees. Muscles surrounding the knee joint must be both strong and yet flexible to properly align and stabilize this sensitive joint. Mindfully practicing yoga can accomplish both over time.

A quote from Healing Keys says

Our legs move our body forward and backwards. Our legs symbolize foundation and moving forward in our life.

Problems with our legs signify feelings of not ‘having a leg to stand on,’ with no support, strength or foundation, and having nothing to build on or to go forward toward.

The knees are the shock absorbing joints in the leg. They allow the legs to bend for walking and they articulate with the tibia and the femur.

The knees represent making decisions, charisma and commitment.

Problems with our knees indicate that we are having difficulty with decision-making, that we are ‘weak kneed’ and that we are finding it difficult to move forward in a new way.

We believe that our needs will not be taken care of if we move onto the next step, or that we won’t succeed.

Problems with the knees symbolize trying to get our needs met, rather than fully giving ourselves in commitment, which is truly fulfilling.

Knees represent pride and ego. Problems with knees can be inability to bend, fear, & inflexibility.

The metaphors we use in our language help us to clearly see the energetic message and meaning in our legs and knees:
The problem bought him to his knees,
She is knee deep in tasks,
He went weak in the knees just thinking about the future.
That idea has no legs.
Let’s hit the ground running.

Achieving a balance between strength, but not pride; between flexibility and commitment is the message in the legs and knees.

Here’s a product to help spread your toes while you are doing something else in the morning or evening.

Yoga tradition teaches that we have a physical body that where we experience and sense the world. We also have an energy body, an emotional body and mental body. All these layers affect each other. Changing one, changes all in some way.

When we have pain or illness in the physical body, its like the warning lights on the dash of your car. Its a signal to examine the energy, the emotions and the message behind the pain.

During the year we will pay special attention to the physical body and become acquainted with isolating a specific system in order to have a more efficient energy flow, thus better health in the physical body.

We also want to learn about the symbolism behind each system. Learning the metaphor and meaning of the feet for example can help us examine and change our emotions and thoughts and again that will change and improve the energy body and the physical body.

In other words – Body, Mind and Emotions, inseparably connected and unified in our yoga practice.

Let’s learn the symbolism of the feet. The message in the feet is associated with the very foundation of your journey here in life; how you are choosing to spend your time, energy and attention. Safety, security and understanding of the world are messages of the feet. Think of the metaphor, landing on both feet or putting your best foot forward. These are statements that the world is secure your path is clear and fortunate.

So when you experience pain in your feet, that is a clue to get quiet and examine your emotions and thought about where you are headed in your journey in life.

Here are some questions to ask yourself in a time of meditation:
Am I moving forward and spending my time and energy where my soul or passion is directing?
If I know I am on the right path, do I feel fearful, lonely disconnected or afraid to move forward boldly?
What can I do to feel safe and secure in the world?
What is the meaning and purpose in my life’s journey right now?
Do I find joy and satisfaction in each metaphorical step?
Are my decisions and commitments wishy-washy or unstable?
Am I filled with fears of falling, fear of failing, fear of the future or just fears in general?
Am I clinging to old hurts, old patterns? (keep in mind that moist, stagnant areas develop mold and fungus)
Am I frustrated or deeply angry with life?

These questions and the strong emotions like fear, anger, inflexibility, loneliness, misunderstanding, unforgiveness all contribute to the physical ailments of the feet.

Ways to hear your inner wisdom are to find a friend who will listen as you speak out loud and then come to your own conclusions. Prayer, meditation, journaling, walking, creative work, or menial work all provide opportunities for your spirit to speak to the conscious mind.

When a thought of suffering or negative emotion is brought out into the sunlight of the conscious mind, it is easy to release and let go. Use techniques taught in your own spiritual practice as well as other energy psychology techniques.
transform mind
angries out
Wholistic healing research