Check out my calendar for the most up to date information on the classes that I am now teaching. I am now teaching three days a week on Monday nights at 6:00, Wednesdays and Fridays at noon. Hope to see you there.
THE ATTIC OF THE BODY: A WORKSHOP TO OPEN AND RELEASE THE HIPS
How many of us complain about tight hips? The hips are said to be the place where we dump emotional baggage that we do not want to face, such as guilt, shame and grief. This workshop will work on the physical, emotional and subtle body to release tight muscles, let go of emotional baggage and open energy flows.
The hips are ruled by the water element but as many of us sit all day folded into right angles in some form of a chair either at a desk or in a car, the flow of blood circulation and energy is restricted. And the repetitive motions that we perform daily in work or in play: typing, running, cycling, horseback riding, etc. ask our body only for a limited range of motion. Few of us experience the full potential range of motion in open hips.
In this workshop, we will seek to find that full range of motion that is possible in our hips. We will seek fluidity and freedom in our hips by playing with poses that access the hip rotators, adductors, abductors and hip flexors.
Whether this is your first yoga class or your 100th, you will benefit from this single minded focus on a complex anatomical nexus where numerous large and small muscles, nerves and organs intersect. We will use props as needed to facilitate a mindful, careful release of the area.
Come out of this workshop, feeling light and open from shedding unneeded baggage, having cleared out the attic of the body, ready to embrace the world and go with the flow.
SIGN UP ONLINE!
Date & Time: Saturday, April 13, 2013, 3:00-4:30
Cost: $30 if pre-registerd in advance, $35 on the day of
Location: KamaDeva Yoga, 15 Lumber Lane, East Hampton
Registration: Please visit www.kamadevayoga.com to register online for this workshop
Ishvara Pranidhana
The translation of the Sanskrit term, Ishvara Pranidhana, goes something like this: surrender to god, to the divine, to grace, a higher source, however you want to call it, the will of the universe. The idea of surrender, to us raised in the West, seems passive, with connotations of defeat and giving up. But in yogic philosophy, as a niyama in one of the eight limbs of yoga, it means something entirely different.
The idea of offering ourselves to something greater than ourselves is much more unfamiliar than the idea of wrestling what we want from the world. From a young age, we are taught to insist, to push and push, to fight for one’s rights, for one’s due. Offering, as opposed to giving, is rarely in the Western vocabulary. But if we can offer ourselves, without expectation of any kind and just be, like a flower in a field, how much more real happiness could we all experience?
The supreme irony is that the more we push and strain, very frequently the less we achieve and perhaps harm ourselves. We obsess about ourselves, our problems, our preoccupations, yet if we can turn our focus outward, we can experience a truer fulfillment, as opposed to the fleeting pleasure of, say, acquiring a new toy. Our bodies are a prime example of this principal.
How many of us complain about tight hips?
We hold our emotions in our hips. All the emotional baggage of our lives is accumulated in the tightness of our hips. This is where the second chakra, Svadhisthana, the chakra of creativity, sexuality and self-worth, resides and is ruled by the water element. The pelvic area also provides for physical and metaphysical elimination. Holding on to past hurts, irrelevant histories and stories in our heart creates congestion and restriction in our hips. Releasing the hips works on the physical, emotional and subtle body to reduce gripping of the muscles and holding onto those stories. Opening the hips can catalyze an emotional release of guilt, shame and grief.
Gomukhasana or Cow Face pose is the ultimate challenge to our outer hips and the piriformis, all muscles that are often hard to access. Judicious use of props will facilitate a mindful, careful release of the area. Pushing can only do great harm as any of us who has experienced a groin pull can attest to. This is a pose that benefits from a long, long, long hold while meditating on a mantra like Sat Nam which means something like “I am truth”, “my identity is truth.”
This reminder can help us connect with that greater source that we all come from but have perhaps become disconnected from. You emerge from the pose feeling freer, more open, more ready to embrace the world and go with the flow. It is where, if we are relaxed and secure, we can be fluid and loose to surrender to the will of the universe, to offer ourselves to life.
Transitions are a constant
When are we not in transition? Transitions as you may have figured out are a fact of life. A more useful question is how do we deal with transitions?
The universe is always in transition. Mayans predicted the end of the world for this December. Ancient Hindu scripture states that we are coming to the end of a stage in a cycle of stages. The earth’s climate, always in flux, is currently in a major transition between one climatic period and the next one, one whose configuration is currently unknowable. Our nation is in transition: a presidential campaign is underway, people across the political spectrum feel the system is broken and needs an overhaul. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we are moving into Fall: shorter days, cooler weather, different schedules. I, personally am going through my latest transition, a mid-life crisis: where am I going? what am I doing?
Here is some reassurance – everything and everyone is in constant transition. We may not be aware of it, but it is even happening on the cellular level. All of our skin cells die and regenerate in 30 days, our red blood cell in 90-120 days. We are literally not the same person we were 3 months ago.
In yoga, the transitions between poses may seem like unimportant, throwaway moments before you settle into the next one but these transitions from one pose to another are the place where most people suffer injuries because we are not paying attention in them. As we let go of one pose and get ready for another, our attention wavers, we lose focus. We are not in the moment, not aware of our bodies moving through space but anticipating our arrival to the next, shiny, new pose.
Consider the transition from Warrior 2 to Ardha Chandrasana/ Half moon pose. In Warrior 2, your foundation is stable: your feet are rooted into the ground; your arms are balanced on either side of your torso. You are in a steady, familiar state. To come into Ardha Chandrasana, you must relinquish that state and extend your arm in front of your standing foot, release your back leg and reach toward your tipping point. There is that moment of flying into the unknown before you contact the floor with your fingertips and land in a steady state once again. You let out a mental sigh of relief.
But because transitions are dynamic, they are the place with the greatest room for growth. They require absolute control – you need just the right amount of momentum, strength, release, and absolute awareness of your body moving through space. The transitions reveal the moment of truth in our yoga practice and our lives. Can we remain present in change and uncertainty? Can we get into it and embrace the dynamic flow swirling around us?
Cultivating awareness and grace during these transitions, whether practicing yoga or practicing life, allows us to elongate time and space to fully experience the onrushing flow of stimuli and events. For the last 12 years, yoga has been my pole star. It is the compass point I refer to when all the transitions in my life seem to overwhelm. Perhaps yoga can provide this for you too.
Yoga Comes to the Springs!
Whether you’re a year-round resident or just visiting, the Springs section of East Hampton now has a new yoga class. Join Judy for 75 minutes of rewarding yoga in the Anusara tradition.
Drop-in classes are held every Tuesday morning from 9:00 to 10:15am.
Location:
Springs Community Presbyterian Church
5 Old Stone Highway
East Hampton, NY 11937
P.S. This class is non-denominational.