HIPS & LOW BACK Release

POST PRACTICE ZOOM CALL 1:30-2p SATURDAY APRIL 25th

Join us on saturday for a live zoom call right after class. We will discuss the shoulders and the neck and get your questions answered!

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81172427640 

 neck and shoulder release

Neck & Shoulder Release

The key to healing any physical issue is quite often very simple: Do the opposite of what caused the pain. For most of us that means change the arm positions, strengthen the opposite muscles that are getting worked on a daily basis at the computer or on our cell phone. DO the opposite. This class is designed to support you in building strength in muscles that are typically underused, and stretching muscles that are typically over used. That said your body and movement patterns are unique and you must begin the process of becoming more aware of them if you want to have long term relief.

POST PRACTICE ZOOM CALL SATURDAY APRIL 18th

Join us on saturday for a live zoom call right after class. We will discuss the shoulders and the neck and get your questions answered!

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83881565887

 Fire Line

The Fire Line

The Fire Line, created by Matt Giordano for the Elements of Mastery is a kinesthetic chain of musclular engagements that help to activate the core in a way that directly enhances strength for twists and arm balances. It starts from the Muscle called the serratus anterior which connects the shoulder blades to the rib cage and directly feeds into the obliques on a diagonal to the opposite hip and continues down that inner thigh. 

 ABHYASA & VAIRAGYA

Theme: Abhyasa and Vairagya

Abhyasa and Vairagya are some of the most influential and important teachings in the yoga/life practice. Together they make up the balance of effort and surrender. It is imperative to understand where to place effort and when to surrender. Most of us waste our energy trying to control outcomes, and letting go of our ability to take action. In other words we do everything backwards. Abhyasa is about placing or leveraging the right effort at the right time. How do you know? When our ego and samskaras are what tell us to pull back and say things like “its not worth it”, “I’m not good enough”, “no one will care”, “no one will show up”, “They just don’t get me” or any other number of self defense, self defeating statement – THIS is when effort is needed the most. The effort is in battling your own internal dialogue, and doing it anyway despite what others think, or your fears around the out comes. When rubbing up against these insecurities, most then say “I am just going to let that go”. This is NOT the time to let go, this is the time to push forward through your limiting beliefs. Vairagya on the other hand is the knowing that when you have put in your best effort there is nothing more you can do but allow nature to take it’s course.

Most of us put all our effort in to what we can’t control because it is outside of ourself. Controlling what is inside challenges our identity and belief structure, and so we tend to stay away from it for fear of shaking up our false sense of emotional security. To do this work, you must be willing to shake up your inner world. Only then will you find contentment in your creations.

 Samadhi

Theme: Dharana & Dhyana

Samadhi is the experience we have when the mind realizes the totality of itself one part of an infinite whole. You are using the mind to read this right now, and from this level of consciousness there is no way for the mind to comprehend unless you have previously experienced this state of oneness with all things. I am using my lower levels of consciousness as well to explain and for that I am likely to fall short. That being said I will do my best. Using an analogy from one of my teachers, Alan Finger – Consiousness is like the ocean. When the ocean swells and crashes upon the shore, drops of water fly up in the air. These drops are still the ocean separated by time and space. We are those drops in relationship to the bigger more expansive ocean of consciousness. For brief moments in time we arise and take shape in the form of this body, collecting unique experiences in our mind and forming beliefs and identity. In meditation, the mind has the opportunity to realize this and come back to the awareness of all that is. In those moments when the mind returns to the understanding that it is simply a drop that is apart of the ocean, there is a feeling of indescribable goodness that overwhelms our being, yogis call this Samdhi. 

 Dharana & Dhyana

Theme: Dharana & Dhyana

The major difference between Dharana and Dhyana is that Dharana requires willful effort, harnessing the vritti’s (parts of the mind), where as Dhyana is more the result of that effortful concentration. Dhyana is effortless concentration. Think of it like you are trying to pull a ship out of the harbor, at first you would require tremendous effort and force, but once the momentum sets in, the ship is hard to stop. The mind is the same way. At first you must put in the effort to harness the scattered pieces of the mind, but then once you get in the zone you experience the effortless, easeful focus of Dhyana. 

 Samskaras

Theme: Samskaras

Samskaras are the grooves or patterns of the mind that cloud our perception, and hold us back from seeing live clearly as it is. They are formed through life’s experiences: the mind is designed to look for similar situations that it takes in through the senses. It is quite efficient because of this: when someone raises their hand in a classroom, there is a patterned response that instantly allows us to assume that this person has a question. Any school teacher knows that sometimes this isn’t always the case, as sometimes someone is just adjusting their shirt or stretching. This is how we can easily misperceive a situation and then be so sure that we have it right and they have it wrong. No? How about let’s reverse it: ever get in an argument with someone and they are so sure they are correct and you are wrong? who is seeing it clearly? We are always quick believe ourselves to be correct because our thought patterns are a collection of rights and wrongs based on what we have experienced. The problem? Our experience is limited to the past, our patterns are based on what happened, not what IS happening, or what might happen. Our thoughts, emotions, and actions are all wrapped up in something that no longer exists.  

Do we need to abolish all patterns of our mind? absolutely not. Burning samskaras is about releasing the thought, emotional, and behavioral patterns that no longer serve our sense of well being. That means, yes it is your choice, and only you know what is serving you and what is not, but it requires radical honesty with your self, which requires the courage to be vulnerable. Most Samskaras are formed out of emotional self defense, which means they will be our blind spots. They will be uncomfortable to see, and even more uncomfortable to confront when deciding to make the change.

How to burn samskaras? Though process is ironically very simple given how challenging it is to execute. Here it is:

• AWARENESS: First you need to develop awareness, the willingness to self reflect. Start with asana to open up your receptivity to and balance your state of mind, and then move to meditation practice and more contemplative exercises: focus on observing thought and emotional patterns that arise throughout your day. at first this will be hard but like a muscle you will get stronger every time you practice.
• ANCHOR: In Chromatic Yoga we have something called an Anchor – an intention that we tie our self to when the waters get rough. This is created by asking yourself these primary questions. How do I want to feel? How do I want to think? How do I want to act? While you can’t choose the thought or emotion or urge of action that arrises you can choose what you do when you observe them. These answers need to be contemplated, then engrained inside you so that when a Samskara is triggered your go to response is to ask your self those questions and then respond with the answers immediately
• ACTION: The final step is to act on your intention – choose to focus your attention on what will serve you. Choose to focus on a different thought, emotion or take another action. What if the the samskara is too strong and the mind is spinning out of control – PRACTICE. You need to get in your body to disrupt the pattern. THIS already is a NEW pattern that burns the old one. “When I am triggered, I disrupt the pattern by getting into my body and harnessing the power of my mind to feel my body and remember that I am alive, and that this life is a gift”

 LIVE Practice From 3-14-2020

Theme: Spanda

Spanda is the natural pulsation of the universe and it exists all around us. It is obvious when observing nature – All things that contract, eventually expand again, and the cycle continues. In the class I used the Example of the flower that grows to its maximum potential toward the end of it’s growing season – at that time it drops seeds onto the earth. The seed is the most contracted state AND it Is simultaneously the state of greatest potential. The flower is in its most expansive state just before it drops the seed, and it radiates with beauty. The teaching of Spanda is not about appreciating just the potential or the fullest expression, its about honoring the whole cycle.

With this teaching I brought in a second topic and that is Tapas. Tapas is enduring the rigor of life practices. Tapas is the intensity, friction or heat that builds when we rub up against our old patterns of thought and behavior. When we come up again our patterns we tend to fall back into them, returning back to the state of contraction. Of the many seeds that drop on the earth from the flower, few are able to endure the intensity of the fall and winter conditions. Few hold out when the going gets tough, but those that do reach the manifested state of potential and expansion.