RabBoar Studio - Thoughts

David L.

Let’s “push our edge” and expand our boundaries in every Yoga pose we practice, keeping in mind the following from Daily OM:

The Boundaries Of Experience
Expanding Your Comfort Zone

None of us are born with a guidebook that provides explicit rules for thought and behavior that will enable us to navigate life successfully. To cope with the myriad of complexities to which all of humanity is subject, we each develop a set of habits and routines that ground us, their continuity assuring us that life is progressing normally. Most of us know, whether instinctively or by experience, that transformations can be uncomfortable, but we always learn and gain so much. Any initial discomfort we experience when expanding our comfort zones diminishes gradually as we both become accustomed to change and begin to understand that temporary discomfort is a small price to pay for the evolution of our soul.

Your current comfort zone did, at one time, serve a purpose in your life. But it is representative of behaviors and patterns of thought that empowered you to cope with challenges of days past. Now, this comfort zone does little to facilitate the growth you wish to achieve in the present. Leaving your comfort zone behind through personal expansion of any kind can prepare you to take the larger leaps of faith that will, in time, help you refine your purpose. Work your way outward at your own pace, and try not to let your discomfort interfere with your resolve. With the passage of each well-earned triumph, you will have grown and your comfort zone will have expanded to accommodate this evolution.

Whether your comfort zone is living with your parents, or perhaps being too shy to socialize, or maybe it’s not realizing your spirit self—whatever it is, start small, and you will discover that venturing beyond the limited comfort zone you now cling to is not as stressful an experience as you imagined it might be. And the joy you feel upon challenging yourself in this way will nearly always outweigh your discomfort. As you continue to expand your comfort zone to include new ideas, activities, goals, and experiences, you will see that you are capable of stimulating change and coping with the fresh challenges that accompany it.

Hi

Pam brought to my attention:

http://www.bandhayoga.com/index.html

Which I shared on the bodysmith list, to which 2 members respondes with:

http://www.positivehealth.com/permit/Articles/Bodywork/koch65.htm
http://www.massageandbodywork.com/Articles/DecJan2004/Psoas.html
Enjoy.. David L.

Having started teaching a new nei-gung class recently at the local wellness center, I had an occasion to revisit basic bits of information that relate to vitality and health; some of what were odd words in chinglish books years back are now rather clear concepts.

So, let me share of few of these.

Nei-Gung, or, ‘Working Within’ are training modes that change some of the fundamentals of ‘how the body works’ and optimize low level life processes. This is accomplished through modifications of structure and bearing, breathing, blood circulation & tissue scavenging through serum circulation. The end result is vastly increased vitality and health.

Vitality (in Chinese Jing) can be mapped directly to sufficient sugar, oxygen and other nutrients delivered to each and every cell in the body and waste products removed from each and every cell in the body.

To reach this goal nei-gung will:

1. Modify carriage and bearing in such a away as to lower the carrying tensions in all the muscles in the body to a minimum, passing static structure support to the bones and ligaments & releasing the abdominals from posture keeping. This allowes unimpeded diaphragm breathing. This has a secondary benefit of lowering blood pressure by lowering the flow resistance.
2. Re-Engage diaphragm (belly) breathing regaining ~60% of lung displacement and so tripling the oxygen intake.
3. Lowering blood pressure and enhancing peripheral blood circulation by triggering vagus nerve stimulation, with all that this implies.
4. Increasing scavenging of tissues through whole body movement which drives serum flow, this also increases the efficiency of the cardiovascular system overall efficiency through increased venal blood flow.

Other benefits include lowering physical and emotional stress levels, assisting in regaining full ROM in the joints, and stretching connective tissue. The nice part about these training modes is that they are simple and are rather easy to learn.

Having trained in Tai Chi Chuan for about 30 years now and having taught it for about 25 years, I am surprised as to how much simpler nei-gung is to share. Instead of a few years for basic proficiency, such as Tai Chi Chuan requires, one can start getting results in a matter of weeks.

David L.

I think the most difficult obstacle to overcome in our Yoga practice –well, OK, in our daily lives — is the avoidance of the challenging parts of the practice — or our lives.  I’m not talking about avoiding refined sugar or white bread or cigarettes — these, although sometimes difficult to do without are substances we know are not good for our physical bodies, so we have a lot of incentive to eliminate them.

I’m talking about those challenges that we sometimes are not even aware of.  This will shock some of you, but some people find Savasana (Corpse Pose or relaxation) to be one of the most challenging times of the Yoga class.  Just laying there, doing nothing for 10-20 minutes is excrutiating — and I’d bet some of you could put a comment to this post who feel this way.

Or me with Parsvakonasana (Side-Angle pose) which does not hurt (anymore), and in which I’ve moved further along so I can do one of the more challenging variations of the pose, but which I really dislike and feel uncomfortable and extremely challenged when I practice it.  So I try to practice it at least once a day, because if it is that much of a challenge, I must really need it.

I also relunctantly practice back-strengthening poses.  These are just plain challenging for me — and I think deep inside I’m still concerned that they may end up causing me back pain since I had chronic back pain for so many years.  But I’ve never found the strengthen poses or moves to hurt my back — although sometimes because my back muscles will get tired they will feel similar to back pain while I’m practicing the poses.  But later and the next day my back is fine, even if the muscles are sore from the exercises.

Balancing poses are a challenge for many people.  Because they can be difficult they are avoided even though the actual pose itself is not a physical challenge — it is more a mental challenge, a challenge of our focus, and we find it humbling that something so basically easy is so difficult — so we avoid them and tell ourselves we “can’t do balancing poses.” 

According to Yogic teaching, balancing poses teach us self-control and self-confidence, and I’ve seen time after time that those people who have no difficulty with balancing poses are those with a lot of personal confidence.  Or on days when someone who usually has trouble with the balancing poses seems to hold them more easily, on that day they are feeling good about themselves and have had a good, creative or successful day or week.

And, of course, the challenges do not always come in the form of an asana.  It can be practicing long slow breathing, or deep breathing — we think “heck, I should be able to breathe”.  But then the breathing practice is a real challenge and we decide we don’t like it and we avoid it.  Breath-work, whether a separate Pranayama practice or while practicing asanas is the next step beyond just asana practice — so yes, it IS challenging. 

If any of you are familiar with Dr. Weil (check out his website www.drweil.com) you’ll find that he recommends taking time for long slow deep breathing everyday as part of your health routine.

So don’t shy away from the challenging practices — no matter what they are.  You can’t develop, change and grow w/o challenging yourself.  Doctors even recommend learning new things (physically and mentally) to help prevent Altzheimers.

I first started practicing Yoga because of back pain.  And after I learned how to practice correctly to help my back (rather than practice competitively which was hurting my back) I did Yoga every morning — Saturdays and Sundays included.  My morning practice took about 10 minutes, and I occasionally would practice for 45 minutes once or twice and week.  And within a few short months, I no longer had chronic back pain, but I still continued to practice every morning — it had made it part of my routine.

I’m often asked, “how often should I practice Yoga?”  The answer to that question depends on you.  If you are in chronic pain and Yoga has been shown to help, the more often you practice, the quicker you will find relief.  Once or twice a week is not enough.  Even if there are no “scientific studies”  but only the experience of others that Yoga will help you, what have you got to lose except for 10-15 minutes every day?

Yoga won’t hurt your liver or kidney, it won’t weaken your heart or cause blood clots.  A regular Yoga practice IS good for you — physically as well as emotionally.  Even if it doesn’t completely relieve your physical pain, it can help you relieve the stress associated with it.

So, how often should you practice — only you can know the answer to that.