Elevated Movement

Breath of Life

Lately, the body and mind’s need for rest has been a recurring theme for me! If you’ve been in class, you’ve heard me talk about the importance of connecting with your breath of life. It’s an on-going assignment! I’d like to offer  three gentle reminders for  developing a personal practice focused on breath work.

• As you exhale, focus on giving the ribcage permission to rest.  Remembering that the ribcage releases towards the pelvis on your exhales.  Inhale on the word “Let,”  exhale on the word, “Go.”
• After observing your breath for a few cycles, see if you can create evenness between the exhales & inhales.  For example, if you inhale on a 4 count, exhale on a 4 count.
•  Choose a number, say 25, and count backwards on your exhales.  If you become distracted and lose count, just pick up counting where you last recall.

This summer, my daughter snapped the above photo of me resting and focusing on breath work after touring a historic home in New York’s Hudson Valley. Since then I have enjoyed countless conversations with fellow teachers and students - about our ability (or lack of ability) to rest. What we all seem to need is permission - knowing that it’s okay to sit down and just breathe, just be.

May we all be. Permission granted.

first published online at www.LongLisa.com in 2008

Yoga's Benefits

The photo is of Jack doing an awesome block lunge at age 85! Jack, from Buffalo, NY,  is married to one of my amazing students, Inez. The article below is from www.empowereddoctor.com. I share the article because I have witnessed my students shift concurring with the research.

“Taking yoga classes yields a slight but important decrease in the fear of falling among senior citizens, a recent study showed, as well as conferring greater lower-body flexibility and removing constraints on their leisure activities.

Fear of falling may have a significant impact on the health and quality of life of older adults because it causes them to curtail their social and physical activity. It has this effect even on those who have never fallen.

"Our study found that yoga was a feasible intervention with older adults and that they perceived great benefit from it," said Marieke Van Puymbroeck, an assistant professor in the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Studies in Indiana University's School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. She recently discussed her research at the International Association of Yoga Therapists" Symposium for Yoga Therapy and Research, in Los Angeles.

In the study, 14 men and women with an average age of 78 participated in a 12-week, twice-weekly, 60-minute class in hatha yoga, taught by a professional yoga therapist. Five of the subjects had fallen previously. Hatha yoga is a physically easy and non-strenuous form of yoga.

The attendance rate was quite high, Van Puymbroeck said, and the dropout rate very low - 90 percent and 6 percent respectively - an excellent showing compared with most physical activity and yoga classes for the elderly.

At the end of the 12 weeks, the subjects reported 6 percent less fear of falling, 34 percent greater lower-body flexibility, and a significant decline in leisure constraints.

Participants described "tremendous benefits," Van Puymbroeck said, repeatedly detailing their improved ability to generalize principles of posture to other situations, enlarged range of motion, better flexibility and improved balance.”

first published online in 2009 at www.LongLisa.com

Pinatas

Ava and Hugh 2005

It began with a plea - a simple desire- an attraction to something beautiful that you break open and out comes good stuff.  “Mom, I want a pinata for my next birthday,” declared my young son.  That’s how all this started.

Wanting to fulfill my child’s desire while at the same time provide a lesson in home economics, I went to the garage to gather the supplies:  newspaper and plaster of paris.  I needed balloons, too.  Those could be found in my Yoga bag.  I use them when teaching the breath to children.

A deep inhale -- a complete exhale, it took several breath cycles to fill 2 balloons.  My children and I then spent the next 30 minutes quickly coating the balloons with strips of newspaper slathered in white goop.  We had to work fast because the plaster of paris hardens like a heart broken one too many times.

It took 3 days to make the hard shell around the balloons.  Each thin layer of newspaper needed to dry at least 24 hours before the next coat.  By the third day, the children were not as interested in the process.  I spent the time smoothing, coating, and thinking.

Here were two balloons filled with the waste product of my body.  It’s called apana in Yoga.  Around the “garbage” that I exhaled, I was constructing a firm, thick, hard shell.  Often this is what we do to our bodies.  We keep the bad stuff inside, maintaining a thick exterior, a “thick skin.”

As I dipped my hand in the plaster of paris, gathering more junk to smooth out the newspaper wrinkles on the balloon, I realized we also soften the rough edges on our exterior body -- masking the junk, the anxiety, the stress, the pain, the guilt, the sadness held inside of us.

The children did help me paint the pinatas - bright orange and yellow - sunny, happy,  up colors.  We decorated them, just like we adorn our bodies with feathers, ribbons, and sparkles that glitter in the sun like a cubic zirconia - pretty, but not quite the real thing.

The balloons were still inside hidden under the exterior gloss.  After nearly a week, one was pretty much deflated, a lot like the interior self gets when the bad stuff stays inside too long.  It’s as if our hearts and souls shrivel.

The other balloon was still fully inflated.  Amazing -- all that yucky stuff was still inside.  Poised with a sharp pin, my daughter took aim and popped the balloon.  Could it really be that simple?  What does it take to let the garbage out?  A sharp, quick poke?  What brings about that kind of transformation?

The reason we hear a loud sound when a balloon pops has to do with the air moving quickly and the molecules colliding.  Think of it as a mass exodus.  Like making the pinatas, once we pop the balloon inside, there’s now room to fill the empty vessel with treats, goodies, and surprises.

On a sunny, blue sky afternoon, children gathered in my backyard.  Our homemade pinatas swung from a glorious Live Oak.  Eyes covered by bandanas, sense of sight lost, hands wildly swung bats through the gentle breeze.  There were many misses.  A few strikes that were not quite hard enough.  Then, CRACK!  The exterior masterpiece, carefully crafted over time, molded, shaped, smoothed, and decorated - blew away in the wind.   And spilling out -- the sweet stuff!  The goodness inside flies out across space - hands reach and gather, craving deliverance, drawing sustenance.

It was only a pinata, yet we touched another soul.



Copyright 2005 Lisa A. Long

Hip Hold to Tuck

Fundamental Yoga - supine sequence

Fundamental Yoga - warm up sequence

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