ASANA OF THE MONTH

Welcome to November!

This is the time of year when things start to get crazy with Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa preparations just around the corner. This is also the time of year when we must be especially careful to stay calm and balanced in spite of the pressure to morph into "superwoman". How many stories have we read about women who were afraid or ashamed to take time out for themselves? Almost all of them end up stressed out and beat down before it's all over. Combine that with the pressure of trying to pull it all together when jobs are disappearing, the economy is sinking and families are facing homelessness thanks to the record number of foreclosures. It's all enough to drive anyone mad, unless....

You have a plan. A spending plan, a menu plan, a shopping plan, a self preservation plan. While there are tons of things you can do to curb spending, simplify dinner and avoid overcrowded malls, I most concerned with what you can do to preserve your sanity during these insane times.

1. Put everything into perspective. This season is about being thankful for what we have, not so much what we want.
2. Take time out every day to just sit in silence. Even if it's only five minutes a day, do it without fail until the end of the year. This is your time.
3. Get moving. Don't wait until the New Year to begin working out. If you start now you can ward off those extra holiday pounds.
4. Consider taking this time to practice and perfect a challenging yoga asana. It will give you something to focus on during those days when it seems like everything is out of control. Not to mention, you'll feel an incredible sense of accomplishment when you finally master the pose, that's something that will stay with you no matter what happens with everything else.

Speaking of asanas, may I suggest Natarajasana

Natarajasana or Lord of the Dance pose is one of those poses that reminds us that it is possible to be strong, balanced and graceful at the same time. As we move into the pose it is important to ground through the bottom leg, as with everything else in life, a strong foundation is absolutely necessary. Balance is also important in this pose, as is focus. There's no way we can achieve succeed if we are looking all over the place for who knows what. Our dhristi (gaze) must be fixed on a steady object, only then will we achieve the balance necessary to reap the benefits of our efforts. Finally, as we do all of this we must remember that one of the greatest gifts the creator has given us is the ability to do all of this with beauty and grace.

Natarajasana is only one of hundreds of asanas you can incorporate into your practice. Feel free to try another and don't hesitate to share your experiences in the comments section.

Namaste

What do you think?

Yoga in Schools? Yes or No?

Yoga at NY high school causes stress among critics
Oct 2, 2008
MASSENA, N.Y. (AP) — A group of parents and religious leaders in upstate New York want yoga classes out of public schools, saying the instruction violates boundaries between church and state.
Two high school teachers began using yoga last year to help students relieve stress before exams. Special education teacher Martha Duchscherer and Spanish teacher Kerry Perretta also were developing a districtwide program.
But those plans were halted after parents and others in the community complained students were being indoctrinated in Hindu rites.
"We are not opposed to the benefits. We can understand the benefits. We are opposed to the philosophy behind it and that has its ties in Hinduism and the way they were presenting it," said the Rev. Colin Lucid of Calvary Baptist Church in Massena.
(read more)

UPDATE: Yoga is fine, as long as you don't call it yoga.

Stress got you down and outta wack?

Check out this list of 10 things you can do to bust stress. For the most part I agree with the author, I just wish there was some mention of yoga. Of course by now we all know that yoga is one of the most effective ways to deal with stress. Although there was no mention of the word yoga, Sheamus did manage to bring a little yoga spirit to his post (maybe without even knowing it). Check out the picture for tip #5 (Blog), it's none other than B.K.S. Inyengar! Yoga Yoga Everywhere!!!

Last Night a DJ Saved My Life.....

Well, actually it wasn't last night, it was last weekend and it wasn't a DJ it was me and the play button on my car stereo and my life wasn't in danger, I was just really pissed off and in danger of loosing my cool, so the truth (still working on my satya) is.....

Last weekend a CD of Manorama chanting Rama saved me from having to go to yoga class angry, agitated and drained. (Doesn't quite have the same ring to it, but it's the truth so....)

I've been doing a bit of research on the power of mantras or affirmations. My work began with the book, Healing Mantras. In it, Thomas Ashley-Farrand uses an example from Genesis to illustrate how important and powerful words are: "Looking more closely at Genesis we see, "God said ..." The light of divine creation was initiated by sound."

Essentially, all that is begins with the word, or at least sound. In yoga, mantras like Om are less about the meaning and more about the sound or the vibration created when you chant it. It is believed that Om is the sound that God made when He created the universe. I figure since no one can know for sure what language God spoke that's as good a story as any right? Anyway, there are other sounds or seed mantras that you can use to affect change in your life by opening up the energy centers in your chakras or by calling upon an attribute of the Creator to help make things happen in a specific area of your life. Some mantras are just words or sounds that remind you to stop and take a deep breath. Remember "Woosa" from the movie Bad Boys? Yup, that could be considered a mantra. If you're looking for something a little more "meaningful", you can also choose scripture or a surah.

At the beginning of teachers training we were each instructed to choose a mantra. I originally chose a seed mantra but for some reason I moved away from it, so now I'm working with another, but last weekend after a challenging encounter with a loved one it was the "Rama" chant sung by Sanskrit scholar Manorama that led me out of that (very) negative place and into a place that is peaceful and in line with what I'm trying to accomplish in my life. I had no idea at the time what Rama meant or what the mantra was for, I just sang along and let the melody and vibration take over. After about five minutes I was calm and ready to move forward, free of the weight of that episode which a few months ago I would've swiftly added to my already overflowing bag of "stuff". As I begin to deepen my practice, I find that yoga is so much more than just the postures. Really the postures are just the beginning, the warm up if you will. The body is important but if you really wanna change your life, take a couple of deep breaths, say a prayer and then just be........

With that....I leave you with this.

**thank you karen for reminding me**

Truth...Try it.

Learning to incorporate yoga and it's theories into your everyday life off the mat can be challenging, but well worth it. For the last few weeks I've been making an effort to practice satya (truthfulness) in each moment. Not that I'm a big fat liar per se, it's just that as a radio personality I'm often asked to embellish, exaggerate and in some cases outright lie all in the name of entertainment. I've found that after 10+ years of "story-telling" I'm always finding ways to make every story more interesting by changing a few details here and there. As I move into my new life I'm working on resisting that urge by instead being completely honest, no punchlines, just truth. Get this, when I feel like what I have to say is less than interesting I say nothing at all (that sound you just heard was the collective gasp of everyone who knows me well enough to know how big of a challenge that is). I do this by beginning my day with the intention to not only speak truth, but to also live truth. We live our truth when we begin to listen to our inner voices, our guts, our consciousness. We no longer allow our insecurities and ego to lead the way, instead we follow our hearts freeing our minds to work on the obstacles that are inevitable during our journey. Pantanjali writes in the Yoga Sutra, "to one established in truthfulness, actions and their results become subservient." In other words, once you become one with the truth your words become so potent that whatever you say manifests as truth.

Try it: From this moment forward vow to be honest, remembering that if your honesty has the potential to hurt or harm another, silence is always the best policy. It's like grandma said, if you don't have anything nice (or honest) to say, don't say anything at all. Then check in after 24 hours. How do you feel? Peaceful? Light? Free?

Video of the Day

How cute is this:

I wish I could share more but I'm fighting yet another cold. This one has stripped me of my ability to smell and taste which is funny considering my post today was originally going to include an in depth look into one of the 8 limbs of yoga, Pratyahara, mastery of ones senses...Hmmm, as they say, there's no such thing as coincidences.

Asana of the Month

It's October already. My how time flies. I guess that means it's time for another Asana of the Month.



Every yogi has that one pose that they dream of moving into with ease for a full five breaths. It's that pose that continues to remind us that it's not the destination, it's the journey that counts. For me, that pose is Eka Pada Rajakapotasana (One Leg King Pigeon). I find it visually stunning and physically challenging. Not to mention the opening of the hips, the slight bend in the lower back and the stretch in the back quadricep feel like heaven whenever I coax my body into a supported version using a strap. Eka Pada Rajakapotasana is considered an advance pose so most of us will probably need to first settle into one-leg half pigeon before attempting the full on version.

Talk to anyone who's practiced yoga for a while and they'll tell you that certain poses can bring out lots of stuff, both physical and emotional, depending on the yogi. Backbends, heart openers and rotating poses tend to encourage these kinds of releases in most people, but for me it's the hip openers that get my juices flowing (so to speak). It was the forward bend in the double pigeon that nearly brought me to tears a few weeks ago. At first I thought it was just an automatic reaction to the discomfort but when I realized the physical discomfort was just that discomfort, not pain I knew there was something else going on. Apparently, I'm not the only one, when searching for a picture of Kapotasana (Full King Pigeon) I found a comment from an anonymous poster who admitted that s/he usually cries after.

We hold so much stress and tension in our hips thanks to the many hours a day we find ourselves sitting at a desk, in the car or in front of the television that opening them becomes so necessary and as you relieve the physical stress in your hips (which yoga instructor Baron Baptiste calls the "mother of all movement") so do you begin to relieve the mental and emotional stress that is often held there as well. It's that mind body connection that is the basis of all Yoga that makes this and other poses like it so incredibly powerful and important.

Try it and see what happens.