by Hilary Lindsay | Sep 4, 2017 | Uncategorized |
The function of the lungs is enhanced by the action of the legs. Here’s why. The skin of the thighs is attached to the skin of the hips, the belly and the ribs. The skin is not just what you see but what is connected beneath the surface to the muscle, connective web and bones. Try this. Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet on the floor. Take a generous inhale and full exhalation to observe that sensation. Now extend straight arms to brace the tops of the thighs forward. Take another generous inhale and full exhalation. Observe the sensation. I hope you notice that on the second inhale the belly draws down as the deep abdominal muscles stretch and you get a fuller breath. On the next breath bring your attention to the upper back. Spread the chest and settle the outer shoulders back and take a full breath again still pressing the thighs. The legs anchor the diaphragm from below while the shoulders anchor at the top. May the breath satiate and please you!...
by Hilary Lindsay | Feb 4, 2015 | Asana, Ethics, Meditation, nashville yoga, Religion, society, Tradition, Yoga, yoga class, Yoga History, Yoga Philosophy, yoga teaching |
In his opening lecture on the Yoga Sutras, Edwin Bryant PhD, Professor of Hinduism at Rutgers University, discredited the idea of a devotional aspect to the text postulated by an attending teacher. He declared that the totality of the Sutras is a call to meditation and an invitation to renunciation rather than advice to dedicate oneself to anything outside oneself. He had begun by stating that one cannot study yoga philosophy too often as the significance of the content changes with perceptions based in life experience. This teacher took comfort she said, in the idea of channeling disturbances of the mind into devotion or bhakti. Bryant shut the notion down going so far as to say that the text including the eight limbs was simply dedicated to eliminating distraction from self involvement which seems an erudite view. When the teacher cited a verse of the Bhagavad Gita to press her point Bryant made it clear that the Gita was not to be confused with the message of the Sutras. The Gita advocates duty and devotion to something outside oneself which is a direct departure from the attitude of isolation described in the Sutras. Gita’s shadow danced when I set the class for Warrior II the next day. God and War is a curious pairing without context. In the framework of modern and not so modern conflicts it’s business as usual and the business places God in awkward positions depending on whose God it is or on which side God stands. God and war in the Gita? I leave it to others to interpret as they...
