by Hilary Lindsay | Aug 9, 2017 | Asana, medical yoga, nashville yoga, therapeutic yoga, Yoga, yoga class, Yoga psychology, yoga teacher, yoga teaching |
Your body is a nervous system, a union of several nervous systems. The nerves transmit electric signals. You are an integration of communicators and receptors. Picture a cinematic disaster with bystanders and emergency responders frantically grasping for answers and direction. Does your body ever feel that way? You are a bundle of nerves navigating uncharted territory every day. You are under stress. Wires overheat. Circuits go haywire. You want to manage the stress. If you’ve recognized it you’ve done step one. Now what are the effects of the de-stressor you chose? You are high but is the stress gone? You’ve exhausted your muscles but is the stress gone? You relaxed but is the stress gone? You’ve eaten a cake but is the stress gone? If not, where is it? Can you repair those hot wires? Let them cool as you sit with sensation. Consider your choices. Approach as a novice. You are. Approach as an intuitive being. You are. Test and re-test. It’s your computer lab. You keep the notations. For your complex energy web. Save Save...
by Hilary Lindsay | Jul 19, 2017 | anatomy, Asana, Ethics, medical yoga, nashville yoga, Social Commentary, therapeutic yoga, Yoga, yoga class, yoga teacher, yoga teaching |
I’ve been hurt by yoga. Poses. Done wrong Imposed upon me By someone else Or me I didn’t go near them again. Not those anyway. But then I did. After a while. And I did them differently like tasting poison that could only kill me if I drank too much or too quickly. And I approached the poses like a frightened animal. Entered the poses remembering the first time and every way I knew they hurt me and I used them to put myself back together the way I was meant to be. Now that I...
by Hilary Lindsay | Jul 2, 2017 | Asana, Meditation, nashville yoga, therapeutic yoga, Yoga, yoga class, yoga teacher |
You are light as a feather, unsteady as a newborn calf. You are standing on feet untethered to the floor practicing your yoga. Gravity is not enough of an anchor. It has too little of you to hold on to. Pour yourself into yourself. Stretch to your width. Inhabit your depth. Release the tension that recoils from the floor. Let the ground embrace...
by Hilary Lindsay | Jun 7, 2017 | anatomy, Asana, Cooking, medical yoga, nashville yoga, therapeutic yoga, Yoga, yoga class, yoga teaching |
I love cooking shows even when they cook meat. Cooks have a description called resting the meat which stays with me because I’m horrified by the image of eating blood. You let the cooked meat sit before cutting into it so the juices rest back to the flesh. I don’t mind being horrified as much as I enjoy the delights of seasoning, menus and presentation. I recalled the latest cooking demo as I lead a group of students into a rest between poses one day. I marked a vigorous floor sequence and lay on the floor with them to visualize their rest. I pictured one meat image and then another. I recalled the description falling off the bone to describe tender meat and then the phrase “rest the meat”. I asked forgiveness for sharing those images but getting real, we are flesh and bone and so…..It was not hard to feel the blood settle in resting flesh that had been squeezed and stretched. With time the bones were liberated toward the floor. Shocking images wake us up. It’s a bit excessive to relate a subtle inquiry to the body of a butchered and cooked animal but it worked. Hope this works for...
by Hilary Lindsay | Jun 6, 2017 | Asana, Healthy Living, Meditation, Pranayama, therapeutic yoga, Tradition, Yoga, yoga class, Yoga psychology, yoga teacher, yoga teaching |
Yoga teacher Michael Stone has a gift for conveying imagery through words with a tenderness that is unique. I am putting his newsletter on Pranayama here because it is everything I could say in words I had not thought of. He is remarkable. Check him out. The link is first and I’ve copied his copy below. All credit to Michael Stone. https://michaelstoneteaching.com/pranayama-1-practices/?utm_source=Michael+Stone+Newsletter&utm_campaign=5f19a8a3fe-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_06_05&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6b6fe36477-5f19a8a3fe-122510405 Pranayama 1: Practices Pattabhi Jois said that pranayama practice was like plugging yourself in to a 12,000 volt outlet. Some confuse the endorphin rush of extended inhales and exhales with what should really be going on: ease and pleasure. The best part about chanting is not chanting. The afterglow, the clean taste in the palette when it’s finished. Ujayyi Pranayama Pranayama means the energy of prana. We’re ayaming (unrestraining) the prana. Ujayyi means victorious, and up. We’re stretching the threads of the breath to release the prana. The inhale and exhale are conditioned by samskaras – your scars of gender, culture, Stephen Harper, childhood, the Keystone XL Pipeline proposal. All this can be found in your breath. Doing pranayama means becoming a connoisseur of the breath. Inside the breath there are gravestones, habits, flows of the past, nervous system indicators/regulators, immune system indicators/regulators. We practice to comb through all the layers of the prana. Inhaling and exhaling through the nose tones the glottis. Try to produce just enough tone in the vocal diaphragm so you can hear an aspirant breath, but so your neighbour can’t hear it. It’s like when you’re whispering – then you are also toning the vocal diaphragm....
by Hilary Lindsay | Apr 24, 2017 | anatomy, Asana, medical yoga, nashville yoga, therapeutic yoga, Yoga, yoga class, yoga teacher, yoga teaching |
Unintentionally there is a disservice in yoga classes. After a student does a pose on one side, that side becomes a standard for the second. I tell my students that expecting one limb to behave like the one on the other side is like telling your kid he should have gotten an A because his brother got one. Students are taught as if there is a correct way to do a pose but the way offered is that of a factory made doll. We start with the picture of absolute symmetry because it is neutral but in fact that is only a baseline as we are all built differently. Even the relationship of bone lengths differ person to person. And then most of us have experienced injuries that changed relationships again. Students notice that one side performs or behaves differently than the other. The awareness is less a problem than the work ethic of expecting the other side to be equivalent. When you are on the second arm or leg or the second side of a pose, treat it as if it is not the second but the first. You are still using the same guidelines, going in the same direction. But once differences have been established, by clearing the confusion of comparison your first second side will have a chance to shine. You are cultivating awareness with discernment which is both sophisticated and subtle. It takes patience. This is something that comes with experience. Keep going. The journey is often tedious and even boring at times but the rewards come and they are great....
