by Hilary Lindsay | Dec 31, 2020 | anatomy, Asana, Feldenkrais, Healthy Living, Limbs of yoga, nashville yoga, Physiology, Social Commentary, society, therapeutic yoga, Tradition, Uncategorized, Yoga, yoga class, yoga community, Yoga Philosophy, yoga teacher, yoga teaching |
Yoga combats arthritis, scoliosis, osteoporosis, imbalances, muscle weakness, pain and mental suffering. Or it increases it. Everything is the result of how you’re made and how you do things. And then there is how you are guided to manage these things. Organization, meaning how our body organizes itself, is key but we are mostly messy and subject to outside opinions of “cleanliness”. In yoga cleanliness is not described as the opposite of dirty but an inner shine. It is a component of a larger picture of contentment. In the late eighties and nineties many of us yoga enthusiasts were taught to invite discomfort, to force ourselves past normal range of motion, to work till the breath was ragged and then work to control that breath. It was stimulating, emotionally revealing, challenging in the best of ways. It did feel like making diamonds from carbon. Yoga was young in the U.S.. We were young. For many bodies that was fine until time changed those bodies and the practice naturally evolved with aging. For some bodies that was fine until it wasn’t and it was too late to undo the damage. About 25 years ago I began to feel the effects of pushing my body to the limit. In fairness I’d been told by a rheumatologist that my ligaments lacked integrity and yoga was the worst thing my body could do. It would destroy me. I discounted that at a time when movement came so easily and yoga was a dance that satisfied me wholly. I probably should have stuck to my own practice of dance incorporating yoga as that never...
by Hilary Lindsay | Nov 3, 2019 | Limbs of yoga, nashville yoga, Religion, Social Commentary, society, Tradition, Yoga, Yoga and Religion, yoga class, yoga community, Yoga History, Yoga Philosophy, yoga teacher, yoga teaching |
I was an honorary panel member at the Third Annual Global Bhagavad-Gita Convention in San Jose this year. Our topic was societal well being. A question was posed from an audience member. When is it appropriate to offer help to someone you see in need? Though I’m quick to opinion it also takes me a bit of ruminating to run the gamut of possibilities that both a question and answer offer and another panelist answered as I was still considering more than my first thought which was a question, Do they want help? That was only the initial thought which lead me to two more questions. Do you want to help? Do you have the capacity to help? The Bhagavad-Gita tells the story of a troubled Prince Arjuna who asks a trusted mentor, Krishna, for help. Krishna is a steady hand and one with authority and investment in the Prince meeting his destiny with integrity and a clear mind. He is the one best suited to help Arjuna through his struggle. The body of these 700 verses is Krishna convincing Arjuna of his destiny and duty. Simply, Arjuna asked for help and Krishna was both interested in and capable of helping. This is a great formula which I use myself on a regular basis when I find myself feeling guilty about not helping or frustrated that I can’t help or even confused about when it is appropriate to help. One doesn’t want to make others powerless by doing their work and more often, one doesn’t want to be the object of anger when trying to help where help is...
by Hilary Lindsay | Nov 5, 2018 | anatomy, Asana, Ethics, Feldenkrais, Healthy Living, Limbs of yoga, Meditation, nashville yoga, Physiology, Pranayama, Social Commentary, society, therapeutic yoga, Tradition, Yoga, yoga class, yoga community, Yoga Philosophy, yoga teacher, yoga teaching |
I always ask them, why did you come to yoga today? Most of them stay silent hoping I’ll ignore them or just do anything, anything other than demand an answer. Today a couple of folks wanted a body mind connection. You will move your body. You will breathe with intention to inspire that movement. That will connect your body and mind. But your mind is a tricky construct created between you and impressions of the world. It is both your protector and foil. You want to connect to more of yourself than that. But the mind says there is nothing more. This is the work. And the work is intimacy that you were trained to avoid. We are a network of nerves. What does that have to do with your yoga practice? You came here expecting to move in familiar ways. You came here expecting me to tell you to breathe as if that was the measure of your endurance or consciousness, as if that done with precision will mean the yoga is working. We see, hear, taste, smell, touch and think of that which comes in from an outside source. We have another sense of our movement in relation to space. Simultaneously, we have internal senses that measure impressions of the world within. These senses dictate our behavior both consciously and automatically. We are a matrix of nerves wired to compute 24/7. We are not familiar with all of ourselves because all of ourselves is vast beyond present measurement. People come to yoga for relief and they try to blow past sensations...
by Hilary Lindsay | Jun 26, 2018 | Healthy Living, medical yoga, Meditation, nashville yoga, Nature, Physiology, Pranayama, Social Commentary, society, therapeutic yoga, Tradition, Yoga, yoga class, Yoga Philosophy, Yoga psychology, yoga teacher, yoga teaching |
You are human and you think about the future. The future is a mystery that is scary. We are wired for danger. We are born for stress. It’s how we survived as a species. Now it seems to be killing some of us. People tell you to live in the moment. What does that mean? Of course you live in the moment. The moment is the life. You also consider the next moment. That way you have food. And a roof. Or at least a raincoat. You learned about that because of the past. There is so much to consider in a microwave life where every moment presents an opportunity to slide into sloth. I mean, you don’t consider consequences but live in the moment. A pint of ice cream and a bag of chips seemed like a good idea in that moment. So did the next drink or the trip home with a stranger. There is that too but is that what the new age pundits are recommending? Before you beat yourself up for succumbing to what seems the less enlightened version of be here now, consider that there is no such thing as the present because you are a compound of past present and future happening all at once always. You can’t live in just one of those things because they are not separate. What you can do is manage your reactions by observing them. Managing your reactions may result in better choices. It’s all about observation and ironically desire to be free of desire or a victim of your past. You are frustrated...
by Hilary Lindsay | Apr 18, 2018 | anatomy, Asana, Feldenkrais, Limbs of yoga, Meditation, nashville yoga, therapeutic yoga, Tradition, Yoga, yoga class, Yoga Philosophy, yoga teacher, yoga teaching |
I cleaned out an old desk and found this described in a flyer from a workshop I taught in 2008: Balancing Structure and Freedom The student moving from precise focused alignment to an exploration of the senses will come away with a deeper awareness of asana as the physical expression of yoga philosophy. The student will also be guided to freedom of movement within and without form to create form. The second part of that workshop presented a study in inductive v. deductive body reasoning which is why an Iyengar student back in the day described my classes as back door yoga. The pose is revealed as the parts come together. You might say, as the parts become organized as a whole. This is based on my experience of yoga. This is what a yoga teacher offers. It is not regurgitation of something before them. It is the expression of that information now digested by their unique digestive juices. My yoga developed during years of dual study in Iyengar and Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement. These practices do not involve opposing subtleties but they are opposing dynamics. They are taught independently in different worlds of somatics. That informed my teaching at a time few people were studying either. Now I see the online yoga world discovering the benefits of subtle movement . What felt unique to me is becoming “a thing”. That is a good thing. But when I wonder what I have left to offer any student that hasn’t been done before, when I become frustrated that I’ve said and done it all, I am...
by Hilary Lindsay | Aug 17, 2017 | anatomy, Asana, medical yoga, nashville yoga, Pranayama, therapeutic yoga, Tradition, Yoga, yoga class, yoga teacher, yoga teaching |
Energy is shrouded in mystery because we can’t see it. What we see and feel as the materialization of energy can be confusing as well. Yoga is sometimes described as a method to manage energy. That refers to the energy of thought and intention. The means to that is physical energy because physical gives bodily sensation to something intangible. In yoga we create the sensation of energy by giving it weight. We contract muscles to create force. We synchronize the restriction and release of the muscles in coordination with the breath. The first weight is made by the windpipe. The breath becomes sensational and intimate as you orchestrate the narrowing of the windpipe to hear breath and feel it in a pleasing way. There are also muscle groups that act as sphincters or round muscles. The constriction of those sphincters is sometimes referred to as bandhas. Bandhas turn on as we create force along the spine, pelvis and shoulders by engaging the muscles of the limbs, buttocks and belly with precision to ignite our posture. The effort of the muscles will have varying effects on our spine depending on the pose. We are not just moving muscles and bones but corralling energy to become form. Asana is the intensification of awareness. When that awareness dissipates we can escalate the movement of energy by tweaking the posture. We are moving energy. A finished posture is the eye of the storm. Force formed a shape to contain the quiet. Then energy no longer needed weight. You became the sum of that energy for the moment until something shifted...
