Quote of the day...

"Live in balance between the head and the heart by filling your feelings with wisdom and your decisions with love." ~Innerspace

Quote of the day...

"The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts." ~Marcus Aurelius

Class Saturday morning...

Hello all! I have the great honor of teaching Gabriela Pomplova's class tomorrow morning at 9am. I will be keeping her style, Vinyasa Flow. Please come see me if you can!

1st Avenue Rocks
2417 1st Avenue South
Birmingham, AL 35233
Jan. 23 @ 9:00-10:30am
Vinyasa Flow

To learn more about Gabriela go to her website: http://www.gabrielapomplova.com/

The class is at First Avenue Rocks, here is their website: http://firstaverocks.com/

And of course, Birmingham Yoga! http://www.birminghamyoga.com/

Yoga for Scoliosis...

I had a student come to me today and say that she had a slight curvature in her lumbar vertebrae and wanted to know what would help and if anything could actually make it worse. I told her what I remembered of my training, that lateral bends were great and that down dog could work as a natural inversion table to lengthen her spine. Then I told her that I would look back in my notes and talk with her tomorrow after class about what I find. So I'm looking through my notes and I find a name that our Anatomy teacher gave, Elise Browning Miller. She herself has scoliosis and has developed this whole amazing program for people with scoliosis! The following is from her website:

An Approach to Yoga for Scoliosis

1. Breathe. In yoga it is important to focus on breathing through your nose and to learn how to breathe into the area of discomfort or side of the lungs and ribs where the breath does not flow easily. The Ujjayi breath allows you to hear a slight hissing sound which reminds you to keep breathing while doing the poses. If you hear no sound you may have stopped breathing. This breath helps you to concentrate and also slows down the nervous system. (See Chapter 2, So you Think You Can Breathe of my book, “Life is a Stretch”).

2. For those who wish to decrease the lateral curve. First, it is important to elongate or lengthen the spine to bring it back to center. Then it is important to strengthen the legs, abdominal muscles, and muscles that run along the spine to prevent the lateral curve from increasing.

3. For those who wish to decrease the posterior rotation. In all poses especially twists it is possible to de-rotate the rotation of the scoliosis and thereby gain more alignment and balance.

4. Realigning your posture. Finding your center is quite a challenge for those with scoliosis but like an oak tree we can find our center with all our beautiful twists and turns. In a way, we are learning to re-map from within. Also, it is important to keep the 4 natural curves of the spine when standing in daily life and also during standing poses in yoga. This allows students with the fusion to be able to do a wide range of poses.

5. Defy gravity, re-center and lengthen the spine. With scoliosis there is a shift of the body’s center of gravity and often we loose height and are constantly fighting gravity’s pull. By hanging in an inverted position, it is possible to realign, release tension in the muscles, create more space between the vertebrae, and re-center the body. In more advanced inversions you can strengthen the arms and legs as well.

http://www.yogaforscoliosis.com/WhyYogaForScoliosis.htm

Quote of the day...

"Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go." ~Mother Teresa

Om, shanti, shanti, shanti...

Om, peace, peace, peace!

This mantra is an invocation of peace, often repeated at the end of a session of practice. It has two functions. First, it affirms that peace is available to us at any moment that we choose to tune in to it. Second, repeating this mantra helps to create more peace in the world, beacause according to yoga philosophy, when we call something into being with a pure heart and a focused mind, we are using our consciousness to shape reality. This is in fact the primary purpose of all mantras: They are tools to manifest intention.

To extract the full power of this mantra, visualize each word's impact as you recite it. For example, while reciting the first shanti, you can invoke greater peace within yourself; with the second shanti, peace in your family and friendships; and with the third, peace on the planet. When you do this with full faith, devotion, and focused intention, you will create greater opportunities for peace in all these realms.

Om, shanti, shanti, shanti

Interpreted by Christopher D. Wallis
Photo by Ashes & Snow

Quote of the day...

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony." ~Mahatma Gandhi

Positively Prana...

Why does yoga make you feel so good?

There are a dizzying number of styles and approaches to yoga these days. Some involve resting in simple supported postures in quiet, candlelit rooms. Others push students to the edge of their physical capacity or are done to the beat of loud, rhythmic music. Some focus on physical alignment, while others offer a heart-centered approach. There is so much variety that describing them all is impossible.

Different in tone and substance as the various styles might be, they share one quality that inspires people to practice them: they work. Put simply, you feel better when you walk out of class than when you walked in. The question is, why? Better yet, how does yoga work?

As you've probably heard, one reason asana leaves you feeling so good is that it activates your parasympathetic nervous system, thanks to two elements that almost all asana practices have in common - the lengthening and strengthening of musculature and calm, even breathing. The parasympathetic is the part of your nervous system that slows you down - it's responsible for telling your muscles to relax, improving your digestion and assimilation, boosting immunity, and helping you sleep better. It also normalizes your blood pressure and lowers your heart rate. The parasympathetic nervous system counteracts many stress-related symptoms and the negative by-products of our modern, fast-paced, high-output lives.

But the truth is that much of the yoga being practiced these days doesn't do as much for the parasympathetic nervous system as you might think. To build your parasympathetic nervous system, you need to do poses that encourage deep relaxation, such as forward bends and hip openers; do fewer standing poses; and do more sitting, supine, and prone postures as well as inversions. You also need to hold poses longer, as you would in restorative yoga, and dedicate longer periods of time to developing slow and complete breathing. Vigorous vinyasa, backbends, handstands, and arm balances are powerful and beneficial, but they don't stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system as much as the practices listed previously. So if the positive changes you gain from yoga can't be entirely credited to its impact on your nervous system, what is helping you feel and live better? The answer is life force. Almost all styles of hatha yoga increase the flow of prana, or life force, in your body.

Yoga, like the science of acupuncture, or tai chi and qi gong, is based on prana (referred to as chi in the Chinese arts and sciences). These disciplines see prana as the essential force that sustains everything. Yogis went a step further, prescribing the intelligent use of prana as the key to facilitating spiritual awakening. "Having known the origin... and the physical existence of prana, one achieves immortality," says the Prasna Upanishad. In other words, the aim of life (and practice) is realized through the skillful use of prana.



The ultimate strength...
Prana has always played a vital role in hatha yoga. Ancient Tantric texts, like the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and Gheranda Samhita, list various techniques to help build, channel, and regulate life force. In these writings, asana is described as the foundation for hatha's deeper practices because it is so accessible and helps to free life force: The process of holding a pose - while "breathing through it" - dissolves pranic blockages. Different postures unlock prana in different ways. Forward bends, for example, increase the types of prana that calm, soothe, and ground; backbends unblock pranic forces that are more expansive and revitalizing.

A key reason you feel better after class is that the practice has helped move your life force in a way that it is more balanced, complete, or suited to your particular mental and physical needs. The principles of how different asanas affect life force are explained in both the hatha tradition and Ayurveda. The more we learn and practice these teachings, the more we know about which poses will help at any particular time. You may notice a particular practice (or style) that used to make you feel great is doing so less and less; that may be a sign that it is time for a change.

The more you control and build your storehouse of life force, the more you can achieve through practice. "The control of prana is the ultimate strength," says the Srimad Bhagavatam, one of India's revered scriptures. The more you learn to skillfully utilize the power of prana that begins with asana, the closer you come to realizing yoga's limitless potential.

Taken from Yoga Journal, January 2010 issue
By Rod Stryker

Quote of the day...

"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."
~Buddha

Quote of the day...

"At least once a day, allow yourself the freedom to think and dream for yourself."
~Albert Einstein

Discovering the Sacredness of Breath & Sound...

Discovering the Sacredness of Breath & Sound with Phil Shiva Jones

A Spiritual Australian Didgeridoo Workshop and Chanting Performance

Wednesday, Feb. 19, 6:30 PM

Birmingham Yoga at First Avenue Rocks

***Visiting Australian interfaith minister and recording artist Phil Jones will present an interactive workshop teaching meditation and simple breathing techniques with the Australian didgeridoo. The didgeridoo is an ancient mesmerizing drone instrument made from a eucalyptus tree and traditionally played in ceremony and healing by the Aboriginal clans of Australia. Playing the didgeridoo creates soothing and resonant harmonics that easily erase the the ‘monkey chatter’ in the mind – enhancing mental clarity and emotional equanimity. The primordial vibration of the didgeridoo and the simple breathing techniques help create a state of relaxation, lower blood pressure, relax the heart, improve digestion, and - as reported by the British Medical Journal - significantly reduce sleep apnea and snoring.

$20 in Advance/ $25 at the door
Register by email: birminghamyoga@gmail.com