Frozen Food Month
Seriously, did you know that March was Frozen Food Month? I didn’t know this until I received an e-mail from Giant Eagle supermarkets here in Pittsburgh indicating that there was just one week left to appreciate frozen foods. From Lean Pockets to Ego waffles to Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream (my personal favorite of the frozen edibles), we had a whole month to appreciate frozen foods and I squandered it not realizing my loss. But, it’s not too late, there’s still a whole week to take advantage of this special time to explore the delights of our freezers.
Did you know what else March is? Women’s History Month. Yes, women share the glory of this month with frozen foods. So far, President Obama has not yet made an official Women’s History Month 2011 Proclamation. When he does, it will be posted here. Now, while we mere citizens have an entire week to honor frozen foods and the ladies we love at the same time by buying them some ice cream, the President only has one more week to come up with an official proclamation on the topic of Women’s History Month 2011. Might I suggest that he enjoy the convenience of a frozen food while writing? The thing is that I didn’t know that all of the Presidential Proclamations were available like this. I have to admit, it’s a rather curious collection. This month*, President Obama has offered Proclamations on topics ranging from from “Save Your Vision Week” to honoring the 100th Anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire to the 150th Anniversary of the Unification of Italy. It seems that when you are President of the United States, remembering your own wedding anniversary is the least of your problems. So far, nothing yet on either frozen foods or the important contributions of women in the history of the United States.
What does any of this have to do with yoga or meditation? It has everything to do with yoga! Yoga and meditation are practices that encourage us to become aware in this moment. By proclaiming a day, week or month a certain theme, we are suggesting that there are things we appreciate or that we should recognize that we may generally ignore. This is what we do in our practice as well. All day long we breathe, but when we practice, we watch the breath. We see all the qualities of the breath—fast, slow, shallow, deep. We experience the sensation of each in-breath as an in-breath and each out-breath as an out-breath and we feel our body’s response. Setting aside some time each day for your yoga and meditation practice is like proclaiming that the next hour is “Sensation of Breath Hour.” We come to appreciate what we generally take for granted.
Posted by Sharon Rudyk, an independent yoga and meditation instructor in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. You can find out information about classes and teacher training programs with Sharon at http://www.yogamatrika.com/ and prenatal/postnatal programs and support services at http://www.matrikaprenatal.com.
*Wondering what President Obama proclaimed about this special month in March 2010? Check out the proclamation archives here.
Football, Swimsuits and the Yoga of Feminism
As I teach two prenatal yoga classes every week, I have the honor and joy of watching incredibly strong women embody the true spirit of Warrior poses. I can actually see the energy rising up through the soles of their feet and into their core to support the amazing act of creation they carry within them. There is a courage, a dignity and strength of force there that is palpable in the room. It is, for me, an experience and one that brings me, each class, into a new appreciation for the beauty and strength that is woman. The energy of these movements is the embodiment of grace. Grace representing the fact that each one of these women has opened their hearts to the potential for immense joy and immeasurable loss and grief. No words are required. Through movement and intention, the expression of strength and grace is clear and concise.
Last weekend, I was able to catch the very end of the playoff game between the Steelers and the Ravens. While I can’t say that I am a fan of football in general, there is something so very beautiful about watching the Steelers right now. The coordination combined with strength and expression of sheer will as well as the skill combined with brutality and violence is something to behold. Not only are these men amazing athletes, but they have the courage to take a flying leap into a pile of men and to throw their bodies with incredible force and at high speeds into one another. As anyone who knows me can appreciate, if a ball (or anything else for that matter) is coming my way, my only instinct is to duck and cover. Therefore, I have this incredible awe and appreciation for what is being required of these men in this game.
After the game, we were flipping through channels and found the Miss America pagent. It was already the swimsuit competition and about 40-women in identical black bikinis and heals were walking accross the stage in various choreographed formations. Each one beautiful, young, in great shape, smiling and basically, half naked on national television. I don’t have a problem with naked and these women were easy on the eyes to say the least. But, let’s be honest here– a bikini is really underpants and bra made for swimming and, well, you can’t swim in heels and I didn’t see a pool anywhere nearby. Immediately, I thought of the national news stories of the past year that involved mothers being asked to leave airplanes and coffee shops because they were breastfeeding. These mothers were offending those around them by, horror of horrors, exposing some of their breast! The NERVE! Even more GROSS—they were using this breast to, yuck, feed their baby. Did I mention, in PUBLIC? And yet, here before my eyes were lots of breasts and bellies and butts on display all balancing on top of high heels for maximum effect.
And what was the effect? I felt that the effect was that these intelligent, athletic and beautiful women were weakened. After the bikini competition, they all ran off frantically to get on their ballgowns and then they raced around preparing for the talent competition and then they were given the time to answer one significant political or ethical question with a maximum of one sentence. The whole experience gave the image of the ideal American woman as one who is perfect in every way, but frantic and weak as they rush mindlessly around trying to look good and irish dance and talk about globalism all while trying to balance on the tip of a heel on national tv in their underwear. I felt none of the awe that I do in a room full of women doing prenatal yoga or the immense respect for the football players.
The more that I considered the issue, I continued to return to the idea of mindfulness. The weakness of the Miss America contestants really had nothing to do with their dress or the different aspects of the competition, it was due to the frantic nature of the timing. It wasn’t just whether or not they could meet the tasks required, it was about how fast they could meet each task. The pregnant women are focused, the football players are focused, but the contestants were both naked and engaged in a process that took away their ability to be mindful. It made them seem silly and took away from the actual value of their talents and accomplishments. It made the winner seem arbitrary and, most likely, set all of the contestants up for some level of trauma. How long must it take to process that experience when they didn’t even have a chance to experience it?
My conclusion is that there is great strength in mindfulness. My analysis has shown me clearly that frantic behavior weakens even the strongest, most talented and intelligent. The way that our culture supports the idea that multi-tasking is a virtue leads us to weakness and creates a kind of deep seated stress and trauma. Making a commitment in the moment, centering through the intention of that commitment and then following through with grace is the only path to the result that we honestly desire. Yoga and meditation provide us with the means for learning and practicing these skills in a safe environment. No matter how frantic our rush to class was, how crazy our day, how stressed we feel, once we put out the mat and start to breathe we re-gain our strength. We are no longer the young woman in her underwear and heels on tv trying to sing an opera while mentally preparing to answer a question about world peace.
Posted by Sharon Rudyk. http://www.yogamatrika.com/ and http://www.matrikaprenatal.com
Duh? Breathing is Important!
Apparently, new research has shown that breathing is important. While this may seem ridiculously obvious, the health implications of a breathing practice (aka. pranayama) may not be. What yogis have known for thousands of years is just being discovered again and revealed in this NPR article.
To make a long story short:
- Breathing is good for you
- You can use your breath to calm down
- Breathing is so powerful that it can change your gene expression
If you already have a yoga practice, then you know the profound effects of learning to take deeper breaths. If you don’t, then there is no time like the present. Place your feet on the floor, relax your shoulders and take a deep breath and release it.
Art of the Inhale
At Yoga Matrika, an intimate community-based yoga studio in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, I offer a class three times a week called Body, Breath and Mind. These are intermediate level yoga classes with a holistic approach to yoga practices including asana, pranayama, energy anatomy,philosophy and ethics and meditation.
This week, one of the pranayama exercises we will practice is Anuloma Krama. This beautiful breathing practice starts with a complete exhale. The empty lungs are then filled in two sips of breath with a pause between. In this sweet ode to the in-breath, we pause to appreciate what it feels like to be full of potential, energy and life. Then, we realize that we can open just a little bit more. Then, we pause in this great state of expansion and life before returning to where we began, with a complete exhale.
While these instructions are given here for general use, it is important to note that:
- Many people should not hold their breath, including women who are pregnant. Please ask your doctor if you have any questions about whether or not this type of breathing exercise is appropriate for you.
- If you are not a regular yoga student, the pause between breath might be too long for you. Start with less than 5-seconds of pause and build your way up to 5-seconds over time.
- While practicing pranayama, it is important to practice in a comfortable way. If you experience discomfort on either the in-breath, out-breath or the pause, reduce your effort to a comfortable level.
- It is best to have a competent pranayama instructor when you are first learning. Please ask your instructor to work with you on this exercise.
ANULOMA KRAMA
Step 1: find a comfortable seat in a chair or on the floor. Breathe in and out through your nose if you aren’t congested. Let your belly fill with breath on the inhale and gently pull your navel towards your spine on the exhale. Enjoy these deep and rhythmic breaths.
Step 2: Exhale completely
Step 3: Inhale the first 1/2 of your breath by filling from the pit of your throat to your sternum is about 5-seconds.
Step 4: Pause for 5-seconds
Step 5: Inhale the second 1/2 of your breath by filling from your sternum to your pubic bone in about 5-seconds.
Step 6: Pause for 5-seconds.
Step 7: Exhale completely
[Return to step 3 and continue for 5-8 minutes. Then, breathe in and out naturally for 2-minutes and just notice how you feel.]
Yoga and Hope
In the March 2010 issue of ODE Magazine, there is a thought provoking article, Great Expectations: How hope therapy can help banish mild mood disorders and boost happiness, by Catherine Ryan. Among the many things that I started to think about was the way that yoga promotes hope.
What precisely is hope? Hope is a subtle sensation and state of being, sometimes an emotion, that provides a vague sense that something other than what “is” can be possible. It provides the foundation for every change, every decision and every transition that we find ourselves on the other side of. Without hope, the capacity to love, to move, to grow or to change is stifled and the great shadow of fear and doubt can overwhelm us. Hope is sometimes confused as faith, but although these both require one another, they are quite different. In order to act on hope, one must have faith in the potentially positive outcome of one’s actions. In order to have faith, there must be a song of hope in one’s heart or the faith grows hard like the stone of dogma.
The kind of hope that provides a boost to happiness is based on the idea that change happens. Those of us who practice yoga regularly are able to experience this on our mats in every practice. As we move through asana (poses) or pranayama (breathing), it is impossible not to notice that each breath is different, each moment of holding an asana or transition between the asana creates different sensation. Some of these sensations and changes in the breath are not welcome! But, we become uniquely aware through a practice that nothing is the same. If you have not practiced yoga before, this may sound terrifying. But, if you practice regularly, you are nodding your head and perhaps even smiling as you acknowledge the profound sense of liberation that this type of awareness creates. None of us are stuck. Not only do we have the capacity to change, but change is our natural state of being.
According to the psychologists who provided the data for the ODE article, “Hope, as defined by psychologists, is the belief that you have the skills and energy to make your dreams a reality (Ryan 2010: 53).” They suggest that our current emotional state is often determined by our expectations for the future (Ryan 2010: 53). In general, the idea is that hopeful people are happier (53). If this is the case, then one of the best ways that we can cultivate happiness is to cultivate hope. Research also seems to indicate that building high expectations doesn’t set you up for a harder fall (Ryan 2010:54). In fact, high-hopers seem uniquely prepared to bounce back after a fall due to their ability to quickly evaluate a situation and make changes (54). Yoga can play a role here too. What we learn in our practice on the mat is that when we feel something “not quite right” we take a moment to breathe into it. If things don’t change, then sometimes all we need is a soft blanket under our hip, or a block under our hand and, voila!, it feels just right. What we realize is that it isn’t that we aren’t doing a pose “right” or “wrong,” but rather that a simple modification can create an “ah ha!” moment out of an “uh-oh.”
Yoga also helps us learn how to set specific and achievable goals. Apparently, for adults who do not have high-hopes, one of the first steps of hope therapy is to learn how to set a specific and achievable goal (Ryan 2010: 54). In open level yoga classes, some students can do some amazing things with balance, with their strength, with their energy and some students struggle to just sit on their mat or lie still in savasana—yet they are all doing yoga. When we first start out, we realize immediately that, while yoga shouldn’t be goal oriented, we can determine the types of goals that are and are not achievable. It would not be realistic to think that we could come into an advanced balancing pose if we struggle to maintain balance in Warrior I, but it is not unrealistic to think that we can become more aware of our balance and the position of our feet in relationship to the earth. We also find that great happiness and the complete benefit of the practice is available to us no matter what the poses look like. After class, the person who could do a handstand in the middle of the room—feels great. The person who did child’s pose for most of the class—feels great. A regular yoga practice shows us that there is great benefit in simply being present. If that isn’t hope, then I don’t know what is.
REFERENCES
Ryan, Catherine
Great Expectations: How hope therapy can help banish mild mood disorders and boost happiness. IN Ode Magazine, March 2010, pages 53-54.
Written and posted by Sharon Rudyk, Owner and Director of Yoga Matrika located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Cabin Fever & Yoga in Pittsburgh
There was one very brave student at tonight’s class. She was new to Yoga Matrika and was curious about what the class title, Mindful Yoga, really meant. I prattled on about Vajra Yoga and not making a distinction between asana practice and meditation and how we create a moving meditation through our practice……….but during our practice together, I started to question the whole thing entirely.
You see, that’s the problem with having an answer to everything—-you miss opportunities for reaching a greater understanding. In this case, I was incredibly inspired by the clarity of this student’s practice and she taught me a lot about mindfulness. So, thank you dear student, and hope you come back soon!
What I realised is that what I don’t know about mindfulness is a lot. While there are so very many things that I hope that my Mindful Flow classes mean, the real mindfulness is in the interpretation. I asked my student to choose an intention for her practice and to anchor that intention with awareness of the breath or awareness of sensation in the body. As we moved through the Vajra Opening series, I made some slight adjustments and made requests of the student to move in different ways or experiment with various modifications.
I was delighted to watch as this student’s mind literally moved from place to place in her body and she fully explored each asana. Thanks to this student and her beautiful practice, I realised that it is possible to see mind. A great gift to a yoga teacher on a snowy night after a long week of being indoors.
I received a similar gift through my dear friend and colleague on the teaching team at Yoga Matrika, Kristie Lindblom. She posted a beautiful entry in her blog about how she is personally experiencing this long week of a storm and nature enforced hibernation. Again, a new lesson on mindfullness. By staying present in the moment, Kristie rides out the storm, the cabin fever and the heavy nature of this weather. Her mindfulness includes all of the wonderful things that are growing, changing, transforming and preparing for birth right under our very feet in this very moment.
Thank you dear student and Kristie for the lessons in mindfulness.
When in Pittsburgh, study Mindful Flow with Sharon Rudyk at Yoga Matrika. Don’t worry, when there hasn’t been a recent snowfall of over 20 inches, there’s normally more than one student! So, not everyone gets watched so closely.
Posted by Sharon Rudyk
Owner and Director of Yoga Matrika
http://www.matrikawellnesscenter.com
http://www.prenatalyogapittsburgh.com
http://www.yogamatrika.com/
Check-out Kristie’s Blog entry here:
http://searchingforsattva.blogspot.com/
Yoga Works
I’m just about as committed, or perhaps even MORE committed, to the “Why?” as anyone. I think it’s a rather good question to be asked about anything from WHY is the Nobel peace prize winner suggesting that we increase our war activities to WHY do Pittsburghers call sprinkles, “jimmies”. Or, the yoga owner gasps, WHY should anyone do yoga? Just as committed as I am to the WHY, I’m simply frustrated at the infinite number of things that I can’t seem to comprehend or the number of WHY questions that I can’t get a satisfactory answer to. Will someone just give me the satisfaction of a BECAUSE… every once in a while?
If there is one thing that I know to be true and that is that YOGA WORKS. I mean, it works for EVERYONE—children, moms, men, women, older people, teens, injured and sick, athletic and healthy, flexible, idiots and genius alike (generally subjective measurements anyway!)—–yoga works in all cases and without exception. Why? I have no idea! I’m relatively convinced that any answer is only the beginning of an answer or even a fraction of the answer. I don’t care if you got this answer by measuring brain activity, hormone levels, blood chemicals, stress level, decrease in headaches, reported relationship satisfaction, increased fertility, etc. However you get your answer to the why of yoga, it’s only part of the story. The most terrifying thing about this kind of inquiry is that I wonder how many questions I have asked and found an answer to that I really only know the fraction of—maybe WHY just isn’t the right question and every BECAUSE is merely a PERHAPS in disguise?
I can think of two reasons why yoga decreases stress, makes us feel stronger and lighter and gives us energy and a feeling of bliss and joy:
1) We are moving in the most honest of ways and using our body to express, explore and respond to the environment around us instead of privileging the BRAIN and simply dragging the body around as a useful, but mostly frustrating appendage. So many people tell me that they can’t do yoga because they aren’t flexible or because they aren’t “the type.” If yoga was about touching your toes, then I can assure you gentle reader that 20 million Americans wouldn’t be doing yoga! And, I might ask, who is the yoga type and how do you know it doesn’t apply to you if you never try? As you are reading this, I happen to know that you are a live human and you have a body. This being the case, you are, in fact, just the right “type” for yoga. All you need is to be breathing and have a body and yoga will work for you!
2) Yoga is a vacation. When you practice yoga, you lighten your load—you slow down the breath, you take off your shoes and socks, you notice sensations in your body and you shut up. I don’t mean that you just stop talking. I mean that you stop talking, people stop talking to you and you can finally hear yourself think. For beginners, this is a terrifying moment because when you hear yourself think for the first time you can be overwhelmed to discover just how many thoughts you are having every minute or even every second. This flood of thoughts, ideas, feelings, desires, stories and much more just flood over you and once you become aware of this you start to say, “THINKING” and return your awareness to your breath. Ahhh—now isn’t that delightful? It’s not something you can say to your boss–right? Boss sticks her head in your cubicle and starts talking really fast about some immediate emergency double secret deadline and you can’t just say, “THINKING” and turn away! But in yoga, you even get a vacation from yourself and all the trappings and trimmings you have determined as elements of that self. You lighten your load by slowing down, removing obstacles to calm and getting out of your own way. You CAN say to yourself, “THINKING.”
So try a yoga class and move your body and breathe and, well, get out of your own way!
Posted by Sharon Rudyk, Owner and Director of Yoga Matrika (http://www.yogamatrika.com/) and Prenatal Yoga Pittsburgh (http://www.prenatalyogapittsburgh.com) in Point Breeze, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15217.
I’d like to give an appropriate reference to Pema Chodron, a most wonderful writer and teacher who suggests the concept of saying “Thinking” to yourself during meditation when you start to lose your focus or awareness. My personal favorite Pema Chodron title is, “The Wisdom of No Escape,” but you can try any title for excellent meditation information and practical advice and instruction.
Mindful Focus of the Week
Last week, the focus for Mindful Yoga was “the organs.” We learned to support asana using the internal structures of the body and acknowledge our organs for all that they do.
This week, our focus is the sacral center (2nd Chakra). I always pick a focus based on what I am working on in my personal practice and recently, for the first time in years, I managed to aggravate my sciatic nerve. It’s hard to say how I did it—-Demonstrating a reverse triangle when I wasn’t warmed up? Carrying a heavy messenger bag on one shoulder? Sitting with my legs crossed for too long? Good news is that it doesn’t matter how it happened, only that it’s over now and the experience provided inspiration to give some juicy love to the sacrum this week.
The sacral area is associated with creativity and when we create and acknowledge sensation here we are filled with optimism, passion and direction. Life is vibrant!
If you can’t make it to Mindful Flow on Tuesday night at Yoga Matrika in Pittsburgh, then here is a little exercise that will take less than 10-minutes that you can do anywhwere to change your energy and open up to a little creative juice:
SIT
On the floor with your legs crossed OR on the edge of a chair.
BREATHE
Take at least 10 deep breaths so that the in-breath takes a minimum of 4-counts and the out-breath is released to an equal count. It may take a few minutes to slow the breath down and open to this depth. Take as much time as you need.
MOVE
For one minute, start to take your upper body in circles over your hips. Keep circling in the same direction for the entire minute, inhaling as you circle forward and exhaling as you circle back. The breath should be relaxed and the movement should be at a speed that allows you to take full deep breaths.
After a minute, change directions and take your upper body in circles over your hips in the opposite direction. Breathing in as you circle forward and exhaling as you round back.
LIE DOWN
For five minutes, lie down on the floor with your hips propped up on a folded blanket or pillow. If this causes any pain in your lower back, then bend through your knees and place your feet flat on the floor. Breathing in, feel your belly rise towards the ceiling. Exhaling, feel your belly release towards your spine.
Slowly sit up and move on to the next wonderful thing with a little more spring in your step, oxygen in your blood and a juiced up pelvis—-Vroom! Vroom!
Posted by Sharon Fennimore Rudyk
Owner and Director of Yoga Matrika
http://www.yogamatrika.com/
This great idea is inspired by Gurmukh’s wonderful book, “The Eight Human Talents” published in 2000 by Harper Collins. Highly recommended!
Qigong and Yoga: What is Zhong Dao?
It’s always a risk to put a class on the schedule that has a name that no one recognizes. I have taken just this kind of risk by creating Zhong Dao. But, the name is such a perfect reflection of this combination Qigong Energy work and Yoga class that I just can’t call it by any other name!
First, I think that we can examine what the different elements of the class are for clarity. One aspect of the practice of Zhong Dao is inspired by Qigong. Qigong is a system of exercises that allow the practitioner to “learn how to control the flow and distribution of qi to improve the health and harmony of mind and body (Cohen 3).” What precisely is qi? Qi (pronounced: chee—as if you were going to say cheese without the “se”) has been translated in many different ways, but one that can be helpful for beginners and is especially appropriate for this context, is that qi is life energy. Gong means to work. Qigong is a “wholistic system of self-healing exercise and meditation, an ancient, evolving practice that includes healing posture, movement, self-massage, breathing techniques, and meditation (Cohen 4).”
Second, what is the connection between this Chinese Qigong practice and yoga? “In India, the life energy, prana, is described as flowing through thousands of subtle-energy veins, the nadis. One of the goals of Yoga is to accumulate more prana through breath control exercises (pranayama) and physical postures (asana) (Cohen 26).” One system of Yoga that has incorporated Chinese yin-yang theory is Yin Yoga. One of Paul Grilley’s students, Sarah Powers, has written a beautiful book called Insight Yoga that shows the Chinese energy patterns (meridians) and yoga asana that activate different energy meridians in the body.
Zhong means middle or center and Dao means path or way. Therefore, this practice is the middle way and a way to create a sense of balance and ease in the body and mind. This practice is designed to relieve stress and tension in the body so that there is equilibrium in the spirit, the immune system is supported and optimum health can be maintained. We do some gentle stretching and energy warm-ups followed by a practice of the Eight Brocades and end every practice session with a healing meditation.
Hope to see you on Saturdays for Zhong Dao at 10:30am!
Here are some excellent references for Yoga and Qigong:
The Way of Qigong: The Art and Science of Chinese Energy Healing. Written by Kenneth S. Cohen. Ballantine Books, New York: 1997.
Insight Yoga. Written by Sarah Powers. Shambhala Publications, Boston & London: 2008.
Yin Yoga: Outline of a Quiet Practice. Written by Paul Grilley. White Cloud Press, Ashland, Oregon: 2002.
Happy Happy,
Sharon Rudyk
Owner and Director, Yoga Matrika
http://www.yogamatrika.com/
http://www.prenatalyogapittsburgh.com
YOGA MATRIKA is located at 6520 Wilkins Avenue in the Squirrel Hill/Point Breeze neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. You can reach Sharon by calling (412) 855-5692.