Holiday Yoga: A Prenatal Practice
Yoga Matrika is going to be offering a limited number of prenatal yoga classes during the holidays. In case you don’t live in Pittsburgh and have found this practice online, Yoga Matrika offers prenatal yoga classes in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The good news about this practice is that you can do it anywhere!
We all know that even a few stretches and relaxation exercises can make a huge difference in how we feel during pregnancy. During the holidays, our diets and schedules change and this makes it even more important that we maintain our practice. Here is a very short practice that is appropriate for pregnant women that you can do at home, if you are traveling or wherever you roam. For all you Pittsburgh-based Matrika Mammas, I look forward to seeing you again in person for class in the new year!
Center & Breathe
First step, find a comfortable seat. You do not have to be sitting on the floor and if you are at all swollen or feel any aches, it may be best for you to sit in a chair. If you are seated in a chair, you want to just sit on the front edge of the chair (not leaning back and resting on the seat back) and make sure that your feet are firmly placed on the ground. If this is uncomfortable due to the height of the chair, you can place support under your feet (yoga blocks, phone books, etc.). Just make sure that you have balanced support under each side of the body. From here, take one palm and rest it over your heart center and another hand over your belly. Very gently start to take deep breaths. Feel the front of your body rise with the in-breath and as you exhale, release the full breath and any tension you might be holding in your body. You can do this for as long as you like, but even taking 5-10 deep breaths will help you feel much more centered and relaxed.
Relax Back and Hips
Come down onto your hands and knees and practice cat/cow. Keep your neck relaxed and focus on the gentle forward and back sway of the pelvis. You can do as few of these or as many of these as you like. If you feel tight through the hips or have low back tension, you may also want to take your hips in circles. It can be helpful to imagine that you have a paintbrush dangling from your navel and that you are making perfect circles on the floor beneath you. Move as slowly or as quickly as feels right to you.
Energize the Body and Release Tension
Practice Warrior II pose on the right and left sides of the body. Focus on opening your heart, relaxing the shoulders and keep your bent knee (the front knee) coming out directly over the ankle. Use your inner thigh strength to deepen the stretch and keep your knee in a healthy position. The back leg is straight and you are opening through the pelvis. Gently tuck your sitting bones under you to lengthen the low back and release low back strain. Breathe!
Relax the hips & Stretch the Back
Come into Cobbler’s Pose. With the soles of your feet together, take deep breaths into the body. If you are rounded through the low back, place a folded blanket, towel or pillow under your sitting bones. You can sit here and breathe for as long as you like. If you would like to stretch the back body, then allow yourself to round forward as far as you feel comfortable. Keep your shoulders relaxed and breathe.
Deep Relaxation
It is very important to actively relax the body for a few minutes each and every day. This is different from napping or sleeping. Find a comfortable position for your body lying on the floor—-if it feels good, then it is safe. Bring your awareness to your feet and actively and systematically relax your body from your toes to the crown of your head. You may want to purchase a deep relaxation tape or download a Yoga Nidra from iTunes. It can be helpful to choose some beautiful music or chanting that you enjoy and play that while you relax.
Enjoy the holidays and new year Matrika Mammas! Check out our new Pregnancy and Postnatal website. Please do not practice yoga if any of these exercises make you uncomfortable, cause pain or if your care provider has put you on bed rest or encouraged you to limit physical activity. You should never feel pain in your yoga practice, pregnant or not, and these are not exercises you should “push through” or force yourself to do. All of these suggested exercises should feel good and relieve tension and strain in your body.
This practice was designed with love by Sharon Fennimore Rudyk, the owner of Yoga Matrika and director of all Matrika Prenatal programs. Currently, our classes, workshops and Childbirth Education programs are mostly held in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Please feel free to contact Sharon directly with any questions (412) 855-5692.
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.
You’re a Star…..Literally.
In my estimation, of the greatest joys of being a parent is that you get to reconnect with children’s literature. Sure, there are nights when I’m quite sure that if I ever even accidentally trip over a Dr. Seuss book again that I might immediately burst into flames–never mind READ it again. For the most part, I am delighted by the beautiful illustrations, the kind and meaningful tone and the idea that there is such great potential in this life.
Recently, we checked out The Greatest Intergalactic Guide to Space Ever by the Brainwaves from our local library. The illustrations by Lisa Swerling and Ralph Lazar are imaginative and, quite frankly, hilarious. The book is a brilliant collection of facts about space and it is everything that I had hoped my college course on astronomy would be, but without the physics.
Then, on page 25, I read something that awed me and put me in touch with a sense of wonder and wonderment that made me kiss my sleeping blondie on his little head before I continued my new favorite book:
“The Sun is mostly hydrogen and helium, but it also includes small amounts of other elements. Earth formed close to the Sun from the same cloud of matter. Humans are material made from Earth’s elements, so everything in our bodies was once a star.”
Just in case you didn’t catch it—–EVERYTHING YOU ARE MADE OF WAS ONCE A STAR! Now, I’d heard something similar in some yoga or energy text that suggested that our bodies are made up of the same elements that stars are made of, but this is something different entirely because it creates a chronology. The statement in this children’s book suggests a past for all of us, a past when our parts were shining clouds of matter in the night sky. This idea is at once humbling and liberating.
No matter what kind of yoga you practice, the foundation of the practice is a kind of mindfulness that becomes available when we focus the mind and acknowledge the constant stream of thoughts that so many of us make the mistake of identifying with. Maybe that stream slows down somewhat with time and practice, but for many of us, what we can obtain in this lifetime is just an awareness. In many classes, the smallest element that we break our awareness into is the cell. What I would like to suggest is that, based on this idea that our most elemental parts were at one time a star, we spend some time in meditation getting in touch with our inner star.
The first step, and perhaps the most challenging, is to release our physical body—the body of organs and bones and blood and guts. Especially if you are in pain, this may be a considerable challenge. But, to give it a try, just lie on your back and systematically relax from your toes to the crown of your head. Then, just wait for your breathing to naturally slow down and become shallow. Don’t rush it or try to control the breath. Just lie there until you feel everything slow down.
The second step would be to watch the transitions of the breath. Focus on the space where the in-breath becomes the out-breath and the out-breath becomes the in-breath. If you lose your focus, just return to it whenever you realize that you’ve drifted. If you constantly lose focus, then you can try to add counting—-count your inhale (1) and then just listen to the sound of your exhale, count your inhale(2) and then listen to the exhale and so on until you count to ten. Anyone who has tried this before knows that you will probably get lost before you reach ten, but just keep it up and return to one when you realize you are lost.
The third step is starting to feel the way that energy is moving through your body. There is no right or wrong answer. Bring your mind’s eye to your navel and just see how energy is moving from your center to the periphery. Maybe your center feels numb—that’s interesting! Maybe you can only feel your right side—that’s interesting! Please try not to make judgments. Instead, just be incredibly curious.
Finally, start to feel the pulse of energy through the body and give that pulse a golden light. When you feel the energy rise, feel yourself glow. When you feel the energy start to wane, then feel a complete release as your light dulls a bit. Just pulse energy and light like this for as long as you wish, until you fall asleep or until you wake up.
Confirmed by a children’s book—-you ARE a star!
REFERENCES
Stott, Carole
The Greatest Intergalactic Guide to Space Ever by the Brainwaves. London; New York:DK Publishers, 2009.
Posted by Sharon Fennimore Rudyk, Owner and Director of Yoga Matrika, a lovely little studio in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: 6520 Wilkins Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15217. Contact information for Sharon is available on the website: http://www.yogamatrika.com/. Please feel free to share and re-post, but be kind and give credit back to the Yoga Matrika blog and Sharon. Namaste!
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.
Make a Poem of your Flesh
“This is what you should do: love the earth and the sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men…re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss what insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem.”
WALT WHITMAN
Whitman suggests here what every yogi knows–the choices we make with our mind are reflected in our bodies. This is beauty. You know when you are in the room with beauty. Thinking back on all the beauties you have been around you know that it isn’t the type of beauty that Cover Girl is selling that sticks with you. The beauty that you see in others is their poem and the memory of it is a song that vibrates through your own body poem.
As we move through various asana (yoga poses), we have an opportunity to try on different characters and ways of moving and being in the world. One minute a warrior, then next a dog—only to transform with just one breath into a pigeon and end up a cheeky little monkey. Through this experiment, we find that we can listen to the poem of our body. Sometimes, the poem rides the rhythm of the breath. Other times, it is our grunts and the sounds of our effort. Crow or cow face, there is no yogi in history that does not come up against some darkness. Sometimes, the poem of our bodies in practice is a ballad uncomfortably narrated by cellular memories we have not before dared to expose. Sometime, the poem of our bodies is like going out for dessert at midnight. Delicious.
Here is a simple way to listen to your body and get in touch with the poem of your flesh:
Lie down on your back somewhere comfortable. Before you lie down, take off your shoes and socks, watch and release your hair from any clips or bands. Place one hand over your heart and the other hand over your navel. Feel the rise of your body as you take an in breath. Feel your navel drop down towards your spine as you exhale. Do this for as long as you like. The mind will wander, but you don’t need to follow it. As soon as you notice that your attention has drifted away from feeling the breath move through the body, you just return to watching your next in breath.
When you feel ready, bring your awareness to the soles of your feet. As you inhale, feel the energy of the breath enter through your feet. Relax the space between your toes, ankles and the bones in your feet. Feel the connection of your palm to your heart and your palm to your navel center. There was once a time when you received all of your information about the world and all that sustained you through your navel. Allow this breath moving through your feet and palms to remind you of your origins, your roots.
Inhale a deep breath as you release your hands and bring your arms up over your head. STRETCH and reach through your arms and hands as you point your toes. Hug your knees in to your chest and rock from side to side.
Come up to sit for a moment. See how you feel. If your flesh was a poem now, what would it be?
Keep up with the poetry Pittsburgh yogis!
Posted by Sharon Fennimore Rudyk
Director, Yoga Matrika in Pittsburgh, PA
http://www.yogamatrika.com/
Walking on Earth
There is a Chinese proverb that says that:
The miracle is not to fly in the air, or to walk on the water, but to walk on the earth.
This is the same with a yoga practice. Over time and with intelligent stretching practices, the body will open and become more flexible. With practice, beginning yoga students advance in their alignment and ability to do a greater variety of poses. It is truly beautiful to see an experienced yogi express the spirit of a pose with a deep and profound expression of grace. Advanced students create a flowing meditation through soft and easy breath and the control of balance and energy through bandha work and reflection on the philosophy and science of yoga.
While these are all beautiful reflections on the potential of yoga to create balance, ease and strength and grace, I see the miracle in the beginners. It starts with the honesty of effort and the realisation when new students see that even by drawing their awareness to the breath, without changing anything at all, everything changes. The miracle is not the perfect pose after years of training, the miracle is that moment that new students have when they realise that it is just being present in this moment that has the power to change the course of a life. The miracle is not a one-armed handstand, it is standing in tadasana–mountain pose—with weight balanced across the feet and the head, heart and gut one on top of the other.
The Miracle of Standing on Earth Practice:
Take your shoes and socks off and allow your feet to breathe and soften into the floor beneath you. Wiggle and spread your toes and feel the pressure of your feet on the earth and the earth on your feet. Evaluate the distribution of your body weight accross your feet and see if you can move in a way that allows you to equally balance the weight of your body across the pinky toe, big toe and heel of the feet. Press your inner ankles towards your outer ankles and roll your thigh bones back as you tuck your sitting bones underneath you. Feel the lift of the navel and heart as you relax your shoulders down and away from your earlobes. Stretch the crown of your head towards the sky and slightly bring your chin towards your heart as you relax your forehead, neck and jaw.
Breathe here in this place of where you stand. Notice sensation in your feet, legs, belly, lower back, lungs, heart center, shoulders, arms and hands. How do the bones of your face, neck and jaw feel? There are no right or wrong answers. It’s just what you feel right now. Each and every time you do this exercise you will feel different. It’s the miracle of standing on earth.
With affection,
Sharon Rudyk
Director, Yoga Matrika
A beautiful yoga studio community in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.