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.]
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!
Desire & Deserve
I was recently supervising my preschooler in the tub and, while he engaged in an imaginary battle between a Thomas the Tank Engine bath squirter and a Fisher Price fisherman, decided to pick up my shampoo bottle and read the text. This text informed me that, by using this particular product, I would obtain results that would give me the hair that I both desired and deserved.
The desired part, I could identify with. Of course, I desire healthy, shiny, full, fresh smelling and bouncy hair with appropriate fullness. I certainly desire to protect my hair from anything that might cause damage. This may be a whole lot of hope to place in dead skin cells, but I could not deny as I read the back of that bottle that, yes, I desired these things. Admittedly, I also made my purchase with some hope that using this particular product would, in fact, help me obtain a head of hair that had just this list of delicious qualities. For those of you who know me, I currently have a head of hair to rival Elvira—-it’s super long, grey at the temples and generally swept up in a casual way with a clip. So, if I have desires for my hair, it’s both a whole lot of desire and a whole lot of hair to desire it with.
The deserved part, well, this seems problematic (at best!). Exactly what kind of hair do I deserve and what have I done to deserve hair with these qualities? I was immediately brought back to a Bill Crosby sketch where he made fun of folks who got drunk to the point of being physically ill at happy hours on Fridays because they had worked so hard that week that they deserved to get drunk. [Curious? Need a good laugh? Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYsko_tc3a0 ] After an immediate chuckle at this remembering, I started to think about the relationship between our yoga practice and what we desire and deserve.
In general, although we may not be honest with ourselves about the nature of our desire, we start taking yoga classes or start any specific class or practice with a certain goal or want or need that we would like to have satisfied. We want to relieve stress, feel better, have more energy, look younger, be more fit, lose weight, make friends, be able to say that we too do yoga and fit in, lower our chances of heart disease, get pregnant or find some kind of blissful state. These desires can be helpful in our practice when we acknowledge them with honesty (satya) and a certain level of willingness to release the desire long enough to focus on our breath and the practice at hand. Perhaps our practice will show us that we have passions and desires that we were not aware of or not able to name. In this sense, our practice can help illuminate certain truths about ourselves that may have been hidden. This type of self-awareness is priceless and our practice, as it evolves, will reveal a revolving set of desires as well.
Thinking about the concept of deserve is at once very non-yogic and what yoga is all about. It’s at the heart of so many philosophical debates about why bad things happen to good people. Exactly what does anyone deserve and what role do we play in facilitating our own receipt of that just reward or just punishment. In some ways, this is part of our exploration of satya (honesty) and ahimsa (non-violence). When we are honest during our practices and create a flow of movement and breath that is steady and rhythmic that, in turn, steadies the mind, then we are also honoring our limits. We are, one might say, getting the practice we deserve. What happens when we fail to honor our limits? The breath is short and our muscles are shaky and our footing is un-centered. We feel weak, overwhelmed and our minds jump from one instruction to the next, one pose to the next, one shaky and aching shoulder/neck/thigh to the next. In this case, one might also say that we are getting the practice we deserve. On the other hand, we may just be re-enforcing the beliefs that we have about what we deserve that we carry with us on and off the mat.
I would like to suggest that you deserve a calm breath, ease through body and mind and a relationship with spirit that is both an inspiration and guide to act according to your highest ideals. I desire this for you. While you may desire a toned and lighter body, less stress, greater sex appeal or a sweaty romp through a familiar and anonymous flow—-you might get what you don’t deserve! Injury, headaches, a racing heart, exhaustion, shallow breath and negative thoughts racing through your mind about how you would have been able to keep up if you were just a little younger, thinner, or more fabulous. Desire is an intention that we can guide to a variety of opportunities and possibilities. This week, in your practice, notice what you desire and see if you get what you deserve.
If all seems a great failure, I assure you that, apparently, bliss is available from an easily obtained bottle of shampoo straight off the shelf at Rite Aid—-for less than $4.00. So, with a guarantee so close by and so economically obtained, what do you have to lose if you expand these concepts and take them onto your mat with you this week? Before coming into a pose, honestly ask what it is that you desire from it. When you come out of the pose, experience what it is that you deserve. Exhale. You are beautiful!
Posted by Sharon Fennimore Rudyk
Owner and Director of Yoga Matrika in Pittsburgh, PA
http://www.yogamatrika.com/
http://www.sharonrudykyoga.info
http://www.prenatalyogapittsburgh.com