Tag: breathe

Frozen Food Month

March 25, 2011
Posted by Sharon
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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 https://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

January 18, 2011
Posted by Sharon
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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.  https://www.yogamatrika.com/ and http://www.matrikaprenatal.com

Yoga Works

December 10, 2009
Posted by Sharon
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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 (https://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

December 1, 2009
Posted by Sharon
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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
https://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

October 17, 2009
Posted by Sharon
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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
https://www.yogamatrika.com/
http://www.sharonrudykyoga.info
http://www.prenatalyogapittsburgh.com

Yoga for the Wind

September 15, 2008
Posted by Sharon
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Wasn’t that wind storm beautiful?  Perhaps, if you were one of the Pittsburgher’s whose car was crushed by a falling tree you might not be able to appreciate the beauty of it just yet,  but for the rest of us it was a powerful, sensual and dynamic experience.  No rain, lightning, hail.  Just wind blowing over 35 miles per hour for over four hours in a row with gusts up to 60 miles per hour thrown in for gusto.

Yoga has many powerful connections with wind.  First, and perhaps the most obvious, is the wind of breath.  We take the wind of breath in through our nose or mouth and it fuels our bodies with oxygen.  Depending on our breathing pattern we can communicate various messages to our brain through our central nervous system.  As the breath moves through our bodies we use the internal architecture and organs of the body to accept the winds, move them to the available spaces and take the excess to appropriate avenues of escape.  Another, somewhat less obvious connection to yoga(unless you have a ‘thing’ for potty humor or happen to be living with a 3rd grader), are the winds of our digestive system.  There’s even a pose called “wind relieving posture” which has been known to massage some winds from a few student’s bellies.  While the sound of the escape of these winds through burps and farts (yes, farts are part of yoga too) may cause some embarassment to the yogi, their release creates space and ease in the digestive system.

Finally, we have the winds of the internal energy of the body.  Have you ever been really angry?  (If the answer is no, then I’m SUPER excited and honored to have you, the Dalai Lama reading my blog!)  Your anger might have risen from your belly your heart and you felt the need to amplify your voice to allow the energy of this angry wind escape through your mouth on the vehicle of your words.  Illness and health is viewed through many healing traditions as management of the internal winds of the body. 

So, today, allow wind to be a part of your yoga.  Try inhaling and exhaling through your nose as you allow your shoulders to drop away from your ears.  Listen to the sound of your breath.  Close your eyes for a moment and look at your internal weather system.  Belly full of wind?  Heart full of wind? Have all the winds become so sedate that you can’t fly your soul kite today?  Whatever your wind status, just spending a few moments to breathe and look at your internal weather might bring you insight and relief.  And, if a tree did fall on your car last night, it will give you something to do as you call your insurance company and get placed on eternal hold.