Hey ,
Happy Sunday!
Did you get a chance to play with the body scans? How was it for you?
Lots of new happenings in class this week!
Arms and shoulders have been
our priority: we started worked on isolating arm movements, and of course balls came in handy for creating the slide and glide in the tissues of the upper body.
Speaking of the balls - I do have some extras, and they make an excellent stocking stuffer. Just saying!
We also worked on breathing this week - although with a different angle: the lungs, and of course the ribcage that houses the lungs, serve as a foundation and functional support
for the shoulder girdle.
In other words, if your breathing is not up to snuff (and your breathing muscles are stiff!), your shoulder girdle will suffer. The volume of the ribcage is especially important in terms of that foundation, hence this week's challenges:
Pain Care Yoga challenge of the week:
Incorporate
5 minutes of smooth, rhythmic breathing into your day.
Did you know that just 5 minutes of smooth, rhythmic breathing boost seratonin production?
Seratonin is neurotransmitter that regulates mood, sleep and can serve as a natural painkiller.
Movement Yoga challenge of the week:
Focus your
attention on breathing into the different areas of the lungs, and fully inflating each lobe of the lung. Your right lung has 3 lobes, and the left has two. Sometimes it is easier to explore this practice while lying on your side with your ribcage propped up on a bolster. Once you get an idea of how that feels, you can be driving and playing with your breath - developing during-the-day breath awareness is our long - term goal!
I have attached 2 different breathing
practices for you to experiment with - 3 fold breathing takes your awareness to 3 different postural zones, while dirgha breathing focuses more on the different parts of the lungs. These practices are very similar in some regards, yet have subtle differences.
Can you make out what these differences
are?
I want to finish with this: some of you have asked about the difference between the Gentle Beginner class and the Yin practice. Here is what I wrote:
Hatha Yoga (the foundation of
gentle beginner class) promotes a dynamic balance between movement and stillness. It is a great way incorporate more movement into your week.
Out of all sessions that I teach fall is the slowest - there usually is an influx of new students and we have to build a better movement patterning. In Ayurvedic terms (Ayurveda is a sister science to yoga - literally translated as a practice of well-being), slower practice is more balancing and beneficial during the fall season -
so that’s another reason I tend to slow things down in the fall.
Come winter, and practice becomes more invigorating to dispel the heaviness of winter season ( and post Xmas turkey deposits:)
Yin practice is based on longer-held static stretches.
It may sound simple and relaxing, and it is the way this
practice is often taught - but simple and relaxing isn’t the true essence of Yin practice.
Yin focuses on deeper connective tissue, which, unlike muscle, needs longer held stretches to lengthen and hydrate. The shortest time of hold is 2 minutes, and anywhere up to 10 - which, as you can imagine, can get intense, especially when you are holding a pose close to the far end of your range (that, quite often creates the heating - Yang - parts of the
practice).
Yin practice requires not only patience, but an ability to recognize an over aggressive mental attitude as well as the ability to still the mind whenever challenging sensations or thoughts / emotions rise to the surface.
May your Sunday be magical and sparkly!