Partner Yoga

Happy Valentine's Day! A day we express our love to others, whether it's loving ourselves, our pets, parents, children, friends, or a significant other. Partner Yoga is a beautiful way to express your love with someone else (you could try and do these poses with a pet, as well -- yes, there is such a thing as yoga classes with your dog. While performing my Sun Salutations each morning this week, I've had to learn to Chattarunga without squishing a kitty!! It's been fun watching how intrigued my cats are with yoga.) You really can just google "partner yoga" and find some wonderful sites as well, but I wanted to highlight some fun poses for you to explore with someone. During partner yoga you will feel additional benefits and find new meaning in the poses. It's fun; feel free to laugh and enjoy each other. If any of my descriptions confuse you, do not hesitate to ask for further clarification. So... here it goes!

- Mountain Pose, back to back. This one is pretty easy to visualize. Stand in mountain, facing away from one another, with your backs gently touching. Enjoy the breath of one another (you can even work on matching your breath). Open yourself to the connection of touch. A wonderful way to begin your partner yoga practice -- checking in with yourself and your partner.
- Warrior I, back to back. Again, you begin facing away from one another. Both will perform Warrior I with the same foot forward (so, both with the right leg in front). You are standing very close to one another, so the legs overlap, but you aren't actually touching. You can, of course, stand closer and touch, or you can reach your arms up and find one another's fingertips or hands.
- From Warrior I, you can open into Reverse Warrior (this is a deeper pose for the lower back, so listen to your body and never force). You will reach your front arm up and back, finding your partner's hand and unite!
- Revolved Triangle, back to back. Again, you will be performing the pose with the same leg forward, facing away from one another (do you forget on all of these poses to do both sides!!). So, assuming the right leg is forward, come down into revolved triangle, pretty close to one another, with your legs overlapping. As you twist, open up toward each other, marrying your palms together. You can look at one another, up to the united palms, or you may choose to close your eyes, feeling within.
- Warrior III, facing one another. Holding hands, or holding each other's wrists, walk away from each other, arms stretching out long and then begin to lift one leg. Does your partner help or hinder your balance??
- Tree, standing side by side. Wrap your arms around each other's waists and raise your outside knee and outside arm. Again, easier or harder?
- Balancing 1/2 Moon, backs together. Still working on balance, lower opposite hands to the ground and raise opposite legs (so one person has the right leg and right arm down and the other has the left leg and left arm down). Use your sense of touch to stabilize your balance by gently relying on your partner's back, helping one another to open deeper into the pose.
-Chair Pose, backs together. Press your backs into one another and walk your feet away from each other, so you are now standing in a diagonal. Squat down into chair and continue to press back into each other. Sink maybe all the way, until your thighs are parallel with the floor.
- Mountain to Wheel, taking turns. This pose will not be performed together, but uses the assistance of a partner. One person stands in mountain and the other faces them, wrapping their arms around their partner's waist, perhaps standing in a staggered-leg stance. From mountain, gently bend back, pressing into your partner's arms and reach overhead, working your hands down toward the floor--maybe touching it! When ready, carefully lift back to mountain and switch.
- Handstand and Forward Fold, rotating partners. Now this one is tricky, but it is great and builds trust with your partner (if your partner is a dog, you may want to omit this one!!). Standing, both facing the same way, the person behind lifts into a handstand, placing their feet at their partner's shoulders. The front person grabs a hold of their partner's feet and begins to forward fold, lowering their partner down in front of them, placing their feet back on the ground. Now, the front person is in the back, ready to perform their handstand!! Continue as far as space with allow and try not to get dizzy!
- Wheel and Cow. One partner lifts into wheel, the other partner crawls underneath and performs cow. A fun combo and you must trust your partner in wheel not to collapse on to you!! Don't forget to switch.
- Child's Pose and Fish. One partner comes into child's and the other sits on top of them, "tail to tail." The person on top gently rolls back, opens up to the sky, expanding their chest, and releases their body. Don't worry about crushing your partner in child's. This combo feels amazing to each person-- a must to try!
- Owl with a Spinal Twist, back to back. A great final pose before entering relaxation (remember you can do some massage before beginning relaxation together in corpse). Owl is sitting in Easy Pose. With your backs pressing against each other, place one hand on your thigh (each going to the right or to the left thigh), and place your other hand further back on their thigh. So, your both doing a spinal twist to your right or left, making a complete circle.

HAVE FUN, bonding through Partner Yoga. -em

Challenge!

I challenge all of you to join me, every morning this week, as soon as we wake up, to complete 10 Sun Salutations- Inhale: Upward Salute, Exhale: Forward Fold, Inhale: Lunge, Exhale: Downward Facing Dog, Inhale: Plank, Exhale: Chattarunga, Inhale: Upward Facing Dog, Exhale: Downward Facing Dog, Inhale: Lunge, Exhale: Forward Fold, Inhale: Upward Salute, Exhale: Chair. Then, let's get back together and report, how did we feel? Did we notice it positively affecting our morning, our day, our outlook? I'll be thinking about you as I salute the sun!! -em

STRESS!!!!

You’re at your wit’s end. All day your boss was on the warpath, and all night your kids screamed and fought with one another. Now it’s 10 p.m. There are piles of bills crowd the counter and dirty dishes line the sink. All you want to do is relax. You plop yourself in your favorite chair, reach for the remote and start surfing.

Sound familiar? Tuning out the world is one of the most common responses to stress. But it’s not necessarily the most effective one. In fact, stress-management experts say stress reduction requires attention and discipline. Activities that actually reduce stress include daily exercise, finding constructive outlets for your emotions, socializing, performing relaxation exercises and eating a healthy diet.

None of these methods may eliminate your stress entirely, but they can help you balance your stress with positive experiences, to help you maintain a healthier mind and body.

Research shows that practicing stress management is not merely about helping you live a more pleasant life. It also can help you live a longer one.

Relaxation techniques are commonly used to reduce stress. Most are easy to learn. To get good at them, you have to practice. It is probably best not to try them for the first time when you are under enormous stress.

Practice the "Relaxation Response" and Similar Techniques

Recognizing that some people who practice meditation are capable of reducing their heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen consumption, Harvard's Herbert Benson, M.D., set out several decades ago to understand how they do it. He developed a simple practice that focuses on the qualities in meditation that create relaxation and reduce stress.

Here's how: Every day, plan to spend some time at rest (not asleep). Sit somewhere comfortable, close your eyes and relax your muscles. Focus on breathing regularly. Continuously repeat one word. Repeat it aloud or in your mind. It should be a simple word, such as "relax" or "easy," a religious word or phrase, or a meaningless word like the "om" used in transcendental meditation. Continue regular breathing with your muscles relaxed.

Learn Progressive Muscle Relaxation

This technique allows you to relax your entire body. Start at your head. Tense your facial muscles by clenching your teeth and furrowing your brow. Hold the tension for five to 10 seconds, and then release it. Next, tense your shoulder muscles by shrugging them and tucking in your chin. Hold the tension for five to 10 seconds, then release. Next, tense your arm muscles by making fists. Hold the tension for five to 10 seconds, then release. Continue to tighten and release each group of muscles in your body until you have worked all the way down to your toes. Picture the tension evaporating as you release each muscle. Focus on the warmth and heaviness of the body parts as they relax.

Do Visualization

Visualizing is a good way to remove yourself mentally from a stressful situation. Sit or lie somewhere comfortable. Close your eyes. Practice the progressive muscle relaxation exercise outlined above. Allow thoughts to pass through your mind without actually "thinking" about them. Imagine you are somewhere that makes you feel good, such as the beach or the woods, a spot where you have spent a restful vacation or a beautiful place you can picture even if you have never visited. Breathe slowly and deeply until you feel relaxed. Focus on all five senses. Imagine what you see, feel, hear, taste and smell. Continue to visualize yourself in this place for five to 10 minutes. Then gradually return your focus to the room you are in and end the visualization exercise.

Practice Relaxed Breathing Exercises

Take a deep breath in and out. Did you feel your chest expand and contract? Did your shoulders go up as you drew air into your lungs? This is how many adults breathe. But to breathe more efficiently — and to promote relaxation — we need to look to the way we breathe while asleep.

When in a relaxed sleeping state, we usually breathe from our diaphragm, which is the muscle between the abdomen and the chest. When breathing through the abdomen, the chest and shoulders remain relatively still while the abdomen rises and lowers with each breath. The type of breathing we do while sleeping takes less effort and is typically more efficient than the breathing we do while awake. As a result, abdomen breathing is more relaxing.

How can you practice relaxed breathing?

Lie flat on your back. Place your feet slightly apart. Lightly rest one hand on your abdomen, just near your navel. Rest your other hand on your chest. Inhale through your nose and calmly exhale through your mouth until you've emptied most of the air from your lungs. Focus on your breathing and watch which hand is moving.

As you slowly count to four, gently inhale, slightly distending your abdomen to make it rise. Imagine warmth flowing into your lungs and to all parts of your body. Pause for one second. Then as you slowly count to four, gently exhale, letting your abdomen slowly fall and your diaphragm relax. Pause for another second. Repeat this process five to 10 times. When you become familiar with the process, you can practice relaxed breathing while seated and, then, while standing. -em

Go Red

As I sit here today, wearing red, for "God Red for Women Heart Healthy Day," I felt it was imperitive I remind you of how important it is to take care of our hearts, women and men. From a yoga/holistic standout, we can think about how our heart is in the 4th chakra, represented by the color green, it symbolizes Air, Social Identity, Oriented to Self-Acceptance. This chakra is called the heart chakra and is the middle chakra in a system of seven. It is related to love and is the integrator of opposites in the psyche: mind and body, male and female, persona and shadow, ego and unity. A healthy fourth chakra allows us to love deeply, feel compassion, and have a deep sense of peace and centeredness. From a more scientific stance, KU MED (which many of you work for!) sent out a news letter sharing information about heart health. A few points I'd like to highlight: "Although you may think heart disease affects mostly men, the disease doesn't play favorites whe it comes to gender. In fact, heart disease is the leading cause of death for both women and men in the US (I read 1 in 4 women get heart disease). Prevention is an important part of heart health. A new study from Yale University shows that doing yoga three times a week can lower your risk of getting heart disease. Moreover, yoga improves heart health in both healthy individuals and those with diagnosed heart disease, says Satish Sivasankaran, MD, who conducted the study while training at Yale. He says that volunteers taking a six-week yoga-meditation program improved blood vessel function by 17 percent. Blood vessel function, also called endothelial function, is the way vessels contract and expand to aid blood flow and is a measure of healthy vessel function. However, study participants who had heart disease had close to a 70 percent improvement in endothelial function. Stress is known to increase the risk of coronary events. Both anxiety and type A behavior have been associated with coronary diseases. Yoga and meditation, on the other hand, are often recommended as a way to relieve stress. More reasons to take up yoga! -em

To Be Of Use

"The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real." -Marge Piercy

This poem speaks of the type of work I thrive for and do, every day. I have chosen to surround myself with others that place this same value on work and hope that you feel your job is full-filling and worth waking up for every morning. -em

Barefoot Fitness Yoga Studio READY!!!!

The studio is ready! After months of working, sometimes a lot, sometimes... not, the Barefoot Fitness Yoga Studio is finished. It looks so wonderful, feels great (you would be amazed how time gets away from you when you are down in the room), and is already booked for the first round of classes. Thank you so much to those of you who believed in me, without really knowing what you were signing up for, and taking the plunge into committing to the weekly yoga class. Please check out the pictures of the room on the bottom right of this page. You can see for yourself what a beautiful space is now available for yoga instruction (plus I get to use it as my personal yoga room-- a major bonus for my practice!!!). If you have questions about how you can become involved in participating with us in the Barefoot Fitness Yoga Studio do not hesitate to contact me. I know we will be able to work something out. -em

A few books you ought to read

I've been thoroughly enjoying a few books. The first is, "This I Believe." For those of you that listen to npr, you may be familiar with the concept. It began as an on-air essay series in the 1950's and was recently brought back to the air and several of the essays, from then and now, by famous people and ordinary people, are compiled into a book. What's great is the essays are only a few pages long so you can read one or two whenever you have time. They are very thought-provoking, uplifting and inspiring. As a believer that yoga continues off of our mat, I think this is a great book to continue our practice of compassion, understanding and acceptance.

Another great book I have only begun to read is "To Be Of Use: The Seven Seeds of Meaningful Work," by Dave Smith, co-founder of Smith and Hawkin. So far I have found several quotes worth sharing with my private yoga clients and yoga classes. I hope I continue to enjoy the book, finding ways to be a better citizen.

Lastly, I was fortunate enough to hear Dr. Bill Larkin speak in L.A. about the power of positive thinking. He has a new book, "Growing the Positive Mind: The Emotional Gym," coming out and I cannot wait to read more about how to improve my outlook, which will carry through into my classes and hopefully into your hearts and minds. -em