Chi Yoga Therapy

Today is my third day in Chennai.  I am spending today walking around the neighborhood where the hotel is.  It’s a ritzier neighborhood located on the southern side of town with lots of big trees, fancy hotels, and of course an endless stream of traffic.

Yesterday I went to the Mandiram and had a private yoga therapy consultation with Meneeka Desikachar, the founder’s wife.  She designed a practice for me and gave me a teacher to work with.  I also studied vedic chanting.  It was so beautiful to sing!

The practice is classically KYM, very simple in terms of biomechanics, but very profound on the subtler levels.  I am curious to see what develops as work with it over the course of the next seven weeks.

There was this beautiful quote from a Sufi poet in the op-ed section of the Deccan Chronicle this morning.  Referring to a mill, the poet says:  ”Like the Sufi, I make the coarse more fine.  I travel round and round to go within myself so that I let go of what is not needed.”  (this is a paraphrase)

I took a bone density test recently and found out that I’m right at the cusp of normal and osteopenic.  That’s not great considering I’m only 39, but it’s also a challenge that I’m happy to meet now.

Truth be told I do not take my calcium supplements regularly nor do I eat enough dark leafy greens so this is call for me to eat better, be more regular with my supplements as well do more weight-bearing yoga poses and spend more time in the sun.

Speaking of supplements — did you know that most calcium supplements –the citrates, caltrates, are not absorbed by your body?  Most are made of coral rock; the body isn’t evolved to absorb rocks, even ground up rocks.

So throw that stuff out!  What is absorbable is plant-based supplements and something called calcium hydroxyapatite.  There are lots of brands with the complex at your local health food store.  They cost more but it’s money well spent.

This is an informative and entertaining lecture about how chronic pain becomes wired into the nervous system.  Chronic pain leads to hyper-sensitivity in the nervous system, and at the same time reduces the brain’s ability to “map” or connect with the body.

Speaks to why mind-body practices like yoga are so effective at uncoupling this mechanism.

Check it out, plus it’s in Australian, mate.

Pain. Is it all just in your mind? Professor Lorimer Moseley – University of South Australia

Hello everyone,
 
I am offering a special rate this summer for private sessions on Tuesday mornings, between 10:30am to 2:30pm in Huntington Beach.  I’m committed to making this work available and accessible to everyone, so the rate is over 40% off my regular fees. 
 
I will be finishing the Advanced Certificate in Yoga Therapy Rx next month (and just sent off the paper this week!), and have already signed up for Level 1 Yoga Tune UpTraining with Jill Miller (the instructor whom I learned our infamous tennis ball routines from).  So the learning never stops!  Nor the sharing!!
 
Hope you are having a wonderful summer so far, and please forward this to anyone who might benefit.  

 
Many blessings,
Anh Chi

The Human System or Pancamaya Model

Yoga therapy views the human system as an inter-related whole.  For example, if we are angry, our breathing changes; our heart rate increases, muscles tense, and the body secretes stress hormones.  On the personality level, we might perceive others’ actions more negatively and communicate more stridently.  Our thinking becomes unclear.  These changes on the physical, breath, mental, and personality levels can result from an emotional change.  In fact, changes in any dimension will affect all the other dimensions of the human system.

If we approach any health issue from this perspective, it becomes clear that creating health is not just a bodily thing.  We must address the issue on all five dimensions:  physical, breath, mental, personality, and emotional.  As a valuable counterpoint to conventional medicine’s emphasis on specialization and isolation (non-inter-relatedness), yoga therapy empowers the individual to make lasting changes for sustained health and happiness.

Health is a result of living in harmony with the cycles of nature.  I am learning to incorporate this understanding more deeply into my life and sadhana, but besides paying more closely to my diet, asana, breathing, and meditation practices, I am also learning that there is a cycle to action or karma.

“Finish every action you begin.  The rhythms of nature decree that each occurance has its own completion.  By bringing each action to closure, you signal the universe to grant you time to replenish your natural energies.  With each completion comes a feeling of exuberance– the swell of joy after planting the fields for the season, finishing a painting, or washing dishes after a delicious, health-giving meal.  The heart becomes light and resolved, and the prana flows gently through it.  The spirit of grace that brings gratitude to the universe for her bountiful gifts is kindled.” –Bri. Maya Tiwari

I started the Advanced Certificate Program in Yoga Therapy two weeks ago and I am still assimilating what our teacher, Robert Birnberg, taught.  It was billed as a class on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali but it was so much more.  

Robert specializes in working with addiction and relationships.  As a part of his work, he asks clients to visualize their intended future.  He says when a client can’t imagine a ‘lovable future,’ they will not heal, so much of his yoga therapy work includes visualization and the creation of concrete, specific goals for his clients.  

When caught in the cycle of old habits and self-loathing, he reminds clients to ‘remember their future.’  When this future is invoked, choices become clear, our values become clear.  It becomes easier to navigate the road to recovery and wholeness.

So I invite you:  if you have been stuck with a situation for a long time, can you imagine a lovable future, one that you are excited about it?  What would you do in a typical ‘lovable’ day?  Who would you be with?  What would you feel?  Use all your senses to visualize this future.  Feel the essence of this future, but inhabit this feeling now and you will draw it to you faster.

I’ve had a few clients ask me recently:  “Is there something I can do to deal with anxiety?”

While this is a big subject, I think that no matter the cause of one’s anxiety, an easy method for breaking the cycle of non-productive thoughts and physiological stress that often accompanies anxiety is to shift one’s awareness to the soles of the feet, and into one’s breathing.

Yes, feet.  Bring your awareness into your feet, and breath into and out from your feet.  Imagine you can grow roots into the ground as you simply inhale and exhale.  Try this for at least ten breaths, longer if you have the time.

When anxious, we are usually trapped in a cycle of thoughts, the uncontrolled mind tells us:  “I can help you think your way out of anxiety.”  And if you buy into this logic, on and on the cycle goes. 

Most of the time when we are anxious, we are disassociated from the body so this practice brings us back into the present moment, into our bodies.

Clients have told the owner of Soul at Home that practicing yoga has improved their relationships. 

I think it is because yoga teaches us to harmonize all of our energies– breath, body, thoughts, emotions– and by cultivating this right relationship with ourselves we can be in right relationship with others.

“There is a rhythm in the body; there is a bio-rhythm — e.g. hunger and all those other things.  There is a rhythm in the thought patterns –your thought patterns…  Similarly there is a rhythm in our emotions and breath.  And finally there is rhythm in the consciousness –the soul– that we are.  We need to find harmony between all these rhythms within us, and that is called spirituality.

Spirituality is not just fantasizing, it is observing your own existence:  What is here right now?

Our body is here right now, but have we known our body thoroughly?  You can know another’s body, but have you experienced your own body?

Experiencing your own body, your breath, your mind, your emotions, and the source of your life is meditation.”

–Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Secrets of Relationships

It is also the source of health and healing.