Lesa Kingsbury / Amba Yoga

March 21, 2023

Squeeze & Soak

The aim of the asana practice is to create a healthy and strong body that will refrain from distracting us from the ultimate goal of sitting quietly in meditation.
 
Many of the new students I meet first come to yoga for that very reason.  Some come because they are curious.  Some come because practicing yoga can manage stress.
 
I will address the physiological aspect first.  Most of the poses aim to flush the limbs or trunk in some way that increases the opportunity to bring fresh blood into an area.  Virasana/hero’s pose, for example, has the legs folded in such a way that we squeeze as much fluid out as possible out.  When we unfold the legs – woosh – a new supply rushes in.  Inversions assist in reversing the way the heart has to work against gravity providing blood flow back from the lower extremities.  The legs empty easier while upside down.  When we return upright the opportunity to cleanse the legs has just occurred.  Twists stimulate not only the wringing out of our organs housed in the abdominal region like a sponge, but we can also stimulate the hips and shoulders. 
 
When it comes to our mindset, how restful would Savasana be if we placed it first in our sequence?  Would your thoughts be quiet or busy?  I would say mine would be very active.  It takes much longer to quiet them down before a practice than after.  If we had an especially challenging practice then it is easy to get deep into corpse pose.  Here is where we symbolically release the physical body and allow the breath to soften and quiet. So then the mind can follow.
 
One of many great quotes by BKS Iyengar:
“When the body is still, the breath is quiet,
When the breath is still, the mind is quiet.”
 
Peace and Namaste,
Lesa

February 28, 2023

See Saw of Practice

Let the poses do their work. Just let go. 
 
The tug-o-war continues as we practice. The see-saw of too much willfulness and giving up.  Our minds are the biggest obstacle in reaping the benefits of a practice.  The kind of practice that returns us to how the body was designed to work.
 
In western life, as householders, our focus is to get a job, find a mate, raise a family (if we choose) and to contribute to our community.  Our world has sped up exponentially in the last 10 years with the addition of modern tech devices, minders and apps.  This new world vies for more attention than a 2.5-year-old tugging on our pants leg.
 
When stress occurs in our lives, there are three areas I find people ask about:  Digestion, neck and back.  I have found that we tighten up in our area of greatest weakness.  On a deeper level, we just moved from the parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system to the sympathetic (fight or flight).  Yoga teaches us ways to tune into this shift and return to a healing place through breath.  Different breathing patterns soothe the nervous system.
 
Here are a few:
The Ujayii breath or ocean breath.  Great for anxiety and cools the brain.
The Bhramari breath or bumble bee said to brings focus and assist with memory.
The Viloma or 3 part breath which may help you breathe deeper.   
Nadi Sodhana or alternate nostril breathing, said to aid in letting go of habits.
 
Holding on too tight in a pose can be equally destructive as being too loose. Too attentive in one area and not enough in others.  The Muscles, the organs, and the breath all need a sense of give and take like the movement of water meeting the shoreline.
 
As we move into the lower half of the torso this week, you may get a strong sense that it’s packed. True, there isn’t as much space as in the thoracic region.  These tight knit organs have a big job to do too!  As we practice the poses with out over or under working them, we will create more freedom of movement and enjoy the benefits.
 
For instance: If we collapse in our chest not only is the diaphragm restricted, but our digestion is pinched and restricted too.  Basic standing poses are big components of aiding digestion by creating alot of space in the chest.  Twists and deep breathing assist as well. 

In addition, these poses will deepen the process:
Supta Virasana/reclining hero’s pose
Paripoorna Navasana and Ardha Navasana/Half and Full Boat
Salabasana and Dhanurasana/Locust and Bow poses

If you have a yoga book at home, look them up for the effects!
 
There is a term in Sanskrit, vairagya, which means detachment. (see the Tidbit from 4.4.22)  I invite you this week to detach (not disengage) and look more wholistically at how you reside in the posture.  It isn’t a race to get somewhere, it’s about the ballet of movement along the road.
 
Peace and Namaste,
Lesa

February 21, 2023

Trunk – Torso – Diaphragm?

The Trunk or Torso is an amazing area to examine.  So many places to bring our awareness to here!  It where all of our vital organs are housed.  The heart, lungs, organs for digestion, organs for reproduction, organs for elimination, these all have their respectful position.

Then there is the building of this amazing fuselage.  Starting the structure is a Rib cage and Pelvis, a diaphragm to separate the thorasic area of the lungs and heart from the rest of the organs them. Wrap these precious jewels with many layers of fascia, muscles and tendons...Voila!  If we extend the spine to alleviate discomfort in any area (ie: low back, mid back, digestion, shortness of breath), we must consider the important aspect of stretching these layers of sinew as stabilizing elements as well as a powerful elements to create free movement.  
 
Last week we brought awareness to stretch the outer body in poses.  Now, let us see if we cannot go below the surface layers of the skin on the outer body and create deeper pliability (or play-ability).  Then everything inside can work more efficiently and with greater ease!

Today, I want to focus on the area of the rib cage.  The diaphragm resides on the bottom of the ribs circumferentially.  This elegant muscle contracts downwards to draw air into the lungs and as it releases, air is forced out.
 
This is the basic outline, to learn more, from an expert, read from Julie Gumestad’s Yoga Journal Article:  Take a Deep Breath  See you on your mat.

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

February 14, 2023

A Light Heart

“Keep a Light Heart” is a phrase I heard with great frequency as poses challenging my balance showed up in my first yoga classes (as a waivering newbie to yoga).

How can we continue to be light hearted when we are thrown off balance?  Or as we are stuck in a mindset waiting for brighter days ahead.... (for me, I fight winter darkness and the indoors)

To keep a light heart, we can allow for the possibility of delightful surprise arriving in any given day.  We can choose to put one foot in front of the other and get outside no matter how cold.  AND to get on your mat once a day no matter how long you spend there. 

Too many people keep themselves from practicing at home because they need to have it planned out or have a home practice feel the same as with your teacher.  Don't cheat yourself from the benefits of a brief practice.  If you do down dog and childs pose, just that, notice the difference in your mindset or as I like to say your “heart-mind”.  Notice the shift in your body.

In a spirit of brevity and simple instruction,  I am going to suggest that this week you do 5 things on 5 different days to get over your emotional/physical hump:

Day 1:  Unroll your mat and stand on it.  Feel your feet and lift your toes.  Find your breath and enjoy it for 5 rounds of in and out concious movement.

Day 2:  Unroll your mat and sit in easy cross, then cobblers pose, then wide leg forward bend for 5 breaths each.

Day 3:  Unroll your mat and take an easy forward bend.  Then bend your knees place your hands on the floor and walk your hands out into down dog.  Stay for 5 breaths then walk your feet toward your hands and come up to stand. 

Day 4:  Unroll your mat and take a wide stance.  Do wide leg forward bend and put blocks under your head to ground it so it doesn’t just hang.  5 breaths.

Day 5: Unroll your mat and stand tall.  Feel your feet and your breath.   Tadasana – Urdvha Hastasana - Utkatasana – Urdvha Hastasana - Tadasana (Mountain/exhale – Upward arms in Mountain/inhale – Chair/exhale – Upward Arms Mountain/inhale – Mountain/exhale).  Repeat 5 times.

So, this Valentine's week, keep a light heart whenever/wherever you can and by all means, roll out your mat.  This is no guarantee, but I suspect you may want to do more!

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

 January 31, 2023
 
Transitions
 
Our life is filled with them. 
 
Yoga can teach us how to do this with more grace and less grasping.
 
We can think of the poses as individual items or we can relate to them in finding the similarity in action (or shape) from one to the next.  This is the general idea when we sequence a practice:  to build upon the actions and teachings of the prior pose. 
 
We can also look at the space in between.  In art you might call it negative space....In architecture we called it a node.  We have structure, and space.  It all creates dynamic movement.  One doesn't occur truly without the other.
 
I love the transitions from one space into another.  Arcades, doorways, trellises are all transition spaces.  Knees, hips, shoulders are transition spaces too.  Celebrating our movement from one place to another is grand in architecture. Why don’t we do this more in our practice? 
 
Perhaps it is because we were never invited to look at it this way. Let’s do this now, this week!
 
Pay attention in your next practice as to how you a) move out of a pose and b) the space before entering another pose.  Let’s look at the first...
 
Many injuries occur when coming out of a pose.  Many of us disengage leaving us unprotected in weaker areas.  We cavalierly move out of the shape of triangle, or a warrior.  Some might think it isn’t important, but it is.

In some cases, it might be even more important because we don’t have gravity working in our favor! (or in Head Balance/Arm Balance too much gravity).  Either way, be conscious going in or out of your pose!
 
If you have taken vinyasa style yoga before, you know that movement is a strong component of the practice. There is very little time taken to observe the individual pose. Constantly transitioning with little instruction.  We can look at the skills involved next week.

In the style I teach, rooted in the Iyengar method, we have the opportunity to unpack a pose from start to finish and the space in between.
 
Peace and Namaste,
Lesa

January 24, 2023

Cultivating Intelligence

Often, I heard as a beginning practitioner: “The Intelligence of the Pose is in the feet”.

Let’s take a look at this and see how we can bring this concept into our bodies rather than it lie as a mysterious concept.
 
You have had a few weeks to practice with attention drawn to your feet.  Do you sense them more?  Do you understand how having the weight distributed into the 4 points of the feet can aid in the ease and strength of your poses?  Have you identified an area that needs more encouragement (to open or strengthen or let go)?

This is an obvious physical cultivation of the foot.  Now on a more subtle level let us talk about the idea of Intelligence.

Intelligence in your practice of asana is not being book smart, but more of having a quality of just “knowing”.  This knowing has no words.  It is closer to an automatic integration of a typically conscious movement into a natural movement.  It isn’t directed by the mind. 
 
Repeating poses can create a groove to making a learned instruction more integrated.  Ultimately though I believe when we observe the action occurring – that it is just there – without “thinking”, we have experienced this intelligence of the body.
 
Another way of creating intelligence in the body is by bringing awareness to places that are asleep or unattended to.  This is why practicing a pose with constant reminders of inquiry assists us to keep looking or wondering about all the places of the body and mind that are dull.  This is where reflection is so critical.
 
I am taking the example of returning to the feet this month.  You could take any other body part or viewpoint to cast  an exploration with.
 
I look forward to “waking up” on the mat with you soon.

Peace and Namaste,
Lesa

January 10, 2023

Dusting Off

Dusting off one’s mat isn’t so hard.  Dusting off ourselves is another thing. 
Like every pose, if we start with our feet, amazing things will result.  The 4 points of the feet are key. Then add movement and breath – then the mind begins to awaken.  A cold rinse after a hot shower first thing in the morning will help too!

Our feet are generally the start, even when sitting.  The position of the shins, thighs and especially the knees are set by what we do with our feet.  Big toe mound, inner heel and outer heel.  These three points generally direct the energy and I consider the little toe mound as the cherry on the sundae. It needs to feel the floor too.  This "big sister" of the group is to tune you in to avoid too much weight on the outer edge of the foot.

Lift your toes right now as you sit, do keep the ball mounds down and find these points more clearly.  Notice if the leg moves.  If so, how does it move?  Bring curiosity and lightness into this.  Add a Hmm?  Always a good recipe for stable action in the legs. You can do this standing as well.

Practitioners with many years of “dusting off” may find a lull in enthusiasm in rolling out the mat. How can we keep it interesting year after year?  I find my yoga students always bring me back.  And the comradery of those that I take class with will get me to roll out that mat. Once I feel that first sensation of childs pose or downward dog, then I reclaim the joy of movement for the now – right now and that carries me forward into the unknown, the unexperienced.  It certainly allows for the possibility that I can create again - starting with the joy of feeling.

Now this can apply to anything…walking for example.  Having an active canine daughter, I often get that look at 3pm – “come on, it’s time for my walk”.  Okay, I say, bundle up and we’ll just do a short one, cuz it’s cold (or I’m tired, or x).  Then once one-foot plants in front of the other, I am willing to go a bit further.

So now, when I harrumph at a walk or a practice, I dust myself off, think less and do more!

Peace and Namaste,
Lesa

December 20, 2022

Holiday Vacation?

Is the Holiday really a Vacation?  Let’s pack it all in before the New Year….

I feel that way.  This year more than ever.  It is an opportune time of “good busy” filled with celebration of friends, family and doing for others to show affection and appreciation.  Yet why do I feel the need to squeeze it all in? 

We have had the opportunity this year to learn to pace ourselves in our lives from how we practice asana and our breath.  This knowledge makes it possible to be more open to spacing out these desired events.  More possible to be present in this moment and not be planning for the next gathering.  Sacred gathered Space gives us the rich opportunity to be aware. 

If we are in the future moment already how can we enjoy this moment right in front of us?

Will we, on Jan 1^st, feel wrung out - wondering what the heck just happened?  Or will we drink it all in moment by moment?

If we pause with a bit of nurturing the self and answer may appear!

Self-nurture comes in many forms.  Yogic-ly speaking, I would say that svadyaya, aparigraha and santosa are great principles to learn.  Svadyaya is self-study.  Aparigraha, from the Yamas, is non grasping.  Santosa, from the Nyamas, is contentment.  How do we come to a place where all of these qualities are more present in our lives?  The first two can create the latter.  Or can we go straight to contentment?   Abe Lincoln is often quoted:  “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be”.

I think Svadyaya is first because if we are not aware of the act that drains us, then no change within ourselves is possible.  So, in the practice of yoga, we use asana and pranayama to become more aware of the physical sensations both supportive and not.  Then going in deeper, we can in turn watch the mind for the subtlety of what we feel and think in different situations. 

For example: the identification of how we grasp for the deeper pose when we are not ready for it or rush into a pose without care can prevent injury. This is a good thing and yes, there is a lot of ego to let go of.  But why not enjoy where you are at now? What prevents you from being content? Perhaps just human nature for one.  Being part of the group may be another.  You name your reason.  There are hundreds.  The hard part is letting go.  I find it easier to let go on the mat than in my day-to-day life.

Forced letting go vs Choosing to let go:

Injury has had me let go of some poses I was especially proud of being able to do.  Aging (or overused) body parts have made let go of those poses that used to be so easy while now my strength in certain areas just isn’t there today (as much as I don’t want to acknowledge it).  Maybe, humility could help us all out here.  Aparigraha is a tough one, absolutely.

Side bar:  I sometimes step out of yoga to find a way to let go of my un-comfortability in life to bring it back to my mat.  I have a deep aversion to being cold.  My son does not.  Ever hear of Wim Hof? Look him up if you are curious.  Well, there are breathing techniques and cold therapy that is used by him to combat depression and ill health.  Me, I just use it to test my level of tolerance to cold showers.  I haven’t graduated to the cold baths that are now very popular with young 20 somethings in NYC.  So, inspired by my son, I end my showers with lukewarm water for at least 30 sec.  I’m not even on first base getting to cold water yet!

I invite you to see if by self-study and letting go in your yoga practice can support you in finding yourself more content in your life.  This is my Holiday wish for you all.

I will be taking a two week break so until January enjoy each and every moment of your extraordinary life!

Peace and Namaste,
Lesa

November 22, 2022

Making Space

Holidays are a time for reflection in our household.  We make time to find those family members or friends that need a place to hang their hat for a while and stop the momentum of unconscious living.  Ideally we use it as an opportunity to really see each other despite the labels of pecking order, politics or past experiences. 

Yoga, this amazing practice that I am forever grateful to have found, taught me to be with what is right in front of me.  I also began to choose being with the kind of people who would hold me accountable for living in the present.

I was always in a hurry in my 20’s.  I was constantly planning the next thing, dreaming of when this success or event would happen.  Or, I was resolving what just happened that I didn’t like.  Rarely was I really in the present to enjoy what I did have then like youth, energy, opportunity, both parents and a brother still alive.  I had to live life for a while and experience the ups and downs before I could even begin to sit in the present and relish what I had both small and large.

So you might ask, where, when and how do we carve out time and space to reflect and be in the here and now?

One answer is just living life. Nothing to do extra – just be. This process teaches us how to cherish the time we have. Through the experience of gain and loss and love, I am less likely now, way beyond my 20’s to see how I was dragged forward grasping for my epic experiences or people no longer in my life.  It was a hard lesson then: that all things pass.  Just like our breath.

Another answer would be to just pick a time each day to reflect – similar to brushing our teeth before bed.  Start with just 5 minutes to sit in a quiet corner of your house (and yes, sometimes that is a bathroom break) Close your eyes and listen – feel your breath.  Slow it down and start to notice any sensations or sounds.  Outside noise will eventually go silent, if the mind let’s go of the hook of any reaction this sound has.  Let’s say - a loud relative that just can’t stop making small talk, or a baby crying that isn’t yours, or the refrigerator squealing and blame it for the reason you can’t quite hear your own breath.   All of this energy going towards wishing it to stop or thinking of sways to make it stop.  Sound a wee bit familiar?

Personally,  when I ignore this essential nurturing, of being still, it  is a bad habit. Just like snacking when I have busy mind.  I give in to rolling the same thought around over and over and over.  I could stop and do this simple thing above.  Sometimes I do.  Other times I don’t.  Why????

It it is easy to say I will stop this, akin to any other negative habit.  Declare I have the will power, but the real success is when we find the benefit ratio changing in the favor of new and more nurturing ones. And practice. New pathways discovered in the stillness.

May this Holiday season give you pause, in a good way, to appreciate and taste all the flavors of your life.

Peace and Namaste,
Lesa

October 4, 2022

Two “A’s”

Ahimsa and Aparigraha

Non-Harm and Non-Grasping in Sanskrit

I chose these two disciplines from the Yama’s to bring into my personal practice this week. I think of aparigraha as non-clinging in addition to non-grasping.  Some of the poses that I have loved so very much over the last 20+ years, I have had to let go of.  Head Balance is the main one. 

Due to how I am structured in my neck, I had to give up completely for the first 6 months of this year, but now occasionally do this posture when I feel great (but regret the resulting migraine after). 

How do I continue to do what I love when it doesn’t love me anymore? (sidebar – my childhood girlfriend chortled when I said standing on my head is my happy place).

The truth (satya – another yama) is that I am fighting to keep it in my practice.  However, in order to practice ahimsa for myself, I may need to let go of it.  I know I am living in the denial stage of it – trying to negotiate and control the effects by doing it less, lol.

Now isn’t the idea of yoga to use the poses as a vehicle to samadhi?  And that practicing yoga isn’t about the poses, but the learning?  In this case yes because I have had to take a hard look at how a body changes as the years roll on.  I am not sure just yet what I will discover about myself in this process.  I do know that it is deep work – lifelong work.  Yoga is like that.

We haven’t discussed the Yamas and Niyamas too deeply in a while.  For easy reference, here they are:

Yamas: the societal disciplines        Niyamas:  the individual disciplines

Ahimsa – non harm                           Saucha – cleanliness, purity

Satya – truthfulness                          Santosa – contentment

Asteya – non stealing or coveting    Tapas – disciplined work

Brahmacharya – discipline of           Svadyaya – self study

speech, body and mind

Aparigraha – non coveting               Isvara Pranidhana – dedication to God or grasping                                                  something larger than the self

I invite you to take one (or two) and see how they show up in your practice or your day to day. 

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

September 20, 2022

Asana Integration

Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi
Attention, Absorption, Integration

Mondays offer me time to dig deeper into my yoga studies. Yesterday, while reading a more recent translation of the Yoga Sutras, I began to wonder:  How does asana cultivate the 3 limbs of yoga above?

My current asana practice begins with the focus on the sensations of the body (dharana) then cultivate a balance between effort and ease in my body and my breath.  Once I arrive at this place stillness occurs and time seems to stop.  My thoughts are quiet and I surrender into the posture. (absorption).  The active practice becomes a dance of attention and absorption.  At the end of the practice in savasana, I am able to fully let go and the physical integration has time to occur.  I am in a state that is different than while doing poses.  It is a place of no words or things or thoughts. There is a simple clarity to all things. (samadhi)

With a consistent asana practice day after day, week after week, I become more aware of the sensations of my body and my breath. I am more grounded. My ability to focus on the task at hand is easier.  The opportunity to redirect the mind is clearer and easier.  I don’t always have to be a slave to my mind racing with what just happened and what is ahead.

This is how yoga over the last 26+ years has given me great freedom with more opportunity to enjoying my life.  May you find it as well.  Little by little; pose by pose.

Peace and Namaste,
Lesa

September 13, 2022

Building Foundation

Getting to the root of a practice is not so daunting. 

Asana (the Pose) is a touchstone that I always begin with.  We so often live in our heads so the sensations of the body are a marvelous tool to release us from the trappings of the mind.  (and living from the neck up) As we know from experience, they also release us from subtle or not so subtle imbalances.  That’s the hook that keeps us wanting to dig deeper.

There are layers and layers of yoga to discover. 

One source to start with is Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Defined in this text are the 8 limbs of yoga. They are listed below.   I have 6 of them listed in pairs.  This is because in the learning of each they balance and inform the other.  Those listed in a single state are facilitators or results of the prior.

Yamas – outward restraints & Niyama – inward restraints,
Asana - pose & Pranayama – breath
Pratyahara – self study
Dhyana – concentration & Dharana – meditation
Samadhi – enlightenment

You may be confused at the moment at what all these Sanskrit names mean and how they apply to our day to day lives.  Start with familiarizing yourself with their definitions here: https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/philosophy/8-limbs-of-yoga/eight-limbs-of-yoga/

Then see how they show up in your life. See what they teach you.  I can say for myself, that the best piece of advice I received, is to use them in a spiral rather than linear fashion.  It is possible to see the layers of your existence through these 8 rich lenses to gain a perspective that can be expansive and freeing.

Peace and Namaste,
Lesa

August 16, 2022

Ever feel stuck in your practice?  Perspective needed, thank you!

I hit a brick wall this week.  Physically it was my back.  Mentally it was too many thoughts. 

So, It turns out that my whole spine and pelvis was out of whack due to a combination of things.  I couldn’t free up despite the assistance of yoga.  I needed my go-to person – Dr. Keri! 

Her expertise and skills are in an area I could never do for myself.  I try to adjust self with poses, with chairs, with belts.  Didn't work.  Sometimes we just need help. Sometimes we just need to stay still and breathe.

Stillness gives us enough space to listen and feel. Still enough to observe how heavy I am on my leg bones. How jammed up I had gotten.  Posture isn’t only about how we hold our shoulders but as Dr. Keri says, it’s hard to tell if the top (of the spine) is just that or if the adjustment needs to comes from the base….

In my case, the puzzle of my pain was about an imbalance in the base. If one's chest isn’t lifted or the legs aren’t enrolled to support the lumbar, compression can occur in the hip socket and radiate into the pelvic region.   Some of us are too stiff so the pelvic bowl isn’t landing on a seated surface properly.  Some of us are the opposite and in being too flexible, this region isn't stable enough leaving our our pelvic bowl compressed, or rotated forward on one side.

Approach your poses this way – If you are stiff, use the breath and move slowly back and forth to loosen up the area of the hips.  If you are too easy into a deep pose and feel no stretch or challenge, look to create strength in that area asking yourself “how can I contain or strengthen the action here?”

Our exploration this week may give you an opportunity to see where your blind spot is and to be still there…. without angst or judgement.

Peace and Namaste,
Lesa

August 8, 2022

Crackling Joints

I have been asked so many times if cracking joints while practicing yoga is a good thing or a bad thing…. 

Generally, when we practice yoga, we are stretching the muscles there by creating more space in the body for more movement in the joints. 

So, “when you crack your neck or any joint in your body, the capsules around your joint are stretched. These capsules contain fluid, and stretching them allows the fluid to put less pressure on the joint. When you crack your neck, the facet joints stretch, which lets fluid spread out in the joint capsule. Once the fluid becomes gas, your neck joints pop.  It usually isn’t harmful” 

See more at https://www.healthline.com/health/neck-cracking#how-it-works

As noisy and as shocking as a crackle seems we will come to be more comfortable with it as we increase the skills of pose alignment and sensory awareness in the subtleties of our body.

I could give you even more details on the medical process of releasing gas, but why?  I think the best way to practice yoga is to be informed to a certain degree anatomically, then use that to inform your senses.  

I have a family member who is too smart for their own good and researches everything (and I mean EVERY thing) as if to be a specialist in the area of discourse.  All of this information can squeeze the joy out of having a conversation or more importantly in exploring the moving body. 

This is why I like to teach (and practice) where I start off reading up on a new pose or part of the anatomy and then tinker with it - imagine.

FYI: Leave overthinking behind when you come to your mat, and discover the wonder.

Imagine what it feels like to do your practice with ease. What would that look like?  Feel like?  I then explore where the current experience of my restricted anatomy and let go into the imagination – or the Awe of feeling.

I know – you are probably saying well, sometimes it doesn’t feel so great.  If that is the case you are pushing it and need to back out of that action (better known as the ego of the pose).  Instead, move into sensation and watch that your mind doesn’t label it as bad or good quite so fast. 

Like a loud crack as “bad noise”!

In fact, that crack could wake you up to the present moment.

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

July 12, 2022 

Cultivating Equanimity for Freedom

Yoga can certainly provide greater range of motion but it can be complicated if one has a long-standing habit or injury.

There are several principles to work with to find the right key to the puzzle of your body.

RELEASE

If we are able to release holding or gripping, certainly the area will be more open. Extension from that tight area will take less effort.  What do we do about it if there is no release?  Think about a cork not coming out of a very fine bottle of wine.

You don’t want to yank on it, it will break apart.  You don’t want to be to passive, nothing will happen.  If we gently, but firmly, move it back and forth while lifting…voila!  The genie in the bottle is released.

CONTAIN

In areas that we are stretching, say a hamstring, try contracting in the area of the stretch rather than looking to engage the agonist muscle group more.

Normally, in the case of a hamstring, we contract the quadricep muscle (the agonist) to release of the back of the leg.

GROUND

We can also ground the back of the leg into the floor to bring greater containment of the hamstring muscle group and engage the quadricep muscle group more. Then freedom occurs and a forward bend deepens without the collapse of the chest.

CENTER

Equanimity in the sides of the body or the pose is another object of study. Use the senses of sight and touch to move from one side to another, move in and out of a pose until you feel the body equally engaging and releasing.

Childs Pose is an easy place to play.  Think of a big ole’ grandfather clock and how it’s pendulum swings:  right-left-right-left and so on.  We can reach the right then left then right then left as we equally ground the legs back and buttock bones down. Add the breath and see what release/freedom you can find in this way.

So, let’s play and explore and be a free bird on our mats!

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

July 5, 2022

The Key to Balance

I hear about balance often.  Generally, in terms of losing it. 

According to the NIH, we begin to lose these stability skills in the range of 40-50 years old.  One in 3 people will experience a fall each year after the age of 65!

This could be due to vision, vertigo or new medications.  Those things we have not too much control over.  The other reason – when the body loses strength and coordination due to inactivity or aging - we do have some say in.

What is the key?  In Yoga I say: “find your edge and practice there”.

I heard a story from some of my teachers about BKS Iyengar.  The tale involves learning how to do head balance in the center of the room.  He said something to the equivalent of “practice as if you were on the edge of the Grand Canyon”. 

I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone, but it does illustrate how we put a bit more focus into something if the consequences are greater.

We want to stay grounded, so be in your feet.  We want to extend, so follow the breath. Inhalation: we take upward movements. Exhalation: we move downwards or ground. 

In balancing poses we want as much extension as possible to feel as if we had “sky hooks”.  This involves cultivating strength and or containment. 

Remember your last tree pose.  If your foot slipped down the opposing leg, you don’t have enough containment.  Fall over?  Focus on extension of the limbs and possibly open the groins, quads, or the knees more.

I find the sweet spot for most people is when the individual practices at a level above normal (where my mind keeps running its endless commentary).  Where the stretch of the body and the sensation of breath can keep me in the moment. In doing so we have the potential to operate at a place that allows us to be challenged, but still maintain a sense of mastery.

How often do we push ourselves too far too fast?  It’s where we get injured.

How often do we think too much while practicing?  It’s how we fall over in head balance. 

The key?  Find that place – the edge - where we can balance between effort and ease; up and down; unstable and stable. Let’s explore the postures with that focus this week.

I look forward to seeing you on your mat!

Peace and Namaste,
Lesa

June 28, 2022

Making the Unconscious Conscious

Habits of how we hold ourselves and the hidden jewels of discovery can be revealed through a consistent practice.

Isn’t that what we strive for?  To let go of the things we do that don’t serve us and reveal the best of ourselves?

It can be a very slow boat or downright discouraging how deeply ingrained habits won’t go unless we are in a lot of pain.

I am dealing with a lot of hand pain right now and have had to switch up how I use the computer, open jars, even put on clothing!

It makes me conscious of how much I was overusing my thumb and index finger!

How can yoga help reveal these habits?  For me, it is studying with a teacher who brings my awareness to areas I don’t normally think about or feel.

Questions to ask when you practice:

Where in your body do you not feel awakened? 

What do you overuse? 

What pains you?

Where can you let go more, where can you activate more? 

Let this week be an opportunity to notice the subtleties not what jumps out.

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

June 7, 2022

Hips and Legs

How the thigh bone rests in the hip socket seems to be of great confusion or trouble to a big swath of people over 35.

This week we will take a look at how we can create more space in this area.  Ideally this will let you stand a bit better, feel more supported with less pain and use your body more efficiently. (less muscular action)

The seated poses need to have the weight in the sit bones (see attached)

When we are standing we need to use the intelligence of the neutral pelvis found in a proper seated position to be maintained - for the most part.

First we observe.  As such simple awareness brings great clarity. Then we can explore new ways of positioning the thigh bone into the hip socket that is not so different from what you are used to.   And then voila! You have potential to use your legs with greater access to the strength that is already there and build upon it.

For example, in Trikonasana- some of us need to rotate the thigh more - some of us less.

So it does take some time to know when the foot is planted correctly (that's from last week), how the ankle is positioned (also last week), then the knee and on up.  Most of us don't need to work so hard, others need to simply be aware, others need to wake up areas that never "arose" to the occasion.

See you on your mat!

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

April 25, 2022

Happy Monday!

This morning I opened my daily email from Tricycle magazine. It is a quote that reminds me to pause and look below the surface of the words as they are strung together.  It was very poignant for me this week.

“We are able to see the unknown only when we go beyond time.  That is why the poetry that comes from this unknown territory cannot but - be wild, fresh, and alive, like a leaping carp”

by Ok-koo Kang Grosjean, “Like a Leaping Carp”

You could apply this to so many different things.  Personally, many of you know that times at Amba are changing.  If you don’t know, the Amba building is closing next week and the last class at Amba East is Saturday.  I am taking just my classes to a new location – Amba West.  I’m still on Jericho but instead of Terry Rd, I will be at Old Willets Path. Just a few minutes different time wise…..

Yet, after 21 years of teaching in one location, I have to imagine the possibility of being able to take my energy from running a studio into being a sole proprietor again.  With this new space (larger) and covid waning (please), I can see the fruits of my experience going more into just teaching.  My ideal is to continue to reach more people both new and well practiced in yoga.  So time and space feel very fluid for me now…..

Let’s take this back to our mats…. Can you remember your first yoga class?  Could you imagine that you would be able to move your body in such a way?  That your mindset could be different?  Perhaps this calmer, steadier, more balanced mindset is a byproduct of your yoga? 

My favorite is when someone can do a pose they never imagined, but with a few simple steps they are in the posture they couldn’t see themselves ever, in this life, reside in with ease!

Could you imagine being so aware of how you sit or breathe? Or how your body is constructed from the layer of the skin down to the bone?

All is possible through returning to your mat day in and day out. 

After a time, you can see the unknown.

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

April 18, 2022

Happy Monday!

(Post Holiday weekend)

Egg Hunts can be searching for treasure, especially if you are 7 years old. 

We look for the gold, the jewels, the treasure.

This past Holiday weekend had a powerful line up.  First Passover, symbolizing the release from slavery.  Then Easter, symbolizing rebirth.  I think there are similar treasures to be found in a consistent practice of yoga.

Learning about the inner workings of our bodies through yoga can bring on greater health.  A by product of this physical healing includes an ease of mind.

The sequence of poses are designed to bring our bodies back into balance. We become less distracted by our physical complaints.  Standing poses are for strength and stability of the legs.  The seated poses are for grounding.  The forward bends for calming.  The backbends are to reverse our collapse in the chest that strains our lungs and organs (the hidden jewels). 

These organs: Heart, Lungs, Stomach, Liver, Spleen, Gallbladder, Pancreas, and then small intestine, large intestine can go largely unnoticed until we experience pain.  Why wait until then?  Human nature.  Turning that on it's head, we can use it as an opportunity to empower and educate.  Here is a practice that specifically addresses some abdominal imbalance:

https://www.yogajournal.com/poses/yoga-by-benefit/digestion/yoga-poses-for-bloating/

Keep in mind that the practice sequences I teach rotate for a reason.  In this Constant repetition of the same poses would become dull and boring.  So in this method we have just the right amount of familiar poses to root us and enough to keep us alert.

Happy Treasure Hunting! 

Peace & Namaste,

Lesa

April 11, 2022

Happy Monday!

Pranic breathing practices focus a great deal on the timing and quality of the inhalation and exhalation.  How often have you observed the “pause”?

Early in my practice I thought that I was controlling my exhalation in a simple breath.  As defined by one of my go-to yoga anatomy books, it’s a relationship of two cavities.  The Thoracic and the Abdominal.  The abdominal cavity does not change its volume (unless you drank a gallon of water, had a large meal, etc), but the thoracic does.  The diaphragm separates the two.  They both change shape.  The abdominal cavity changes shape as we breathe (think balloon).  The thoracic cavity can expand both in shape and volume (think accordion).

So, when we breath in, it isn’t that we are pulling air in, but we increase the space of the chest cavity and the air pressure decreases.  Air flows to the lower air pressure, ergo, inhalation. Crazy right?  Basic science!

Then as the diaphragm relaxes, it springs back to the smaller shape and air flows out.  It’s one reason why we recommend not compressing the abdomen during the exaltation process in pranayama.  It goes against the movement of that amazing membrane between the two cavities – our diaphragm.

Anatomically, there is some information for you to digest. In addition, I think the more important opportunity here is in the observation of the subtleties of this action including the pause between the inhalation and the exhalation.  Let it be soft and you will find a greater depth of breath. Even find more space in your mind!

Another two thoughts I will leave you with to explore further that continue to release us from working against our natural rhythms:

- Observe the way you feel in between differnt postures.  Do you pause and reflect? 

- Pause during your day outside your yoga practice.

This way we can be more present with our day, our companions, our world.  Let’s learn from yoga how to see the beauty around us

And in turn give you more peace.

Namaste,

Lesa

April 4, 2022

Happy Monday!

Late night musings on Yoga!

Upon returning to New York:

It is disorienting to return home after a month away.  I am a bit off balance to find items I haven't seen since February.  Thankfully Spring is on the way and getting on my mat to practice grounds me.

For me, Spring is a time of shedding the weight of clothing or heaviness of spirit.  We can look for a lighter load and as the crocuses pop their heads up from the ground in my back yard and we can look for a renewal of all that grows in the increasing sunlight - even us! 

How can yoga help us? In so many ways you answer….

I am thinking specifically of grounding, returning to the source of my practice with over 20 years of continuous practice (Abhyasa in Sanskrit), and a renewal of energy.

Abhyasa : effort, willpower, practice. Vairagya : letting go, acceptance, detachment. This contradictory theme of effort and letting go is a thread that is woven through the entire Yoga Philosophy. And it's in the continual dance between effort and letting go that the secret of Yoga is experienced.

I found this online and thought it poignant.  If we hold on to something too tightly, we cannot let go.  We loose our balance.  If we get too attached to having 2 feet on the ground, balancing on one foot can be a frightful if not leaden process.  Dancing between the two can free us up physically and mentally. 

This week we will explore some of the poses that challenge and ultimately free us from being too set in our ways by taking flight onto one leg.  Just like Florida Flamingos!

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

Happy Monday!

Breathing……

Different kinds of practice can give us the opportunity to examine our breath.  Saturday, we had a typical restorative practice where we included poses that allow us to rest quietly for a time - supported by props in order to create the space in the body and mind. Use this space to notice and explore the patterns of our breath as it naturally appears unconsciously and then direct it consciously.

We can make any class a bit more restorative by the effort we put into the poses or the props we add to create more ease and availability to that particular pose. Over lay the breath and you have another layer of transformation.

Our breath patterns deeply effect the nervous system.  Slowing down the rate of inhalation/exhalation can move us from a stress inducing place to a more healing one.

When you take slow, steady breaths, your brain gets the message that all is well and activates the parasympathetic response, says Dr. Richard Brown, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and co-author of “The Healing Power of the Breath.”

When you take shallow rapid breaths or hold your breath, the sympathetic response is activated. “If you breathe correctly, your mind will calm down,” said Dr. Patricia Gerbarg, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at New York Medical College and Dr. Brown’s co-author.

So the scientific can support the experiential!

The standing poses we do promote the opening of our chest cavity and thereby gives us a better environment to release and expand our breath. There are traditional pranayama (breath patterns) that I have taught in the past:  Ujjayii, Viloma and Nadi Sodhana.  You can find many other simple and effective styles online recommended by others in the medical community for better health and wellbeing. 

Here is one to try outside of your yoga practice suggested by Dr. Brown:

Coherent Breathing

If you have the time to learn only one technique, this is the one to try. In coherent breathing, the goal is to breathe at a rate of five breaths per minute, which generally translates into inhaling and exhaling to the count of six. If you have never practiced breathing exercises before, you may have to work up to this practice slowly, starting with inhaling and exhaling to the count of three and working your way up to six.

1. Sitting upright or lying down, place your hands on your belly.

2. Slowly breathe in, expanding your belly, to the count of five.

3. Pause.

4. Slowly breathe out to the count of six.

Have fun with this. 

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

Abby the Wonderdog

March 21, 2022

Happy Monday!

Effortless Effort

I know that Monday’s aren’t everyone’s favorite day of the week, but then it’s all about how we look at things, yes? 

The reality is our lives are continuous.  But the mind labels Monday – at least for most of us – as the start of a burdensome thing…

Perhaps it is looked upon as the start of an unknown work week, argh - school, again, to the diet – or just getting refocused…..

Could we look at Monday as just another opportunity to open our eyes, breathe, move and take in the world around us to see it for what it really is and not place a dramatic label on it?

What are your labels or assumptions in Yoga?  Too hard or too easy, not enough or too much?  What if we just felt our breath and stayed in the moment? Took each opportunity to be present and come alive fully?  This is a challenge for a life time, yes? 

YES I say!  I am still catching myself with labels – you are not alone!

Return to your yoga practice for clarity: if we go to our mat and in our pose listen to the body (and especially the breath) we will know how to find that place where we are enjoying the work and the ease.  To a greater extent we repeat certain poses often to experience the progress and the intimacy of nuanced movement.  Then we have new poses to take us outside our comfort zone.  It is there that the opportunity for growth and strength can occur.  I am referring to both the body and the mind.  

In any situation, our evaluation of the moment may categorize reality as “hard” or not.  However, if we dig a little deeper, it may not just be that.  There is choice and room to breathe in every situation.  There can be ease in the work whatever that is.  The lesson here is to pace ourselves.  The simplest yoga practice can be an opportunity to learn just that.

Then these lessons can be applied daily to simple challenges or more difficult ones.  For example, today we went to an amazing new place in Bradenton, FL - the Robinson Preserve. Warm for us, but hot for our almost 11-year-old pup Abby.  I could have trucked on faster and longer, but we had to listen to her breath to know at what point she was moving out of ease – enjoying the effort - and into a place of working too hard in the heat.  Returning to us, as individuals we have more tools.  We have both sensations of muscle and breath in our postures to tell us when to continue or pause for a less effort filled movement. 

Two questions we can ask ourselves this week as we practice:

- Where is the action of strength in this pose?

- Where is the action of opening?

In this way we can find equanimity or effortless effort.

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

March 14, 2022

Happy Monday!

(Pi day for you math wizzes)

I wanted to introduce to you the concept of the Kleshas.  These are 5 afflictions that keep us in a place of suffering.  Think of them as a veil that cloud our vision from what is really in front of us.

Yoga is a vehicle to train the mind.  Just like with meditation, we bring ourselves back to the present moment with the sensation of the poses and the movement of the breath.

We can simply enjoy the benefits of the practice or dive deeper in to understand more about the alchemy of yoga.

Ergo, looking at some of these philosophical, yet actually practical, identifications of when we trap ourselves in circular thinking can release us in the future. 

In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra

2.3 Avidya asmita raga dvesha abhinivesha pancha klesha

There are five obstacles (on the path to Samadhi): ignorance, ego, desire, aversion, and fear of death.

The kleshas are defined as:

Avidya = ignorance

Asmita = “I”-ness; ego

Raga = desire or attachment to pleasure

Dvesha = avoidance, aversion

Abhinivesha = attachment and fear

So, on a simplistic level you could think of them as states of mind like anxiety fear, anger, jealousy, desire, depression, etc.  These trappings of the mind obscure us from our true nature and ultimately living our lives to the fullest.

This may sound very heavy as a concept.  Consider this:  if you follow the whipping up of one of these emotions, say anger, it is easy to be attached to the strong emotion of holding a grudge or righteous indignation.  What purpose does that really serve?  I am not saying to ignore the emotion, just not allow it to take you on Mr. Toad’s wild ride. 

Since our reality it is always a manifestation of our mind, we can drop the drama and just feel the feeling.  It generally passes very quickly.  

So in your practice this week, notice what feeling from the body (or the mind) and watch if you run off with it or if you can observe it for what it is.

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

Go here to explore more: https://www.byronyoga.com/exploring-yoga-sutras-of-patanjali-2-3/

March 7, 2022

Happy Monday!

I hope to hear that some of you are practicing on your own while we made our way to a new southerly location for March….Long drive, glad we stopped to stretch!

Have you ever wondered about the effects of the poses?  Why we have some poses every practice and some appear grouped together but occasionally?  Light on Yoga by BKS Iyengar has a section in the back for general sequencing and remedial poses. If we practice enough the patterns come through and make more sense. 

Standing poses are generally first to create stability.  They strengthen the legs and open the body with great extension. Then come what I call the focus poses.  Depending on them we do our inversions before or after.

Forward bends are excellent for calming the mind (especially if one’s head is grounded), lowering the blood pressure and aiding in digestion.  Janu Sirsasana, Parivritta Janu Sirsasana are especially helpful for my low back as they offer an opportunity to both twist and extend the spine!

Opening and strengthening the shoulders is a nice balance and we can do that with Gomukasana releases and returns the arm bones into a better position to then support our weight as we lift up into Lolasana.

Some of the abdominal poses not only strengthen our core to protect the spine, but they also fire up our organs related to digestion.

This week we will go through  these basic practices that I started out with at home and continue to teach as a spring board to more advanced poses.  There will be an opportunity to see where you hit your “wall”. 

Challenge is good now and again, especially in this time of change where we are surprised by how easy or difficult something simple might be. 

Generally, in Yoga, I find it’s a little bit of both.

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

February 21, 2022

Happy Monday!

Svadhyaya is defined as action of looking inward or self-study.

Abhyasa is defined as a consistent or continuous practice.

These are two Sanskrit terms that guide us in Yoga.  How do we use this concept of self-inquiry in our yoga practice?

The possibilities are endless.  At first, we may not know what questions to ask.  This is where a skilled teacher can be helpful.  Listen to their cues.

Different questions can direct our attention.  Easy to spot topics are: 

Where do you feel your breath?  Is it even?  Is it smooth?  What are the movements of the body that happen naturally on an in-breath, on an out-breath?

Where is the full action of limb? Is there an even balance of direction of L/R, in-out, front/back? 

Take a specific area of the body and watch it’s action in each pose to open or strengthen.  For instance, is the knee firm and not locked?  Is the thigh lifted or, arm rotated?  What direction does my pelvis need to be here? Tilting forward, back or remaining in neutral?

On our own, as we become more familiar with the poses and sequences, we can begin to find our own questions that lead us with curiosity inward and outward. 

I have found it to be a wonderful adventure if you take a sensation from a pose and see where it takes your mind body experience.

If we practice consistently, it is so much easier to find more groves on the record of our practice becoming familiar and we go onto the next track, song or number. Our concentration deepens and we become steady in body, mind and perhaps even character. 

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

February 14, 2022

Happy Valentines Day

Is it a Heart Happy Week?  Salmon, Chocolate and Red Wine….

Or perhaps some expansive rib cages?  Let’s dive a little deeper.

Thematically we can look at poses for the heart, but really practicing yoga on a regular basis is the best thing.

The next best thing could be inversions of some sort as it reverses the flow of blood to the limbs and flushes out our organs different than twists. 

Consider this:  your toes are the farthest away from your heart.  To pump blood all the way from your toes back up to your heart takes the most energy…however if we do legs at the wall or any other inversion that has our legs above our heart this process is performed mostly with gravity.  Easy on the heart muscle!  Upon finishing the pose, and standing up again, our legs are fully flushed out!

Another consideration: anytime your head is below your heart, you get a similar renewal.  Poses like Adho Muka Svanasana/downward dog, Uttanasana/standing forward bend, Chatush Padasana/low bridge, Prasarita Padottanasana/wide leg forward bend are generally available to all yoga practitioners.  The head is filled with a fresh supply of blood and flushes out our important glands of the thyroid, parathyroid, pituitary, hypothalmus, etc.  Again, once we resume an upright position, these parts of the body effected by the renewed wash of fluid will feel refreshed, including your mindset!

Final consideration:  crashing into our front chest can compress all the organs in our rib cage – the heart and lungs especially.  If we maintain a well rounded practice of opening and strengthening the front shoulder region while enrolling the postural muscles on the back body we can be balanced in our upright posture creating more space for the normal function of heart, lungs and digestion.

This week we will explore many of these poses.  And if you pick a few simple ones to do regularly, then we may be unencumbered by our winter jackets and ready to lighten our load both physically and mentally.

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

February 7, 2022

Happy Monday!

An Approach to Practice: It is generally sought out to bring balance into our lives. 

Over the last 20+ years I have had many students come to a yoga class with specific stories about why there are coming to Yoga.  The details are varied but the reasons as are the same: to find balance in the experience of themselves. 

A seeking out for solutions.  This can be compared to the idea of evolution – an outward movement.

As a person new to yoga, we are very attentive to finding the quick fix to stress, pain, tightness, etc.

Most of you that I see on a weekly basis have been practicing for some time now.  That which you learned as a new student certainly has integrated into your movements by now and that which you struggled with before coming to yoga has evolved, yes?

In reflecting on my own experience with yoga, I can see that making peace with my physical body brought me freedom. I wanted to be stronger and leaner.  I wanted to trust my instincts rather than rely on outside opinions.  Become more independent that I was already.  Yoga actually gave me something different, more applicable to daily life, a deeper trust that the change can occur without so much pushing and that it was easier when joined by other like minded companions.

I am sure my early teachers could see the urgency and eagerness I brought to my poses. I didn’t want to sit still.  I wanted to catch up quick. I wanted to move and push.  Solve the problem.

Throwing everything at it doesn’t allow room for graceful transition.  Practicing Yoga was a way to stop and reframe my world.  I didn’t know it at the time but the poses were working out the kinks of all that and I didn’t even need to focus on how I was going to change things. Observing and breathing. It makes the process seem magical but it’s not really. Yes, it is spoken of as a science, a method.  If you are curious, go anywhere to read more about the 8 limbs of yoga:  yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, samadhi.

Some of these limbs focus us inwards, some outwards.  Together they chip away at the dullness of the body and the mind. 

This all sounds very vague and lofty right? Especially if you have never studied the 8 limbs.  How do I proceed?

Try for now my suggested steps below during your next individual class - at home or with a teacher.  See if it brings greater clarity if only of a certain pose….

Arrival:  Observe at the outset what is showing up first on the mat.  Is your practice a habit or a mindless routine? Are you just concious of nagging pain? If you can, bring exploration without judgement to your answers.

Focus:  What is the sequence to be?  If you are in a class the teacher should provide this.  Where does your extra care need to go to?  (meaning: what adjustment to your body or mindset needs extra reminding). 

Reflection:  Are you giving yourself enough time to just be in the pose with a sense of listening quietly, observing? Are you breathing? Or are you rushing through each pose looking for what’s next?  Right foot turns out, left foot in…are they all in your awareness or is only the last body movement conscious….aim to unify the whole body with an even breath pattern.

Acknowledge:  The things that you are doing and those that you are not.  Be clear that you are making choices here to move deeper (or at all).  Aim to refine, observe and enhance your actions rather than ignore them. 

Keep in mind: you may need a day to mindlessly practice, just follow. This is a choice.  Or a time to let yourself play around with a different option in your pose. This is another choice.  Give 110% or 25% effort. Again – choice.  It is all okay if you let it be.

Conclusion:  Winding down in the practice/or a pose. Learn when to stop pushing yourself too far.  Find what needs to let go.  On the other hand, also learn what needs to awaken. This is where balance and ease surprisingly appears.

Savasana:  The true time to leg go and breathe. Go inwards without care to the outside.  You have nowhere to go and nothing to do - if only for a brief time.

I offer these suggestions for any class you practice in.  May they give you more clarity and understanding that yoga can be more than poses.

Peace and Namaste, 

Lesa

Jan 30

Happy Monday – Digging Out or Digging In?

Ever see a blade of grass come out from the smallest crack in the concrete?

How is this possible?

Patience

Opportunity

Or perhaps it is knowing how to see the avenue of expansion; allowing for the possibility to move beyond…. 

Yoga can teach us these lessons.  In our bodies, in our mind, in our spirit. 

We use asana to explore our outer bodies, the gross anatomy of limb and trunk.  Observing the sensations of the body we can move inward, through the sheaths, towards the innermost aspect of self. This can mean many things.  BKS Iyengar discusses these layers at length in Core of the Yoga Sutras, chpt. 14.

Think of 3 layers: the outer, the inner and the innermost.  This is the simplest way to explain the terms he uses gross, subtle and causal.  Add mindfulness to our experience of asana and listen, watch, and learn about these different aspects.

Take the body for example.  This is the annamaya kosa.  Skin is the “gross sheath”, muscle the “subtle sheath” and the bones the “causal sheath”.  In the pranamaya kosa, our respiration is the gross, the circulatory system the subtle and the nervous system the causal.  There are several sheaths that we can associate with the mind, but for this writing I will mention the Intellectual Sheath – vijnanamaya kosa where the internal mind is the gross, intelligence/buddhi (not book smart more of a sense of “knowing”) the subtle and the I-maker the causal.

How do I make sense of this?  I just wanted to stretch….

We can focus on these layers or not, since the grass blade of evolution will pierce through our dullness anyway.

First is being exposed to the concept.  Then you may find that you are already familiar with a layering of your own body.

Next, we take the time to reside in the poses to discern a hint of the sheaths.  Notice how when we move our physical body, temper our patterns of breath and watch the fluctuations of our mind we can experience the shifts as the practice evolves from one pose and then another and another so that by the end you have become different.

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

Jan 24

Happy Monday Everyone!

The "In-Between"

You can view the body, our great vehicle of transportation, in 3 parts:  Legs, Trunk & Arms.  In this fashion we may overlook the fact that as much as we would like them to be and integrated whole, it isn't until we study the "in-between" that we can fully experience them as a whole (I will discuss how to integrate these 3 parts into one body at another time)

The "In-Between" of the knees, elbows and waist have such range of motion and it is easy to be out of place.  Knees especially!  I have many of you who have specific sensation in this area that you wonder if there is any room for improvement?  Yes, there is.  This week we will have sequences to examine your own specific joint of the knees and how to strengthen, open, maximize your range of motion that a consistent yoga practice can offer.

Proper leg alignment, strengthening and stretching the quadriceps, and stretching the calves will go along way to greater range of motion (and deeper forward bends!) 

First off there is the attachment of the hamstring and calf.  Each cross over the back of the knee before insertion and origin.  So if we over stretch the muscle you can feel it on the back of the knee.

Second to consider is that if you quadriceps are not lifting in the front of the leg including the patella (knee cap), it will leave the hamstring in a position of always contracting – never releasing which it needs in order to lengthen!

Third, if we are in a bent leg position and the knee is not properly aligned over the heel/middle of the foot, torsion could occur and effect the lateral ligaments/tendons.

Fourth, if we never stretch the quadriceps, the knee will never reclaim full range of motion (barring injury, replacement, reconstruction, arthritis).

Fifth and lastly, if we are hypermobile in the knee joint, the muscles, ligaments and tendons are too loose and can jamb the front knee region.  Usually caused by weak quadriceps.

If you would like to read further, I have attached another of Julie Gudmestad’s clear articles on the topic. (Thighs Matter)

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

Jan 17

Happy Monday!

We are continuing our focus this week with some foundational ideas.  Last week we found greater strength in utilizing the strength of our hamstrings in a few poses (Purvottanasana, Virabhadrasana 2).

Thinking about foundation, I thought of our skeletal system.  Without that, we would be rather liquid!  There are two specific bones that provide us an amazing opportunity to load weight on.  Typically we may think of our hands, feet and sitting bones. What bones do you think of? 

Scratching your head?  It's those big bones on our back body, th sacrum and shoulder blades.

First, the sacrum.  It is 5 vertebrae of our spine fused together.  When we move into supported bridge pose, we place a block under our sacrum.  The action of your feet to lift the pose is then shifted into this bone.  If we are more in tune with the outer tips of the sacrum, we can stabilize and deepen our twists. (see attached)

Now, the shoulder blade.  If we are doing heart blocks, we can place the entire blade on a block (with a higher block for the head).  It lifts the chest and other than the weight of the legs into the floor, the greatest sensation is in our blades.  In addition, we can direct the turn of our trunk with them in the standard standing poses.  With this refinement it allows the shoulders to come into a brilliance of alignment and the whole pose/body comes alive.

Who wouldn't want that?  So let us explore these two bones in our practice this week.  They are already there to support us, let's use them.

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa 

Jan 10

Happy New Year!

Any Resolutions? 

I have no “re-solutions”.  I prefer to think of this as a time to not look back but look forward.

Let us lighten our load and renew our commitment to living each day fully without the burden of past doings.  Going back to my mat, day in and day out is my practice, my way to keep me looking up – out – and forward.  I offer that to you.  We can look at this time of a fresh new year for building upon the foundation of what we/you have accomplished already.

Backing up, let’s take a look at these words….

Re-solutions, Re-new, Re- awaken, Re-boot, Re-commit.  It almost implied in root word that there were things not quite “completed”, or a goal was “not quite met”.  I see how easily my perfectionistic side is fed by these terms.  I hope some of you can relate too. 

This month we are going to build on our current foundation of basic poses and refine them.  Look to make them simpler, easier and more integrated as a whole.  We can also look at each practice as complete in itself too.

So look at this simple sequence below and let me know if any of these poses are ones you turn away from (or rush through).  I would love to give you insight to create more strength/ease in your poses.

The way to do that is to slow them down to a pace where we can deconstruct them and then find your key that unlocks the body and brings integration.  

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

Dec 20, 2021

Happy Monday!

 Let’s get grounded!  Too much is unsettled in the world with the Pandemic offering another variant….

Cancelation – gather or not? – again with the testing - how much food for holiday dinner – happening or not? 

Sound familiar?  It's a Ping Pong of the mind!

Plans always change. My schedule used to be very set as an architect and a new Mom. Almost like a superstition I would check off my to-dos.  If they got done, I felt like I was in control.  BUT I didn't know if I would get off in time for my commitments to self.  I didn't know when I would have to drop things to pick up a sick child.  Sometimes the list was thrown out. Epic fail!  I had unrealistic expectation of what was to be. 

How much do you cling to your routine to give you a sense of control? Maybe we can learn to let go if we switch around the order of our poses without feeling like you are breaking the rules?  Or if we understand most everything is in flux.

Learning from our practice we can stay grounded despite our attachment to things going our way. Do mix things up so you aren’t sleepwalking through your precious practice.

For example, if you stand in Tadasana/Mountain Pose right now and look to be still, do you find movement?  It’s hard not to.  If we stiffen to eliminate that movement, we become stiff and frozen.  This is unstable and unsustainable.  We could be easily pushed over and fall straight to the floor. 

So what if we look to be steady within the constant shifts instead?  If we are buoyant in our joints it allows for fluidity. If we move with our breath we are not brittle.  We can find freedom from exploring the give and take of our natural movements.   

What immediately comes to mind is when I commuted to work on the NYC subways.  I used to see if I could ride all the way home without holding on - at all from 14^th street to 86^th on the Lexington line.  I could never lock my knees there. I had to sus out which way the train was rocking.  Up and down or left to right. To be successful I would need “ride” the waves of movement.  A fun game and a challenge.  Can we bring this fun challenge into our postures? 

That’s what we will look at this week to find as an experience in our poses.

My recipe:  breath + alignment + gravity surf + play.

So,

IF we are out of alignment in our poses, it will take more muscular work to simply stand.

IF we lock out our joints of the knees or elbows might make sense but it will make us heavy and sunken in the whole body. 

IF we move with our breath (another action of give and take – always in flux) add a lot of alignment and a little bit of muscular effort.

That is the recipe for this Holiday Season.

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

I will be taking a break from Friday Dec 24 - Jan 7.  Look for a Tidbit on Jan 10th, 2022!

Happy Holidays and be Healthy for this New Year.

Dec 13

Happy Monday!

After a week of exploring our hips, we can now move into our shoulder girdle.  This area of the body is cinched together with muscles, ligaments and tendons.  It isn’t exactly a “ball and socket” like the hip.  The 3 bones we have to cap off our trunk are the collar bones, shoulder blades and the upper arm bone.  Now I like to add in the sternum too.  It isn’t so much that it is part of the shoulder, but it is greatly affected by the other end of the collar bones. 

If we collapse our upper arms forward, the shoulder blades come around to the front body more and the collar bones come closer together and the sternum has only one place to go – down.  Down into the abdominal area leaving less space for you to breathe.

Simple positioning plus awareness is a great start to any reorganization.  I always like to see what is under the “floor boards”.  (see attached photo)

Notice how little space is between the bones and there is a great deal of inner workings that run through that area.  See here for more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3GVKjeY1FM

So, looking inside can help us understand and perhaps be a little more patient as we explore the movements in our practice offers.  I look forward to opening and releasing this area with you this week.

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

Dec 6, 2021

Happy Monday!

Let us branch out – literally – to our limbs this week. 

If we are not stable in the extension of the arms or legs, we can find the rotational movement muddied.  If the trunk is not buoyant and expanded, we can sink heavily on these wonderful joints of the hips and the shoulders. 

This may in turn contort the extension of our spine!

Let’s take a common example…How are you holding yourself right now? 

I am assuming that you are seated.  Is the tailbone turning under?  If so, then you will be in a position to shorten on the front spine and loose space in your front hips.  Can you feel this?

It can be very subtle! The first step is to be aware of the unconscious holding of the body. Come to the edge of your chair and find your feet beneath your knees.  Now press down into the floor with your feet on an exhalation and experience some clarity! Place your hands on the table (shoulder width) and spread the appendages of your fingers like we do in down dog. Do you feel a reset or a lift in your chest as you take a breath in? 

When we take this simplicity into our practice the potential of could give us freedom or we could still find a restriction.  Let us look at the femur better known as your thigh bone.

The head of the femur looks like a fist and it fits into the very small area of the hip socket.  It is one of the true ball and socket joints in our bodies.  We all have a different shape to our femoral head and neck. So that would lend some of us to have a very easy time to those outward hip rotations in full lotus! (see the attached for a visual).  This is why it is so important to look for ways to lengthen out of the joint area and then explore how to rotate cleanly and to the right degree.  If you are flexible, it is easy to over rotate.  If you are stiff, it is easy to get discouraged and feel no progress. 

Do not despair but keep to task at hand of listening to body sensations and subtleties in tandem to the movement of the breath.

Simple moves can support the extension of the limbs and the extension of the limbs can support the extension of the chest! 

Peace and Namaste

November 29, 2021

Thanksgiving, giving thanks, Family, abundance.

Friends as Family when Family is gone?

Sangha, Community, hearth, gathering around.

Going within, stopping, pausing, listening.

The Earth Quiets.

Here on the East Coast it is clear this change of seasons.  Growing up in California, it was not as apparent.  Yoga can be as subtle as the change of seasons in California. Warm, warmer, coolish. 

When I lived in San Diego there was a pattern to the weather.  We had a foggy overcast when I went to the car to drive to work.  Our architectural office was in a fully glazed corner spot of a tower that faced northwest in the small area of downtown that generally had no more than 5 or 6 stories to its buildings.  At around 11 o’clock we could always count on the sun coming out so that by lunchtime when we went out to the plazas to eat our lunch it would be warm and sunny.  The day would roll on and the earth would heat up. By late afternoon we were baking in our office with shades down.   It isn’t till the very end of the day that things would wind down and the cloud cover would roll in from the water cooling us off like a gentle mist from some exotic island.

Sounds just like my practice (well without the exotic island). We often start with poses that will clear the fog from our bodies and bring consciousness from where we think the center of the universe is (brain=ego) into our tissues (thoughts without a thinker).  Then after a downward dog or two, I stand.  That’s when I know have returned to a more integrated self.

More awake, more alive. 

Currently, my practice includes many inversions and they come before the standing poses.  Head balance, arm balance, forearm balance and shoulder balance.  They all have a purpose in awakening and calling attention to the systems of the body.  Those systems centered in the head, neck and throat areas.  With the variations, we challenge the limbs to enroll!  Then it’s on to the standing poses to strengthen the legs, the trunk and the arms.  They are the poses that assist us knowing where we are in space, to release the excess energy stored by our busy or stressful lives and to open the trunk to allow our organs to do what they are meant to do.

Especially to let us breathe more deeply.  Yes, just take that breath to pause in the day and remember the balance created in our practice.  Then we return to the ground to begin to open deeper in twists or backbends or more contained arm balances to wring the tissues and to further release us from the chitta vritti – that fluctuation of the mind that always offers up something for us to worry or add to the list of have tos. 

So, if the practice is rich, we are well enlivened in every cell. We release into Savasana. We observe the subtle discoveries of this day’s practice.  And we can let go.  Nothing to do but breathe in and breath out.  Feeling our own breeze from our own exotic island. 

Thank you for being a part of this Sangha, this Yoga Community.  My life would be very different and not so rich in texture and wholeness were it not for you all showing up.

Peace, Namaste, and Giving Thanks this Thursday,

Lesa

ps.  most of the yoga practiced in the west is a physical practice. It all falls under the broad definition of Hatha Yoga. 

"Ha" means sun, "tha" means moon. So our practice is like the cycle of a day.  The sun rises, the fog burns off, the sun warms and heats the earth, the sun sets and the earth cools.

November 9, 2021

Happy Monday!

Daylight Savings Time has ended..... Wait, what time is it? Really....  The Change of our clocks is the intersection of mind and body.  What is correct?  A surreal time of disorientation where we have the opportunity to open ourselves to the awe and wonderment of being a kid again.  Rather than the fight, I choose to have fun with it.

Thursday I had the great fortune to take myself to the Metropolitan Museum in NYC to see the Global Surrealism Exhibit.  I have always loved Salvador Dali's work, but had not known too much about the origins of the movement or how far it stretched across the globe.  The interesting surprise for me was how much of it was about cataloging dreams and looking to access the unconscious mind.  

The practice of yoga can lead us to leaving the constructs of our waking mind, the mind that says follow the clock, the rote instruction of what is known and adventure into the unknown to explore other areas of observing, feeling, perceiving our world.  We just started to shift our awareness with the concept of fascia last week.  The idea that we are not a machine but an organic interconnected everchanging organism that has potential to reorganize our bodies movements for a stronger, more graceful, lighter way of being. 

That the simple act of doing our practice can teach us how to become more aware of ourselves and the environment around us.  To see the world, our thoughts, differently.  Sometimes this process is glacially slow.  And sometimes in the great pleasures of just being we don't have to have a goal to practice.  WE JUST SHOW UP  day after day, week after week to have fun, to practice and play yoga!

This week and next, I would like us to just play with the idea of change coming without us working so very hard and without a goal as we head into the holidays, beginning with a most wonderful holiday,  Thanksgiving. One without the pressure of gift giving or getting.  It's about gathering with others in community, to share a meal, to share ourselves.

Let our practice prepare us for being aware of the little things, the subtle things that so many people miss as they rush through their day.  And let us be grateful.

In conclusion, I must say that I am grateful that this Yoga Tidbit continued.  It has me exercising a muscle of sharing deeply about yoga and to show up for all of you! 

Besides, what is better than doing yoga with friends?  Especially animal friends at home? 

Two fun short videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5KByD7Ri_0 and  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEspfaxei34

Peace and Namaste, 

Lesa

November 1, 2021

Have you just wanted to Let go?  Last week I suggested you not hold on so tight.  Did you? Could you?  Perhaps not all the way….

Yes, most of us would prefer to take risks with a safety net.  Well I have a surprise for you.  Have you ever heard of fascia?  (Not the board that wraps around the edge of your roof.)  Etymologically speaking the latin root means “band, bandage or swathe”.  Fascia is a band or sheet of connective tissue, primarily collagen, beneath the skin that attaches to, stabilizes, encloses, and separates muscles and other internal organs.  There is your safety net!

We can practice the pose from the aspect of moving limbs in place and constructing the body parts into a proscribed form, but have you ever accidentally found them lining up on their own? That the pose felt like the whole body was participating even though you thought that it was “supposed” to be a pose to stretch the hamstring?

This is a relatively new way to look at practicing yoga for many.  Especially if you have been trained to look at Gray’s Anatomy for educating the mind on the pieces of the body.  Yes, there is integration of the poses as we finally make our way into the last breath or two as we hold before coming out, or in savasana, but have you ever dedicated your practice to being in a place of integration first and pose second?

I can remember when I was exploring a soft gaze, what that would be like for me and how it would affect my balance if I just didn’t focus so hard with my eyes. (I am nearsighted by the way.)  At the time I was so used to contacts that taking them out was very disorienting.  So, I took the 1 day I had off each week and practiced without my glasses on.  At first, I fell over quite a bit, but it made a big difference in going inwards.  I could more easily find the sensations of my breath.  The tell-tale signs of when I was about to overstretch an area of my body or force a joint.  A lot of juicy information!

I invite you this week to let go of your pre-conceived notions of what a pose is supposed to do for you and just feel.  Let the fascia be the sensory organ you listen to.  It has so many nerves it can be as sensitive as your skin (1)

It is well equipped to tell you a great deal!  Do experience the sensations, beneath the layers – reach all areas of the body by softening your gaze, listening to your breath and letting the body move into the pose from a place of openness and freedom as well as restriction and tightness.  Share the wealth I always say.

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

For more on how fascia as a dynamic organ of communication go here: https://yogainternational.com/article/view/yoga-anatomy-what-every-teacher-and-practitioner-should-know-about-fascia

Reference (1)   https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/muscle-pain-it-may-actually-be-your-fascia

October 25, 2021

Happy Late October Monday -

Don't Hold On So Tight!  Yes, I feel it too.  The chill.  The chill in my fingers as I walk our exuberant 10-year-old pup in the afternoons. The chill at night on the sheets as my neck hits the pillow.

I know we focus a great deal on our shoulders and neck because they often bark after too much work at the computer, around the house or in the garden.  Did you know how we treat our hands (or ignore them) greatly effects our neck?

This week we will be looking at the subtlety of unconscious holding in the arms and by slow attentive movement perhaps, perhaps release the patterns of our habituated movements. Have you ever attended to or observed the line of your forearm into the back of the hand, or how your finger pads hit the keys? Have you ever caught yourself gripping a utensil when making dinner or using a tool in the garden or house?  Have you wondered why your wrists hurt in Downward Dog or after gripping a belt in a pose? 

Much of the grip of our hands carries up through the arm and into the neck.  Why do we do this? It's not quite so necessary to force our way through our day.

While I was being trained to observe the body for Pranayama (subtle breath practice), one of the key things I remembered to look for was that the thumb was fully relaxed.  If this wasn't the case, tension could carry all the way up through the arm into the neck and would tighten the brain.  This is counter productive to the process any restorative practice in general, let alone a highly refined practice of various pranayama patterns of breathing.

On Mondays, I do my online study.  Today's workshop of the week was about the nature of fascia and how new studies about it’s influence on fluid movement and healing of our bodies.  Julie Gudmestad, PT and well-respected Iyengar Yoga Teacher presented.  She is a master at many things and I always enjoy her insight.

At one point she discussed how we can unconsciously create patterns of movement around a joint that is restricted. Because of this clever adaptation, the area will never quite heal unless we go slowly back into the area of origin to strengthen &/or open it. 

For instance, if a "hip" is the original area of injury, weakness or impingement then the joint above and below will begin to compensate. The muscles movement around the "hip" will then become creative in it’s enrollment of other muscles or body distortions to accomplish what ever task.  This results in a knee or SI joint becoming painful over time and the hip never regains its strength or opens as it should.

So, as we run up against the limitations of our joints this week starting in the wrist/hand region, I will introduce to you one of many ways to slow down and open up the fascia, connective tissue and muscles that have not been habituated to move your arms around. 

Who knows where this will take us?  It might take us into the hips!  BUT the principle is the same....one has to slow down first to refine the skills of observation then recreate new pathways of movement and once this is established can begin to move with more grace, speed and instinct.

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

October 18, 2021

Happy Monday!

Fall is Here.  Transitioning can be more graceful with the Tools of Yoga.

I felt a dramatic change over the last 2 days, in terms of the temperature and my mindset.  The pumpkins and fall decorations are out front, my warmer sweaters have been dug up from underneath my shorts for wearing and my slippers are currently on to keep my arches and achilles supple.

If you are feeling a bit spacey or ungrounded today this is perfectly normal from an Ayurvedic perspective.  If you have never been exposed to Ayurveda, it is a sister practice to yoga. More Info here: https://www.banyanbotanicals.com/info/ayurvedic-living/learning-ayurveda/intro-to-ayurveda/

Before the colonization of India by the British it was the primary system of medicine.  There are 5 elements of ether, air, fire, water and earth.  According to this system, everything are made up of these elements.  As humans we are one of three Gunas or constitutions.  They are Vatta (fire and water), Pita (ether and air) and Kapha (earth and water).  So, depending on how balanced we are or what we are made of, we transition from Summer to Fall with ease, a slight hitch, or a big bump.

Don’t be surprised too if your digestion is a little off or if your joints are achy or if you feel a bit dry.  This is all part of moving into the early fall season.  It makes sense this week to focus on poses to lubricate the joints and stimulate digestion.  Forward bends and Twists are universally great for many things but you will see how they can be used specifically for digestion and releasing the joints along the spine and into the neck and shoulder region. (which can bear the brunt of the cooler winds).  In addition we will cover some poses that are prone on our abdomen like cobra and locust.  Often, they are thought of as backbends but because of the nature of compression on the floor, they can stimulate the digestive tract and strengthen the abdominal wall.

I look forward to showing you how no matter what sequence one picks; you can always direct the focus to your specific area of interest. Or better yet, come with beginner’s mind and just open up to what ever discovery/sensation that comes our way moment by moment, breath by breath. 

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa

October 11, 2021

Happy Monday!

Lift up your arms and stretch!  Yes, right now, stretch.

Did you take a deeper breath in?  Generally, when our side body stretches and the intercostal muscles have a chance to soften and stay supple with movement, we can breathe better. 

Now, take a gentle stretch to the right and then the left.  Stay lifted on both sides.

This is just one of many simple movements that we can take throughout the day to support a more open upper chest. A more supple thoracic spine. These simple movements are building blocks to create a better environment to breathe deeper, to allow space for the vital organs to work more efficiently, and for us to enjoy our life more - with less effort. 

Do you ever notice how your mood changes as you lift and open your chest?  Once the arms draw back in their coordinated movement, with the collar bones and shoulder blades (a bit like the three amigos) the sternum naturally lifts out of your chest cavity.   If you do this more, the muscles on the front body won't be so stiff and tight.  We won't continue to slump and draw the bottom ribs into our trunk which compresses the breath (your diaphragm resides at the line of your bottom front ribs).  We can support our lower back in feeling lighter and lifted.  Our neck feels more supported since it is floating more over the tailbone and isn't falling forward.  

One of the best poses to start with to open us up and give us better strength and awareness is Bridge Pose. Try it every day this week and see what kind of opening you have by next Monday. 

That's my challenge for you.  

Peace and Namaste,

Lesa