Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Yoga and walking

I'm on my third time through the "Moving Toward Balance: Yoga in 8 Weeks with Rodney Yee", and for the past 5 months or so have been doing the Rodney Yee "Power Yoga" DvD every morning.  That's about 1 1/2 to 2 hours of yoga every day.  That much yoga can only result in profound changes in ones life.  And sure enough I am finding profound changes.  One of my latest revelations was the holding of my body as I'm walking.
 
About two years ago I had an episode where my back refused to hold my body up any longer.  When I sat in a chair, I would feel as though my spine was collapsing my body so that my internal organs were getting squashed.  After going to one doctor after the other, I finally became desperate for a cure, and decided that no matter how much it cost I would find my own cure.  I did acupuncture, Alexander technique lessons, reiki, massage, healing, and whatever else I could find.  Well, I finally pulled out of this by finding a physiatrist who put me touch with a physical therapist who gave me a weight training program.  But that's an aside.  The important thing I wanted to mention is the Alexander work.  The Alexander technique consists of a series of lessons where the practitioner "teaches" your body to understand what the perfect alignment is.  He or she basically does things to cause your body to find its own alignment, and then continually guides it.  Over the course of time, theoretically, your body will "learn" by incorporating this into other parts of your day.
 
I never got much farther than a couple of months with Alexander, and never completely understood it.  But I retained a lot of the words of what my teacher taught me.  One of the things he said was to "think about your head suspended over your body, with the spine hanging from it".
 
Last weekend, I was walking my dog and thinking about this, and also thinking about the correlation with Rodney Yee and other yoga and tai chi instructors, who say "think about your shoulders moving down, and by  moving down allowing your neck to elongate and your head to be suspended as though it's hanging from the stars (note the similarity with the Alexander teachings)".
 
After about the millionth Sun Salutation, I think I'm finally understanding how to walk with my head suspended and my shoulders down.  When I get into this "groove", it feels as though everything from my shoulders down is one unit, separate from  my head, whose purpose, it feels, is to dangle my spine.  Then everything from my shoulders down moves as though a puppet on a string.  This is a recent discovering, and I'm still exploring it, so I may not be on the correct path at all.  Still, it's nice to have these periods of self discovery as my body begins to release itself and my mind.

Washing my hair, and Quan Yin the Buddhist goddess

It's funny at how a small side note or comment can catch your ear and cause you to make big changes.  I read a small note in my latest Yoga Journal about how our society over-does its processing of everything from food to even our bodies, the way we insist of putting medication into our bodies, and scrubbing our hair every night.
 
I've been washing my hair every night for probably my entire lifetime (because my parents did and my brothers did).  I've tried not doing that, but found that my hair got so greasy and itchy it drove me crazy.
 
Well, I read that line in the Yoga Journal, and for the past couple of weeks I'm attempting to wash my hair every other day.  If I can make this a habit, then maybe I can make it every other day.  I'm pleasantly surprised that except for the first day or two, it's been quite tolerable.  On off days, though, my hair sits flat on my head and it's becoming obvious that it's thinning as I age.  But that's the vanity part of me speaking, and I need to get over that.
 
I was in a new age bookstore recently, and the sales person told me that she saw the Buddhist goddess Quan Yin standing behind me, and on the other side behind was a Buddhist monk.  Even though I have no idea who this person was, it still inspired me to research Quan Yin.  She represents a very strong diety of the female persuasion.  She's actually a female version of the male Buddhist diety Avalokitesvara, who is supposed to be the embodiment of all compassionate Buddhas.  I find myself praying to her when I meditate, try to get to sleep, feel stressed, or stand in namaste during my practice.  I like the thought of having someONE to pray to instead of just the heavens.  And I'm holding the image of her being physically present with me at all times.  I find that very comforting and grounding.   In one of my yoga magazines, I read about petitioning when you pray.  I've not petitioned for myself when I pray, and I realize it's a big thing that I miss in my life -- petitioning for myself.  So now I petition Quan Yin, morning, day, and evening.