The Yogini from Manila

January 27, 2008
by Yogajane
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Do Yoga and Beauty Go Together?

Simhasana or Lion Pose

(photo from Yoga Journal)

To increase lip fullness and color — tap your lips with your index and middle fingers 5 times each day

To sculpt and narrow your nose — Breathe alternately out of each nostril

For crow’s feet — Open your eyes wide to smooth the lines

Pale? — Try downward dog to bring color to the complexion while oxygenating your skin

OK, HOLD IT THERE! ARE THESE YOGA BEAUTY TIPS FOR REAL?

One thing seems clear. In this age of Botox and collagen, there is a growing mass of people looking at healthy alternatives to maintaining youthfulness and beauty without the artificiality of face lifts and injections.

In a New York Times article by Alix Strauss, he reported that classes are sprouting all over the United States touting yoga facial toning to address everything from wrinkles to crow’s feet, to facial jowls, drooping mouths, and whatever else from the neck up. He writes: “Frownies and jowlies are under attack at the Lake Austin Spa Resort in Austin, Texas, where guests are led through a series of 23 facial movements meant to release facial tension, lift droopy mouth corners and iron forehead wrinkles.” Some of those who attend these classes say it is about time we stop paying attention merely to exercising the body but pay attention also to the face.

Simhasana or Lion Pose, according to the Yoga Journal, “stimulates the platysma, a flat, thin, rectangular-shaped muscle on the front of the throat. The platysma, when contracted, pulls down on the corners of the mouth and wrinkles the skin of the neck. Simhasana helps keep the platysma firm as we age.”

Books are now being written on the subject. Two of these are Marie-Veronique Nadeau’s “The Yoga Facelift” and Annelise Hagen’s “The Yoga Face”.

Do medical specialists in skin and facial physiology agree?

Alix Strauss, in the same NYT article, quotes Dr. Gross, a dermatologist:

“Nothing is going to have a lasting benefit like Botox or filler or collagen injections,” said Dr. Dennis Gross, a Midtown Manhattan dermatologist, the author of “Your Future Face” and the creator of a skin-care line. But there are short-term improvements, he said.

“Facial stretches and yoga temporarily reduce the neurological impulses associated with stress and the grimaces that lead to the lines in your forehead,” he said. “The plumping of your lips is more a massage and only adds color for a few minutes.”

Even some yoga gurus remain skeptical, Strauss said.

“We’ve not discovered the fountain of youth, though people are always trying to obtain it,” said Rodney Yee of East Hampton, N.Y., a well-known yoga instructor, who was unaware these programs existed. “Yoga will add radiance to your face and relax you, which will make you look younger, but to just focus on the face is too specific and sounds more like a marketing ploy.”

My personal take on this subject? There is no harm in doing these yoga facial asanas. In fact, I think I will incorporate some of these in my own self-yoga practice. But I think that more than all these outer attempts at keeping one’s self youthful, the inner glow that one radiates comes about through a deep personal connection with our God, inner peace, contentment, non-violence towards others, and a healthy lifestyle.

I chanced upon this pledge in Sarah’s blog which she got from Harriet of Feed Me. Feel free to download it and use as a bookmark. Click HERE to download.

pledgeblue.jpg

Wishing you love, light and inner beauty always. Namaste.

January 18, 2008
by Yogajane
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Join Yoga Month 09.2008!

Yoga Month 092008 banner

HELP SPREAD THE NEWS ABOUT YOGA AND THE CAMPAIGN TOWARDS A HEALTHIER LIFESTYLE!

If you have a yoga studio, are a yoga teacher or a yoga practitioner, a community leader, interested in becoming a corporate sponsor, a music artist, or want to be part of the media campaign, there is something in Yoga Month 09.2008 for you.

WHAT IS YOGA MONTH?

Yoga Month is a grassroots, community-based global campaign to educate people about the health benefits of yoga and to inspire a healthy lifestyle.

Yoga Month is a year-round campaign and will peak Sept. 2008 with millions of health & social conscious individuals practicing yoga at thousands of yoga studios and homes around the world.

Its mission is to serve the yoga community through its awareness campaign and to support outstanding inspirational community leaders and projects.

The Yoga Month campaign is produced and administered by the Yoga Health Foundation, a 501 (c) 3 charity registered in the State of California. Proceeds will benefit yoga health related community projects like Yoga in Schools, Yoga-in-prison through its Yoga Month Challenge.

WHY YOGA MONTH 09.2008?

The world has become one filled with unhealthy lifestyles. How many people do you know who have no form of exercise at all and lead very sedentary lives? Are your own children becoming couch potatoes and prefer to sit in front of a computer rather than engage in sports?

The organizers of Yoga Month 09.2008 gave the explanation below. While the facts apply to the United States, I believe that this health situation very much applies to many of us in this part of the world (Asia) as well:

  • Today, more than 70 million Americans suffer from one or more types of cardiovascular disease with an annual cost of nearly $400 billion.
  • Arthritis is the nation’s leading cause of disability. 46 million Americans have doctor-diagnosed arthritis. Arthritis costs the economy $86 billion a year.
  • According to the American Heart Association, high blood pressure and its complications are expected to cost the U.S. $66.4 billion in 2007.
  • Back pain costs Americans around $15 billion per year in medical care and disability payments.
  • The annual direct health care cost of asthma is approximately $11.5 billion; indirect costs (e.g. lost productivity) add another $4.6 billion, for a total of $16.1 billion dollars.
  • According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), repetitive strain injuries, including carpal tunnel, are the nation’s most costly occupational health problems, with a price tag of more than $20 billion a year in workers compensation.

HOW CAN YOU BE PART OF YOGA MONTH 09.2008?

You can join in many ways.

1. If you have a yoga studio or teach yoga, click HERE.

2. If you are a community leader who believes in yoga’s benefits towards a healthier lifestyle and wish to spread the word, click HERE.

3. If you are a yoga practitioner like me and wish to add your name to this campaign, click HERE.

4. If you want to be a media partner, download the media kit, post a banner on your blog or website, or post an announcement, click HERE.

5. If you wish to be a corporate sponsor, click HERE.

6. If you are a music artist and wish to compose music to inspire people towards a healthier lifestyle with it, you can send in your musical entry, join the contest and win.

The winner of the Yoga Month 09.2008 Music Contest will experience the following:

  • perform at a Yoga Health Festival September 2008
  • national recognition including a press release and media appearances
  • promotion of songs at conscious music download site www.omstream.com.

For details, click HERE.

7. And you can simply help by submitting a Yoga Health Community Project and possibly win –

For details, click HERE.

Turn your PASSION into ACTION. And help more people become healthier….

Namaste!

 

 

January 17, 2008
by Yogajane
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Tears and the Heart Chakra

My yogini mate Claudine once told me of a time when she was attending Pio’s class at a gym. During Savasana, she just found herself in tears.

Hearing that was strange to me. Tears? During yoga?

But last night, after a very intense yoga workout, Pio made us go into the backbend asanas. We began with the Plow, moving into Bridge, going back up into Shoulderstand/Plow. Then he made us do the Wheel as well as the Fish pose with both feet in the air.

All backbends, all directed at the fourth chakra…..the heart.

And as he led us into Savasana, he asked us to release all stress, tension and negative energy and direct it to a person/s who we loved and appreciated. For months, I had been under a lot of tension coming from different sources and after the hectic, sleep-depriving Christmas holiday in the province, I returned to Manila feeling my dizzy spells all over again. So as he asked us to focus on releasing our tensions as we got into Savasana, I followed along. Before I realized it, I found myself crying silently, tears rolling down my cheeks. It did not stop flowing until the end when I realized that Pio had silently left for another class and Trin had taken over to end it calmly, in a dark room, with a single lighted candle in the middle of the shala.

Claudine was beside me and after class I told her I had experienced tears. I knew she understood what I was talking about.

I found out in several yoga forums that backbends do raise the emotions and there have been many yogis, male and female alike, who have written about experiencing tears after doing backbends. Rightfully, the Sanskrit name of the Wheel Pose, which I always thought was called Urdhva Dhanurasana, is also known as Chakrasana.. after the heart chakra!

On the Hyptalk.com site, it describes the heart chakra as follows:

The fourth chakra is the heart chakra. The physical location of the heart chakra is in the middle of the chest. The Glandular connection is the thymus, which is responsible for building a strong immunity from pain and disease. The body parts affected by the heart chakra are the heart, lungs, pericardium, and circulation.

Emotionally, the Heart Chakra affects our experience of love for ourselves and others. The Heart Chakra allows us to feel joy, compassion, and peace and enriches our relationships.

As you learn to open your heart chakra, you feel more love for yourself and others. You have peace of mind and are able to cultivate peace. You experience a connection with others and see other people in the world as equals. You are able to find joy in your life.

It was a surreal but wonderful experience to release emotions under such unlikely circumstances and I am just slowly trying to understand how this release is actually a healing process for the mind, body and spirit. My tears were unexpected and spontaneous and for a while, I was able to let go of whatever was bottled up inside me. If just for that, last night’s yoga was a totally new experience that led me down another path of self-awareness.

And it turned out to be more comforting rather than awkward.

I bow in gratitude to my teacher Pio who was an instrument in this personal experience.

January 11, 2008
by Yogajane
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Back to the Floor!

 

(Photo courtesy of Yoga Journal - www.yogajournal.com)

I recall one time before yoga classes when Chona and I were chatting. I commented how is it that she is able to sit with soles together and manage to get her knees to the floor in the Bound Angle Pose and the Cobbler with head to floor while I can only manage it several inches off the floor.

Chona gave it some thought and replied that it was probably because she was often sitting on the floor in this position in her younger days at her lola’s.

I never forgot that comment and it has made me conscious that now with my office work, I am almost always seated on a chair for hours on end. And it was not just seating on chairs. Even visits to the bathroom meant sitting on a Western-style toilet. Everything was OFF THE FLOOR!

Then I came across this Yoga Journal newsletter that stated: “People living in floor cultures have more supple joints and stronger backs, not to mention far better posture.” The article recommends spending more time on the floor — squatting, kneeling or sitting — and over time, it will make one’s joints loose enough to improve one’s yoga practice.

An article by Andreas Kluth, “Ditch Your Chair” reinforces the benefits of floor sitting. She observed that it was on her tour of duty in Asia that she noted how supple Asian women were as they went about their work from the floor. Wait a minute…I’m Asian and I live in Asia. But everything around us has been so Westernized that we forgot we came from a floor culture!

Here is a part of Andreas’ article:

“Whenever I sat down with people on the floor in Asia, the differences between my creaky Western body and theirs became evident within minutes. First I got fidgety. Then I started writhing. My discomfort perplexed and entertained entire villages. By living in a floor culture, they had kept their joints supple and their backs strong. By comparison, my leg joints felt like cement, and my back—though toned superficially from gyms and sports—was limp. I had all the telltale signs of being a chair-sitter: tight hip flexors and rotators, a flattened lower back, and weak abs.

I got sufficiently annoyed to change all of this only after I started practicing Ashtanga Yoga. It irritated me that I couldn’t get into Padmasana and its fun and inspiring variations in the primary series. So I asked my teacher what to do. He told me to bid chairs farewell and to sit on the floor in postures familiar to students of Paul Grilley’s Yin Yoga, such as Pigeon, Double Pigeon, and Half Lotus.

From then on, I spent at least an hour every day on the floor. Progress was measurable only by the month, but my connective tissue slowly relented. As it became easier to hold a pose for a long time, I would start holding it even longer. Soon I was working from the floor all day. To her credit, my assistant got over the initial shock and soon enjoyed this liberating eccentricity. Since I was not putting my full awareness into my breath, I did not call my new habit “yoga.” But it was making me flexible.

Within five months, I was in Padmasana. Moreover, my practice has become more fulfilling, my joints have softened, and my back has gotten stronger. The experience has left me more patient with my body and also more determined. Last July, I left Asia to open a new office in California. It consists of two tatami mats and no chairs.”

This was enough for me!!!

Lately, I have been reading newspapers from my bedroom floor either with legs in Wide-Angle Seated Forward Bend or in Hero Pose.

 

…and I intend to do more reading and activities from the floor.

See you there! And watch those hip flexors and joints open up!

January 8, 2008
by Yogajane
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The Spirit is ‘Wheel-ing’ But the Flesh is Weak

After an erratic December yoga schedule and a long provincial vacation, I returned to yoga class for the first time in the new year by attending an intermediate class with Pio.

The days following my return to Manila were not good health-wise. Due to the preparations for my in-laws’ diamond wedding anniversary, I had been sleeping late in the province, sometimes till wee hours of the morning. I even almost collapsed the night of the celebration. Since last Saturday, my anemia was affecting me. I would be trying to work in the office but feeling the room reeling from time to time. It was such a bad feeling.

Chona rang me up early this afternoon checking if we were going to attend Pio’s class or Teresa Herrera’s vinyasa yoga with trance dance. I wanted to go to both. But at that time, I thought it was best not to push it and just go home early.

But as it turned out, several things made me change my mind. First, the car and driver were freed up as our girls were hitching home with friends. Then hubby said he was coming home very late due to work (and I did not feel like waiting up late for him). So at the spur of the moment, I decided to take the plunge and go do yoga, dizzy or not.

And I had no regrets!

The class was filled with good friends from our “yoga addict” days (Trin, Minna, Chona, Claudine, and lately, Lomen). Energies were up!

So was Pio’s. And sure enough, it was quite an intermediate class.

The whole class was conducted in true vinyasa form (in short, no stops to rest, no child’s pose). We went from one asana to another in quick transitions. Whatever rest I needed, I got doing downward dogs, seated forward bends and twists. Other than those, we had quite a workout.

Pio has slowly and surely been pushing harder and harder during intermediate classes. Funny thing is…that is what this bunch of yoginis and I appreciate… wait, should I say this? I just might bite my tongue at the next intermediate class! 🙂

One intriguing vinyasa transition pose we did was to go from a shoulderstand to the bridge. With both legs straight up in shoulderstand, we bent one leg and brought it down for the bridge while still keeping the other leg up. As the bent leg came down, our hands remained behind our hips as support. The second leg was then bent and brought down to complete the bridge pose. Whew! This was the first time I did this and it initially sounded daunting. But surprisingly, that was okay.

Pio made us do some other poses that are deeper variations of the asanas we used to do:

(variation of Matsyasana, the Fish Pose, with both feet on the floor)

(Boat Pose – a transition from a wide angle pose where you clutch your toes and spread your legs apart in V-form while balancing on your sit bones)

(Marichyasana Pose – the arm goes under one thigh and the hand is clasped by the other hand from behind….a big challenge!)

(Urdhva Dhanurasana, Wheel Pose: aaargh! My waterloo backbend, which Pio had to help me with)

All in all, it was one heck of a workout. Funny how my dizzy spells eased up in the end (though in the beginning I could see I was not grounded or balanced as I could not even manage a simple Tree Pose and kept losing my balance!). I also had a good night’s rest.

As for my waterloo Wheel pose (as well as the Camel and all things to do with backbends), I guess I just need to continue working on them. Pio used to speak to us about the asanas we most dread and fear as usually being the ones we most need. This is what keeps me working at them.

And I can just hope that my backbend difficulties will be like my dreaded Monkey Pose. As Pio continues to make us do this asana in class, I can feel myself going lower and lower into the floor. Maybe one day, I will surprise myself and do the full split. Till then, practice, practice….

(photos courtesy of http://yoga.about.com & http://yoga.net.au)

January 2, 2008
by Yogajane
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LimboRockasana

My BIL, Gerard, is fond of coming up with the quirkiest ideas during family reunions. Last New Year’s Eve, we were all gathered on the family lawn just after Eve Mass with the kids doing all sorts of somersaults. One niece from Sydney who is a gymnast was doing cartwheels and her brother who is into breakdancing was doing handstands. Gerard suddenly thought of having all of us do the Limbo Rock.

We (adults and kids) lined up in front with 2 people holding a curtain rod. One by one, we limbo rocked under the stick to the delight of the senior citizens who clapped for those who made it through. One by one, people were eliminated as they touched the stick or could not go through. Lower, lower, lower the stick went.

Eventually, it was down to nephews Iggy and Arry, niece Teresa (the gymnast), and I.

I cannot remember who made it to the lowest level. My back gave out by then, hahaha. But, as one of my BILs told me later, the fact that I lasted that long and being the oldest of the remaining contenders, proved beyond a doubt what yoga could do.

As for me, it brought one realization: limbo rock-ing was a fun way of exercising those back muscles. Wonder if doing this often will improve my difficulty with backbends….

Anyhoo…hooray to yoga for getting me through. And here’s to the newest asana — LIMBOROCKASANA!

🙂

January 1, 2008
by Yogajane
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Our Family Yogi

Kids are supposed to be flexible.

But when I arrived in Dumaguete, I did not imagine just HOW FLEXIBLE they can get!

We were talking about yoga in the family room and I was showing my nieces some forward bends they could do on their own when suddenly Arry did his KILLER MOVE which made my jaw drop. He would be a great yogi-to-be!

Introducing….our family yogi….Arry!

December 19, 2007
by Yogajane
0 comments

My Murphy’s Law Moment

I just had a great week last week, with once-in-a-lifetime events….

First, there was the great Italianni’s lunch Chona and I had with Jon, a newfound yogi friend who had just flown in from Saudi. And with us at lunch was a fantastic, “idol” yogini friend Trin. I had stumbled across Jon’s blog, became fascinated with his many pics showing his yoga poses. Introduced his blog to Chona. Found out we had a common friend in Trin. Further found out it was HE who I videotaped doing partner yoga at the last Mind-Body Conference. And he comes from Davao where I lived for 10 years and where Chona WANTS to live in the future.

A few days later, we had a thanksgiving dinner for 125 boys, including our M2, who had just come home from China after a 6-week foreign study program. I took a lot of pictures of the boys and their supervisors, videotaped the homily and speeches, and had many other pics of our parents and even our buffet tables. Truly great blogging ops.

So, what is a yogini to do when, after all these great, love-to-remember events, her memory card decides to die on her, wiping out all these pictures and more which she still had not transferred to her computer?

That is exactly what happened to me.

I tried downloading all sorts of image recovery software. No deal. Someone suggested I try reading it from a Mac. Did…and failed. So now, I need to deal with the loss of these moments which I now have to commit to my unreliable recall abilities. My plans to blog about them, complete with photos, are now gone.

Then I learned from my good Jesuit friend that he too lost all the pictures in his laptop when it had to be reformatted. I can so, so relate to that!

Yes, I am grieving over the loss of so many memories. But again, if my yoga teacher Pio Baquiran learns about this, his advice for me probably would be to take these in stride and move on. So move on I must.

But recalling a humorous quip which Jon posted in Chona’s blog recently, it’s times like these when yogis and yoginis like us, in such situations, should —

“inHELL, exHELL!!!!”

December 14, 2007
by Yogajane
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Forward Bends…Si. Backbends…NO!!!

I have to admit….I am having problems with backbends. One of them is the Camel Pose.

(Photo courtesy of Yoga Journal - www.yogajournal.com)

 

I have no problems with forward bends — standing, seated, whatever — as long as it is forward. Give them to me any time! But let me do the Camel or the Pigeon pose and my back just won’t arch!

I looked it up in the Yoga Journal site and one explanation for this difficulty stems from years of doing activities that require one to go forward (picking up stuff, bending down, picking up children, sitting in front of a computer, and so on). Yes, that’s been my life all these years!

But can you think of any activity that requires you to bend BACKWARDS? Uhhhh…unless you do household chores that way, NONE.

Too bad, really, because from what I have read up on, the Camel pose has a lot of benefits. It stretches your entire front (the chest, stomach, hips and thighs). It creates space in the abdomen and chest, which is good for digestion and easier breathing. Also, the Yoga Journal article goes on to state that by yogic tradition, backbends open the heart chakra, one of 7 chakras, which happens to represent LOVE.

At class today, Pio made us do the Camel, which we had not done in quite a while. As I bent backwards, I knew making it all the way to my upturned soles was going to be tough. So if you have the same problem as me, do what I did — I dug my toes into the floor and raised my ankles, making it easier to reach my feet with my hands.

Camel is a back strengthening pose, along with other poses like Locust, the Bow, Cobra and Upward Facing Dog. Needless to say, backbend asanas are the ones I have difficulty with and it means I need more work to strengthen my back. Being hunched over my desk for years in the past and doing the same thing now that I work again is really bad for my back! So I am glad that Pio made us do this asana today. It led me to do more research on the Camel pose and backbends, leading to this post.

Do you also need to strengthen your back to do backbends more easily? Here are some videos I found that could help:

VideoJug: Yoga: Backbends – Part 1

VideoJug: Yoga: Backbends Part 2

VideoJug: Yoga Postures To Strengthen Your Back