Bringing the peace back home...maybe.

So I’ve been to four retreats in the last couple of months, reviewing them for Queen of Retreats.  The Body Retreat.  Vital Detox. Middle Piccadilly.  The Sanctuary Somerset.  All very different and I’ve loved them all.  But, as someone pointed out on Twitter recently, it’s all well and good if you can afford to swan off to these places but if you can’t…?  And I thought, fair point.  I also thought that really, I need to find a way to bring the peace and serenity on retreat back into everyday life.  As Juls at the Body Retreat said, if you only make a few small changes, they will lead on to bigger changes.  And Paola, the yoga teacher at The Sanctuary said that, even if you do just one yoga move every day, you will start to shift.

So. Since I’ve been back, I’ve been getting up and hour earlier than usual. I light a candle, fire up a joss stick and bung on a CD of Tibetan chanting. And I’ve been doing some simple yoga moves before settling down to meditate for about half an hour.  Okay, so it’s early days but so far, so good. 

But I can’t do yoga, I hear you say. Oh, but the first few bits of this are so so easy.  Really.

1. Neck rolls.  Simply stand in a balanced easy posture and slowly, ever so slowly, let your ear drop down to your left shoulder, then circle down so your chin is moving towards your collar bone and then up to the right shoulder and (very gently) backwards.  Repeat several times...really really slowly... and then go back the other way. Releasing, letting go.  

2. Shoulder shrugs.  Arms by your sides. Bring each shoulder up to your ear in a rapid alternate shrugging motion.  It’s quite vigorous but you can alter the pace to suit yourself.  Keep it going for a few minutes.  Energizing, loosening, awakening, creating heat in the body. 

3. Now stand still.  Find the bottom of your sternum.  Place the first three fingers of your left hand under it. Take your right thumb and poke it into the point directly under the fingers.  Take away the left hand and start to massage the point with your right thumb in a clockwise direction.  It may be tender or even painful – adjust the pressure so it’s bearable.  Keep going for several minutes if possible and then swap thumbs and work the same point with your left thumb in an anti-clockwise direction.  This point is three finger widths from the bottom of the breastbone (sternum). This is a point called the Sea of Tranquillity and it’s helpful in the relief of tension in the chest, anxiety, nervousness, and depression.

4.  Let’s just finish with the simple standing forward bend.  Padahastasana. This stretches out the entire back of the body, from head to heels, lengthening the spine and helping it become more flexible.  It massages all the internal organs, especially the digestive organs (so can ease constipation).  It can relieve sciatica, invigorates the nervous system and increases the supply of blood to the brain. It’s also said to remove fat from the abdomen!  On an energetic level, it is grounding, earthing, energizing and it shifts inertia, allowing you to move forwards. It stimulates and balances muladhara chakra, the base chakra situated around the perineum. Not bad, huh? 

a. Stand up straight, shoulders relaxed, ankles and knees touching.  Now inhale as you reach up, arms straight over your head, arms touching your ears. 

b. Exhale and bend forwards from the hips (don’t collapse), keeping your back straight for as long as possible. Keep your legs straight.   Don’t worry if you can’t touch the floor, just keep the idea of it in your mind.

c. Stand firmly and visualise earth energy coming up through your feet and passing right through your body and down into your hands.  Eventually, with practice, you will be able to place your hands under your feet and bring your head to your knees.  But even if you just hang, that’s absolutely fine. 

d. Stay for as long as feels comfortable, breathing comfortably and enjoying the sensation of earth energy moving into and through your body.

Actually, she looks a bit unbalanced but you get the idea.

That’s enough for one day, huh?  Even if you just try one…it could be the start of something.  J

Yoga is not competitive. So why do they want it as an Olympic 'sport'?

So.  It was at the end of a yoga class at Vital Detox near Glastonbury.  The teacher, Julie, taught a version called Zen yoga and she’d tailored it specifically to tie in with our fasting. It was incredibly gentle (we didn’t even stand up to do our sun salutes but knelt).   Just as well.  My blood pressure was lower than ever and my blood sugar levels were floating around at floor-level so even standing still in Mountain was a challenge.  Even the thought of Tree sent me wobbling. 

We all need somebody to lean on. :-)

But it didn’t matter. Yoga is not competitive. In fact, I do the majority of my yoga practice with my eyes shut so I don’t even catch a glimpse of what other people are doing. I confess I did feel a little irritation creeping in, that I couldn’t stretch as far as normal, that I couldn’t balance as well, but I put it aside.  Yoga is not competitive.  Most teachers say you shouldn’t even compete with yourself and, while it’s only human to want to progress, the point is just to be, as you are, on the mat, each and every time.  Yoga is not competitive.  It’s about being. About exploring that state of being. About being in the moment, in your body, here and now. 

I bowed to thank Julie, and I told her how much I’d enjoyed the class, and we talked a little about this and that and then she said. ‘Would you believe that they want to turn yoga into an Olympic ‘sport’?’ And my head nearly hit the mat.   I shook my head in disbelief but a quick Google shows it’s true.  There is a lobby to turn yoga into an Olympic discipline. 

How would it work?  Each yogi would have three minutes to ‘perform’ seven poses – five obligatory, two of the contestants’ choice – and they would be judged on flexibility, timing, strength and breathing.  The idea comes from Rajashree Choudhury of USA Yoga (wife of Bikram Choudhury, founder of the original ‘hot’ yoga) who already holds competitive yoga contests in the States.  But…but…

Like this?  Kinda weird, huh? 

Her reasoning is that yoga-offs have been around for years in India.  That’s true but, then again, a lot of Indian yoga teachers roll their eyes at the shenanigans.  If you fancy a real eye-opener on all that, from an Indian yogi’s perspective, read Sivananda Buried Yoga (a totally amazing book - highly recommended).

I can sort of see why they want to do it – and there is a part of me that would absolutely watch it. Why? Because when you see someone do yoga really well, it’s absolutely awe-inducing.  Quite quite beautiful.  It shows just what a human body can do and be.  And I can see it might encourage people to try yoga (but then again, it might put them off for life as an impossible aim).

I mean...wow.  Love those leggings too. 

But then again…no.  Because, bottom line…Yoga is not competitive.  And mainly it makes me feel sad.  I mean...what next? Competitive meditation?  Competitive yogic flying?  Now, actually, that I would like to see.  J

inneroptics.tumblr.com

But hey, that’s just me.  What do you reckon?