Newsletter

Jan 21, 2012 Got Goals? We talked about fresh new starts in the last newsletter. If you're like me, the freshness is already wearing a bit thin. It's still there but it is needing a bit more effort not to backslide into whatever was the status quo before. If you're like me, it'd be helpful to get a bit of prodding to keep going. So what I am going to do for you is: I am going to be your yoga goal keeper for February. Tell me what your goal is next month (Class once a week? Class every Saturday and Sunday? 20 classes total? ) and I will keep track for you. To sweeten the deal, I will enter everyone who has met their personal goal in a raffle for a book or cd of choice from the website's recommend reading or music list. While setting your goal, remember the balance between challenge and comfort we strive for when we do yoga poses. Going from no practice to attrending class 5 times a week is too much challenge. But don't set your goal too low either, or you'll get stuck in the mud of your comfort zone. What is a good balance for you? Goals should focus on behavior you have direct control over, not results. If you would like to make your goal to lose 10 pounds next month, realize that you can not will those pounds away. To avoid the frustration that comes with a goal like that, instead determine what behaviors you would need to adopt to make that goal become a likely result. Then set a goal like 'exercise every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and eat an extra serving of vegetables with every meal'. Meeting a goal like that will make you feel good about yourself and your ability to succeed, whether the resulting weight loss is 2, 7 or 15 pounds. So. What is your goal for February? Childcare is Back! Kristy Hathaway and Katya Madrid are now providing child care during the Wednesday and Friday morning classes. The childcare is in the downstairs studio (see the directions) and is provided free of charge! Another good reason to come to class! Deep Stretch Survey and other class developments A well rounded yoga practice includes the ability and opportunity to go inward. It works to revitalize your joints, not just the muscles, and it increases your capacity to surrender and observe, a willingness to feel a greater tolerance of uncomfortable experiences. All this gets touched on in a Deep Stretch class. And it increases your flexibility too! Now that we have more morning classes (If you haven't tried Sandra's or Barbara's class yet: go do it!) I would like to change one of my morning classes into a Deep Stretch class, to offer the opportunity for a yin-type practice to those who can not come to the evening class. To figure out when would be the best time for BOTH the evening and morning Deep Stretch class, it would be so helpful if you could fill out this survey. Not only if you are interested in doing Deep Stretch, but also if it makes no difference to you when it is, or even (or especially) if you want to avoid this class at all costs! Go click! Until the end of this month (when the results should be in) we are going to do the Active Class on Wednesdays and the Deep Stretch on Fridays. Barbara's Monday evening class will be the more basic class of the two she teaches, so we are going to call that one 'Intro to Yoga'. Monday morning is going to be Yoga Foundations for new and experienced students alike. Sandra really appreciates all of you who have left their warm beds on Saturday morning to come to class! The classes have been fairly active so far due to the cold, but she would love to get your feedback on what you'd like to do in the Saturday class! Email me! Mom & Baby class starting Wednesday Starting January 25 until Feb 29 Wednesdays 10.30 – 11.30 am Teacher: Marleen Stam-Gibbs Cost: $75 for the series A safe and fun class for post-partum moms (or dads) and their babies! Babies should be at least 6 weeks old, but not yet crawliing.We do a little baby yoga and then a little grown up yoga, to get the body back in shape for regular practice. If you, or someone you know, would like to join us, please let me know! If your baby is already crawling, consider using our free childcare on Wednesdays and Fridays! 'Yoga and Massage for Pregnancy and Delivery' Workshop February 19 11 am – 2 pm Sunday February 19, from 11 – 2, there will be a workshop for pregnant women and their birthpartners that will cover breathing and other relaxation techniques, birth positions and massage techniques for everyone involved in the birth. The workshop will be part presentation and part hands on practice. The cost is $25 per couple for women in the current prenatal yoga session and $40 for couples who are not. Please contact Marleen to sign up. The beauty of Yoga is that it does not matter what a pose looks like on the outside, but only what it feels like on the inside. Marleen   back to top ^

Class Schedule Sundays 9.30-10.45 am 11 am-12.15 pm Prenatal Yoga Mondays 9.30-10.45 am Yoga Foundations 7-8.15 pm Introduction to Yoga Tuesdays 7.30 - 8.45 pm Deep Stretch Wednesdays 9 – 10.15 am Active Flow 10.30-11.30 am Mom & Baby Yoga Thursdays 7.30 - 8.45 pm Evening Flow Fridays 9 – 10.15 am Deep Stretch Saturdays 8.30 – 9.45 am Yoga with Sandra All classes held at Benicia Ballet 938 Tyler Street upstairs in studio 204 directions calendar   Forward to a friend Know someone who might be interested in this email? Why not forward it to a friend?   Are you on Facebook? Marleen's Yoga{C} Become a fan of Marleen's Yoga and stay in touch!   Subscribe In order to subscribe to this newsletter: please fill out the subscription request on www.MarleensYoga.net. You will receive an automated e-mail. In this e-mail is a link you will need to click on in order to be added to the list.   Info For information on my private and group lessons, visit my website at www.MarleensYoga.net For comments or questions (or suggestions for newsletter topics) please contact me at MarleensYoga@gmail.com   back to top ^

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They come for the vanity and stay for the sanity.

~Dr. Sara Gottfried on women and yoga

I read this quote in the SF Chronicle a few days ago and it reminded me of myself back when I started Yoga. It was a year after Ian was born (I am not counting my forays into prenatal yoga, in retrospect that was a BAD class) and six months after I'd left my entire family behind to move to a different continent with my husband and baby. Not an easy baby, by the way. I still had a ton of baby weight to lose. The stress of baby and move was taking a toll on my marriage.

I've always hated aerobics type classes and Pilates was killing my back, so I tried Yoga at the gym. I remember my back started getting tired 30 seconds into Easy Pose because I wasn't used to sitting up straight and I remember falling flat on my face when going from Plank Pose into Crocodile. Every single time. In Forward Bend my hands wouldn't go past my knees. All in all it was quite a miserable experience. But when I walked out of that class, I felt more balanced and peaceful than I'd had since my baby was born. I was amazed. So I had to come back and it turned out it wasn't a fluke. I felt better after class every single time, even after classes where an hour seemed to last a day. Soon I was going twice a week, then 3 times and 4 when I could fit it in.

Yoga changed the way I looked at myself, the way I looked at my life. It inserted a dose of peacefulness and, yes, sanity, that helped me cope with the chaos that life with Ian and in the US turned out to be. Yes, I lost the baby weight, but honestly, if it had not done a thing for my body I wouldn't have cared. I shudder to think about what kind of person I would have become without the Yoga to keep me sane.

This week we'll be exploring the 6^th chakra (the third eye)
in class. This chakra is all about being able to see more
clearly, in many ways. One of the concepts it ties into is that
of the 'illusion of separateness', something that makes a lot of
people feel unnecessarily lonely and isolated.

It can be hard to feel your connection to the rest of the world. We
relate to people as if appearances were real, as if the ultimate
truth dictates that I am here and you are there and an
impenetrable wall separates us. When I look at another person I
see the outside. I see a body clearly separate from mine. But
when I look at myself, I see the inside, I see my awareness, my
consciousness. I know, rationally, that you have awareness,
consciousness in you just as I do, that you have hopes and
dreams, knowledge and fears just as I do. But when I look at you,
I do not see all this. I know the whole glory and catastrophe of
being a human resides there in you, but I don’t see it. And
so I assume and act as if consciousness is mine alone, as if
consciousness stops at my skin.

As soon as I open myself to the awareness that just as my body does 
not function in isolation from the world, because it is sustained
by it, neither is my consciousness, and then I can open myself up
to feel the connection I share with everybody and everything else.
All of us are part of that which is bigger than us, whether you
want to call it God or Quantum Physics. God is not 'up there',
God is each and every one of us, our collective consciousness if
you will.

"A human being is a part of the whole called by us "the
universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences
himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from
the rest - a kind of optical illusion of consciousness. This
delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our
personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening
the circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living
creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." 

~ Alber Einstein

In the Yoga Sutras, one of the ancient text on yoga, Santosa or
Contentment is listed as one of the Niyamas (the Personal
Practices). The interesting thing here is that Contentment is
listed as a practice, as something you need to work at, not as
something that happens to you once your list of wants and needs
is fulfilled. I mean, is it ever? Contentment is internal,
something you have control over. Santosa is to actively find the
joy in what you have, while letting go of the desire for more.
Something we all struggle with from time to time (I am not sure
my kids would even recognize the concept), so it is good to
remember that it is a practice. You can work on it. And it
carries its own reward every time you manage to do it: you'll
feel content.

The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while
they snub contentment. ~Doug Larsson

The world does not need another set of loose hamstrings. It needs people to be fully present in the moment, with compassion. ~Judith Lasater I love Judith, in fact, I want to be Judith when I grow up, and I think this quote is right on. However, even if the world may benefit more by your being present in the moment with compassion, you, on a personal level, should not dismiss the need for loose hamstrings. In my years of teaching yoga I have seen all kinds of problems associated with tight hamstrings. Obviously, having tight hamstrings makes it hard to do forward bends and down dogs in yoga, putting all your weight onto your hands in the latter, and it may hamper your performance in sports. Not as obviously, tight hamstrings pull downward on your sit bones when you sit and stand, causing your pelvis to rotate backward and ruin your posture while straining your back muscles. Tight hamstrings are prone to tearing (usually right by the attachment on the sit bones) and can cause problems with your knees. A normal range of motion for your hamstrings is an angle of 80 to 90 degrees when lying on your back with your lower back in a neutral curve (not pressed to the floor) and the knee straight. Anything under this, we would call tight and in need of attention. Unfortunately, lengthening hamstrings is a slow process, that can take months and even years, and opinions differ on how to best achieve it. Personally, I've had the best results with a combination of a) dynamic stretching (such as moving back and forth between monkey pose and standing forward bend, or even just rocking back and forth in standing forward bend), b) trigger point release to eliminate the knots in the muscle, c) passive stretching such as done in Thai Yoga Massage and d) static stretching, where we hold the stretch steady for a few minutes. A good static stretch for the tightest hamstrings that can be done without strain on the back or the arms is the doorway stretch. Lie on your back with your butt pointing at an open doorway. Scoot so close to the doorway that you can put one leg up on the wall next to the doorway with your knee straight and your lower back in the neutral curve while the other leg lies on the floor in the doorway. Place your arms overhead for extra back extension if you like. As the muscles release you can scoot closer to the doorway. Follow the rules of stretching as outlined in this newsletter from way back when: http://marleensyoga.livejournal.com/2210.html

In the last newsletter we talked about measuring your self worth by the list of things we get accomplished during the day instead of realizing that our self worth is based on our existence as whole human beings. Taking time for 'being' helps to balance out all the 'doing' and leaves us less depleted by the end of the day.

Now there will always be days when it is just one thing after another (at least until you learn to schedule your time to 'be' as high on your priority list as any other task). Even on those days you can nourish your spirit, if you take care to be present while you 'do'. Folding the laundry? Instead of worrying about the next task on the list or grumbling about the tomato sauce stains that didn't come out or the fact that you never saw your kid wear this outfit, so he must have put it in the laundry while it was still
clean (again!) as if the laundry wasn't never ending enough without having to wash clean clothes too..., you can choose to be fully aware of the folding. The warmth of the clothes, the fresh smell, the colors, the texture, the sunlight coming through the windows.....

Your hands don't need to slow down, but if your mind does, even these mundane activities can become a form of self care. Folding laundry is not in itself an agitating activity, but is a task that you can easily bring your own agitation into, just like any other 'mindless' activity. Make the mindless more mindful and
restful by being truly present for it. Your laundry will never be the same!