Today our ship had to make a stop for an emergency transport of a passenger via the US Coast Guard. Did you know that there is an average of 5 deaths per cruise? Wow. However not too surprising as the median age on this ship is well over 55. The
helicopter pad is right outside of our window and of course we were
there to capture the moment, and felt very grateful that it was not one
of us!Yesterday we took a yoga class on the ship. The class prior was packed, but for the yoga there were less than 10 of us. Same teacher for both classes. There often is a stigma that “I am too old to start a yoga practice.” What a shame this is, yet how correctly it displays the lack of understanding of a yoga practice. It
is after all a practice, and the reason to begin a practice are the
exact same reasons I hear people use to explain why they cannot or
should not practice yoga. One lady on the boat
said she could not practice because she had arthritis in her knees and
if she were to get on the floor she would never be able to get up. My
thought was why in the world would you not want to practice getting up
off of the floor while there were people around in case you were to fall
while alone at home? But I just smiled and let
her ramble on about her many health problems that prevented her from a
yoga practice, but allowed her to do weight training. I
recognized early that it would have been a waste of prana to do
otherwise and was grateful she was participating in some form of
fitness.Natalie and I were playing with inversions on the boat, which by the way is a bit of a challenge. Headstand and forearm balance were no obstacle for her but the handstand threw her a curve ball. She said there is a part of her that wants to, a part of her that is hesitant and a part of her that is fearful. These are all tricks of the mind. Iyengar talks about how the mind is the maker and the mind is the destroyer. Fear is our biggest obstacle in life, and in our practice. Fear is from the mind.I
found this good information for me as it has been a bit since I have
felt fear in my practice and I had forgotten how debilitating it can be. Backbends were my mountain, and I had such resistance to them that my emotional body would go into breakdown mode. I recall the teacher, telling me to just push thru it, your body is trying to let go of something. I returned a few more times and the emotional response grew with intensity. I so wanted to, yet was very hesitant to and extremely fearful. I got wrapped up in the trick of my mind that I had aversions to backbends for the first part of my yoga practice. Now,
having a much better understanding of the mind/body connection and the
enormous benefits of heart openers, my current practice revolves around
them. So how do I as a yoga educator help people to overcome their fears or hesitations of certain asanas? Patience
seems to be the obvious choice, but as I provide support it is very
important for me to continually bring them back to the breath. We know that the thoughts of the mind can influence the breath, but the breath can also influence the thoughts of the mind.As
I sit here writing this the boat is really rocking, and for those of
you that do not know me, I have battled motion sickness all my life. It has not been until recently that the thought of doing a cruise has even entered into my realm of consciousness. My
mind wants to send me into a tailspin of panic, but as I sit here, I am
using my yogic breathing to help deter the tricks of my mind and
disconnect from any thoughts of panic or delusional thinking. So
for now I must close, I have a big day of scuba diving and it is even
more important that I do not succumb to the seasickness. Thank goodness for Scopace. If you have not discovered it, it is truly wonderful. I
am not convinced that motion sickness is a mind game; however I do know
that any anxiety that may arise from the fear of the seasickness is. Ommmmmmm Shanti Shanti Shanti Ommmm Peace to the sea!
Posted at 07:44 PM | PermalinkReblog
(0)
| | Digg This
| Save to del.icio.us
| Tweet This! |
|
 |
|||||||||||||
 
Categoriesasanabalance breath chakra injury karma, meditation patience perception practice touch yoga yoga alliance yoga, accountability |
|
 |
|||||||||||
    |
|||||||||||||
