Connect To Your Core: Core Anatomy, Integration, and Application

In Forrest Yoga, we do core work. If you’ve never encountered this in a yoga class before, your first thought might be WHY? A strong core is incredibly important. In our modern day, “weakness” comes not just from lack of tone, but also from too much tone, or tightness. Sitting at a desk all day confers both lack of tone in some parts (lower back, pelvic floor) and too much tone in others (psoas, rhomboids). In Forrest Yoga, core work builds tone and connection where it is lacking, and releases tension where hyper-tonicity is adding to weakness and disconnect.

Our core muscles protect the bones and organs of our trunk, hold our organs in our abdominal cavity, and connect our trunk to our legs. A healthy toned core, one that is neither flaccid nor rigid, provides the best support for our vital organs, and in particular our guts. It’s a new way of thinking that “toned core” means “healthy guts” more than “six-pack abs,” but this is what Forrest Yoga does: takes you far deeper into understanding your body, and also helps dismantle a lot of popular, but erroneous, ideas.

In this two-hour workshop, we’ll review the basic anatomy of the core, in particular the muscles most commonly used in our basic core moves. I’ll explain what the muscles do, then you’ll experience that (integrate the information) by doing the poses yourself. For regular practitioners, you’ll get a new level of detail in understanding your core work poses. For new folks to Forrest Yoga, you’ll get a crash course in knowing how this part of your body works. Doing the poses following the anatomy part of the workshop should help everyone feel more educated and aware about this part of our body that for many of us, is an area we’d rather not think about, or don’t really understand well.

Once we’ve talked about and experienced our core muscles, we’ll put it all together into a back-bending class (yup, you use you core in that too and the more intelligent you are about the application of your core muscles in back-bending, the more pleasure and the more results you’ll receive from your back-bending practice). You’ll feel the support of your core from, as Ana Forrest likes to say “crotch to crown” and that’s pretty exciting. My experience of core work is that it makes me feel really connected, really powerful, sexier, and more alive.

I hope you will join us on Friday, May 15th from 7-9pm at Yoga in the Heights, 317 Central Ave., in Jersey City, NJ. www.jcheightsyoga.com

Beauty Report: My Students’ Progress

My student wanted to know how long she’s been coming to my classes. I told her about 3 months. She told me “I’ve lost 12 pounds. My mother notices it when we Skype.” I’m so happy that she feels better in her body, and happy for the pride she is growing for herself at her accomplishment.

My student wanted to sell his business and follow his heart. It took about two years, but he sold his business and is now figuring out this new phase of his life. I’m so proud of him for following his heart. I’m so inspired by his generosity to those who know him, including me, his fortunate teacher.

My student wanted to see movement in her feet. She said “they’re frozen, like dead.” Within a few months, space and breath started coming between her toes, and now she is a full-on lover of the breath. “I thought you were a little weird at first, talking all this about breath, but now, I totally understand it and realize how important it is.” I’m so proud of her for persevering and for sitting with her doubt and skepticism until she knew for herself.

My student told me that she gave up a relationship because she knew it was time to let it go. She said she got the strength to realize this from our classes. I’m so proud of her, and have such respect for her strength and courage.

My student wanted to get pregnant. I asked her to feel for how she could be more receptive in her life. I related, being a “woman in control,” a highly capable, hyper-independent “modern woman,” more by default than by choice. She started slowing down and making more time for her. She sent me a photo of her beautiful baby boy hours after he was born. I never saw her in class again. I suspect she’s found a new kind of satisfaction and peace, a yoga of her own, with her growing family. I’m so happy for her realizing her dream.

My boyfriend had hyper-lordosis. His lower back hurt a lot, his belly protruded, his posture suffered. He’s been practicing yoga regularly for a couple of years now and his spine looks completely different. His swayback is gone. He’s no longer in so much pain. He’s in love with yoga now, and I get to share my love of yoga with him. I am so grateful for this gift. I’m so proud of him, seeing him become ever more sensitive and aware and am in awe of his language of embodiment and spirituality. And I love having him in class.

I am so happy for my students and proud of them. Teaching yoga is such a gift. I hope to remember all the amazing moments that my students share with me, their breakthroughs and victories and realizations. I have let so many pass without marking them somehow. These are a few of the big ones that I remember, that I committed to heart, but everyday, in every class, their shining eyes after savasana, their easy smiles on the way out the door, and the trust I feel from them, our growing mutual respect and honor for one another, I receive as a gift, an honor, a treasure.

The word “namaste” resonates so much for me when I bow to my students after class.

My soul honors your soul.

I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides.

I honor the light, love, truth, beauty, and peace within you

Because it is also within me.

In sharing these things, we are united, we are the same, we are one.

Namaste.

Neptune is Transiting My Sun. And, I Need Rest.

Today I was introduced to a concept called the Forer Effect, which in a nutshell says that people have a tendency to believe statements about themselves to be highly accurate, even if said statements could be applied to anyone. The Forer Effect is used to denigrate subjects like astrology, numerology, the Enneagram, etc. as pseudo-science.

As my boyfriend will tell  you, one of my favorite words is “anecdotally.” The Forer Effect doesn’t really explain about anecdotal evidence. This was on my mind as I checked the ephemeris for 2015 and found that transiting Neptune is back on my solar degree. This is the second time in about 8 months this has happened, and I can feel when Neptune is on my sun. I am tired. My brain isn’t so good for organization, clear thoughts, tasks, deadlines. I’m forgetful. Have trouble formulating a coherent or elegant sentence. And my mild dyslexia flares up so I read things like “tonight” and see “Tuesday.” This makes for snafus a-plenty.

Also lately, I have been working seven days a week. It happened sort of by accident during a time when I was worried about money and scheduled more things than I should have, and when I wasn’t being careful, and yah, when Neptune was transiting my sun and I couldn’t keep Tuesday and Thursday straight and ended up with too many commitments, several of which I couldn’t break because they were contractual. So after about a month of this schedule, and Neptune doing its thing, I had to make some room.

So I gave up my beloved Yin Yoga class at Reflections Yoga, a class I have taught for about 3 years. It was the first time Yin was offered at Reflections, and what started as my love for the practice has grown into a very popular class and a beautifully community of practitioners. I just found out today that Reflections found a new teacher for Fridays. Her name is Tatum and she looks lovely and I am certain that everyone will love her class.

The lesson I got from this experience is that sometimes we have to let even beloved and dear things go, because holding on to them is taking more from us than we can give out. And if we try to give from an empty place, it’s no good for anyone. That’s what Ana Forrest calls the “sacrificial whore” and it’s an ugly phrase to express an ugly condition that we sometimes find ourselves in.

Needing rest is REAL. Especially when Neptune is transiting your sun. Working seven days a week, even if one of those days was just teaching one yoga class, has worn me down. And, I’m also going thru something. It’s hard to say what. This is part of the Neptune transit. It’s a time marked by fogginess, confusion, delays. Neptune in mythology rules the seas. Water represents our deepest emotions, and the hidden and mysterious parts of ourselves. It’s also where we are most fluid, most playful, and most adaptable, literally in the flow. To align with the way I’m feeling now, I need more time for quiet, for rest, for being ok with being in an in-between state. When the transit is over, what’s most important will be clear. I really get that, even though I’m not close to knowing what will be revealed, but I really get that this is a process, and letting go, feeling exhausted by the “regular world,” by work and obligations is part of that.

I am proud of the work that I do. I consider myself a hard worker, and very responsible. So to feel this way, that I don’t have the energy for much directed activity, is weird. I’m not used to it. I feel strange saying it, admitting it, which is why it’s safer to do so on my blog, although I have shared this feeling with a few friends who will understand. But I don’t want to be analyzed and questioned and given advice. I want to find my way through on my own.