Category: Yoga

Few weekends ago, I went with my gut feeling listening to my inner guide based on what I want vs. where I should be and what I should be doing.
Thank you M-san for seeking my company to join you. It’s amazing that it’s exactly what I was interested in finding out more …as you can tell by my previous post.
Fusing Eastern healing methods from different divergent traditions – Japanese Medicine, Chinese Medicine and … YOGA, my passion…
& turns out there’s a team who does something similar to what I had in mind ! Kindred spirits! M-san, you are, of course:)

My mind has not digested all learned so hope to integrate the knowledge over time – someday, it’s all going to spill over:) Currently, just letting things soak… soaking it all within me to tap into like an apothecary… For now, all mixed and seeping out a little by little as I integrate my own practice from all these different styles and teachers… and what I made up that worked for me. (yes, me the laboratory rat, haha) It’s an alternative medicine – and very interesting to listen to people with different issues – someone who just had a neck surgery; someone who has weak knees, etc.
But we all did yoga (yes, it’s possible with injuries) and … felt sooooo good:) because it was gentle but highly methodical. Therapeutic. Effective. Yes, I trained my mind, using mindfully choreographed asanas as my tools.

When I saw this video and realized that, although, a little, well couple of subtle shades different, she nevertheless, shares much of my own philosophy. I decided YES – I will try her workshop – just squeeze it in – as she basically said virtually everything I had been thinking and churning in my head and sometimes expressing – when it comes to the kind of Yin yoga I teach … although I try more to alleviate or eliminate that “frustration” and discomforts through various tools … THEN there’s the restorative practice, to me, the actual “fascia”kind of a practice, that fuses and melds the yin and yang together… yes, in its nourishing net, the web that envelopes into one the duality in all practices. Similar and different like so many things in life… we need.

Yes, A LOT of YANG activities in our lives as we are conditioned to “work-out” “get in shape”, so this is a lovely off-set, a counter-practice to work-in, find peace within. Lovely time for meditation that clears your mind and also clears and purifies the body.

I don’t care about all the academics but “to me” yoga is about purifying the body and training the mind …in whatever form it takes, it’s just a different path we take to get to the same destination. Here’s Setareh on Yin even though the workshop was not so much on yin but on Qui-Gong … which is an ancient practice I also hold in high regard:

Setareh Moafi (yoga) and Salvador Cefalu (Qi-Gong), the duo gives skilled workshops and felt we share the same core values on how best to attain optimal wellness.

When we are younger and still finding our identity, one’s place in the world, we want so much to be accepted, so much to be recognized and attach so much of our ego, our self-esteem and self-worth with how OTHERS rate us. At the same time, not only did we allow ourselves to let others measure us evaluate us, and allow their judgement of us to define who we are, we were looking for ways to express how best to project our image into the world… the way we want to be perceived to make that imprint since after all, we had been conditioned to have others define us. We wanted to express ourselves so much and be the light, the inspiration to others … otherwise, we felt, we are not seen and therefore, we were nothing. Unnoticed meant … you ceased to exist… or so you were conditioned to feel. So we make some noise; more noise for more … attention – we might take a lot of pictures; we exclaim to the world that we exist and matter.

In that desperate need, sometimes, we might have allowed ourselves to push beyond the edge for a shot at that so called 10 seconds of fame … pushing and pushing to propel ourselves to go higher and higher … it’s kind of like that Greek tragedy of Icarus when one is over-zealous … all that striving and achieving …With training your body can do remarkable things but sometimes … it’s not meant to do certain things as Paul Grilley will graphically show you with how we are physiologically and structurally fused together differently…and we are confined to how we are built – THAT, we cannot change. “Confined” might the wrong choice of word as now it sounds so limiting but shift the mindset – Our unique built is “protecting” us, think “amulet” power we were given from the Higher Power some may call God – its your own body structure; whatever it is, its protecting us … So acceptance and gratitude we are to feel. It is unfortunate that rather, some of us start to feel inadequate or feel that they are not “good enough” … We cannot make our humerus (NOT humorous) bone or femur bones grow longer at will – cannot make our hip sockets have a different angle or depth; nor could we change how our bones are fused… SO with that in mind, practice with gratitude and acceptance that we get to practice.

Because all of our bones are different, all of our joints compress at different angles of flexion and extension. Through our Yoga practice we can discover where we compress but our Yoga practice will not change where we compress.

1. When we practice asanas we move our joints.
2. When we move our joints our bones pivot away from each other.
3. Because the bones are moving apart tissues are stretched.
4. At first our limits of motion are determined by how much we can stretch.
5. But the ultimate limit to our range of motion is compression.
6. Compression is due to the shape of our bones.
…
One, our mental and emotional life is reflected in the tissues of our bodies but this reflection is primarily in the soft tissues of the body. Two, asana practice influences the health of our bones but this is something different from their general contour. It is the general contour and proportion of our bones that determines our ranges of motion.

– Paul Grilley