Tag: Functional body analysis

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Yin Yoga Central American Style

yoga, yin, culture, wellness

Explore the benefits of Yin  and Inquiry based Yoga, learn to let go and flow into your body. This winter Rebecca will be sharing her love of Yin and Inquiry Yoga with her friends in Orosi, Costa Rica, The Yucatan and Belize. This is a   new project to break boundaries and language through yoga and play! Stay tuned and join in the fun.

Easy is Right

by Chuang Tzu  from the Tao; State and the Art by Osho

Easy is right. Begin right and you are easy.

Continue easy, and you are right.

The right way to go easy is to forget  the right way and forget that the going is easy.

So what is Yin and Inquiry Based Yoga?  Yin Yoga was brought to the forefront as a yoga practice by Paul Grilley and carried further by teachers like Biff Mithoefer, Cheri Clampett and Sarah Powers. Originating from a martial arts practice and Taoist philosophy, Yin Yoga embraces the cool or more feminine side of yoga; punctuating the importance of balance, acceptance, patience and observation. It activates the 6 large meridians that flow through the trunk of the body and down the extremities o the legs, activating  acupressure points and the flow of energy throughout. According to the Tao, balance can only truly exist between the boundaries of Yin and Yang,but it seems to be a perfect compliment to our busy western or modern attitude and life and  more so how many styles of modern, western yoga have embedded our, busy, pushy nature into the our interpretation and practice of  of yoga, creating a mostly forceful, competitive Yang (and dare I say, adolescent)  practice. Many have lost sight of how a  gentle approach may release physical and emotional traumas and dis ease through understanding,   acceptance and supporting our bodies innate ability to heal itself.  While there may be a function and a place for any and all yoga, Yin seems to be a more natural exploration, honoring the body where it i,s at any age, any ability or disability and seeks to encourage equanimity, healing and enhanced awareness within and out.

I was led to Yin through my search for a new approach to yoga and to heal some back injuries and work frustrations     My serious practice evolved in my early days from Iyengar and a more forceful practice. I then found or embraced Restorative through Judith Lasater, Un-Yoga Teacher Training’s with Victor and Angela (this not only changed my life but my relationship to my body). I still attend workshops with them when ever I am able or they are in country) and I have explored and appreciate workshops with  Doug Keller and Mukunda Stiles Structural and Therapeutic Practices. I eventually found  Don and Amba Stapleton, now of  Nosara Yoga and Biff Mithoefer and the practice of Inquiry and Yin Yoga.

I know my past yoga kept we walking after some serious and chronic injuries, but finding Don and Amba  and Yin through Biff, solidified the my practice and approach to life.  They complimented many of my prior teachers, especially Victor and Angela and with the techniques of Inquiry and Pranassage changed my body’s response to old issues.   It also changed my attitude and outlook.

Today I take these skills and techniques (coupled with new training in myofasical release) to my clients, students and in my self care practice in what I have developed as Integrated Body Alignment (IBA).  Flowing with your body, giving the tissues time to unwind, let go, heal is following the watercourse way.  There may be a periodic flood or tumoultous waterfall, but eventually the river finds its’ banks and continues it’s jouney. I love this metaphor, as I was a raft guide and fairly skilled OC-1 white water boater.  Really, you can’t fight the river, you have to flow with it to enjoy the ride.  I encorage you to find a practice, keep a practice, share a practice, but a kind and observant practice, one with joy, laughter and  challengees.  Make this paractice your watercourse way.   I wish you all the blessings of self exploration of an exciting, adventoursom and caring ride!   Really, Go With the Flow…Namaste’  Rebecca

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A Journey of Yoga-Dance Your Dance


By Rebecca Wood

            Being drawn to yoga in my early 20’s was natural.  I came to it from youthful endeavors of dance, gymnastics, swimming and good body awareness.  I also brought all the early injuries incurred from those activities but hidden in youthful exuberance and vitality.  Coupled with a few auto accidents, a predisposition for excess and the need and ability to be able to ‘do it all’ and you have a great recipe for deep injury and chronic pain.  I looked to yoga as a way to keep my flexibility, to lessen the pain in my back and neck and yes to be in a part of the ‘now’.  I discovered I was quite able to do the postures, but the breath work and mediation… eeehhh really do I have to?  I wanted the asana, so the asana I got, but I soon drifted back into other sports and work related venues-running, backpacking, weight training, rock-climbing, biking, paddling and the back to land movement…Oh my aching back.  I still did my asana, but not with awareness, not with breath, really just as another sport.  I pushed through this and every activity- get this mostly ‘holding my breath’ and yes exacerbating old and incurring new injuries.

Perhaps it was a personality thing? I was fun, reckless, daring and definitely ‘type A’ in all pursuits and ultimately an unhappy camper.  Relationships started and stopped, jobs came and went, I completed advanced degrees, but happiness, self-satisfaction and a sense of myself did not come, and the injuries and pain continued.  I found peace nature and only in nature is where I could slow down, focus and get a glimpse of who I was.   So, I spent many years paddling, backpacking and working in outward bound type jobs ‘being ‘in nature, but still not being me.   That sense of place, that sense of peace eluded me.

In my late 30’s my life was a train wreck, one more foundered relationship, my back and neck issues were at a peak, numbness, tingling, pain.  I should have bought stock in chiropractics and  MRI’s but no relief was in sight and still I pushed on -run, workout, play hard and luckily,  fell back into to yoga.

It was a local Iyengar class, and interestingly I still practice and study  with Linda today (I just turned 56).  Within a few months of regular practice my heart began to open and my body responded.   However, after months of steady practice my old personality traits took over and I began to embrace yoga with vigor and Iyengar was it.  While flexibility returned and a new circle of friends emerged, I still struggled with the breath and mediation unless I was outside.  I still really only embraced the postural aspects of yoga and the yoga talk.   I pushed, and let teachers push me even when joints where screaming, I realized  I was embracing yoga as a type A- egocentric practitioner and new injuries began to occur.  I wasn’t paying attention though  healing some aspects, getting stronger and more flexible (perhaps flexible to the point of instability), I was also getting older.  Ignoring that bodies change with time, I continued to push ignoring what one needs before real healing can occur.

Luckily,  I found workshops with Angela and Victor, a playful, inward and restorative yoga and immersed myself in the partner practice of Letha and Thai yoga.  My perspective and need was shifting  I was fortunate (or was I ready) to find my way to Nosara Yoga in Costa Rica on sabbatical from stress about five years ago.  Stress is one of the key factors in healing injuries, it is imperative to find a way to manage stress. I feel like it was here my practice deepened.  It was through the insight and instruction, the care and love in which Don and Amba facilitated their classes,  I began to understand the need to go inward for the answers.  I liked that their approach meshed with Angela and Victor’s which encouraged yoga from the inside out, to witness, to take responsibility, to play.

Continuing my journey and dance with yoga has recently brought me to Yin and Self Awakening techniques.   This has given me the freedom to embrace who I am, where I am and to give myself permission to explore, to be and to share.  I feel this is my Yoga.  It facilitates the union of mind-body-spirit and nurtures how we embrace and interact in community, in nature and our surroundings.

As my yoga journey continues to unfold, I feel it’s a dance and that I have come full circle.  I now  do a regular Iyengar practice but with a self explorative twist. I embrace restorative with a Yin and SAY perspective and spend many hours in nature-walking, breathing, listening, observing.  I still cope with injuries, but as I witness them, explore them and honor them, I usually find my way around them.  As we age, some things need to be fixed, some things can’t, but we can learn to live with grace and dance with these issues, not fight with them.  I share this approach with my yoga and holistic health clients with a technique I now call Integrated Body Alignment (IBA).  Here I glean from all the amazing teachers I have had the joy and opportunity to study with.  I can incorporate reiki and energy work in the beginning or ending of a session and I can just touch in a caring, safe manner. This brings the person home, back into their body.  I love hands on assists and the Pranassage and Letha adjustments and sequences.  This I believe, has opened my work to a new level.  As I work with people, love, laughter and joy seems to move through both of us and stress, toxins and pain seem to flow out with every twist, palpitation or inquiry.

I look forward to continuing this dance of yoga, this dance of life. I hope the journey will be this, just being, being present every day, in my practice, in my decisions, in my work with others and in how I live my life, embracing every new step th