It hit me almost as soon as I got out of the car... a very subtle aroma of fine incense. Entering the reception area, a young lady handed me a clip board with a health questionnaire to fill out and told me where to go next.
However, this was not my acupuncturist's office or any other kind of medical establishment at all. It was about to be my first Yoga class in at least twenty years...
How It Started
What was the attraction? Well, aside from my constant drive to test out new-to-me and different forms of training in personal resilience, I'd been really wanting to expand my hip and leg flexibility for a while and summer is the ideal time for this kind of work (the heat and humidity facilitate safe stretching). And what better way to stretch out of your comfort zone than Hatha Yoga?
Indian Hatha Yoga is what people in the West usually think of as Yoga - the use of interesting and sometimes challenging postures that you hold for periods of a few seconds to a few minutes. In reality the idea that Hatha Yoga = Yoga is like saying that the pre-game warm-up = the Superbowl. Yoga is a vast subject.
Anyway, after changing into my conspicuously un-Yoga like exercise attire (I would have fit in perfectly with a Tai Chi class ;-), I took my mat into the appointed room and made myself at home... in a nervous kind of way.
As more people entered, they all sat quietly and never acknowledged each other by more than a passing smile. It was then that I noticed I was the only one wearing shoes - major breach of etiquette apparently! Who knew??
All this describes the first of two Yoga classes at different studios I attended last week. The first was an hour long beginner's class and the second a 90 minute class for all levels. In both cases I was already resigned to my fate as the class klutz, convinced everyone else would have rubber-like joints and glide effortlessly into scarcely believable positions.
Here's a great video to help you get started... and you're NOT a dummy!
What I Learned
I'm really happy to say in retrospect that I emerged from both classes with my dignity intact. Apparently I was already at least in the mid-range of flexibility and even the instructors (who both did an excellent job) didn't come off as having an unlimited range of motion.
One thing that really surprised me was how good a cardio workout these classes were! I shouldn't have been surprised, though, because people make that same comment about Tai Chi and Qi Gong all the time. Just because something appears to be slow, rhythmic and gentle does not mean you're not working your ass off ;-)
And the sweat! It was pouring off in buckets like I've seldom seen before. In the second class I was actually running out of dry T-shirt space to wipe my forehead with so the sweat would stop running into my eyes! And that's a good thing, because sweating is a superb detoxification process. Have a really good sweat and, as one health professional told me today from her own experience, "you'll feel like a newborn baby."
Before my first class, I was a little afraid the instructors would be calling out Sanskrit names of postures one after the other, like "Adho Mukha Svanasana!" and that everyone else would assume them easily while I'd be sitting there stunned, thinking the more polite equivalent of "WTF?!". Fortunately, instead of the above string of incomprehensible Sanskrit syllables, the words "Downward Facing Dog" echoed through the training hall. Now that I could understand! It really helped that during a couple of recent business trips I'd picked up copies of Yoga magazines in US airports and refreshed my memory about which postures were called what... at least in English!
And here's some more advance stuff I was NOT doing last week. I include this not only so you can see a beautiful demo done by a beautiful woman on a beautiful sandy beach, but also to underline the fact you don't need to do the advanced postures to benefit. As with most disciplines, 90% of the benefit comes from the more basic practices - fancier is not necessarily better.
The REAL Take-Away
It's easy to go to a Yoga class, have a good stretch, feel energized and then go about your day just as you always do. It's quite another to maintain your Yogic grace, poise and awareness all day long, to say nothing of delving into its deeper aspects in terms of physical health, emotional self-management and spiritual development.
This is where the vast majority of people doing Yoga lose out. And you can substitute Qi Gong or Tai Chi or any number of other profound disciplines for the word "Yoga" in the preceding sentence. If your practice ends when the class ends, the benefits won't be far reaching or really transformative in your life.
Yoga is capable of profoundly reconnecting your mind and body, detoxifying your system, boosting your immunity, calming your nerves and taking your life to a new level. Going to class is a great starting point, but there's so much more to be savored and enjoyed.
Now, if only I could get into the splits (without screaming) and sit painlessly in that damned full lotus pose!
Well, I don't know what your weather is like today, but here in Ottawa, Canada (officially the planet's second coldest national capital), it's 28 C / 82 F and with the humidity if feels like 39 C or 102 degrees F.
So summer is definitely here! And despite the heat and humidity, summer is very important to building your personal resilience. The key is knowing how and why.
Flexibility:
On the most elementary level, summer is great for fitness. You're likely to spend more time outdoors, even if that's just walking, gardening or soaking up rays at the beach. One area where it's easy to make huge fitness gains in the summer is the flexibility of your connective tissue (muscles, tendons, ligaments, fasciae) and your joints. You see, the higher ambient temperatures make your body more pliable, so it's easier to stretch and there's less likelihood of injury when you do. So if you've ever thought about improving the range of motion of any part of your body, summer is the time!
One person I know plans to increase his flexibility enough over the summer to be able to sit comfortably in the full lotus posture by September. I've known others, especially martial artists and other athletes, who wanted to work up to the splits (or at least closer to it ;-). All this brings up the key question - why should you care about improving your flexibility?
For starters, flexibility training will help protect your soft tissues and especially your joints from injury - in other words, minor mishaps that would previously have injured your knee, twisted your ankle or thrown your back out are no longer such a threat. Flexibility training will also improve your blood circulation, as well as your energy (qi) circulation, giving you better health and more vitality. And finally, stretching is a natural detox, something we'll talk about more in a later post.
Needless to say, it's also a great time to start a Hatha Yoga program, since the yogic stretching and postures (asanas) will be easier. The same applies to certain types of Qi Gong. Whatever kind of stretching you use, though, just be sure to warm up first and build slowly. Increased flexibility can make a big difference in how you feel phyically and emotionally, so you'll be glad you did.
Fitness in General over the Summer:
Summer is also a great time for strength training, simply because there's less chance of injury to the joints and soft tissues, given the higher temparatures. Is it a better time for cardio than other seasons, though? Well, the jury is out on that. Some point out how much easier and safer it is to go running in the summer than with snow and ice under foot. Granted, but on the other hand, high heat and humitiy can be a serious hazard for runners in the summer.
One great thing to do in the summer is to change your fitness routine to make it season-specific, to take advantage of what's more easily available in the summer, such as cycling, swimming and more.
So I'd encourage you to use the summer to build up your resilience in ways the season itself can help you with. Next time, we'll go on to look at some other resilience-building activities best done in the summer.
In the previous Resilience Tip we talked about the vital importance of improving your flexibility. And from what we said there, you may be assuming that "outer" flexibility is physical, while "inner" flexibility is mental.
Nope. At least, that's not what I have in mind here. You see, both are physical and both will greatly improve your ability to adapt to any situation in life.
Outer flexibility consists largely of obvious stretching techniques, such as you see with calisthenics or even much of Yoga - at least the part of Yoga that's most obvious to the untrained eye.
Inner flexibility uses more sophisticated and less obvious methods to massage your tissue, especially your core body tissue. It works with qi much more effectively and unifies your mind and body. And, in the end, it's even more vital for long term health.
The other great thing about cultivating inner flexibility is that once you've learned its methods, you can incorporate them into all your movements all day long, so you don't need to take time out of your busy schedule to "practice".
Now, you might think that outer flexibility is more concerned with limb stretching, while the inner methods target the body's core. There's some truth in that although, strictly speaking, they both target the whole body to some extent. And both are absolutely necessary for developing superb health, immunity and longevity; it's just that the inner flexibility methods give you much more bang for the buck.
The single best method I've ever found for building inner flexibility is here:
Remember the bottom line: unless you take back control of your body, you have little hope of governing your mind, emotions and spirit, and so total well-being will continue to elude you.
Many years ago I was out taking a walk with a friend of mine, a woman, when we suddenly found ourselves face to face with a fence. Without a second thought, I hopped over the fence and said, "Well, are you coming?" Her jaw was almost on the ground and she said, with an awe that quite surprised me, "You're SO at home in your skin!"
For me it was the first time I realized that not everyone is "at home in their own skin." And today, some 25 years later, I could hop that fence every bit as easily as I did it that day.
Flexibility is one of the great keys to becoming a resilient person. Physical flexibility is the foundation of mental and spiritual flexibility, of your ability to adapt harmoniously to any situation, even the most extreme kind. Trust me; if you aren't physically flexible, you're not mentally flexible either.
Of course, there are some other really compelling reasons for building your physical flexibility:
- It improves the circulation of your blood, lymph fluid, spinal fluid and qi - It protects yours soft tissue from injury - It greatly relieves psychological stress - It boosts your overall health, immunity and longevity
So how do you go about getting more flexible? There are lots of ways, of course; everything from calisthenics to certain types of dancing, to Yoga to Qi Gong and many more.
Here's a great video I came across that can give you some ideas. It contains some innovative warm-up exercise used in the pioneering Russian martial art known as "Systema" (meaning "the system", as if you hadn't guessed ;-), as it's taught to members of "SpetsNaz", the Russian special forces.
http://bit.ly/28snit
(Note: as with any program of physical exercise, you should only engage in this with your physician's approval, particularly if you have any existing health concerns. Use common sense.)
One of the great keys to personal resilience is to maintain a full range of motion throughout your body for your whole life. In the world of health and wellness, there are very few things you can do that will give you this much benefit... and on minutes a day!
Where should you start? Simple... think of a range of motion you used to have and would like to reclaim. It might be touching your toes while keeping your legs straight, or spreading your legs wide apart (side splits) or being able to stand on one spot and turn your head and spine far enough around so you can look behind you. Starting today, take a few minutes a day to stretch and expand this range of motion very gently and slowly, being careful to breathe into the tissue you're stretching. Warming up a little before stretching is also highly advisable.
(NOTE: If you're planning to stretch a previously injured area or one that's particularly delicate, make sure you consult a physician, chiropractor, osteopath or physiotherapist first).
Notice here that range of motion involves a) joints, b) muscles, c) connective tissue (tendons and ligaments). What most people don't know is this: as you stretch, you're also massaging and toning the fascia layer under the skin and the fascia that wraps the tissues you're stretching. This strengthens your overall posture and improves the flow of blood, energy, synovial fluid, etc.
In other words, every stretch you take not only contributes to your flexibility and range of motion; it boosts your overall health and immunity in ways you don't see. Want to be resilient - STRETCH!
Want to learn the world's top system for using simple body motion and breathing to boost your health and immunity through the roof? You can learn about it here:
Rather than repeat my official bio, I thought I'd write something more personal here.
Simply put, my whole life has been taken up with the search for how life is really meant to work; in other words, RESILIENCE.
And in that 35 year search I've been very blessed to make some amazing discoveries and meet some of the most remarkable people alive - most of whom are happily anonymous to the world at large.
You really CAN have tranquility, control, health, love and security - the 5 things everyone wants and seldom has. Of course, you have to be willing to pay the cost of acquiring them - and that's life's grand adventure.
This blog deals with applying the most effective RESILIENCE strategies to YOUR life... and then enjoying the amazing results!
