Resistance and Why Change is Good for us

                                                                            

All is change. 

It is the only thing that we can be sure of, and yet we as humans find it so difficult to embrace it in some areas of our lives. Take for example the yoga community. We have invested in our yoga mat and probably some comfortable clothes, and designated certain times of the week for our asana practice. But in a physical body that has 206 bones and around 650 muscles, at some point something will get stressed or injured, or maybe we will become disillusioned with the practice because our life as a householder is so demanding. 

 

The latest information from the Labour Force Survey for 2011/12 shows: 

                

·         Stress, depression or anxiety and musculoskeletal disorders accounted for the majority of days lost due to work-related ill health, 10.4 and 7.5 million days respectively.(as reported in the Health and Safety Executive)

·          

Take a look at the following list and see how many points resonate with you.

·         repetitive and/or heavy lifting

·         bending and twisting

·         repeating an action too frequently

·         uncomfortable working position

·         exerting too much force

·         working too long without break

·         adverse working environment (eg hot or cold)

·         psycho-social factors (eg high job demands, time pressures and lack of control)

·         not receiving and acting on reports of symptoms quickly enough

In today’s modern world we push ourselves too hard and too for too long, but at some point through illness or injury we are all forced to make changes.

Saying it another way;

"People don't resist change. They resist being changed!" -  Peter S

When change does come, we don’t like it. It interferes with our lives and possibly our hopes, dreams and wishes or teaching schedule. We may have to change our course and this can actually be a blessing as change presented to us will cause us to stop and listen and perhaps do something we never saw ourselves doing. Aqua Kriya Yoga for example.

It still focuses on joint alignment, breathing and promotes the flow of synovial fluid, but has the added benefit of a total body massage along with extra calorie burning due to the resistance in the water, while at the same time very low impact on joints themselves.  

Yoga in the water is a great way to de-stress and heal, and yet can also be a medium for testing our ‘fixed’ mind and our personal resistance to change.

Ask yourself, do you resist change or do you resist being changed?

As yoga teachers we are here to improve ourselves, the people’s lives around us and the earth we walk upon, and that requires as Patanjali said in his Yoga Sutras, 

“Constant practice and continual dispassion.”

Why?

Because change will come to all of us and we need to be ready to respond and not react. 

Camella will be in traveling again in 2015 Training teachers in Aqua Kriya Yoga. Check out her home website for details of that program and others for self-study and improvement.

www.camellanair.com 

Camella Nair has pioneered a conscious Aqua Yoga teacher training program in California and been teaching yoga in the water for over a decade. Her book is called “Aqua Kriya Yoga” and is available at Amazon.

www.aquakriyayoga.com 

Getting into the water can address a lifelong body bias in the hips…

....and the sacrum unsurprisingly is linked to the element of water, where a conscious practice can 
    literally speed up the process of Self-transformation.

Forty years ago, before I had heard of yoga, I was living in England as a young girl, and was introduced by a friend to what was then a very unusual practice requiring great stamina, strength and flexibility. And, it was not yoga. That was to come years later as I teetered on the brink of womanhood, but this new practice was synchronized swimming. Many people may scoff at it as being mere ballet in the water but like yoga, it requires great discipline and self-awareness. It is the “watery sister” to hatha yoga in many ways.

I was never very good at all and only stuck at it for a few years. I quit only because my parents decided after seeing me in a show where they beamed parental pride, that my two sisters (who were worse than I) should also have a go at it. What my parents did point out, however, by watching me train in practice, swimming seemingly endless laps, was that I had a screw kick and I “ought to get it sorted out”. But the “how” was never explained to me by anyone.

Now, four decades later, twenty of which have been practicing and teaching yoga, I have finally got to a point where when I swim breast stroke, I don’t fall into the bad habit of childhood, and swim with a screw kick. The ultimate balancing of my hips was corrected not on the yoga mat, but as I started to spend more time practicing hatha yoga in the pool. I did not need my dad watching and telling me that it was all better, I could feel it for myself!

Hatha yoga is a great system where we can start to look at both sides of our body. We can try to address and correct any imbalances which prevent Prana from flowing and ascending in a balanced way. Over the years, I discovered that my right hip is stable and tight, and my left is mobile and unstable. Teaching yoga may have also contributed to the imbalance as I have demonstrated far more poses on my stronger right side than the weaker left. It wasn’t until I started to practice yoga in the pool that I really began to finally break down and improve a bad body habit.  

Poses like pigeon, that open up the hip area, can be done very well in the pool by using a wall as resistance, and the bonus of practicing in warm water seems to lend itself very nicely to releasing deep visceral gripping. In fact, sitting in a hot tub is another way of really getting into a hip joint. I love gazing up at the full moon in the water, for it is a very feminine principle that links to the second chakra (Svadisthana) and is associated with the element of water and our emotionality which is linked to the moon and the Cancerean trait of wanting to mother, or really control others. In this case, there is a power struggle with my right and left hip. I have decided that my self-awareness is going to be the parent and sort the feud out once and for all.

Try sitting cross-legged, and like me, you will undoubtedly have a preferred side. My body wants to avoid the right hip opening, so the right heel usually comes into the perineum first. By practicing a deeper pigeon pose against the pool wall (if my right outer foot is on top of my left thigh), I can hop up and place the left shin onto the wall. By breathing into the right hip joint and noticing if I am starting to avoid tucking the right buttock flesh under the sit bone. This would have an effect of shortening the right side of my body and avoiding right hip altogether and tilting the pelvis. If the right foot is extended higher up the left femur bone near to the groin area, and then cross over the left thigh bone onto the right, you have Padmasana or lotus. Referencing the hips and sit bones in relationship to the wall may not be revelatory as you may already know your weaker side, but it may enable you to address the weaker side on deeper level and finally release the gripping.  

(Note: do not force anything as on a mat and make sure that the knees are not stressed) 

Here is a sequence, you may find beneficial in the pool;

Pigeon to Padmasana-a hip opening sequence in the pool

1. Ardha Balasana/Half child for groin depth

2. Horse stance

3. Wide lunge

4. Parsvakonasana (lateral angle pose)  with feet to wall

5. Pigeon

6. Pigeon up the wall

7. Padmasana/Lotus (if  already practicing this pose)

Opening the hips, gives us an entry point very often to releasing out of the lower back as the sacrum moves in. A hip opening sequence can make accessing the hamstrings a little easier too. In the water environment there are many asanas that can be adapted for students of all levels and ages.  Empowerment through education is a great way for all of us to improve on many levels, and the watery classroom is a great place for us to explore the root cause of many complaints in our body, which may just be a bias in the hips.

Camella (Swami Nibhrtananda) has written a book entitled “Aqua Kriya Yoga “and also pioneered an Aqua Yoga Teacher Certification Program of the same name. She lives in California and can be reached at camyoga@gmail.com. Check out teacher training events near you at:

www.aquakriyayoga.com

To see Camella’s other offerings: www.camellanair.com

Keep in contact with events and such by “liking” our Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/AquaKriyaYoga

   Why is it so hard to STOP?

(picture from Camella's Death and Dying Insight and conversational card deck) 


I could be wrong but I think in a lot of cases it is because we are functioning on the mechanism of our mind which does not know when to STOP, and then motivates our bodies into action.

Ardha or being in the Now,as we come to appreciate in yoga,is calling us to STOP and become aware and probably be-aware of the continual bickering within the mind. Vrittis or fluctuations of the mind as they are known, are thought to be in dire need of lots and lots of discipline.

Discipline can be hard when we have to comply to the rules and regulations of family, culture,society and possibly religion too, and so I completely understand when people tell me that they find it really hard to slow down and STOP doing and thinking.

Perhaps this is because when we do so,we become acutely aware of what thoughts are passing though our mind and the very small percentage of inspiring or inspirational thoughts that are a part of this endless flow of thoughts. We don't even know where they come from most of the time.

All of the negative emotions flowing through the mind can cause us to lose sight of our life purpose, cause us to lose confidence in the subtleties of our intuition, and cause us to fear the final part
of this earth life where we will have no other option other than to STOP and let the body dissolve.

That last part, you know the one that pertains to death, is the ultimate 'thing' we are avoiding overall according to the yogis. Abhinivesha Klesha or clinging to temporality is what we do very well. Totally ludicrous of course, especially when all we can really be sure of is change.

This continually fluxing movement in time and space, gives us some-'thing' to reflect upon as we live through the various experiences in our lives. Some harmonious and some, not quite so. For inner reflection we need to STOP. At least momentarily.

We can still the body,yet there is some movement in the mind that we can with practice analyse without judgement, to just see the overall quality of the thoughts. If they are negative or destructive, we can use the power of the very thing we are trying to control (the mind) to do a complete U-turn and think only of positive thoughts.  In order to do that, we need to transcend the average human mind and commune with our higher self or spirit or consciousness itself which then becomes the anointed one or CEO of the mind.

The discipline that is needed is called Tapas and it takes lots of it to step beyond the murmuring of the mind. Svadhyaya or Self-Study is the reflection part of the equation that helps to lead us into a rather extraordinary realm that is peaceful and bliss filled.

The idea is that if we sup upon this bliss sheath often enough, we will remember to bring it down into our physical bodies and live in joy and peace for the rest of this earth life. The way that we habituate ourselves to think positively in this life goes a long way literally in time and space, and will set the framework for subsequent reincarnations, whereby we will have other opportunities to know our mind and continue to improve it and our lives.

That's yoga and more specifically the dharma of  kriya yoga.

Camella has a series of Self-Study explorations in the tradition of Kriya Yoga tradition that can be found on her website; www.camellanair.com

*Death and Dying Insight and conversational cards and guide book (to live life fully)
* Kriya Vinyasa flow - a unique hatha series to soften karma
* Prenatal Kriya Yoga - Mystical insights into pregnancy and beyond.
* Aqua Kriya Yoga - Making Aqua Yoga Accessible and improving pranic model for all