1/30/11
1/26/11
1/25/11
1/21/11
avoiding injury:
Intensify Before and After – Once the body is warm, the muscles are ready to be stretched. You do not necessarily need to do intensive full body stretches, but loosening the major muscles you will use in your activity is a must. As long as the muscle stretches are held within normal range of motion, and until tension is released, they will be effective. The important point is this: Stretch to feel good, not to be flexible. With that in mind, you will not overstretch and cause injury.
Target Weak Muscles – Be sure to vary your routine and target the weaker muscles. The larger muscles do in fact depend on the weaker and smaller ones to hold the body frame in place. Avoid muscle imbalance by targeting the smaller and weaker muscles as part of your ongoing routine.
Drop off Pain and Inflammation – Injuries like strains, tears and inflammation hamper exercise progress and overall health. It is therefore important to begin the healing process as soon as possible. If an injury is acute, it is best to apply cold within the first 5 minutes to reduce swelling. Ice packs, ice cubes, a frozen bag of peas or cold gels can be applied. On for 20 minutes, off for 20 minutes, continue as necessary.
Rest When Injured – Regardless of injury type it is best to rest before engaging the body again. If the injury is not too serious, a day or two off and then easing back into exercise will do the trick. But for more serious injuries, a week or more of rest will be necessary to give your body a chance to reduce inflammation and repair damaged tissue.
1/20/11
1/14/11
"No mistakes can be made here. Your body moves one with the music... a rhythm that will not allow you to stop. No worries about "how you LOOK"... Be silly, be sensual, be serious. You are lost in the music, you are beautiful. Free to live in the moment, or to escape to a different place inside you. Those who are watching are not judging, they are sharing in the moment. May they break the barriers one day and ask... Why not?"
Maritza from ~ Women Who Dance
~ photo by Catherine Pedemonti
~ photo by Catherine Pedemonti
1/10/11
1/9/11
yoga master at 92:
By Dorene Internicola – NEW YORK
Yoga master Tao Porchon-Lynch, 92 years young, kept repeating her life's motto, there is nothing you cannot do, before a packed workshop in New York City. Then, light as a bird, she glided into a gravity-defying arm balance to illustrate the point. "I haven't been able to do the peacock since I broke my wrist in April, but I did it in that room," Porchon-Lynch said of the pose she demonstrated recently at Strala Yoga studio.
"In yoga every breath I take puts me on the right path." Porchon-Lynch has been practicing yoga, the ancient discipline connecting breath to movement, for over 70 years. Along the way she has walked with Mahatma Gandhi, modeled couture in Paris, trod the boards in London, and acted under contract to MGM in Hollywood. It was yoga breathing, she said, that kept fear at bay when she worked for the resistance in World War Two France. "I didn't realize I was doing any of them," she said of her many adventures. "It's just the natural path of life. You either travel on it, or you get stuck in the mud."
Born in Pondicherry, India, Porchon-Lynch studied under yoga legends B.K.S. Iyengar and Indra Devi. At age 50 she was given her first paying yoga job in the United States by fitness icon Jack LaLane.
Porchon-Lynch founded the Westchester Institute of Yoga, where she is director, in 1982. She teaches up to 20 hours a week and has trained over 300 instructors in her Iyengar-based style. Jane Fonda is an admirer, along with generations of young yogis. In class she cuts a glamorous figure. When she's not adjusting a student's backbend or fine-tuning a hand position, she's weaving tales from her very colorful life into yogic tutorials. "Duke (Ellington) told me he was watching a sunset and all the colors seemed to blend into deep purple," she recounted in an explanation of the chakras, or wheels of energy, yogis believe reside in the body. "I don't tell you these things from ego, but because it's what I know."
Tara Stiles, owner of Strala Yoga, says Porchon-Lynch is living proof that yoga actually works. "She is a true leader by example," said Stiles, author of "Slim Calm Sexy Yoga." Porchon-Lynch said her "most precious inspirations" come when people think they can't do something, "then there's a smile on their face, because they can."
When she's not teaching, Porchon-Lynch pursues another passion -- competitive ballroom dancing. Despite a hip replacement, she recently completed a 17-dance event where, she says her Tango partner was a 22-year old and her Cha Cha partner was 29. "Dancing is a continuation of yoga, like music," she said. "Music and dancing and yoga are all coming from within you."
She's writing her autobiography and completing a documentary about yoga and dance that took her on a recent flight over the Himalayas. "All of those mountains, so pure. Yoga helps us create a life where we're looking down from clouds instead of into the clouds," she said. "I call it the dance of life, since I'm always dancing."
The way she looks at life, she says, she has no fear.
"The only fear I have is when people talk on the phone while driving. I'm afraid they'll get hurt."
Yoga master Tao Porchon-Lynch, 92 years young, kept repeating her life's motto, there is nothing you cannot do, before a packed workshop in New York City. Then, light as a bird, she glided into a gravity-defying arm balance to illustrate the point. "I haven't been able to do the peacock since I broke my wrist in April, but I did it in that room," Porchon-Lynch said of the pose she demonstrated recently at Strala Yoga studio.
"In yoga every breath I take puts me on the right path." Porchon-Lynch has been practicing yoga, the ancient discipline connecting breath to movement, for over 70 years. Along the way she has walked with Mahatma Gandhi, modeled couture in Paris, trod the boards in London, and acted under contract to MGM in Hollywood. It was yoga breathing, she said, that kept fear at bay when she worked for the resistance in World War Two France. "I didn't realize I was doing any of them," she said of her many adventures. "It's just the natural path of life. You either travel on it, or you get stuck in the mud."
Born in Pondicherry, India, Porchon-Lynch studied under yoga legends B.K.S. Iyengar and Indra Devi. At age 50 she was given her first paying yoga job in the United States by fitness icon Jack LaLane.
Porchon-Lynch founded the Westchester Institute of Yoga, where she is director, in 1982. She teaches up to 20 hours a week and has trained over 300 instructors in her Iyengar-based style. Jane Fonda is an admirer, along with generations of young yogis. In class she cuts a glamorous figure. When she's not adjusting a student's backbend or fine-tuning a hand position, she's weaving tales from her very colorful life into yogic tutorials. "Duke (Ellington) told me he was watching a sunset and all the colors seemed to blend into deep purple," she recounted in an explanation of the chakras, or wheels of energy, yogis believe reside in the body. "I don't tell you these things from ego, but because it's what I know."
Tara Stiles, owner of Strala Yoga, says Porchon-Lynch is living proof that yoga actually works. "She is a true leader by example," said Stiles, author of "Slim Calm Sexy Yoga." Porchon-Lynch said her "most precious inspirations" come when people think they can't do something, "then there's a smile on their face, because they can."
When she's not teaching, Porchon-Lynch pursues another passion -- competitive ballroom dancing. Despite a hip replacement, she recently completed a 17-dance event where, she says her Tango partner was a 22-year old and her Cha Cha partner was 29. "Dancing is a continuation of yoga, like music," she said. "Music and dancing and yoga are all coming from within you."
She's writing her autobiography and completing a documentary about yoga and dance that took her on a recent flight over the Himalayas. "All of those mountains, so pure. Yoga helps us create a life where we're looking down from clouds instead of into the clouds," she said. "I call it the dance of life, since I'm always dancing."
The way she looks at life, she says, she has no fear.
"The only fear I have is when people talk on the phone while driving. I'm afraid they'll get hurt."
1/3/11
why i love savasana:
In an essay written for Iyengar-Yoga.com, instructor and pyschotherapist Michael Stone had this to say about savasana: "In savasana, we let go of any particular breathing technique and simply allow the breath to move through its inherent inhaling and exhaling pattern. As the breath finds its way through the open channels of the body, the mind does so as well, by weaving itself into the strands of thought and sensation that flow through the body. When the breath is free, the mind is free. When the breath is allowed to move naturally, the mind settles into itself. When the mind relaxes, the tongue and palette become spacious, the roof of the mouth lifts and hollows and the central core of the body opens. The architecture of savasana requires us to continually let the ground we are lying down on, literally the ground of our thoughts and our bodies, to fall away, until the constructs that frame our experience pass on."
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