CHILL OUT LA LAUNCHES REVIEW FEB 2010

We loved hosting Chill Out LA for a Press to Impress Retreat Package. See what they had to say in their review:

http://www.chilloutla.com/chill-out-la/getaways/

This entry was written by scrawford, posted on February 4, 2010 at 1:17 pm, filed under Bodywork, Experiences, Fitness, Green Lifestyle, Life is Fitness, Lifestyle and Spa, Los Angeles, Meditation, Outdoors, Press, Retreats, Santa Barbara, Yoga and tagged biking, Chill Out LA, christmas, Erin Mahoney Harris, Fun, Karen Keltner, Nature, Parks, Paula Duke, Pilates, Recreation, Retreat, Santa Barbara, spa, Weedkend Getaway, Weekend Retreat, wellness, Yoga. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

SEEING YOUR YOGI SELF ACCURATELY

by Karen Keltner

It is a new year, new decade, and new time to create, declare, or reconstitute any resolutions, dreams, inspirations and changes that you may want and desire, but as every year or moment comes and passes it is always a new opportunity for being present. As most of us strive for change, to achieve goals, or sometimes to be other than where we are right now, essentially all we want is a fulfilled life- health, love, connection, friends, family, etc. But how about taking on the challenge this year of being present and rather than wanting more or better allowing yourself, your “yogi” self, to

see yourself (and maybe others) accurately!

How do you see your yogi self accurately? What does that even mean? Think of it as an increased self-awareness in the present in order to reach an expansion of desired fulfillment, dreams and or change.

A monk living in the 12th century once put it this way:

“When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn’t change the town so I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realized the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realized that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation, and I could indeed have changed the world.”

How many times while on the yoga mat have you peaked over to a fellow yogi and wished your warrior III, side plank, or half moon was more or better? What does your mind tell you about yourself? Judgments? Well what if the practice of seeing your poses or yogi self accurately with self-awareness was your first step towards change, and that practice of self awareness expanded to the change that you can have in the world?!

Seeing yourself accurately and without blame, excuses, self-doubt or so on can be hard work, especially when patience steps in the way of being present and change does not happen automatically. So here is a mantra to manifest a path around the obstacles that may stand in the way of balance, strength, endurance, breath, mindfulness or just simply life.

Om Gum Ganapatayei Namaha

Om Guhm Guh-nuh-puh-tuh-yea
Nah-mah-hah

Translation :Om and salutations to Ganapati (Ganesha)

Online Sound Sample: Thomas Ashley-Farrand is the author of Healing Mantras and Shakti Mantras http://www.amazon.com/Om-Gum-Ganapatayei-Namaha/dp/B000QWIRC0

This mantra is a sound meditation that is chanted to start new endeavors with positive, present energy while removing, letting go of any obstacles that are in the way of seeing your yogi self accurately! So chant, meditate, dream, and yogi on for the New Year!

About Author: Karen Keltner is a photographer, marine biologist, yogini, pilates instructor and  SOMA GET FIT Retreat Specialist.

This entry was written by scrawford, posted on January 8, 2010 at 4:52 am, filed under Fitness, Green Lifestyle, Life is Fitness, Santa Barbara, Yoga and tagged Chant, Dream, Insight, Karen Keltner, Mantra, Meditate, Self, SOMA GET FIT, Yoga, Yogi. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Healthy Connections – Keeping Joints Pain-Free

by Jennifer Lynn

Our joints are places in the body where two parts come together in a way that creates mobility, more freedom and possibility. Relationships in life are meant to do the same; bring two parts together to create a third life-enhancing energy. However, if the nature of the parts are not understood and honored, the relationship will not be effective and can often become damaging. By understanding the nature of our joints we can honor them with conscious movement and continue enjoying the freedom they are designed to give us. When we create healthy connections in our bodies and feel the goodness of that, we will naturally begin to do the same in our relationships with others.

Let’s deepen our understanding of our joints. Joints are designed for mobility, not stability. Our muscles are meant to keep us stable, not joints. Yet, often we “dump into” our joints. Over time this will compress our joints and weaken our muscles. Not a healthy combination. This is what causes joints to fall out of alignment and get locked in misaligned positions causing uneven wear, degeneration and pain. With yoga we can reverse these unconscious patterns. First we must understand the “home position” or optimal alignment of our joints. From there we see which muscles need to be stretched and which need to be strengthened in order to support the joint in that home position. Finally we learn to move without uprooting our joints from their optimal alignment. Keeping joints rooted in optimal alignment allows the articular surfaces to glide evenly. Keeping joints hugged with muscles allows us to reach without unplugging and, in fact, allows us to decompress the joints. Think about it. If one group of muscles is rooting your upper arm bone into the shoulder girdle while another group reaches your forearm and hand away from the shoulder, you are creating space in the joint capsule. Again, this triple action of aligning joints, hugging into the alignment then lifting up out of the joint creates healthy connections. Let’s apply this to the major joints of the body; the shoulders and hips.

The shoulder joint is the intersection of three bones; the upper arm bone, the shoulder blade and the collar bone. The head of the upper arm bone is ball-shaped. On the outer edge of the shoulder blade there is a bowl-shaped depression meant to hold the head of the upper arm bone. In optimal alignment, the head of the upper arm bone stays snuggled against this depression and glides evenly across it. However, most of us allow our shoulder heads to slump forward. Not only does this move the head of the upper arm bone away from its home position, it also pulls the shoulder blades off the upper back causing the upper spine to round. You’ve seen this slumped posture in many people and perhaps in yourself as well. It can become habitual and our muscles lock into misalignment causing our joints to move in a damaging way. Each of us is responsible for recognizing our unconscious habits and empowering ourselves to wake up and heal. Again the metaphor is clear; when we dump into relationships/joints and expect them to keep us stable we give away our power and freedom and we can cause damage. Let’s get clear on how not to do that in the shoulders.

Again the shoulder joint is the three-way intersection of the head of the upper arm bone with the shoulder blade and the collar bone. When one of those bones move, the others move too. This is good news. It means with awareness of the shoulder head (head of the upper arm bone) we can align the whole kit-n-caboodle. In order to get big movement in the shoulders, we need slack. If the upper arm bones are pulling down away from the ears we tighten the tendons around the shoulder. Do that now and feel what I mean. Pull your upper arm bones down hard and feel what is happening across the top of your shoulders. Keep pulling them down and try to move them back behind you. You can’t get much movement and it feels like crap, right? Okay, now, sit tall and inhale, lift your armpits (like a gentle shrug). Keep the armpits floating and move the head of your upper arm bones back and your upper chest forward. Do it again, exaggerating the movements. Can you feel how free your neck gets? Aligning the shoulders will free your neck and help you lengthen your spine. So aligning your shoulders this way should be a habit you get into in your postures and throughout your day. Use the mantra “Inhale float the armpits, exhale, arm bones back, heart forward”. Try this in different arm positions. With the arms over head, you will be drawing the armpits back away from your field of vision and moving your heart towards it.

When your shoulders are optimally aligned, your shoulder blades will be on your upper back. Let your awareness go to the bottom tips of the shoulder blades and draw them close to your spine. Feel the muscles that make that happen. You want to flex those often, get them strong. They are essential to keeping the shoulders rooted in optimal alignment as you move. Now try this: keeping your shoulder blade tips “pinned” to your spine, lift your arms. Can you feel how you have to struggle to get your arms up without uprooting? That’s a good thing. We are so used to uprooting the shoulders to lift the arms or reach with the hands that it feels very odd when we say “no” to uprooting. But we must be adamant about keeping the healthy connection as we move. If we practice this enough we integrate it and it becomes the natural way we move.

So your homework for healthy connection in the shoulders is to move through your day keeping your shoulder blades on your upper back; the bottom tips narrowed into the spine and the top edges broad. Okay, you won’t be able to do this every minute of the day, but do your best and notice the unconscious habits that pull you out of healthy connection and be willing to balance them. Let’s move onto the hips.

Your hip joint is where the ball-shaped head of your thigh bone tucks into a socket in your pelvis. If the ball at the top of your thighbone is snuggled deep into the socket, the joined surfaces roll evenly across each other. This is a healthy connection. However, if the ball is pushed forward, pressure is concentrated at the front of the ball and the front edge of the socket and they wear down quickly creating joint degeneration. Our habit of dumping into our hip joints not only pushes the head of the thighbone forward it also compresses the joint. Dumping into the hip joint means we shove our groins forward. You might notice your tendency to do this when you stand facing a counter or when you are holding a child or bag of groceries. Not only does this habit compromise the hip joint, it also compresses the low back. Now there is motivation for creating healthy connections in the hip joints. Let’s explore how to do that.

In order to seat the hip sockets, we move the head of the thighbones back (toward the hamstrings). This will soften the groins and make you feel like you are sticking your butt out. That’s okay. We’ll balance that by tucking the tip of the tailbone under to draw the pit of the abdomen up and back. Hook the tailbone down without shoving the groins forward. This dynamic dual action keeps the hips integrated and creates a lifting feeling through the low belly. Learning to keep the thighbones back and the tailbone hooking forward, you will stop the habit of dumping into the hips and empower your core to keep your stable and centered.

In addition to saving the joints themselves, aligning the hips and shoulders will greatly benefit the spine. When the hips are properly seated, we have a strong lumbar curve. When the shoulder blades are on the upper back, our thoracic spine (the part that is attached to our ribs) is deep in our bodies and can help with extension. Aligning the hips and shoulders will improve your posture and give you a light and floating feeling as you move.

With awareness and practice we can integrate these healthy habits into our postures and the way we move through the world.  May the healthy connections in our bodies inspire us to make healthy connections with each other and our beautiful planet.

Jennifer Lynn teaches Wisdom Flow Yoga on Maui.  info@YogawithJenniferLynn.com

This entry was written by jlynn, posted on November 13, 2009 at 12:28 am, filed under Fitness, Life is Fitness, Santa Barbara, Yoga and tagged jennifer lynn, Joint Health, Joints. Alignment, Optimal Alignment, SOMA GET FIT, Yoga. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Moving Through Fear

by Nina Bennett

This summer I finally through-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail. It had been a dream of mine since my senior year of high school when a young man came to our school and gave a presentation on the various ecosystems he had hiked through while on the trail. I fell in love with the images projected on the gymnasium wall! The idea of sleeping under the stars, walking through mountains ranges from Mexico to Canada, left me exhilarated!

In college I began researching the trail and exactly what the hike would entail. The trail is approximately 2665 miles long and the it takes the average hiker 6 months to complete. This is hiking an average of 20 miles each day. You hike through waterless deserts, snow covered passes, steep mountainsides, ford rivers raging with snowmelt. You may encounter bears, rattlesnakes, and ravenous mosquitoes. You may even experience torrential downpours and blizzards. And then there is the matter of hitchhiking to and from towns in order to resupply. In my mind there were so many unknowns. Each year I would contemplate the adventure, and each year find an excuse or reason why I should put it off another season. Underlying the excuses I was aware of fear.

After 14 years of doing this, I reached a point in my life where the circumstances I found myself in were unbearable. I was bored with everything. Yes, my life was easy and comfortable, but it was not stimulating. There was no growth. I was becoming numb, a zombie going through the motions of life. It was finally time to set my fears aside and at the very least, try.

As I have grown older and had more experiences, as well as deepened my practice of yoga, I have learned that the best way to move beyond fear and to liberate myself from it’s limitations is to breathe, and slowly, with awareness and patience, take baby steps towards the frightening thing. My teacher Ganga White puts it this way, “Most fear in yoga practice is created by anticipation and by projecting thought forward. In the moment of true danger there is actually no fear, only action or reaction.“ Fear is only a thought. It is the “what ifs” that haunt us. “What if I can’t think if anything to say,? What if I can’t find water?“ Fear is not “what is.” In “what is” there is only action or inaction. Fear is not involved. The trick to overcoming fear is to remain anchored in the moment, to keep an awareness of what is here and now in your present experience. Avoid those ‘what ifs” as they only suck your vital energy and leave you paralyzed. Instead, develop a trust that you can deal with what is here and now!

So I made the decision! I would embark upon the journey, not quite knowing what to expect, but trusting that whatever came up, I would be able to deal with it if I remained rooted in the moment.

The first step, choosing to hike the trail despite the fear and uncertainty that I experienced, was the most difficult of the entire journey. Once I started walking, placing one foot in front of the other, looking around myself in wonder and awe, something wonderful started happening. Hiking the trail was a process that built upon itself. At the start, I did not posses all the skills and knowledge needed to complete the adventure, but as I hiked, I slowly gained what I lacked. I would encounter a person who would teach me something or share a bit of information. There were small physical challenges in the beginning that built strength and endurance for later, larger challenges. I began to trust in “trail magic.” Whatever you needed seemed to come to you at exactly the right moment in time, in ways often unimaginable! Yes I encountered bears and rattlesnakes, but they had no interest in me. They were not the angry, menacing creatures my minds eye had seen pre-hike. I remained cool and calm, aware, and they would make move away from me. Dealing with waterless stretches took some planning, and information from other hikers, but I was not going to die and become a skeleton, bones bleached and brittle in the hot sun and sand!

Throughout the four and a half months I spent hiking, there was not one thing that warranted the paralyzing fear I had experienced in my mind. In fact, the adventure was relatively easy! All the fears I had were blown out of proportion and were mostly illusions and stories that I had constructed in my head. The more creative you are, the bigger and scarier the details you create! Sometimes frightful things do need to be respected and approached with caution and knowledge, but It has been my experience that through facing my fears, I become exhilarated and full of life having moved beyond what was previously a limitation!

In order to help people understand their fears in Ropes Course Work, participants are encouraged to think of their experiences in terms of zones. First, there is the Comfort Zone. That is the state the majority of us operate in the majority of the day. Activities that don’t take much thought, effort or attention; brushing our teeth, driving our cars, listening to music, etc. Then there is the Discovery Zone. This is when we are leaning, discovering, curious, unsure, yet still present and aware. The third is the Panic Zone. This is the zone we are in when we are so overcome by fear that we are no longer present, instead trying to escape. Each person has unique Zones in the various aspects of their life. One person might be very comfortable with physical challenges, but incredibly uncomfortable with social situations.

In Freedom From The Known, Krishnamurti wisely says, “Now take your own particular form of fear. Look at it. Watch your reactions to it. Can you look at it without any movement of escape, justification, condemnation, or suppression?…Thought, which is always old, because thought is the response of memory and memories are always old— thought creates, in time, the feeling that you are afraid which is not an actual fact. … thought is responsible for fear. Therefore our question now is, is it possible for the mind to live completely, totally, in the present? It is only such a mind that has no fear.“

The idea is to spend time in your Discovery Zone, the present moment. This is the zone in which yoga occurs. There is a union of body, mind and spirit. In this moment exists freedom, curiosity and possibility! I encourage you to step out of your Comfort Zone, face your fears! Once beyond the normal, comfortable, routines, there is potential to experience new things! Remain present within yourself, watch your breath, notice when your heart rate increases. Do not move so quickly that you cross into the Panic Zone without realizing it, causing yourself stress and a quick retreat back to the Comfort Zone. Remain aware of your fears, but present with them, curious about them. The magical thing is that the more you anchor into the moment, you find the fear begin to dissolve, to evaporate, and the world becomes a limitless playground.

Remember, “Fear is a paper tiger. – Amelia Earhart”

Namaste

This entry was written by nbennett, posted on November 8, 2009 at 8:05 pm, filed under Experiences, Fitness, Life is Fitness, Outdoors, Santa Barbara and tagged Ganga White, Hiking, Nina Bennett, overcoming fear, Pacific Coast Trail Hike, SOMA GET FIT, white lotus foundation, Yoga. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.