On the other hand, the Himalaya Institute Press sells the neti pot for $18, non-iodized medical salt for $3 and Neti Wash Plus (with Zinc and other ingredients) for $15. Neti pots are also sold in a lot of yoga prop distributors.
I use mine almost every day.
Erich Schiffmann wrote in Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving into Stillness:
Yoga is a sophisticated system or achieving radiant physical health, superb mental clarity and therefore peace of mind, as well as spiritual nsight, knowledge and understanding.
When I started fooling around with yoga late last year, I played a trick on myself. I told myself that yoga should be easy and I didn't have to "try hard." Instead of following my DVD routine, I switched to doing a much less physcially demanding audio CD routine. When I stopped trying hard and began listening to my body, rather than keeping pace with Rodney Yee, I began to have glimpses of what Schiffmann is writing about. I had a similar experience with meditation -- I stopped "trying hard" and relaxed into a deeply refreshing restfulness of mind. I said, "Wow -- I've got to get me some more of this."
In this whole process, I've never really had a "moment of conversion." It's been a gradual change in which I've learned not to "try too hard" and take myself too seriously. If I did, I wouldn't be out on a mat in a studio exposing my pearly white legs and my extra gut that cuts off my breath in halasana. I just tell myself that Buddha had a few extra pounds himself, if you judge from some of the statues. I know that I could get a lot more out of my classes if I did not try to keep pace with the others. That's one of the reasons why I like Sam Sam Dworkis's advice: The Operative Word of Yoga Must Be: Toward :
Because the word yoga can be loosely defined as union and balance and because the human body can never be perfectly balanced, then an appropriate yoga practice can only move a person toward balance of body, mind, breath, and spirit.
Of course, the coda to this tangent is that if you don't challenge yourself -- what Schiffmann calls "finding your edge" -- you're not going grow in your practice. It just seems that knowing my own psychological makeup, my most risky behavior when I overexert myself and don't listen closely enough to my body.
Please note the following warning: "those who are allergic to shellfish may experience a reaction to Syn-flex. In most cases, allergies are caused by proteins in shellfish, not chitin, a carbohydrate from which glycogen is extracted so it should be safe for someone with an allergy to shellfish or iodine to take glycogen." See this page for details. I happen to have an allergy to shellfish, but San-flex has not affected me adversely.
I have had sore hip joints for a couple of months or so, and it really started getting bad about three weeks ago when I spent too much time seated in Easy Pose during my meditation course (combined with my lower-back sprain). Practically all my joints have lost flexibility with age so I've been looking for some kind of aid in recovery.
San-Flex promises improvement within 10-14 days. I've been taking it for about five days, and have noticed a marginal improvement in the aching in my hip joints. For some people it might take up to 20-25 days to see results. It does not taste that bad, either. I will keep you posted if there is any improvement.
is that it puts an emphasis on spirituality through pranayama and meditation. In many yoga styles, you start with the asanas -- hatha yoga. In most classes at a yoga studio, you'll be go through the Sun Salutation and other postures, and maybe add Ujjayi breath or three-part breathing as a concession to pranayama. Breathing should be matched with movement, but no special attention is given to it. By the end of the class's time allotment, the next class's students are impatiently waiting outside to get in and grab space for their mats.
Art of Living is yoga for those who don't want to break a sweat while getting the spiritual benefits out of it. If Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois and Bikram want you to get buff, Sri Sri wants you to get mellow and let all that stress out of your system. You don't have to master Down Dog unless you want to. Art of Living, however, does use hatha yoga as a preparation of Sudarshan Kriya, pranayama and meditation. It has also started a teacher program for training instructors.
I have been drawn to this approach because at my age (54), it will take me time get my body into shape again. But the breathing and meditation parts of yoga can be mastered more easily and quickly in the early phases of the learning process. I know that I am oversimplifying, and that there are traps incumbent in the Art of Living approach. But it's part of the allure of practicing yoga to me.
I mention all this because from Tuesday through Friday last week, I was taking a Sahaj Samadhi meditation course in the evening. Michael Fishman, our instructor, was in town giving an APEX corporate course to World Bank staff, and made the meditation course available. He has been with Sri Sri since 1988, and is one of the first generation of Art of Living instructors. During the course, there was lots of handholding and patience with the students, answering score of questions that ranged from the operational ("Should I shower before or after my morning practice?") to ideological ("If Sri Sri recognizes Maharishi Maheshyogi as his master and practiced Transcendental Meditation, why does he now practice Sahaj Samadhi Meditation?").
Fishman provided a framework for meditation and its integration in our lives. He also discussed why Sahaj Samadhi Meditation works and what meditation is not -- it is not hearing the voice of God or the prophets; it is not seeing visions, and it is not pondering the fate of the world. This technique is not aimed for a swami sitting in a cave on a Tibetan mountain.
In addition to our daily routine of 20-minutes pranayama and kriya in the morning, another 20 minutes of meditation is added with cooldown exercise. It's easy to flow from the breathing into meditation. At the end of meditation, you use atlernate-nostril breathing (Nadi Sodhana) to ease yourself back into normal life. Art of Living doctrine also requires that you meditate another 20 minutes later in the day, at the latest before supper. Always do your Art of Living routines on an empty stomach.
It's hard to describe what we were doing. Meditation is really something that you can't teach, like hatha yoga. It's all happening inside your head so the instructor cannot observe and correct your technique. He can only help you in the preparation for meditating and give you general guidelines. For Art of Living, daily meditation is a kind of spiritual hygiene -- like flossing your teeth -- for relieving stress. At its optimum, it's an encounter with the divine within us.
I went to the Healthy Back Store near my home and bought a Kneeling Chair Plus. It makes you sit up straight, just like your mother told you to. I figure that I spend more time sitting in front of my computer at home that I do practicing on the mat so it's probably a wise purchase. I've been slumping over a keyboard for 20 years, and throw in another 10 years if you want to include typewriters. Then add the years that I've been slumped back in a chair reading. No wonder my core muscles are weak. At my age, you're not going to reverse aging and bad posture by fiat. It comes from small, modest increments.
Rebecca Mead wrote this article for the August 14, 2000 issue so it is already dated in many respects. Four months later, she penned another signigicant New Yorker article about weblogs. It put blogging "on the map." This kind of literatry archaeology is interesting, because it informs the present. The article's precursor of the Kadetsky book mentioned below. This kind of social commentary is a New Yorker trademark. To show that she can be ecumenical in apply her wit to yoga styles, she also wrote about Birkam Choudhury: Calling all heat-seeking New Yorkers about the same time.
Alan's personal weblog shows that he's well ahead of this author in understanding the full ramifications of a serious yoga practice. Thanks Alan for leaving your mark on this blog.
I became interested after taking the AOL intro course. One evening, I just started meditating and with my increased sensitivity to my breath, it came naturally and felt sweet. My breath served as a compass to guide my concentration. I had previously done meditation exercises, but I felt as if I was just going through the motion.
That's why I want to get some help with my meditation practice -- get the foundation right and then some gentle tutoring in the initial phase.
I have set myself the goal of dropping at least 10 pounds because I can see how my weight interfers with my yoga. I haven't been under 190 pounds in ages. I've altered my diet, eliminating meat and potatoes from my lunch. It's going to take time.
- Despite all the hype yoga is getting, it is not going to take yoga beyond a certain threshold. The kind of business opportunity (travel, apparel, props, studios, books, videos, etc.) shows that it's sustainable across a variety of business lines.
- Yoga techniques have crept into the fitness arena gradually over several decades -- most of the stretches used in competitive sports training are adapted from yoga or Pilates. Familiarity makes a posture seem less alien than it might have appeared 20 years ago. I see this all the time at my gym -- people doing their stretches, which are really yoga poses.
- There's been lots of anecdotal reports about yoga helping people. These reports become word-of-mouth marketing for yoga in far-reaching places.
- Most exercise (weightlifting, jogging) is like hitting the body with a sledgehammer. Yoga treats the body gently and allows for restorative poses within its routines. Yet yoga is a lot tougher than most people think because it requires strength and endurance to get through a 60-90 minutes session.
- You're getting more than muscles and sweat with yoga, especially if you are defining yoga in the broadest terms -- preparation, pranayama, meditation, self-discovery, re-examination of life choices. It's more about changing your lifestyle than burning carbs. At my age, I am reexamining a lot of issues, and yoga provides a broad, useful framework and tools for assessing how I live my life.
- What I don't like is the mixture with flaky New Age mumbo-jumbo. I don't want have to believe in astrology or convert to vegatarianism.
I think there are a lot of other ways of looking at yoga's surge of interest. I don't mean to venture into pop psychology because I don't have any empirical evidence to work from. More to follow.
