Breathe space into your middle back, T-Spine. My teacher says “It is the loudest voice in the body”. The breath usually does not touch this place in our body, even though it was built to fully expand and give space here. Because we usually breathe into our front side asymetrically to our back side, our T spine becomes rigid without the life force stimulation of Prana. It is from this place, our middle back, our center, that we want to generate our power and range of motion, especially in twists. Twisting, if done properly and conscious of the mid back, is one of the best ways to release tension out of our shoulders, neck and low back. If we don’t have mobility in our T spine, places that we need to be stable and broad such as our shoulder girdle and pelvic bowl, compensates for the lack of range of motion in the mid spine and power from the center and eventually will become strained. Sending our breath there is the first step to slowly and delisciously opening up, creating space and making maleable, fluid and powerful our mid spine, healing our neck, shoulders and lower back as well as allowing our core and lower body to be strong and efficient.

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What follows is an excerpt from my ebook Awakened Heart, Embodied Mind: A Modern Yoga Philosophy Infused with Somatic Psychology & Neuroscience, available May 28th, 2013 through Amazon.com This is a text for yoga students, teachers, and teacher trainers. Find out more here.

 

Neuroplasticity

The central mystery is consciousness: the relationship between mind and body, the origin and process of subjective experience. These questions remain confounding, but this is not to say we have not come a long way. While we are by all accounts humbled in the face of both the brain’s extraordinary complexity and the completely unique nature of consciousness, the last 25 years have been a period of exponential growth in our ability to look at these questions scientifically.

Of course, yogis have been inquiring into consciousness for a very long time, but this is purely from the other side of the conversation. Spiritual practice is an entirely subjective affair, whilst science seeks objective evidence.

In a way, consciousness is at the junction of subjectivity and objectivity. It has simultaneously a neurobiological phenomenon with neuronal and biochemical correlates we are slowly but steadily identifying and brain regions we are are mapping, with a mysteriously private 1st person expression. How exactly the two relate remains inscrutable, but the fact that the are inextricably related is undeniable.

With research being done on how practices that train mindful awareness affect the brain, this dance between subjectivity and objectivity, spirituality and science is more fascinating and exciting than ever before. Far from negating  the mysteries of consciousness, this feels like a celebratory exploration.

Up until about 15 years ago it was thought that the brain was “hard-wired” by the age of five or six. But there has been a revolution in neuroscience, based in the discovery of how experience changes the brain’s function and even structure over time. This is called “neuroplasticity.”  Any meaningful conversation about how yoga practice can effect transformation now has a reference point in brain research. Quite exciting!

Here then are Awakened Heart, Embodied Mind’s Three Principles of Transformational Neuroplasticity, as gleaned from the current neuroscience literature:

1) Consistency

It is the repeated, consistent patterns created by new experience that change the brain, and therefore who we are, how we feel, how we deal with our emotions, how aware we are of our bodies and how integrated we are on all levels.

The emphasis on consistency in all practice-based traditions is connected to the observation that staying on the path produces results over time. Proponents of spirituality have always understood this intuitively, but now we are closer to understanding why it works! Consistent practice is essential—it is where the rubber meets the road.

From Rumi:

Commit yourself to a daily practice,
Your loyalty to that is like a ring on the door.

Keep knocking and eventually the joy that lives inside
Will look out to see who’s there…

 

2) “What Fires Together, Wires Together.”

Above is a catchphrase from the research referring to the phenomenon of linkage between neural pathways. We can create powerful chains of association that form strong and complex neural networks with multiple links when we practice.

Think of this as the creative act of intentionally sculpting your own brain pathways! Creating beneficial patterns of neuronal association is a byproduct of being immersed in the rich experiential process of spiritual practice.

Linking the experience of sitting down on our mats with activating breath awareness, and becoming grounded, resourced and oriented* is one example of utilizing this principle. Each time we sit down to begin yoga we are stimulating this neural network until it becomes almost second nature.

Linking the experience of being resourced to the experience of consciously and compassionately staying present with what scares us starts to change how we deal with stress and trauma in ourselves and in others.

Linking the “Practice Trinity” of breath, presence and compassion similarly develops a new brain skill. Skillfully adding elements like music or poetic images can enrich this still further.

3) Your Just Desserts: Utilizing the Reward System.

Mindfulness activates neuroplasticity, but when  the brain’s reward system is firing, those new pathways grow even stronger. The reward system releases feel good chemicals like dopamine and endorphins. In the biochemical matrix created by the reward system, thepossibilities of neuroplastic transformation are amplified.

Deep breathing, music, poetry, communal experience and physical activity all stimulate the reward system—that’s why they make us feel good.

So experiencing the process of inner work, resourcing, healing and even the discharge of emotional energy in contexts that also make us feel good, means that the transformational pathways will be formed that much more strongly.

Enjoy being in your body when you are practicing, let the good feelings in, maintain a sense of connection to the community or tribe around you, radiate and receive compassion, permission, and gratitude and use all of this as fuel for the journey of shifting old patterns, healing wounds and learning new habits.

From The Radiance Sutras:

Rocking, swaying, undulating
Carried by the rhythm,
Ride the waves of ecstatic motion
Into a sublime fusion of passion and peace.

We think of the above three principles of transformational neuroplasticity as a doorway into the “sacred biochemistry” of yoga practice. They represent both a poetic and science-informed way of seeking to frame the experiential processes of self-transformation through yoga and meditation.

Neuroplasticity is a complex and rich subject to explore. If you want to know more, look into the seminal work ofMichael Merzenich and Paul Bach y Rita, and consider reading the The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge. Rick Hanson also has a fascinating book on the relationships between Neuroscience and Buddhism called Buddhas Brain.

 

*Note: Grounding, orienting and resourcing make up the “Foundational Trinity” of the Awakened Heart, Embodied Mind approach to yoga. The concepts are related to somatic psychology and have to do with regulating the nervous system so as to feel at home in your embodied experience.

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Julian Walker lives in Los Angeles. He is a writer who has been teaching yoga since 1994, is the creator of Open Sky Bodywork, and leads Transformation Retreats, Yoga & The Chakras workshops and the Awakened Heart, Embodied Mind Yoga Teacher Training with Hala Khouri. Julian is passionate about mythology, poetry, neuroscience, psychology, music, free-form dance and authentic communication. Julian’s writing is featured in the book 21st Century Yoga available on Amazon.com. www.julianwalkeryoga.com

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“Pay attention to what it is you are seeking in this life experience. Give yourselves the opportunity to reflect upon what it is that you would like to experience, and also, why it is you would like to experience those things. Everyone has their desires in life, and most of the time they are thinking of ways in which they can obtain what it is they desire.

But what is more interesting is to examine why you want the things that you want. What will that desire bring to you? Is it a feeling state that you are really looking for? Is it some sort of creature comfort that you seek? Is it a connection that you are really out to obtain?

Be aware of the motivating factors so that you can boil these things down to their essence. And then you can more easily give yourselves what it is you seek. It does not have to be so difficult. You do not have to go about getting these things in the ways in which you have decided they must come. And you do not even need these things in order to get to the place you are wishing to go.

It is an inward journey that you are all ultimately looking for. And when you let the outward reality be simply a reflection of that journey, then you will find that life becomes so much easier, so much more enjoyable, and filled with everything that your heart desires. This is what we want for you, and this is what we will always be guiding you towards.”

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Happy Earthday! Earthday, originated in Santa Barbara California, is an annual reminder to hold dear our mother earth. But why just once a year? We should be honoring the earth that supports every aspect of our live each day. Here are 5 ways to honor our mother every day.

1. Gratitude. Every day, make it a point to be grateful for even the most simple aspect of nature. The morning sun, the breeze, the trees, the ocean, flowers, wind, rain, green grass, clouds, the moon, the stars, crisp air, fog, birds, bugs….it is all magnificent! Find something each day in nature to find beauty and gratitude in, and all that life will flourish around you!

2. Spend time in nature each day. Even if it was in the parking lot of your office. Get outside and look for nature: clouds, birds, green, flowers, air, sun and then be grateful that you can see it around you wherever you are. If you are lucky enough to get out and walk each day, use that as a time to use the energy of nature to create space around you.

3. Eat more local organic produce. Shop at the farmers markets and your local natural foods market. These are the places that need our business the most, and it is the most ethical way to shop. These businesses care about nutrition, food and the land that they cultivate their produce on. Locally produced foods minimizes the shipping process which is also a huge carbon footprint of the food industry. Locally produced food is also more seasonal. Eating seasonal foods is not only great for the environment around you, but also good for you as you are nourishing yourself with foods that thrive in the same environment you do. This gives you the right nutrition you need to survive the elements of the climate you live in.

4. Eat less meat. Not saying become a vegetarian, but be conscious of your meat intake. The meat industry is a gigantic tax on the Earth. Not only are beautiful rainforests in Brazil chopped down to create pastures for the edible animals, but all their waste emits a ton of C02, and we breathe that in. Did you know that nearly half of all water used in the US goes to raising animals for food? It takes more than 2,400 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, vs. one pound of wheat takes 25 gallons. Crazy. Eating a lot of meat is not sustainable for your body as well as the earth. Everything in moderation.

5. Be less wasteful with everything. Wasteful thoughts, wasteful energy, wasteful products….life is too short to waste. Think positively, only spend time on things that are productive to your life and soul and buy products that you can reuse rather than throw away. The universe will thank you!

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Yay for week 4! Great job everyone…I hope that this has created a habit that you can keep! For your shopping list:

1 Bunch of Kale
1 Bunch of Spinach
1 Bunch of fresh parsley
2 cucumbers
2 packages of berries (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, rasberries)
4 Oranges
7 bananas
7 Cans of coconut water

See below, an article about parsley and all the benefits.

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 For this weeks smoothie we are adding new and different amazing greens to add to your repertoire! You will need to get from the store:

2 bunches of rainbow chard (just to be safe, you can saute them for dinner with coconut oil and garlic if you have extra!)

1 bunch of dandelion greens

4 ripe bananas

2 cucumbers

4 green apples *may substitute  strawberries for green apples

4 ripe navel oranges

7 cans of coconut water

This recipe is really yummy. The dandelion greens are super nutritious! see below 10 reasons why!

Dandelion greens are my number one choice for a smoothie green. Not only do they provide a higher amount of calcium and iron than most cultivated greens, they have a wide array of health benefits that make them the perfect all around nutritional boost.

Here are ten reasons you should use dandelion greens in your next smoothie.

#1 – High in Calcium: Dandelion greens are loaded with calcium. Just one cup of chopped dandelion greens has 103 milligrams (10% of the recommended daily value) of calcium! That’s slightly more than kale! Add two to three cups of dandelion to a smoothie with calcium-rich fruits like orange, kiwi, fig or papaya and you’ll have a green smoothie that has more calcium than any dairy product!

#2 – Rich in Iron: Next to fresh parsley, dandelion greens have a high iron content. One cup contains 1.7 milligrams of iron.

#3 – Low Calories: Like all leafy greens, dandelions are low in calories. One cup of chopped dandelion greens has only 25 calories. While leafy greens are a low calorie food, I actually prefer to use dandelions because they have more calories than other greens. Since I try to get as many calories as I can into my morning smoothies, I add up to 4 cups of dandelion which adds 100 calories of nutrient-rich food!

#4 – Loaded With Antioxidants: Dandelion greens are high in vitamin A in the form of antioxidant carotenoid (beta-carotene) and vitamin C. Vitamin C also helps facilitate iron absorption.

#5 – The Ultimate Detox & Cleansing Green: If your goal is detoxification and cleansing, dandelion greens should be the ones you use in green smoothies! They are said to help cleanse the liver and many detox recipes call for them.

#6 – Lots Of Minerals: Dandelion greens are rich in minerals. Besides calcium and iron, they are a good source of copper (10% RDA), manganese (8% RDA), phosphorus (5% RDA), potassium (5% RDA) and magnesium (5% RDA).

#7 – 14% Protein: Dandelion greens have more protein per serving than spinach. The greens themselves are 14% protein and contain all essential amino acids so it’s a complete protein. One chopped cup contains 1.5 grams of protein.

#8 – Multivitamin Green: Besides vitamin A as beta-carotene (186% RDA) and vitamin C (21% RDA), each cup of chopped dandelion greens are also good sources of vitamins B1 (9% RDA), B2 (11% RDA) and B6 (11% RDA), vitamin E (13% RDA) and especially abundant in vitamin K (357% RDA).

#10 – Health Benefits of Dandelion Greens: The nutrients in dandelion greens may help reduce the risk of cancer, multiple sclerosis, cataracts, age-related macular degeneration and stroke. Dandelion contains anti-inflammatory properties which may provide benefit to those with asthma and other inflammatory diseases.

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When you sit still, sit in the stillness of knowing that your body and all its  systems are functioning as they should. Your breath is breathing you, your heart is perfectly beating for you. Be with that perfect life inside you.

Symmetry of breath: When you breathe, go for feeling your breath symmetrically expand into all four sides of you; so that all four sides of your waist create length, space and expansion. When you go for this symmetry of breath, the brilliant part is that you become aware of the sides of you that are easy to breathe into (the places you always breathe into) and the sides of you that are difficult to take your breath to (the places that you never send your breath to). By creating this awareness, you send life to places in you that have never been touched by your breath….Imagine: there are places in you that have not been touched by your beautiful, healing, light, conscious, easy, trusting, faithful breath. By sending breath and space there, you can send healing, light and consciousness there. Let’s explore how to make each breath as symmetrically expansive as possible in every posture we find ourselves in our Yoga practice.

When you inhale, keep the front of your neck soft. When you exhale soften your face, jaw, chest and keep exhaling until you feel your navel lift in and up.

Use this breath to remind you to stay close to yourself. Interested and watching. When you are close and connected without judgement, you are able to begin to trust yourself.

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This is a nice refreshing one! This can be made in a vitamix, blender or juicer. For the shopping list for the week:

2 cucumbers
2 bunches of kale
1 or 2 packages of mint
4 green apples
1 or 2 medium sized pieces of ginger root (one if the root is really big)
1 bunch of bananas
1 bunch of celery
4-7 cans of coconut water

*Optional to add:
spirulina, gogi berries, lemon juice, golden berries, flax seeds, chia seeds or any other dark leafy green vegetable you have on hand

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This a simple and gentle sequence taught by a Yoga Therapist designed to release unnecessary tension in the neck and shoulders. This is a great warm up, or wind down from any physical activities as well as a great sequence to do if you feel tension in the neck and shoulder area.

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Competitive yoga as an Olympics sport will no longer be a stretch.

From Lausanne, Switzerland: As the International Olympics Committee had recently voted to drop wrestling—the oldest competitive sports known in the world dated as far back as 3000 B.C. and part of the ancient Olympics in 708 B.C.—from the 2020 Summer Olympics Games, IOC is looking to replace it with a globally popular and widely represented sport to the mix.

Naturally, many contending popular longstanding sports, such as cricket, boast tremendous numbers of followers and lobbyists—both fans and players alike. But is there a sport counting over 300 million active players worldwide—more than soccer—but is not an Olympic sport?

Yesterday, the 15-member IOC executive board reached a decision after evaluating a deluge of information and statistics and voting based on 39 different criteria, including television ratings, anti-doping policies, global participation and popularity.

Yoga will soon be added to the 2020 Summer Olympics Games.

After the decision, the President of the IOC executive board, Jacques Rogge, expressed satisfaction: “Yoga is an ancient sport and combines both mental as well as physical fortitude.  The committee believes that it will make a fine addition to the Summer Games and we look forward to representatives and athletes from around the world joining us in 2020.”

In addition, the committee also indicated that the competition will most likely be open to all schools of Yoga. Finer details will need to be established.

That is, after a final vote at the IOC general assembly in September held at Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Rajav Chopra, President and Founder of the United States Yoga Council, released the following statement:

“Yoga is a sport with centuries of history. Its mental and physical demands sometime far exceed those required by other sports. We are glad to see that our sport is being recognized at the highest level and look forward to assist the United States Olympic Committee in the assembly and training of our athletes.”

Though yoga’s originated in India more than 5,000 years ago, it has been increasingly popular around the world in recent decades and continues to reach more various demographics throughout the world. From a 1994 roper’s poll, six million Americans practice yoga. In a 2011 statistics study, there are approximately 15 million Americans who practice yoga, and the average annual increase of the number of people who practice yoga is estimated to be twenty percent.

Upon first thought, many may wonder: “How is yoga a competition?” Further, what would be the objective in such a competition in which athletes are not expected to put a ball in a goal of some sort nor are they pitted head to head? Clues may be observed in a recent event held by United States Yoga Council.

Between March 1^st and March 3^rd, the National Yoga Asana Championship was held in New York, where regional champions gather to perform a select set of asanas (postures) and optional ones selected by each competitor individually.  Each competitor will do a three-minute routine consisting of five required poses and two poses of their choice. Younger participants, ages 11 to 17, complete six rather than seven poses.

Competitors are judged on technical execution, level of difficulty, poise and composure, and grace of movement.  If you think all of these sound very similar, then you are very much correct. They are also some of the basic categories for judges in such Olympic events as gymnastics and diving.

Rajav Nahtsaufahsta, a U.S. Olympic gymnast who earned a Bronze Medal on the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team, explains:

“Between gymnastics and yoga, I believe they can be complementary but at the same time demand different set of physical skills. But fundamentally, competitive judging will need to rely on very much the same subjective measures as other Olympic sports not driven by time objective metric such as score or time.”

Although some may object to the notion of “competitive yoga,” almost all universally agree: Yoga is accessible to all ages and people from all walks of life in all conditions. It has tremendous benefits potential even if one practices only occasionally. Yoga as an Olympics sports will only bring the larger communities of all different cultures and participants together to share this path of honoring the unifying spirit of the Olympics. Whether one is a yoga athlete or novice yoga enthusiast, the paths are many, but the inspiration is based on such unifying meaning.

Certainly, with the 2020 Olympics Games is still seven years away, countries worldwide have ample time to prepare their athletes to enter the first Olympic Yoga Competition.

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