Category: Yoga & Life
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Yoga Practice & Well-Being Charts 2022 part 1
The experiment in charting my well-being continues through subjective Yoga-practice related indicators. Monthly Charts The monthly charts being 10 days before the beginning of the month and continue 10 days beyond its end in order to give the month some context. 6 Month Charts The 6 month weekly median and daily charts stretch back into…
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Yoga Practice Charts 2021
In some past Yoga check-ins, I tried using graphs to illustrate how my sense of well-being fluctuates. The graphs were created in retrospect and I invented data to try to express how I felt. In 2021 I initiated a journaling experiment to see what real data might look like. I use a spreadsheet to collect…
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Yoga Practice – Winter 2020/21
This feels like a long-overdue update. A few months ago I had in mind a post with more “graphs” to illustrate the shifts in my practice, more details about the practice, and my breath, but that never came to be. Now I have only a slight inclination to write … so this will be brief…
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Yoga Practice – Prayer Withing Closing Ritual End of 2019
As this year arrives at its natural ending I leave it with yet another slightly revised prayer that anchors the end of my daily practice. אני מברך על החומר הגלום בעולם ועל איכויותיואני מברך על המסעיר, המסתיר והמבהיראני מברך על הייקום העצום המתפרש לכל עבר אני מברך על השמש, על חומה ועל אורהאני מברך על…
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Yoga Practice – Prayer Withing Closing Ritual November 2019
After translating the closing ritual to Hebrew I started using the Hebrew notation in practice (spoken silently in my heart). Doing so changed my sense of it. It transformed beyond a list and took on a narrative quality. The narrative quality invited a series of new transformations. Before the Hebrew translation came into being, the…
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ברכה
אני מברך על התלמיד שבקרביאני מברך על המורה שהופיע בקרבתי, שהלך כבר דרך לפניאני מברך על מורתי זיוה ועל מורי פולאני מברך על דסיקצ’ר ואביו קרישנמצ’ריהאני מברך על מוריהם ומורי מוריהםאני מברך על התובנות שצלחו את הדורות אני מברך על עולם החומראני מברך על אמי נורית ועל אבי יעקבאני מברך על אחותי רויטל ועל אחותי…
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Straining my back
We had just completed the first two days of work of renovation of the summer kitchen. It was the morning after and the excavator arrived for a few tasks we bundled together. I had already done a few tasks to clear the way for the excavator and felt a bit of discomfort in my lower…
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Yoga & Allergy 2019: Recovery … and crash
From the time I published my previous update I was pleased to find stability. Though the symptoms of allergy persisted, I found myself feeling stable. I was held softly in practice every day and I was grateful for that. I used antihistamines over a period of only 2 or 3weeks. I had two types of…
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Yoga Practice (& Allergy) – Summer 2019
Approximately 7 or 8 weeks ago first, slight & subtle signs of allergy appeared: slight wheezing in the breath, itchy eyes, itch throat. Until then, practice was regular and on gradually increasing in intensity and vitality. At that point I decided to stop the intesifying exploration and moved into a holding pattern. I was ancitipating…
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Krishnamacharya’s Final Act
“I was with him when he released his final breath. I’m told people usually gasp at the end, but my father’s chest only rose and fell, rose once more and then subsided. That was all there was. He passed easily from life. When we moved him from the bed, we found under his pillow bank…
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If an Asana is a Koan …
There is a lot I do know about asanas in my practice: I know the core position – the ideal form. I know how to modify it to suit me – the form I am able to meet. I know how to get into it and how to leave it I know if I am…
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Allergic response reflected in Breath?
I made a few subtle changes in my practice since I last reviewed it. One of them was a decision to increase softness. And one way to do that was to drop the counting of breath lengths in most asana. This was a bit challenging to do at first. It created a new potential field…
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Christopher Alexander – The Stress Reservoir
Broadly speaking, the reaction to each unsolved problem, or annoyance, or conflict that is encountered creates in the individual some level of stress … There is, in effect, a stress reservoir in the body …
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Graduality and Edges in Practice
Breathing Formula A prerequisite for following the example in this post is an understanding of an expression such as: 4x 8-0-12-0 It is a formula for breathing, where the breath is made up of four parts: an inhale, a pause, an exhale and a pause. This particular formula indicates 4 breaths each of 8 second…
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A Living Sharpness
I’ve been experiencing an interesting convergence in my practice in recent weeks: As distractions dwindle, I feel more collected and focused. The short visit, at the end of practice, in maha-mudra is becoming more of a stay. I am settled again in a quality pranayama practice. I am experiencing more stability in my mind and…
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Dancing with Allergy
About 2 weeks ago first subtle signs of allergy appeared. It was a subtle itching sensation in the back of my throat. As the days went by the signs accumulated and gradually intensified … though for the most part subtle (in comparison to past years). The most stable aspect of my life is my daily…
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My shoulders, socks and lowerback … doing and not-doing
Shoulders My practice includes lying back bends with active arms. I start with my arms alongside my body and swing them “up above my head”. One of my focuses in this posture is softening and relaxing the shoulders every time my arms are placed back on the floor alongside my body. I have been working…
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Practice Reflection – Fall 2016
This reflection is long overdue … but my writing motivation is still low and my ability to do so fragile … I hope I can recall some of the subtleties that appeared along the way. Relationship with Practice My allergy period this year ended somewhere around mid-July. It lasted slightly less then two months. It…