Roxtar Yoga

Unhappy Hour October 15, 2009

You’re invited to celebrate Unhappy Hour. It’s a ceremony that gives you a poetic license to rant and whine and howl about everything that hurts you and makes you feel bad.

During this perverse grace period, there’s no need for you to be inhibited as you unleash your tortured squalls. You don’t have to tone down the extremity of your desolate clamors. Unhappy Hour is a ritually consecrated excursion devoted to the full disclosure of your primal clash and jangle.

Here’s the catch: It’s brief. It’s concise. It’s crisp. You dive into your darkness for no more than 60 minutes, then climb back out, free and clear. It’s called Unhappy Hour, not Unhappy Day or Unhappy Week or Unhappy Year.  Do you have the cheeky temerity to drench yourself in your paroxysmal alienation from life? Unhappy Hour invites you to plunge in and surrender. It dares you to scurry and squirm all the way down to the bottom of your pain, break through the bottom of your pain, and fall down flailing in the soggy, searing abyss, yelping and cringing and wallowing.  That’s where you let your pain tell you every story it has to tell you. You let your pain teach you every lesson it has to teach you.

But then it’s over. The ritual ordeal is complete. And your pain has to take a vacation until the next Unhappy Hour, which isn’t until next week sometime, or maybe next month.

You see the way the game works? Between this Unhappy Hour and the next one, your pain has to shut up. It’s not allowed to creep and seep all over everything, staining the flow of your daily life. It doesn’t have free reign to infect you whenever it’s itching for more power.

Your pain gets its succinct blast of glory, its resplendent climax, but leaves you alone the rest of the time.

If performed regularly, Unhappy Hour serves as an exorcism that empties you of psychic toxins, while at the same time — miracle of miracles — it helps you squeeze every last drop of blessed catharsis out of those psychic toxins.

Pronoia will then be able to flourish as you luxuriate more frequently in rosy moods and broad-minded visions. You’ll develop a knack for cultivating smart joy and cagey optimism as your normal states of mind.

READ THE REST OF “UNHAPPY HOUR” HERE.

From Rob Brezsny, author of Free Will Astrology and Pronoia, the Antidote to Paranoia.  Both his astrology and book take you outside of your box and allow you to feel a little internal smile outside of the box of common culture.

slo yogafest May 16, 2009

Today I’m teaching a hip opener class at the SLO Yogafest.  I thought I would document what I do here in case someone needs a reminder later.  Yummy hip openers indeed.  Hip openers are some of the most challenging stretches you can do because the hips aren’t stretched in any of our day to day activities.  Yet, they are the most rewarding by releasing low back pain, knee discomfort, sciatica, and improving blood flow to the lumbar spine, intestines, and reproductive organs.  The hips are also the emotional storehouse of the body.  They house a good portion of your tension and stress and as you start releasing the pelvis and softening that tissue the rest of your body effortlessly shifts into natural alignment.  It’s amazing how opening the hips will help resolve old aches and pains everywhere else in your body, from your neck, back, to your knees and ankles.  If you need details on any of these poses check out this Tight Hip Anonymous sequence.  It links to detailed photos and descriptions of each pose.

Childs pose with knees wide
Downward facing dog
Rag doll
Chair to 1 legged chair with hands to floor
Other side
Take it to the floor
1/2 pigeon
1/2 pigeon with back leg pulsation
Double pigeon
One legged forward stretch
One legged forward stretch with side opener
Wide legged forward fold
Other side
If time and mojo is right, do wide legged forward fold second time with friend
Paschimotanasana forward fold
Frog?

Oh, I almost forgot to include notes from Amy Swanson’s class on Funamentals of Vinyasa Yoga.  I loved it.

• Vinyasa actually means breath, although we refer to the middle sequence in Sun Salutations the “high push up, low push up, upward facing dog, downward facing dog” as a connecting Vinyasa.  The Connecting Vinyasa is like wiping the slate clean, giving your body a fresh start for moving forward to the next postures.
• Halfway lift should be onto fingertips if in uttasana you can align your fingertips with your toes.  Otherwise your hands should be on your shins.  You should also have  a bit of a back bend in your halfway lift to help the shoulder blades get into place and set up your chaturanga correctly.
• Balls of feet.  You should be on the balls of your feet when you step back into high pushup not just on your toes.
• Quads. They should be engaged, lifted, and strong in high push up, with the inner thighs spinning inward and up.
• Shoulder Blades.  Should be moving down your back toward your buttocks as they were in halfway lift.
• Tops of Shoulders should not drop as you lower.  You should only go so low that your biceps are parallel with the ground and your elbows at right angles and pause.  You have to make a conscious effort not to let the top of the shoulders drop even if you can keep the rest of your arms in alignment.
• Your hands should be gripping the mat and pulling you forward.

tight hips anonymous March 6, 2009

Are you part of THA, Tight Hips Anonymous? Do your hips clench up when you site cross legged? Do you ride your bike or run and feel how tight this makes your hips? Or maybe you just love the way your body feels after finding some release in the hips. I find my whole body just feels better after doing hip openers, I feel better sitting, walking, singing, living. I swear I feel a bit lighter. I am starting a library of yoga resources. Check out my favorite hip openers here. I also found this great article by yoga journal with more on the hips, a.k.a. the mother joint of the body.  I also posted this sequence using yoga journal’s sequence builder.  Feedback is appreciated, let me know if any of this stuff matters to you or is useless or what