Pranayama for Meditation Sceptics
/Hello Yogis!
Meditation isn’t all that easy when the brain is in full Catherine Wheel Mode. That’s exactly when you need meditation – when the brain won’t comply. I have all kinds of techniques to lure my brain away from the fire, to come and sit down with me and just be. My brain has all kinds of surprising ways of resisting!
Having written recently that ‘it takes five-eight minutes for the mind to calm down’, I used that thought to get me through a meditation attempt with a tornado-brain. Within a minute my saliva swallowing seemed to be attached to a loudspeaker. Another minute and I’m heating up like an oven. Just a minute later and my nose feels so heavy on the front of my face that I’m practically parallel to the floor. I’m looking for contemplation; it gives me comedy.
OK. When meditation doesn’t work, Pranayama is worth a go. An unruly brain will like the patterns and the challenge and the engagement. You could start off with inhale for four, exhale for four. You can then hold the breath at the top, then the bottom. You can increase the inhale, or the hold, or the exhale. Then there’s Alternate Nostril Breathing. Again, vary the counts.
I’m attaching cheat sheets (below) which are the same as the ones I got from David Swenson but more detailed. They are from a very detailed article called Pranayama by Pattabhi Jois. If you’re familiar with pranayama terms, have a go.
Classes
Amazing Hamza said: ‘1) Surround yourself with people whose eyes light up when you coming. 2) The top of one mountain is the bottom of the next, so keep going. 3) Slowly is the fastest way to get where you want to be.’ He didn’t say ‘do yoga’… but maybe they edited that bit out! Come to class! Monday and Tuesday = stretchy classes at 7.00pm, Wednesday = Ashtanga at 7.00pm and Friday morning = Ashtanga at 8.30am. You can book here
Yoga In The News
The Guardian has: ‘Cultural appropriation’: discussion builds over western yoga industry. This is an article about Nadia Gilani’s book which was released earlier this year. She says: This week, practitioners in India have once again sought to draw attention to what they see as cultural appropriation of yoga, amid allegations it has been whitewashed. Vikram Jeet Singh, a yoga instructor in Goa, told This Week in Asia that “his own culture” has been “wiped out and suppressed by colonisation”.
Unheard.com has a riposte to the above article in: Why can’t the West do yoga? “it is worth noting that Gilani’s appearance in this article is tied to a book release. Of course it is. After all these years, this might be the biggest reason why the debate about yoga and cultural appropriation won’t die: because bringing it up is too valuable a promotional tool to let it go entirely. What is being built in these endless re-litigations of the same set of talking points, these arguments over who owns what, is not a discussion, but a brand. Yesterday it was Bikram’s. Today it’s Gilani’s. Tomorrow, it will be someone else’s.”
South China Morning Post has: How to do Legs Up the Wall yoga pose to reduce stress and signs of ageing. ‘On its Health Essentials website, the Cleveland Clinic academic medical centre based in Ohio in the United States describes the benefits of the pose: it can help recirculate fluid that has built up in your legs to reduce swelling; improve circulation; relieve congestion and water retention; address varicose veins; and avoid blood pooling while helping with lymphatic drainage.’
On the day that Boris Becker leaves jail and leaves the country, The Santa Barbara Independent has: Yoga Behind Bars Can Free a Man Within. The Story of Santa Barbara’s Mike Lewis. ‘Lewis took his first yoga class with Joseph Stingley in Arlington, Texas, after a 19-year hiatus from the practice and all its “humming and chanting.” He didn’t see it as a valid workout — that is, until Stingley “kicked our ass really hard. A good, physical class, and that’s what I needed.” At the end of it, as he lay in the Savasana pose, Lewis remembered tears streaking down his face’.
