I have returned from a whirlwind tour of Indochina. Amidst the noise of motor bikes and the visions of merchant stalls and gaudy temples, there were moments of peace. We stayed two nights in an idyllic hotel on the beach near Hoi An, Vietnam. Standing on the soft sand, sinking deeper with each lap of the waves, I tried to memorize the feeling to help me visualize sinking into the earth in my Yoga and Qigong postures. Later, in the pool, I stood with my arms outstretched. Again I was trying to soak up the sensations of allowing my arms to relax and float on the water. These are watery images that I have been using in my classes, but reinforcing them with the actual experience felt profound.

Hatha Yoga’s name combines the brilliance of the sun, Ha, with the reflection of the moon, Tha. These opposites suggests the opposites of all energies: male, female; hot, cold; stiff, supple; and so forth. As the moon influences the movement of the tides, I have chosen to focus on the strength of the sun and the movement of water in my latest lesson plan. Solar postures inspire confidence, while the water element encourages us to move with grace and acceptance in the moment.

My Qigong journey continues. On Epiphany I drove to experiencing my first snow fall behind the wheel of my new gas sipping Prius. My light listening on the drive was “Courting Difficulties”, a suspenseful murder mystery on just enough CDs to get me all the way to my exit in Maine. I was so engaged by the concluding disk that I drove right past my dinner destination. I stopped instead where I ate spicy Chinese food with brown rice, or rather, white rice in a gooey brown sauce. I should have know better. Anyway, I was determined to be over the flu that had flattened me earlier in the week, to clear my sinuses, and to get on with my adventure.

My friend was teaching an introductory evening and day session of qigong. I drove into the snowy driveway of the retreat center and parked behind the building in the snow. A smiling, round faced nun greeted me inside. My friend gave me the key to my darling single room on the third floor and directed me to the snack/ dining room where I could help myself to tea and look for others attending the retreat. The meeting space for our group was a large room with a circle of wooden rocker/glider chairs at one end and open space with an area carpet on the other.

Little by little our group of about ten students wandered in and began to rock on the chairs and to introduce ourselves. Some of us came because the location is scheduled to close this year and they wanted to savor the nurturing atmosphere again, while others were previous students of the instructor or simply curious about qigong. There were couples as well as individual seekers, older and younger participants. Most were from Maine. I had read a memoir in which she describes attending several workshops with the instructor and mentions his qigong interest. She is a friend, a poet, and long time member of the community. If she thinks a teacher has a talent for creating safe spaces for transformation introspection, that is a strong recommendation.

As soon as the instructor opened the workshop I recognized his emphasis on careful listening and supportive communication from other experiences. As we introduced ourselves he encouraged us to take all the time we needed in silence to plan what we wanted to say so that we could really listen to each of our neighbors in turn as they spoke. Already we were making time for ourselves and each other, practicing being present. The meditation that followed was also a practice of being in the moment, in our bodies. If energy follows our thoughts and intentions, taking a moment to feel and bring our thoughts into our most immediate here and now concentrates our energy as well. How interesting to really notice mouth breathing as my nostrils were useless. How could I position my tongue so as not to overly dry my mouth?
Paul explained the proper pronunciation of qigong, “chi gong” with the voice rising on the last syllable. Each time he repeated the word the corners of his eyebrows shot up and he had to grin. This is significant, because all qigong should be practiced with a smile. The following day we even practiced a smiling meditation, visualizing big smiley faces on all our foreheads that lifted the corners of our own brows, softened our eye sockets, and left a faint smile on our lips. After the evening session, a text exchange with Terry, a steamy shower, and some self massage that finally cleared my nostrils, I repeated “qigong” to myself about three times while lying in bed, noting the accompanying smile. I slept instantly!

The instructor has an interesting theory about flinch patterns. Worries, anger, joy, frustration, and emotions in general are held in our bodies. Notice when you furrow your brow or make an involuntary gesture with your lips. It is easy to see our friends’ involuntary emotional tics, but we have them too. Some are less visible: a tensing in the gut, a nagging headache, a strain in the neck and shoulders, and so forth. He suggests that a lifetime of emotion creates a flinch pattern in our bodies to the extent that we begin to tense involuntarily without recognizing the original trigger. Sitting, standing, lying down, and moving meditation – bringing our attention, love, and breath into every part of our body – can release and open our flinch architecture. Intention is that powerful.

In this brief workshop, he introduced imagery and led physical practices to help sensitize us to our energy drawing from and expanding vertically into the deepest earth and the highest heavens as well as horizontally to expand our field of energy wider and wider from our three energy centers and to push apart mountains. Every movement is an opportunity to visualize our presence in the universal energy field and to interact with it. He also incorporated the water element. Lifting our arms was effortless, for example, if we imagined them resting on water that gradually rose or fell like the tides.

Stepping our feet apart to begin a form took on mythic dimensions. In every creation story, in the beginning there is an undifferentiated void. The vibrational word of the creator or initial energetic event begins to separate the light from the dark, the depths from the heavens, masculine from feminine, yang from yin. So we stepped out to begin our practice with reverence. Lying on the floor afterwards, we imagined our breaths washing up cool, moist and yin from below our feet to our kidneys. As the breath rose higher towards the warm, dry heart, the yin energy met and was balanced by the yang. We visualized breath washing up and down, balancing cool and wet with warm and dry. We flexed our feet, pointing our toes upwards to bring the flow of breath up and into our bodies. Relaxing our feet, the exhalation ebbed back down our bodies.

In the last few years I have learned a variety of animal frolics and qigong forms, but Paul’s language and imagery helped me see how I could enrich all my movements with intention for an even more powerfully healing practice. I began to see how I will be able to teach qigong with confidence, incorporating the felt experiences of my years as a yogi and sharing my new journey with students with an attitude of exploration.

Here are a few examples of Xi Xi Hu. Can you tell which is which? The day after my return home I took a hike with my husband and practiced the whole cycle for Lungs, Heart, Spleen, Kidneys, and Liver on a rock outcrop. I thought of you all as I exchanged energy with the rock, trees, sky, and water. My husband was amused by my eccentric behavior, but not entirely surprised. I felt full of fresh air and joy! I can incorporate the qigong we learned together at home. The struggle for me is to get up with the sunrise for my own practice before I go out to teach my yoga classes.

For my own benefit, I put together a series of qigong and yoga options that align with qigong intentions for Fall. I didn’t include a stance. Practice whichever one calls to you to build up your stamina. I hope you find my summary of many of the self massage techniques she uses in her centering practices helpful. I was particularly struck that both the Dai Mai and the Nourishing Women Qigong called on celestial energy. The qigong color for Fall is White and the element, Metal. Did she purposely chose these forms for Autumn? If I visualize the silvery white light of the night sky, or the pale glow of the early morning sunlight, a focus on the heavenly, metallic orbs seems seasonally appropriate. During my walk along the shore this afternoon, I was almost blinded by the white light of the sun, sparkling off Long Island sound. This week I added moon and star visualizations to my version of the Moon Salutation. My students were noticeably more focused and I hardly needed to make any alignment suggestions.

The Tiger is the animal associated with Fall Qigong. The short White Tiger form is an energizing breath practice in a single stance. There are a variety of tiger frolic walks and she created a more extensive Jade Tiger form, specifically for women. The Jade tiger form mimics the tiger waking up, cleansing herself, and moving through her daily activities. The form is almost a complete practice, warming up slowly and then including a balance of energetic and relaxing movements.

Why do so many adults love Halloween? I think it is because it lets us express parts of ourselves, perhaps even those shadow parts, which we rarely show. Behind a mask, a costume, we can embrace the qualities of our outer form. We may find ourselves not just acting the part, but feeling the part. But what does all this have to do with Yoga? Yoga poses have long been considered ways to “try on” the qualities of other characters and creatures – the mighty roar of the Lion, the proud carriage of the Warrior, the grace of the Swan.

This has been one of my favorite classes since I began experimenting with the theme in 2006. I have based classes on yoga animal and plant asanas as well as on Kali, a ferocious Hindu goddess. In college a senior left me her leopard pantsuit when she graduated and it has been the basis of my go-to Halloween costume for decades since. I’ve bought cute ears, pinned on a tail, painted on whiskers… You get the picture. I have even had the nerve to prance by the guards at the women’s prison, with my tail tucked modestly in my satchel until I get to class.
This year I centered my groups with an energy face massage. Rubbing hands together to create heat and a lovely vibration we brought the energy up to our faces. Before the hands touch the skin, there is a moment when our expression is hiding behind the screen of our fingers and we can “let our masks go”. How many faces do I wear in a day? What a relief to have permission to let my facial muscles relax. In this class we return again and again to this simple exercise to transition between the different characters we assume.

The Cock and the Lion set the tone for in this class. Kukkutasana and Simhasana appear in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, an early Hatha Yoga text (probably written in the 14th to 15th Century A.D.), so I feel we are joining our energies with generations of yogis when we practice these postures. There is much controversy about where many of our modern yoga asanas actually arose, but familiar sitting postures , spinal twists , inversions, forward bends, and backbends are included the Indian guru, Satmarama’s, compilation of the wisdom of Hatha Yoga of his time. Once in a while I like to remind myself of the classics.

Try any sequence of your favorite postures, visualizing and imitating the energetic qualities of each character you choose. If there is a pose that has always been too much of a challenge, try making up your own version so you can add the energy of that animal or plant to your practice. Imagine each yoga pose as a Qigong frolic – a chance to explore and connect your playful inner child with the energies of the natural world.

I have begun to organize my yoga classes around the five elements and seasons of Chinese medicine and Qigong. As I work with my students I am seeing great value in the repetition of what I have come to call “default practices” and I am beginning to organized them seasonally. This corresponds to the first stage, or willful practice phase of yoga. Each day, in my own practice, anxiety arises as I have to choose how to begin. Depending on the day, I have to make a willful choice of what to do next rather than simply finding my body flowing into its own practice. Do I start with Pranayama? a prayer? a physical warm-up? Students often tell me they love to be told what to do in class. No brain weighing the effort and benefits of various activities, just mind attending to present sensations. Both Qigong forms and Kripalu yoga pranyamas, warm-ups, and vinyasa flows help me reduce the number of decisions I need to make in my Sadhana. I generally pick a warm-up sequence and then proceed through it, allowing myself to explore the familiar postures as feels appropriate at the time, but knowing the general sequence I plan to follow. Once I pick the plan, the pressure of decision making is over, I relax, and sometimes find myself moving in a new direction! Then I pick a pranayama or a standing qigong meditation, followed by vinyasa (a fancy name for any yoga flow of postures), or a qigong frolic, ending with relaxation. Once the initial decision is made for each phase of my practice, I too can attend to sensation. I generally include joint loosening movements, self-massage,attention to breath, still and moving postures in a balanced practice. Organizing these elements within the structure of the Chinese medical calendar lends me additional guidance. I feel rather like a poet writing in a given form, narrowing some choices, yet still free to express herself.

Metal, Water, Wood, Fire, and Earth are the five elements of traditional Chinese medicine. Just as Yoga is linked in India to Ayurveda, so is Qigong linked to Chinese healing. Therefore, the five elements are central to the practice of Qigong. Each element corresponds to a different season of the year (the Chinese add Indian Summer or the harvest for the Earth element), a different set of emotions, a color, one of the five senses, a healing sound, particular organs in the body, even planets. In Qigong there are different animals associated with these elements, organs, and emotions, leading to the practice of animal frolics. Not surprisingly, there are parallels between the Indian and Chinese traditions that make it interesting to create seasonal classes that incorporate elements from both traditions.

Currently, when I choose practices for myself or my classes, I focus on the elements of the season I am in, consciously balancing the energies of the moment. My next post will focus on the harvest season. If I am ill or in a particular mood, it may be useful to bring in practices from an element that is not of the current time of year. Healing Sounds Qigong, for example, balances all the elements and can be a soothing practice any time. I often choose all, or just the seasonal sound, for the standing meditation in my practice or classes.

Yang Ying is a former Chinese opera singer who teaches the proper Chinese sounding. I find the precision of her sounds very challenging for my American ear, tongue, lips, throat, and mouth. Maybe I’m just not that vocally coordinated. Deborah Davis simplifies the sounds for Westerners and coordinates them with simple physical gestures that I find very rewarding.

I was at a yoga studio to deepen my study of Qigong with Deborah Davis and had just completed a short weekend workshop with her focusing on healing Qigong for women. This Chinese energy practice, associated with the energy meridians used in acupuncture, is also about creating space: in joints, muscles, organs, spine, heart, and mind. In principle, where there is openness, energy can flow and healing occurs.

In my yoga classes for August I have repeated the intention to create space and allow for possibilities. Each of us has different needs for space, yet everyone seems to relate to this concept. Chronic illnesses or pain trap us in our physical sensations. When we experience strong emotions we may feel stuck in time. From asthma to anger management, slow spacious breaths and movements help us explore our bodies and minds and to release our judgments. More rapid, repetitive activity energizes us to act. Combining space with energy invites us to flow from our inner wisdom. As we notice that our sensations, emotions, and thoughts shift and begin to view them with some distance, we learn that we are more than the sum of our discomfort and fears.

In the Bhagavad Gita, the warrior Arjuna completes his full conversation of spiritual education with the embodied god, Krishna, in the instant before a great battle against his cousins. The present moment seems stretched out and the warrior’s despair shifts to confidence. Arjuna is ready to follow his duty, sacred path, or dharma after this spacious moment.

Meanwhile, I have taken my a break from blogging to practice a new qigong form, return to the Gita for inspiration, and to integrate my experiences before sharing them. This gift of time has helped me give form to my thoughts. This intrigues me as the sequence moves back and forth between stillness and activity. As I imagine one would do before any energy form, it begins with a simple stance with the hands on the low belly, taking inventory of one’s current level of energy and inviting prana, qi or life force into the energy center that resides there, called the hara in yoga or dantien in qigong. As the form continues, the alternation of holding stances with gentle repetitive movements both concentrates my attention, building stamina, strength, balance, and energy, and then serves to spread that energy around and within my body, creating flow and a sense of well being. The final posture is a releasing pose to let go of any physical, emotional, or mental energy that I don’t need.

At this early stage of practice, my experience of the postures and my own energy is constantly shifting. I’ve tried holding the balancing postures outside in the moonlight, listening to the early, and gazing at the trees and sky, and been surprised by how unstable I am. First thing in the morning, after watering the container pots, moss, herb, and step-able gardens, my balance is steady and sure. Today is hot and muggy, so I practiced in an air conditioned room where I felt stable, but the flow was less nourishing. The qigong vsualization of a ball of energy like a beach ball inspired the photo above.

Time to rest and renew. The weather isn’t calling me to be active and I have an unexpected break in my schedule. Yes! Where can you create space in your body, mind, or schedule? What arises?

May you observe your true, compassionate and eternal self!

When I walked outside this morning I was struck by how beautiful and dangerous the ice appeared on the trees and on my walking paths and driveway, the glassy surfaces causing my emotions to slip back and forth from delight to fear. Our daily life is a constant tug of war between pleasure and distaste. How do we maintain equanimity with reality? The word awesome denotes this ambiguity. When we are struck with awe, we are witnessing or feeling something overwhelmingly powerful and find ourselves in a conflicting state of admiration and anxiety. Nature often awes us – with majestic mountains, crashing waves, starlit skies – and today with sheets of ice. We are thrilled, yet feel humbled.

Arjuna, the warrior hero of the Bhagavad Gita, demands to see his charioteer, Krishna, in his full divine splendor and is awed by his wonderful and terrible form. Arjuna is both happy and afraid as he views his teacher and friend, yet Krishna urges him to be calm and returns to his gentle four-armed form. When we remain calm we can walk across the ice, whereas if we are tense and awkward we slip. Let us relax this winter season, admiring the cold, the snow, and the ice. Enjoy the cold clear night skies and the sculptured snow banks. Be grateful for the snow removal equipment and operators that work through the night to clear our streets and parking lots. Balance delight and caution with compassion. Slow down, breathe, and the snow will melt!

Where were you when you first learned of the attacks of 9/11? What did you do next? Did you call friends or family to find out if they were OK? As the days and weeks past, did you exchange stories with acquaintances and friends? For many of us, simply talking about the tragedy helped us process the loss. Tales of bravery and selflessness helped to balance the inhumanity of the suicide attacks. The more we shared our stories, the more connected we felt.

Unfortunately our culture doesn’t seem as comfortable with the tales of warriors. There seems to be a split between those that sacrifice for their nation and those of us that stay home. How can we bridge that divide? When I first volunteered I had to go to the hospital for my PPD test and to fill out forms. The hospital is the size of a small town, in a parallel universe alongside. Many of the clients down the hill from the hospital complex, live nearby for easy access to medical treatment and housing opportunities. Coming from a Shoreline community where there is no evident military presence, I was shocked by this large community devoted to the rehabilitation of our armed forces. In addition to helping individual veterans through the practice of yoga mindfulness and relaxation, I began to see the importance of acting as a witness to this hidden community of patriots.

PTSD leaves its mark on generations and the sooner we recognize this stress pervading our globe and deal with it mindfully, perhaps the more humanely we can welcome our current warriors home and the more carefully we will consider entering armed conflicts in the future.

Veterans and mental-health experts shared their perspectives and research on post-traumatic stress disorder, resilience, and the human experience of war in a heart warming and heart breaking 4 person panel. One of the presenters is a national expert on war-related mental health issues who was deployed to Iraq in 2004 to improve combat stress care. His book, Once a Warrior Always a Warrior, Hoge incorporates the personal stories of veterans to describe PTSD, Combat Stress, and mTBI and to suggest pathways to navigate the journey home. Reading down the first page of the table of contents, a majority of topics could be headers in a mindfulness text: Become more aware of your reactions ; Learn to accept your reactions without judgment or anger; Improve physical conditioning and relax muscle tension; Improve sleep; Learn to pay attention to your physiological reactions and anxiety level; Learn to pay attention to your feelings and emotions; Create space between your reactions to stressful events and behaviors; Learn to monitor and eliminate “should” and related words or phrases; Notice your breathing; Improve your focus and attention through meditation and mindfulness.

A former veteran himself and a Peer Specialist where I teach yoga, was also a member of the panel. He has become a touchstone for me to make sure that my services are as helpful as possible to my students. His most helpful reminder is that the more I learn about PTSD, the easier it is to assume I know what is going on for a student. Stop right there! Listen! Each veteran knows their own concerns better than I ever will! Each person has personal priorities and goals and tuning in to their needs is the only way to proceed. One gentleman needs to get a license and access to a car so he can visit his mother, another wants to sleep more peacefully, and so on.

Yoga can help rewire our brains and counteract the floods of cortisol that put a well trained warrior on permanent alert. Anger is a useful emotion in battle and we train our soldiers to cultivate their righteous wrath. This isn’t as useful in daily civilian life and mindfulness training can make us more aware of when the emotion arises, how it feels (and injures our physical bodies), and give us time and mental space to choose how to react to it. The adrenaline rush of saving one’s comrades from danger every day makes civilian life pale in worthiness. The pettiness of civilian complaints may seem absurd, while the sense of danger, or arousal at loud noises, in crowds, or in traffic may be heightened. Individuals have multiple ways of coping with this transition, retraining themselves for civilian existence. Some fill their days with multiple jobs and obligations to recreate the sense of worthiness they may have felt over seas. Others self medicate with alcohol or drugs (effective in the short run, but obviously not a healthy solution).

My role, however, is to see beyond these stereotypes to the individuals in my classes. Letting go of the clinical descriptions liberates me to help my students view their own issues with more clarity and to find creative coping skills. They usually know what helps them, if I take the time to listen. Sometimes a safe place to be quiet and listen to their own soft, knowing voice is what is most needed. My role is to provide safety and compassion. The warrior has the intelligence and self knowledge to make a mentally sound transition to civilian life once his or her difficulty is acknowledged and accepted. It’s not easy and no one should have to go it alone, but I’m sure it is possible.

One of the most striking emotions veterans, and I believe civilians as well, suffer in the aftermath of conflict is survivor’s guilt. Combat soldiers regret they couldn’t have done more to protect their peers. Veterans in support roles feel shame that they weren’t in harm’s way. I spoke to a Vietnam volunteer who was sent over to join a ship. When he arrived, the ship was instructed to bring the men back to the US. The volunteer felt guilty that he was sailing away from harm with a boatload of drafted men that had risked their lives.

The enthusiastic yoga students above just completed their chair yoga session, an independent living facility. She is more likely to attend the class if I accompany her, so I have been able to enjoy and learn from instructor yoga. She has tailored her class beautifully around her students’ interests and memories. To provide a focus each week she brings in a tangible item: a vase of yellow flowers or a bowl of red raspberries, for example. The class has a conversation about the item to center and then begin to breathe and move together. YInyasa flows include rowing their boats, leaning back in recliners, squeezing lemons between their shoulder blades, and marching to Yankee Doodle Dandy. There are lots of smiles and we really move, adding ties and light weights for additional stability and strength. Thank you Karen for sharing your ideas so freely with me! Some of her ideas have seeped into my classes…

After nine months of teaching chair yoga I have finally created a default lesson plan as well. My students are eager to learn a consistent series of postures so they can practice more easily on their own. I know I will keep bringing in a variety of readings and music and tinker with the centering and breathing practices. As I continue to experiment with props and postures the asanas will evolve. I’m always curious to see what arises in the moment, and I hope my students appreciate a few surprises.

We have be focusing on using our senses as tools to bring our attention back to the present moment. In the lesson plan below I recommend two meditations. In the first, a visual meditation, we rub our hands together until we feel warmth and energy in our palms and fingers and then cover our eyes. The objective is to soothe and still the eyes, gazing through the darkness at an imaginary point in the far distance. Fixing our gaze often stills the wanderings of our minds as well. Do you unconsciously tense up when you focus? Relax all the muscles of your face, especially all the muscles around your eyes, cheeks, and jaw. After a few breaths we close our eyes and remove our hands, adjusting to the light behind our lids before blinking our eyes open.

Chanting A-O-U-M, the second meditation, focuses our senses of touch and hearing on the healing vibrations of the sacred Sanskrit syllable, OM. The vowel “a” vibrates in the back of our throat and the rear portions of our brain. “O” and “u” vibrate further forward across the upper palate of our mouths and up into more regions of our brains. “M” buzzes our lips and into our cerebrum, the thinking portion of brains. Chant in a relaxed manner, listening to the OM resonating in your head without straining either to make the sound or to listen to the sound. This isn’t singing. Let go of judgment! Can you feel the vibrations sweeping across your scull, relaxing your mind?

All chanting serves as a pranayama as well. With each long exhalation, we empty our lungs of stale air. The deep inhalation between repetitions replenishes our oxygen supply and energy. Long, smooth exhalations also soothe the nervous system, inviting our bodies to heal and function properly. Relaxation practices bring our hormonal, digestive, circulatory, and immune systems back into balance.

Once in a while a gentle, relaxing posture flow is very restorative, even if you normally prefer a more vigorous practice.. Regularly teaching chair yoga has helped me recognize the benefits of short sensory meditations and simple, repetitive movements on my own nervous system.