7/21/05

Dear Student, 
I hope this letter find you enjoying the possibilities of summer.

The Yoga schedule continues after a week off for the July 4ht Holiday. Of course you can join/rejoin classes anytime. I encourage you to keep Yoga in your life to sustain the balance between the inner and outer aspects during this active time. 

Please note this special and important announcement!  As of September 1^st Creative Body Therapies will no longer be holding Yoga classes as they are discontinuing the Yoga Center. The Massage Therapy business at CBT will continue. I wish to thank Dwight and Denise Johnson for providing the wonderful space these many years. I have appreciated their continued support and wish them all the best in the new incarnation of CBT. The Yoga Center will be missed. 

Because of this closing I am seeking a new space to teach Yoga in the New Haven/Woodbridge area on Monday nights in order to continue classes without interruption. Though I am following up on certain possibilities in that regard I am interested in any and all suggestions you may have. 

On August 31^st, from 6:30-8:30PM, I will be doing another “Posture Pain And Life Performance” workshop at The Shoreline Center for Wholistic Health. These workshops have been very well received and have helped people gain a new perspective and tools to attack chronic pain. There is no need to wait, if your are struggling with pain issues please contact me to get started in taking care of the problem of pain at its source.
Ravi and Ana return! On October 23^rd, 1-4pm at Raven ‘s Wing Yoga, for another Kundalini Yoga Experience with Ravi Singh and Ana Brett. More details will follow.

Yoga Therapy:
“Balance arises when we enter with mercy and awareness areas that have been withdrawn from in fear and anger. Healing is a rehabilitation of the deserted areas of the mind/body, a living of our whole life.”  Stephen Levine 

“Your skill in yoga has little to do with your degree of flexibility or where your edges happen to be. Rather, it is a function of how sensitively you play your edges, no matter where they are….The practice becomes one of be relaxed and willing at your deeper edges; and this isn't necessarily easy.” Erich Schiffman

Working the physical practice of Yoga utilizing the concept of the “Edge” allows us a way to experience our Yoga practice as a metaphor for life. In doing we understand that any limit approached consciously can lead to greater balance, growth and enlightened living.

In our practice main category of limits we experience are 

Anatomical limits: pertaining to muscle length or physical strength, experienced most immediately and concretely through  individual muscle  tightness or llaxity, muscular-skeletal pain, as well as the overall stability and weakness in our Yoga postures.

Physiological limits: Weak or compromised metabolic, respiration and other somatic processes. Experienced through the messages of burning muscles, shortened breath, fatigue or low energy and feelings of depletion.

Mental limits: manifesting as scattered attention, poor or rigid focus, anxiety, fear, doubt, anger, self aggression and frustration. Any unconscious  reaction, even the positive experiences and emotions such as pride and bliss can limit our ability to experience the present moment in our time on the mat. 

We meet all these forms of limits in some manner each time we do Yoga. With skillful practice, they will recede over time in response to our efforts as we build up the corresponding faculty.

To avoid the common pitfalls of Yoga practice, it is essential to understand that mental limits, particularly doubt, can be the most subtle and vexing hindrances to our practice. Paradoxically, these places where our individual mental limits exist are the places in which we can enrich our lives in ways beyond imagination. Mental struggles in our practice both contribute to and are often a response to our movement into our anatomical and physiological limits. For example, anxious thoughts tighten muscles; the experience of weakness or breathlessness can reinforce fear or negative self-judgments. As products of our conditioned mind, mental limits arise anytime we move beyond our comfort zone and move into the “edge” of our habitual experience. They are our “knee jerk” thoughts, attitudes or feelings that arise in responses to unknown or uncomfortable experience. Unaware response to our mental limits can thwart us in our practice and rob us of the joy that we can receive from Yoga. At any point along the path failure to deal with all that arises when confronted with those “deserted areas of the mind/body” that we rediscover in Yoga practice can undermine motivation.  In the worst case, this process leads us to sabotage efforts to transform and can defeat our Yoga practice altogether.   

Practice: 

Rather than include a specific Yoga or mediation technique in this space of the newsletter, I invite you to apply, two Yogic Yamas(self-disciplines) to your practice  See the previous newsletter. http://www.creativeedgeyoga.com/vol2_4newsletter.htm for some more basic info about the Yamas and Niyama.

To avoid the pitfalls described above, I invite you to mindfully “play the edge” of your limits in your practice. This certainly does not mean moving full speed ahead in all cases. Though our commitment needs to be nurtured to remain consistent and strong, there is no hard and fast rule of what to actually do in any individual moment of your practice. Sometimes we need to work less intensely to restore a body/mind depleted by stress or fatigue. Other times our energy level or goals lead us to a more active and athletic approach to practice. In any case, for our time to be spent in the true practice of Yoga, the promise to ourselves is to cultivate a deepening sense of compassionate presence and awareness. In our physical practice of Yoga, if we struggle against a limit of strength or flexibility we risk bodily injury or increasing frustration in our progress. Yogis recognize that one key value for practitioners to cultivate in Yoga the  Niyama, "Ahimsa"- non-harming or non-injury to self and others. As we apply this virtue to ourselves in our practice we can stay safe in the physical work; and come to understand its deepest significance in the greater scope of our lives.  However if we back off every discomfort the results from the sense of the unfamiliar; we can cheat ourselves of the benefits of greater strength, stamina and mental presence in the pose and in our lives. The practice of "Satya"--truth in thought or deed, when applied toward ourselves can guide us in this regard. The actual effects of the choices we make in each moment of our practice will tell us whether we have been truthful to of our aims and intentions. When applied to life this discovery alone is transforming!

All this gives us new tools for our the choices we make in each moment on and off the Yoga mat. Our advancement in our Yoga practice becomes less about some physical attainment; but instead is measured increasingly by how well we are able to explore and adjust within the poses.  This new paradigm invites us to now seek and expand upon an emerging clarity and grace that helps us skillfully choose a course that takes us to a place of greater comfort, presence and balance. We open heartedly receive our experiences as it is, without clinging to any external image of what should be happening; becoming more “relaxed and willing at [your} deeper edges”. Difficult and imperfect as this process is, it is a powerful way to transform our lives at the ”edge” that is inherent within each new and challenging life experience.

Workshops: 
"Posture Alignment, Pain Relief and Enhanced Living; 
Yoga and The Egoscue Method of Postural Alignment for Healing and Pain Relief"

At: The Shoreline Center for Wholistic Health
Date: Wednesday, August 31st, 6:30-8:30PM
Fee: $27.00, $23.000 if pre-registered

The epidemic of chronic pain threatens health, ruins careers and the limitations it creates can destroy any semblance of a well-lived life.  Repetitive Stress injury, Back pain, Tennis elbow, Bursitis, arthritis, low energy, dizziness and a full array of other chronic conditions can all have muscular skeletal misalignment their root cause.
  In this workshop we will:

v      Explore the ways postural misalignment is at the cause of so much muscular-skeletal pain and dysfunction.

v      Perform specific tests to discover the missing causal link to the symptoms of pain or limitation in your body.

v      Learn and practice simple, pleasant functional exercises and Yoga to restore muscle balance, and eliminate dysfunction at the root of chronic pain.

v      Enhance overall strength and flexibility as the pain in your body resolves

v      Understand once and for the possibility all that pain is not inevitable and that an active meaningful life is possible throughout the lifespan.

.      This experience provides an extraordinary opportunity to explore principles and practices of a tried and true non-medical intervention that empowers ourselves to restore the body to its design posture and function.  Finally take control over your body and mind for once and for all to transform what it means to be well and grow older!

Services

Private, semi private and small group Yoga Sessions, Meditation Instruction, Corporate Yoga Classes
and the Egoscue Method Postural Therapy for Chronic Pain Relief and Enhanced life performance.  

Over the past several years I have worked with several students in private sessions in both brief and longer term scenarios.
The sessions have served different purposes for each individual  depending on specific needs and intentions. Students have utilized this time to: 

Sessions can be held in your home or at my teaching studio locations. For details and to answer questions about how you may benefit from one of these modalities please contact me at (203)488-1700.  

Please offer any questions, feedback, class suggestions and workshop requests you may have so I can better meet your needs.
I thank you for your support and hope to see you soon. 
Sat Nam and Namaste,

Alan Franzi

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