With an Eye on Nature

This guest post reminds me to be aware of everyday miracles.

Eye on Nature December 2012

On this winter day I find myself transfixed by a tree. Its leaves are gone, cut off by stem, shed by wind to the ground. Its bare branches are stark against the December gray as they reach toward a sun obscured by cloud.

The surface of this tree is rough and furrowed; it presses back against the flesh of my finger--solid. Yet the source of this rigid column, the weight of this tree, its very substance, comes magically out of thin air. Indeed, it is almost entirely made of carbon pulled from the byproducts of animal respiration and the release of gases from ancient plants burned as fuel.

The enormity of this idea stuns me, stops my forward progress, as I contemplate the reality that, through this tree, I can touch the breath of the past. It is alchemy—that this tree, through the process of photosynthesis, has taken something invisible, ethereal, and rearranged its chemistry to make solid form. Lead to Gold.

And this tree, standing silently before me, has done even more. It has gathered light and tied this energy to the molecular matrix of its cells. A branch of this tree sits in my fireplace at home. And when I place match to bark I will witness a miraculous transformation. From this tree I will feel, on a dark December night, the light and heat of a nearby star. Sequestered beneath layers of bark, contained within rings of growth, released as fire in my living room, the sun will shine again.

With an eye on nature,
Wally

Wally Shriner is an MHCC biology instructor and the Natural Resources Technology program faculty adviser. Eye on Nature is his monthly column. http://www.advocate-online.net/columnists/wallyshriner/ 

Happy New Year. May we all bring peace to ourselves and each other. Namaste, Sara

Myth of Aging ~ Week 6

This week in Somatics we explored twisting and worked to free our shoulders and eyes from being bound together in twists. Warning: this exercise can cause some discomfort. You may feel nauseous or dizzy but your twists will become deeper and more free. Here's a link to a blog which describes why it is a good idea to practice these movements: Essential Somatics.

Picture from Essential Somatics.

To Start
Sit on the floor in a side seated position: both legs off to the left (see image). If you cannot keep both sit bones on the floor, use props under your butt to raise yourself off the floor (like a folded blanket or two) until you can sit evenly - no tipping off to one side. If this does not work in your body then sit on a chair up at the very front edge and walk your feet to the left so you are also seated in a side seated position.

Begin Twisting
With legs off to the left, bring your R arm behind you and your L hand to R shoulder and practice twisting R. Let your L hip lift up. Turn your head R and look R. Look to the wall and notice what your nose is in line with. Practice coming into and out of this twist - slowly. Rest.

Add Opposite Head Movement
Come into your R twist again but this time turn your head L and look L. Practice this a few times. Rest.

Add Moving Head
Come into your R twist again, turn your head and eyes R. Keeping the twist, turn your head and eyes L (look distainfully over your shoulder). Turn your head and eyes back and forth a few times, keeping the head and eyes in synchronicity. Rest.

Add Opposite Head and Eyes
Come into your R twist again, turn your head R while eyes look L. Keeping the twist, turn your head L (opposit direction as your body) while your eyes look R. Turn your head and eyes back and forth a few times, keeping the head and eyes in opposition. Remember to breathe. Rest.

Back to the Beginning
Practice your basic twist again: legs left, R arm behind you and your L hand to R shoulder, twist R. Let your L hip lift up. Turn your head R and look R. Look to the wall and notice what your nose is in line with. Notice if you are twisting more, how does your back feel, how does your neck feel, etc.

Rest and Repeat 2nd Side
Take a break between sides. You might practice a few rounds of Arch and Flatten.

To Finish
You might want to take another round of Arch & Flatten and Arch & Curl or add on a few other movements from the cat stretch (see links below for review).

Enjoy!

Read more:
Myth of Aging Week 1
Myth of Aging Week 2
Myth of Aging Week 3
Myth of Aging Week 4
Myth of Aging Week 5 

Note: After this class I had a big SI joint adjustment when I laid down. It didn't hurt but I felt it and I heard it. It felt like my whole pelvis went "kla-klunk!" and settled into place. Weird but good.

Myth of Aging ~ Week 5

This week in Somatics we learned Inversion/Eversion - rotating your legs from the hip sockets while allowing a natural arch and curve to happen in each side of your back.

Jodi started us off doing one leg at a time and later we combined the movements to move our legs together in mirroring and then synchronizing. Sound confusing? I'll break it down.

To Start
Lay on your back with your knees bent and take a couple of Arch & Flattens and Arch & Curls. When you feel ready, straighten your legs and make sure they can slide freely along the floor (move your sticky mat out from under your legs if you were using one).

Rotating Legs Outward and Inward
1) Rotate your R leg as far outward as you can - moving from the hip to the foot not the foot to the hip - and then reverse that movement and roll your R leg as far inward as you can - again, moving from the hip socket. Rest in neutral. Repeat 3-5 times on the R and then 3-5 times on the L, remembering to rest completely (no holding any tension or anticipating your next move) between each rotation.

Rotating Outward with Lift/Bent Knee
2) Rotate your R leg as far outward as you can and draw your leg toward your body, letting your knee bend and open to the side - as if you were doing one half of bound angle pose. Slowly release the leg back to straight. Pretend that your leg is immobile from the knee down. Let all the movement originate from the hip on both the drawing in and the straightening out. Repeat 3-5 times on the R and then 3-5 times on the L, remembering to rest completely between each movement.

Rotating Inward with Lift/Bent Knee (the Marilyn Monroe)

3) Rotate your R leg inward (from the hip socket) as far as you can and draw your leg toward your body, letting your knee bend and skimming your R leg up your L leg into a "Marilyn Monroe" leg, as shown. Again, pretend that your leg is immobile from the knee down. Let all the movement originate from the hip on both the drawing in and the straightening out. Repeat 3-5 times on the R and then 3-5 times on the L, remembering to rest completely between each movement.

Rotating Both Legs Outward with Lift/Bent Knees (Bound Angle)
4) We are doing the same movement as in step 2 but we are doing it with both legs at the same time, legs mirror each other. Rotate both your R & L leg as far outward as you can (from the hip sockets) and draw your legs toward your body, letting your knees bend and fall outward - as if you were coming into a loose bound angle pose. Slowly release the legs back to straight. Pretend that your legs are immobile from the knee down. Let all the movement originate from the hip on both drawing in and straightening out. Repeat 3-5 times, remembering to rest completely between each movement.

Rotating Both Legs Inward with Lift/Bent Knees (Knock-Knees)
5) This is the same movement as in step 3 but we are doing it with both legs together, legs mirror each other. Rotate both your R & L legs inward (from the hip socket) as far as you can and draw your legs toward your body, letting your knees bend and skimming your feet along the floor - feet will probably slide outward, accentuating a "knock-kneed" look. Again, pretend that your legs are immobile from the knees down. Let all the movement originate from the hips on both the drawing in and the straightening out. Notice how your back is moving. Repeat 3-5 times remembering to rest completely between each movement.

Rotating Both Legs Together with Lift (Skiing / double Marilyn Monroe)
6) This is a combination of steps 2 & 3 moving both legs together in synchronicity, not mirroring. From the hip sockets, rotate both legs to the R (R leg outward & L leg inward). Keeping legs glued together, draw your legs up and to the right, letting your knees bend and sliding your feet along the floor. Send the legs out straight again, rotate both legs to the left, draw the legs up and to the left, sliding your feet along the floor. Again, pretend that your legs are immobile from the knees down. Let all the movement originate from the hips on both the drawing in and the straightening out. Notice how your back is moving. Repeat this skiing motion 3-5 times remembering to rest completely between each movement.

To Finish
You might want to take another round of Arch & Flatten and Arch & Curl or add on a few other movements from the cat stretch (see links below for review).

Enjoy!

Read more:
Myth of Aging Week 1
Myth of Aging Week 2
Myth of Aging Week 3
Myth of Aging Week 4
 

Pelvic Floor - to Kegel or not to Kegel?

My attention was recently brought to the Mama Sweat blog and a post about the pelvic floor. I feel like my world was blown up after reading this:

Mama Sweat: And kegels. Everyone on my blog has heard me preach about kegels. I want to make sure all my readers are doing them right. Suggestions?

Katy Bowman: A kegel attempts to strengthen the PF, but it really only continues to pull the sacrum inward promoting even more weakness, and more PF gripping. The muscles that balance out the anterior pull on the sacrum are the glutes. A lack of glutes (having no butt) is what makes this group so much more susceptible to PFD. Zero lumbar curvature (missing the little curve at the small of the back) is the most telling sign that the PF is beginning to weaken. Deep, regular squats (pictured in hunter-gathering mama) create the posterior pull on the sacrum. An easier way to say this is: Weak glutes + too many Kegels = PFD.

What??? Everything I thought I knew seems wrong all the sudden. Well, not exactly. After reading this interview and visiting Katy's website it turns out that many of the things I have learned and taught about the pelvic floor are in alignment with what Katy teaches but I had never thought about the sacrum being pulled toward the pubic bone as a result of over tightening the pelvic floor and thus creating a loose/hanging pelvic floor.

Read the whole article here.

Apparently this topic was so popular Mama Sweat did a follow-up interview to clarify a few points. Here's a quote:

Back to Dr. Kegel. Now he had all these women who were noticing weakness and invented the Kegelizer, or something like that. It was equivalent to the Kegel-exercisers you see now. Just insert and squeeze. The squeeze improved the lost mental connection between a damaged PF and one that was firing correctly. Firing correctly meant that when the PF was done contracting, the muscles could restore to their optimal length. This part of Dr. Kegel’s research protocol has been left out and the only part that has been passed on is the contracting part.

Science Note: The muscle tissue in your PF is the same as the muscle tissue in your biceps. When you’re done realllly working your biceps, you’d like your arm to go back to its original length, right? What if, when you were done doing your curls, your elbows stayed as bent as they were when your muscles were the TIGHTEST? If you equate strong with tight, then you’d have “strong,” contracted arms with bent elbows all the time. Tight muscles. Unusable arms.

That’s not what TONE is. Tone is having the MOST strength and the MOST length.

Doing Kegels all the time will get you a TIGHT, unusable pelvic floor. This is why people’s ORGANS ARE FALLING OUT OF THEIR BODY.

Read the whole article here.

Well this is making sense to me now. Yoga teaches us that a strong muscle is toned not tight and stress is not strength. I biked a lot this summer and I found that I "felt it" in my inner thighs and butt. I know my pelvic floor is strong (or perhaps over strong) and after biking I realized how much I needed to tone some of the other major pelvic girdle supporter muscles. These articles are falling right in line with what I have been feeling in my own body. Excellent couple of articles on pelvic floor health.

If you are interested in learning more about toning the pelvic floor, pelvic girdle and the "helper muscles" here is a link to a series of articles I wrote on this topic:  Restoring and Rebuilding the Inner Core.

Myth of Aging ~ Week 4

This week in Somatics we learned "The Washcloth." Think: ring yourself out. Yep, all about twisting. Previously we had learned to contract one area while simultaneously relaxing another area (like in Arch & Curl where you engage the belly and relax the back and then switch and engage the back and relax the belly - see week 1 & week 2).

The Washcloth got us moving in all directions at once it seemed. There's legs, arms, shoulders, head, belly, back & breath involved so I'll see if I can break it down.

Legs:
Start by laying on your back with your knees bent and feet a bit wider than shoulder distance apart. Let your knees rock slowly from side to side and notice what your hips are doing (one should be lifting while the other sinks more into the floor).

Arms & Shoulders:
Out like a T. One arm rotates up while the other rotates down. For example, R palm turns up, thumb pointing to the wall behind your head while the L palm turns down, thumb pointing to the wall beyond your feet.

Tip: Let your hands receive the twist. Begin each movement from the shoulder. So when you want your palm to turn down, make that happen by rolling your shoulder inward and down toward your belly. When you want your palm to turn up, press your shoulder blade into the ground and roll your shoulder open.

Head:
Just like in a regular twist the head will look in the opposite direction from the way the knees fall.

Belly, Back & Breath / Putting it all together:
While your knees are falling L and your L back of hip is pressing into the floor, your head is looking R, and your R shoulder blade is pressing into the floor, causing your R palm to turn up. The L shoulder is lifting slightly and drawing toward the R hip, causing your L palm to turn down. These movements are creating a slight diagonal arch from the back of the R shoulder to the back of the L hip and a slight diagonal curl from the front of the L shoulder to the front of the R hip.

Taking it to the other side, your knees are falling R and your R back of hip is pressing into the floor. Your head is looking L, and your L shoulder blade is pressing into the floor, causing your L palm to turn up. The R shoulder is lifting slightly and drawing toward the L hip, causing your R palm to turn down. These movements are creating a slight diagonal arch from the back of the L shoulder to the back of the R hip and a slight diagonal curl from the front of the R shoulder to the front of the L hip.

For me, it works best to exhale as I come into the twist and inhale as everything comes back to center. The slower you move and the more mindfully you practice the better the results (relieving pain, increasing range of motion). Sometimes this means that I have to take multiple breaths per side vs. flowing with the twist in a one breath per movement pattern.

Enjoy!

Read more:
Myth of Aging Week 1
Myth of Aging Week 2
Myth of Aging Week 3