Greetings!
Spring has sprung! There's blue skies, warm temps and new growth all around. It's now March, we're officially finished with the BYD Challenge and it's time to reassess life so far this year. How are things flowing? Is the vision you'd set for yourself at the beginning of the year still valid and inspiring? Are you on course to make it a reality?
For BYD Austin and its members, 2010 started with an exciting bang much like a horse fresh out of the starting gate. Now that the challenge is over (read all about the results below) we've hit the lull after the storm and have to renew intention to find the stride that will carry us strong through to our desired finish. Nora Jeanne's article this month is about finding balance, the center of stability and maintaining a focus on the vision that keeps us grounded on the path that will get us there. You'll find it in the right hand column as always.
We're changing the schedule at both studios beginning April 1st (and that's no joke!) and have formed a new bond with GROUPON! Get the details on all of these and more in the Announcements section below and read BYD member Kinaya Ulbrich's blog about her experience with Bikram Yoga and the BYD Challenge.
We're spicing up the healthy food item this month and focusing on cinnamon! You love how it tastes, but we'll bet you have no clue just how good it can be for you!
Happy Spring! |
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Announcements
- New Schedule: Beginning April 1st, we will be changing the schedule at both studios. We will be cancelling the 2:00 pm class at Davenport and the 1:30 pm and 3:00 pm classes on Saturdays and Sundays only at the Downtown studio. Stay current and informed by visiting BYDAustin.com regularly. We will continue to evaluate the class schedule at both studios and always appreciate knowing your wants and needs in this arena.
- Easter: We will have our regular schedule thoughout the Easter weekend.
- GROUPON: BYD Austin is now partners with GROUPON a web based service that provides the modern consumer unbeatable deals on places to dine and things to do and see in Austin. It's quick and easy to become a member of GROUPON and they'll send you regular, steeply discounted offers on goods and services from businesses and attractions all over Austin. It's a great way to learn more about all that Austin has to offer and save money in the process. Click on the link above and expand your horizons in a dollar wise fashion!
- BYD member Monica Rao did great in Los Angeles representing Texas in the Youth Division of the 7th Annual Bishnu Charan Ghosh Cup International Yoga Asana Championships. She said it was a great experience and is already training for next year! To watch videos of the champions and learn more about the competition go to yogacup.com.
Monica with Bikram
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BYD Challenge Results
The BYD Challenge (complete 60 classes between January 1st and March 7th) officially ended on March 7th with the grand finale class held in the Clayton Gymnasium at St. Stephens Episcopal School. 250 people participated in this class!
Number of Teams: 8
Number of Challengers: 259
Total Number of Classes Completed: 13,282
Average Number Classes Completed per Challenger: 51.3
Most Classes Completed by Challenger: 81
Number of "Individual" Completions: 156 (60.2%)
60 Class "Team" Completions*: 193 (74.5%)
Team with Highest Individual Completions %: Cobras 78.8%
Team with Highest "Team" Completions %: Hotties 93.3%
3 Challengers tied for the highest number of classes completed (81!) during the challenge period:
- Tom Buchsbaum (Hotties)
- Jen Ervin (Hotties)
- David Paratore (Rabbits)
The BYD Challenge was a true community affair. Everyone at the studios, whether doing the challenge or not, were both supportive and able to feed off the energy as well.
We'd like to extend many thanks to all of our wonderful sponsors who donated gifts and services that were raffled off to Challengers throughout the challenge.
Full stats will be posted on the Challenge page of the website shortly. |
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Kinaya Ulbrich
 writes of her experience with the BYD Challenge
I have avoided blogging about my yoga challenge experience because I have not wanted to accept that it's over! Yes, it's over! It was difficult, time-consuming, incessant, constant--and wonderful. I have never made a commitment like this ever. I did something wonderful for my body every single day for 60 days and although the grind of it drove me crazy. I miss it. I'm afraid of going back to normal. I'm afraid of losing everything that I've gained and learned from the experience. ***Sigh***
This was big for me. I don't have the words to express what happened to me in that hot room over those 60 days but the best I can say is that I got a glimpse of my absolute best self. Yes, indeed I did. I learned that I am not as fantastic as I think I am while at the same time learning that I am so much more than I ever imagined! Really. It's difficult to explain. But what I'm saying is I learned that what makes me special is not what is unique about me but what makes me special are those things that I share with everyone and everything around me. I am a part of the big picture and not apart from it! I have a habit of dwelling on the aspects of myself that are apart from everything around me. Boring! It has been difficult for me to accept my place in the Universe. I want to go further.
I cried when I completed my 60th class but not on my 60th day. I don't know why it happened. I thought the emotion would come when I finished the entire challenge but it actually happened on my 60th class. I felt finished on that day. A wave of emotion came over me that I still cannot articulate. Certainly it was relief, yet I wasn't finished with the challenge... I guess I don't know what it was but it was powerful. John (my husband) felt so sorry for me. He didn't know what was going on.
Yes, you'll be more fit and strong, especially if you eat properly, however, if you go into the challenge looking for more, looking to learn something about yourself, and with an open mind, you'll get so much more. I am going to continue this journey because I know this is only the beginning. Bikram Yoga is wacky but it's just wacky enough and difficult enough to work for me. I know that there's more for me.
My life is so far from my Great Grandmother's, my Granny's and my Mom's. They have all suffered tremendously because of a lack of knowledge of health and fitness--because of poverty. My Great Grandmother suffered with diabetes, my Granny died so young from colon cancer and my Mother's long battle with breast cancer and later endometrial cancer changed her forever (but I've still got her). When I run, bike, swim, and attend Bikram, I carry them with me in my heart. I can't help but think of them--and a lot of other folk. I am compelled to be the physically best that I can. And I really and truly want the INSIDE to match the outside. I'm fighting for that.
I am living my life in the most generous way I know how because so many that I love could not. I just want to be worthy of it. I just want to be worthy. Bikram's got me thinking in ways I never have. |
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Cinnamon
While in the West we appreciate cinnamon for it's flavor and scent, adding it to deserts and whatnot with perhaps a twinge of guilt, in the East cinnamon has long been used for its healing benefits.
Cinnamon is a very good source of fiber, iron and calcium and an excellent source of manganese. But its the components in the essential oils of the cinnamon bark that provide the most surprising benefits. Cinnamon:
- Lowers LDL cholesterol helping to prevent heart disease.
- Has an anti-clotting effect on the blood.
- Is an anti-inflammatory (good for arthritis);
- Is an anti-microbial that stops the growth of bacteria as well as fungi. It is effective as a natural food preservative.
- Controls blood sugar by slowing the rate the stomach empties and minimizing the spike in blood sugar levels after eating. It also increases cells' ability to use glucose (common treatment for Type 2 Diabetes).
- Improves digestion and clears bile from the colon, providing relief from constipation and diarrhea.
- Is effective against vaginal and oral yeast infections.
- Is a remedy for coughs, the common cold and toothaches.
- Cinnamon's scent alone helps boosts brain function.
REMEDIES:
Colds & Coughs: The Chinese add 1 cinnamon stick to water and boil for 2 minutes, remove the stick and use the water to make green and other teas, drinking two cups a day.
Arthritis: Patients in a Copenhagen University study given 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder mixed with one tablespoon honey before breakfast each morning had significant relief in only one week and could walk pain free within a month!
Toothache: Make a paste of 1 teaspoon cinnamon powder mixed with 5 teaspoons raw honey and put some on an aching tooth and surrounding gums to cure the infection and toothache. | |
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Spring is always a time of renewal and growth. Let this spring be the time you break free from the bonds of tradition, limiting beliefs and all other restrictions and allow the seeds of your most heartfelt desires to sprout with new life.
Join with the rest of the BYD community and let Bikram Yoga help you be centered in yourself, where you'll find balance, peace and all good things.
Enjoy the blue skies, bluebonnets and bounty of spring in Austin!
The Yoga Team
BYD Austin |
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Finding Balance
Retreat! Retreat! My psyche screamed at me as I saw the latest emails waiting to be opened. These were from a new source demanding my attention and time, something that was already in short supply. Just days before I'd realized that my life was out of balance. The daily routine of work and life had lulled me into a place of complacency such that I'd become so bogged down with responsibilities that I was no longer enjoying my life. I was not sure where my professional life ended and my personal life began or where those boundaries should be in order to be healthy. It's only March and the goals and vision I'd set at the beginning of the year were completely off my radar screen, nowhere to be seen.
Right at that moment, the word retreat took on new meaning for me. I love retreats and have been on many. Some long, some short, but always with the focus being almost that of a vacation where you intentionally escape from the routines and demands of your daily life and focus instead on you and your dreams and goals--what you want in life. But this time it was a battle cry and all about survival.
I took a deep breath and stepped away from my computer. I had to ask myself two questions. What was all this about? And how did I let it get this far out of hand?
The irony was not lost on me though it was hard to appreciate at that moment. My intention as I started the year was to create my vision of the life I want to live and be moving along the path to making it a reality. Sounds simple enough, right? Yet here I was with only two months of the year behind me and I was operating in survival mode.
I do yoga, I teach yoga and I help manage a yoga studio. My life is yoga and yoga is union, union within the body, between the body, mind and spirit and in all aspects of life--work, play, family, community, etc. Union requires balance, awareness of the needs and desires of all the different parts so that each can thrive individually and as a part of the whole.
I made a mental note that as I had kept my focus on "my life is out of balance" as a subject matter, it only got worse until my psyche screamed "retreat!" at me. It had to come in the form of a battle cry and by then the message was clear, "don't go any farther in this direction." But the word retreat means more than just stop. It says stop, turn around and go the other way.
The purpose of a retreat is to step out of the fray and regroup, to rediscover and get focused on your true objective. What is it again? How far do we go in the other direction? Do we just keep moving towards the opposite of what we are running away from until we reach the opposite extreme and our psyche screams "retreat!" at us again? The greater the extremes of the swing of the pendulum the more out of balance our life will be so that's obviously not the way.
Just as the Earth and all the planets and their moons move constantly and consistently, ever changing in their relationship to each other as they orbit around the Sun, it's simply the nature of life itself to provide us with ever changing circumstances. Ups and downs, ebbs and flows are a natural part of life. But how do we minimize the fluctuations and stay in a range that is healthy?
As we search for balance in our lives, we can use balance in the body as a metaphor. For even the most grounded and centered person, the body can only stay completely still for as long as we can hold our breath. With the movement of the breath comes movement in the body. And with this ever present force keeping us alive and creating movement, to find balance requires the ability to maintain focus on one thing in order to minimize the swing of the pendulum.
To be balanced we need to first be centered, balancing the right and the left and the front and back hemispheres of our body along the centerline axis. Think of Tree Pose. We have you stand on one leg and lift the other foot up so that it rests against the top of the other leg. Notice as the instructions all call for centering step by step: Allow your knee to gently relax down, push your hips forward, suck in your stomach and stretch your spine up towards the ceiling, push the knee back to bring the knees into one line from the side; hips in one line, shoulders in one line, lift your left hand to the center of your chest, bring your right hand up to meet it in namaskar, standing knee locked, focus, breathe, meditate. Each instruction and movement is designed to draw the body parts and energy in to the center of the body.
Focal points, visual or mental, serve as anchors for the mind and the body. In virtually every balance posture, we teachers tell you what to look at as you begin the posture, often your knee in the mirror or one point on the floor four feet in front of you. We use that visual focal point as an anchor to hold our attention in place. The proper focal point will serve to still the mind and keep the head in a position so as to maximize the alignment and depth of the posture. Using a mantra, a single word or short phrase that gets repeated over and over either out loud or within the mind, is a form of meditation that serves as an anchor and to eliminate the mind chatter. Mardy often repeats a single word in her head as she performs Mountain Pose (the most difficult of balance postures) with ease. Bikram gives us yet another tool when he tells us to hold a vision of doing the posture perfectly as we do the posture. With all of these methods, the goal is to create single pointed focus of mind and intention.
Through all of the asanas (postures) we teachers either give specific directions for your breath or simply remind you to breathe in and out through your nose. The breath is the connection between the body and the mind and, when normal, will quiet the mind. The more active your mind, the more your attention and the center of your energy will be up in your head at the top of your body. This top heavy state is far from ideal for balance in body or life.
The biggest gift from practicing yoga is quieting the mind. As we quiet the mind and allow our energy to move from our head to our heart center, peace, contentment and clarity take over. Stand in one spot and turn yourself around in two complete circles. When you stopped were you dizzy? Have you ever watched figure skaters as they spin and wondered how they do it without getting dizzy? Better yet, think of the Whirling Dervishes of the Sufi tradition. In their dancing meditation they will spin for hours and never get dizzy. The music and their intention to be focused purely in their heart center allow them to move about the room always spinning, with their skirt circling around them perpendicular to the floor, without ever touching or interrupting another. All dervishes, whether whirling or not, are on the path of love, of living a heart centered life, where they reside in true alignment with spirit. In this state, the mind is unable to interfere with its usual confusion or dizziness.
Staying balanced in life requires a regular review of all aspects of your life. Bikram speaks of how certain asanas create a "marriage" so to speak between parts of the body, i.e. the heart and the lungs in Triangle Pose, the kidneys and the pancreas, and the liver and the spleen in Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee. In the asana, they are in effect being forced to work together such that if one suffers the other will suffer.
When your life gets out of alignment, your emotions will be the first to signal a warning. Stresses will bring about negative emotions. If you are in the habit of tuning out or ignoring what your emotions are telling you, these ongoing stresses that don't get addressed and resolved will eventually manifest as physical ailments or dis-ease in your body. It is only your ability to tolerate suffering that determines when you finally stop and shift your attention to something more in alignment with who you are as spirit.
We cannot help but recognize dramatic changes that come about suddenly, but the gradual ones often take us by surprise as well, moving in so slowly that we don't sense the subtle shifts until suddenly the scales tip and we are forced to do something about it. Once things are out of balance, we need to take the time to retreat, even if momentarily by taking a deep breath or two, and get centered again in order to determine how best to move forward. When you allow yourself to tune out the mind chatter and get settled in your heart center, what is important will be clear, the priorities will be clear and your next step will be shown to you.
Do not second guess yourself. That is only the mind interfering with your soul communication. Your soul's voice comes from your heart and is the only one worth listening to.
I used to date an engineering professor. One day while we were in the car driving and listening to the news about the wars in the Middle East, he asked me how I thought peace could be brought to that region. I shook my head at the very sad state of affairs over there and with a swish of my hand said, "Make them all do yoga." He guffawed at what I'm sure he considered my naïve and simpleton response and then quickly caught himself so as not to be rude. As a learned intellectual who'd never done yoga, this notion was simply beyond his comprehension. He had no idea what effect yoga can have on a person or how it feels to be truly at peace with one's self. True peace is not an intellectual concept. Peace is a state of being that comes from deep within. No one can truly understand that until they have personally experienced it.
I have no doubt about the transformative power of yoga. I know that the more people who do yoga, the better a place the world will be. Years ago I devoted a great deal of my time and energy towards this end before realizing that it was not the right time and circumstances at that moment. I backed away and focused on other things.
Four or so years have passed and this opportunity was presenting itself again. I hadn't even opened the emails and my gut reaction was telling me to stay far away. Was this reaction valid? I'd just completed the BYD Challenge of doing 60 Bikram Yoga classes in 66 days and had had to finish with eight doubles in the last two weeks in order to catch up. I was in a good, clear space of alignment. One way or the other I had to respond to these emails. With just a couple of questions I could easily determine if circumstances had changed and whether my time and energy would be well spent. I was confident in my value and vision and unwilling to let it be compromised. After receiving their response it was easy to politely decline the opportunity and wish them well with their endeavors expressing that perhaps in the future, if our mutual visions come into alignment, I may be able to be of service.
Deep down at the center of your heart you know your worth and the value and beauty of your dreams. The more you focus on and resonate with what's at the core of your being, the more you allow it to come to the surface and radiate. Do not compromise your vision and self worth as this is the source of the joy and the good things you experience in life.
All of the struggle and suffering that we experience is the result of resisting or trying to hold back our truth, what naturally wants to flow forth from us. What we radiate out is what we will receive in return. The only real question worth asking yourself is whether you are allowing the goodness of your spirit and vision to flow from and to you or not.
When the answer is yes, the doors will open and the path for your journey will be clear. |
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