Heavy Yoga Bloga

The Flu

2010-12-03T12:48:00.002-05:00

I have had the flu for the past three weeks and have just started to return to my morning yoga routine. I feel new again. Finlay the flu has lifted and I can again breath and do yoga.
I like doing the shoulder stand at night. A friend tells me that women should not do the shoulder stand during menstruation. The Light on Yoga book tell us not to do topsey turvie positions during mensuration.

Light On Yoga: book

2010-12-03T12:30:00.002-05:00

I have been reading Light on Yoga by B.K.S. Iyengar. This back ground book was first published in 1966. he first section detail yogic philosophy from a mostly Indian perspective. Like how to decrease greed and increase one's love for the evil one. It has some good tips for the physical practice of yoga. Like practice in a fly free room. The asanas section has beautiful black and white photographs and detail descriptions. I am not sure who the person is in the photographs but he is flexible a grass.

Indonesia: top religious body bans hundo heavy yoga

2009-03-31T15:51:00.002-04:00

http://www.thejakartapost.com/forward/emailref/196778

The Indonesian Ulema Council forbade Muslims from taking part in yoga that uses Hindu practices such as chanting mantras. Well, they could do heavy yoga. We don't do anything religious or spiritual. Gravity is our supreme being.

Does smiling make you happy?

2008-03-10T12:50:00.005-04:00

If one is feeling unhappy and one forces a smile does that make you feel happy?
Yes, it tricks you into felling happy.
A physiology fake out your face does on your brain. The brain says, "My body is happy because it is smiling so we are happy."
Usually the brain tells the body how to show expression following feelings the brain has. Brain says, " I am sad make a frown." "I am happy make a smile." Yoga believers say there is no separation between the mind a the body. Perhaps they are tandem instead. Each following the other.
Here is a review of smile studies on Cognitive Daily:
http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/11/just_smile_youll_feel_better_w.php

In one study the researchers had the subjects hold a pencil in there mouths so their face would have the same expression as a smile. The subject rated a cartoon. The subjects with a smile expression thought the carton was more funny than the non-smiling subjects.

Here is a video by Panherne with this author speaking. More video from Panherne can be found here.
http://www.youtube.com/user/PanHerne

(Tons of heavy thanks to Panherne.)

When the horribly happy teacher or parent tells you to "Smile you will be happy".
But you feel this is false.
At one time I thought this way,
Yes, you are grownup and you make your own choices. "This happy face advise is for fools."

But if you want to be happy. If you are sick of being sad, the the fake smile will make you feel better. It works for me.
And people will think you are happy and treat you that way . You will feel happy because you look happy. Moral judgments come into play here also.

"She has no right to be happy" or "They are happy so they must be a good person"

I saw a kid in a supermarket shopping basket. He pointed to the ice case, he said "Cold". He pointed at an innocent, but sad woman, he said "Cold lady". Children are truthful and cold blooded.

So if you yawn with out being tired does it make you tired?
Does an actor playing a villain become truly evil? Just a bit.

I prefer to be happy with a little self delusion than be all real and sad. Give me stupid and happiness or give me wise and sad.

In there future I will write about heavy yoga face poses: The Lion pose, The Sad Therapist pose, The Goofy pose, The Italian Face and Hand Expressions School, The Game Face, The Polite Repressed Smile and the "I Will My Face to Look Like This" pose.

Can heavy yoga be applied to travel?

2008-01-31T17:08:00.002-05:00

Here is how.
Heavy yoga subscribes to the harm reduction method. This says that our client Joe, is an chronic alcoholic. He has tried to stop drinking, but has repeatedly failed. On top of that, when he gets drunk, slips on the ice, sleeps on the snow and fails to eat.
An all or nothing approach to help Joe would be to tell Joe he has to stop drinking entirely. No drinking at all. "One drink Joe and you have failed. "
Joe takes one drink at 3 pm. He thinks to himself, " f**k it I drank one drink I have failed. So why not have an other one or two or more?"
Joe gets drunk and slips on the ice.

In the harm reduction philosophy, Joe may have a drink but he should have it out of danger, he can also be assured that if he has one he can stop at that . He has not failed. It deflates the fatalist viewpoint of all or nothing.

In heavy yoga travel can use a harm reduction philosophy to lighten the load of travel.

Travel is fun. Usually we enjoy travel ing of vacation, not so for business.

For me the worst part of traveling is having my self stuck somewhere uncomfortable. A small plane seat, a noisy bumpy bus set. An over crowed city bus. Waiting in long lines at the airport.

Here is how heavy yoga helps. This is about the emotional aspects of heavy yoga not poses. I am as always very interested in poses that someone might send in to be added to the heavy yoga canon. So send in your heavy yoga travel poses.

Ideally this is what I do when I know I am going to have a long airplane ride. A few hours before I start to relax. Let my legs become un-tense. Even out my breathing. This can be difficult because in the hours before a flight is the time for get all the travel items organized.

But i do it any way. An old trick with anxiety is to do to a safe place and feel as anxious as possiable. Yes exaggerate your "bad feelings". This takes away the fight against t the anxiety and lets you just walk away from the pain. There is no more fighting the bad feeling. This can work for stage fright and other sorts of pain. It can work for physical pain up to a point. It may not work for a sore thumb.

This is one of the great passive aggressive reverse psychology tricks you can play on your self.

When I get my self into a semi- sleep state my doing concentrating relaxation I can pass out on the plane that much faster.

Some heavy yoga practitioner have trouble sleeping in transit because of the bumps. Another self delusion trick is this: Think to your self that each bump along the way puts one more relaxed. Here is a self dialogue. "Oh that was a good bump, that made me more tired. Surprise, there was another that made my legs relax more. All this vibration is just singing me to sleep, it is like a massage." More passive aggressiveness in action.

Heavy yoga rolling on.

Yoga on a bike

2008-01-28T15:44:00.001-05:00

I am trying to devise a way to do yoga on a bike. I ride to work and other places everyday.
But riding a bike is very un-yoga. When bike riding one is in motion. In yoga one is planted on the floor, be it in a room or a mountain top. Bike riding entails navigating the path ahead, at all times. One coaches while on a bike. Rolling speed is the major property of a bike rider.
But are there similarities? Yes.

In heavy yoga there is gravity. Bikes slip around gravity's stopping effects with wheels.
One has other effects of gravity. When rolling down hills and pushing up hills.

I see the largest similarities between biking and yoga in physicality. When taking a turn the centrifugal force always require one to lean into the turn. The whole body is under the effect of gravity and weight.

The pushing of the pedals, one after another. the calisthenics of biking and the formalized poses motion of yoga are another similarity. Perhaps the biggest similarity is the awareness of one's body.
The bike rider's body pushes against the air. The yoga body pulls in air, stops it in the lungs , then expels it.
I want there to be more similarities because I do each of them quite often.
I know what the biggest similarity is between biking and yoga, they are part of a physical life. It is holding on to the bull’s head and enjoying the ride.

Yoga or Die

2008-01-20T13:10:00.001-05:00

yoga or die
I didn't do my normal yoga routine this morning. I jumped on my bike in 23 degree weather and rode out errands. after the first errand my leg to hip joint started to hurt . The pain went down my leg a bit. I' m not one to keep track and monitor every little head ache and chill that I get. I can often just think the pains away by just not worrying about them.
Not this one in my leg to hip joint I blame on my not doing yoga in the morning and the cold temperature.
Now I will do some yoga, it is Sunday, so I am at home in the warmth.
As noted in my entry earlier I do a spot of yoga in the morning. I am not really a student of yoga. More of a improviser.
If any one has yoga ideas or poses or comments please send them to me. This is Heavy Yoga, there is no right or wring way. It is not the only way, But this is non-secret. There is no hidden knowledge.

Honey

2008-01-18T21:42:00.001-05:00

Honey has so many beneficial properties that it is hard to start writing about it.
One caution, don't give honey to kids under one year old. Honey has botulinum endospores: bacteria spores. A baby's digestive track cannot kill these spores and the little tick can get botulism. yuck!

So good! More for us grow ups over one year old.

Bees gather nectar in their honey stomachs, that nectar is passed to another bees that chew the honey with enzymes. The honey is spread around the hive where the water evaporates. Finished honey is sealed in honey cells until eaten by bees as needed.

Honey has been used in medicine since ancient times.

Before the age of pharmacology in the 20th century honey was a major ingredient in most medicines.
A study at University of Pennsylvania found that plain honey was more effective against coughs than a honey-flavored dextromethorphan cough syrup.

Here is link,
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=healthNews&storyid=2007-12-03T215021Z_01_WRI378511_RTRUKOC_0_US-HONEY-EASES-NIGHTTIME-COUGH.xml

Honey spread on burns and wounds is an old practice. It has anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and soothing effects.
On a wound honey produces hydrogen peroxide, which is thought to contribute to its antibacterial effects.

Bert's Bees Wax uses honey skin creams.

I have my own skin preparation that uses honey. The honey from the farmer's market is the best. Uncooked and unfiltered has the most beneficial properties.

Here is a skin lotion I use every day on my face:
2 teaspoons sweet uncooked almond oil
One teaspoon food grade rose water, from the Indian spice store.
And two large drops of honey.
That’s it.
Don’t worry too much about the proportions. But too much honey makes the preparation sticky on one’s skin. Ok it is still honey.
If you have any left over you can drink it.

Is joint cracking good?

2008-01-11T13:38:00.001-05:00

I am a skinny person and my joints crack often. When I do my morning sun salutation almost every joins cracks in some way. It feels good to me. But is good for you?
I was telling a friend about cracking my joints and she just shook he head. "No it is not good."
So find some real ambiguous answers I invaded the internet.
There are a few opinions
Here is one from how stuff works
http://www.howstuffworks.com/question437.htm
It says a study was done of knuckle crackers (see the howstuffwork for the study details, you knuckle heads) and there were no ill effects to the joint themselves. But there was some soft tissue damage. This could result in reduced strength.

On the positive side the surrounding ligaments and muscles become relaxed after a good joint crack.

After a long day of hard physical museum walking or sight seeing my back and hip can feel stiff.
Laying on the floor of my hotel suite and rolling around cracking my shoulders, back and hip gives me more relief then have a large Russian woman hitting me with some oak leaves. Or even a brandy.

For me I thing joint cracking is good, as long as it is not the only reason to do yoga. One could force a joint to crack and do damage to the joint.
Never force anything, it is better to just give up, that's the heavy yoga way.

Corpes pose

2008-01-11T13:32:00.000-05:00

the corpse
Here at heavy yoga find the corpse position one of the core positions in Heavy Yoga practice.
It is the the least active pose and requires no thought at all. What could be better? Don't do anything. As we always say here at HY, "Do less".
In traditional yoga the Corpse position is often done at the end of a routine. It is meant to give a kind of payback after a good deal of stretching, balancing and work. Often it is seen a a moment to completely relax and enjoy all the work one has done. To bathe in the glow of all those yoga moments.

In heavy yoga we go straight to the desert.

Lay on your back with your arms to the side. The idea here is to sink into the floor as much as possible.
Starting with your feet, let them sink into the floor, gravity is working.
Then your calves and thighs. Your butt should just get mashed against the floor.
Let your lower back and stomach become mis-shapened by the floor and gravity.
Your chest muscles and back muscles will become overwhelmed by gravity.
You are breathing heavy air, it moves into your lungs, and just lays there.

Let your face and head be pulled back into the floor.
Stay like that. For 30 seconds or go to sleep that way.
Come back to life and wash the corpse smell of yourself.

lies in his deliberate abandonment of the conventions of his genre.

Sucking gravity machines, Astronauts with blood pressure

2008-01-06T14:00:00.001-05:00

Gravity gives us a reason to have equilibrium, to balance ourselves within gravity’s suction.

The body organs themselves function fine with out gravity. They mostly use squeezing and sucking actions to move material around the body.
One of the physiological effects of weightlessness is that one has a feeling of falling.
According to this piece from NASA
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/pao/History/SP-4026/noord28.html

The course of the psychological impressions apparently would more or less be the following: in the beginning at least during a rapid, abrupt occurrence of the absence of gravity anxiety; the brain and senses are functioning extremely intensively, all thoughts are strongly factual and are quickly comprehended with a penetrating logic; time appears to move more slowly; and a unique insensitivity to pains and feelings of displeasure appear. Later, these phenomena subside, and only a certain feeling of elevated vitality and physical fitness remain, perhaps similar to that experienced after taking a stimulant; until finally after a longer period of adaptation, the psychological state possibly becomes entirely normal.

Water has some unusual observable behavior in a micro gravity environment, like oeter space. If one tries to put water into a bathtub it would float out of the bathtube and stick to the walls.
The surface tension of the water is a stronger force with out the influence of gravity. If the walls of the room were absorbent the water would stick to and be absorbed by the wall until they were saturated. The rest of the water would float around behaving like soap bubbles in the air, joining together in to larger and large 'bubbles'.

If water were in a large mayonnaise jar it would stick to the inside of the jar because of surface tension. One could not pore water out of the jar. One could move the jar forward and stop having the water continue in that direction and coming out of the jar.

Creating a blood pressure gradient,

When one is standing there is a blood pressure gradient in the body. Blood pools in the feet and thins out in the head. In the legs and feet blood pressure is about 200 mmHg (millimeters of mercury). In the brain, though, it's only 60 to 80 mmHg. When a person is in micro gravity environment, like out space, there is equal blood pressure in the lower and upper body. So the body senses there is too much blood, decreases the amount of over all blood in the body. When the person returns to a gravity environment the body senses that there is too much blood volume so it decreases the amount of over all blood.

Bone loss in a micro gravity space environment is more difficult to recover from.
An astronaut can lose up to 40% of her bone mass.
One piece of exercise equipment used in space is a like a vacuum cleaner tube, about 3 feet round and comes up to the waist of an astronaut. The astronaut stands in the device and it sucks down on the exerciser to simulate gravity. So gravity really sucks well.
Heavy yoga is dedicated to research and poetic enthusiasm relating to gravity.

Chapel Yoga

2008-01-03T14:28:00.000-05:00

I just got back from 11 days in Italy. I am very excited about the whole country. I will be going back.

But to try to stay on the topic of this blog, I have a story.

I was in the Brussels airport to change planes on the way back to the US of A.
I arrived at 8 pm and had a flight at 10 am the next day.
So I ate a 'Giant Bacon Burger' at the 'Big Burger' in the terminal. The smallest hamburger I have seem in my life. The actual sandwich was like a button in a shoe box- it just slid around in its fast food clam box.

I drank a Voss dark beer to help make me sleep better.
At 10 PM I decided to go through the first security check, a boarding pass and passport check control. There was one guy there and only in the EU only passport line.
I was the only one in line.

I put on a cheery passive aggressive mood and walked up the inspector.
'I know you are for EU only passports, but here is my USA passport.'
He says,'That's OK I am the only one here.'
I say, 'I have a flight at 10 in the morning tomorrow, so I will be sleeping in the airport tonight.'
The Inspector says, 'Why don't you sleeping The Chapel?'
'The Chapel?'
'Yes The Chapel, no one will bother you there and you can close the door, the sound will be low, no one will bother you'.
I sparkle, 'Thank you very much I will do that.'
'Yes,' says the Inspector passing my passport back to me, ' You just go up stairs and it's on the left.'
'Fantastic have a nice night'
I pass into the new secured zone with my rolling luggage getting snagged in my heals.

One the next level I look on the left side of the area, airport shops and biscuit stores, all of them closed. But no chapel. So I head to the other end of the area .
I see the inspector as he is closing his station and act like I know where I am going. We smile at each other.

Then I see a information icon of a sign of a generic human knelling in prayer.
I follow the arrow.

First I find the Islamic chapel. I decide that it may get complicated in there so I walk on to the Christian chapel.

No agnostic, atheist or pagan chapel. They would have been full of bongo playing youngsters.

My choices were a Protestant chapel, an Orthodox Catholic chapel and a Roman Catholic chapel.
Like the joke, 'There was a priest, a rabbi and an atheist in a boat.'

I went in to the Protestant chapel first because I was raised Unitarian and that was the closest I could come to want ever I may believe.
The florescent-lit room was 30 ft by 20 ft with stackable chairs scattered about the room. A few nature posters with quotes from Martin Luther, b. 1483.
There was a forgettable cross of rough wood and a small collection basket containing pencils and paper pads. I walked out.

I look at the Orthodox Catholic chapel. It is 10ft deep and 15ft wide. No chairs. I got stopped at the door by the full wall of icons with large staring eyes and gold detail. Cool looking images but I thought it might be disturbing sleeping with stylized patriarchs looking at me all night.

I now wish I would have looked at these chapels again during my stay in the chapel suite and even taken photos. But sometimes one does regretful things in airport terminals.

I entered the Roman Catholic Chapel.
One triangle of floor space was filled with grey wood chairs and carpet covered benches.
A large dribble candle crucifix is behind a pulpit made of fake aircraft parts.
At the base of the pulpit was a happy painting of Africans receiving communion from a black priest.
Off to the left side, in a spot light was an Italian style white stone figure, Mother Mary. Behind her are the stars of the European Union arranged on a large blue circle. I took a photograph of it later with me in 'bed'.

In front of Mary I spread out a Brussels Airline blanket, I borrowed it on the airplane from Roma.
There was a carpet on the floor, so it was somewhat soft, at first. I turned off all the lights except for the spotlight on Mary. She could watch over me sleeping.

Here is the yoga part of this entry.
Gravity played with me all night. I tired sleeping on my side but would wake up to turn over. My sleeping pad was hard.
So on my back I could practice heavy yoga to relax myself and would sleep about two hours before I woke up.
I didn't do any yoga poses. I was trying not to get my body exited in any way.
When I fly I try to get my self into a semi relaxed state that makes the time pass faster and smashes all the stress that I may have because of cramped seats, vibration, noise and waiting. I though yoga would break my self spell. Also I had a lot of clothing on and couldn't really move very well. I regret not doing yoga. I also had a tinge of guilt using a Catholic chapel to do yoga in, even though I don't spiritual yoga.
So I just did heavy yoga of letting gravity massage me into relaxing and flexibility.

Two guys came to the chapel at 5 am, taking French. They saw me sleeping there and politely left.
I got a reasonable sleep for being in the airport. When I moved out at 7 am I saw folks sleeping on the metal chairs of the terminal and felt lucky to have gotten a fair night's sleep.

Morning Yoga

2007-02-18T13:38:00.000-05:00

Every morning I do the sun salutation for just 5 or ten minutes. About 4 times thru the 12 poses. This is before any coffee, any physical exertion or any food. I am sleepy and my joints are stiff. Everything cracks and stretches. My legs, hips shoulders, neck all crack and moves. I do a one legged stand, focusing on a spot on the wall. One time each leg. Also I roll on the floor.

Then I do my morning stop watch routine; coffee, wake my 9 year old son, wash face, shave, get him out of bed, arrange his clothing, put on chair, drink coffee, make sure he is putting on cloths, put on my clothes, arrange my computer and his book bag, helmets, gloves, hats, scarfs

"Are your shoes on. Do you have your gloves? Let's put all your books together do you need money for today? Eat the rest of your toast. I don't know how big an actual super massive black hole is. No it won't happen to our sun, yes, I know that. "

Out the door 7:45: unlock the one wheel bike bring down one flight, out to the sidewalk, balance to the back of the daddy bike, connect to daddy bike make u turn on side walk, get on. "Are you ready? One, two, go" Take the first right, still on side walk one block against traffic there is no real traffic to early to the large street, Delancy lots of bridge exiting traffic. Did I ever tell you how much I hate cars?

Into the right lane not many cars here, filled with cars on the next two lane, faster. People step in the street , "Watch the bike", more cars, We peal off in to service road, down the side of the bridge, under the side of the bridge, coasting down. Police precinct, playgrounds, apartments, the school.

"Give me your helmet, scarf too. Bye, see you what do you want for dinner? Macaroni and cheese and salad? OK".

Park the one wheel bike, go inside, make sure Vincent has met up with his teacher in a all good way, back out side, bike to the midtown 49th street 21 floor .

Work work work.

5:45
Out of work, straight down 5th Av to 10st East to Av D, south to Delancy street to Vincent's school. The Forence Nightingale school.
Sign him out, ride home, do homework, make, eat dinner, watch some TV, bed time.

Every day I do yoga even this ten minutes of stretching and balancing makes a noticeable difference. I have more energy, less-no- back pain. My legs are tired at the end of the day, on Fridays especially.
I would like to find away to have legs that or tire proof, or at less tire resistant.

Gravity is the cheapest easiest worker one can fine.

Have you seen Heavy Yoga Dot Com?

2005-12-02T11:02:00.000-05:00

This blog is a sibling site to http://www.heavyyoga.com where you can find more items on heavy yoga including poses. You will need flash to view this site. The site checks your system to see if you need anything to view. Perfectly lazy. Because we are to busy.

More and more heavy

2005-12-01T16:44:00.000-05:00

There is something so obvious about gravity, so ordinary that to separate it off from the everyday life is impossible. One of the comfort forces. it is always the same. When I observe gravity I am never surprised. It is the core of heavy yoga, the heaver the idea / pose the greater gravity is involved.
One of the simplest heavy yoga posing is the corpse pose. Lay flat on your back with the arms at the side, you could fold the arms over the chest like a dead person, if you are in to that. Your legs should lay there- dropping into the floor. If you are in a upper floor you can see yourself dropping through the floors of the building. If you are laying on the ground outside you can imagine you and your body sinking into the dirt.
I like to do the copse pose face down. Some call this the "window diver". This way gravity effects your body from the other side -mashing you into the floor face first. I can really feel the rearranging of my body parts with gravity effecting me from the other side. The problem is: What to do with you head and neck? One solution is to turn your head to one side and use the back of the hand to block out the light. A great passive aggressive move.

Submit poses for heavy yoga

2005-11-30T11:42:00.000-05:00

Calling all yoga inventors!
Submit new poses and ideas for the heavy yoga site. You will get full credit for your ideas and photos, video what ever you submit.
Yes! There is no prize, except the deep feeling of satisfaction that you enjoy by helping the anti-yoga yoga develop into something. Also you get to prove me right about following the open source model of inventing this school of yoga. So send in your ideas, don't be lazy like me.

The blood pressure gradient

2005-11-30T11:15:00.000-05:00

Reading an article about the human body's reactions zero gravity on firstscience.com it mentions the idea of a blood pressure gradient. When a person's body is in a standing position the blood pressure in the feet is higher than in the arms or head. So the blood pressure is highest at the lowest part of the body and lower at the highest part. Well then if you are upside down then your head has higher blood pressure then the feet.
A gravity win again!
If a body is lying with its right side down then the blood pressure is higher on the right side. Do try this at home. Lay on your side, say the right side and feel the internal pressure as being higher on the "down side" than on the "up side"
Here is a link to the article. http://www.firstscience.com/site/articles/gravity.asp

What this is for.

2005-05-31T18:27:00.000-04:00

This blog is for comments about heavy yoga or any kind of yoga. If you have not all ready seen http://www.heavyyoga.com you may want to stop by there to see what all the dust up is about.
One question you may be asking is, "Since when does someone decide that they can just make up a new kind of yoga?" And I may ask you "Since when did you not find some idea or pose or movement on your own that you thought was nice and felt good?" I was finding that I had ideas every day that some how pertained to yoga or at least stress relief. I tried some yoga classes in California, Illinois, NYC and Lisbon. But found that I just wanted to make up ideas on my own. Most of the yoga I ran into was stress inducing on its own.
Really Heavy Yoga is about relaxation and being so obedient that you are disobedient.
More on gravity soon.