Re-finding Balance in Handstand

8 weeks postpartum

I have been really working I cultivate my handstands for over five years and about two years ago I was able to hold my balance in the middle of the room! Then I got pregnant... I continued to do handstands until I was 29 weeks pregnant and got put on bed rest. Then I had a c-section because my placenta was abrupting from the uterine wall. Shortly after giving birth to y beautiful son a flexed my abes an pushed my stomach... Nothing. Total mush. I later tried to do a handstand. I kicked up, did alignment actions + flexed my stomach to stop and balance, but I just kept going over and fell to the floor. Can you say "timber"?
One thing Anusara philosophy teaches us is to look for the good. So besides the obvious goodness of temporarily losing my handstands is gaining my sweet baby boy. Another benefit is that in the process of re-learning and re-finding my balance. I am learning new refinements and ways of phrasing how to teach handstands to my students.

Middle of room:
Muscular Energy: from down dog or from standing slits I kick up toward handstand and squeeze my ankles together crossed. I don't think. I am going to balance in handstand. Instead I think I am going to squeeze my ankle to the front of my opposite shin. Bam! I am balancing in handstand. This happens because I am squeeze the midline (one of the three aspects of muscular energy).

At wall:  I teach handstand at the wall in almost all of my classes. I rarely see handstands being taught in other classes and so many people fear handstands. "I'm not strong enough" I hear so much. Doing handstands at the wall each week I get to see the students gain confidence and get closer and closer to balancing. Now students get excited when we move to the wall and if I don't teach handstand at the wall a few students will hand around after class to get their handstands in. Anyways a few students have been closed to balancing for a while but still can't quite find it. So a I was practicing coming to balance in handstand at the wall both straight up and from "L" pose I found a trick called organic energy.

organic energy: When one is pushing off from L or from regular handstand at the wall they have horizontal movement that brings them to the place they should balance at but the problem is they any stop hat horizontal movement and keep going. Normally I teach don't push off the wall but use inner and outer spiral ad you will natural come off the wall into balance. But still students insist on pushing off. So I suggested that when their body gets stacked to extend down to the floor like crazy from the focal point I. The heart and out through the toes. This will turn the horizontal movement into vertical movement.

Fragility + Beauty of Life

I have been so in love and happy enjoying the blessing of my son who was born a month ago. He really is my bundle of joy, reminding me of all the light and beauty that is in the world. Its so appropriate that thanksgiving is right around the corner because my heart feels like it is going to bust open with the amount of gratitude that it contains.

At the same time my heart is full of happiness it is also full of sorrow. A good friend of mine passed away this week. Life is so fragile and impermanent. It is so sad that a wonderful women in her twenties was taken from this world. Its not fair. Life is not fair.

Its weird to  experiencing two conflicting feeling of happiness and grief at the same time. Part of me wants to go skipping through the fall leafs with my newborn and the other part of me wants to cry under my comforter in the bed.

I know me getting depressed doesn't add love to this world or to my family. So I look for the good. I try to see this as a reminder to live every moment to the fullest. To share love, light and laughter with the people around me. To soak in the grace of my surroundings. To be there for others in time of pain and to not let depression, drugs, harmful relationships, and negative experiences spin me down to death.

Life is so beautiful and as sad and painful as impermanence is. That is one of the aspects of life that makes it so magical.

I have such an abundance of gratitude for all the many many blessing in my life.

What Seperates Us Connects Us

http://www.skillstat.com/heartscape/chambers.htm

I took a wonderful class from Adam Ballenger this morning. He used an example of an anatomical heart, talking about the walls that separate the heart into four chambers (right atrium, right ventricle, left atrium, left ventricle). He pointed out that these wall that separate also connect these chambers together.

http://www.things-to-make-and-do.co.uk/fabric-and-sewing/

I liked this example of how what separates also connects. I thought about patches sewn together. The stitching does separate the two patches but it also connects the patches together.

I once heard John Friend talk about how it is normal for us to look around and see what separates us from others. That is a stage in child development, being able to see what is different from me and you. See that person is black, that person is tall, that person is male, that person is has an accent... These things also connect us too. We all have a color, we all have a size, we all have a sex, we all make speak.

Yoga can be defined as union.

Separation Connection

Awareness: Looking For The Good

One of the many blessing of a yoga practice is just that, practice. We get to roll our our mats or meditation cushions and practice for life. One quality we can cultivate is awareness. I have been thinking about awareness a lot this week (and wrote a few blogs about it). I remember when I first started cultivating awareness on my mat I started to notice everything I was doing "bad" or "wrong". My hips lowered to fast in chataranga, my mind couldn't stop thinking, I kept collapsing in my back... Then I would leave my mat and my awareness was still turned on for looking for the bad around me, in my relationships. and in myself.

To me this is a cop-out in awareness training. Our society is almost trained to look for the bad, just take a look at the newspaper. It is a lot easier to say 5 things your don't like about yourself, your relationship, your job... then it is to say 5 good things. But it doesn't have to be like that. We can train our awareness to look for the good, just like we can strength an muscle. A great place to do that is on the yoga mat. As I practice now I work on bringing my attention to all the things that feel so sweet, My hands feel strong, i feel such a great opening in my side body, my breath is flowing smoothly, my muscles energy in my legs are helps me feel stable...I can see the ripple effect that this practice has on my life. Now I notice the good things in nature, in my relationships, and in myself.

Looking for the good is one of the teachings that informs Anusara Yoga. Adam has been teaching us in teacher training, to always be looking for the good in our students and to learn how to articulate what they are doing good before offering a refinement.

Last night I taught a class at They Yoga Center with this theme idea. It was a great, 12 students! Studio owners Lydnesy and Sheldon took my class which gave me a few butterflies in my stomach but I was so happy they came to support me. They gave me some great feed back as well.