The AfterMath of Belly Dance & Yoga

Well, I just finished a weekend workshop of Belly Dance and Chakra Yoga ( which is the part of the workshop I faciliatated) and I have to say I was totally inspired by this beautiful dance and quite intrigued by the similarity of the two. I learned that Belly Dance is a dance designed for women by women and it consist of movements that enable the women to let go of different physical and mental blocks. Like yoga it works with the subtle energies of the chakra system and through the dance, the women enables herself to balance the chakras by moving different physical areas of the body. A lot of women's second chakra is unbalanced. The pysical location of the Svadisthana chakra is the pelvic basin. The ASIS (hip bones ) are either tipped forward too much ( anterior tilt ) or too far back (posterior tilt ). When there is an inbalance pyhsically, the chakra becomes unbalanced. The most effective way to balance the chakras are to realign the body physically. In the example of the Svadisthana chakra we can do a posture such as Utkatasana (chair posture) to realign the pelvis. If you sit down like there is a chair behind you with your feet together and your hands on your hips, you can feel what happens to your pelvis as you bend into the knees. To really find opposite ends of the spectrum you can really reach you tail up to the ceiling and find anterior tilt in the pelvis and then really tuck your tail to the floor and find anterior tilt. Play with these two extremes a few time and then see if you can find a place of equilabrium. Eventually, the muscles used to support this posture become stronger and the pelvis becomes align with the feet, which eventually realigns the entire spine.....and then we are into an entire different groups of chakras. Lets stick with the second one ( Svadisthana ). Once we have found this alignment, we can use different mantras and yantras or belly dance to move and focus energy to this chakra. Svadisthana chakra is related to the elements of water and is concerned with creativity, sexuality, likes and dislikes. It is very much an energy center of feeling and signs that this chakra is out of balance are things like complulsive behaviour. fear of commitment, lack of desire and addiction. The chakra system is a very intresting tool that you can use to explore yourself in a very non-evasive way. You can use yoga to help you balance your chakras and really find the energy of the chakras in my new found love of the belly dance

Takin Health For Granted

This past Sunday I got thrown for a bit of a loop. I got really sick! It came on very suddenly and ended up being quite fierce. I think it must have been the 24 hour flu...not fun. I don't get sick that often ( the odd sniffle ) so it really shocked my system. I forgot how lousy it feels to be down and out. Just today I am getting my energy back and am not feeling weak and fragile. I guess you have to get sick once in a while to appreciate being well which has been my message to all of my students this weak; really appreciate and be grateful that you have the health to practice and move. Now that I am back, I have been inspired to pay attention to how it is that I haven't gotten sick for over 3 years! I practice yoga, I walk or go to the gym a few times a week, I chase my 14 month old, I eat breakfast, I drink coffee twice a day, I drink wine once or twice a week...usually twice, I eat a lot of salad and I love sushi, I drink Youth Juice, I drink a lot of water, I try to get 6 hours of sleep a night, I put ground flax seed in everything, I love cheese, and I always get popcorn at the theatre. I guess I live a pretty balanced life...hmmm. Ok, now that I have written that all down its time to get back on the healthy train. It is a way better place to spend the day!