Uttanasana, or standing forward fold, is an asana that is good for all athletes. The pose is benificial because it releases the muscles of the low back and the hamstrings. Notice I said "releases," not stretch.

When I started thinking about what poses could benefit athletes, Uttanasana was one that I didn't immediately include in my list. The reason for this wasn't because it was too simple, or too well known, (all you do is bend over, who couldn't do that?). What came to mind as I thought about Uttanasana, or standing forward fold, was the risk of an athlete injuring his or herself in this pose far outweighed the benefits to be had from using it. But then I read something on Lucho's blog in the comments that caused me to rethink things.

Basically, this boiled down to two things. First, Lucho (Sorry, can't locate his original post) cautioned athletes about stretching, and yoga in particular, citing the potential for injury. And second was Lucho's saying he could put his palms on the floor without feeling any pull in his hamstrings at all. Personally, I completely agree with both of these sentiments. But I have a couple of caveats to add. After having practiced yoga for over 5 years, I've discovered there is actually no stretching of muscles going on in an "informed" practice whatsoever. Yoga demands the development of coordinated muscle activity. As such, a pose like Uttanasana is as much a core cultivator as it is a hamstring release. And it is that ability to learn to consciously let go of the hamstrings that allows this asana to bestow its benefits on those who chose to explore it more fully.

In life we spend a great deal of time accumulating things for a variety of reasons. Tension and the illusion of control are among these. The standing forward fold, while a good pose for releasing accumulated stress and tension in the body, also provides a framework to allow us to experience the process of releasing our unconscious hold on the hamstrings which in turn usually results in a tight lower back. Instead of "stretching" the hamstrings, what we are learning to do in this position, is to mindfully release them. By releasing the hamstrings consciously, we deepen the fold and our experience of it, but we also gain access to more direct control of the working muscles in our bodies.

This is the process I feel we go through as we progress as people and as athletes. Each workout provides us with more and more insight into the inner workings of our own bodies and how they respond to various training loads, meals/fueling, and rest patterns. In the forward fold there is a point in the body, especially when the folds are new and your limits seem set in stone, where as you reach your limit, you begin to hold on for dear life. You lock certain muscles in place so that you don't break, lose your depth or fall over. If you don't take stock of where you are at this point to see exactly what is going on, how you are using the muscles in such a manner as to actually build a very substantial (albeit mental) wall between you and your goal of moving your nose closer to your shins, you will have reached the limit of expression in the forward fold for you. But if you are able to stand at your edge, breathe, observe, and take stock as to where you are holding on, you will in time begin to notice some of the muscles you have been using in your "fight to maintain" your current depth are actually the same muscles holding you back from a deeper expression in the fold. It is when you realize this, you can begin to consciously release these muscles one by one. It is at the very point you decide to let go of these muscles that have been useful in keeping you at your current edge, you discover you can move deeper and express more fully in the pose.

The same can be said of any other aspect of our lives. Once we realize our own perceptions -- fears really -- are the only thing between us the realization of our dreams, we are then capable of remarkable things. In yoga, the act of folding forward is a physical "bowing in" to and an acknowledgement of the self.

To come into Uttanasana poperly stand with the feet together, hands on the hips. Bend forward at the hips, using them as a hinge, versus bending at the waist which strains the lower back. Bending at the hips your pelvis should articulate backwards slightly and as you fold forward there should be a small inner rotation of the upper thighs. This rotation will create space for the torso. Once you feel any pull in the back of the hamstrings, this is as far as you should fold. Explore this point either with your arms folded over head, hands cupping the elbows, or hands at the shins, or fingertips or palms on the floor. In time as you explore your individual edge, you can work on relaxing and releasing the hamstrings consciously. By focusing on the role of the core muscles once you have released the hamstrings, you will be able to find a deeper fold.

You can find a picture and more details on the pose here.

These Legs Carry Me Far

The run was supposed to be 6. But it turned into 10. I wanted to see the other side of the lake. Truth be told I wasn't even feeling like 10 when this all started. "Just 6." My mind kept saying as I moved along the trail. "Maybe even 4. 4 is good too. And very even. Plus less than 6." My mind speaks in simple sentences while running to conserve energy I've found. But then I started the first fartlek and everything changed.  

1. I've been a vegitarian for over 20 years. Almost half my life. This is also about the length of time I have lived on the same Cul de Sac (exactly 20 years this August) and almost the same amount of time I've owned the car I currently drive (I bought it new).

2. I don't tend to change something that is working - reference #1

3. On the other hand, I've worked at Cisco Systems for almost 5 years. This is the longest "grown up" job I've ever had. I worked at RunTex longer than this, but I don't consider that work. I had too much fun and would have done it for free if there weren't things such as food and rent in the world. For further insight into this, reference #2.

4. I am on a first name basis with every squirrel and every raccoon in my neighborhood. The squirrels are all named Squeaky and all the raccoons are named Rocky (except for one - her name is Momma and we are best friends).

5. I went to a Catholic school from kindergarten through 12th grade. I swore I'd never set foot in another Catholic School ever again and went to a public university for 3 years. I graduated from St. Ed's here in Austin. That still ranks as one of the best decisions I've ever made.

6. Though I am friends with several people who earn their livings as professional psychics, I do not seek their advice. However on occasion they have asked for mine.

7. I am very observant. I am also very honest. If you like friends who don't notice little things or who tell you what you want to hear, I am not the friend for you. In that light, I am also not the boyfriend for you if you ask me questions about how your clothes fit.

8. I would rather be out riding my bike than doing just about anything else. So people or things that constantly get in the way of that tend to get removed from my life quickly.

9. I can keep a secret so well if you ask me about it later I will have forgotten we ever talked.

10. My parents put me in a research study at 3 years old that tested IQ. Because of it I know this : My IQ was higher at 3 than it was at 10 or at 18. But even if that downward trend was extrapolated to my current age, it is still probably 2 times that of the last president of the United States of America. I'm just saying.

11. Because of the testing referenced in #10, I was placed in advanced mathematics courses in high school and college, but as an adult I was completely unable to pass a basic math competency test during a job interview. A trip to Half Price Books, an hour and an interview with a competing company that used a similar math skills assessment were all that I needed to secure the highest score recorded at the second company and a new job.

12. I do not give up easily. See story in #11.

13. I am not at all religious, nor do I place any emphasis or importance in faith. That being said, I can speak candidly about developing a personal relationship with The Divine.

14. I drove to Vegas from Austin with my best friend and a priest. In 3 hours, with only $10.00 on me, I won over $2000.00 on multiple slots by listening to the sounds the machines made when other people played them. As I said I am very observant.

15. I like most sports, though I no longer watch them. I prefer spending my time creating my own inspired moments as opposed to watching the inspired moments of others.

16. Apparently my super power is I am impervious to both stimulants and relaxants. I have never been drunk or had a hangover, though I spent a great deal of time and money in college and on 6th street attempting to experience both. I have also never been high. This includes not being able to be put under with anesthesia as well as the beloved "Runners' High". But I still run even though I don't really know what I'm missing - or so I'm told.

17. I am that guy people will walk up to and ask for directions or "Do you work here?"

18. I have driven half way across the country in a car with both of my parents twice as an adult. Both times I became better friends with them.

19. My freshman year in college I threw a paper route with my then 75 year old grandfather. He got the job for me so that I could have spending money without having to work long hours. Every morning after we'd finished he took me out to breakfast. I will never forget this.

20. I am probably a better cook than I am an athlete. I have tons of cookbooks. I have read them all but tend to make up dishes from combinations of the pictures versus the actual ingredients called for in the recipies.

21. I love yoga, but really grew to despise teacher training. Too much of a good thing I suppose...

22. I own a cat named Spot, who when so inclined plays fetch and brings me my mail. Alas the mail rarely survives the trip without some scarring.

23. I feel if you are going to be in charge or make decisions that affect the lives of others, you had better know what you are doing. For more on this see #10.

24. I was not a fan of drinking water until I tasted "clean" water.

25. For a summer in high school I dug ditches for a living. There I met a kid with no family and absolutely no idea how old he was or when the last time he'd been in school or slept in a place with a roof. He was definitely worse off than the other guy I worked with that summer who lived with his family in their car. All five of them. It is because of these experiences that I have absolutely no problem paying higher taxes or providing government assistance to those who need it or are less fortunate than I.

26. I have no problem telling you I don't know something. And I have no problem learning something new.

27. I think wars and the instruments used to conduct them provide a poor return on the investment in both lives and money. On the other hand they do seem to provide plenty of excuses to keep fighting them.

28. I believe fear drives many more decisions in this world than love. This is a shame. I'll be glad when we grow out of this phase as a society.

29. I don't believe we are the Lords of this world, but its caretakers. So far we aren't doing a very good job. When we realize our wealth isn't in hording limited resources but in harnessing the collective, ulimited potential we all hold in our hearts and between our ears, the universe will open untold secrets to us and we will finally know and experience true abundance.

Personally, I could say that listening to your soul is the easiest thing in the world to do.  I could say that so, I will.  "listening to your soul is the easiest thing in the world to do."  

I don't believe in Karma in the common sense.  But I suppose that has to do with the perspective one ultimately holds.  If you find yourself asking questions like, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" then I suppose the standard definition of Karma where would apply.  Personally, I view Karma simply as the sum total or results of the choices we make as individuals and as a global society.  From this perspective, we each have the power to create our lives consciously from moment to moment. 

When you think of the images that follow thoughts about karma, such as bad things being the results of an undeserving person's actions or treatment of others, I think we forget the role we all play in the equation.  No person comes to the point of decision in their lives without having been touched and affected by the larger community in which they live.  On some level our karma, our choices and our experiences are all shared.  What affects one affects the whole. 

So in this light, by making better choices  we create the possibility for others to follow our example and the entire fabric of experience becomes more expansive.  There is less fear and more acceptance.  Imagine the type of karma that could exist in that place.  In this place even Karma would have lost its "bad" rap.

I'm thinking about masks.  The ones we wear in the spirit of the season and the ones we live with every day after the Halloween costume comes off.  Recently I read a sentence somewhere that made me think of who it is I really am.  The sentence was discovered in a random "stroll" through a used book store. 

"If you want to discover who you really are, fall in love with yourSelf." 

So as I've gone about my days since, I've asked myself what would my life look like if I really and truly loved myself?  What would I look like?  And who could I potentially become?  Not just on the surface, though I can even imagine my appearance would be different.  I certainly would not have grey hair.  But I am also wondering what I would look like on the inside.  What type of life would I have and what would I be doing with it?

There have been times in my life when I have been in love with myself and I have lived and acted and spoken exactly as mySelf.  But I must admit these times have been too few and much too far in between.  I think it all comes down to what is it that I fear I stand to lose for engaging in such a love affair with mySelf.  And what do I really look like when the masks of a lifetime of hiding and partial self acceptance finally come off?

This morning I got to talk about running with a friend.  Personally, I think it is a good thing to pay attention to your thoughts and feelings when you are discussing a topic you love.  And I love running.  I was standing out on the balcony listening to the excitement about the newness and infinite possibilities running was opening up in this person's life and as I listened, I could get a sense of who I really was.  (It always amazes me when someone holds the space for your Self discovery merely by being themselves...) 

As we talked I remembered all the times I'd run around the lake.  The effortless runs where everything just seemed to fall into place and it was as though the lake some how fed my arms and legs and breath.

I thought about the time I was given an ultimatum at a job, "Be the person we want you to be or else!"  A single trip down to the lake and 30 minutes spent watching others run at lunch caused me to realize because of this job I hadn't been outside while the sun was out in over 6 months.  I also had not run in as long, making that my longest "non-injured" hiatus from running.  They had given me the weekend to decide, but I knew my answer after walking down to the lake.  I went back to the office  and quit.  That day.  Because those 30 minutes spent down at the lake and because of running, I'd found out who I was and wound up taking a job at a running store for much less than I'd been making.  But my reward wasn't really in the form of a check.  It was being able to share my passion for something that I'd come to love with others.  For the first time in my life I was doing work that I didn't have to hide from myself or others.

It was during this time, I would run around the lake and when the runs were long, over 2 hours, I would visualize myself on the other side running strong and effortlessly toward the finish.  So strong was my vision, I could almost see myself, hear the eveness of my breathing, and feel the strength in my legs as I upped my pace.  My heart is open and there is an energy drawing me toward the finish.  I am at peace.  No matter how horribly my runs may have been going at that point, by the time I completed the vision, everything I was experiencing during the run had changed for me.  I really had become that strong, effortless runner I saw in my mind's eye.

And this is what I saw as I spoke to my friend on the balcony this morning.  I saw mySelf running on the other side of the lake with strength and ease.  And I realized I already had a relationship with mySelf.  This is what I looked like when all the pretenses and masks had fallen away - I am that soul living up to its full potential, running around the lake with footsteps quick as lightning, silent as whispers, breath as strong and infinite as wind, drawing energy and light from living my own truth.

Lately I've been sitting in silence.  And in doing so I have been thinking about Diane.  I haven't heard from her in over 15 years.  For all practical purposes, Diane was my spiritual teacher/guide.  She is largely responsible for my approach to my  life and spirituality as it exists today.  I am grateful for my time with her and with my full being I wish her abundant love and well being always.

As is common for me when just sitting, I find myself observing the path of my thoughts and comparing them to the actual external reflection that is daily life to see where things might lead -- much like cosmic bread crumbs scattered strategically leading to a higher purpose.  As easily as being lead from one room to the next my thoughts turn to Yoga.  I am watching someone come into an array of backbends, each one more challenging than the last.  First there is Upward Facing Dog.  Then there is Camel Pose.   Finally, there is Upward Facing Bow Pose.  In each pose the person's heart seems to reach across the room, the spine is spacious and supple, and I am amazed at the ease present in each pose.  Love seems to fill the room eminating from the Yogi's whole being as a result of the deep and heart focused practice. 

In Yoga, backbends are essentially heart openers.  By focusing on expanding into the heart and creating space there, the spine becomes open and extends and lengthens the entire area of the lower back.  When I came to sit I was considering recent challenges that had presented themselves in my own life and how constricted I had been feeling as a result.  My teacher Diane always talked about clearing and expanding your energy prior to manifesting a new reality.  If you were attempting to create something bigger and more expansive in your life, you needed to first create the space for it in your consciousness.  Her humor and insight were notorious for creating a space of unlimited possibilities where none seemed to have existed before.  Now I see that the size of her love for us and her consciousness were inextricably linked.  She held for each of us the possibility of our reaching our unlimitied potential until we could finally see it and hold it within our own hearts. 

As I reach the end of my psychic bread crumbs, I suppose Diane is still doing it.  At the end of my contemplation, I was left with a single thought:

"... The space within your heart is directly proportional to the space in your life.  Your heart IS quiet large..."

That is "SO" Diane...

Blessings and Namaste.

This weekend I sat down to write a blog about the "Authentic Self", but apparently the universe had other plans.   Somehow I managed to lose a very good quote I was going to use that I'd heard in Yoga class. 

When something like that happens, I have to look at it for what it is and move on.  Obviously I had a much more important topic to consider.  My focus changed after talking with  friends this week who both asked me questions about spirituality and the purpose of meditation and other spiritual practices.  They were also wondering about various methods and tools/props that they'd come across.  Both times I used the same analogy to frame my answer.  But because one friend was a practicing Buddhist and the other a practicing Christian, I was amazed that one answer and this nifty video of Carl Sagan from YouTube satisfied both people. 

Consider this.  When you practice, be it prayer,  meditation, yoga, martial arts, singing, painting, writing, or whatever your chosen gateway might be, you enter into a sacred space.  It is while you are in this sacred space that your perception can expand allowing you to see and experience things outside of your normal frame of reference.  Sometimes when so moved by an experience of expanded reality we try to "translate" or integrate it with our own daily life.  This is what Sagan is describing in the video below so well.  Whether or not you believe in the actual existence of Jesus, what I have always found so interesting was the constant use of metaphor to describe himself, Heaven, The Father, and our connection to all three.  But the problem we face when attempting to share this expanded reality with others is  inherently complex.  This is because it is just like an attempt to explain to people only familiar with experiencing life in 2 dimensions about the existence of a third.  Imagine for a moment what that could be like.  These people would have absolutely no frame of reference from which to understand the concepts and ideas you are trying to convey.

With our practice we are seeking to expand our awareness to see the totality of truth.  From this perspective it is the truth that has been there all along but our capacity to experience that truth may have been diminished for some reason.  Hmmm... Now that I think about it perhaps that quote and the Authentic Self are relevant after all.  The quote I heard in Sanieh's Yoga class a couple of weeks ago was, "Yoga is a means we have of undoing the damage inflicted by the worship of who we are not."  (The quote itself comes from a YogaSoup ad.  As I am writing this Sanieh graciously has sent me another copy of the quote.  Gotta love the synchronicity of that.)  Perhaps it isn't so much that we have become damaged, but that we have forgotten the larger reality of which we are always a part.  The word Yoga can be translated to mean "yoke or union."  When we practice Yoga, we are yoking or joining with our Higher Self.  When this happens we are then reminded of our greater nature and purpose and the larger reality to which we truly belong.

Anyway, what Sagan explains so well is just because we are not capable of seeing or experiencing a third, or fourth, or fifth dimension does not mean they don't exist.  The more accurate TRUTH is that we are still even a part of those dimensions we are not fully aware of.  Through our practices, we expand our ability to perceive, and ultimately participate more fully in, all the many dimensions we come to know as we grow as spiritual beings.  Check it out.  Then take a journey out of Flatland.

"I came so that you might live, and that you might live more abundantly..." This is a rough paraphrase of John 10:10. For some reason these words have been with me this week, following me as I go through my day, peaking at me from around corners, whispering to me as I listen to music.

Looking over some posts on the internet regarding the interpretation of these words, I am struck by how few people take them to mean the actual experience of abundance in their lives now. Most people take the words to mean an abundant life contingent upon some sort of behavior, future condition or, in most cases, death.

Today, I've decided to take them on the simple surface of what is being communicated. "I came that you might live, and that you might live more abundantly." To me the message isn't some future promise but a statement of fact and a statement of present condition versus future possibility based upon meeting some unspecified criteria.

In that sense, I am coming to understand abundance isn't some concept based upon future circumstances but a condition that is met by simply being alive and aware that it is so. What does this mean? For me I am starting to understand the past, present and future all intersect at a point within my own consciousness. Where I am open and receptive to see the abundance I enjoy now and how it integrates with my life's purpose, I don't see a moment where I was ever "not" abundant. And now I can't imagine a moment when I will cease to be.

My cat Spot.  Sometimes it can be so easy to overlook the simplest forms of abundance in our lives.  This is a picture of Spot accepting and enjoying what has been given.  As I look at her in this discarded shoe box, I am reminded how often I've have looked at gifts, or spaces, people, or situations and said both inwardly and outwardly, "This is not enough."

But when I look at my cat in this shoe box that I left on the living room floor, I can't help but wonder what would happen in my life if I took the spaces, the blessings, and situations I have been given and filled them up with my whole being by truly embracing them?

I think life provides us with the experiences we need to grow into to the enlightened beings we are all capable of becoming.  Outwardly, the circumstances may not always appear ideal.  But in retrospect, I can't honestly think of a situation where this wasn't the case.

In the simplest terms I think abundance is the experience of allowing love to flow freely into and out of our lives.  It is simply the ability to experience love while engaged in acts which see us opening up to the process giving and receiving of ourselves without reservation.

Spot doesn't question the shoe box on the floor in our living room.  But several times a day she makes use of it and takes full advantage of its presence.  And why wouldn't she?  She is a child of the universe and is always provided for.  What simple expression of universal love could you take advantage of in your life today?  For me I think there is a tree down at Barton Springs with my name on it.  A blanket, a good book and about an hour should be more than enough.

Namaste.