Month: February 2012

Words of wisdom from Grandma

Yesterday, I sent my Grandma an article from Harvard Medical School about some new research touting the merits of a protein from a plant-based diet. As someone who has run the spectrum between carnivore and vegan, I was rather cheekily lamenting my recent departure from the ranks of vegetarian.

Here’s her reply, which just goes to show why you should respect your elders:

“Dear Granddaughter,

Just read your article from Harvard and wish I could participate in one of these studies! As you know, I will be 92 next month and was raised on the delicious food My Mother prepared. This was usually mush or eggs or bread with cream and sugar poured over it (for breakfast). I always drank a lot of milk (before they pasteurized it). We cooked with butter and cream, had fried chicken and I can still taste the little dumplings my Mother made and put in gravy made from the chicken drippings. The burnt sugar cake she made (from scratch) was out of this world. Fried ham and gravy made from the drippings was delicious. I remember the first time I made gravy, I was about 10 years old. We were down at my Aunt Birdie Dawson’s making apple butter. We spent a day each year doing this in a huge copper kettle over an outdoor fire. We had a big apple butter stirrer and it took all day to make. Anyway, I digress, My aunt asked me to go up to the house and fix lunch and I had to fry ham and make gravy. First time. As I recall it turned out O. K.

I am not disputing their studies- I try to eat healthy and try to eat fish a couple of times a week. I have always been a coffee drinker and always loved chocolate. Now after years of saying it was not good for you they tell you to drink coffee and eat chocolate. I always wonder how they figure out how many calories are in things? I really think there is too much time and money spent on telling people what they should and shouldn’t eat and the money could be put to better use drilling water wells in Africa for people there who have to walk miles for a little water.

I really do appreciate your sending me the info and always glad to hear from you. I have read a lot on Yoga lately and think it is a good thing!

I Love you, Grandma XOXO”

health

Sit your ass down, already…and other thoughts on meditation

Today, or this morning rather, I was eating piece toast with cashew butter (homemade, even, dee-lightful). And I decided to make a little agreement with myself.

To self: I will eat this toast with homemade cashew butter, and endeavor to do just that, and only that. No checking email, no reading the paper. Just simply stand, and eat. And taste.

I didn’t get very far before my hands reached for the tv remote (put it DOWN, now! My head belatedly hollered). Then I found my hand reaching for my Iphone (the phonecall to Mom can WAIT!, I suddenly thought, and mentally slapped my hand away.) Then I found myself wandering across the room to go check on the cat (the damn cat is FINE, I caught myself, now just stand still!)

Apparently, I cannot even get through one piece of toast without my mind – and body – running off in six different directions.

This is a sobering thought, as it illuminates something frightening: What is happening for the vast majority of the time when I’m not actually trying to stand and just eat a piece of toast? How much compulsion is daily pouring through my body and mind that I simply go along with (reach for remote, Iphone, cat, etc?). When actions are done before I even realize that they’ve happened? If I have to do some serious focusing just to stay in one place, then what’s going on when I’m not paying so much attention?

Freaky.

I do not have any glorious, pithy wisdom to offer up here. I obviously spend a great deal of time in the throes of my subconscious urgings and only occasionally make it above water to look around at the scenery. But the experience did remind me of a suggestion in the Yoga Sutras, which I’ve been cruising through lately. The Sutras, a series of terse aphorisms compiled back in 200 CE or so, basically throw down the meditative wisdom of the time. Most yogis are familiar with the second Sutra which declares that “Yoga is the restraint of the fluctuations of the mind.” Here’s another that is particularly piquant (translation by Carlos Pomeda):

Sutra 1.13: tatra sthitau yatno’bhyasa
“Practice is the effort to remain there.”

Basically, Patanjali is saying that we need to just sit down already and eat our cashew butter covered toast. Do one thing at a time. Stay “there.” In that space. Can we sit in our stuff? Literally and metaphorically? And not go wandering after the damn cat?

Doing our yoga doesn’t always have to involve incense, candles, and a meditation cushion. We can do it right now, simply by trying to anchor ourselves in doing one thing at a time.

Eat Toast. Then call Mom. Then pet cat. Rather than eat/talk/pet.

A revolution of non-multi-tasking.
So here’s to sitting our asses down, already.

And just taking a moment.

meditation yoga

Freeing the Shoulder: quick tips for creating space

What exactly is the shoulder? And why do they get so freakin’ stuck when we try to lift our arms overhead?

Two Joints of the Shoulder

The shoulder is actually two joints in one: the gleno-humeral joint (the ball and socket joint where the upper arm connects to your shoulder blade) and the scapulo-thoracic joint (a functional joint where the shoulder blade slides around on the back ribs). In order to lift your arm up more than about 30 degrees to the side, you have to actually have to move your shoulderblade on your back. (Go ahead: try to lift your arm overhead without moving your shoulder blade – not going to happen).

When we do this motion, the shoulder blades have to protract – that is, they move away from each other and wrap forward on your ribcage (check out the pic). They also they upwardly rotate, which means that the inner border of your shoulder blade actually moves down as the outer edges move up.

“Draw your shoulders down.”

When we’re in yoga class and lifting our arms, we often hear the phrase, “Draw your shoulder blades together” or “draw your shoulder blades down.” These actions are counter-intuitive to the actual bio-mechanics of the shoulder blade on the back. While a small degree of these actions can create stability, too much will restrict your freedom of movement.

When teachers say, “bring your shoulders down,” they are actually trying to get you to relax your upper trapezius. The traps are the muscles at the base of your neck that love to overact and make your shoulders look all crunchy like. While relaxing your traps is a good idea here, we need to remember that part of the shoulder blade must actually be going UP in order to get your arms overhead. Trying to drag the whole shoulder blade down can create constriction and lessen our freedom of movement.

To get freedom in the shoulders as you lift your arms:

allow your scapulae to move freely on your back body
externally rotate your upper arms as you bring them overhead to create more space between the bones of your shoulder
visualize the inner borders of your shoulder blades moving down as the outer borders move up
relax the muscles at the base of your neck (they’re not needed here) – rather than trying to drag the shoulder blades down your back – to create space around your neck

Still tight?

Some of the muscle that can restrict us when we lift our arms up: