Yoga, training and health inspiration for you

According to yogic philosophy Truthfulness, or Satya is a core value and foundation for a balanced and joyful life. The meaning and practice of Satya reaches further than only speaking the truth. It is about being honest with yourself in your emotions, thoughts and actions. When living in your own truth you become more at ease with yourself, feel more confident, are able to take care of your own needs and to make decisions that serve your higher self. Read this inspiring text from yoga teacher Amanda Holmström and start living your truth!

You are much more than a sum of your past, what you've been through and the decisions you have made. You are far more than the labels we put on ourselves, whether it be a mother, a yogi, a teacher or something else. Even though these roles may serve you and give you purpose one way or another, they might also limit you as they put you in a box of, for example, what we have been told a yogi should be like. If you experience these adjectives as negative, for example “unemployed” or “sick”, it becomes even more important not to identify with these limiting roles and tap into who you are beyond this. 

Yoga teaches that you are already whole as you are and that nothing needs to be improved or changed. The yogic path is not about becoming someone or something else. Through a steady practice we can learn to accept ourselves and shed what does not serve us, from here we can make conscious decisions to express ourselves and live according to our true values.

We easily get caught up spending our days on auto pilot and turning to quick fixes when we feel disconnected or out of balance, which is a way of searching for the truth or a deeper meaning outside ourselves. All the answers you are searching for and your truth already exists within you and cannot be found externally. Yoga is the opposite of a quick fix, its path is honest and sustainable, with present moment awareness as the foundation and acceptance as a key. 

Yoga postures, breathing techniques and meditation are great tools to learn how to accept rather than change. These practices calm the body and silence the mind in order to tap into stillness where you can connect with your authentic self. 

Make it a habit to ask yourself questions, write in a journal and take time to get to know yourself and your dreams. What do you enjoy? What makes you grow and what do you seek? To make a vision board is a creative and fun way to discover and become curious about your dreams and desires! When self-reflecting, see if you can see past influences of friends, family and society. What are your core values and how can you live more accordingly to them? 

When facing decisions, both bigger and smaller ones, practice turning of the auto pilot and ask yourself what you feel and what you need right now. For example, before you step on your mat, ask yourself what you need today. What does your body need, what are your limits and what are your challenges? What does your mind need? How are your thoughts and emotions? Checking in with yourself on a daily basis on the mat gives you a foundation to honor yourself of the mat as well. 

Trust yourself and trust the process!

With love,
Amanda

Further readings

• New research findings on anxiety
• Tantra and desire, by Sarah Platt-Finger

Video recommendations

The social tectonic plates of the world are massively shifting and they are way up there on the hypothetical richter scale. Peace in the world must start with peace within ourselves. Finding balance and harmony in our lives, souls and for the planet upon which we walk our walk cannot be done from the outside. It cannot be structured or forced. It cannot be packaged and sold off the shelf. It must come from the inside.

I believe this fact scares a more and more disconnected community, because we have to confront our primal drivers, identity and authentic selves. We can't just treat the symptoms with a pill. We need to look at the origin, at the source, at the reason for the symptom and attack there! What we are looking at is NO QUICKFIX. Frankly: Isn't that ok? Why are we in a rush? As long as we are moving toward the light, toward love., the pace can be adjusted to be sustainable.
- Definitely a side effect of globalization and an evermore hectic and rapidly changing reality.

Be the light in November! The founders of Jivamukti Yoga, Sharon Gannon and David Life, are coming to Stockholm to spread some yoga love at Wild Wood Stockholm. Experience yoga with Sharon, David and Team Yogobe's guest teacher Camilla Veen from Norway, and meditate with the swedish artist Thomas Di Leva. Here are Sharons words about Jivamukti Yoga and Wild Wood Stockholm.

Soul liberation and enlightenment
The word Jivamukti is composed of two words: jiva = individual soul + mukti = liberation. Jivamukti means soul liberation. The Jivamukti Yoga method is a path to enlightenment through compassion for all beings, grounded in the original meaning of the Sanskrit word asana as 'seat, connection' – relationship to the Earth, this implying all of life. The classes are usually quite vigorously and presented in a flowing form, combined with hands-on adjustments, breathing exercises, meditation, Sanskrit chanting, yogic philosophical teachings and deep relaxation.

Compared to a lot of other types of modern yoga, it perceives yoga not as just a way to improve ones physical health but in a more holistic way, equating yoga with spiritual enlightenment. One of the main things that strike most people about Jivamukti Yoga is the emphasis on ahimsa (non-harming) – especially expressed in veganism and animal rights activism. 

Chanting and music in a Jivamukti class 
During a class we experience chanting and music through Nada and Shastra. Nada yoga – the yoga of deep listening – is one of the five tenets of Jivamukti Yoga: The development of a sound body and mind through deep listening. The teacher will incorporate this in class using recorded music, spoken word or silence. Exuberant, eclectic music plays an integral role in a Jivamukti yoga class. 

Shastra – the study of yogic teachings as found in the ancient Sanskrit texts – is another one of the five tenets. This is usually incorporated in class by the teacher leading the class in chanting a Sanskrit mantra and/or a verse from a classical Yogic text, for example: Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra or the Bhagavad Gita, then explaining the practical application of that classical teaching in one’s modern life. Each month there is an essay written by either Sharon Gannon, David Life or one of the senior Jivamukti teachers in the lineage. The teachings in this essay focus on one or more philosophical ideas/concepts found in the shastras (classical Yogic scriptures).   Another way that Shastra is incorporated into the Jivamukti Yoga system is through the study of Sanskrit. All teachers are given a basic understanding of the alphabet and some rudimentary grammar, when they are certified as a Jivamukti Yoga teacher and because most of the relevant ancient Yogic texts are written in the Sanskrit language, Jivamukti teachers are encouraged after graduation to continue to study.

Experince this at Wild Wood Stockholm
Vigorously physical and intellectually stimulating yoga classes, including flowing asana sequences, hands-on adjustments/ alignments, breathing exercises, chanting, yogic philosophical teachings, meditation and deep relaxation. 

• Three special three hours master classes where you get the opportunity to go deeper than what we can typically accomplish in a standard practice. 
   
• Two Asana labs: An interactive asana creative problem-solving laboratory workshop. 
   
• Open class: One of the six standard Jivamukti types of classes. All Open classes include asana, meditation and spiritual teachings – in a sequence creatively designed by the teacher. Music plays an integral role. 

Thrilled to teach Jivamukti in Stockholm
Jivamukti Yoga is spreading all over the world and we are especially happy and honored to be apart of its blossoming in the beautiful city of Stockholm. Yoga is synonymous with peace and Stockholm is the noble city of peace. This is the first time in many years that David and I will both be traveling together to Europe to teach at such an event. We are especially thrilled to be teaching along with senior teacher, Camilla Veen, director of Atha Yoga, the Jivamukti Affiliate Center in Norway. We hope that this gathering of the tribe will draw many old and new Jivamukti students together to celebrate the opening of the first Jivamukti Yoga center in Sweden. 

Read more about Wild Wood Stockholm here! 

Jivamukti Yoga Videos

Jivamukti Yoga online with Camilla Veen. 

Jivamukti Yoga

Läs mer om Jivamukti Yoga här! 

Personal Trainer Matthew Griffiths explains why, and how everybody can benefit from an effective mobility practice. Learn more about mobility training, how it helps keeping a healthy and well functioning body as well as maximizing results and performance, here.

What is mobility?

The term mobility means the combination of full range of motion within each joint structure coupled with healthy soft tissue (muscles, tendons and fascia) that produces mobility. Erwan Le Corre the creator of MovNat clearly states that, “Mobility places you in optimal position”, which exactly works in accordance with the notion that form equals function. Mobility is the ability to get into a better position and move in such a way that you will be creating a stronger movement environment for your body and performance, whether you’re a runner, a tennis player or a person that just want a pain free functional body. 

There is no doubt that Form is Function, meaning the alignment of your body (form) will dictate how you perform (function). Mobility is an essential component to this formula because it dictates whether or not you can have correct form. It’s important to note that mobility is comprised of three factors, which are collectively represented by the degree of which one can accurately maintain proper alignment through a specific movement pattern. 

The Three components of Mobility:

• Flexibility of the Soft Tissue
• Range of Motion at the Joints
• Neurological Coordination of Movement Patterns

Mobility is not your flexibility, mobility is the combination of flexibility of the soft tissue, the range of motion of every joint and the neuromuscular coordination involved in creating the specific movement. Problems can occur when someone misinterprets mobility as flexibility, as it implies the answer for addressing a lack of mobility is purely stretching, which is not the case as that solution neglects the associative neurological patterning and joint limitations within one’s movement.

In other words, stretching alone will not improve the way that you ‘create’ movement in a holistic sense because the flexibility of one’s soft tissue is only part of mobility. The other components that are essential to mobility are the range of motion at each joint and the neuromuscular coordination of every movement pattern, that ability to maintain strength at the end ranges of movement. To elaborate, a person may be ultra-flexible in certain positions, but still lack mobility when it comes to a specific movement pattern (another movement) because they may have limitations in the joint or not have the strength when the soft tissue is at full range.   

When one of the three components of mobility is compromised this can lead to an increased risk of injury and joint pain. If you remember that mobility is a combination of these three components and include them in your practice or training you will optimize your position and move more effortlessly.

Mindset

Although it is widely accepted that a powerful mindset can truly alter the outcome of a chosen task it is still under trained by the majority.  What happens in your mind during that important moment really sets the stage for whether you perform to the best or the worst of your ability.  I use these three mindsets, they have been particularly useful personally as well as in my work as a pro trainer. There are many variations that has been inspired from other mental training methods, but I find these to be logical and user friendly for many.

Booster
I think of the booster mindset as a way to be more proactive, assertive, and forceful, for example, when going for a risky shot in golf or tennis, or setting a fast pace in a marathon. This mindset is often needed for athletes to shift from a solid performance to exceptional performance because it allows them to take their performances to the next level, particularly for those who aren’t naturally proactive or assertive in how they perform. The Booster mindset can be developed in several ways.

First, you’re more likely to perform dynamic if your body is amped up a bit more than usual. You can raise your physical intensity with more movement during practice, in your pre-competitive routines, and just before you begin to compete. Simply moving more and being more dynamic in your movements will help you shift to a more powerful mindset. 

Second, you can use high-energy self-talk to instill that Booster mindset. Examples include: “I can do it, I will succeed".

Third, you can incorporate a booster mindset into mental imagery in which you see and feel yourself competing energetically which in turn helps in creating a more attacking thinking, focus, and feeling.

Calm
A calm mindset is typically good for those who can get nervous before game or a sense of doubt when performing a new drill. Your primary goal is to re-set your mindset and to settle down and relax, thus allowing your mind to let go of doubt and worry and your body to be free of nerves and tension. Additionally, a calm mindset can be valuable for many who are naturally very energetic.

A calm mindset can be created in several ways. First, it’s difficult to have a calm mind if your body is anxious, so focusing on relaxing your body is a good start. Deep breathing and muscle relaxation are two good tools you can use to calm your body.

Second, you can use mental imagery in which you see and feel yourself being calm before a competition. This imagery response has a direct physiologically relaxing effect on both your body and mind.

Third, calming and reassuring self-talk can ease your tension, for example, “Easy does it. Cool, calm, and collected." Relaxing self-talk can take the edge off of your nerves giving you the comfort and confidence to perform your best.

Clear
A clear mind involves having basically nothing related to performing going on in your mind before a big moment or game. This mindset is useful for those of us that might be cheerfully talking before a competition or speech, often smiling when talking to friends and coahces, dancing around, chatting it up, or singing to ourselves. These individuals can use a clear mindset because they have trained their bodies to an extent that they can trust it completely to perform their best without any interference from their minds.

A clear mind is most suited for individuals who are intuitive (meaning they don’t have to think about their sport very much to perform their best), free spirited (meaning they go with the flow rather than being really structured in their approach to their sport) and experienced (meaning they have a lot of confidence and trust in their capabilities from many years and successes).

Find the mindset that works best for you

You create a calm mindset by thinking about anything except your sport. Talking to others around you, thinking about someone or something that makes you feel good and listening to music in your head are some ways you can keep your mind clear, and thus preventing it from getting in the way of your body performing its best.

Training the mindset like any training or new practice requires several steps to instill and master. First, you have to experiment to figure out which mindset will work best for you. Second, you need to make a commitment to adopting an ideal mindset. Third, you must focus on your desired mindset in practice and competitions to create that mindset. And, finally, you need repetition in practice and competitions to ingrain your ideal mindset so deeply that, when you begin the most important competition of your life, that mindset just clicks on and it enables you to perform your very best.

Further reading

• Make a long term investment in your body, by Matthew Griffiths.
• Exercise for long-term wellbeing - here’s how you get started, by Tanja Djelevic.
• Training with resistance band, by Julia Glutz

Mobility training online 

• Playlists:
  • Mobility practice - for the whole body
  • SomaMove®
  • Self massage - with foam rollers

About Matthew Griffiths

Matthew is an education provider and personal trainer within the fields of health and fitness. Matthew's work is focused on having every student develop their natural movement patterns.

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"I think online yoga is an incredible way to tap in for people who may not have access to yoga otherwise. To be able to access yoga is such a gift and I think everybody should have access to this gift", says the international senior Istha yoga teacher from New York Sarah Platt-Finger who offers online yoga classes on Yogobe.

Why do you do yoga everyday?
My morning yogapractice is a part of my everyday ritual because I feel it really helps me to get through my day and the different responsibilities I have. I teach on a daily basis and sincerely feel that I cannot be authentic in my role as a teacher if I do not have my own practice.

What is the best thing with online yoga?
The world wide web with its unbound potential enables everyone to have access to yoga. I think it is awesome how online yoga with qualitative teachers can be available regardless of finances and geographical location.

How do you inspire your yoga students?
I'm very inspired by the idea of becoming connected on an intimate level with yourself. And by intimacy I mean really being with yourself, the self with a capital S. The self that is like the drop that came from the ocean, the spirit. This is something which inspires and moves me and I like to bring that aspect into the class. As I have a dancing and gymnastics background obviously the physical, the precision of alignment and form and maintaining integrity of the body is really important to me. And also the breathe, being able to experience your breathe is the gateway to the self. So a merger of breathe and alignment with philosophy is what I like to bring into my class.

You have some classes on Yogobe, how would you describe them?
Over all, in my practice I try to be very clear and precise with my teaching so I think you will experience precision, a physical experience and come out of the class feeling a little more grounded, a little more centered but also hopefully inspired.

Yoga with Sarah Platt-Finger at Yogobe

Yinyoga places you in positions that are challenging for joints, ligaments, and muscles; positions that can hurt you if you leave them too quickly or aggressively. When you come out of a position, do it very slowly and use your hands to support your legs, gently contracting the muscles you’ve just been releasing while in the pose. It’s also beneficial to add a countermovement. For example, if you have been bending forward, sit upright and stretch backwards gently.

In Yin yoga you challenge deep tissues that the body normally protects from getting stretched, since they’re easily damaged by force. You may experience some discomfort, some shaking, or a slight feeling of instability. This is normal, especially when you are new to the practice. However, if a position causes severe pain or makes you so uncomfortable that it affects your focus or breathing, then you’ve gone too far and need to slowly come out of the pose.

Other warning signs that you’ve pushed too far are feelings of extreme weakness or instability, muscle spasms, or misalignments that you can’t correct. If you exeprience these things, take a break to breathe and then, if it feels right to your body, begin again, slowly and very carefully, stopping when you begin to meet your edge. Props are very helpful here.

Many people who come into contact with Yin yoga recoil when you mention that you work with the connective tissue and stretch it. But Yin yoga is not about stretching the connective tissue, more putting gentle stress on it over time for increased elasticity and circulation. For instance, in Yin yoga we never stretch knees side to side, as the knee is not designed to stretch in that direction. In Yin yoga we work toward full flexion and extension (bending and stretching), generally working only with the area around the hips, pelvis, and lumbar spine. 

The medical community regards fascia primarily as a tissue structure that links together all the bones, muscles, nerves, blood vessels and organs of the body. But the fact is, fascia serves many purposes, such as being involved in movement and the transmission of force. According to new reserach fascia is regarded as part of the nervous system in that it provides a communication network throughout the entire body.

There are three basic systems associated with fascia: the articular (circulation), the neural (information process system) and the myofascial (anatomy) network. Fascia should also be looked at as a semiconductive communication network in that it is capable of sending nerve signals that communicate with each other throughout its network. This means that the fascia affects the whole body, not just one area or system.

Since we hold the poses longer in Yin yoga, breathing and keeping still; blood, nutrients, oxygen, and tissue fluids circulate to dry and compact tissue with poor circulation. At the same time, there is a purging of toxins and increased lymphatic circulation, while fluid accumulation decreases.

This text has been inspired by content from my book: Yin Yoga – An individual practice. If you like what you read you can buy it here.

More yin inspiration

Check out the four week yin yoga challenge. You can choose to go along with the whole month or just get inspired by all the blog posts.

Video recommendations

The illusions, attachments, and habits of our daily lives and limited day-to-day awareness create blocks in our bodies that impede the free flow of prana and the working out of our karma. Through the interconnectedness of mind, body, and spirit, we can encounter, affect, and release these blockages by working on physical, mental, and energetic levels.

Meditation in particular allows us to step away from the patterns and challenges of our karma and see our greater roles, feel our places in the universe, and return to daily life with that new perspective. The expansion of ease, awareness, and prana that results from yoga is an expansion of our ability to live and follow our karmic path with ease and grace.

Before I started doing meditation and yoga, I identified myself with my thoughts and feelings. Today, I have learned to view them more as patterns and reactions coming from my mind and soul. In looking closely at them in meditation, I learn a lot about myself in the now and how I function; and I begin to see what takes me out of balance and out of reach of myself.

Yinyoga is a more mindful practice where one can look at and relate to reality and understand one’s relationship to it. Paying attention to something can be done in several ways. The practice of Yin yoga creates understanding, both of our current condition and of the reluctance or avoidance of being in what we perceive as negative or unpleasant experiences.

Being consciously present means paying attention in the present moment, noticing what is happening both inside and outside when it occurs, and noting thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations without judging or evaluating any part of the experience contained in the present. It is to live your life without being controlled by the memory of a past or projections of the future. Life is always here and now.

Being a yogi 
To be a yogi, you just have to practice yoga regularly. The yoga will do the rest. Becoming a yogi doesn’t mean giving up the old you and becoming someone else. However, things that are not serving you well may fall away. As you practice yoga, you move toward the more intuitive, less fragile you. On the other hand, being a yogi doesn’t mean you don’t have problems; you just have more tools for dealing with them. Yoga provides kaivalya, or space around your experience that allows you to have perspective regarding your problems and what to do about them.

The demands of Western culture can easily lead to low self-esteem. While there is usually room for improvement, we are all amazing beings just as we are. In a yoga practice we should just get to the mat, work within our limitations, and feel how we detach from all of what inhibits us, rather than get caught up in competitiveness. Just do the practice without looking for some specific result.

I often see my practice as updating all my inner programs, like when you are upgrading your computer, so they function better and can communicate more easily with each other, without friction or disturbances.

How to sit when meditating
In order to feel comfortable with sitting in meditation, we need to have a practice that works towards good alignment. All seated meditation postures aim for one thing: holding the back upright without slouching or strain so that energy can run up and down the spine more freely. The fundamental core of the meditation posture is the proper tilt of the sacrum and pelvis. This alignment is what you want for seated meditation. The placement of the upper body takes care of itself if the pelvis is properly adjusted. A good foundation in your yoga practice should include forward bends, hip openers, backbends, and rotations.

Some of the most known forward bends in Yinyoga are those that combine forward bends and hip openers, as the Butterfly, Half- butterfly Half -frog, Dragonfly, and Snail. All gentle forward bending put positive stress on the ligaments around the back of the spine and the lumbar spine and helps to prevent undue compression of spinal disks. The forward bends are performed with legs stretched forward gently stresses the fascia and muscles around the back of the legs.

This text has been inspired by content from my book: Yin Yoga – An individual practice. If you like what you read you can buy it here.

Video recommendations

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