Our yoga practice brings us an opportunity for stillness so that we can have that moment of peace or stillness. In a YogaFit practice, we are looking for the graceful flow from pose to pose guided by a deep yet easy breath. To flow with effortlessness, the very definition of flow, one needs to be able to engage bandhas with out overly gripping.  One of the wonderful surprises coming from a practice on the NEW YOGAFIT INDO BALANCE BOARD is that recognition of when you are accurately engaging the deep core muscles to stabilize instead of compensating somewhere!

Indo YogaFit Balance Board was inspired by Stand Up Paddle (SUP), a sport that is exploding in popularity. SUP Yoga is practicing yoga on a stand up paddleboard! Practicing yoga on the water is an amazingly peaceful activity that demands constant presence! Since we cant always get to a body of water, Hunter Joslin, creator of the Original INDO Board came up the Indo Balance board for dry land training. Practicing on the balance board is quite fun and requires the same presence (without the risk of getting wet). You learn to ride the “waves of motion”, and you feel your body able to flow the waves rather than fight against the movement. Fighting or resisting the movement results in muscle tension and a restricted ability to flow from pose to pose. The breath also suffers when resistance is present. When our bandhas are engaged and we are in alignment (think SPA), our breath is deep and we move with a strong stillness.

Practice on the YOGAFIT INDO BALANCE BOARD is practice in staying present. Practice on this unstable surface is practice in achieving bandha activation beyond the muscular. When we first begin a yoga practice we are taught about the activation of core musculature (perineum muscles, Transverse ab and more).

In the first part of our learning process it is usually about the physical contraction. As our practice advances we shift to a subtler contraction of the bandhas. This subtle contraction involves deep breath and that gives us the ability to flow with strength, grace and ease. I have found this shift & awareness to happen faster in my practice on the unstable surface both on the water and the Balance board. Practice on the YOGAFIT INDO BALANCE BOARD truly helps you find the stillness in motion and the motion in the stillness in your practice.

One of my favorite ways to begin my practice on the YOGAFIT INDO BALANCE BOARD is to chant Ra Ma Da Sa Sa Say So Hung for 11 minutes, sometimes along with Snatum Kaur (1st track on the YogaFit CD of the same name).

This is a beautiful healing chant that I also have trainees try at the beginning of the Balance Board training because I thought it would be a good illustration of the call to action of the deep core muscles that is required. Even seated or standing still for this time, one feels the constant strength and motion deep inside the body!

Nearly 20 million people are practicing yoga today in the United States, and it has entered the mainstream as a hip and trendy way to get in shape, sculpt lean muscles and improve overall athletic performance and mental focus. Once you begin to incorporate yoga postures into your training regimen or even devote an entire workout to yoga, you’ll find that it’s the integration of your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual body.

What does that really mean?

Students of yoga will get healthier, and eventually learn to center themselves, be present and aware, and to identify with their highest athletic self.

Physical exercise has a protective effect on the brain and its mental processes, and may even help prevent Alzheimer’s disease. Based on exercise and health data from nearly 5,000 men and women over 65 years of age, those who exercised were less likely to lose their mental abilities or develop dementia, including Alzheimer’s.

Furthermore, the five-year study at the Laval University in Sainte-Foy, Quebec, suggests that the more a person exercises, the greater the protective benefits for the brain, particularly in women. In the revolutionary study, inactive individuals were twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s, compared to those with the highest levels of activity (exercised vigorously at least three times a week). But even light or moderate exercisers cut their risk significantly for Alzheimer’s.

When you come to your mat and close your eyes (to meditate or to simply slow your thoughts and deepen your breathing, several hormonal and physiological things happen almost instantly:

• As you breathe deeper, more oxygenated blood courses throughout your circulatory system, which helps lower stress hormones which can compromise the immune system. This oxygen-rich blood also conditions and strengthens the lungs and respiratory tract.

• The lymphatic system is strengthened and toxins are swept away during physical practice. You may notice that you get far fewer illnesses when you have a regular yoga practice. Sometimes, students come to class with a sniffly nose, and several postures (and breathing drills) can clean out their cardiorespiratory system enough so that they walk out of class feeling much healthier once the toxins are eliminated.

• Moving into deeper poses slowly and progressively provides freedom from a variety of diseases like migraine, headache, insomnia and even arthritis. It increases the metabolism of the body in a controlled manner and helps you to feel better.

• Yoga boosts mental and emotional strength even as it simultaneously provides proper toning to the body. Joints become stiff with age and also due to a stagnant lifestyle –- but so does the mind! Yoga provides flexibility to all body parts and the mobilization exercises help make the body active so as to undertake a variety of daily chores with greater functionality.

• Yoga cultivates focus and concentration and reduces stress by making you less reactive. It especially opens the spine, the hips and the shoulders, where all stress hides and strengthens the many systems of the body, like the circulatory system, the immune system, and the endocrine system. Yoga calms the mind, steadies emotions and opens the heart to feeling more vibrantly alive, giving you a sense of empowerment. As a result, you become more comfortable in your body.

• When you feel better in your body, you feel better about yourself and act better towards others. That’s the goal… in the midst of a stressful day, yoga provides a reprieve from ringing phones, screaming managers, testy kids, and all the intrusions upon your day or your workout. Yoga restores calmness, balances the emotions, and nourishes your internal body.

• An open and flexible mind energizes and prepares one for change. Some believe that visualization helps in the transformation of thoughts to a new life of hope and success. By visualizing mental pictures of success, one can take measures toward converting dreams into reality. Some believe the best time for visualization is in the morning. Closing the eyes and doing 5 to 10 minutes of your favorite yoga postures provides an opportunity to find inspiration and self-motivation as one imagines how to go about changing life.

The science of how yoga empowers the mind and emotions is so tangible that there’s a new and burgeoning field called “yoga therapy,” where certain practitioners (including psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers) incorporate yoga poses and meditative breathing into their sessions, as well as yoga teachers who want to learn how to address the emotions that bubble up in students during class or in private sessions. The idea is to allow yoga to empower people while priming them to access their deepest emotions.

Time Magazine reported that since the days of Freud, research into the mind-body relationship has come a long way. Studies show that not only are your mental health and mood dependent in large part on physical factors like exercise, but also unchecked stress, anxiety and depression can affect physical health, increasing blood pressure, heart disease, and even risk of death. So it was perhaps inevitable that patients would start bringing their yoga mats into therapy.

If you’ve ever been around an Olympic-level athlete or competitive triathlete, you’ll always notice something different about them while they are competing. In yoga, I like to refer to this as “being present” but coaches and fitness experts call it any number of other things too. This state of “being present” means chasing out all invading negative thoughts and focusing at the feat at hand, whether that is sinking a basketball, skiing a black diamond mountain, jumping hurdles or simply doing a full, pain free backbend. It takes some training (consistent yoga practice), but anyone who comes to their mat to cross-train can start becoming evermore present and excel at athletic events.

Some of the benefits to athletes and aspiring athletes are:

• Many poses put the body in positions in which normally it wouldn’t be, training the proprioceptors in muscles and tendons to be more reactive. The muscle fibers located around the joints sense and accommodate for weight shifts. With any sport, having a greater awareness of body in space and in motion cannot help but improve overall endurance and performance.

• My own teachers have said that busy or stressed humans only use 10 to 20 percent of their breathing capacity under normal circumstances.  With yoga, you start tapping into your pranayama, or “breath control” which works on pushing out the dead air, to set a slower breathing rate that mimics peak condition in endurance sports, allowing the body to become more efficient in oxygen uptake and performance.

• Practicing the postures even for 10 minutes allows the brain to function and focus on the task at hand and reduces the hormonal “fight or flight” response of the adrenals and give you a better sense of calmness. This calmer sense of purpose, or being present, is very important to transfer to athletic performance on the field or anywhere you compete.

• Most full-on athletes have already been injured in competition; it’s only a matter of time before you are when you sue your body to such lengths, so it’s helpful that yoga can be used for general pain relief.  Studies show that practicing Yoga asanas (postures), meditation or combination of the two, reduced pain for people with conditions such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, auto-immune diseases and hypertension, as well as arthritis, back and neck pan, and other chronic conditions. Yoga helps to improve flexibility and mobility, increasing range of movement and reducing aches and pains.

• In yoga, to help balance and quiet the mind we often focus for long periods on a triste, or eye focus-point to still the thoughts of the mind that may normally cause anxiety. So, yoga helps an athlete become better equipped at dealing with the mental and physical challenges that athletics requires through training and competing – before kicking a soccer ball into a goal net, for instance, or focusing on a point before diving into the water off a high dive.

• Focus on the Present: Yoga helps us focus on the present, to become more aware and to help create mind body health. It opens the way to improved coordination, reaction time and memory.

Most of us know that physical exercise is good for our general health, but now, more than ever, studies show – and doing yoga proves –  that physical exercise is also good for your brain. If you think you’re going to get smarter sitting in front of your computer or watching television, think again! Instead, grab your mat at the end of any workout and do some yoga to empower your body and your mind

Restorative Yoga is focused around the “ahhh” experience in yoga; the space found by breathing, relaxing and letting go of the mind’s internal dialogue.  This gentle approach to practice allows participants to experience the same benefits of traditional practice while exerting little or no effort at all and leaves students feeling nourished, refreshed and well rested.

Prolonged stress, internal conflict, demanding situations, anxiety and anger engage the body’s natural “fight or flight” response which triggers the hypothalamus and initiates a sequence of nerve cell firing that prepares our bodies to react to perceived danger.  Restorative Yoga engages our bodies’ innate ability to renew and restore, balancing and counteracting the effects of prolonged stress.

Restorative Yoga facilitates the four conditions for relaxation: relaxing the muscles with support, quieting the responses caused by stress, quieting the mind and finding a relaxed smooth breath.  Unlike sleep where your mind and body are preoccupied with dreaming and tensing muscles, Restorative Yoga provides an opportunity to achieve all four of these conditions.

The purpose of Restorative Yoga is two-fold.  Restorative Active Poses awaken dull areas in the body to improve circulation and promote healing while Restorative Passive Poses induce deep relaxation and recuperation.

Some of the key adjustments to look for include maintaining round and soft lines in the body and avoiding sharp angles, readjusting props strategically to support the body, filling the space between the body and the earth and using enough props to create an even path for energy.   Most of the adjustments in Restorative Yoga involve accommodating and giving support to the body with props.  The basic props for Restorative Yoga are blocks, chairs, straps, bolsters and eye wraps.

Breathing during Restorative Yoga should always be easy and gentle, never forced or strained.  Restorative Yoga encourages students to become aware of the sensations and feelings of breathing and provides a chance to experience breath without muscular effort that brings about opening, healing and a calm state of mind.  Sometimes students will access deep feelings locked in the mind/body and may experience catharsis.

Experience Restorative Yoga’s benefits to the mind and body with this balancing and rejuvenating routine:

Begin on your back with knees bent and the hands on the midsection.

Centering Breath, which consists of two gentle breaths, followed by one deliberately slow and thin inhalation and one deliberately long and full exhalation.

Bridge Flow with Block: Come to bridge pose, with the support of a block underneath the tailbone/lower lumbar spine.  Lift and lower hips, elevating when the lower hips are supported.

Abs with Block or Ball: Placing the block or ball between the thighs, 2-3 inches above the knees, engaging in abdominal work of you choice, which can include crunches or leg lifts, gently applying pressure to the block or ball.

Supported Bridge with Block: Placing a block or bolster beneath the feet and lowering back, relaxing the head down onto a blanket, opening the arms to either side.

Knees to Chest: Lying down on the back, bringing the knees to the chest and holding on to the back of the thighs.

Childs Pose Restorative with Bolster: Beginning on all fours, pushing the buttocks back on to the knees and lowering the upper body down.  Chest rests on a bolster, completely relaxing, resting and breathing.

Cat/Cow with Block or Ball: Beginning on all fours, holding a block or ball between the thighs, 2-3 inches above the knees, for Cat Pose, rounding the back to the sky as the head lowers, and for Cow Pose, arching the back and lifting the chin.

Down Dog with Block: Coming to Down Dog, resting the forehead on a block or holding a block or ball between the thighs.

Crocodile / Plank Pose- Upper Body Warm Ups: For Plank, beginning in Downward Facing Dog and shifting forward until the shoulder are directly above the wrists. Pressing the heels back and reaching through the crown of the head with the back straight and abdominals firm, moving to Crocodile Pose, pushing forward with your tos and hugging your ribcage below the elbows.  Lowering your chest, keeping your abdominals strong and hips stationary. Transitioning from Plank to Crocodile with Child’s Pose in-between.

Side Angle with Block: From a Warrior stance, bending your front knee and placing your forearm on a block on your thigh, reaching the top arm to the sky and alternating sides.

Sunflowers:  Stepping back to face the long edge of your mat, feet spread, turning the heals in and toes out, coming down to a squat while bending the elbows and placing them next to the waist, knees straight out over the toes. On an inhale, moving the arms overhead and on an exhale hinging forward from the hips, reaching the tailbone back while maintaining a neutral spine as you sweep the arms to the floor. Flowing with the breath through repetitions.

For more information about Restorative Yoga, register for YogaFit’s Restorative Yoga training at yogafit.com.

I like to make healthy food in quantities that go beyond one meal. This provides my family with healthy options when one of us is hungry and needs food…NOW! Rather than turn to snack food and processed food, we can turn to the real food that is premade in the refrigerator! Leftovers are also great to pack for lunches! Having a nutritious lunch allows my husband and me to have the energy to workout after school…and for me to teach my yoga and fitness classes!

Sorghum Risotto is a great recipe for a YogaLean lifestyle. It is a healthy makeover of a traditional comfort food. The time you spend cooking it once can be saved other times when you warm it up. You will be happy you made a large batch so you have something nutritious to eat when you are hungry!

My VEGETARIAN RISOTTO is a take on the traditional risotto. I substituted a protein, (Bob’s Red Mill) Sorghum, for the Arborio Rice. The great thing about a RISOTTO…it can be customized! It is a great way to use up vegetables left in the refrigerator! Sorghum reminds me of barley in texture and flavor.

Sorghum Risotto

Serves 2

Cook Time: From start to finish if sorghum is pre-made 30 minutes

Pre-cooking sorghum saves 45 minutes

Ingredients 

– 4-6 cloves of garlic (depends on size)
– 1 shallot or HALF a red or yellow onion
– 2 stalks of celery
– HALF a red, yellow, and orange bell pepper
– 6 basil leaves or 2 -3 teaspoons of dried basil
– 2 cups of cooked sorghum
– 1 cup of liquid (vegetable broth – low sodium is best)
– Olive oil
– 1 cup of grated Parmesan or Italian cheese blend

Options:

– For liquid use water, vegetable broth, chicken broth, or vegetable broth
– Add small cubes of chicken
– Substitute other vegetables for the peppers (onion and asparagus, leeks and broccoli, cauliflower and carrots, beet green stems, chard stems, and sweet potatoes)
– Use non-dairy cheese for real cheese to make vegan

Instructions:
1. Chop garlic, onion, and celery into small pieces and sauté in 3 TBSP olive oil in a large pot
2. As onions or shallot becomes translucent, add the sorghum to coat it with the oil – stir for about 1 minute.
3. Add the broth and bring to a boil.
4. While the liquid is boiling, chop the vegetables and add to the pot.
5. When the liquid is nearly absorbed, add the basil and cheese. Stir until combined and liquid is absorbed.
6. Cover and let rest for 5 minutes. Serve or, once cool, put in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Then enjoy with salad and a gluten free roll!

My name is Rene’ MacVay and I am an E-RYT 200 (RYT 500 should be done in 2015). During the day I teach high school English, Speech, and AP Art History and in the afternoons and evenings I teach yoga, pilates, and personal train. My hobbies include reading and cooking. I love reading as I either gain knowledge or am transported to another time and place! I love cooking for the artistry and the creativity it allows me to express.

Follow my cooking adventures on my blog, http://healthyrecipevariations.blogspot.com/

Let’s be honest, we are all living extraordinarily busy lives. Between working more than eight hours a day at our job and trying to get all of our errands done, there is very little time left for exercise and relaxation.

Much of our daily life is spent living in our heads, focused on what we are thinking versus what we are feeling. With the demands of work and home we are often required to mentally stay one step ahead just to get through our day. But if we navigate life led by our thoughts alone, we miss out on a world of information available to us through our bodies and spirits. If we don’t quiet our minds they make us unhealthy and want to over eat or drink. Meditation can truly help us lose weight as it provides a feeling of being full that no cake will ever top.

The ancient practice of meditation is as integral to yoga as the poses, with the same intention: not to tune out, but to tune in to a frequency long forgotten, or perhaps undiscovered. Meditation is about becoming acutely aware of what is going on within you, as well as learning to tame your mind so you can focus all your energy and awareness on the task at hand. The practice of meditation helps you stay centered regardless of your circumstances. It doesn’t teach you to avoid pain or discomfort, but to experience and accept it so you can move through any situation with profound clarity and a sense of inner peace and calm. Meditation is a wonderful way to tap into your internal “knowingness” and get into touch with your eternal essence.

Just like learning yoga breathing techniques and poses, meditation is at first awkward and unfamiliar. It’s eye opening to discover that we are controlled by incessant thoughts, and it’s frustrating to realize that many of them are unnecessary and perhaps even untrue! Sitting in silence we also realize how many common distractions compete for our attention, such as doubt, sleepiness and restlessness. Rather than using up even more energy fighting these hindrances, we eventually realize it’s far easier to acknowledge them and release them. Distractions will never let up, but you can teach yourself to let them go. In fact, this awareness of your life and distractions is the first step in developing a successful meditation practice that will improve your physical and mental wellbeing. Here are 5 tips for helping you get into, or improve on your meditation practice:

1. Take time away for meditation! It’s important that we don’t rush our meditation practice, so always set aside time for meditation, when you can. Setting aside the time shows that you have respect for the practice, and you’ll go into it with that same state of mind. When we prioritize something like meditation it can help everything else fall into line.

2. Meditate in a place you feel comfortable. Begin your practice somewhere calm and quiet that you feel comfortable in. You can meditate anywhere, just make sure it’s free of outside distractions (as much as possible) and in a place that makes you feel calm and present.

3. Take time to notice how you feel before and after you meditate.Monitor the changes in your heart rate, breathing and stress level. Often times we forget to note that we may be feeling unhappy or stressed before meditation, forgetting to acknowledge these feelings hinders their release. Additionally, noticing the improvement in ones mood or stress level often helps to reinforce meditation as a daily habit.

4. Focus on YOU! Try not to meditate on work, or family stress. Meditation time is you time! Consider what emotions you are feeling and explore them within yourself, taking time to note where each feeling is coming from. Allow yourself to explore deep inside feelings and emotions. Distractions will definitely come, but it is important to feel them so that we can also release them, don’t get frustrated when or if you become distracted by outside forces, work through them and release them with each exhale.

5. Keep breathing! Breathing is a critical part of meditation. We can use our breathing rhythmically to get us into a meditative state and to focus in the present moment. Breathing helps to calm us and focus us on the task at hand. Your breathing helps guide your brain and body through the process of meditation. Once you are able to calm and regulate your breath, meditation comes easier. Focus on taking deep, even, cleansing breaths, breathing in positivity and exhaling negativity and distraction.

Once you refine your ability to slip into a state of awareness and being, you can bring this focus into other areas of your life. No matter what is happening in your immediate environment, you can step back and respond, versus react. Whether it’s an athletic competition, work, a difficult conversation, or even play, not only will you enjoy what you are doing that much more, you will do it that much better.

So give yourself permission to be a beginner, and know that with practice your ability to concentrate will improve. Eventually, you will find that during your meditation practice you will have the experience of slipping between thoughts, or find yourself unaware of any specific thoughts at all. In this place, you not only lose track of what you hear going on around you, you often discover you’ve lost all sense of time itself. With enough practice, you’ll find that you could meditate in a noisy airport or on a busy street corner without becoming distracted whatsoever.