What “Letting Go” Really Feels Like

on August 9, 2015

Yoga Near Fremantle "Letting Go"

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I think we all know someone who gives the well-meaning advice of “Just let go…”. I should know as I am one of those people and chances are if you are reading this, you’ve heard me say it during a yoga class! It’s easy advice to give but much harder in practice.

The picture above is an accurate representation of what “Letting Go” really feels like sometimes. Often there are no hearts & flowers, sailing off into the sunset, epiphanies, blue skies & rainbows. There is not always immediate relief or the anticipated sensation of a weight suddenly lifted from our shoulders. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still practice letting go, it just means that we must accept the challenge in its entirety. It won’t always be pretty!

What I’ve realised through my own ongoing practice and guiding others through theirs is that letting go is a process. A process that takes time, practice, patience and perseverance. Something that at times you think you have mastered and then realise quickly when the next time comes around that you are back to the pulling your hair out stage again!

For example, just recently I’ve been quite unwell with a virus that started during my holidays. I realised I wasn’t going to be able to go back to work as planned. In the past, I’ve struggled with letting go of my work responsibilities, partly because I enjoy it so much and love to be around the students that come to our classes. This time I again went through this struggling phase but realised much more quickly that I had to let go of it. Sure enough a bunch of relief yoga teachers came to the rescue, work was put on hold for a couple of weeks and nothing bad happened. That’s not to say I didn’t still have a few “hair tearing out” moments but they passed and I’ve been able to take my time to recover as I probably should have other times.

Just like most things in life, letting go is a process; an ever repeating one. It’s most certainly worth the effort just not always as easy as it first sounds :)

For gentle therapeutic yoga near Fremantle where you can practice the art of letting go, see our timetable here

Slow is the New Fast

on July 8, 2015

Thank(1)

Wow, school holidays really are a crazy time, it’s so busy near where I live in Fremantle as it’s a bit of a tourist centre during the holidays. We are fortunate that we are able to enjoy this place when it’s quiet but when it’s peak hour, I feel like I’m stuck in a time warp with everyone buzzing around me and I’m standing in the middle of it feeling very out of place. I hate to generalize but in my experience, most people find it hard to slow down or just genuinely believe that they can’t. Reasons vary with some not wanting to slow down and wearing their “speed” like a badge of honor and then those that want to slow down but just can’t seem to find the time or just don’t know how!

Well, I’m here to introduce you to the concept that slow is the new fast! You see, I believe firmly that when we slow down, we actually achieve more and things also seem to slow down around us. In turn, this makes everything seem more manageable and less “fast” in the first place.

This is often reflected in the way I approach teaching my weekly yoga classes and here is why we often move slowly:

Most of us need to slow down, not speed up so I’m catering to what most of you need (sorry if that’s not everyone but we can recommend “fast” classes if you want them!)
Slowing down causes the body to switch into parasympathetic nervous system dominance or your “relaxation response” (Read more about the relaxation response here, a term coined by Dr Herbert Benson)
More of your less obvious bodily systems are involved when you move slowly which means your central nervous system has an enhanced awareness of the areas you are working on ie more awareness = increased neural activity
If you move quickly, you often skip over problem areas or don’t even notice them, try doing it slowly, it can be just as intense, if not more so!
This equates to much less of a chance of injuring yourself during class, especially if you are a beginner to yoga or injured
This allows you to “feel” the movement in your body rather than just “do” it leading to an expanded learning experience.
It allows you to relax
You will probably sleep better, this is the most common feedback we get about our classes which makes perfect sense!
It allows you to relaxxxxxxxxxxx…
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ………ok, you get the message right!

So, if you want so slow down, you have come to the right place, this is what we do and relaxation is pretty much guaranteed! Sound good? All you need to do is come along, I know it is hard in your “fast” life but join us for some “slow”, I promise you won’t regret it :)

Join our Beginners Yoga Classes in Applecross, Fremantle & Winthrop, Perth anytime! Slowing you down is our specialty but if you’re not nearby, we have a great referral network so please don’t be afraid to ask!

Yoga For Chronic Back Pain? You Tell Us!

on July 1, 2015

I am not being lazy this week, honestly! I could go on with my own story and there is lots of research I could point you towards but I really feel this is best told by someone who has been there. One of my lovely clients was kind enough to put pen to paper and share her story in the hope that others with chronic back pain may be inspired to try some yoga therapy – Thanks so much to Jeanette :)

“I was 58 years old and feeling generally unwell; being overweight and sub-thyroid (which included mild depression and an inability to lose weight). I also suffer greatly chronic lower back pain as a result of an injury. Both my GP and physiotherapist were strongly encouraging me to do regular yoga and generally improve my health regime. I admit to being very de-motivated and felt that any support I could get would encourage me to start a life-long commitment to improving my health.

I researched a number of yoga providers and mainly I was looking for an environment where I would feel comfortable as a beginner and as a mature person. I found that Yoga Therapy was a new approach to not only yoga practice but also receiving support in moving towards greater well being. Yoga Therapy appealed to me for a number of reasons including one on one instruction to gain confidence to attend classes, having a practice to do at home in addition to class, using mindfulness in my day to day life & learning techniques to deal with stress, depression & de-motivation

I have to admit to being somewhat sceptical about yoga therapy. My scepticism came not only from my own multiple efforts and trying different (and often expensive) health plans/programs etc in the past which I failed to follow through on but also the financial cost of the sessions. However, in hindsight, I believe yoga therapy one of the best decisions I have taken in a long time and it has been the catalyst in my changing my life style….and with a result like that the cost was a mere drop in a bucket!

In the past, I was not dealing with a chronic back problem, so it was easy for me not to follow though and go back to my bad old ways and be very de-motivated to do anything to help myself. Over the years, I had been to dieticians, psychologists, gyms, naturopaths and nutritionists together with introductory courses in yoga and Pilates. I think I got to the point where I really wanted to explore mindfulness to assist me in my life together with understanding the benefits that yoga could bring to me.

For me, it is not an understatement to say that I found the experience “life changing”. I found that I was “listened to” and although Charley and I were in very different places, she really understood and came up with simple strategies. Over my appointments, I was able to implement the strategies which I have not only stuck with but continuing to grow and enhance. In a nutshell I have:

My own simple yoga practice (which I still do regularly) with a focus on breathing and focused technique,
Become more mindful….for example, I used to binge on food and not even think about what I was eating. Now, I am not perfect but I do not binge and am “mindful” about my eating and appetite,
Learnt to relax and meditate….again I am not perfect…I have improved! I even listen to Tibetan music now……
Acceptance/Self Awareness, for example, it would be better to not be overweight but it is OK and with practicing a healthier lifestyle perhaps the weight will come down,
Doing additional exercise through other programs. I now attend sessions twice a week…..and I don’t like to miss them (which is an astounding result!)

Without a doubt, doing regular yoga both on my own and in class has helped what I was beginning to think was a hopeless situation with my lower back pain. I was regularly taking strong painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs (which are not good for anyone). Yes, I still have to take the drugs just not regularly…recently I went seven weeks without taking any of these drugs.

I also am much more mindful and relax much more easily than I used to. I did do Charley’s insomnia workshop and all these strategies have contributed to improving sleep quality. I would go as far as to say there has probably been a 30% improvement in my sleep quality.”

Follow these links more information on our yoga for chronic back pain Perth or private yoga therapy our regularly held spine release workshops or to read more on spinal tension, back pain & The breath

Doing Yoga Vs Striking A Pose

on June 22, 2015

Doing Yoga...

I’d just like to make it clear that yes, I have put the pictures and the captions the right way around. The picture on the left is of me doing my yoga practice and the picture on the right is me posing for a photo and not doing yoga. To explain, I get annoyed (yes sometimes things do annoy me!) every time I see a photo of someone striking an impressive looking yoga pose ~ perfect body, no sweat dripping into their eye, no wobbles, perfectly coiffed hair, etc etc. There is nothing wrong with this in itself but please keep in mind, this is NOT yoga! It is someone posing for a photo (often a model!) just like I am in the right hand picture!

If you are interested, in the first picture, my husband is the photographer. We had a last minute opportunity to head out to dinner in Fremantle due to an offer from my sister to have our youngest son sleep at her house. I was so stoked, as much as I love my kids, my husband and I hadn’t had any alone time for ages! As you can see from my smile, I was just so happy, grateful & enjoying life as it was unfolding in that moment – this is yoga.

In the second picture, I was driving the Gibb River Road with my family. From memory, on that day it had been a very long day in the car and things had gotten heated a few times! We stopped at this lovely spot and I took advantage of the view and conveniently placed rock table to strike a pose so I would have a photo to post on Facebook later. Although it looks picture perfect, I wasn’t really in the moment at all and simply striking a pose! Can you see the difference now?

Lovely yoga pictures are just that, lovely pictures. A picture never tells the whole story, it captures a moment and our mind fills in the rest of the story. It concerns me that beginners to yoga might think they have to be like this in order to come to a yoga class. If you want to get the whole story, come to class, laugh when you wobble, wipe the sweat from your eye if you’re having a hot flush and revel in the variety of students in the room, all there for a common purpose – The True Practice of Yoga :)

View our timetable here for beginners yoga Fremantle, Applecross & Winthrop ~ all levels & body types welcome.

Yoga, Fascial Release & Foam Roller

on May 17, 2015

Myofascial Release With Foam Roller

Who better to feel where you have tension in your body than you?! Here are some tips on using a foam roller to help with that.

Author: Charley Hickey C-IAYT – Owner, Charleyoga. Yoga Therapist, Yoga Teacher, Pilates, Self-Myofascial Release

Myofascial

[mī·ōfa′shē·əl]

Pertaining to a muscle and its sheath of connective tissue, or fascia.
Mosby’s Medical Dictionary, 8th edition. © 2009, Elsevier.

Fascia covers all organs of the body. Muscle and fascia cannot be separated therefore all muscle stretching is myofascial stretching. Myofascial stretching in one area of the body can often be felt in and will affect the other body areas. Release of myofascial restrictions can affect other body organs through a release of tension in the whole fascial system.

Self Myfascial Release (SMR) is part of a systematic approach to correcting myofascial imbalances. Combining this with other components will assist the body to return to optimal functional efficiency thus allowing the body to move and feel better.

Some of the outside influences that can cause imbalances include:

Tension caused by impact or deceleration of the body during movement.
Sedentary lifestyle or repetitive activities (RSI)
Poor hydration
Wearing high heels or ill fitting shoes.
Old Injuries
Building Muscle strength quickly without balancing with flexibility practices

DIY With Foam Roller

What is so great about SMR using the foam roller is that you don’t have to rely on an expert using trial and error and relying on you for feedback to find and release areas in your body that are tight.

A gentle force is applied with the foam roller using body weight as resistance. This is thought to cause the elastic collagenous fibres to be manipulated from the bundled position into an alignment that is straighter with the direction of the surrounding tissues.

This method allows you to simply feel around yourself until you find areas that need attention. You can then work at your own pace within your own comfort levels. Of course if you are unsure or feel you need some further guidance then you can always consult with someone who is trained to assist you. We offer one on one yoga therapy sessions and workshops on this topic regularly.

If you have an injury or inflammation then it is essential that you seek professional guidance before you use the roller on or around that area.

When you first begin or if you have quite a bit of tension or pain in your body then it is a good idea to start with a really soft, smaller foam roll. A pool noodle works fine although you may find for some areas this will be too soft and they are not particularly hardwearing so you’ll eventually need to invest in a higher density, professional quality foam roll if you wish to continue (we sell them here)

Foam Roller Technique

To measure the tightness of a spot, we use a comfort scale of 1 – 10 with 1 being no discomfort and/or tightness felt at all and 10 being extreme discomfort and/or tightness.

Position muscle to be worked on roller (seek guidance if unsure)
Roll up, down and across the muscle until tender point is found
This should be around a 7 on the comfort scale
Once tender spot is found, pause for 30 – 60 seconds
Breathe easily & consciously and relax the rest of body as much as you can
Stay here until the discomfort decreases by approx 75% (to level 1 – 3 on comfort scale)
If no change, move on anyway.
Continue to roll muscle and repeat on any further tender points.

Self Study

Self study is a large part of living a yogic lifestyle. Being in touch with how we feel at a particular time and starting to recognise for ourselves some of the things that cause us stress in body and mind are the first steps.

For example, if you notice that you have a tight hamstring on one side and it always happens on a Tuesday it may be useful to note what it is that you do on that day that causes it and if it is possible to make a change.

By doing this you will be amazed how effectively you can self diagnose and take steps to treat the stress in your own life. However, it is also important to recognise when you may need outside help from a qualified health professional. All is not lost as your yogic self study and awareness of the problem could possibly help to come to a quicker diagnosis and therefore a faster recovery.

So, you are well on your way down the path to DIY stress relief for body and mind! For a more thorough introduction, book into our next Self Myofascial Release (Foam Roller) and Yoga Workshop here >>

References
Manheim, Carol. 2001. The Myofascial Release Manual. 3rd Edition. Slack Inc
Mosby’s Medical Dictionary, 8th edition. © 2009, Elsevier
O’Dwyer, Ian 2007 – OD on movement
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Do You Teach Meditation Classes In Perth?

on March 29, 2015

Meditation Class Perth “Do you teach just meditation classes in Perth, seperately to yoga?” ~ We are often asked this question and it always interests me to hear people’s own ideas about what meditation is and how they might expect to learn how to “do it” and what the outcome might be. Is the goal really about finding inner peace?

There are so many different ways to “meditate” (I put that in inverted commas due to so many different definitions floating around) For anyone that has tried meditating before, it can be anything but peaceful! Congratulations though, because if you do yoga then you are already meditating! There you go, how easy was that!

What am I talking about? Well, many of us have this idea that meditation takes many years to perfect, you have to close your eyes, sit still cross legged, fight your thoughts, fight looking at the time, fight the pain in your body from sitting so long when you’re not used to it and then spend hours trying to clear your mind in order to find inner peace – it sounds great, now I see exactly why so many of you want “Meditation Classes”! :) Seriously though, you can meditate like this if you want to, there are places that you can do that but it’s much easier and kinder to yourself to start with more achievable methods that aren’t such hard work.

There are many ways we meditate during a yoga class, meditation is a part of yoga and isn’t really seperate from it at all. Noticing sensation in the body is meditating, even whilst we are moving, it simply becomes a moving meditation. Focusing on the breath, hearing noises consciously, noticing thoughts and emotions and being aware of one’s self – this is ALL MEDITATION – you are meditating through the entire class and then at the end of the moving meditation, we come into a restful position and meditate for another 15 mins which is really just another way of doing it. Just like anything, it can get easier with practice, but then sometimes it can be hard again, this is not a backwards step at all. As you slowly cultivate an inner sense of awareness, it means you can notice when things are easy and notice when they are hard too but maintain some equanimity.

I look forward to seeing you at our meditation classes in Perth soon :)

Spinal Tension, Back Pain & The Breath

on February 23, 2015

The relationship between the spine and the breath can be used really effectively to help release tension in the spine. It’s especially helpful for those that have ongoing pain or back problems and may be a little tentative about moving in large increments. It’s a great way of subtly and safely moving the entire spinal column and can easily be done lying down if sitting is not an option. The added bonus is the ability of the breath to take you into a state of relaxation, the perfect environment for spinal tension to relax and ease.

Inefficient breathing is both a cause and a result of tension in the spine and surrounding muscles. So, pranayama (breathing practice) can be helpful in both releasing and preventing spinal tension.

Back and side view of spine

The spine is comprised of 33 vertebrae in 5 sections asfollows – 7 cervical vertebrae (neck), 12 thoracic vertebrae (where ribs attach), 5 lumbar vertebrae in the lower back, 5 fused sacral vertebrae (the sacrum) and 4 coccygeal vertebrae (sometimes 5) also fused in adults.

The basics of spine function, is that we should be able to do the following with every joint of spine:

Flexion & extension/ bends – forward & back
Lateral flexion/ bends – side to side
Rotate – both ways – ie twisting!

The Spine and Breath When we breath, the ribs move through 3 dimensions, out and in, forward and back and up and down by rotating in their joints at the thoracic spine. You can see by the diagrams how the ribs move on inhalation and exhalation. Many people have rigid ribs due to misalignment, injuries or stress which interferes with breathing.

Ribcage Sternum explanation Awareness of the sternum can play a part in breathing practice, the sternum has 3 parts like an upside down broad sword. The manubrium (handle) at the top, the body in the middle and xyphoid at the bottom tip. It can be helpful to visualise expanding the chest at the manubrium rather than from the xyphoid to avoid over arching the lower back and sinking through the upper ribcage.

Pelvis and sacrum picture The sacrum, although firmly ligatured to the back of the pelvis, has some play called nodding or nutation. On the inhale, the sacrum moves backwards slightly and on the exhale it moves forwards. This nodding pumps the cerebrospinal fluid around the spinal canal and brain (central nervous system).

If you come to class this week, we are working on the breath and spinal tension. If you haven’t been to class before and are interested in yoga for back pain, you can book in a trial class on the bookings page here or contact us for a chat about some private yoga classes.

References : The Yoga of Breath, Richard Rosen

Leave Your Hats At The Door

on January 8, 2015

Leave your hats at the door…..

It’s school holidays so I was playing lego with my six year old. I decided I may as well embrace it fully so built this. It’s a yoga class of course just in case you didn’t pick up on that through my somewhat rudimentary building skills! There’s a bit of a double entendre to the “Leave Hats Here” sign which I pondered as I was constructing this. Once we enter the yoga space, wouldn’t it be great if we could remove all of our metaphorical “hats” as easily as taking off an actual hat and placing it on a rack for a while? I guess that over time, yoga practice helps us to do this more easily. At the end of the day, when we are on our mats in class, there is also a part us that is the “same” as the next person – much easier for the lego dudes to see that as they are quite literally all the same!

I also purposely made the yoga teacher the red caped, masked villain – once she has derobed, she’s a fairly standard sort of looking chick really. Another important thing to remember in class, the teacher is just an ordinary person and yogi too, a student first and teacher second, there to simply guide the students through their highly individual personal practice ~ wow, who would have thought building lego could be so deep and meaningful! See you in a few weeks in class, bookings are already open ~ x Charley