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flexagonWell, I definitely got my $19 worth out of the Dahn Yoga place where I got evaluated yesterday. Not even counting the fact that the instructor spent something like 1.25 hours with me. Dahn shares with Pilates the idea of strengthening and bringing awareness to the core (lower belly area), which I already knew. The real insight I got was that there's an up/down component to where we store (or bottle up) energy and awareness in ourselves, and I'm slanted way in the direction of storing it high up.
Why this is true and not just fluffy talk:
* I store all my tension in my upper shoulders, and to a lesser extent my face. I can feel it. So can HLM when I make him rub my shoulders every day.
* In fact, I got surgery on my forehead a couple of years ago so I could at least pretend I wasn't storing it in my face.
* Upper body lifting was a lot easier for me to get into than lower body lifting, mostly because I couldn't feel what was going on, or what was right, down there for a long time.
* That eyelid that started twitching on and off in October? Stillllll going. Ugh! :(
And the teacher only knew about #1 plus my job as a programmer when she was talking about all this, which makes her pretty clever. So, we talked next about the school. They do a lot of stretches (mostly upper-body, which from a flexibility training standpoint I'm not thrilled about) that are pretty intense, and conscious relaxations, and a lot of "waking up" the core by various tapping, bouncing and drumming motions (hee hee, these are fun). Most of the idea is to clear your meridians by moving energy down, or from wherever it's blocked, to the core and the rest of the body, which you can do more and more consciously as you get the feel of it. This is the kicker... she thought I could learn to consciously un-knot my shoulders at will if I did this for a while, and indeed thought I could learn it fairly easily since I have a pretty well-developed sense of awareness already (why that isn't fluffy talk: I do pay attention all the time to my physical self, and can make headaches go away by visualization. I can also relax most muscles on demand, which I've had massage therapists comment on before. I don't think I'm that special, but apparently this kind of thing puts me ahead in the Dahn game).
This may not sound tempting to those of you whose shoulders don't hurt on a daily basis, but damn that would be a great trick for me to learn, if it works. And I could sign up for a month without further commitment... hmmmm. It would hurt the rest of my workout schedule somewhat, but maybe I could stand that. The up/down thing is such a basic insight I'm astonished I never thought of it before. If they have more things on that level to tell me, then I definitely want to hear it.
And now... I've eaten oatmeal with wheat germ and strawberries, and an egg (with a mushroom scrambled into it and a piece of bacon under it) on toast. Also juice. And I'm still hungry. What's this going to take, you crazy body?
*goes off to find more food*
Why this is true and not just fluffy talk:
* I store all my tension in my upper shoulders, and to a lesser extent my face. I can feel it. So can HLM when I make him rub my shoulders every day.
* In fact, I got surgery on my forehead a couple of years ago so I could at least pretend I wasn't storing it in my face.
* Upper body lifting was a lot easier for me to get into than lower body lifting, mostly because I couldn't feel what was going on, or what was right, down there for a long time.
* That eyelid that started twitching on and off in October? Stillllll going. Ugh! :(
And the teacher only knew about #1 plus my job as a programmer when she was talking about all this, which makes her pretty clever. So, we talked next about the school. They do a lot of stretches (mostly upper-body, which from a flexibility training standpoint I'm not thrilled about) that are pretty intense, and conscious relaxations, and a lot of "waking up" the core by various tapping, bouncing and drumming motions (hee hee, these are fun). Most of the idea is to clear your meridians by moving energy down, or from wherever it's blocked, to the core and the rest of the body, which you can do more and more consciously as you get the feel of it. This is the kicker... she thought I could learn to consciously un-knot my shoulders at will if I did this for a while, and indeed thought I could learn it fairly easily since I have a pretty well-developed sense of awareness already (why that isn't fluffy talk: I do pay attention all the time to my physical self, and can make headaches go away by visualization. I can also relax most muscles on demand, which I've had massage therapists comment on before. I don't think I'm that special, but apparently this kind of thing puts me ahead in the Dahn game).
This may not sound tempting to those of you whose shoulders don't hurt on a daily basis, but damn that would be a great trick for me to learn, if it works. And I could sign up for a month without further commitment... hmmmm. It would hurt the rest of my workout schedule somewhat, but maybe I could stand that. The up/down thing is such a basic insight I'm astonished I never thought of it before. If they have more things on that level to tell me, then I definitely want to hear it.
And now... I've eaten oatmeal with wheat germ and strawberries, and an egg (with a mushroom scrambled into it and a piece of bacon under it) on toast. Also juice. And I'm still hungry. What's this going to take, you crazy body?
*goes off to find more food*
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*Makes massage appt.*
Date: 2004-12-13 06:04 pm (UTC)Re: *Makes massage appt.*
Date: 2004-12-13 09:36 pm (UTC)Ever since this appt I've been experimenting with up-to-down visualizations... and also found out that the headache trick works on the eyelid, although only for a less than a minute. That's cool beans.
Try this: visualize someone walking up behind you and rubbing your shoulders, and try to get that rush of relaxation you would if it were real. That was my latest shoulder trick before all these Dahn ideas got in my head... now I'm working on new ones. It's fun. :)
I totally recommend spending the $19 if you happen to have $19 and 90 minutes to kill in Davis Square. I'm pretty sure I'm going to do a month with them sometime... way too interesting not to. The only question is when.