States of Mindfulness and Focus During a Yoga Practice Part 1: Centering and Asana

By Betsy Kase, Owner/Director of Yoga Haven

Every yoga class at the studio begins with 5-10 minutes of “centering”.  This time is devoted to everyone in the room; including the teacher. Taking these moments to sit in a comfortable position on the floor, and start to focus and quiet the mind.  Many of us rush in from a very busy day.  All sorts of things have just happened (i.e: quick trip to the supermarket, dropped one of the kids off at school, last minute phone call, the traffic getting there was horrendous, and the Bronx River Parkway was closed and you are going to be late!).

The process of taking a seat and sitting as comfortably as possible is a necessary step in the process of a yoga practice.  The teacher leads us to “check in with the body”.  She says, “Sit up tall, stretch your spine through to the top of the head, relax your belly and close your eyes.” She continues with something like “Notice how the body feels right now, what is happening inside of you?”  As the student, I say to myself, “Why can’t I take a deep breath or why do my eyes keep fluttering? Why doesn’t my body respond quickly to the calmness within the yoga studio?”  As encouragement, the teacher continues, “Watch your body inhale and exhale without any effort.  Notice how the breath moves in the body.  Try not to pass judgement on yourself regarding what is happening right now.”  I think to myself  “How did she know I can’t take a deep breath. And I am the owner of this yoga studio?”  How CRAZY is this!

The teacher knows this because we all have these experiences.  She is going to lead us through this class encouraging us to keep focus throughout it.   As we progress, the directions from the teacher become more interactive. We are instructed to take deep breaths into our body. “Consciously, take a deeper breath in and allow for the breath to move to all parts of your torso. As you exhale, consciously, allow the breath to leave. Squeezing out the last bit, by drawing your belly button back towards your spine.”   She continues with something like, “allow the thoughts and things of the day to pass through you. Start the practice of coming to the present moment.”  In my head, the voice is saying “Don’t do that!  You have to keep thinking about what already happened today and how are you going to continue to obsess about it!”

The teacher here is the guide and her prompts and suggestions slowly quiet me a bit.  But now, I have to move.  Sitting is too hard, my body is getting achy and I am tired.  So the warm-ups begin.  Thank God!

As the class moves through the warm up, directions are given; when to breath, monitor your body, etc.  My brain says something like, “Wow are you stiff, when was the last time you did yoga?  Can’t you get to class more often?  After all these years, why does it still feel like we keep starting at the beginning again?”  I then say to myself “This is a serious mind-trip!”  Gratefully, the teacher reminds me to breath in and then out, and I allow myself to close my eyes and experience the sensation of the stretch.  Ok, now I am out of my crazy thoughts and into it. “This is finally feeling good.” 

In yoga, the physical postures are called ASANAS.  They consist of standing and balancing poses, backbend and forward bends, twists, hip-openers, and inversion. This part of class last about 45 minutes.  Throughout the whole class the teacher continues to remind me where we are moving to, how to do it, what parts of my body to focus on….and don’t forget to breath throughout the whole thing.  During these 45 minutes, my mind probably goes on vacation 20-30 times.  I can’t even recall where I go, but the body moves and the mind has no idea how this is happening.  You know, it is like driving a car somewhere and you have no idea how you got there, but you did!  Between those 20-30 vacations, there are glimpses of time, when I am focusing on my big toe, stretching my fingers, opening up the back of my knees, allowing my head to hang heavy along with 1000 other instructions that are said to keep me focused.  

Some days are easier. Some days are just plain hard.  But, more and more, I find long stretches of time, where I sense my whole body, completely integrated. No pain, no stiffness, a great ability to breath, a sense of easy moves and I feel I might even be able to hold this pose forever.  A lightness comes into my mind, and everything integrates…mind, body, breath.   Was that a little bit of full consciousness I might have been feeling?  Some may call it a connection with everything in the universe, or a total and complete awareness that brings every cell of your body into full alignment. Some even say, a palpable feeling of energy pulsing through the body. Who knows?  But I must say, I have a full experience reaching out to my fingers and toes and all of a sudden thoughts stop moving through the mind. I am absolutely content, and there is a brief sense of perfection?  Could it be?  Is this what my teachers from many moons ago spoke about?  I watched it on their faces as they practiced in front of me.  Teaching me not with their words, but with an intimate display of the essence of what practicing yoga is for them.  And that is…pure joy.

Heart Monitors Make Us a Believer in Yoga

By Betsy Kase, Owner/Director of Yoga Haven

this blog was also posted on http://bronxville.patch.com/

As yoga teachers, during class we teach students about the benefits of yoga.   Many times these benefits are more obvious, “stretches the hamstrings, squeezes and massages the internal organs” but at other times we go on the assumption of what we have read and what has been passed down from teacher to student over years and years. 

One big one that I use all the time is “this pose lowers your heart rate,” but I have never actually seen it happen.  I have felt it, but what proof is that?!!!

Last week I was working in the home of one of my private clients who happens to be over 50, a big athlete and a surgeon.  We are always talking or arguing about the benefits of yoga, and the changes that are actually happening to his body and state of mind.  It is really quite entertaining.  That day he left his heart monitor on with his corresponding watch that shows, moment by moment his heart rate. 

We started out with a baseline of 60 beats per minute resting.  This is pretty good, remember he is an athlete, runs and plays tennis a lot.  As we started to move through the sun salutation at the beginning of class, the movements got bigger and more coordination was needed to keep the breath calm and even.  He tends to hold his breath like many students do.  I am continually reminding him when to inhale and exhale throughout the whole series of poses, but still he forgets.  As the lack of breathing takes place, I glance down at his watch and see that his heart rate is up over 85 beats per minute pretty quickly.  I see him struggle with many of the poses, and with his focus and attention on trying to swing the correct foot forward or back, which is making him totally forget to breathe.  I stop him for a moment, either in standing forward bend or mountain pose and cue him to inhale and exhale evenly, calmly and gently…we need to slow the breath down, and become conscious of the transitions between the inhale and the exhale and the exhale and the inhale.   “What was that you said?”,  he asks, I try to explain again that he holds his breath at the top, and when it is time to inhale he allows the breath to come tumbling out without any sense of control and evenness.  The exhale, becomes very short, and then he holds his breath out at the bottom forgetting to inhale again.  He starts to understand what I am talking about.  His breathing becomes more even and calmer.  As soon as he starts to remember how to breathe his heart rate drops back down to 60-65 beats immediately.   “WOW”, I said, “it really works!!”

But 30 seconds later he is back to his old habits again and his heart rate is going back up again!  The process of breaking the old habits is a big lesson in yoga, every week I cue his breath the same way over and over again.  This is the big lesson for him - the patience to allow himself to breath more fully and evenly translates back into his fast paced, busy life. 

We move through the rest of the session much the same, going through this process over and over again, heart rate up, and heart rate down.  Over time the rate doesn’t go up as high, he is getting calmer, the poses are getting less strenuous and we are moving from the more vigorous standing poses and sun salutations to the slower poses on the floor. 

The sequence of poses in a yoga session, have a direct impact on the nervous system.  We start off with poses that are more energizing and move toward poses that are calmer and more relaxing.  At the end of class it all culminates with meditation and deep relaxation. 

The best part of our session is coming up now… I get my client ready for deep relaxation.  His body is propped appropriately to make him as comfortable as possible.  There is a rolled blanket under his knees, a pillow under his head, and an eye pillow over his eyes and a blanket over his body.  There is a shift to the quiet and calm music and we begin the process! 

We keep his hand out from under the blanket so I can watch the heart monitor on his watch.  Immediately he is at about 60 beats per minute.  I verbally direct him to start relaxing parts of his body starting with his feet and moving slowly up to his head.  The heart rate is dropping fast.  I now direct him to bring his awareness to his breathing and notice how light, slow and even it has become.  His heart rate is now at about 45 beats in less then 3 – 4 minutes.  Oops - now he starts to fall asleep (he does every week, many students do) and his heart rate starts to go up!!!  There is more action in his eyelids, and his breathing shifts to a more stilted inhale and exhale.  I continue to direct him verbally, to consciously taking his awareness to a place inside of himself where he feels a sense of peace, calm and tranquilly…AH, the heart rate drops back down again (he can hear me!).   He is in that space between being awake and sleeping, a meditative state.  Then I stop talking and allow for a good 8-10 minutes of silence.  I continue to watch the heart rate fluctuate a little up and down, he might be dreaming, little twitches take place in his hands when that happens. 

When it is time for our session to begin to end, I start to verbally coax him out of his sleep and bring his awareness “up to the surface” again.  Here it is again, his heart rate drops lower when I am talking then when he is sleeping and possibly dreaming.   If I keep him awake but relaxed and conscious, that strong and complex muscle in his chest beats slower and more even.  As he moves out of his deep relaxation, and we find a person who is quiet, calmer, even dreamy.  He takes a moment to feel his body, pauses, enjoying the transformation that has taken place.  He takes more time soaking up  this perfect moment, before he opens his eyes.

After the session is over, (as the doctor and techi that he is), he can up-load the report from the monitor onto his MAC and we can see the graph-like image of the whole session.  It basically looks like a Geiger counter during an earthquake, quick peaks, small valleys, with lots of big after shocks, and then eventually it all quiets down and evens out at approximately 45 beats per minute!!! 

We are both really impressed…another point on my side for the enormous benefit yoga has on your physiological system.  He gets this…but anytime we can measure a “before and after” is when his “doctor brain” really accepts that benefit, and that improvement might actually be happening!

As for me, this just reinforces why I teach yoga, practice yoga and teach others to teach yoga.  I have experienced this state between full consciousness and sleep. This state is sometimes experienced as a meditative state and sometimes trance like. 

I hope to help those I teach to have the full experience of surrender, peace, and perfection in this incredibly frenetic imperfect world we live in for just a couple of minutes in their day.

The Book Shelf What We’re Reading… Yoga Haven Staff Picks

What We’re Reading…

Yoga Haven Staff Picks

       Looking for a great spring read?  Yoga Haven instructor, Kate Vantucci has just the book for you.  The Wisdom of Yoga: a Seekers Guide to Extraordinary Living  by Stephen Cope. “It's such a good book, I don't feel like I can say enough wonderful things about it,” says Kate. “I was initially drawn to it because of the title--I mean, who doesn’t want to live an extraordinary life, right?  But once I started reading it, I was hooked on his writing. It reads like a novel.”

      “In the Wisdom of Yoga,” continues Kate, “Cope demystifies and sheds light on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. He introduces us to people he knows and allows us access to their own personal journeys.  Through their (and his own) struggles and triumphs, he shows us how we can all integrate the teachings of Patanjali and take the next step toward living an extraordinary life. He makes Patanjali’s teachings feel like they really are within our grasp. In the book’s intro, Cope says, ‘Struggle and liberation live side-by-side in the life of a practitioner of yoga.  My hope is that the stories of struggle and liberation that follow will inspire the reader to look carefully into the possibilities of transmuting ordinary struggle into a quietly extraordinary life.  And that our gaze backward into the discoveries of the ancient yogis will also be a gaze inward-a gaze that will unlock our own authentic possibilities for living.’  Yummy.  Whenever I’m in need of some easily digested and transferable wisdom, I know I have to look no further than this book!”

This book is available in the Yoga Haven office/store.