Reaching Your Potential Coaches and personal trainers are the secret weapon of many top achievers. Even though the stars and seasonal energies are ripe for you reaching your goals, change can be difficult. Old patterns and new demands derail the best intentions. Even when you stay on track, you need an outside eye seeing what you don’t see, providing context, dangling that carrot so that your bud blooms. Top athletes and successful entrepreneurs know this. The truth is, very few of us get to the top alone. We grow in relationship. A good coach can make a huge difference in the results you get. Bodystrength welcomes two new trainers in addition to Sair Ponvil, our longtime, sought-after, trainer-bodybuilder-musician. Elizabeth Coker is ACE certified and an ex-professional ballet dancer studying exercise physiology at Columbia. Her thesis is based on the relevance of cross-training for pre-professional ballet students. John Gianino has been certified by ACE and the National Endurance & Sports Trainers Assoc. He has whipped many people into shape including division one college athletes, Fortune 500 execs, fashion models and US Army Rangers. |
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High Summer
The yogic tradition of astrology has a practical application for realizing the Self. In that sense, it is used to relate the personal to the impersonal or the microcosm to the macrocosm. In this system, you are the microcosm. Your physical form is the vehicle (yana) to take you into the formless, timeless awareness of the Absolute. Asana, pranayama and meditation are experiential practices ( not theories or doctrines you are asked to believe on faith) that help you see through the form and realize your multidimensional truth as spirit as matter/matter as spirit.
In yogic astrology our physical body is represented as Earth. We arise from her, are physically nourished by her, and return to her when we die. Our emotional body is represented as Sun (surya). At this level, we are nourished by breath bearing bioenergy (prana). Our mental body is represented as Moon (chandra). The mind reflects the clear light of awareness when it’s impressions are balanced. The mental body is nourished by resting as the witness, awake to all phenomena and grasping at none. A summer practice ( in the northern hemisphere) focuses on flowing with the energy of the sun. Inversions are structured to create alignment and stability in our form (Earth). This creates a ground for the upward flow of Eros, the desire for matter to rise up and return to spirit. Erotic energy is the great gift of the season. Taken beyond it’s sexual implications, Eros is the desire to grow, evolve and manifest our potential. A good inversion embodies this archetypal energy. When you set up the right conditions, Eros will lift you off the ground and you will feel like you could stay there forever. Even if it only lasts a few seconds, it is forever because you are tasting eternal time. You are momentarily freed from this time-bound world. The circumference of what is real has just expanded. Many spiritual teachers say that our conscious evolution will arise with the tempering of our emotional bodies and the development of passion into compassion. July began with a new moon in Cancer on the 6th and winds down with the full moon on the 21st. A Cancer moon can stir up a lot of feelings which can instigate change. The tide of feeling can either drag you under to drown in old patterns of fear and anger or provide the lift you need to get a better view. To rise above the undertow of the emotional body requires a centered mind that can clearly reflect upon the circumstances of one’s personal life and see them as reflections of the center itself. When this is done, solar energy peaks. The individuated, I AM is recognized as the creator, the center of microcosm’s solar system. You feel strong, radiantly expansive and passionately connected to life. The fog of opinions and preferences has lifted and in its place is the freshness and immediacy of your authentic presence. You are spirit as matter, in love with the world. If you have used the energy of Cancer, you will have gained insights about nuturing yourself and maintaining energetic balance. You cannot draw water from an empty well. The lunar cycle of August begins with a new moon in Leo on the 4th . The full moon is on the 19th. This cycle builds outward from the inner balance of the previous month. This is the time for creative self ( or Self) expression and to seek the path with heart. Follow what is good, true and beautiful in you. And remember, the highest form of creativity is the development of your own spiritual potential. |
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Asana of the Month – Pinchamayurasana, Vrscikasana and Vrksasana (Forearm Stand, Scorpion and Handstand - Inverted Arm Balances with Backbends) 
All arm balances require open shoulders and the ability to spin the palm chakras in and the armpits out. This work is most fruitful when practiced all year long in dog and plank poses. Then, when summer comes, you can then harvest the fruit of your labors and find the effortless pleasure of these poses. Until then, you can square the wall for added support. Squaring the wrists and elbows and elbows and shoulders, gives you the range to lift off the shoulders. This sets up the heart with lungs that support it’s desire to radiate its energy spherically. There is a lengthening arc that moves through the low back and neck that allows the pose to continue unwinding . It is the wave that carries you out of compressing the back and neck and keeps the ribs and diaphraghm from protruding forward. Lift with the core of the body, reaching the pelvis and legs to the ceiling. When balancing in scorpion or handstand, the head is lifted and the drishti forms the apex of the triangle of hand, hand, gazing spot. Beware of lifting the head too high in order to compensate for a tight thoracic spine. Feel the heart and lungs in motion toward the drishti. |
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Deep Heart Feelings: Patience, Joy, Happiness, Self-Confidence and Compassion "I believe the purpose of our existence is to seek happiness and fulfillment." The Dalai Lama, Healing Anger. Of course, the Dalai Lama’s challenge is not for us to seek happiness in the transitory but to find happiness and fulfillment by developing peace of mind and a depth of compassion born of an understanding of the One in the many. |
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