Blog – Welcome to Full Life

Listening into the Thundering Silence to Heal

Dear Full Life Friends,

Home. I love it here, especially in the spring time. The Sierra Foothills take my breath away. The beautiful dogwoods, like young women, standing quietly in spring kimonos, blooming pink and white in the forest.

The humming bird visiting the wisteria and then coming eye-to-eye with me, “Isn’t this day sweet and beautiful?!” The turtle crawling out of the pond onto a warm pile of ponderosa pine needles– “ahhh, the sun, the sun!”

And then another cold day of rain and I am again sitting by a wood fire, writing.

I still carry Japan with me in my heart. The reverence, the quiet, clean space, the generosity of kind people, the new tastes, beautiful gardens and cherry trees. And I am enjoying home– sleeping cuddled up next to Izzy, the beautiful new green of the oaks, the cozy familiarity. I enjoy my routine of teaching, planning, emailing retreat participants and students, inventing, dreaming, practicing, working in my yard, planning the next workshop.

And after time in community, I had a week to feel into the quiet when alone. The deep quiet of the woods at night. The stillness of early morning.

Sometimes I fill the quiet– with music, phone calls, busy thoughts, a full schedule. And this week I found Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Silence by my bed and started reading.

“Mindfulness gives you the inner space and quietness that allow you to look deeply, to find out who you are and what you want to do with your life.” With Thich Nhat Hanh’s words in my mind, I made the choice not to make certain phone calls. I practiced yoga in silence. I meditated. And I felt my nervous system quiet. I walked Izzy without my phone. I took a nap with my phone far away– in the car in the garage. I invited quiet.

Thich Nhat Hanh says there is a sound to no sound– the thundering silence. He says when you establish this silence, “you begin to hear the deepest kind of calling from within yourself. Your heart is calling out to you. Your heart is trying to tell you something…”

I instinctively believe he is right. My mind often gets cluttered. And when arriving home from travels, that is one possibility… catching up with emails, with chores, with friends, with worries… Could I feel into the thundering silence?

And inside that silence, I feel the hum that sang inside my heart in Japan, still vibrating. And inside that hum is a moss garden with many people walking through in silence. Inside that hum stands Kannon, the Goddess of compassion. Inside that hum are moments: I feel my laughter, inside the silence, as Karen and I receive our sixth of nine courses at dinner, I see her bright eyes and smile above her beautiful Yukata gown, hear our shared laugh of joy. Inside my own thundering silence, memories and emotions flow, and they carry me back into this current moment, sitting on my yoga block meditating, staring out at the trees blowing in the storm.

All the wonders of life are already here. They’re calling to you.

As I write to you, I feel the warmth of the woodstove. I am comforted by Izzy curled in a ball beside me, the sounds of my mother getting ready for bed in another room. I think of all my friendships. I feel them inside the silence too.

I think of the upcoming Big Springs retreat and the emails I exchanged with participants the last few days. Four days of mindfulness, together, in the mountains in July. We will practice this silence– we will have time to listen like Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Deep Listening. We can listen for the five sounds that can heal the world. There are still a few spots left if you would like to join us as we listen to these sounds:

The first is the Wonderful Sound, the sound of the wonders of life that are calling you. This is the sound of the birds, of the rain…

The second is the Sound of the One Who Observes the World. The sound of listening, of silence.

The third is the sound of om, of aum, the Brahma Sound.

The fourth is the Sound of the Rising Tide. The sounds of the Buddha’s teachings, which can help to clear away misunderstanding.

The fifth is the Sound that Transcends All Sounds of the World. The sound of impermanence.

I want to take more time during my days for silence. In the silence I know I feel my mind, body and heart settle. And in the silence I feel gratitude for Miyu, our friendship and co-creations, for the wonderful communities we are sharing. I feel grateful for Tom and Nadine lending me their truck last week, and feeding me delicious soup and sending me home with roses that smell divine. I am thankful for my friend Carol, and her book, The Worst Thing We’ve Ever Done, and her willingness to read excerpts and share the ongoing story after a potluck at my home this coming Saturday from 5 to 8 PM. You are all invited. Respond to this email, if interested.

I want to listen– to the sounds of the birds and the rain… I don’t want them to just be background noise. I want to really listen, just to them. I want to listen into my own listening. I want to listen to the lessons that come my way– through yoga, Qigong, mindfulness. I want to hear, and better understand, the sound of impermanence.

My mom and I sat on the couch today, talking and sharing. We are here, together, now. And there is someone missing. My dad isn’t here. We are both learning to live without him. This is part of impermanence. And so today, I took my mom to dance. In the past, Dad wouldn’t have wanted to go, and Mom would have stayed with him. Today she came– and she danced a little, and watched all the beautiful moving bodies, and met friends. Afterwards, smiling, she told me, “It is so nice to see where you go– you have been talking about dance for years. And now I know where you swim too. I’ll be able to picture it.” And we get to know each other better. Perhaps this is all part of the sound of impermanence– a stretching and opening movement into constant change. I feel it all a little differently when I spend some of my time in silence.

With much love,

Tracy

Move Slowly & Fluidly To Better Feel Compassion, Kindness & Generosity. We Are All One

Dear Full Life Friends,

I sit with Jan in the cafe of the Ana Crowne Hotel, Kyoto after saying goodbye to the rest of our group. She and I will leave tomorrow– a train to Osaka, a plane to San Francisco– we will travel 12 hours back through time and lose 4 hours somewhere along the way.

Time, what a strange ever-shifting concept. Our 12 days feel like their own lifetime, full and rich with new tastes, textures and moments. We visited temples, gardens, museums, shops. We learned about Kannon, the goddess of compassion and mercy– and were awed by her statues in temples– with her thousand and one arms and eleven faces, all offering compassion to those in need, in every direction.

We met Miyu’s eccentric, kimono-artist father in his studio where Jan modeled his beautiful, hand-crafted silk kimonos. She looked radiant in the array of colors and shades of silk and we imagined these as her wedding dress. Afterwards, a cat lover, Miyu’s father showed us his cat tail windshield wiper on his car and we all laughed.

On our final day at Myoshin-ji, the Temple of the Enlightened Mind, we practiced Qigong, and then deeply rested in the middle of things to the vibrations of Miyu’s singing bowls, absorbing our last moments in the Big Heart Zendo. We ate our final breakfast, shipped our big suitcases to the final hotel, gave thank you gifts to the staff of our inn, and then, toting our small bags, headed by train to the Ryokan Inn at Konosaki Hotsprings.

We settled into the pleasure of soaking in mineral waters that have been enjoyed by people for 1,300 years. And after our nine course dinners of amazing delicacies of fish and steak and tofu and miso and a lovely variety of vegetables, including burdock, bamboo shoots and lotus root, we walked outside in our Yukata robes and Geta sandals (or our own shoes) to digest and enjoy the evening air before going to bed in our traditional rooms overlooking the beautiful gardens in the moonlight. The final night, we felt like royalty as young women came to help us dress in fancy Yukata gowns. Then we fed the coy fish, laughed and took photos, reveling in the beauty and generosity of Japan.

It was so nice to spend time in a small town in the mountains, walking and riding a tram up to a temple whose care has been handed down through one family for three or four generations. A monk chanted for us and we each got to pinch some incense into the coals and make a prayer. It was so heart-warming to watch each member of our group move up to the altar, pause for prayer, to see the incense lift skyward with the monk’s deep, resonant voice– both carrying our prayers. And then the matron of the temple served us a delicious cake and tea, so happy to see us enjoy her food, so happy to see her friend Miyu again. Only later did we learn that she had baked us each a bag of several different treats and given us a calendar from the temple. Generosity in Japan seems to know no bounds.

I am still not sure all the ways I have grown and changed on this trip. I do know that I did awaken a little more each day. I did grow and expand as I tried my hand at calligraphy with Miyu coaching– “It’s like Qigong, move slowly, fluidly.” We painted the characters for peace and joy over and over again– our new friends coaching us and clapping at successes we couldn’t recognize. To us our creations looked wobbly and off-kilter. We had to be humble, kindergarteners all over again. “Feel the peace before you start, feel the joy,” Miyu instructed. Calligraphy as meditation.

Each step of the way our hearts seemed to open more– to the experiences, to the people who so graciously helped and served us, to the beauty all around us. We felt the presence of the Jizos, the stone statues of guardian spirits, of bodhisattvas, enlightened beings, who return to guide people on the path to enlightenment. These small statues particularly protect children and travelers. People tie little bibs around their necks to ask for their protection. When the bibs are red, like they are in Jori’s beautiful photo above, they offer their protection to unborn babies and children. People also leave the Jizos sweets, coins and flowers as they ask for protection for family members. As travelers, we also felt thankful for these spirits who were along roadways and trails, and in small shrines throughout town, thankful they were watching out for us as we traveled through the mountains of Japan, closer to our plane trips home.

Our final night together, transitioning us back towards the west, Miyu took us to a lovely Japanese- Italian restaurant in Kyoto where again we enjoyed the beauty and tastiness of each elegant dish. And after dinner we wandered through this new neighborhood and into a Shinto Shrine lit by many lanterns. We saw wooden hearts full of prayers and small rabbit figures. Nature and animals honored. So much honoring. So many prayers. So much compassion and gratitude.

My dear friend Miyu, “Arigato Goziamas,” thank you so much. Bow, deep, low, full bow for all you have given us in this experience.

Kannon and the Shinto Shrines, the Jizos and the members of our group swirl together inside me, melding with the Qi and prana moving through us all– through the crane, the bear, the dragon and tiger, through the deer and the beautiful trees that help us to root and ground. Through one qigong form and then another. Through the ink of the calligraphy brush into joy and peace and each other. Through the cherry blossoms, the moss garden. Through writer and reader and all our loved ones.

As we end this trip, because of this loving group of humans, and the kind people we met in Japan, I feel hope for humanity. We are one, we have the capacity to honor each other, we all felt it– and expressed it in our closing circle.

We are one across cultures and oceans. And even as we face frightening conflicts around the globe– I believe we have the capacity to remember.

Denel Kessler, author of the Kyoto poem above, has been here. In his poem the speaker feels it too. We have the capacity to remember, to honor, to love.

We are one.

See you in class Tuesday, or at a future retreat or private session. And thank you once again for being a part of this growing Full Life community.

You Are Invited to a Family Reunion– Get to Know Your Inner Core Muscles

How do I entice you into a workshop that reintroduces you to your inner core? How do I express the importance, the deep meditation and awakening that can occur and will help keep you safe, balanced and moving with ease across our small, beautiful planet?

We are continually learning more about how the body moves, stabilizes, rests, activates, faces challenges, relaxes, sends messages through pain, handles injury, bounces back, heals, strengthens, speaks, dances, cartwheels, hikes up mountains, skis down snow-covered slopes~ to swim and snorkel in the ocean. How this body laughs, breathes, lives fully.

More awakening can happen each day inside this beautiful inner landscape and the inner core is the molten center that holds it all together.

In yoga the core of the body has been addressed through the bandhas, the breath, balancing energy. In Pilates we learn to lengthen the sleeve of muscles around the spine and articulate each bead in the necklace, feel a square of strength, move from the powerhouse. In Qigong we learn the importance of breath, flow, space, stillness. The lower dantian draws our awareness into the red field of vibration. From this battery our energy pulses outward again. In all practices, we learn better how to listen inward to messages from our body. We learn to feel the center, centered, grounded, rooted. We too grow upward from our roots like the daffodils and tulips. We recognize energy radiates outward from our core like our own pulsing sun.

Many of my longtime students continue to revel as they meet new muscles, new communities of tissue inside themselves.

“I finally feel that inner hug you have been talking about.”

“I didn’t know I had a back!”

“I have been doing this practice for years and have never felt the banks of my river before.”

“I didn’t know the muscles of the neck mattered, now I feel them and how they lengthen my spine.”

The inner core muscles are meant to activate support before the outer core muscles move you through space– lifting, twisting, pressing, pushing. These muscles have the important job of stabilizing you for everyday movement. But what happens if some of them don’t turn on? What happens if postural imbalances tighten or over-activate one side or one muscle group and others turn off? How do we bring balance back and awaken the full circumference, the whole family of the inner core? Let’s address these questions in this week’s workshop.

You are invited to the family reunion.

We will meet the transverse abdominis, the pelvic floor, the diaphragm, the front neck flexors, the multifidi. We will say hello to them, feel for them, see them. We will learn breathing and movement exercises to help activate this family of muscles. And then we will move, tuning in to see if we can feel them turn on. We will learn to be more subtle- so we don’t over-ride the inner core with the rectus abdominis, the obliques, the psoas, the erector spinae. We will feel for, and get to know, these muscles too, their roles in the family.

Yes, we will breathe three-dimensionally and breathe out through the straw… and in this workshop we will take some time with these practices so we can really test if we are changing the shape of our spines when we activate the core this way. We will work to activate the inner core and keep the outer core from over-riding the stabilizers. This takes deep concentration– and with practice can help us to protect the spine as we move, lift, twist– enjoy our active bodies.

What we do consciously becomes unconscious.

Recognizing these muscles, feeling into the myofascial web, is empowering. We learn more about this amazing logic puzzle of our own bodies. And like Archibald Lampan found the grief and joy in the Voices of Earth, we can feel into the mysteries in the many voices inside our own bodies– and follow the paths of previous explorers into the stability created by the yoga bandhas, the power generated in the Pilates powerhouse, the grounded and spacious flow of Qigong rooted in a centered lower dantian.

Stability helps us to create balance, harmony. Balance and harmony help us to create ease of movement, flow, grace. Ease of movement helps us to experience joy. I believe you can simultaneously feel the rooted cedar and the red tailed hawk gliding on air waves. You can be both mountain and sky. You can be the river water and the bedrock.

A strong balanced core makes stable strength and fluid grace possible.

I know it is hard to leave this beautiful weather for an indoor Zoom workshop on a spring afternoon. If you cannot join us, feel free to purchase the video of the workshop so you have the visuals, the explanations and the exercises to practice on a rainy day. This work will help you to support a healthy spine, hips, shoulders and will contribute to balance and ease.

Hope you can join me this Wednesday, March 20th 3-4PM PST

Cool Yourself Off on a Hot Day with Sitali Breath Practice

Though the hottest part of summer may be over, the sun is still strong. If you are not able to dive into the ocean, or the mountain lakes that still contain snow islands, and you find yourself overheating during the day, you can always stop for a cool breath.

Yes, you read that right. While it is important to hydrate, a cool breath can help relieve the heat in your body. Try this, Sitali Breath:

Take a seat in the shade. Make sure your body is comfortably upright and you have a natural lumbar curve.

If you can curl your tongue into a tube, do so, and with the end of this tongue-tube protruding slightly over your lower lip, take in a breath.

If you cannot curl your tongue, then simply place the tip of your tongue on the back of your top teeth and gums at the roof of your mouth. Take a breath, inviting the air in over the surface of your tongue.

Your mouth functions like a swamp cooler~ as the air blows over the moist surface of your tongue, it cools. That cool air is drawn into the body.

After your first cooling breath, exhale slowly through your nostrils, inviting yourself to relax. Then, take another slow, cooling breath and another slow exhale through your nostrils. Keep going for a few minutes. Invite the cool air deep into the body to refresh and relax you. Then enjoy a cool glass of water or some delicious fruit. Tune into the tastes, sounds and other sensations and enjoy these moments of self-care.

Yoga practice can be incorporated into moments of our day. The root of the word yoga means to yoke together, unify. We learn skills and then we begin to invite the practices to infuse our daily lives until all of our moments are the practice.

When we awaken to present moments: pause to hear the birds in the trees, feel the air, slow our breath, we live truly, in the here and now. This present-moment living can help us to regulate our nervous and endocrine systems because we let go of the shadows of the past and the anxiety that may come with the unknowns of the future.

I have found myself adding little practices to my life lately. I have felt busier than usual with workshop and retreat opportunities arising, and the planning that comes with this. Something new! And while this is all very exciting, I can feel anxious about doing well. But if I stop, sit down, breathe, and feel the moment, I can shed some of this anxious energy. It’s like a breath of lemonade on a hot day…

Feet & Knees: We want Them to Have Healthy Relationships

Last week we completed our workshop on the feet. We paid attention to the four corners and three main arches of the feet and learned exercises to strengthen and stretch the feet. Some of them are so simple– like pretending to play piano with the toes or pointing your foot backwards under a chair to stretch out the top of the foot.

We looked at our shoes and analyzed if they force our toes to be more narrow than our metacarpal arch– which is unhealthy for our feet-cramping the bones closer together so that the fascia of the feet tightens, making it hard for us to spread our toes. We also looked to see, if even in our athletic and casual shoes, we are wearing high heels that throw us off balance and make other joints, including the knees, hips and spine, compensate.

We discussed bunions and hammer toes, plantar fascia and long distance runners who grew up barefoot and may have a better stride because their feet grew up free.

We also realized that basic self-care impacts our feet. If we do not hydrate, then the joints of the feet, like the rest of the body, get dehydrated which may contribute to aches and pains. And we made a commitment to massage our feet and spend some time barefoot each day. We decided to place a tennis or yoga therapy ball under our desks, our kitchen tables so we could rub the fascia of our feet regularly. We even committed to giving our feet some tender-loving-care through massage.

In June we will move on from this awareness of the feet to awareness of the relationship between the feet and the knees. We will explore how flat feet and high arches impact the knees. We will explore how our heel strike and foot flow affect the knees when we walk, hike or dance. and we will explore how the feet need to be placed in Yoga, Pilates or Qigong so the knees can be safely aligned. We will question how tightness in muscles of the legs can pull on both the knees and the feet.

If you couldn’t attend the foot workshops, don’t worry, you can still join us June 13th from 3 to 4 PM PST. And if you would like to learn about the feet first, let me know and you can purchase the foot class videos.

When we delve deeply into the body, giving each part loving attention, we learn to move with more care, more ease. We learn to appreciate the complexity and the beauty of the body and in doing so, we increase our capacity for happiness.

I hope you can join me for this and future body explorations.

The Health Benefits of Practicing Self-Compassion- Karunā

Birds are singing outside as a clear blue sky fades into dusk. Another beautiful, long summer day passing as we approach solstice.

I am feeling contemplative. There are so many beginnings and endings in life. My yearlong yoga therapy live coursework concluded this evening. The last time we will all be together as that group of individuals in our now cherished Zoom room. I am able to hold myself with compassion as I experience this ending. This group has held me and helped me grow. I will miss them. I feel tender and a little sad. I also feel so incredibly lucky to have been on this journey.

Karunā is the practice of compassion. Thich Nhat Hanh says the practice begins with ourselves. Through learning self-compassion, we can then see others’ pain and offer them kind, open and loving support.

Self-compassion is a practice where we learn to hold ourselves tenderly when we experience pain or confusion. When we learn to do this, tension in body, mind and heart can ease. Our stress levels go down and along with them stress hormones that course through our bodies diminish. Our breathing quiets and may expand, activating our rest and digest nervous system. We may pause, feeling seen and held, and take better care of our physical needs, offering ourselves nourishment, time in nature, or rest. All of these health benefits can come from this simple practice of self-compassion.

Next time you are feeling down or sad, I invite you to try this– step outside yourself with your witnessing presence. Imagine you are witnessing a friend in distress. Take yourself in– seeing and sensing the emotion, the physical sensations, the stories, the thoughts.

Let yourself know, I see you and your feelings. I am here, holding you tenderly. I care about your well-being. I will stay with you. As a friend would, hold yourself in awareness and if it helps, continue with the reminders.

I see your pain and confusion. I am holding you tenderly. I am here.

Some of us did not receive this type of support when we were young. We may not have been held in this way while we were developing. So holding ourselves like this may feel foreign. If so, think of the last time you supported a friend and offered them kindness. And then look back at yourself, remembering your ability to be a friend.

This is a practice that can be hard in our culture. We may feel undeserving. We may feel selfish. If these feelings come up, ask yourself if you would offer compassion to others– and if so, can you try again with yourself?

This was not an easy practice for me when I started. I didn’t know it was possible to befriend myself in this way. And now, this strong friendship I am developing with myself helps me to feel secure, held, loved, grounded. And in this state I am more able to be there for my kids, family, students and friends.

Sometimes I get too busy and forget– and when I come back, like I did this evening on my walk with Izzy before dusk, and hold myself tenderly, I feel more settled, mind and heart nestled into a calm body. My nervous system resets– I am like a small child with a skinned knee held on my dad’s lap. The pain dissipates. I feel held and seen– and even with the sadness, I feel like I belong to something much greater and I will be okay.

Practicing The Brahmaviharas- Loving Kindness

As we know, yoga sets the stage for us to deepen our enjoyment of life. Through postures and breath we learn to pay attention, to turn our gaze and senses inward, to live in the present moment. These practices help us build resilience and patience.

The practice also invites us to deepen into ourselves through the koshas, the sheaths of our being. We watch the breath, the mind’s influence on the body, the body’s influence on the mind, and we learn how to steady all three. And as we begin to take more pause time, we develop the ability to turn towards the deeper practices of our wisdom body– our Vijnanamaya Kosha.

The Brahmaviharas are considered the Four Immeasurables. They include the practices of Loving Kindness- in Sanskrit, Maitri, Compassion- Karunā, Appreciative Joy-Muditā, and Equanimity- Upeksā.

These Immeasurables predate Buddhism and are discussed in early yogic texts. As these Immeasurables have been taught and studied in Yoga, Buddhism and Jainism, the different perspectives have influenced one-another.

I love the practice of the Brahmaviharas. They have literally changed my life. I didn’t realize repetitive practices could slowly change the way I viewed the world, myself and others. These practices are often simple and seem connected deeply to my own wisdom and to my awareness that we are all interconnected.

Here is one simple example: In the shower each morning I begin my loving kindness meditation. I make deep wishes of well-being for myself and others. Each day they may vary a little:

May I be filled with loving kindness for all beings.
May I be well.
May I be at peace.
May I be filled with joy and truly happy.
May I do good work in the world and make offerings from my heart.
May I be kind and compassionate.
May I recognize my place in a larger community.

Then I expand the wishes outward– towards my children, my parents, my friends, my students, people I see in town regularly and do not really know. I then expand farther, to whole communities, cities, countries, landscapes… out to all beings on our small and beautiful planet.

I think this is why Trommer’s poem speaks to me. (Press here for the poem.) The practice of the Brahmaviharas has helped me to know better that inner thrum that reminds us of our shared humanity. I like being a river of blood, one of the notes in a symphony, a part of the one big conversation. I like being one dust particle among many dancing in the light.

I try to really picture the people, the places, the beings I am wishing loving kindness for… Of course I can see the faces of my children– and do not see the faces of the people from Ukraine, Texas as clearly… and yet I imagine this love, these good wishes flowing outward, into all communities.

Loving kindness practice asks us to consider what love and happiness are– If I am to share love with those close to me, I have to be aware of my feelings as they arise. Thich Nhat Hahn has a beautiful little book called Peace is Every Step and in it is a chapter called Living Together.

In Living Together Thich Nhat Hahn tells us that when we live with others we cannot be happy if those we live with are unhappy. They cannot be happy if we are not happy. So we very carefully need to watch our own feelings in these relations– and with kind speech, let these loved ones know if we feel knots developing in our relationship. If we do, clear and loving communication can help us to untie the knots. If we untie knots when they arise, we won’t end up with many knots in between us, and we will be happier.

Practicing awareness and clear speech with those we live with is another loving kindness practice. Making sure we don’t develop resentments, hurt feelings, misunderstandings which I often feel growing in the tissues of my body; in my gut, in the tension in my shoulders and jaw. I like the image of untying knots that come up in our relationships with others, and keeping the area between us clear and open.

And as I think of those I love, I realize I do have some knots to untie. And as I write this I realize I will meditate on how to put my feelings into words with kindness and make sure when I speak I am also ready to take the time to truly listen to their perspective.

May you all be well– mind, body, heart and spirit. And may the practice of loving kindness and the other immeasurables help you to live happier lives.

Namaste.

What is Yoga?

The root of Yoga means to yoke, to unite. One of my first teachers taught me yoga is a practice of re-membering, of putting ourselves back together again, consciously. With each ah-ha moment, we get to know ourselves better. Yoga is a delving inward towards our true and essential nature– through the shrouds and traumas of life towards our inner essence, which has always been there and is interconnected with all beings and with our planet.

Yoga is not a form of exercise– though the asanas, the postures, do strengthen and stretch the body. Yoga is a practice of awakening. And paying attention to the physical body is certainly a part of this practice. This is a developing awareness of our Anamaya Kosha– our food body. And yoga takes us deeper and deeper into our energy body, our mind, our intuition, and our interconnectedness.

Through yoga we can calm and reset our nervous systems. We can expand our capacity to engage the ventral vagal nervous system and live more conscious, contented, compassionate lives. Through yoga we can learn to nurture and nourish ourselves and to become more present for others.

The restorative practice is of equal importance to the physical work of the practice. It is in these practices we learn to question the PUSH life can become and to invite balance– We learn to play as well as work. We learn to listen as well as speak. We learn to deeply relax as well as GO. In the restorative sections of practice we may move beyond trying to please others towards nurturing and caring for ourselves.

What is Qiqong?

Qiqong is an age-old practice of movement and mindfulness where we become fully absorbed in flowing with ease as we learn to sense and build awareness of energy inside and outside the body. We feel ourselves as conduits of energy between Earth and Sky.

There are numerous health benefits to Qigong practice which is the parent of Tai Chi. Qigong helps us move stagnant energy in the body, releasing long-held tensions. As we move energy through the meridians, we bring our system back towards balance.

After a practice you may feel more grounded, at ease, and happy. You may feel that restrictions in joints and aches and pains in the body have eased. Your mind may quiet and you may feel a sense of calm awareness. My hope is that over time this builds greater happiness and joy in your daily life.

What is Pilates?

Pilates is a system of exercises designed to improve physical strength, flexibility, and posture, and enhance mental awareness. And, the practice takes us far beyond this!

For me, Pilates is a mindfulness practice. We feel into the natural curves of our spine. We invite in space and length and fluid movement. We pay attention to balanced weight, to which muscles are active, over-active, asleep. We then sense, visualize, imagine and move ourselves back towards balanced strength and fluid grace, towards healthy integration of limbs into the torso.

This is a practice of learning the inner landscape of the physical body and paying attention to the ocean waves of breath. This is a practice of deep listening, of building confidence, of remembering possibility, even after injury and even as we age.

A student wrote me an email the other day. She said she had just participated in an annual MRI. The doctor told her, as if confused, “We don’t usually see improvement in your age group.” She was so happy.

Pilates is a practice of deep respect for body and mind– and of realizing that tissue can change throughout our lives with love and attention.