Breath of Life

By Peg Ryan
Mile High Pilates and Yoga
September 10, 2017

By now we all know of the tragedies and struggles emerging in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.  There will no doubt be more as the days and weeks go by and people try to move forward with their lives.  Soon, too, we will be able add tales from those enduring Hurricane Irma and the storms and other events that will inevitably follow.  Our hearts go out to all the people encountering so much loss.  Many of us are trying to help in any way we can.  With these events happening over such a wide swath of our country, everyone seems to know someone who is personally effected.  These are events beyond our control.  Technological advances have helped give some warning, but ultimately these events often behave in ways that are unpredictable and difficult to foresee.  No one is at fault.  It’s just the way things are.

While Houston struggles to emerge from the watery deluge, the opposite problem has been creating disaster conditions in several northern states.  These states have been experiencing extreme drought.  In addition, years of various fire suppression policies have resulted in an abundance of fuel susceptible to any stray incendiary source. As a consequence of this volatile mix, fires are burning out of control in many areas from central Canada south to Montana and beyond.  The smoke has been drifting southward for most of the summer and is now being acutely felt in my area, the Black Hills of western South Dakota.

As I looked out my window last week, I could see the haze settling among the trees.  Each morning the sun has risen as a blood red disk in the sky, its light being filtered through layers of smoke.  Last Sunday was so bad that it was difficult to be outside.  The Rapid City Journal reported that “wildfire smoke exceeded unhealthy levels” over Labor Day weekend. The smoke stings your eyes and the back of your throat.  Locally we, too, have had small fires all summer and, in fact, there was one burning a few miles south of my town a few weeks ago that caused some home evacuations.  Still we in the Black Hills have gratefully been spared any major fires this summer and we remain quite a distance from the worst of the current burn areas.  Yet here we are, having to rely on our internal filtering systems to be able to absorb the air that we humans depend on.  Those of us with weaker systems or respiratory ailments have an even harder time getting what they need from the air.  And those living closer to the fires themselves are in real danger from the many problems the heat and smoke can cause.

All of this serves to highlight both the fragility and amazing resilience of we human beings.  These conditions also remind us of the importance of the true necessities of life.  We may be able to live without our houses and our cars, but we can’t live under water and we can’t live without air. This is true for ALL human beings.  It doesn’t matter what color you are, what language you speak, where your parents come from or any of the other ways in which we each think we are different from each other.  The basic necessities of life are great equalizers.   They are also things we derive directly from the earth and the sun.  We may think we can be independent and self-sufficient, but are all dependent on the gifts of the planet.  And we are all subject to the whims and uncertainties of the atmosphere that surrounds us.

As humans, we have specific requirements for survival.  We all need nourishment.  Although water is essential to our survival, no human can live under water for long without accommodations.  Which further reminds us that we all need to breathe.  We take these things for granted, allowing ourselves to get caught up in our small concerns and petty grievances.  Some of us even have the hubris to believe that they are somehow more deserving of the basics of life than others.  True, we each have our own unique qualities, but there are so many ways in which we are all in the same boat (pun intended!) just trying to survive and make the most of our short, mysterious and perplexing lives.

Being directly in the path of the smoke, I could not help but reflect in particular on the importance of each breath.  Breathing is so instinctive that we usually don’t even think about it until something interferes with it.  Yet inhaling breath is the first experience we have when we come into this world and exhaling is the final experience we have when we leave it.  Every breath in between is hugely valuable and worthy of celebration.  Yoga and Pilates teach us to focus on the breath and its relationship to movement in particular, but also to our health and well-being in general.  In fact, Joseph Pilates theorized that because most of us, to our detriment, breathe too shallowly.  We neglect to exhale fully leaving as much as 30% of our intake of air sitting at the bottom of our lungs.  Take a moment to think about that. This could mean that you’ve had some of the same stale air inside you for years.  No wonder we have lung diseases!  In fact, it’s a wonder we don’t see more of them.

On a more positive note, here’s another concept of breath that I’ve heard in different ways from several sources including yogic breathing specialist Leslie Kaminoff and native plant specialist Michael Stuart Ani.  Earth’s atmosphere has been circulating wind and water all over the planet since its inception. These elements carry with them minute traces of everything that exists on Earth.  This means that the breath of all living things has also been circulating for all of existence.  We are, therefore, connected to our ancestors – and to each other – through our breath.  This concept can be extended to reveal that each of us contains all of us and every human life that has ever existed.  Wow!  What a concept!

In yoga classes we often incorporate various breathing practices as part of the experience.  These serve as a reminder that although many of our bodily functions are not easily controlled (e.g., heart beat, cellular functions, nerve impulses, etc.) breathing is one essential bodily function that we can control to some extent.  For example, we can change the length of our inhales and exhales.  Some people can even train their bodies to go for extended periods of time without breathing.  But there is always a limit.  Humans like to test their limits to see how far they can be pushed, but there is always still a limit.  We might last a few days or weeks without food or water, but we won’t last very long without breath.

So next time you are in a yoga class and find yourself resisting the breathing practices, or forgetting to breathe in a Pilates class, try to remember and treasure the value of each breath.  This is also something you can try if you’re feeling stressed.  Bring your attention to your breathing.  It is said that focusing on your exhales can be calming.  Just letting yourself recognize each breath can help bring your mind back from whatever brink it is perched on. Breath is life and without breath there is no life.  Breathe gratefully

Practicing Balance For Life’s Delicate Dance

 

Balance is Dance

 

Peg Ryan
Mile High Pilates and Yoga

Proponents of practicing yoga and Pilates often stress the ability of these disciplines to improve strength, flexibility and balance.  Frequently I hear people say “I can’t do yoga because I’m not flexible.” Physical flexibility is often defined as full range of motion within a joint or a series of joints.  Although many of us have lots of flexibility as children, over time due to lifestyle habits such as excessive sitting, driving and many forms of repetitive motion, we begin losing it.  This can create all kinds of problems including chronic pain and joint deterioration.  No amount of yoga or Pilates will give us back everything we’ve lost, but most of us can maintain or even improve our range of motion through practice.  When I started practicing yoga I had the tight hamstrings that are common to most runners.  Forward bends were practically impossible.  My hamstrings are still tight and one side is more flexible than the other but I have greatly improved.  This is attributable simply to practice.  No particular physical skills or attributes on my part.  Just non-judgmental patience and practice.

The same can be said of balance.  Human balance is a complex process that relies on a number of anatomical systems including the senses of touch, vision and inner ear motion sensors.  Your brain has to receive and process this information in real-time and your muscle and joint systems must respond and coordinate appropriate movements.  No wonder balance is so difficult!  In fact, our ability to balance at all is nothing short of miraculous.  Most of us can stand on our feet and even walk which actually involves a lot of balance.  Still, just like with flexibility, I hear people say, “My balance is terrible.”

A commonly held belief is that our ability to balance declines as we age.  This is not strictly true, but balance disorders are more common among older people due to various diseases or injuries that take their toll through the years.  As with flexibility, though, balance can be improved through practice.  Medical intervention may be required for the treatment of specific disorders, but most generally healthy adults regardless of age can improve their balance.  In fact, it becomes more critical to focus on balance improvement as we age in order to avoid falls which can become very dangerous.

The ability to maintain balance impacts more than just our physical mobility.  The word “balance” comes from the Latin word “balare” which means to dance.  Anyone who has ever stood on one foot in Tree Pose can understand this derivation.  Your standing foot is in constant motion, internally and externally, requiring minute shifts of the body to maintain equilibrium.  Recently I heard an analogy made to surfing. To me this seems like the ultimate example of responding to subtle changes while staying centered.  One thing that helps with these tiny adjustments is attention.  In balance poses, we are often instructed to find a focal point and concentrate our energy to help maintain the stillness required. It is also important to stay relaxed and to breathe.  Many people hold their breath when trying to balance.  This creates tension which undermines balance.  rhythmic breathing helps the body to relax and adapt to stressors.  Accommodating the dance of balance is difficult enough, but if your attention is diverted it becomes almost impossible.  When people tell me they have fallen or injured themselves, the cause is often traceable to not paying attention.

Sometimes, too, the transition between stillness and movement can be as demanding of our attention as holding our balance.  Perhaps even more so.  Recognizing when to be still and when to move requires that all of the contributing anatomical systems maintain an awareness of what is actually happening in the moment – where your body is in space and in relation to the objects around it and the surfaces it rests on. When you reflect on all that goes into it, it becomes understandable that mindful movement can really help.

The practice of paying attention and being mindful can translate into other aspects of our lives.  Physically, we have two sides – left and right. But we also have a front and back and lower and upper bodies.  There are internal systems and external systems.  Light and dark, day and night, yin and yang.  Each of us is an individual but we are also part of a whole – a family, a community, a country, our planet, the universe. We all also harbor contradictory tendencies within ourselves – positive and negative thoughts and feelings, tendencies toward fight or flight, fear and confidence, hard and soft, etc.  Figuring out how to balance our own inner conflicts and confusion is an enormous challenge. Balance is a lot more than our ability to stand on one foot.  Handling all of this requires coordination of many more systems.  Sometimes we have control over some aspects of these systems, but mostly we have no control.  Stuff happens.  Still similar principles can apply. Maintaining presence in the moment, focusing attention on conditions as they arise and change, adapting to those changes without losing our equilibrium and the values we cherish, assessing each shift and remaining open to all possibilities these are not easy tasks.

Once again practice helps.  But practice does not mean perfect.  There are many times our better nature can be overrun by the tidal wave of emotions in a given moment.  This doesn’t make us bad or faulty but if we can learn from our faults and failings and practice behaving differently, we can begin to experience some sense of equilibrium.  When people say to me “I’m not flexible” or “My balance is lousy” or “My mind is too noisy to focus”, I often reply, “That makes you just like everyone else”.  We all tend to think our abilities and tendencies, or lack thereof, are unique and unusual.  But all humans are coping with challenges.  There is a saying, “Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” We as humans seem to have a natural desire to want to make order out of chaos find the stillness of peace.  We seek predictability, order and unity.  Disorders of all types, both mental and physical, can subvert this tendency and turn it upside down.  Those of us with the ability to practice mindfulness have a gift.  We need to value that gift and find compassion for those unwilling or unable to make that choice.  This is where the third leg of the yoga/Pilates stool comes in – the quality of strength.  Building strength, inner and outer, can help us to stay mindful and make the right choice even when it’s difficult.

This week we’ve seen some tragic examples of chaos in our world.  But this week is not unique.  Every day there is violence, despair, misunderstanding, fear and hatred.  Perhaps it’s time for all of us to acknowledge the difficulty of maintaining balance, take a collective deep breath and try to recognize that “everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”  There is no perfect solution, but we can all improve with practice.  As with any practice, the hardest part is starting.