by Jill Miller | July 24th, 2012 | 12 Comments
topic: Fitness, Personal Growth, Yoga | tags: abdominal massage, abdominal pain, abdominal surgery, abdominals, abs, back-pain, bulimia, bulimic, core, Coregeous, eating disorder, emotions, Kelly Starrett, Mobilitywod.com, nauli, nauli kriya, pilates, post-partum, post-partum depression, scar tissue, Yoga, Yoga Tune Up®
When I was an 18-year-old yogini, I was also an active bulimic. I was in college studying dance, training to be a shiatsu therapist (Japanese pressure point massage), making sandwiches and slicing salami at Jimmy John’s Deli, racing around Chicago learning yoga, and using food to self-medicate.
During that time, I remember never feeling connected to my core, my abdominal muscles. My Pilates teacher was always giving me corrections that I could not embody. In dance class, I was never able to find balance in my turns or jumps, and I would often duck out of class in frustration. Then I would become even angrier with myself because I was a quitter! This would inevitably lead to a binge and purge.
by Jill Miller | June 27th, 2012 | No Comments
topic: Fitness, Yoga | tags: abdominal muscles, abs, body, breath, breathe, breathing techniques, CrossFit, diaphragm, focus, hiccup cure, hiccups, Jill Mller, Kelly Starrett, lungs, mindful, Mobilitywod.com, pranayama, respiration, respiratory system, San Francisco CrossFit, uddiyana bandha, Yoga, yoga class, yoga instructor, Yoga TuneUp
SCENE: A yoga class. Students are standing in Mountain Pose like a Buddhist “army.”
Teacher: Breathe in…
Class: (A subtle, yet audible “sucking” sound is heard.)
Teacher: And breathe out…
Class: (A subtle, yet audible “whooshing” sound is heard.)
Teacher: Good. Now three more deep breaths just like that.
Class: (They are audibly compliant until…)
Teacher: Now step your right foot back.
Class: (The sound of 25 left feet strike the pose, and no more breathing is heard.)
Teacher: What, no more breathing? Let every movement be a prompt to remind you to breathe for the next 90 minutes.
Class: (Sound of breathing is amplified again, and class proceeds smoothly until … well, the class forgets to breathe again. And again. And again sporadically throughout the class.)
What’s going on here? Why do so many of us forget to breathe? Did you actually finish breathing?
It seems laughable, the notion of “finishing breathing.” Our nervous systems are actually built in such away that breath happens automatically, without us prompting our breathing muscles every few seconds. Think about it, a lot of mental energy is actually required to control every single breath (instead of letting it happen on its own), and our brains have a zillion other tasks to balance. But the breezy thing about breathing is that we can control it, and in so doing we can deliberately impact every system of the body.
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