Monday, March 25, 2013
Earth Day Indiana- Saturday April 27th- Join us!
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Last year's Earth Day Indiana Festival featured 140 environmental and conservation exhibits, great music, good food and special activities for kids... in five action-packed hours.
The exhibits and children's activities were under large tents, and thousands of people came to learn and have a good time — even though the the day was cold and damp. This year's activities will be a lot like 2012, with a few surprises for your enjoyment. The weather will be better, too.
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A strong sponsor lineup helped secure 140 exhibits in 2012
The quality of exhibits at the Earth Day Indiana Festival improves every year, and this year's lineup is the largest and best ever. Here are sponsors that deserve special recognition.
United Water was our very first partner sponsor, and the company has been part of the festival since 1994. United Water is major supporter of environmental projects and personal development programs.
Indiana's Family of Farmers, also a partner sponsor,did triple duty with a large exhibit, an activity in the children's tent and serving as a food vendor.
Meijer joined Earth Day Indiana as a new partner sponsor. Meijer stores lead among national brands in promoting healthy food, eco-friendly products and alternative auto fuel.
All sponsors are listed below.
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| We can't do the Earth Day Indiana Festival without a strong team of volunteers. It's nice to reward some of you whenever we can. Kristel Tippen and her husband, Logan, were among our best team of volunteers ever. Krystel's name was drawn to receive an Epiphone guitar donated by the Guitar Center. Four of our volunteers received wonderful gift bags from Whole Foods Markets.
There will be more gifts for volunteers in 2013, so sign up heretoday.
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Downward Facing Dog
(AH-doh MOO-kah shvah-NAHS-anna)
adho = downward
mukha = face
svana = dog
adho = downward
mukha = face
svana = dog
Step by Step
Come onto the floor on your hands and knees. Set your knees directly below your hips and your hands slightly forward of your shoulders. Spread your palms, index fingers parallel or slightly turned out, and turn your toes under.
Exhale and lift your knees away from the floor. At first keep the knees slightly bent and the heels lifted away from the floor. Lengthen your tailbone away from the back of your pelvis and press it lightly toward the pubis. Against this resistance, lift the sitting bones toward the ceiling, and from your inner ankles draw the inner legs up into the groins.
Then with an exhalation, push your top thighs back and stretch your heels onto or down toward the floor. Straighten your knees but be sure not to lock them. Firm the outer thighs and roll the upper thighs inward slightly. Narrow the front of the pelvis.
Firm the outer arms and press the bases of the index fingers actively into the floor. From these two points lift along your inner arms from the wrists to the tops of the shoulders. Firm your shoulder blades against your back, then widen them and draw them toward the tailbone. Keep the head between the upper arms; don't let it hang.
Adho Mukha Svanasana is one of the poses in the traditional Sun Salutation sequence. It's also an excellent yoga asana all on its own. Stay in this pose anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes. Then bend your knees to the floor with an exhalation and rest in Child's Pose.Cat Pose
Marjari = cat
Step by Step
Start on your hands and knees in a "tabletop" position. Make sure your knees are set directly below your hips and your wrists, elbows and shoulders are in line and perpendicular to the floor. Center your head in a neutral position, eyes looking at the floor.Inhale, coming back to neutral "tabletop" position on your hands and knees.This pose is often paired with Cow Pose on the inhale for a gentle, flowing vinyasa.Yoga for Back Pain, Part 3
Yoga for Back Pain, Part 3
On a recent flight home from a weekend workshop in Wyoming, as I sat in the oh- so-comfortable seating of one of our major airlines, I decided to peruse the SkyMall magazine that can be found in every seat back pouch of every plane in the country. I am always wondering if there will actually be something in there that I cannot live without. Of course, the last time that happened was about 15 years ago, and I still use the nifty wallet I got to this day. But what jumped out at me, as I squirmed to stay comfortable on hour two of my flight, was the number of devices for all sorts of health issues—most notably, for low-back pain. There were at least a half dozen different gizmos to help you cure your back pain, and you could easily drop $500-600 if you got them all. A recurrent theme for many of the devices was a way to create traction on your spine as a way to reduce low-back pain.
The pages of SkyMall are not the only place where you can find traction prescribed for improving LBP. In fact many medical offices dealing with low-back pain, like your neighborhood chiropractor, may have a very fancy table and set up to do just that. Despite the lack of scientific evidence that traction as a single form of treatment for low-back pain is effective, many students find the yoga suggestions below helpful in a multi-pronged approach to the problem. I had a friend with such pain, who after trying a lot of other things, swears that the weekly table traction he got at his chiropractor’s office finally did the trick. His only complaint was the cost: a lot!
As I’ve discussed in my past few posts about studies on back pain and easing it with yoga, your practice can provide you with safe, gradual traction to relieve tight muscles and connective tissue in the low back and possibly improve the space between the lumbar vertebrae. And at much less the out-of-pocket cost! Some of the poses you already do, if done mindfully with an eye to not triggering any low-back pain while in them, could be helping to create some traction already. Poses like Downward-Facing Dog and Standing Forward Fold, with a slight bend to the knees for both to allow the pelvis to create most of the forward folding action over the leg bones, can allow for some traction on the lumbar spine. If you have a history of a bulging or herniated disc, you should check in with your doctor before doing these poses regularly.
What works really nicely and gives more traction for the entire spine, is to do a version of Down Dog that involves a partner standing behind you, holding a strap that is placed across the top of your thighs. As you go up into Down Dog on your own, the partner will pull the strap firmly against your thighs while leaning back. This allows your arms to become almost unnecessary in keeping you in the pose. Your main job becomes cultivating the feeling that you are lengthening your spine away from your legs in the direction of your hands. Your partner anchors you up and back at the thighs and gravity pulling your forward and down does the rest to create traction for the spine. Stay for up to two minutes. Always take a minute or so when you come out to see how the back responds to this. If you feel good afterwards, it is usually safe to proceed further.
If you don’t have a friend that can do this with you (although I highly recommend you train one to do so) you can use a sturdy doorknob and a long yoga strap to accomplish the same thing. Make the strap into a non-slip large loop, thread it around the inside and outside doorknob of an indoor door, with the door open into a room you can practice Dog into. Step your body inside the loop, holding it up against the top of your front thigh as you face away from the door. Bend your knees, lean your weight forward into the strap, and drop your hands to the floor. At this point you will likely walk your feet back a bit, so they will be on either side of the door, while walking your hands forward until you are in Down Dog, with the strap creating a good pull back on your thighs. In the partner and door versions of Down Dog, you can stay for up to two minutes if things are pain free. With the door method, bend the knees and walk forward away from door, and the body will swing up from the back pressure of the strap. If you have a “yoga wall,” you have likely played with this similar pose with your sling on the higher set of bolts.
With a yoga wall, you can also do a hanging version of Cobbler Pose, which really maximizes gravity’s effect on the spine. The only problem is that you need a very strong core to get in and out of that pose safely, so I will not describe it here, but next post I will address core strengthening and low back pain specifically.
One last idea: Position yourself close to a wall and lay down on your back about one shins-length from the wall. With your knees bent to 90 degrees, put your feet up on the wall so that your shins are parallel with the floor. You will have a nice 90-degree bend also at the hips and thigh bones. Here you can place your hands on the thighs down by the root of the legs. Push your hands into the thighs directly toward the wall. This will create a kind of secondary traction on the spine as your hands move your thighbones away from the pelvis and the pelvis gets pulled along for the ride. Again, maintain the push for up to two minutes, or as tolerated. and assess how it feels after you come out of pose.
As with all practices, as long as your back is not feeling worse after your yoga traction experiments, you will want to do these variations regularly over the course of a few weeks or longer to establish ongoing benefits.
Yoga for Back Pain, Part 2
Yoga for Back Pain, Part 2
A colleague of mine recently made the observation that you never hear your friends and family telling you how great their back feels. In fact, it is usually the opposite sentiment if they mention the back part of the body at all. And yet, as my last post pointed out, yoga is proven to provide relief for chronic back pain of many kinds. The sensation of well-being for a formerly in-pain student is likely a main reason people return to yoga class week after week.
It’s common to see among new yoga students chest-fallen spines, tucked pelvises, and forward-jutting heads. Called kyphosis, lumbar lordosis, and Head Forward Syndrome respectively, these postures are often either the source of back pain or the result of pain due to postural compensations you make to avoid pain. Meanwhile, we know that improving your posture helps to counteract the consequences of aging and gravity on the spine, such as diminished stature, decreased lung capacity, and even decreased abdominal cavity size, which can contribute to sluggish bowels and constipation, urinary frequency, and stress incontinence. Yowser! If you didn’t have a reason to stand more erect, you do now! And for students of all ages, good posture improves balance, lung function, general circulation to all of the body parts, and encourages normal spine architecture.
One way to assess posture is to look at the plumb line, the imaginary line that reveals your center of gravity and that passes through key anatomical landmarks. Looking at someone from the side (or yourself in a photo), start the line at the center opening of the ear, and draw directly down to the side of foot and see what other areas of the body this line bisects. Ideally the line goes through the center point of your upper arm bone (the head of the humerus), the boney point or your upper leg bone near the hip joint (the greater trochanter), the center of the side knee joint (front to back center point) and the boney point of your outer ankle (the lateral malleolus). Many people new to yoga, however, have points that fall in front of or behind the plumb line. Don’t get discouraged if that’s you; you can change this gradually with regular yoga practice.
One way to start working on getting back to center is to stand with your back, including your shoulder blades and butt, resting gently against a wall, but with your heels 4-6 inches away from it. If you have already determined that you have a forward head position, don’t attempt to rest it on the wall at this time. Your yoga practice will begin to correct this situation gradually. If you notice that your upper thoracic (in the region of your ribs) spine is on the wall, but not your shoulder blades, you may have kyphosis. You can work on this by consciously widening your collarbones on the front upper chest away from the breastbone, noticing if the shoulder blades respond by starting to make contact with the wall behind you. If you notice that the low back and spine are flat on the wall, you may have lost the natural lumbar curve that typically leaves a small space between just your low back and the wall. Try bending the knees slightly and tipping the pelvis forward and down a little bit. Does the space in the lower back suddenly appear? If it does, can you maintain the space while simultaneously strongly straightening the legs by pushing down into the floor with the entire foot and gently lengthening up the spine toward the crown of your head?
Even if you’re not able to get to the center line, you’re moving in that direction while learning some valuable feedback about your body: Does this exercise cause actual pain in the back or just intense sensation that resolves quickly when you release the posture? After trying this for a few minutes against the wall, try it away from the wall. Experienced yogis will recognize this as one of the foundational standing yoga poses, Tadasana. When doing it away from the wall, use the memory of the wall contact to help you find a more upright posture on your own.
Another way to play with posture is to lay on your back with your feet pressing into a wall. This will help you create the same effort used in the legs when standing. While maintaining the pressure through the feet, notice the shape of the spine and where you make contact with the floor. If the shoulder blades don’t rest on the floor but the upper spine does, try inhaling the arms up toward the ceiling and then overhead down to the floor (don’t insist they make it all the way to the ground). Exhale them back down to the sides of the body. Repeat this about 6 times. Then reassess the upper back and shoulder blade position.
If the low back is flat on the floor when you begin, with no evidence of the natural lumbar arch, keep one foot pressed into the wall while exhaling and bringing the other knee into the chest and using the hands to squeeze it carefully toward the body. Inhale the leg back to its starting position and do the same on with the other leg. Repeat side to side 6 times. See if this liberates the lumbar spine a bit.
Armed with the information about your own body, you may begin to recognize potential posture-related cases of some of your own back pain. And hopefully, these exercises have already eased some of that sensation. It’s sometimes said that all other yoga poses grow out of Mountain Pose, so in my next post, I’ll highlight some other poses that have unique value for low-back pain. Until then, stand tall, y’all!
Yoga for Low Back Pain
Yoga for Low Back Pain
Because low-back pain is such a big topic and affects so many people, I’m going to talk a little more about a study I reported on in my last post. That study was a follow up to an investigation done in 2005 that showed yoga’s usefulness for sufferers of low-back pain.
Some 70-80 percent of adults in the US will have at least one bout of low-back pain at some point, and 10 percent of those will develop chronic back pain. Even though 85 percent of the time no specific cause can be identified, there are more than 100 kinds of treatments marketed for low-back pain, and very few have undergone rigorous scientific study to see if they really help. Low-back pain is the number #1 reason for Americans to seek out alternative treatments.
There are different kinds of back pain (acute, subacute, and chronic), and this study worked with sufferers of chronic moderate low-back pain. The study compared the effectiveness of yoga for this group to a stretching program or self-care. Viniyoga, a style of yoga named by American yoga teacher Gary Kraftsow for the yoga taught to him by his teacher T. Krishnamacharya, was the style chosen. (If you are unfamiliar with this style, I would recommend reading “The Heart of Yoga” by TKV Desikachar, Krishnamacharya’s son, or “Yoga for Wellness” by Gary Kraftsow, to learn more.)
People in the yoga group attended 75-minute weekly classes for 12 weeks. Each class included asana, pranayama, and Savasana, and two classes each focused on six areas: relaxation, developing strength and flexibility, asymmetric poses, strengthening hips, lateral bending, and integration and assimilation. Participants, who ranged in age from 20-65, also received a 20-minute yoga CD that they were asked to practice with several times a week at home.
By the end of the study, the students who did yoga noted significant improvement in pain and function, though they had more improvement in function. This is consistent with findings in other studies on low-back pain. In addition, two-thirds of the yoga group were still practicing 3 months after the classes ended. Researchers determined that it was the sequence of poses, rather than one specific pose, that seemed to improve function.
The group in the stretching wing of the study showed similar improvement. The obvious implication is that there is more than one way to positively influence back pain. This is a good thing, as yoga may not resonate with everyone.
For us as yogis, this study may confirm our personal experience. For non-yogis, I hope that these sorts of studies and the common-sense advice they offer will spur more people to consider yoga as a part of their approach to healing.
In my next post on back care, we’ll look at some specific yoga approaches to relieving back pain. So, stay tuned!
Applying Yoga to Running
Applying Yoga to Running
by Hillary Gibson
I’ve been running several miles a day since my early teenage years, always pushing myself to go further and faster. When an injury, side-stitch, or burning desire to just stop already arose during a run, I responded by turning my music up louder to get my adrenaline pumping. Instead of digging to the root of the problem, I pushed through the pain only to apply ice and balms after the damage was done. But when I badly strained my Achilles tendon over a year ago from over-exertion, I realized my “burn calories now, deal with it later” attitude wasn’t working. I knew I needed to find a different way to replenish my body. At the urging of my mom, a seasoned yogi, I decided to give yoga a try. She had taken me to classes when I was younger, but I always found the words and poses so funny that I had trouble containing my girlish giggles. Older and just slightly wiser, I decided to give yoga a second chance and immediately became hooked. Not only has my yoga practice kept my Achilles tendon free from strain, but my entire perspective on running has also changed.
I realized that instead of acknowledging what my body was telling me and adapting, I was trying to cover up the pain and fatigue. Yoga gave me an entirely new perspective rooted in simply listening to my body. My first move was to ditch the iPod. How could I listen to my body’s natural rhythm with Top 40’s blaring in my ears? I stopped telling myself “just one more song,” and conforming to a beat my body wasn’t feeling, even if my pumped-up mindset was. As a result, I now feel present in my runs, no longer dreading what’s coming next.
In every yoga class I’ve taken, I’ve been invited to check in with my body and ask myself– How am I feeling today? What is my energy level? My mental state? If I take the time to evaluate my body and my mental space when I’m on the mat, I thought, why not extend that awareness to my runs? My mind free from noise, I began to infuse my runs with elements of my yoga practice.
My shoes are tied, and I’m out the door. I start by scanning my body from the feet up, first becoming aware of the sensation of my shoes against the ground. Then I begin to ask myself the same sort of questions I hear in yoga class – Am I distributing my weight evenly throughout my feet, or am I relying too much on the outside edges? I listen to my breath, taking deep Ujjayi inhales and exhales to create heat and rhythm. I then slowly work up the body, focusing on one aspect at a time until I feel grounded in my posture. As I run I focus on aligning my torso by slighting tucking my tail and engaging my abs. I feel strong and rely less on my legs to propel me forward when scaling a steep hill. I reach the top of the climb and let out three big lion’s breath exhales by opening my mouth wide, sticking out my tongue, and exhaling with a big “haaa!” With it, I acknowledge conquering the slope and reset my breath.
Then it’s on to my shoulders and arms. I envision the quietness of a Tadasana (Mountain Pose) posture with my shoulders rolled down my back. I allow my elbows to rest at my hips with my arms bent at a slightly obtuse angle instead of bringing them up toward my chest. I keep my hands only slightly furled to avoid creating tension from clenched fists.
The result of my yoga-inspired runs? I now feel sustainable, grounded, and I’ve doubled my distances. While I used to start fading after two or three miles, I now log at least five just about every day. I’m entirely absorbed by the sensations in my body and am able to turn inward, tapping into an almost meditative state. Incorporating techniques I’ve learned from yoga into my runs allows me to take care of my body without compromising my love of running.
Hillary Gibson is the Web Editorial Intern at Yoga Journal and studies English at University of California Berkeley.
Yoga Poses For Jet Lag
With Spring Break here, a lot of our yogi friends are traveling.
We love to travel, but sitting for extended hours on a plane or in a car can
wreak havoc on your body circulation, digestion, and sleep patterns. The
following are poses you can do to help combat some of these issues. Remain in
each pose for 3-5 breaths. Repeat as needed.
Hip Rolls: Sitting cross-legged on the floor, place your hands
on your knees. Inhale through your nose and as you exhale, roll your chest out
over your left knee, sweep low through center and over the right knee. Return
to tall posture. Inhale, roll/sweep other direction. Repeat as many times as
needed.
Cat/Cow: Coming to all 4’s, place your hands under your shoulders,
your knees under your hips. Inhaling through your nose, drop your belly towards
the floor while raising eye gaze straight ahead. As you exhale through your
nose, roll your back towards the ceiling, pressing into the palms of your hands
and bring your eye gaze between your thighs (like a Halloween cat). Take your
time. Move with your breath pace. Repeat as needed.
Childs Pose with Lateral stretch: From Cat/Cow, sit back to your
heels. You may bring your knees wider than hips if that is more comfortable. If
this is too much strain on your knees, place a rolled towel in the crease of
your knees for added comfort. Extending your arms forward along the floor, press into the
palms of your hands for more stretch through upper back. Walk the hands over to
the right, just enough to feel the stretch down the left side of your body.
Repeat to the left.
Standing Lateral Bends: Coming to standing position, place your
feet under your hips in a comfortable stance. Inhale right arm overhead, bringing
left hand to hip. Reach tall and try to lift ribs off hips, gently reaching to
the left, just enough to feel the length in the side body. Repeat using left
hand reaching to the right side.
Half Down Dog pose at Wall: Stand facing a wall. Placing palms
of hands against wall with arms straight walk your hands down the wall until your
chest is parallel to the floor. Feel the chest expansion and heart opening.
Crescent Lunge: Stepping the right foot forward into a lunge
position, your knee should be stacked
directly over ankle. Extending your arms overhead. lift and push out through
your back heel. As you exhale, drop deeper down the center and hold for a count
of 5 breaths. Feel the opening in your hip flexor.
Standing Forward Fold to Rag Doll: Standing with your feet hip distance, inhale your arms overhead
and as you exhale, tip from the hip swan diving your arms out and down to the
floor. If you are unable touch the floor and you need more back support, bend
the knees slightly and bring chest closer to your thighs. Relax your head, neck
and shoulders. Nod your head “yes” and “no” to release any tension if it feels
good. If you are looking for more sensation grasp your elbows and hang like a
rag doll.
Reclining Twist: Lying on your back, draw your knees to your chest. Gently hug your knees and
rock the your hips from side to side. Lower your knees to one side, while
keeping shoulders and upper back in tact with the floor. Breathe slowly for 5
breaths, sending breath to your lower back and hip area. Using your core
muscles, slowly draw your knees into your chest and repeat to the other side.
Legs up the Wall: Lying on your back facing the wall, bring
straight legs up against the wall, your bottom touching the floor/baseboard.
Stay for 2-5 min.
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