Weekly Newsletter

Secrets For Assisting Clients

Hi everyone, it's Sara and please allow me share with you my way to help a client gain more awareness in a certain area of their body.

Often times when I give a session to one of my private clients, I will have to find innovative ways to allow them to notice a part of their body they really never had any acute awareness of before.

Other times someone may be so locked or muscularly bound in a part of their body I will spend one or more sessions doing postures to allow this particular part of the body to release and begin to open. It usually never happens in one session.

Let’s discuss Sally. I changed her name for privacy. She came to me about a year and a half ago. She was a ball of knots and tension everywhere. She was going to be my challenge and my teacher as well.

I had confidence that I could help her but I told her it would take patience, time and consistency on her part. She had a very shallow breath, more of an upper chest breath. She was a little overweight and had an office job.

She had started to work out and was very inflexible. She had incredible tight hips and very little awareness of her back. All the muscles in her back were a collective group of stressed out rocks. There was hope in this situation because she wanted to feel better and was ready to change the state of her body and mind.

An example of a session with Sally to help open her back let her gain more mobility in her spine.

We started off in Savasana. Sally was a constant thinker and type A personality. She was caught up in the daily stresses of family life and I needed to begin to get her to stop thinking and to feel.

In Savasana I taught her three part yogic breathing. But before that I took a few minutes to have her breathe naturally, so I could determine how her breathe was and assess where she was blocking energy in her body.

We did slow yogic breaths for five minute as I let her through a visualization of moving her breathe to different parts of her body. Allowing her to follow the rhythm of her breath and breathing into various body parts. This was very difficult for her at first.

I then put a bolster vertically underneath her spine and had her go into reclining bound angle pose. Her knees were quite high from the floor so I put a bolster under each of her knees, so there was something for them to rest upon. I kept her for a few minutes while doing various breathing patterns.

We then went into Cat and Cow. We did 2 repetitions of eight reversing the breathing pattern. On the first round we inhaled on cat and exhaled on cow. On the exhalation I had her breath out any stale energy from her body through her mouth. 2^ndd

Then I got her to sit on the bolster and slowly move in a relaxed forward bend. In this pose I gently assisted her to go a little deeper. We held this for 10 slow deep breaths. Once she came up gradually, rolling through each vertebrae I got her to sit in staff pose. I sat with my back pressed up against hers and we did three minutes of balanced yogic breaths. Feeling the breath moving to all areas of her back.

I then put a bolster in the middle of her thoracic spine and got her to lie down. I put a small pillow under her head for more comfort and a lavender eye pillow on her eyes. This was to help open up the middle part of her back.

I could sense a lot of emotional energy was constricted in the heart center. Here I got her to breath naturally and pay clost attention to her breath. We stayed here for 3 minutes and to help ease the duration of time, I read a poem to her and a little excerpt on the meaning of Hatha yoga; its origins and benefits.

Sometimes I find that when I have a client in a restorative pose or holding a pose for a length of time I will find something interesting to read. I have discovered that it helps take my clients form thinking of what is uncomfortable and of how much longer they have to remain there.

It helps to divert their attention and most of the time they enjoy what I read.

We then go into seated twists and then child’s pose. We move into a forward bend. Here I got Sally to interlace opposite elbows and sway her body from side to side. I get her to keep her knees slightly bent and she rolled up to standing.

I positioned her back against the wall and she lifted one arm at a time and bent over to one side. I then got her to do forward rolls, chin going first and making sure she was moving through each vertebrae of her spine. We spend a good 8 minutes here as she has never moved sequentially through her spine like this.

I then got her to turn around and put her palms against the wall. I got her to walk her feet back, hip width apart and flattened her back like a table. We then work on undulating through her spine. Similar to cat and cow but standing with the wall as support.

Next we did modified revolving triangle against the wall and hold for two breaths. I got her to stand in mountain pose collecting her energy. We go back into revolving triangle for 3 breaths.

We came back to the floor. She sat on a bolster in bound angle and I got her to fold forward as I do a light assist.

Next she lay on her back and brought her knees to her chest. I pressed lightly on her knees to allow her lower back to be massaged into the floor.

Sally did 3 rounds of a moving bridge pose. Not holding but moving with the flow of the breath. Coming up on in inhale and pressing back and pelvis into floor on the exhale.

Last, Sally delighted in a lying spinal twist with both knees over to one side. Here I give a soothing adjustment. She holds for five breaths each side.

I then lead Sally in a nice relaxing 10 minute Savasana.

It has now been over a year and Sally is doing amazing. She is one of my most diligent students. She does yoga over three times a week. Her awareness of her hips and back have gone from zero to now totally feeling these parts of her body. She has gained immense flexibility, has more peace in all aspects of her life and is loving her yoga.

After a few sessions of one like I just described and with different variations on poses, Sally grew to feel and understand her body much more. The back pain she had complained about when I first started working with her….is no longer!

If you have any questions about my work with Sally, be sure to ask me about them on the forum!

My Trip To India (And Beyond)

Namaste,

Hello friends and yogi’s. I am filled with delight to be finally sitting down at my computer to connect with you all. I have been on a fun filled journey to India.

For some time I felt India was calling me to come, and in honor of listening to my inner voice, I followed this call.

I just returned home from two amazing weeks in southern India. I spent a week with Shiva Rea on retreat in the beautiful settings of an Aryuvedic retreat center over looking the Indian ocean. It was luxurious. Indian style buffet meals three times a day, doing asana practice while gazing into the rapid flow of the waves and having the divine sounds of a live classical Indian musician lead us through practice.

New Year’s was brought in with fire works illuminating the sky and all of us crazy yoga people getting getting our groove moving on the dance floor under the midnight stars. I had a rejuvenating and remarkable time. One of the best parts was being with yogic friends I had not seen in a long time and hardly knew but there were immediate friendships formed and a real sense of love and community to be shared and felt.

I left the retreat a day early with three other friends and we hit the realness of what Indian culture had to reveal to us. This was intense, chaotic, dirty, interesting, educating and wonderfully pleasing. We traveled three cities in three days and visited some amazing temples. Luckily I had Maria Guerre (one of Shiva Rea's main assistants) my organized friend who knew where to go and what to see. It helped to have a member of our group who had been to India and was more familiarized with what we should see.

The temples were amazing. My best memory is at the Sri Meenakshi temple in Madurai. We got up at 5 am and walked the dark streets to arrive for Puja. When we arrived, there was a sign stating that only Hindus could go for Puja. So instead we roamed the temple , taking in the the spiritual energy that permeated through all the hundreds of voices and crowds of devotional Hindus.

There was a huge solid gold Lotus flower resting in the middle of a large pond of water. This was in the outdoor area of the temple with steps all around. We sat and meditated in front of the lotus as the sun came to shine morning light upon us. I could of stayed there all day. The experience of the temples was a treasure to see.

When I get my photos organized I will place some on the website for you all to see.

I leave you today with A quote from Rumi:

Let your loving and your soul

Burn up in this candle.

Let a new life come.

May something new, different or totally random ….be a birth of inspiration for you upon each new day that arrives. Give new meaning to your creative energy and be a gliding warrior filled with intention and attention to all that surrounds.

Loving thoughts, Sara

Where's Harlan?

Harlan is en route returning from his own yoga retreat. He just sent me a text that his flight was canceled. He'll be doing Ashtanga first series in SEA-TAC airport.

He had a great time at the San Francisco Yoga Journal conference and loved meeting so many readers of our newsletter.

He told me the staff of Yoga Journal regularly read our newsletter. If you haven't been to a Yoga Journal conference, we highly recommend them. They schedule them all over the country. Sign up for one that is convenient for you.

I haven't worked with Harlan in nearly a month. I hope he has increased his flexibility while I've been gone.

He had a great time hanging out with Shiva Rea and her assistants. I think they've adopted him!

Look for his report next week.

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