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Summer 2006
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Judith Hanson Lasater’s Recommendations 1. Every day do 20 minutes of intense nothing 2. One day a week do restorative postures only 3. One week each year do restorative postures only
When non-violence in speech, thought and action is established, one’s aggressive nature is relinquished and others abandon hostility in one’s presence. -Patanjali Sutra II.35 Translation BKS Iyengar
Be still and know that I am God. - Psalm 46:10
I see my light come shining From the west unto the east Any day now I shall be released - Bob Dylan
Ahimsa is the acme of bravery. Ahimsa is not possible without fearlessness. - Sri Swami Sivananda
When we are in contact with our feelings and needs, we humans no longer make good slaves and underlings. - Marshall B. Rosenberg
Relax and Renew© www.restorativeyogateachers.com Judith Hanson Lasater Center for Nonviolent Communication
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“Dale, I had to talk to you. After class yesterday my back pain did not return for 2 hours. I have had this pain for 2 weeks and have tried lots of things for relief: medications, hot packs. Nothing helped like yesterday’s class. How do I sign up?” I was as amazed as Jackie. These days I am a bit jaded, I find it more the norm, less astounding, to hear that a yoga practice has helped someone. But this was new to me: relief from back pain by just lying around for an hour. We both thought it nothing short of miraculous. When I was first introduced to what Iyengar method teachers call restorative yoga, I was less than thrilled. I felt guilty and grew anxious lying in a posture doing nothing, not activating this muscle or that, not actively supporting myself, but allowing myself to be supported. I taught restoratives, and practiced them occasionally, but they were not exciting to me. I wanted activity. My appreciation for restorative practice began with grief therapy, being able to accept the deaths of loved ones. Then there was breast cancer, and restoratives helped me sustain my energy levels and positive outlook. I believed restorative practice was something one does when physically or psychologically incapable of anything else. After I completed my cancer therapy I felt it was time to be released from restorative practice and return to more active sequences. I was wrong. It wasn’t could I or could I not do an active practice, it was, should I? Geetaji Iyengar kept me on track, reminding me to act with intelligence, listen to what my body was telling me, be content sitting still. I wanted my strength back and I wanted it right now. I hoped that the Iyengars’ intensity would whip me into shape, that they shared my goal of a return to my previous magnificence. Instead they encouraged me to move on and grow, to not cling to the past. They encouraged me to be still, listen, and learn what my body could teach me. The lessons from this trip to India calmed me. I practiced more quietly and, sometimes, more intelligently. Still, I had a long way to go. I grasped tightly to the belief that whatever I did, it was never enough. Over the years I had collected an abundance of evidence to that effect. The list of my inadequacies had probably not changed much since I was a teenager. Enter Judith Hanson Lasater’s Relax and Renew© teacher training. Much of the time in this training is spent honing our skills in observing and understanding a students’ needs. This is not a training where memorization of a few postures and sequences. Success is possible only by getting to know what a student is experiencing and needing. This means we must communicate. What a concept. For a number of years Judith has impressed upon her students the importance of language. The lessons I received from her and her husband, Ike, in Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication have been transformative. I have begun to pause and give myself a moment to identify feelings and needs before speaking. This pause gives the opportunity to develop language for true communication. It thwarts a tendency to escalate emotions with my reactive “shoot from the hip” honesty. The first subject with whom I practiced nonviolent communication was myself. As my most vehement critic I said things to myself that I would never accept from others without a fight. How could I be nonviolent, even compassionate, towards others if I couldn’t be nice to me? The Relax and Renew© training is twenty hours over four or five days with a group of individuals who open to each other gradually, like flowers. By the end of the week the process of identifying others’ needs has helped introduce us to our own. We have courageously requested relief for our smallest discomforts and, as a result, have become capable of both giving and receiving succor. We created a cozy cocoon of understanding. We practiced observing to identify our needs and feelings. We learned how to respectfully communicate to others when our needs were not met. Quietly, moment by moment, we luxuriated in our fascination with experience for its own sake. Attention to detail and each other seemed to suspend the passage of time. It released us from one of this culture’s greatest stresses, our belief that there is not enough time. What a great beginning towards freedom from all those beliefs that shackle us. \Om, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti\
Photo Courtesy Bob Hails
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Supta Baddha Konasana
SBK Setup at
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It’s all in the details What do you want to accomplish? Is this going to a be posture in which it is possible to intensely do nothing? Setting up for nothing is difficult. For the psychological and physiological relaxation to occur the body must become neurologically quiet . These two illustrations of Supta Baddha Konasana demonstrate how one posture can be arranged for different purposes. One is restorative and calming to the senses, the other is designed to bring healing to tissues and organs burned by radiation therapy. Relax and Renew©
RIMYI
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Volume
7 Issue 1
