Yoga for Hot Sex // Relaxation for Pleasure and Orgasm

OCTOBER 30, 2013

Join me for 2 special mini-workshops at Self Serve Sexuality Resource Center!

Wed Oct 30, 2013: YOGA FOR HOT SEX

Wed Nov 13, 2013: RELAXATION FOR PLEASURE & ORGASM

Both classes are 7:30-9pm at the Self Serve Store in Nob Hill, Albuquerque. Preregister HERE or call 505-265-5815.

Yoga practice can create access to your ability to feel what is happening in the body, strengthen your confidence in your body/ mind ability, balance hormones, build awareness, tone, and ability to relax the pelvic floor muscles and pelvic & abdominal organs, increase circulation and oxygen to various vital systems, including the endocrine and sexual/ reproductive systems, neutralize the nervous system, which enables increase of both mental/ physical/ emotional relaxation (parasympathetic nervous system response) and simultaneously, sexual excitement/ tension (sympathetic nervous system response), build emotional stability, give insight to what and where are your “edges,” increase feelings of vitality, vigor, and enthusiasm to experience new things, and help support feelings of gratitude, selflove, compassion, and connection, and creativity.

Guiding Principles

Relaxation opens the gateway to pleasure and orgasm.

Mental Distraction takes us away from our bodily awareness, out of the present moment, and dilutes the intensity and availability of feeling turned on/ pleasure, and challenges out ability to connect with intuition, and our partner(s). The mind habitually will wander; Focus/ Awareness takes practice. Be compassionate with yourself and, as possible, be entertained by the mind, rather than get critical/ frustrated with it.

Sound (especially when long and low toned) helps release the throat/pelvic floor, lengthens exhalation and therefore quiets the nervous system, channels focus/ energy, intensifies pleasure sensations, helps release endorphins, and can assist orgasmic release. Also great for claiming space and giving positive feedback to partners!

Playful Curiosity is a great way to deepen into sexual discovery. Don’t confuse Sincerity with Seriousness. Let what feels good and fun guide you. Keep shifting back into the body’s feedback loop and away from the narrative of the mind.

Stability and Freedom are 2 sides of 1 coin. The more we feel stable, safe, organized, and grounded, the more we can truly let go, get vulnerable, expand, and get ecstatic.

~Stabilize with:

~ Presence building practices, Yoga practice, and physical support (inside: strength, body awareness. outside: props, pillows, walls…)

~ Pelvic Floor Work: healthy tone, awareness and strength

~ Femur grounding to support gentle release of the psoas, pelvic organs, and pelvic floor muscles.

~ Alignment (in our bodies, as well as with our partners)

~ Slowing down to feel what is there.

~ Good, Clear Boundaries and Agreements

Ahisma: Non violence Santosha: Contentment

Bramacharya: Respectful, Healthy Utilization of Sexual Energy

Svadyaya: Self Study (internal learning) Samadhi: Total Freedom/ Bliss/ Self Realization

(from Yamas & Niyamas, the foundations of yoga: in our minds, bodies, and with others)

Exploring embodied sexuality may bring up fears or triggers, yet the very techniques of presence, breath, and feeling through what is there, can be effective ways to release layers of tension, trauma, heavy emotionality, or resistance.

Fall News: Partner Yoga and Some New Classes!

OCTOBER 10, 2013

Emily and I will be teaching a fun, playful, yummy Partner Yoga Workshop Saturday, Oct 19th 2-5pm at High Desert Yoga. What could be a better way to spend an afternoon than with nourishing, grounding, playful, delicious assisted poses? Practicing with a partner is one of the most effective ways to experience the aim and meaning of yoga – union – union of mind and body, of self and others, and with the eternal Self that resides in each of us.

In this playful workshop, partners will learn to assist each other in going more deeply into a variety of asana, including standing postures, forward folds, backbends, and twists. The practice will be at turns invigorating, playful, and restorative. Find a partner at the workshop or bring your friend, lover, or yoga buddy. Expect to challenge your limits, connect with your inner self, and connect with the people around you as we continue together on the path to unity.

A partner’s touch can provide strength, awaken insight, invite release, or simply bring a deeper awareness of the present moment – awareness of breath, body, and mind; awareness of habitual patterns, attitudes, and emotions. You and your partner will help each other expand beyond the limits of habit, challenge assumptions, and perhaps move into postures that might otherwise seem inaccessible. Working together, we will cultivate compassionate trust in ourselves and each other. All levels and body types welcome, queer friendly, beginner friendly. Ages 12 to 102!

Price options: Pre-registered: $35 per person, $65 for two. Day of: $40 per person, $75 for two.  Preregister in person at the studio, call 505 232 9642 or at highdesertyoga.com

Check out the flier with all the info here: partner yoga flier 

Also, I am teaching a NEW CLASS!! … Starting next week, I will be teaching an ALIGNMENT based VINYASA class at High Desert Yoga 10$, one hour. Rich, deep, muscular, lots of pelvic floor work! Plus a nourishing, full savasana. Thursdays 5:30-6:30pm. AND! North Valley students please note: My 5:30-6:30 Wed Level One class at Dragonfly Yoga will be shifting to be on Mondays. Two great evening classes… hope to see you soon!!

Slowing Down

JULY 28, 2013

When we slow down we can focus on alignment not only anatomically but energetically: moving prana in a different  way from our habit patterns. In this comes real freedom and transformation, in the body but also emotionally, psychologically, we experience ourselves and the world differently, more harmoniously. As the goal becomes not performing poses, but rather stability, organization, and intensity of presence and awareness, strength and flexibility are pleasant side effects, while the true depth and potential of yoga become our reality. Meanwhile, the body is safe, and trust, healing, and the development in self-trust begin to unfold.

Favorite Teachers

APRIL 23, 2013

In the next month or so two of my most beloved teachers are visiting Albuquerque. In my experience it is a rare and profound opportunity to study with truly great teachers, and even if the Iyengar method isn’t your route into this work, I sense you’d get a lot from any amount with Francois, or Ramanand. It’s crazy they are both coming here within a month of eachother! I love studying with both of these teachers, and have done so whenever I can, in the last several years. I invite you, since it’s a great opportunity. It would be fun to share yoga space with you!

Here’s a link to the High Desert Yoga site. You can get info and sign up there, though Ramanand registration is through Wellspring.

Francios Raoult, originally from France, has a ruthless genius way of accessing depth, and has a great sense of humor… he is doing a special session for teachers this Friday afternoon, then Pranayama (lots of asana, too, etc) intensive all weekend.

Ramanand Patel< originally from India, studied from boyhood with BKS Iyengar; he is in his 70s now, a retired engineer. Brilliant.

Both of these teachers are advanced, challenging, profound, wonderful to study with…

I’ve had some of my most deep, life altering yogic experiences with these two. I’m so excited for more… maybe see you there!

http://www.highdesertyoga.com/workshops.html#theAnchor317

High Desert Yoga | Workshops and Class Series
http://www.highdesertyoga.com

Workshops and Class Series

Urdva Hastasana Saves the Day

APRIL 9, 2013

Delightful, today, to feel the upward rise, like the reach of a candle flame, so deep in my center. I was practicing Urdva Hastasana, or “Upward arms pose.” Tadasana, with arms raised high, heads of the humerus (upper arm bones), outer heads of the femurs, or greater trochanters (top of the thigh bones) and center heels all stacked tall in a line atop the earth’s center of gravity.

The simultaneous rising up of my perineum, the inner heads of the humerus, and the base of my skull created this profound feeling of inner body length – an integrated from of Uddiyana. In this pose, the arms lifted feeds the extension bias to the spine, and this often challenges the length of the kidney area, around the junction of T12, and L1, where the thoracic spine meets the lumber spine. The perineum, that apex of strength at the center of the pelvic floor, which gathers in the core of the figure 8 shaped bands of muscles around the front and back openings, made of connective tissue to which the bands of muscle anchor, can lift here to create the internal physiological and energetic support to lengthen the kidney area. As the kidney area lengthens, the lowest lumbar vertebra actually draw in deeper, while T1, at the base of the neck, also releases in, freeing the neck to lengthen as the inner armpits deepen into the back body.

This is just one example of how pelvic floor strength can support the total integrity and alignment in an asana. However the real gift of this experience of alignment was the profound feeling of freedom and pleasure in the body… and through this pleasure, a new reference created for what is possible.

The body will choose comfort, even when comfort simply means familiar and is degenerative. As I practice, I give my body a chance to experience new reference points for what is comfortable, for what is “home.” This experience of the triplicity lifting length in Urvda Hastasana while my heels anchored deep gave me a renewed sense of where my body can live. And as an encouraging sidenote, this release of the inner body through organization and pelvic floor power has given relief from pain. Today I was moving slow, due to being on the first day of my period, and feeling crampy and low energy. By unloading the visceral body though this work, however, my belly now feels spacious and relaxed; the cramping sensation have disappeared, miraculously.