The Language of Yoga: Exploring Dimensions of Language and its Relationship to the Study, Practice and Teaching of Yoga ~ by Chrissy Boylan

“Words have the power to destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.” ~ The Buddha

In 2005, David Foster Wallace, the iconic writer and author of Infinite Jest, gave a commencement speech at Kenyon University. The speech, titled “This is Water,” opened with an anecdote about two young fish. The fish were swimming around one day when they came across an older fish swimming in the opposite direction. “Morning, boys,” the older fish called to them in passing. “How’s the water?” Some time later, one of the young fish turned to the other and asked, “What the hell is water?!”

That is how I feel about language.

I love language, and have always loved language. Language is how we understand the world and our place in it. And though many overlook language the way fish do water, humans generate and rely on language as automatically and naturally as we draw breath. Can we even think without thought? Maybe. But language is what allows us to know what we think.

Language also suffuses Yoga—from transmitting the sacred teachings of the sutras to learning to ‘find ease’ in a certain asana. This paper will explore three specific ways language impacts and informs the practice and study of Yoga: using language to counteract our brain’s innate negative bias, using the vibrational element of language to heal, and acknowledging the benefit of different styles of writing for studying the sutras. …

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Trauma and Mindful Practices to Relieve Suffering ~ by Sandi Marino

“Go in and in. Be the space between two cells, the vast, resounding silence in which Spirit dwells...
Go in and in and turn away from nothing that you find.”

 –Danna Faulds

Many Yoga masters, therapists, and somatic psychologists believe everything we’ve ever experienced is stored in the body. Even when the memory is repressed, the body remembers. While some people think of trauma as a mental problem or disorder, trauma actually occurs in the body. This trauma may be held somatically, expressed as a chronic aches or pains or a sense of injury. While talk-based therapy serves a critical role in the healing process, it fails to address the ways trauma is held in the body. Yoga addresses the somatic experience through physical movement and restorative action patterns, which is why trauma-sensitive yoga is emerging as an effective adjunct treatment for trauma survivors. …

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Yoga and Salah: Similarities on These Paths to Inner Peace ~ by Jameela Ali Nalukandy

My mat, a place of prayer, of meditation, of reflection, of peace and calm. My home! Watching my mother meditating on her prayer mat opened my eyes to the wonder of both Salah (or Namaz) and Yoga. She sat up tall, seated cross legged, eyes closed and she looked radiant. She appeared so graceful and yet so powerful! I wanted to feel the same peace and power for myself and that moment became the catalyst that spurred me on to the practice of yoga. … The focus in both Yoga and Salah is the connection between mind, body and soul. …

In an age where the war cries of fatwas and bans seem to drown out the rational and peace loving majority there is a need to recognize and highlight that which binds us, that which is the same! By doing so we can perhaps tolerate and even celebrate that which divides us!

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Introduction to Office Yoga ~ by Lisa Wingate

(Or: “Taking a Break to get out of our Heads and into our Bodies”)

People working eight hour days in an office may not get to move around much. Office culture is governed by pressure to perform and 'get the job done;' and much if not all work is tied to sitting at a desk working on a computer. Individuals may also sit during their commute on a train, bus, or car. When the work day is over, folks may like to 'unwind' from the stressful workday by sitting in front of a TV or playing on their smart device. Unfortunately, the constant sitting, use of technical devices, and a general lack of varied bodily movement creates unhealthy physical patterns and postures in the human body.

Practicing yoga asana (postures) can give office workers ways to discover and explore their bodies thus assisting them in gaining a 'mind-body awareness'. While many people have taken typing or computer classes, many are not familiar with yoga classes. Through yoga, office workers are introduced to their own habitual postural and mental patterns. Further, specific yoga practices can counter the physical and mental effects that office culture places on individuals. This project exposes and aims to change the office worker's daily physical, mental and perhaps spiritual habits. I will give basic information relating to physical postures encountered at the office and further provide accessible yoga exercises to counter them. This project will show that yoga can benefit office workers' posture and well-being.

I work in a small office at a computer forty hours per week. While I personally have implemented yoga into my daily office routine, I knew that my practice would be beneficial to my coworkers. I attest to the physical and mental modifications yoga practice offers, so I envisioned this project as a means to share this with my peers. The overall goal of this project is to guide my coworkers in exploring their own mind-body connections to ultimately make them feel better during the workday. …

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A Letter to the Breath ~ by Becky Biederman

'...if you feel like givin' me a lifetime of devotion

I second that emotion...'

'I Second That Emotion'

~ Smokey Robinson

Dear Breath,

When I started taking yoga in 2010, I had no idea how important you would become to me. I had wanted to take yoga lessons for a very long time in order to find peace. It was fascinating for me to learn that you were a pathway there.

I had no idea about any of the breathing practices. I had no idea about movement and the breath. Naturally, I realized I breathed in and out all the time. I knew if I moved faster, I breathed faster, and when I slept, I breathed slower. But, I did not know that I could work with you to help me keep calm and balanced and stable to any extent. It was a revelation!

From the beginning, my teachers talked about you. And from the beginning, I realized I wasn't breathing very well. Oh, those first belly breaths and feeling the ribs expand outwards, sideways, and breathing up into the collarbones! Who even know the lungs came up that high?! But, then my entire torso felt like a cavern – so open and free!!

Becoming aware of you is the first step. …

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Juicy Joints Workshop ~ by Terri Surabian

… Think about that stiff feeling you sometimes get after a long car ride, a trip in an airplane, or simply as long day sitting at your desk. Immobility in the body for an extended period of time creates this stiffness, and when we have an opportunity we usually stretch our bodies, in hopes of relieving stiff knees, hips, shoulders and back. We are seeking joint freedom. Joint freedom is the ability of each joint to move freely through its full range of motion without muscular stress or discomfort. Your activity level, sex, age weight, genetic postural imbalances, injuries, pain, body conditioning and emotional state will all impact your flexibility. Our optimal age for joint freedom is between 3-5 years old. The activities we engage in will have an impact on our joint freedom as we age. For example, running makes hamstrings tighter and stronger and reduces hip flexibility. People who are knock kneed will have less distance when opening the legs and drawing the hips away from each other. Depressed people often collapse forward, round the upper back and cave in the chest, tightening chest muscles and making it more difficult to pull the shoulders back. … Yoga is proving to have more and more significant effect on healthy joint function as certain poses promote release of fluids while strengthening the muscles supporting the joints. …

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Eyes on Yoga ~ by Kathleen Stemplinski

… The benefits of eye yoga range from better vision to increased concentration and spiritual insight. In yoga we learn to focus our eyes with precision. We direct our gaze purposely at a drishti which can help direct the energy of the pose. In balances the dristi can keep you keep upright; in twists, it can help you turn further. In general it helps us stay mentally clear. …

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Yin & Yang: A New Approach to Yoga for the Military & Beyond ~ by Unyong Kim

In Taoist philosophy, Yang and Yin describe two harmonious and opposite energies, which remain in constant dynamic balance: when yang energy waxes to its maximum, the seed of its opposite, yin energy is sown, which then waxes to its maximum, while its opposite, yang energy wanes, until the seed of yang is sown with the maximized yin. …

• Yin is associated with the receptive, feminine, deep, spiritual, restorative, while Yang is associated with the active, masculine, surface, worldly, challenging.

• The military is perhaps one of the most yang institutions in our culture, which is experiencing the birth of the yin element.

• Mindfulness meditation and yoga are two very yin practices, which bring balance to the stresses arising from an excess of yang energy.

• On a macro level, yang cultures such as the military, give rise to seeds of yin practices like yoga and mindfulness.

• On a micro level, individuals with forceful, clenched approaches to living, give rise to their own need for centering breath and mindfulness, moment to moment.

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The Pelvis ~ by Dena Jensen

Understanding and visualizing the way the body works can be an effective tool in self study. Self discovery and self study enhances the yogic experience. The inner workings of the body remain a mystery to most people. This paper will describe the bones and muscles of the pelvis in an effort to begin unraveling the mystery of this important part of the body. …

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