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Archive for Poses

Riding the Rosedale 2022

Yoga and Riding the Rosedale

Posted by Abby Lentz 
· April 2, 2022 
· No Comments

 

As you’d expect, yoga helps us bicycle in many ways — balance, leg alignment, strengthening, and all other physical properties of yoga. However, last week I found it was the less visible benefits of yoga that got me through as Rosedale Rider 36546.

While getting up the morning of my ride, I found my mantra: Exhale Fear, Inhale Fun. Repeated in the shower, getting dressed in clothes I just pulled out of the closet the day before, and for sure while driving over to The Pitch, where the Rosedale Ride started. I found my Tadasansa feet as I waited for my group of us 25-milers to be called to the starting line.

 

Deciding to do the Rosedale got me riding again and back into the gym — both activities I had forgotten how much I enjoy. Yoga gifted me the confidence to make this decision to ride after being off my bike since 2019; I raised money and awareness for the amazing Rosedale School for children with severe special needs. I started my Rosedale adventure knowing that it was unlikely that I’d be able to ride all 25 miles. A Thursday night preview of the route showed 17 hills with grades over 2%. Plus, there were other, smaller hills, too. I’d signed up because I felt that all I needed was progress — not perfection. Just as with yoga, it would not be about finishing all 25 miles— it would be all about the effort.

I rode away from the start line unsure what I’d be capable to achieve. Turned out the initial hill that had scared me in the first mile was doable with my early legs! After riding some flats the next hill I made it up a little over halfway. My inner voice told me it was better to ask for help then to risk falling trying to get up the second hill with traffic whizzing by so I called for sag team of Rod and Janet to take me up the hill. I hadn’t made it much farther beyond that hill before another one showed up. I was able to ride about half-way up before coming off my bike. No sag, though, as I walked Mariah, my trusty Specialized Steed, up to the top.

The body awareness that I practice in yoga made it clear to me when I had done enough. The next hill would be a monster, and I had already started to be unsteady. I remembered telling many of you that Sweet Discomfort — usually defined as a range of motion — can also be a length of time. You want to go past your edge into exertion, but not so far past that you’re unable to exit a pose safely, or a bicycle. Just as there’s no pain in yoga, I was reminded, there should be no pain in bike riding, either. All my supporters, especially my domestique and partner Ron, were trusting me to stop when I could not safely continue.

I give my deepest thanks for all your donations. You really did get me going and kept me going with your cheers in my heart to carry me forwward. I am proud to say I was the Number 3 fundraiser with over 20 contributors — I thank all of you who helped me set that record, too!

Of course, I was disappointed that I was unable to make it the entire 25 miles, or even to the rest stop at the 7-mile marker. I cried some after getting off my bike, knowing I was done, but those sad tears quickly turned to ones of joy as I had made it! I rode and walked for over 6 miles, which is my personal best for 2022. I’ll consider it my baseline, for now. I’ll do more next year with hopes that I can ride for all of you at age 75!

 

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Categories : Awareness, Featured, Poses, Yoga Off the Mat

My 50-Year Journey with Yoga

Posted by Abby Lentz 
· March 11, 2022 
· No Comments

(Me with Nathan, 3, and daughter Maribeth not yet one)

It’s hard to believe that my baby boy turned 50 this week! I wonder how he can be that old when I’m the one who feels 50 — not even close to my birthday number of 74 next month. We had a joyful family celebration to welcome his new decade, right down to his nephews finding a way to “fall” into the pool and get a first-of-the-season swim before the night was over.

(Birthday boy front right with my brother Kenny in blue. Ron and I on the left)

For me, his birth marked not only the change in my role—for from then on, I’d always be a mother — but it marked my introduction to yoga. My dear mother-in-law, Jean Colker, was a survivor of the first magnitude: a young girl overcoming the death of both her parents, the Great Depression, and the sudden death of her first husband before their first child was born. Jean was tough but could also be sensitive and always observant. I believe she wanted my new motherhood to be so different from hers that when she saw the local YMCA was hosting a Mother’s Day Out morning program, she volunteered to watch over her new grandson.

It was at this program I was first introduced to yoga, so I established March 1972 as the beginning of my personal yoga practice.

In celebrating my 50 years of doing yoga, I don’t want anybody to think that for all these years I’ve been on the mat every day or even every week. Lots of distractions over 50 years! Another child to celebrate—a girl this time—a life-changing move to Austin in 1977 to start a new business, and then its collapse, along with the collapse of my first marriage.

Many joyful new beginnings during these years, though, as I went to college for the first time at the University of Texas at Austin. I was classified as a SOTA, a Student Older Than Average. Being a Presidential Scholar for my last two years, graduating with Highest Honors, for sure a time when I lost track of my mat yoga practice, squeezing in study time instead. Working downtown Austin at a bank—boy, were they surprised to see their “wunderkind” candidate was actually almost 40. Not lasting a year in the corporate crush, I landed a job in a small magazine publishing company. Not knowing what a “Fulfillment Coordinator” was, I applied simply because the phone number in their want ad was the same exchange as mine, making them close to home.

Starting out in circulation, the heart of any publication, made it easy to absorb everything I could from a job that began with just typing address labels. By the time I left my publishing career, I had become a Circulation Director, Sales Manager and Publisher of a technical cluster of magazines, before creating my own company and technical journal with writer-husband Ron. That last one is a job I still hold as publisher/muse and wife.

(Celebrating 10 years of our paper-baby, the 3000 NewsWire in 2005)

Having been married at 19, I got to fall in and out of love as an adult to find my perfect pairing with Ron, a marriage going on 32 years now. Embracing the role of stair-mom (sounds better than stepmother) to his then-7-year-old son putting aside my dreams of moving to LA to land a job in a publishing conglomerate. That same boy, who is now a 39-year-old man, who with his wife has gifted us with those two very-wet grandsons to go with our two grandgirls, who live in Houston with my daughter.

(A warmer weather swim with all the Grands)

So, what does this all have to do with my yoga practice?

It’s easier than it seems, for it’s not just about my time on the mat or studying with yoga luminaries, Lilias Folan, Judith Lasaster and Eric Schiffmann. Or being introduced to Kripalu, the yoga of compassion, by gifted Austin yoga teacher Nina Beucler. Or going on to grow under the guidance of Rebecca Kronlage at Kripalu, putting me on the path to teach and understand yoga poses and their purpose.

(Dancing with Lilias Folan at her Women’s Retreat at Feathered Pipe Ranch)

When you practice yoga, it’s not really about how much you do or when. It’s not really about creating an unbreakable chain of some self-determined kind. Once you have your yoga practice, it will be with you always. It may start on the mat, or in the chair, but it doesn’t end there. Standing on my head in my thirties while Johnny Carson did his monologue seemed a great way to integrate yoga into my busy day. But now my yoga practice is about my learning how to grieve the loss of that prowess, finding a way to be just as fulfilled with being able to do Legs-Up-the-Wall instead.

The things you may think of as the part to rush through, or maybe even skip altogether — beginning breathing and final relaxation— turn out to be the most lasting and the most beneficial, especially in your most stressful times. It’s why I can celebrate 50 years of yoga without having regularly ticked off a box on a to-do list.

Once you practice yoga it will wrap you up like a warm blanket when times are cold. It will become your invisible net to catch you when you fall — and we all fall and most of us usually more than once. Yoga will always be with you, helping you move when stuck in the mire, but more importantly, helping you to find and to be your best Self even when you really don’t want to be. When all seems dark, yoga will be there to help light your way.

This is just a glimpse of my journey with yoga. This journey continues to be one that I’m happy to share each week, each class, each conversation. It’s such an honor to be your guide in yoga as you join me both on and off the mat or now chair.

For each of you, I celebrate with gratitude into my yoga year 51.

Singing favorite song from Kismet “Olive Tree” at Kripalu graduation celebration June, 2004

 

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Categories : Awareness, Featured, Poses, Yoga Off the Mat

Why I Practice Tadasana

Posted by Abby Lentz 
· February 2, 2022 
· No Comments

 

We find ourselves standing hundreds of times a week, so what’s the big deal about working on Tadasana?

On the mat Tadasana, Mountain pose, helps us find perfect alignment of our frame so our muscles strengthen evenly, allowing us to stand with support and ease. I have pictures of my Tadasana feet from all over. At my favorite hotel, the Blue Sea in San Diego.

Inside the Paramount Theatre on their beautifully restored carpet.

In the sand on beaches—in Mexico, both oceans, plus the Gulf.

In last year’s surprise snow here in Austin.

The longest I’ve stood in Tadasana was close to two hours in San Antonio on the Riverwalk. Ron and I stood waiting for the Spurs’ barges to come by as we all celebrated their fifth NBA Championship in 2014.

I have stood in Tadasana for practical reasons: in line at the HEB, or at Petco waiting for vet services for our new puppy Ella, or ages ago at the post office. I have also stood in Tadasana for fun, like hosting our 2022 New Year’s Eve Sock Hop with the grandkids.

While these are all good reasons to be able to stand upright with ease, last Saturday night I discovered my deepest motivation to work on Tadasana.

It was simple. There are no chairs in Room 8 at the St. David’s South Hospital intensive care unit. When you come to realize this may be your last time to see a dear friend, you want to be able to stand for as long as you can. A one-sided conversation can still take up a lot of time to chat—catching up, dishing dirt, and saying all the things you want to say so you don’t wake up in the middle of the night wishing you had told her this or that.

You want to be able to stand long enough to sing made-up ditties to her. “A blessing on your head Maggie Rhode, Maggie Rhode,” based on a song from Fiddler on the Roof. You don’t want your feet, ankles, or back to start hurting—you want to sound cheerful, even though you’ve been told she cannot hear you. You don’t want to run out of time to sing Happy Trails to You, written by Dale Evans—a song, it turned out, Mags heard nightly as a little girl being tucked into bed by her dad.

You practice Tadasana—and all of yoga—so you can be your Best Self off the mat when you need it the most.

Deep thanks to all of you who have held Maggie in Light and Love over the past four months as our Happy Baby. It’s been a long, yet short journey for her, fighting off cancer. As they say in Cool Runnings, “Peace be the journey.” From here in Austin Amy’s Ice Cream tells us to “Eat dessert first.” However, I feel it was best expressed by songwriter Warren Zevon, who advised us to “Enjoy every sandwich.” Zevon’s signature song about life and death reminding us all to “keep me in your heart for a while.”

Rest in Peace, as you continue the great adventure, Margaret “Maggie” Rhode (1956-2022) with beloved sisters Sue (left)  and Amy (center).

Please know I do take requests for Happy Baby – it can be for anyone for any reason, including celebrating a new baby!

 

 

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Categories : Awareness, Featured, Poses, Yoga Off the Mat

A Young Bride’s Look at MLK

Posted by Abby Lentz 
· January 16, 2022 
· No Comments

Because I was living in Washington, DC in April of 1968, I have a deep connection to the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. As new bride of just 19, I found myself in the early throes of moving from DC to Toledo, Ohio where my husband of three months was already working. It might be hard to believe in these times where it’s impossible to escape the news, but 54 years ago with no access to any media, I walked to work as usual on that April day, unaware of Dr. King’s death. Inside the office, as always, Muzak was playing in the background. Our wake-up call only came when the elderly Black postman plopped into a chair to gather himself. “Those young bucks out there are tearing down the city.”

We turned on the radio to hear the news that, in fact, DC was under siege as rioting swept the city. Knowing I was alone, my boss told me to go to my parents’ home, not understanding the strain on the bus service during this emergency.

I stopped briefly at my apartment to pick up a few things and call my mom, so she would know I was safely on my way. Living downtown, I walked to the central Greyhound station, looking over my shoulder again and again, all while the sound of shouting and broken glass rang out. Shop windows were being broken — the looting had begun. Quickening my pace, I saw flashes of brilliant colors as garments flew out of the D J Kaufman display window down the block.

The station was in total chaos with people boarding buses even without tickets. Crammed over any safety limits, I found myself grateful just to be standing in the aisle as the bus made its way south to St. Mary’s County. Sirens filled the air followed by yelling inside the bus to point out fires along our route. A sense of relief washed over us as we left the burning city behind.

From the safety of my parents’ home many miles away, I watched the days unfold. I needed to return to my DC apartment the following week to pack for our move. We lived off Thomas Circle, just up from the White House. As I walked to our apartment, I was shocked to see armed soldiers on every corner. Martial law was enacted, forcing an early curfew. My moving would now become a two-day process of being packed up then picked up the next day.

I spent my last night sleeping on the floor. It was a sad farewell to the city that I loved as a child, growing up miles away in the small town of Tall Timbers. I continue to love DC as an adult with every visit. It was a sad farewell to the time of Dr. King and the interruption of his dream. Like everything around justice, it was only delayed.

Warrior II teaches us that strength can come from long holds, focus and vision. As I left DC to start a new life in a new city with a new husband, without knowing it I found my own inner Warrior II. In Warrior II we look forward, not backward, gathering our courage from our personal horizons. We gain strength, determination — and a sense of adventure that most people don’t assign to the word warrior. In fact, Warrior II is not combative or confrontational. (Or, perhaps only with your own demons.)

So, I hope you all will join me on this day in Warrior II. Hit your pause button and prepare yourself to meditate, reflect and settle into your own Warrior II even from the chair. To celebrate, I know I’ll be doing a little yoga — I hope you’ll do the same.

 

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Categories : Awareness, Featured, Meditation, Poses

Yoga and Heart Health 

Posted by Abby Lentz 
· February 14, 2020 
· No Comments

Whenever you search “yoga for heart health,” over 300 million results pop up. Seems everyone agrees that yoga is good for your heart. Surgeons, medical doctors, and many cardiac hospitals all agree with people like me — simple yoga teachers who are not medically trained — that yoga improves your heart.

 

In fact, it seems everyone agrees that any yoga will be good for your heart. However, in reviewing the best of the health recommendations, what I’ve found is that yoga poses break down into three major categories: twists and folds, chest openers, and safe inversions.  All of these are a part of why yoga is so effective — they help you break out of your stress cycle, which can be a major contributor to heart disease.

 

If you have time to do a complete yoga session, be sure to warm up and cool down. On my YouTube Channel I help you with that using my Efficient Warm Up Series. Finishing with Savasana (Corpse Pose) while you use a meditative mind. If you don’t have enough time to do a complete session, you can gently sprinkle yoga into your daily life at home or in your office. If you don’t even have time for that, then just pause and take a few deep breaths.

 

Opportunities to twist are all around you. Twists help to cleanse and stimulate all the organs and soft tissues housed in the torso not just the heart. The trick to make twists effective is to move slowly and hold them deeply keeping your belly relaxed and your breath small. They can be done easily whenever you are sitting by grounding both feet, cross left hand to your right leg, and rotate to the right. Holding your hand to your leg is your Counter Point, the place of stabilization that helps you go deeper into the twist. Twist both sides.

 

Like twists, forward folds involve squeezing. Folds consist of bending so you are pressing your belly and chest into your legs. If you’re sitting, be sure you lift up out of your hips and low back before you place your torso on your lap. Note that these forward folds are different from doing ones to stretch your hamstrings. For hamstring stretches to evolve that require a Belly Well — a space you create by separating your legs to make room for your belly to fold into. Any of the belly-down poses — Cobra, Boat, or Locust, for example — will also create this press of your belly and chest.

Read More →

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Categories : Awareness, Breath Work, Heart Health, Poses, Uncategorized

Layovers to yoga over!

Posted by Abby Lentz 
· June 29, 2016 
· No Comments

If you’re flying to your vacation destination you can appreciate that some airports now have yoga studios available. According to Rodale’s Organic Life here’s the best of the airport yoga studios.

More than likely however, like me you’re not going to intersect with any of these half dozen airports. No worries however, it’s easy to integrate yoga into your layovers without standing out as much as you might think.

Feel a low backache from the entire sitting? Do wall or sink support downward dog. Grab the sink or place your hands on a wall or door about hip high, step back until your hips are level with your hands (soft bend in the knees) and then press the hips away to lengthen you back and stretch your hamstrings.

Feel like you’ve been curled up all flight? While sitting reach back with both hands and hold onto your seParis Legsat, ground both feet and press your heart center forward squeezing the shoulder blades together as you stretch out across the front body shoulder to shoulder.

While you may not want or be able to stand on your head like the woman in the picture, you might find enough courage to get your legs up a wall or up on a chair. Here I am outside the Louvre in Paris giving my feet a thorough rest.

If being upsidedown in public isn’t your style simply slip off your shoes and do the Point (toes pointing away to stretch the top of the foot); the Demi-Point (press through the ball of the foot while pulling the toes up and apart); and the Flex (press the heel away to stretch the Achilles and calf). In girly-girl shoe talk, that’s a ballet toe shoe, sexy high heel and an earth shoe negative heel.

Check out my many travel stretches on YouTube on the HeavyWeightYoga channel. You’ll find complete tips not just for flying but driving as well. My favorite prop to pack is my 10-foot strap. Put it somewhere you’ll often see it to remind you when you’re at your vacation spot to sprinkle a little yoga once you get there.

Most important travel with ease!

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Categories : Featured, Off the Mat, Poses, Travel, Uncategorized, Yoga Off the Mat

Livestream now gives us a way to meet!

Abby Unplugged!

Live Stream Event

June 3 at 6p (Central)

After selling DVDs over the past decade I’ve only been able to meet a small number DVD_CategoryGraphicof you in person — but now with technology advancing in leaps and bounds Wednesday night I’ll be able to chat with you live!

I started sharing my work with Women’s Retreats in 2007 at what was then The Crossings outside Austin. Abby Unplugged became a tradition as my Women’s Retreats wrapped up on the last day.

Wanting to be sure no one left with an unanswered — or unasked question — I devote the final retreat segment to “Abby Unplugged.”

While my original thoughts were that this would be about yoga poses and philosophy, these unplugged sessions quickly became involved with questions about my personal self — advice on meditation and poses would often be followed by what sex is like at 67. How much I weigh became as important as how long have I been doing yoga (219 lbs / 43 years).

Yoga is so intrinsic to our lives it can touch on all that we do and everyone we meet. Not because we throw Sanskrit phrases around or drop into a headstand, but because yoga helps us to be present and be our best self even when situations are difficult.

Starting Wednesday June 3 at 6P (Central) time I’ll now be able to answer your questions even though we are not sharing the same space.

If you can’t be there live, but have questions you’d like to ask, email me at

abby@heavyweightyoga.com by Tuesday night. I’ll work to fit them into this event. No rules, no restrictions — I’ll be there on the mat to answer them all.

Hope you can join me as we get this opportunity to meet at last!

Abby Unplugged!

Live Stream Event

June 3 at 6p (Central)

http://livestream.com/heavyweightyoga

Yoga for sleep

Today I got my daily email from Yoga Journal. It’s a great resource and reminder about what’s going on with yoga. The topic was yoga for sleep, something that I struggle with. I have tinnitus, constant ringing in the ears, which gets even louder when I’m tired, making going to sleep difficult. I use a masking technique which often has me falling asleep to audiohttp://d3v7xustcq7358.cloudfront.net/images/article/mc_196_01.jpg books on a timer. So I was very interested in seeing what was recommended.

What I found was Yoganidrasana,  where you start on your back, placing both legs behind your head, hands clasped to the small of the back. For me just trying to get into that pose would be exhausting enough to make sleep easier I’m sure!

Unable to do this pose, I went to the HeavyWeight Yoga technique of Pose-Pairing — taking the benefits of a pose I’m unable to do and matching them to poses that I can do, or at least have a hope of doing anyway.

Wanting to work from the bed top I decided on these poses for better sleep: Read More →

Making Movements Count

Posted by Abby Lentz 
· April 22, 2015 
· No Comments

Tonight I’ll be enjoying the NBA Playoff game between my beloved San Antonio Spurs and the LA Clippers. One way that the Spurs succeed is with ball movement. They make every pass to each other count, until they get the best shot, going from good shot to great shot. And it reminded me about my last visit to San Antonio, to appear on KSAT’s SA Live — and talk about making movements count.

I told Fiona Gorostiza on the program that HeavyWeight Yoga was created to give people who are overweight or affected by obesity a safe place to do yoga. People came from out of nowhere, from out of their living rooms, people who would never walk into a gym or a yoga studio. They’d say, “We read about yoga. We want those benefits. But there isn’t a safe place for us to come practice.”

I’ve created a safe place with HeavyWeight Yoga.

These methods make sure that every movement counts. Here’s an example. If I’m trying to stretch my hamstrings and I have both legs out in front, my belly and the tops of my legs come together, and the stretch is not being realized. If I recreate the pose and be sure there’s a space for my belly, by using the Energetic Swipe, I can come deep into the stretch and be safe all at the same time. And not be wasting my time.

With HeavyWeight Yoga, it’s never about the number of repetitions. It’s about your body being able to receive the work.

On KSATTo do a HeavyWeight Yoga roll-up, I begin with my feet together and my knees apart. You’ll see by starting in that position that there’s space for the belly. My arms are out and my hands are staying parallel. I’m moving slowly in my pose, breathing the arms up and then overhead, then lowering to the mat. And then with the breath, coming up one vertabrae at a time. I’m using muscle, not momentum. In a gym, you’d be doing 10 crunches in an exercise, when I’m only doing three roll-ups. But my body’s getting a great benefit.

Little movements go a long way to loving who you are.

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Categories : Featured, Media, Poses
Tags : Energetic Swipe, movements, roll-up
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