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  • I Don’t Get It Either

    ByElizabeth

    My friend Reya blogs that she doesn’t get it–why people don’t get massages on a more regular basis.  Assuming one has enough money for the basic necessities of food and shelter, as Reya points out, I don’t get it either.  When I tell people that I have been getting massages at least twice a month for the last decade, I get all sorts of reactions, lack of money and time being high on the list.  I have had people, including those who claim to otherwise like touching and being touched, tell me that they don’t like getting massages.

    What’s not to like about getting a massage from a qualified professional?  I think it can be for any number of reasons.  Sometimes it is about a deep-seated discomfort with pleasure (and especially the pleasure associated with touch), which is unfortunately all too common in this society (despite the preoccupation with sex).  Discomfort with the idea of massage also can be about control.

    On the surface, getting a massage is all about being passive, about surrendering physically–albeit in a very benign way.   Allowing oneself to be in the role of pure recipient, though, is different than being passive or surrendering control.  The person receiving the massage, though not actually doing the touching, is the person in charge (So too, in yoga.  The person being assisted in a yoga pose  or receiving a therapeutic adjustment is in charge, not the person assisting or making the adjustment; it takes knowing how to be a recipient, though, to know how to offer the assist or adjustment).

    Even the most sensitive and compatible of massage therapists will need to be advised how you are doing on any particular day, whether any areas are feeling particularly sensitive, whether you feel the need for healing or energetic shifting in a particular area of your body.  It takes a deep sensitivity  and listening to the body and the energy field to know not just whether a massage feels good, but what could make it better.  For example, because I tend to bruise easily, deep tissue massage generally is not the right type of massage for me.  There are times, however, that something really deep needs to be rearranged and deep tissue, or even myofascial release, is the only thing that is going to be able to get at what is knotted or tangled or needs to be released.  Sometimes, just about any touch would feel invasive, and then I seek out reiki or other treatment that is more in the energetic than the physical field.

    I firmly believe that getting regular massages has truly enhanced my understanding of the physical and energetic body and has made me a far better yoga teacher–especially for students seeking therapeutic guidance from yoga.  As well as being a pleasure, receiving a massage is an opportunity to get to know the anatomy and connections of the body at the most sensitive of levels–if one is willing to and does pay attention.  And without deeply knowing one’s own body and its relationship to the outside world, including touch, how could one really be sensitive to what might be going on in another’s body?

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    State of the Garden

    ByElizabeth

    At last, after seven years of being just an apparently invasive vine, the grape kiwi is fruiting. The squirrels and birds will get most, but I am getting some.

    I am reminded, by my hopefully tending the vine for years without fruit, of the power of perseverance and patience.  Something like yoga practice.

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  • Savasana

    ByElizabeth

    Savasana–pose of the corpse, the pose of final relaxation, the pose without which no practice is fully complete– is both a very simple pose and one that is rather advanced.

    Sometimes when I teach beginners I ask them what was the first Sanskrit word they learned. Usually they guess the word is “yoga.” The first Sanskrit pose name they get, though, and it doesn’t take more than a couple of classes is savasana. For most beginning the practice of yoga, the permission to stretch out on the back after an hour or more of new ways of engaging body, mind, and spirit is welcome indeed. This is particularly true for those who are overly busy and chronically sleep-deprived as are so many people I know.

    What teachers often miss about savasana is that it can be very hard for some students. Injuries (chronic or episodic), tightness, or habitual misalignment (or expectations of how lying down should feel) make it challenging to be in the pose. The default can be to put supports under the knees or head without taking the time to recognize that it may be necessary to focus on and adjust the alignment before relaxing to see if ease can be found without props.

    Other practitioners find it agitating to be asked to lie still for 5-10 minutes, because they are so used to being active all the time. Even if they can make their bodies still, their minds race around, and the idea of final relaxation seems anathema.

    At the beginning,
    savasana can be just stopping movement and enjoying letting go and relaxing.

    But the pose is something much deeper than relaxing after a good workout. The pose of the corpse is not about being unmoving like a dead body, but about ceasing consciously acting and surrendering to the elemental vibration of universal being so that the inner fullness becomes indistinguishable from that which infuses all of the matter of the universe. As one gets more advanced, the alignment in the pose evidently becomes one of inner fullness and luminousity supporting the draping of the physical body. We practice going to earth and light, dissolving the constant awareness of our individuality.

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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