Okay, so we have Shogun and Swetcha helping us with yoga this morning. So I want to talk
a little bit about the abdominal area, in Japanese called the 'hara' – very important
area that's rather misunderstood, rather neglected in the Western world. These days
people basically want the belly to disappear or or they want dramatic six-packs and so on.
Now in terms of this area the human animal faces the world this way on. Now obviously,
most animals are on four legs, this area is kind of protected, defended. When we're upright,
we have a nice defence through the upper body – the rib cage – but this area here is quite
vulnerable, so we typically armour it, if you like, through muscular tension. So,
carrying a lot of muscle tension in this area is undesirable. It's undesirable because it
affects our breathing – it pushes the breathing upwards, which is unhealthy. And it's undesirable
because it also reduces the ability of the organs in this area to operate optimally.
Now so our first move is about releasing some of this kind of residual muscular
tension in this area. So now, Shogen and Swetcha, if you can come onto your front,
sitting knees together, feet together. Let your knees bend so your feet are facing the ceiling,
let your hands come beneath your your body in this triangle of the hara,
making a kind of a loose fist. That's it. And then we begin to swing the feet side to side,
and the hands, the loose fists, just kind of go for a walk over this area. And the
body weight just relaxing into this area, just helps that sense of the tension to ease away.
Now if you're doing this and you find you're not getting much from this and maybe because you're
already quite released in this area – in that case you may find you can make your hands into
kind of beak shapes rather than loose fist shapes and go a little deeper still. Just gently rocking
side-to-side. This time of year, the autumn time of year where we're recording right now,
the large intestine area is one of the ones which were particularly working on,
and this is a really nice release for that large intestine area.
And this move that we're doing here is very nice to release off tension at any time.
It's a good one to do perhaps a couple of times a week, really, going forward.
Okay good, so if you can come back towards the centre and let your feet come down,
hands beneath your shoulders and come up again to sit on your heels. Alright,
so once we've gone towards releasing the tension in the belly, in the Hara area, we can't really
leave it at that. If this area becomes kind of loosened off and sagging in an inappropriate way
then things can start to hang forwards here and we actually over arch in the lower spine. This can
lead to back pain and it's very, you know, it's not good for the back. So what we want to then do,
once we've released muscle tension here, is introduce a little bit of muscle tone. The
difference between tension and tone is muscle tension is involuntary – it just happens:
you feel stressed, things tighten up; muscle tone is much more under the control of your, you know,
your system. It's voluntary and it's beneficial, so as we introduce a little bit of muscle tone
here that can keep the lower spine long, the lower back protected. Now, when we start to do this,
sometimes people get the idea we're pulling the belly in. That's not the point, nor are we
pushing the belly out. What we're going to do is what I call 'brace the belly' where we're neither
pulling in nor pushing out. I'm going to show you an exercise with Shogen and Swetcha where we can
explore what this means. So you guys can bring your round cushions in front of you. That's it,
and if you can come forward so you've got the cushion beneath the belly and just let yourself
hang over the cushion. That's it. So we're letting everything hang just really loose, like the way a
cat can just relax over a cushion – completely released. And this also will help the muscle
tone to release in the belly area – the muscle tension, excuse me – to release in the belly
area. All right, very good. So now if we draw the hands into an L-shape, fingers pointing forwards,
thumbs pointing in towards the centre, and if we draw the back of a hand down to the floor beside
you so palms are facing the ceiling, fingers are together, thumbs pointing in towards your body.
Good. Now in this position, just explore what you need to do now for your feet, your legs, to
be able to lift away. That's it - you may need to adjust a little bit. Bracing in your belly, then
your feet lift away. That's it. Just adjusting for you, just feeling into that. That's it, Swetcha
you've got your upper body lifting away there, that's fine, but we also want your feet to lift
away, so there's a little bit of balance in this as well. That's a good thing – with all this work,
with having to brace the belly in order for it to lift. That's nice Shogen, good, you got your hands
lifting away as well so that's our kind of third stage. That's it, and five, four, three, two, one,
good. Gently coming down, coming out of it. Just letting it all relax. Forehead down, hands down,
feet down, letting that sag happen again, let your whole body release over your cushion again. All
right, so now if you can draw your arms forward and in line with your shoulders, straight arms,
thumbs pointing in towards the centre, fingers together, palms down, that's it, good. Now in this
position exploring what you can lift away, bracing in your belly. That's it. You may find your feet
can lift away, you may find your hands can lift away – just as much of as is good for you, it
doesn't matter. Just bracing in the belly, and then letting everything follow from this. Big toes
together if you can. That's it, and 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and gently coming down. Feet come down, hands
come down, head comes down. And just let your body relax again. Breathing and releasing again.
Now, if you can explore what it means to have this embraced quality in your
abdomen in your trunk you will kind of tap into a source of inner strength which will
also transmit into physical strength as well, okay, and this enables the
hara the the abdomen here to fully take its place within the full human frame.