Martin

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MLK Jr. has a spot on my yoga wall as one of my teachers. When I learned more about him, particularly in high school, I was taken with his intellect but even moreso his public speaking. His cadence and rhythm combined with rhetoric made for powerful speeches no one could argue with. Much like gospel music even if you didn’t agree you still had to believe.

He seemed larger than life and like most figures he’s become almost a myth in later years. Discussions rage about who he really was as a man and what his message means in a modern America. Nonviolence and his influence from Gandhi and then Thich Nhat Hanh’s nomination for the Nobel Peace prize comes directly from Martin’s hands. He was ecumenical in his approach and would have easily sat down with someone not only of another ancestry but of different belief.

Through the speeches I’ve listened to I’ve been made aware that much like Hitler, when it comes to public speaking you cannot only be logical. Your speech must pull on heart strings to be made real. This is why orators are remembered as they are. Speech and using words well can move people in the way music can but add logic and laughter and you’ve really got something. To have an influence on people and to sway them towards a greater good you must be strong in your own beliefs and possess the ability to bring others along with you for the benefit of the rest of mankind.

For his time Martin could change the way black people in America thought about themselves and how the rest of America considered them. Opposing the Vietnam war was not the best path he could have taken for his own life and I keep in mind that a man so great didn’t get very far when he opposed the economic and political factors that supported the war machine.

“Movements come and movements go
Leaders speak, movements cease
When their heads are flown
‘Cause all these punks
Got bullets in their heads
Departments of police, the judges, the feds
Networks at work, keepin’ people calm
You know they went after King
When he spoke out on Vietnam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot”~~Wake Up by Rage Against the Machine

May Martin’s words and dreams live on. Remember he was a human first, black second. The categories we keep should bring us together not separate.

Thai seated back pt.3

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This is the last in our series on Thai massage from a seated position. All three of these videos and the work can be viewed and performed in sequence to make a little routine your friends will thank you for.

The value in Thai massage lay in its ability to use body weight effectively. It’s similar to jiu jitsu in that you’re using the receivers body and weight against itself to apply pressure. Work smart, not hard. For massage therapists with an active practice it creates space to save your hands and allows new opportunities in movement.

Dancers, yoga students and martial artists especially appreciate the work. If you’d like to learn Thai massage register for class this Friday.

13 pt.5

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Andrea is in the car and on her way home. Now begins the healing process and medication to keep pain at bay till it’s gone. I suspect there will be naps, food and lots of Sherlock. 😛

Thanks for following the blog and giving me space to put my energy out online. There have been many emotions this past week and a writer friend who encouraged my bodywork practice and writing is gone. It will take time to process all that’s come and gone.

I remind myself while teaching yoga that I must never become an elitist. I never wish to feel I can’t learn something from a forward bend even if I’m 90. A good yoga teacher, much like a lover, is supple, aware and engaged. Never think yourself so advanced to not learn from something from a beginner. Pompous and arrogant have no place in teaching yoga. Upright and righteous sure. Standing tall and taking in what’s going on in class certainly. Thinking you know it all, never.

Take time to breathe in all aspects of life. Sit. Wait. Breathe again. Then act.

Love you all.

13 pt.4

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So Andrea’s surgery went well. She should be awake in a few hours. The doctor reported that all looked clear and that her ovaries stayed in.

This was a debate with the original doctor. The original doctor was pretty adamant that from the time Andrea found out we’d come in for surgery in a week and Andrea would essentially do as she was told. Those are harsh words but they feel truthful to what I heard. Cancer kills, we go in an remove it first before it spreads was the method. Andrea had more of an issue with the fact that the original doctor gave her very little information and barely treated her like a person, she was just a collection of symptoms. Again, harsh words but we’re dealing with a potentially life ending proposition so I cut the doctor some slack.

The second doctor was willing to talk to Andrea more, give her info and explain the procedures and options in more detail. This doctor also was apprehensive about her ovaries. “Do my ovaries have tumors? Do they contain cancer?” The doctor has to tell her no if that is in fact the case but microscopic is the word no one likes to hear. Ovaries are extremely vascular, if the lymph nodes and and ovaries also metastisize then it’s highly likely to be a Huge life threatening ordeal.

If Andrea has her ovaries out, ovaries which are completely healthy she reduces her chance of anything spreading and she’s mostly done using them right? She’s had 4 children from natural child birth. Well, they still produce hormones that will continue to do their thing through her life cycle into menopause. So modern cancer is a balance between ok, let’s remove half of your body just in case or risk dying. Andrea has had a healthy normal sex drive and life for all of her adult life. The doctors and nurses were Aghast that she’d never had a surgery. There were concerns about anesthesia because she’s never had it and therefore they don’t know how she responds to certain drugs. “You’ve had four children, how did you not have surgery?” I waited for Andrea to respond and she firmly said, “I had four children from Natural Childbirth.” You could tell they’re not used to hearing that in a hospital where a normal bodily function can be deemed deadly.

“How much risk are we talking about? Give me numbers.” The doctor then told Andrea the risk was from 2-5% that the cancer could spread from her cervix to the ovaries if left behind. Andrea decided on her own that they could remove anything that had cancer and she wanted to keep the ovaries IF they were clear. If the doctors went in and there were anomalies remove them. I supported Andrea’s conclusion and the doctor was willing to sign off on it but expressed that if it were her…

2-5% on pokerstars loses me some hands in poker. 2-5% on life? It’s not something anyone wants to gamble with but as Andrea and I joked with the doctor I can always find a new wife. Fortunately the doctors had a sense of humor, something I find common amongst those in a medical field that concerns life or death.

So now we wait for the Friday the 13th lady to wake up.

13 pt.3

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Hospital cafeteria food? Is it really food? It may be a touch better than what I remember being served in public school but I can’t consider it much in the way of health giving. Food is an extremely touchy subject for many people. I think I’ve lost more friends to vegetarianism, vegans or raw food than anything including drugs or religion.

What’s healthy to eat? There is no definition of health. George Burns lived on coffee and cigars and lived to be 100. I’m not saying it’s everyones choice but all things in moderation.

Beyond the nutritional content of the muffins, juice and high fructose corn syrup of the coke I just purchased from the cafe is the quantity that people consume those foods in. I’m unsure of the ratio but I often think our bodies are capable of fending off huge amounts of illness but we overtax them. Do we really need the buffet at Golden Corral? Quality and quantity are linked in much the same way that nature and nurture are.

High fructose corn syrup is consumed in amounts that are staggering. It’s placed into most packaged processed foods and although I don’t avoid it all together I do try to limit it in our house. I started buying soda with regular sugar like Mountain Dew Throwback and the kids like it just fine. Regular sugar has the same glycemic index issues but I trust it more due to its longer history with our species. We also limit the kids to a single soda a day.

It’s not to me about absolutes, right and wrong so much as general paths. This is the direction we’re headed, what helps us get there? I don’t want to feel shame when I eat anything, even the Whataburger I had late last night. Guilt, shame, and eating to avoid feeling is a sure way to develop a negative relationship to something that should be healing. Taking joy in food, even the occasional soda with hfcs is surely better for you than being sad and lamenting your choices for hours on end.

Now to find out if I get arrested for doing headstands in the hospital waiting room.

13 part deux

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Before you’ve practiced, the theory is useless. After you’ve practiced, the theory is obvious. -David Williams, Ashtanga teacher

The state of modern medicine is a constant source of confusion to me. How did we wind up here?

Andrea doesn’t have a goiter. Andrea has had a nodule, a growth on her thyroid gland since time immemorial. Every doctor she talks to expresses concern and wants to take it out but she’s a completely normal thyroid activity and doesn’t suffer from a malfunctional gland. It’s a benign growth and also presents no issues with her breathing or swallowing. It’s not uncomfortable and if it poses no issue, why remove it? If you have a mole that’s not cancerous but isn’t causing issues on your back do you leave it?

Doctors as with anyone else immediately grab onto what they can see and comment on it. Two nurses and one doctor have come in to prod the growth because they’re worried it pushes her trachea off and won’t allow her to be put to sleep for surgery. So my question is, if you know you have to put someone to sleep for surgery and you can SEE the growth wouldn’t you check that before, like…weeks ago when you scheduled the surgery?

We presume it’ll be fine but people have elevated blood pressure and heart rate when they see doctors for a reason. White coat syndrome is extremely common.

Integration is at the core of my work in wellness. Mostly I use yoga, diet and overall healthy lifestyle to have as little to do with doctors and hospitals as possible. I don’t know the biology of cancer because it’s not my area. My knowledge base in anatomy and physiology is very limited. My tools are archaic and rudimentary. They also seem to be the most influential over the course of a lifetime. Not only do I think a regular yoga practice leads to health I think it leads to well being.

The holistic nature of my work leads me to wonder why no one in a medical setting seems to communicate. From the word go western medicine treats people as organisms, consisting of organ system, organs, cells and on down the line. If you see a general practitioner then you see a specialist who focuses on some minutiae. When a conscious aware person is treated as a series of symptoms is it any doubt they get agitated?

Reductionist materialism has its place as does a scientific viewpoint but I often wonder if we’d cut off our nose to spite our face. HIPPA regulations make everything more complicated it seems and the more complex the more paperwork and people involved which means you add increasing layers of red tape and infrastructure to navigate some behemoth. Should I just be happy they sped up the paperwork for medicare/aid approval so Andrea could have her surgery? I’ll sit and breathe.

The frustration, when you push me into a corner, the fundamental opposition I have even after a long yoga practice where I feel serene is this, how much does this country spend on rockets and bombs every year? What about the rest of the world? Can we get together and put a little more into R&D on healthcare? We could argue many points but no one wishes their loved ones or friends and family to suffer at the hands of things that should be cured sooner rather than later.

I ran across an article that Ray Kurzweil would like about research on salamanders to regrow limbs, primarily for military veterans who’ve suffered from the effects of IED’s. Now let me be clear, I don’t wish for anyone to suffer. If anyone loses a limb I want medicine to be able to replace and restore a body back to pristine condition. With that in mind, I realize that we’re pushing into a brave new world but instead of working to regrow limbs why don’t we create a world where soldiers don’t have limbs blown off? Let’s keep troops home and work on world community where no one lacks basic food, shelter and basic human wants. You may say I’m a dreamer…

Do I look impressed?

Friday the 13th

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I’m told that the number 13 is considered a bad omen due to Judas being the 13th disciple. Whatever the case we’ve all found it ironic that today would be the day that my wife is in the hospital to have her cervix removed. After an abnormal pap the word carcinoma came up on the phone and our medical quest began. Judas is traditionally considered the disciple who turned on Jesus, cancer is when your biology turns on you. Maybe there’s a justification for Judas libel but history doesn’t give us much information.

My first thought after brief discussion with my wife was that cancer cells don’t mean you have cancer. That is to say most people develop and take care of cancer many times during their lifetime. Its biology is just beginning to be understood and to give you an idea of how archaic our technology is in most cases you have cancer becomes what we’re doing now. Cut it out immediately and pray.

100 years from now how we treat cancer will be looked at as the dark ages. I find it ironic that I was reading The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweil at the time we found out about the diagnosis. In the book he’s discussing the point at which technology expands so rapidly that man and machine fuse, the expansion of knowledge becomes so strong that humanity as we know it might not even be considered humanity any longer. Go and watch the Terminator series of films and then the Matrix. See how it all goes bad? Well to Ray Kurzweil it’s the opposite, it all goes good and disease, decay and even death itself is banished.

Gene therapy hasn’t been developed and since we don’t yet know how to turn off cancer, cutting it out seems to be the treatment of choice. Kurzweil believes that our smart phones will slowly be integrated into our own bodies, you’ll have google maps at a glance in your head and the decay of telomeres which control aging will have been vanquished. To make a long story short, everything gets better and machines will slowly integrate into us. The line between man and machine will vanish and we’ll spread out into the universe…forever. Sounds like heaven right?

Remember my wife is scared shitless about to have part of her body cut off. I put my hand on my forehead considering what Kurzweil promises is around the corner and where we’re actually at. I also remind myself that in the documentary Transcendent Man Kurzweil goes through open heart surgery. You see, he as much as anyone else is hoping the technology comes sooner rather than later. No one wants to exit a week before the Singularity gets here.

So it’s Friday the 13th and yesterday we found out that a long time friend passed away from cancer. She’d been battling for a long time and leaves behind a family and daughter less than a year old. Hearing of her passing the day before my wife’s surgery isn’t fun. Did I mention I also left a clients home to realize I’d only been left one shoe? Don’t worry, it’s replaceable just been a few odd days.

Carissa or Reesa as she’s known to friends and family was my age. She fought over the course of time and had peaks and valleys while her family does what everyone with a sick loved one does, go through a huge range of emotions and deals with life at that moment. Andrea and I are now dealing with the same. My only real security is that my wife and I have had our relationship in such a way that if we got hit by a bus on the way over to the hospital we’ve loved each other and expressed that love in a way that doesn’t leave regret. If one of us goes the other doesn’t have any ill feelings about how we’ve interacted with each other.

That’s not a cure for cancer but it’s the best we got.

I’ll be blogging through the day to take up time while at the hospital. I’ve got a pillow, a blanket, smart phone (not yet installed in me but Ray Kurzweil would say it’s coming soon) and a copy of Eric Schiffmann’s Moving Into Stillness.

Keep in touch, I’ll be posting and blogging through the coming days. Want to help? Schedule a massage in the future, come to a yoga class and share these or other blog posts and videos from my youtube channel. The more advertising I get, the more exposure and healing had and our family doesn’t worry where the rent comes from while Andrea recuperates.

How to neti pt.2

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In a previous post we discussed the neti and how it creates a softness and texture to the breath through cleaning, hydrating and adding nuance to respiration. The nose is the preferred place to breath from, not the mouth. Mouth breathing stimulates the fight of flight response and most breathing in yoga is through the nose. “Mouth breather” is a derrogatory term for a reason, even if people don’t realize why, they sense it’s poor health function. If you can’t breathe through your nose, allergies come to mind, then breathe through your mouth. It’s not wrong, just not preferred. Always breathe.

Inside the nose and sinus passages are structures called turbinates. These structures aid in the cleaning and hydrating of air before it enters the lungs. Using a neti facilitates this process and the turbinates structure is of importance. When you breathe in through the nose the air circulates or spirals due to the turbinates. That soft, moist mucus membrane then picks up any particulate matter like dust, mold or pollen before it enters the lungs. As the air spirals and flows against the mucus membrane the increased moist surface area allows that particulate to stick, it’s part of your bodies filtering mechanism. See why the neti is important? It cleans this off regularly so you can start anew.

 

Rhythms in nature

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I’ve been gardening for years now and still know nothing. Patience is acquired in gardening through the slow process of whittling away the unnecessary much like your yoga practice.

 

Over time I start seeds in trays and get a 50% hit or miss ratio on sprouting and transplanting.

 

 

 

 

Direct seeding has been even more topsy turvy and I’d say I’ve got a 20% success rate. Some of my seed was getting old in the fall so I decided to just plant it directly and let nature take its course. I watered for several weeks and nothing sprouted. Oh well, live and learn. The planting guides for our area I’ve decided are written by trolls with a sense of humor.

 

 

We had lots of rain and then in the middle of winter, things sprout. Alright…just let the rhythm do what it does. You’re the reminder nature. Start where you are, grow your roots. Indeed.

How to neti pt.1

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A neti pot is something all people should have and use regularly. No other cleaning and hygiene regimen within yoga is as important to daily health in my opinion. As yoga practitioners know your breathing helps control many of the other functions in your body, having poor breathing leads to poor health in the long term.

In Austin people are extremely susceptible to allergies and this is a way to fight them off. It’s not a cure but with regular use I suspect allergies aren’t as severe and it gives your body less to fight.

Clean your nose, it’s as simple as that. In a future video we’ll discuss the internal anatomy of the nose as it relates to breathing. Share this around, if you’ve not used a neti…start.

Link to purchase

Thai seated back pt.2

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This continues our series on Thai massage in a seated position. The video shows work that’s used on an extremely common problem area, the upper back where it meets the neck. Levator scapulae are the muscles that go from the top of the shoulder blade to the base of the skull and they’re often tight and tense. The use of the elbow saves your hands, allows you to work effectively without strain.

Share these with friends. They’re easy to perform techniques that post little risk when done in communication with those you’re working on. Ask those who receive from you how it feels. Better still show them how to perform it and trade. The best way to learn is to give and receive.

See you soon for a Thai massage class here in Austin, Texas.

http://robertgardnerwellness.com/class/thai-yoga-massage/

Is love difficult?

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I stumble over my own thoughts at times. The logical inconsistencies that come with thought and logic often confound me and leave me wondering, what does that particular word mean? In a loving moment with my wife at a party I realized while I gazed down upon her face and stroked her hair just how difficult it’s been to love her.

I mentioned it and we entered our own little world in the midst of the party. I thought deeply and pondered what I was trying to communicate. After considering what I was trying to make effable I explained that loving her is easy, loving her as much as she deserves requires attention and focus.

My path is not that of a celibate. I chose romantic love consciously. I felt no desire for the monastery or austerity and growing in relationship with someone was my chosen path. One must choose ones partners carefully. My spiritual leanings have me embrace impermanence. In that state, in the true realization that there is only this moment, the challenge is to embrace it fully and possess the inner fortitude to love yourself and others in every fiber of your being. Breath after breath, moment after moment interacting with the world around you to manifest beauty and love.

There is no method, no book and no substitute for love and living life. It is learned by experience. Tis better to have loved and lost is the saying. Impermanence is another word for it. When I am old I’ve no wish to look back on my life and regret. I’ve no wish to ponder what I could have done differently to love others, create a better world and leave this planet better than I found it. My life is my message. It’s manifest in my teaching yoga, in my bodywork and in my relationship to others.

“Loving you” is difficult, I explained “because I must step up to the challenge you’ve placed before me. I must love you as you deserve by becoming the person I aspire to be. I must love in the way that Coltrane improvised a solo. Embracing the present moment with every cell I must be improvised love. I have to cast it out as it pours through me undiluted. You have challenged me in our relationship to try to learn to walk upon the earth as if flowers should sprout out of my footsteps. That is the man you deserve and with every breath I evolve into him.”

She was as you can imagine, touched. Even embracing the small tender moments of loves expression will prevent a lifetime of regret. Love is now.