"TENSING YOGA"  

Introduction

          Tensing Yoga will work for almost ANY muscle or muscle group. It's mainly designed for customized application to/for the muscle(s) that are challenging you. That might get more clear if you try out the "Exercise for Illustrating Tension Range". In fact, I'd say that exercise is a pretty mandatory preliminary, just to make sure you are "grounding the concept" - connecting mind with body. But first things first...
          EG: Tensing Yoga not about getting into positions, although TY may be used to get into positions quicker, easier, and without injury. This yoga is more about developing and maintaining a healthy *muscle energy efficiency* via *Tension Range*, *Work/Rest Ratio*, and overall *efficiency of movement* (specifics below). All of which is critically related to healing or preventing injury. TY could be considered an optimized form of self-applied, neuro-muscular re-education, reinforced with a body-mind connectivity that insures a more comprehensive and long-term response (High Preventative Maintenance Gains). Let's consider working with both the acute symptoms and the chronic situation or cause.
          Nor is TY about spiritual applications - although you certainly *can* go there with TY. After all, is it not *How* -- or with what frame of mind & heart one does something -- that determines the more profound results of what is done? And, there *are* sections here about attitude & approach - much of which are about the same basics taught by spiritual yoga masters; ie: breathing and focus.

          This system is designed to maintain the muscles in a more relaxed and flexible state when in the acute stages of injury, and to maintain the muscles in a more capable and flexible state in general for long-term preventative maintenance. [ The acute stage is right after injury, when there is abnormal pain with normal use. Ideally at this time the injured limb is kept from being "weight-bearing", and if muscle contraction to any degree is called for, it is done so very carefully in the presence of an experienced practitioner, physical therapist, osteopath, or chiropractor. ]
          This exercise can be employed with the use of the usual yoga positions, or "asanas," or it can transform most any other exercise movement or position into a yoga movement or position. Depending on which muscle groups one is working with, a different postural position is more suitable.

          You might try Tensing Yoga for at least a few months, depending on how long you may have been dealing with your symptoms. After that, you may feel that you no longer need to do the exercises. However, I strongly suggest you continue - at a gradually reduced frequency. After that, a few minutes of application before you get out of bed can make all the difference for that day. Eventually, you will benefit with the capacity to FEEL, long in advance, when to take increased preventative measures. If it takes you even a year to get to the point of being able to feel this, you'll have the rest of your life to enjoy the benefits. But you will likely notice benefits long before that. And this is what I call true health insurance, and it is certainly cost-effective.

What's Different And Special About "Tensing Yoga"?

          According to my own studies, yoga is not about seeing how fast you can get into a position and how long you can hold it. Or about "muscle stretching", in the popular sense. It's about focus and breathing and presence. If you're yoga instructor isn't reminding you about this as/when necessary, then maybe the focus has been about something else. Muscles need to know how to rest as well as work hard. Habitual overworking limits the *tension range* of a muscle, limits the circulation of blood and waste elimination, thereby the efficiency of the cell (each fiber is a cell), not to mention the capacity to maintain resilience under stress - and all that becomes more obvious past age 35 or so - unless of course, you have turned off your pain signals, which may feel great - until you're body breaks something because you disabled the warning system. Tensing Yoga takes into consideration the injuries of youth, resulting scar tissue and the phases of its process in short and long-term, the factors in varying that, as well as encourages awareness in people of all ages.
          Also, about stretching: Performed in balance, in consideration with the other principles of muscle fiber integrity, it serves an important purpose. Done improperly, or not in balance with other actions, may cause a muscle to increase it's tension- and thereby to actually shorten. The science of muscle tension, so to speak, is not rocket engineering, but it IS much more complex than what is now taught to most atheletes or yoga instructors. Note: Muscle shortening is one key principle for many advanced massage techniques - which are not about relaxation, but about injury prevention and treatment. I won't give a class here, but in short, muscle-stretching is overused, overdone, and well, over-stretched in the health and sports industry.

          Let me say more about *Tension Range*: That is, given the maximum optimal range of tension between fully relaxed and fully contracted, there can be a habitually limited range between that degree one can actually relax and that degree one can contract a given muscle. The muscle might not be able to fully relax, and might even be limited to a range much closer to maximum contraction. That might appear to the average person as highly toned, but in truth, it is lacking texture, and therefore lacks optimal circulation, and is much more prone to injury as a result. (At least in the long run, although the muscles of healthy youth can *put off* full recompense for most anything with scar tissue that is highly flexible -until middle age- meanwhile, only suffering little more than a "pulled muscle" for a week.) This relates to what I refer to as the *Work/Rest Ratio*, to resulting *energy efficiency*, as well as to whether or not one is using the "Correct" muscles for the job, or overall *efficiency of movement*. Note: that is different from simply over-working the muscles, but those things generally lead to, and/or are caused by, over-working. Including by yoga if the *muscle efficiency* elements are not sufficiently taken into consideration. I will include an exercise further below so you may know "in your body" what I am talking about.

          To some yoga students, "my yoga instructor's voice is my focus, step by step into position, breathing, and staying with the pose." So my next question might be about whether you have ever developed, or attempted to form, a relationship with a muscle or set of muscles (each fiber being a cell) ? Or my "standard follow-up question": is the "relationship" between you and "them" one of cooperative communicative teamwork, or is it a top-down, mind-over-matter relationship, albeit of the yoga-empowered variety? Do you really know where that "edge" is ? - where you will strain the fibers if you push further? If you're not listening to your body, you don't really know where this is on a given day, in a given situation or mood, etc. This should give some idea of what I mean by teamwork and "quality time" with the kids (the cells, in this case, the muscle cells), by "cell talk", and by *Presence* in that vein (pun optionally intended :-) Along with the exercises, I have included a link to some affirmations (in the Related Resources section), as well as the prose I use for setting the attitudinal (body/self-parenting) approach to the body-mind connection.

          I believe that aging has a great deal to do with chronic storage of tension, tension stored by not being able to be fully present with experience - usually because they were traumatic in early childhood and or long term but painful conditions. Muscle holding and movement patterns are formed, or at least reinforced, afterwards and in other ways as well. And here you might also wonder about the far greater complexities (including as related to scar tissue) resulting from whiplash in auto accidents. (As you may know from some other writings at the site, I have focused a great deal on the nature of storage and therapeutic release of tension over the last 25 years.)

          Maybe I may need to circulate a survey asking those kinds of questions among yoga practitioners, including instructors. I have heard of instructors, even locally, who allow, and apparently even encourage (perhaps not consciously ?) a competitive athletic approach, with very little or no instruction or even hints about the deeper focus aspects. Maybe I've been reading too many old yogi books in my days, but something seems amiss without at least some subtle encouragement about the breathing and focus. I ENCOURAGE YOUR INPUT of commentary about your own instruction and practice - whether you are a student, practitioner, or a teacher/practitioner.

          It may be that more yoga instructors would include such focus in their training were it not for apprehension about attracting and keeping the average yoga class attendant. I have to admit, I've been kind of spoiled by some of my clients who really want to increase their awareness and "response capacity" for the long term preventative maintenance. That's not totally what they came in for but hoped my work would improve their yoga or long-term muscle resiliency in cycling or weightlifting. But they came to see the two as very related, and so they don't usually feel I'm having them "work" more than they actually want to. AND the yogo-focused clients who have been including this with their yoga have also been reporting good results, not only with their chronic areas, but particularly with their yoga, and at a relatively early stage of learning the approach.
          One of my clients I've been working with "really got it". It was when he was doing his exercises and discovered (while by himself) how he could isolate a muscle, in essence "tweak" his proprioceptor system - both the local system balancing tension between muscles within a muscle group, as well as re-balance a major area of his body through disengaging the muscle holding and movement habit ("Controlled Moter Response"), thus effect how his spinal muscles tensed, thence re-align/rebalance his body posture overall! Needless to say, he was sold on the system after that, and so I was again reminded that there's really something to this. :-)

          I qualify the above by saying I'm still working on the rudiments to the overall approach, certainly within my own body. My experience with "Tensing Yoga" and "Body-Parenting", does come from a need to heal certain chronic conditions (tending to acute on occasion, albeit far less often than 20 years ago when began developing the technique and approach).

          And, by the way, with a therapist (or knowledgeable practice partner), you can employ Tai-Chi's "Push-Pull" technique with great effect, utilizing the principles of Tensing Yoga. Or vise-versa (employ Tensing Yoga in Push-Pull), depending on how your learning type (how body-mind most efficiently learns new information). That's another essay, but it's most effectively demonstrated on the massage table. Well, two essays, counting the one about learning types and body-mind correlations.

"Core Body-Mind Integration Concepts in Context" Chart New Oct 2011 at the Organization Chart page. This chart compacts the key points into a relatively small visual space, and provides a summary of them and their implications relative to body-mind preventative maintenance, pain management, other aspects, as well as links to their respective essays or sections. Addressing all these aspects and their relationships is what make this site unique.

An Exercise for Illustrating Tension Range and Muscle Texture

To illustrate what I'm talking about above, I would like you to try two very simple, non-strenuous physical activities, by which you will be able to compare certain sensations. You can be in almost any physical position to do either of the two activities. The first activity involves the index fingers of your handed side (#1) and your non-handed side (#2), and noticing how aware you are of the muscle tension in your hands, or at least how aware you can be, once you focus your attention as follows: Notice that mound just below (the handed) #1 index finger. Now place the tip of (your non-handed) #2 index finger just below the foot of that mound, and then flex the index finger #1 as much as you can. If your #2 index finger is in the right place for this, you will feel the muscles of the #1 index finger flexing and relaxing. Once you can feel that, vary the amount of strength with which you flex the #1 index finger, as you notice, with your #2, the texture of the muscle fibers flexing your #1. If you practice this for a minute or two you may notice how much your awareness increases about the texture, the tension, and the dexterity involved, how much you can vary the amount of range, strength, and speed of movement of #1, as well as the amount of texture and tension that shows up, as well as how much pressure you can vary with #2.           This noticing of such subtleties about your hands, and even your ability to increase your awareness of them with practice, may not be that new or surprising to you. But now for the 2nd activity:           Place the tip of your handed thumb on the same side of the muscle(s) of your low back, just above where it connects to your hip (the lower lumbar region). This should be 1-2" to the side of the spine and slightly lower than your navel. Now do your best to both flex and release this muscle (by raising and lowering that side of your hip). Try to feel the changes in texture and tension with the tip of your thumb, practicing this toward achieving as much subtlety in that as you were able to with your index finger.           If you are able to achieve that, you are capable of an extremely rare state of awareness, of course, might even be referred to with a title of some sort . And if you're normal in "modern society", you notice a very great deal of awareness in your hands relative to most any other muscle systems. (I won't go into the psychology of that physiology -here- but I may elsewhere at some point).           By now, you're probably getting a suitable understanding of what I mean by tension range and muscle texture, as well as an appreciation for the yogi's who can focus their awareness to the degree that allows them to "isolate" most any given muscle and achieve a very broad range of tension as well as motion, strength, rigidity, texture, etc. Of course, that degree of proficiency is not necessary to achieve a level of body or muscle awareness that would provide a "cost-effective" amount of preventative maintenance capability. On the other hand, the latter capability will not generally be produced by simply learning how to put and hold one's body in a given asana or yoga position. And that's not saying that yoga instructors goals for their students are so simple. My point here, or one of my points, is to enhance appreciation for focused awareness, breath awareness, and muscle awareness, as geared to the purpose of preventative health maintenance. Which awareness Tensing Yoga is all about for one muscle or set of muscles at a time, generally those that have been chronically locked in a very limited tension range (and thereby in what I may refer to as a 'holding pattern').           Also, if you do not plan to live past the age of 40, then these things need not matter. However, if after that time, you do care about how much you want to be able to focus on most anything, and enjoy whatever you're doing, then these things may matter very much to you. (Yes, even during your 20's). Especially if you have been highly athletic and enjoyed challenging yourself a great deal in that.           Note: if you have "back problems" or muscle injury or significant challenge in other area(s), you would do very well to do the exercises, and/or receive the therapy as appropriate/ necessary for you to achieve a relatively good degree of muscle tension and texture variability there. And you probably should NOT try to use regular yoga to relax highly tensed (heavily "protected" or armored), muscles or muscle systems, let alone injured ones, unless you are well advanced into the practice or unless you have an experienced and knowledgeable guide beside you, and depending on which muscle systems you are attempting to work with. Because that will work well only in the opposite direction of what you are trying to accomplish, possibly causing injury or further injury.           Note 2: Some muscles will be relatively easy to get in touch with for the purposes noted above. For some muscles you will need to get creative, have patience, and maybe even seek the assistance of a yoga or massage practitioner who also understands the Tensing Yoga principles and approach. For example, for various calf muscles, you can start out (sitting with the calf crossed over the other leg) by placing your fingers on the calf muscles in such a way, that you can feel which ones move the foot in which directions. Notice which ones are the hardest (least textured), are more painful with pressure, least flexible, get tired first, etc. Chances are, the ones that are the hardest, and remain so after therapy even when the muscles are not actively working, are the ones that are more likely to cramp and/or interfer with some of your movements. (And they are the ones that will be most likely to be injured under "surprise" stress conditions, especially after age 35 or 40, depending on many factors, of course.) The hamstrings will require a little more creativity to locate, isolate, and work with TY, but they are very doable.

To TOP  of PAGE   "Body-Parenting" Approach for Body-Mind Awareness           Like kids, cells do best if we keep them fed, clean, and feeling loved. And as we learn to give them healthy messages and especially to just listen to them, like kids, they will tell us what changes need attending to. And *body-awareness* is how we listen. Put simply in metaphor, imagine how you approach someone you feel/think might be "in a mood": you probably take care to feel out "where that person is", and go from there. You might say that habitually tense muscles are in a mood, hence one approaches with consideration, even a respectful blend of curiosity and humility.           "Body-Parenting" is based on the "Re-Parenting" approach of emotional awareness based personal growth & self-healing. In layman's terms: Re-Parenting is a therapeutic methodology that uses a kind of dialog between core components of one's psyche. [More in shoptalk: It is more influenced by John Bradshaw, and Humanist Gestalt perspectives than Transactional Analysis. The "body-parenting" adaptation of the Re-Parenting approach is additionally influenced by Hakomi body-centered psychotherapy.]           Injuries occur primarily due to overly tensed muscle cells, to unable to flex with events and circumstances in our environment. Cells are not bad, or wrong in any way for being overly tense due to having their circulation crimped by compressed cell structures, thereby deprived of good connection to the sources of nurishment, and unable to sufficiently rid themselves of waste products from all their hard work. Certainly not for becoming deseased or disfunctioning as a result, let alone for trying to maintain systemic equilibrium by whatever means are left to them. Like kids, they are habitually responding to our own unconscious inner messages. Those that we've been giving them since our formative years - about how to respond to the conditions. Under harsh conditions in early life, they adapt and find a way to cope -- if at all possible, if you tell them they have to -via thoughts, and feelings. If they don't get "the all clear" (especially if they've never "heard" it before), then they maintain the "armoring."           Held long enough, thoughts and feelings become decisions and attitudes about life. Cells can actually maintain those -via adaptive roles in posture and movement- and for a whole lifetime, if they don't get a corrective message. I.E.: IF we, as infants, often needed to tense up -or "armor up"- various muscles for emotional or physical protection (ie: when adults around us acted insensitively or worse), THEN we most likely continued through adulthood to hold various muscles in an overly tense state - "ready" to respond to more of same, perhaps expecting life to be that way. The nervous system is designed to get our attention when we are doing something unhealthy. It's not the cells' fault if that system has been muffled by our own choice.           But would you really like getting used to living underfed, unclean, and insensitive to the warning signals? Assuming your answer is no, the next question may be about how to remedy such a situation where we have basically adapted to less than optimal conditions? I suggest that first, we fix the supply system and take care of those basics. Secondly, we remedy the attitude that got them that way, or else the cells will never feel they can drop the coping mechanisms, let alone learn what a happy, communicative, and cooperatively sharing environment is about.           Muscle cells need to know/experience what relaxation is, as well as what intense work is, in order to have an appropriately full range of tonicity/contractedness, and to find the right tone for a given condition. Cell systems adjust, based on our messages to them. Perhaps especially those messages that are aligned with long-term health, since our bodily systems seem designed for adaptation and endurance. NOTE: It is said that Our own voices and thoughts carry the most weight with our own cell systems. And that *verbalizing* a belief or decision, especially doing so *with feeling,* is much more powerful that just thinking it. Sometimes we will receive insight about a corrective action we must take; i.e.: by newly feeling the need to adjust our posture or some kind of bodily movement, or even due to reviving memories (that were previously suppressed). Details of these processes are explained in the essay, "Body-Mind Integration in the Personal Growth Process"- The How's And Why's Of Psycho-Emotional Storage of the Body-Mind (in layman's physiology & psychology): When, how and why tension is stored and released; communication between body and mind, benefits; proprioreceptors, personal growth, massage/bodywork, therapist's approach, etc. Originally published by the author in Massage Magazine, July-Aug 1992. May-Oct 2011: Addendum essays added with the goal of clarifying these topics as more easily understandable for *common sense* preventative maintenance application, as well as further completing the context and clarifying the dynamics and processes involved, including "Muscle Q & A" - a Kind of overview of the core topics, "Body Awareness and Communications, as Related to Body-Memory and Integration", "Insight Please", "EQ, IQ, Emotional Integration, and a Synergetic Relationship", and "Sticky Muscles", Reviews for two articles "on Massage, Alternative Therapies, & Pain, with "Study: Massages really can make pain go away"; & Sept 2011 Consumer Report; quotes, commentary & charts. "INTEGRATION": "Integration" (whether of the past, the good, the bad, or the ugly) in the wholistic or therapeutic sense, implies that the information or skills are re-organized and then learned from, in such a healthfully in such a healthfully complete or "Integral" way (*Love-Wisdom* in application), that it is understood and used for the highest good. The process involves "Synergy" of many systems, and the word "Transformative" is often used to describe it. SUMMARY on "Body-Parenting":           With body awareness, learning to listen and respond to our cell systems, we enhance our senses naturally. We give the cells the corrective messages about tonicity, circulation, function, etc. And thereby we provide opportunity for our self-healing mechanisms to be maintained, and turned back on as necessary. "Body-Parenting" approach teaches and encourages awareness of these connections and developing methods of interfacing with them for personal growth and self-healing.           "My Cells -My Children" and other selections of metaphorical prose & metaphor conveys, in a less analytical way, the nature of the dynamic relationships and 'Inner Communications' among mind, body, emotions, and Spirit, that underlies the 'Body-Parenting' approach for Mind-Body-Spirit Integration, as well as the INNER-child-parent-family relationships. Also, A primary integrative bodywork approach (that I have some study and training in) is described at the page here on Hakomi, Body-Centered Psychotherapy. A set of short summary personal quotes on body-mind awareness are in the Author/Editor Section. A link to the Body-Mind Integration home page is also there, where additional aspects of preventative maintenance are discussed and/or linked to. To TOP  of PAGE Positioning the body in preparation:           For muscles that raise the shoulders, a sitting position works well. For Muscles that raise one hip and leg (either side of the Lumbar/lower back region; eg: Left or Right Quadratus Lumborum), a Standing position actually works very well. Standing (as well as lying face up) also works for the Psoas muscles, but you may need to have a massage therapist or chiropractor show you how these muscles move the hips and legs. For muscles that pull the shoulders back or forward, lying face up or down works equally well (for either), but with experimentation you may find preference for one or the other. For Muscles that move the hips in ways other than noted above, lying face down or up will work, and again, experimentation will tell you what feels best, especially in the long run. This experimentation is a valuable part of your awareness building process in any case.           If the execise causes any pain, especially pain that interferes with the awareness of how the muscles work in subtle ways, then I would suggest adjusting your application, position, speed of movement, and/or force applied, etc. If that doesn't solve the situation, and especially if the pain is severe, then you may have discovered a situation that requires you to (please) consult your chiropractor, physician, and/or massage therapist, to see if these exercises are the best therapy for the condition.           I have put together a chart illustrating "Low-Intensity Low-Back Exercises." I call these low-intensity because they are for improving circulation and ones healing focus into the low back area, for gaining flexibility and mobility in those areas after an injury, and not for building strength. (For exercises that are particularly suitable for building strength in the low back muscles, use the keywords, "Low Back Exercise Therapy" in a search engine.) Please use these exercises with the instructions and suggestions included here. Do not use them if you are injured unless you follow the instructions on this page - mostly as regards moving very very slowly, breathing slowly and deeply, and stopping each/every time you feel pain, and/or adjusting your application, position, speed of movement, and/or force applied, etc.

 

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The Exercise [If it has not been long since you have been injured, be sure to read all of these instructions and understand the nature of approach and the basic plan of approach before actually doing them; better yet, consult your physician or physical therapist]           1) *Very very slowly* tighten, or contract, the muscle(s) -- as subtly as you can and still be able to feel the contracting. Allowing yourself to feel the contracting for the count of 3 ("one-thousand one, one-thousand two...). Then allow the muscle(s) to relax for a count of ten, then to a count of 10 let these muscles and your whole body "sink" into as fully rested a mode as you can w/o changing your overall body position. Really... it's the focus and the breathing into the muscles that make the difference. Do this three to five times.           2) Same thing except contract slowly until it feels like the muscle is contracted half way -- half as much as it would be when fully contracted that is. Now take the same amount of time to relax it. Now do the same thing but make the contracting phase take a count of 10 or even 15. Have the relaxation phase take the same count, followed with a count of 10 or 15 to full rest.           3) Repeat #2 adding to it an increased observance of how any other muscles in your body seem to be directly and/or indirectly reacting to this process, and while also noticing any changes in your breathing, or tendencies to alter it. Note that how you breath during the exercises is not that important, so long as it is generally slow and of moderate depth or deeper. What we are observing is any tendencies toward inconsistent rhythm, gasps, or the like. If/When you notice those, note the area of the muscle(s)/body that seems to be causing that. And, over time, notice how your steady application of this process massages out the ripples in the rhythm as you move through the ranges of tensing and relaxing the muscle(s).           NOTE: unless you are already highly practiced at this, Yoga, Tai Chi, some types of movement therapies and meditation, you will find this more than challenging. Except for one thing: you cannot do it wrong, so long as your muscles are not in the acute stage of injury or re-injury (in which case, stopping each time you feel pain is a prudent rule). It is the practice of this effort that IS the exercise. The practice may get more expert results over time, but not if you expect too much too quickly. In these kinds of awareness building exercises, the attitude of critical judgment and competition - even with self - tends to reduce the effectiveness. It is an activity most effectively regarded with the same approach as with an art-form.

A few low-back focusing movements for use with "Tensing Yoga" (in brief: VERY slow tensing and relaxing with focused breathing). The larger graphic is at the "Low-Intensity Low-Back Exercises" page Note: Keeping the muscles supple and "texturized" helps. I tell clients that a little focus with their "tensing" exercises in the morning before getting out of bed, even laying face up for just three to five minutes, will keep from "surprising" their muscles. Otherwise, an unpreparedness for picking up that pencil, or what was considered "good reactions" when you were 25, is the cause of connective tissue injuries for people over 35 or 40.

For more immediate benefits, consider doing this before you get up out of bed in the morning and maybe even before you fall asleep at night. Doing them at these times provides in two important ways:           1) You will also have pre-warmed your muscles and tendons and thereby prevented your straining them in case of sudden stress being applied to them.           2) You will have set up your sleep state as a time to work on these areas unimpeded by distracting thoughts.           3) "Notes on basic focus" will continue below - after the following intermission   NOTES on Basic Focus:           a) A Different Kind of Challenge: As noted above, unless you are already highly practiced at this, you will find this plentifully challenging. And yet, it's not a race to see how fast you or any part of you can get somewhere. It's about practicing the exercise, practicing presence and awareness with your body, while recognizing your current mood, mode, state of mind and body, (and without judgment or comparison with others). Finding "the edge of the edge" is, in the long run, best done feeling it out, not falling over it.           b) Tensing Yoga is NOT a Stretching Exercise: Please do not confuse this exercise with "Stretching Exercises" - unlike most all athletic-based approaches, as well as a few yoga styles, the idea here is NOT to test the limits of the Range Of Motion (ROM) of the body parts being moved or the muscles being worked. Nor how fast you can move from one state of tension to another. It's about smelling the flowers along the way. Actually it's about getting to know "the kids" (the fiber cells) along the way. For optimal benefit from athletic programs, you may consider doing the Tensing Yoga approach along with the muscle-building approaches, certainly with the muscle-toning approaches. If after some time of experimenting with this combined approach and you feel you might benefit by replacing the athletic approach with this approach as you do your muscle-building or muscle-toning work, I'd love to hear about the results from this.           c) "Exploring Fiber-Space": A core objective here is to focus on, to put the mind's light on, ALL the movement in between the limits of the Range Of Motion, that is, in between where the muscles being worked are at current maximum rest state and where they are at current maximum extended state. It is as if we take a 'look-feel' of all those little spaces in the muscle fibers in between those limits, especially the ones that we've never looked at before. WHY??? Circulation increases with focus- the more concentrated, the better. That's another reason why cells seem to be like children - they respond most when we give them quality time, taking a sincere interest in them, and especially when actually establishing a rapport with them.           d) A Little Trick for Breathing: There is a good way to make yourself remember (and eventually develop the habit) to breath in a particular way; for instance, at a certain desired minimum of depth and/or speed). And that way is to focus on the EXHALATION. Focusing on the inhalation tends to revert us back to the very popular habit of holding our breath to a certain degree. No kidding. Compared to one experienced in breathing healthfully, the great majority of "civilized" people actually do not use near the capacity of the lung that is available. Whereas breathing FULLY on a regular basis does at least two wonderful benefits: a) it provides oxygen in great abundance which improves mental clarity, mood, physical health, and energy; b) it massages the internal organs, whose lymphatic vessels need this kind of movement in order to keep the gut clean and free of extracellular waste material. "Breathing Ratio Chart" From *Yoga Journal* Advertisement in *Body + Soul Magazine* (2007 ?) To TOP  of PAGE   Optimizing: Establishing A Rapport With Your Cells for Healing and Preventative Maintenance           The best approach to a relationship with someone who has much to offer you, including self-healing, especially when you don't know if you'll be able to earn it, is with humility. You have to be willing and open to be taught something, actually even to be surprised, to change how you relate even to yourself. In this respect, and maybe a few others, the relationship with one's cells, organs, and systems, is no different.          It's like learning to drive a car, a car whose immensity of power you have no idea of until you actually begin to get the feel of the wheel and the pedals. It's like driver training and the kids, who are the persona of the cells and organs and systems, are going to teach you how to drive because they want to, and they know that deep inside you want to -- because you are them -- but you have forgotten what it's like to be aware at that level. You were there when you were in the womb and for a time afterwards, and maybe in your sleep. Women know something about this when focused on their bodily cycles, but not necessarily about what we're looking into here.          The kids aren't trying to hide knowledge or power or anything else from you. They want to share it all with you. But you must earn the right by meeting them on their level and learning what they have to teach you. Although you once knew as an infant, you soon had to learn how to externalize awareness, to operate and survive "in the world." That often included attitudes, and the postures that go with them, that do not work when engaging in or maintaining the aware mind-body relationship. This relationship requires an awareness balanced between internal and external. And there is a relationship of this type to seek between you and the kids, like a resonance or wavelength, and maintaining this is like riding wave.          The way to go into this communion with the kids so you can learn to drive a little from the cellular level, is via the attitude I'm trying to impart here, via the breath, and via a kind of relaxed but confident focus. Part of the attitude is a confidence about knowing that eventually you'll find the wave, that once you find the wave, you can ride it for as long as you can maintain the right attitude. You gain the confidence by practicing the approach, finding the wave, and more and more steadily riding it with the focus, which carries and balances the attitude and breath with the wave.          Another part of the attitude is accepting that you have to learn to ride the wave before you can drive or control the relationship to any degree. In fact, any attachment to driving before you really appreciate what it's like to ride will prevent attunement to the wavelength. On the other hand, it can be very healing just to ride the wave. The wave is there to be found, yet it is also created by the approach to the kids, because that's a big part of how relationships are formed. Go in humble, willing to be surprised, to be taught something, to be led into a rapport that will change your life.          One more suggestion: Once "on the wave" (or in any case, actually), you might then extend appreciation for whatever state the cellular spaces are currently in, and then fill that space in with light and love. I say "appreciation" because these cells, particularly the muscle fibers, have always responded to our own conscious or unconscious mind's guidance (with the exceptions of DNA or other structural related limitations), whether or not we might judge the guidance at the time to be competent or not for whatever reason. After the appreciation, you might want to experiment with extending compassion into these spaces. Note for Clarifying Context:          Putting this body-mind relationship in context with person-to-person relationships may be helpful in applying the above metaphors in Tensing Yoga. Some of the things to be considered in this regard:           a)     Perhaps the most important difference is that the relationship with one's cells is strongly effected by, indeed greatly represents, the relationship that we have with our bodies -- that is, we as Westerners with western ideas of health and personal and medical body-interaction, etc -- not to mention this being that of a male with his male body, and of a female with her female body. For most westerners, we think we know all we need to know about one's body, the rest we just turn over to the "experts." Many men and women nowadays could at least pass a written test about how to respect the opposite gender. But few of us could do the same when it comes to the real needs of our cells.           b)     Further, the cells don't converse with us in our own most often used language. At least males and females both usually try to use some version of the same language (even considering the differences between the "Mars & Venus" dialects).           c)     Comparatively, the relationship with one's cells presents a kind of paradox in how we approach them. This is partly because of the above. It is also because, on the one hand, the cells are more like children (our own inner children), and respond like children to one's inner parent. And because, on the other hand, they have a great store of wisdom to offer in very certain ways, a wisdom that can enlighten one, even provide another path to the understanding of All That One Is. At the very least, the connection with them can provide a definite path to self-healing.   Attitudinal & Sensory Focus vrs. Mental Imagery with Tensing Yoga:           Using specifically applicable affirmations or attitudinal approaches in concert with Tensing Yoga can be particularly effective. However, for optimal benefit, the mental focus (on affirmations and/or visual imagery) should not be used at the expense of effective attitudinal preparation and on sensory focus on the muscles and fibers, on the physical/sensory awareness. To keep from doing that, try alternating the focus in this way: initiate the session with the more mental/imagery focus, then do the body awareness focus (essential to this whole approach), then end with another application of the mental/imagery. First do one wholeheartedly, then switch fully and completely to the other. After a few sessions of this, the attitudinal application will naturally influence your approach with the exercise. Note: There is a link to bodily correlated affirmations in the Related Resources section further below. To TOP  of PAGE Long Terms Results:           You'll likely notice that you will not have spent more than 4 or 5 minutes per muscle group the whole day. And yet, if you are highly focused on the body at this time, we can see/feel it work just like "Quality Time" for kids does. In fact I believe the analogy is direct. In my experience the chronic areas rarely "go away" totally, but will serve as the "early warning system" for when you need to do something different in your activities, thoughts, life, etc.           My body-mind has been teaching me that as I have increased my knowledge about just why my body communicates in the various ways it does (as per my own issues, life learning, etc), I have come to develop an increasingly sensitive mechanism (via my connective tissue's sensory system) for all manner of occurrences (external as well as internal) that I would otherwise have no indication of.           Adding another 4-5 minute period of application in the midday just gives more opportunity for the body-mind to re-establish optimal communications & healthy relationships within one's Being. I realize that the best schedule and length of application of these steps will vary from individual to individual and as ones daily routines change. I offer these suggestions to assist you to find what works best for you.           I call this "Tensing Yoga," by the way, not for the ten songs you'll feel like singing -- in Tibetan, of course . Actually, it is due to the benefit of conscious contraction - or tensing - of muscles, as distinct from conscious stretching. One is a "Yin" approach, the other "Yang." Both are effective at retraining the connective tissues and awakening the proprioreceptor mechanisms (see essay, "Body-Mind Integration in the Personal Growth Process"). But limiting oneself to the use of only one approach may only prolong one form of balancing needed by the system -- that of experiencing the fullest range of motion in the safe extension/letting go/expression of oneself into one's surroundings/relationships and one's retraction/taking-in/perception inward/within one's own Being. [I refer to "Tension Range" in the intro sections.]