Dahn Yoga Hawaii Member’s blog

Dear Everyone:

I just wanted to send HUGE amounts of Aloha and LOTS of positive energy to all of you.  I love and treasure each and every one of you.  You all are ‘da bes’!!!

Have a fabulous day.  A beeeeeeg shout-out to Kelly Sahbuhnim (sp?) and to all those heading out to Sedona today.  Be safe and well, have awesome travel mercies and bring back some of that beautiful Sedona energy and Dahn Yoga with you!!!

CJKU, I love all of you!

-sherry hn

With guidance from Kelly and information gathered by Kimberly and Gloria, we now have a Dahn Yoga event calendar for Healers. Click on the “Healer Event Calendar” link located on the left side of the homepage, under “About” and it will give you a google calendar of our events. We also have event calendars for the Honolulu and Aiea Centers (click on links for “Honolulu Event Calendar” and “Aiea Event Calendar”). We will update the calendars as we get the information.

At least for me, one of the greatest things that Dahn yoga has done is increase my mental and physical focus.  The following article from Yoga Journal helps explain my experience.

Yoga Journal (yogajournal.com)

Using Your Head

Call it what you want-feeling the flow, being in the zone, athletic nirvana-but the often elusive feeling of effortlessness is the goal of every athlete, regardless of the sport. “You do your best when you just let the performance flow out of you,” says Dr. Alan Goldberg, a sports psychologist, director of Competitive Advantage in Amherst, Massachusetts, and consultant to many University of Connecticut teams.

In this mental state, you don’t think or analyze or strategize or ponder; you just trust that you’ve done everything you needed to do to prepare, and you let your body take over. Yoga can help get you into that optimal mental zone and prepare you for competition.

Thom Birch, a former All-American 10,000-meter runner at the University of Houston, turned professional after graduation. At age 30 and the height of his career, he tore his Achilles tendon so severely his surgeon recommended retirement.

Not yet willing to give up, Birch turned to yoga to keep competing. “It was the glue of my training,” he remembers.

Prior to races, Birch would run six or seven miles, followed by an hour of Ashtanga Yoga practice. Then he’d do some wind sprints and finish with meditation, during which he visualized an optimal performance. “Yoga was my biggest mental tool to get me focused and into the zone,” he says. “You hear athletes say, ‘I just didn’t have a good day today.’ That’s usually because they’re distracted, which makes them unable to perform.”

Birch’s career peaked at age 36, when he won the 1986 National Cross Country Championship. “At the end, there were eight of us in a pack with half a mile to go. I out-kicked people 10 years younger than me,” he remembers. “What won the race was my ability to stay focused.” Today, Birch is a yoga teacher and co-owner of The Hard & the Soft Astanga Yoga Institute in New York City and East Hampton, New York, and works with young athletes, teaching them Ashtanga Yoga and breathing techniques. “The results are tremendous,” he says. “Not only are injuries fewer, but the nervousness and lack of focus before a race are greatly reduced too.”

In Focus

The first step toward improving your mental game is staying focused and avoiding negative self-talk. There’s a litany of things you shouldn’t focus on while competing, beginning with the uncontrollable, such as the weather, the draw, poor officiating, or bad sportsmanship. You waste time and energy by giving any thought to them. Ditto for thinking twice about your opponent: “Ninety-nine out of 100 people who focus on their opponents self-destruct,” says Goldberg. Reliving bad calls or botched passes is also unhelpful, as is thinking about winning in general.

“Focus specifically on what you have to do to win, not just on winning,” says Goldberg. Swimmers may need to break down a 400-meter race stroke by stroke; golfers may need to approach 18 holes as a series of swings; lacrosse players may need to think only of zeroing in on clean passes during a game.

Yoga is the perfect preparation for developing this focus; while doing yoga, you may focus on anything from your to-do list to your growling stomach, but until you focus on the breath and the details of the poses, establishing the link between the body and mind, your practice will not improve.

Consciously inhaling and exhaling will not only let you root each asana deeper, but “if you can control the breath, you can control the mind,” says Dina Dillon, an instructor at New York City’s Jivamukti Yoga Center.

Even if you’re able to keep your mind focused, be careful to fill it with positive, self-affirming thoughts. Any definitive statement that contains the words “I” followed by “must,” “have to,” or “never” should immediately be eliminated. Again, regular yoga practice can encourage self-acceptance and confidence.

Just as you might prepare yourself for your asana practice by focusing on the breath, you can breathe your way into a competition. Other pregame rituals, such as repeating a mantra in your head or doing a three-minute Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog), will help establish your concentration. Dillon recommends yoga to relieve precompetition tension and improve mental focus. “People used to think you had a good head for sports or you didn’t, but that’s not the case,” says Goldberg.

Learning how to concentrate correctly is well worth it, as my glory days journal entry can attest: I could go on forever about the race, but suffice it to say, this is why I row, why I take stroke after stroke after monotonous stroke.

Dimity McDowell is a Brooklyn, New York-based freelance writer.

http://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/199?page=1

My Dear Dahn Yoga Healer Sisters:

I have a secret to tell you all.  I STILL GET NERVOUS WHEN I DO SOMETHING IN FRONT OF A GROUP OF PEOPLE.  Nownownow, don’t drop from the shock of it all.  You’d THINK that with all my years of experience as a Toastmaster (8 years total) and with my effervescent Ms. Alohaness, I shouldn’t have those kinds of issues.  I should be poised, confident, and ready to “geev um”.  But *sigh* yes, I still do.  Especially if I’m not confident in what I intend to present, or *gasp* when I don’t practice it enough.

That was one of the reasons why I decided to go beyond Healer School and take the Dahn Instructor class.  Speaking by itself is one thing, but speaking, doing body movement (like exercise), maintaining everyone’s attention and trying to project sincerity and confidence at the same time was a whole ‘nuther ball of wax.  And the classes didn’t take that long to get through.  There were two 4 hour days and two 2 hour evenings.  Then I was pau…with Part 1.  Parts 2 & 3 remain but that’s for another time.

I’m the kind of person that learns best by just jumping in and doing what I need to do, learning along the way.  So it is with this instructor thing.  I did it by coordinating a 1/2-hour class to do the Ilchi Ki Gong, named after Grand Master Ilchi Lee.  I focus on breath, stretching and relaxation.  I’ve marketed this exercise to my co-workers in my department as a “stress buster”, because we’re all under different degrees of stress here.  I taught this class to 6 people on 10/31, and then to 9 people on 11/6.  My next class to teach is on 11/20.

THEY LOVED IT! Especially the Women’s Health Associate at the Queen’s Women’s Health Center, who is personally feeling the benefits of the class.  She feels so much better, less stressed than she was when she first walked into the class.  She really likes the breathing and relaxation work.  We’re not going to be able to meet every week, but I’m booked with the Women’s Health Center until the end of January.  My coworkers are also feeling the benefits too.

I’ve heard Master Ahn and Master Lucky say many times that as healers, “First you heal yourself; then your family and friends, then your community, then the world.”  Please know that this isn’t all about me; this is my way to give love back to my work ohana at Queen’s. I’ve also heard them say that as a healer, you can heal one person at a time.  As a Dahn instructor, you have the opportunity to heal more than one person at a time.  It’s a lot of fun and, I PROMISE, you get back MORE than what you give!  It’s my hope that with the continuation of these classes that I’ll be able to assist my coworkers so that they can mend whatever is going on with their lives AND mend their working relationships with each other (VEEEERRRRY ROUGH).

I hope that you folks will consider going forward in your healer journey by becoming Dahn Yoga instructors.  We are SORELY NEEDED in this community!  My love and appreciation to Masters Ahn & Lucky for the time (and patience) to teach us, to my coworkers for allowing me to practice my teaching skills on them and to you, my healer family for having my back.

Aloha, My Healer Family:

 I’m sorry to say that I wasn’t able to make it to the Chun Je/Vision Ceremony.  I was dealing with myung hyun.  I’m up and about now because I’m a mom to teenage kids and that’s just what we do.  Anyway, I was hoping that someone would be kind and please give us the highlights of the day’s activities.  It would be most gratefully appreciated.

Love-sherry

What an an awesome experience during meditation!  I was able to connect with my guide and talked about my vision for the future.  I was fortunate to have Master Lucky as my “vision” partner and she was able to confirm my vision.  I hope  other healers were able to experience the same thing as we begin to establish the Dahn Foundation in our beautiful state of Hawaii.  “Let’s go heal the world!”

Gloria

All of you are sacred souls.  I’m so thankful and grateful to be in your company on this part of my life’s journey.  ALL of you are absolutely FABULOUS!  I think that we are going to do some AWESOME things in our community, either on an individual basis or as The Group Conciousness.

Take care and hope to see all of you at the Chun Je/Vision Ceremony at Honolulu Center on Sunday, November 4th, 2007; 3:00pm to 5:00pm.  I love you!