Breathe Deep is a workshop in ways you can use your breath to relax and release tension from your body quickly and effortlessly, so you can avoid stress build-up, stay out of pain and manage your energy levels with ease.
This month’s Breathe Deep workshop is focused on [spacer height=”10px”] Stress Relief ~ Register Now [spacer height=”10px”]
Learn to tune into and access your breath as an effective strategy for improving your comfort, energy and focus throughout the day.
Your sharp focus on detailed tasks and bright screens invites shallow breath, and your days require so much focus it’s easy to miss that you’re hardly breathing at all. At the end of the day when your head hurts or your back and shoulders are killing you, it’s tempting to berate your body for failing you and look for a pill to fix the malfunction. Unfortunately this rarely works for actually feeling better.
This workshop is here to offer you a far more effective strategy for actually feeling better, quickly and easily, and simple tools for easily applying it to your everyday life.
Discover the secrets of full and connected breathing and catapult yourself to a new level of comfort and performance.
The gentle movements and guided meditations of the Breathe Deep workshop make for some of the simplest, most practical and effective techniques for significantly improving and maintaining your health and wellness, not to mention your focus and stamina on a daily.
For lovers of immediate gratification, come see just how quickly and pleasurably you can energize and relax your body, mind and spirit. And then do it again and again with the fancy skills you pick up.
[spacer height=”10px”] Small Groups means there’s lots of space for your personal questions and feedback. [spacer height=”10px”]
It also means Space is Extremely Limited! Register Now [spacer height=”10px”]
All of which make this workshop by far one of the most valuable experiences you can give yourself.
But what makes it over the top great is the the small group size and intimate setting that Ophra creates, making sure that every individual can benefit from her incredible store of knowledge and warm care in a personalized way.
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Which means that SPACE IS EXTREMELY LIMITED!!!
If you can’t afford to miss this workshop, make sure to Register Now
Your spot in the workshop is not guaranteed until we’ve received your payment.
We will issue a full refund minus a $10 processing fee for all cancellations made within 7 days of the workshop.
We will issue a 50% refund for all cancellations made 2-6 days prior to the workshop.
Cancellations made 48 hours or less prior to the workshop are non-refundable.
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[one_half_last][alert color=”white” background=”#7E9245″ border_color=”#7E9245″]WHAT TO BRING
Yoga Mat, if possible
Comfortable shoes and clothes to move in.
A bottle of water.
Optional: a notebook, drawing pad, camera… some kind of mneumonic aid.
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[alert color=”white” background=”#7E9254″ border_color=”#7E9254″]If you have questions or concerns, use the form below to leave us a note. Your spot is not reserved until we’ve received your payment.[pauf id=”workshop_registration” text=”Workshop Registration” width=”200px”][/alert]
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[divider style=”medium”] The pain in your neck, the strain in your back, the static in your mind and the fatigue in your eyes…
What if all these could be remedied with one simple, free and universally accessible treatment?
[spacer height=”10px”]Transform tension, pressure and rigidity into support, ease and spaciousness by experiencing your breath more fully.
Step into winter with the tools to feel limber and light and start the holiday season off right with secrets for relaxing and releasing tension from your body quickly and effortlessly.
You can look forward to an evening as packed with pleasure as it is with useful tools and information – an introduction and a foundation to discovering how meditative, refreshing and energizing being in your body can be.
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Learning to tune into and access your breath is the most effective strategy for improving your comfort, energy and focus throughout the day!
Your sharp focus on detailed tasks and bright screens often invites shallow breath, and your days require so much focus it’s easy to miss that you’re hardly breathing at all. At the end of the day when your head hurts or your back and shoulders are killing you, it’s tempting to berate your body for failing you and look for a pill to fix the malfunction. Unfortunately this rarely works for actually feeling better.
This workshop is here to offer you a far more effective strategy for actually feeling better, quickly and easily, and simple tools for easily applying it to your everyday life.
Discover the secrets of full and connected breathing and catapult yourself to a new level of comfort and performance.
The gentle movements and guided meditations of the Breathe Deep workshop make for some of the simplest, most practical and effective techniques for significantly improving and maintaining your health and wellness, not to mention your focus and stamina on a daily.
For lovers of immediate gratification, come see just how quickly and pleasurably you can energize and relax your body, mind and spirit. And then do it again and again with the fancy skills you pick up.
All of which make this workshop by far one of the most valuable experiences you can give yourself this holiday season…
But what makes it over the top valuable is the the small group size and intimate setting that Ophra creates, making sure that every individual can benefit from her incredible store of knowledge and warm care in a personalized way.
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Which also means that SPACE IS EXTREMELY LIMITED!!!
If you can’t afford to miss this workshop, make sure to Register Now
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Monday, December 8
@ Shen Tao Studio 303 Park Ave South, Suite 312 (@ 23rd Street)
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Learn powerful and effective techniques for using walking to:
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[list_item]Release Stress Throughout the Day[/list_item]
[list_item]Increase Your Focus & Stamina[/list_item]
[list_item]Relax Your Mind & Increase Your Awareness[/list_item]
[list_item]Improve Immune Function & Breath Capacity[/list_item]
[list_item]Replenish Your Energy[/list_item]
[list_item]Improve Your Alignment[/list_item]
[list_item]Reduce Chronic Pain & Avoid Injury[/list_item][/list]
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Your Guide
Ophra Wolf is a mind-body educator, healer and mover extraordinaire. She’s bringing together an incredible array of knowledge – from the mechanics and anatomy of dance, yoga, and pilates, to the energetics of qi gong and mindfulness of meditation and movement improvisation – to deliver a workshop packed with practical and tangible information to help improve your everyday life.[/one_half_last]
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[alert color=”white” background=”#FF7E00″ border_color=”#FF7E00″]Register and pay using a credit card or paypal account:
[paupay_cart id=”14816″ trans_type=”variable_purchase” pretext=”Enroll Now” text=”Select Payment”][/alert]
[alert color=”white” background=”#7E9254″ border_color=”#7E9254″]If you have questions or concerns, use the form below to leave us a note. Your spot is not reserved until we’ve received your payment.[pauf id=”workshop_registration” text=”Workshop Registration” width=”200px”][/alert]
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[spacer height=”15px”]Hello High Flier, have you taken time to ground and replenish your energies recently?
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You’re invited to turn off your high speed hustle for a couple of delicious hours, and tune in to a transmission of practical information to help you slow down, release tension, and experience pleasure in your body and spirit.
The cold days have arrived but you’re still in high heat gear, spinning your wheels at top speed to finish projects and fulfill obligations.
Maybe you’ll be done in time so you can be present for the holiday merriment, but how present can you really be and how much pleasure can you really take in if your body is tight and heavy and your spirit is fatigued?
Not nearly as much as you could if you were truly relaxed, breathing the moments in deeply and feeling grounded and centered within yourself and in your constellation of friends and family.
So that you can actually celebrate all that you’ve accomplished this year without feeling guilty about what you’re not doing! And so you can set your goals and intentions for the New Year from a place of renewed vitality and relaxed focus.
All this can happen very easily and organically, if you only you take a little bit of quality time to tune into your body.
And these workshops are here to help you do just that!
To offer you a sure fire sign that it’s TIME to take care of yourself, and give you a clear map to getting off the road to a winter of frustration and fatigue and on to the path of health and vitality…
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, Dec 8, 9, & 10, Force and Flow is offering three opportunities – Breathe Deep, DIY Stress Relief, and Partner Stretching – to not only relieve you’re the stress and pain you’re carrying now, but to learn the skills for staying loose and limber for months and years to come.
They’re all taught by Ophra Wolf, the spark behind Force & Flow and a five star teacher and healer – which means you get the expertise, care and attention to meet you at your most brilliant self and take you higher.
Space is extremely limited at this point, and the Early Bird Discount ends SOON, so get in on the good times NOW.
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Register ASAP to save your spot… and one for a friend who needs it as much as you!
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Breathe Deep, 12/8
Breathe Deep –
December 8
Step into Winter with the tools to feel limber and light and start the holiday season off right with secrets for relaxing and releasing tension from your body quickly and effortlessly.
Transform tension, pressure and rigidity into support, ease and spaciousness by experiencing your breath more fully.
LocationShen Tao Studio, 303 Park Ave South, Suite 312 (@ 23rd Street)
Join us for this two-hour workshop cum holiday party for your body, and learn potent and effective techniques that you can use from day to day and year to year to help relive stress and tension.
Register and pay using a credit card or paypal account:
(To use the EARLY BIRD coupon code (exp 11/30) – Select ‘One Spot’ and press the Edit button in the payment panel to enter your coupon code.)
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Partner Stretching, 12/10
Partner Stretching
– December 10
Look forward to an invigorating and playful evening packed with pleasure and practical tools for releasing tension and improving strength and alignment in your partner and yourself simultaneously.
Register and pay using a credit card or paypal account:
(To use the EARLY BIRD coupon code (exp 11/30) – Select ‘One Spot’ and press the Edit button in the payment panel to enter your coupon code.)
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[spacer height=”20px”] If the end of summer is inspiring thoughts in you of “straightening up” and getting your act together, these tips are here to lighten the load and make the process more relaxed and easefull…
photo by AlexaRazma.com
[spacer height=”20px”]More than two-thirds of the folks who come to see me about chronic back pain share these two characteristics:
They claim to have bad posture, and therefore
They try to straighten themselves up throughout the day
The straightening up doesn’t seem to improve their alignment in the long run, and it certainly doesn’t do much for easing their pain. And yet it also doesn’t always occur to them that trying to “fix” their posture by “straightening up” is actually contributing to the discomfort and making it a “fixture” of their lives.
Here are five good reasons NOT to straighten your spine, especially if you’re looking to improve your alignment and find more ease and release in your body.
1. Your Spine is Curved to Begin With
Your spine is curved, not straight, and that’s a very good thing. The four curves of your spine – sacral, lumbar, thoracic and cervical – are precisely what makes it so strong and able to support your weight in an upright position.
If you’ve ever been to any kind of fitness class, chances are the teacher has used an image at some point to help you visualize the movement you’re going for. That’s because your body responds well to images, especially when they’re relevant and tangible to its experience.
But since the image of a straight spine has nothing to do with the reality of your structure and isn’t a tangible or even desirable goal by any stretch, you’re better off without it.
Your time and effort are much better spent getting to know the particular curves of your spine. This means cultivating mindfulness of your own body, and accessing imagery that is true to your experience in the moment. This kind of imagery is much more effective when it comes to helping you sense the placement and possibilities of your alignment.
And if you’re looking for realistic solutions, keep this in mind:
Alignment and support aren’t actually about position – they’re about relationship.
This is as true for your body as it is for your heart. And mind.
When it comes to your spine, as you begin to literally “see” your curves, you also begin to learn how to adjust the relationship of one curve to another so that your weight is better supported.
2. Straighten Up? What about Down?
Our Western culture has a fixation with reaching up – we don’t even realize the extent to which this spiritual concept ends up infiltrating the way we move and carry ourselves throughout the day.
But anyone with any understanding of physics – scientists, building contractors and dancers alike – will assure you that there is no such thing as “up” without “down”.
You can reach up all you want, but getting more length in your spine requires grounding.
Unfortunately, when we command ourselves to straighten up we tend to completely forget about reaching down. And so the musculature of your upper body – i.e. your neck and shoulders – ends up having to carry much more mass over long periods of time than it’s really built for.
No wonder your neck and shoulders are sore – they’ve literally been “weight lifting” all day!
Next time you feel the urge to straighten up, just take a quick moment to see if there’s space for your hips to relax down and if you can feel the weight of your body dropping through your feet. Taking that extra weight and sending it down with gravity where it belongs will do at least half the work of releasing your spine and giving it more space to lengthen.
3. You Move in Circles and Spirals, Not Lines
Here’s another misleading image that’s constantly being thrown at you.
As with trying to “straighten” your spine, you’re told reach your arms out and extend your legs as if they were linear masses on linear tracks, and the more you force the alignment, the more aware you become of how tight you are.
When in fact your movement relies on round joints! And the way to release your joints, especially the joints of your spine, is NOT to lock them in a straight line, but to make sure they have plenty of space for round, juicy movement.
What’s more is that there isn’t a single bone in your body that resembles straight. In fact, if you look at the bony structure of both your lower arms and lower legs, you’ll notice that the bones – radius and ulna in your arms and tibia and fibula in your legs – have a spiral-like movement around each other.
The way you walk is also a spiral action, a double helix resembling the very structure of your DNA. Notice when you’re walking that as your right leg strides forward it’s your left arm that’s swinging forward – this is one simple way to tune in to the spiral movement that your spine conducts throughout the day.
Yoga, Qi Gong and other ancient movement modalities have a lot to say on this subject, but it’s enough to observe your walking to begin to sense it for yourself.
4. Fixating Leads to Pain
Another great reason NOT to fix your alignment by straightening up is that alignment is never fixed. You live in a moving universe, on a moving planet, in a body that’s made up of trillions of moving particles. Good luck fixing anything into place, ever.
Fixing and fixating (on posture or anything else for that matter) are bound to lead to pain because they involve holding, which requires an immense amount of energy.
The joints of your spine are built for an incredible amount of movement. We’ve already talked about up and down, but sliding your right arm down your right leg will quickly reveal your capacity for movement from side to side, craning to look up or leaning forward to pick something from the floor will give you a taste of forward and back, and turning to look at someone behind you is a great way to experience movement around your central axis.
The way to less pain and more ease in your spine is more movement.
Instead of trying to hold yourself upright or in any other position, be greedy for movement. If you feel yourself slouching or getting tight, get up and walk around. Follow stretches and exercises you’ve learned or invent movements yourself which open up your awareness to all the possibilities of movement you haven’t been exploring while sitting at a desk and walking down straight, narrow hallways.
If you’re not sure what stretches and exercises to do and don’t feel like inventing them on your own, consider coming to work with someone like me. I help people create personalized toolkits to serve both their everyday and long-term needs, and my upcomingSemi-Private Group Session – RELAXED Strength & POWERFUL Alignment –is all about learning how to strengthen, lengthen and release your spine.
5. Your Breath – Not Your Muscles or Your Mind – is What Holds You Aloft
Your breathing is the underlying movement that keeps you going: it’s happening all the time (though maybe not as fully and elastically as it could be if you’ve been in front of a screen or sitting at a table for hours) and giving it a little bit of attention is likely to give you a lot more reach and relief than sucking-in in order to straighten up.
Since we’ve already established that more movement is more better and that your breath is at the root of your movement, it naturally follows that more breath is best of all.
Unfortunately we spend large parts of our day breathing very little. And being out of practice, we’re surprised (and maybe even put upon) at the suggestion that this is a part of our lives that requires diligent focus and intention. It’s not until we’re exasperated with pain and forced to do nothing but breathe that we begin to truly appreciate the importance of constant practice and awareness.
For a technical understanding of why open and plentiful breath is so important to your back, consider that your primary muscle of inhalation – the diaphragm – is located right in the middle of your torso, spanning your upper lumbar vertebrae to your mid-thoracic. If your diaphragm isn’t doing a lot of moving, neither is your spine and pain is likely to follow.
With the movement of the diaphragm and the filling and emptying of your lungs come changes of pressure in your torso in general and spine in particular. It’s these changes in pressure that are keeping you aloft.
As pressure builds on an inhale, you expand and create a lightening of the load. And every exhale presents an opportunity to release pent up pressure as well as weight, and experience the amazing support of gravity and the ground below you.
If the movement of your vertebrae and muscles are the mechanics of alignment, the breath is the energetics behind it. Which is why if you want an alignment that supports plentiful and vital energy tuning into your breath is the key.
Interested in learning more about the mechanics and energetics of a strong and supple spine?
Then make sure to check out the upcoming 90-Day Semi-Private Group Session:
You’ll spend 13 consecutive weeks in a small, intimate group of five or less learning how to access more strength and alignment by understanding how you mobilize, stabilize and release the spine.
There are only 2 spots remaining, so act quickly!
If you prefer to create your own personal toolkit of exercises, make sure to schedule a complimentary consultation. I only have space for 3 of these a week, so book now.
Use the form below to contact me ASAP!
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Do you want to use this article on your ezine/blog/site? You’re welcome to share this article, as long as you include this complete blurb with it:
“This is an article from Ophra Wolf, Embodied Wellness Coach and owner of Force & Flow Integrated Bodywork, where she helps high-performers and brilliant visionaries making significant shifts and contributions to their personal, professional and global environments to align with their highest potential. You can subscribe to her fr.ee newsletter and learn more about her unique approach at www.forceandflow.com”
Monday night I was on the A train around 8:30PM, coming back from rehearsal with Antititled, when a young man pulled his girlfriend near where I was sitting.
I mean pulled forcefully.
He was standing right in front of me now, shifting nervously and mumbling about what he needed to smoke to calm down, she was hardly breathing, holding back tears. When the two seats next to me cleared out, he grabbed her wrist and practically threw her into the seat. When she tried to get up, he blocked her and then sat in the seat between us and made sure she didn’t move. She sat still, the tears came to her eyes.
I thought for a moment about what to do and decided to stand up.
Being on the Grand Jury earlier this year brought home for me the extent to which the simple physical actions of raising our hand and standing up for something, or not raising our hand and not standing up for something, can have a very real and tangible effect on people’s lives. For those of you who know me well, it will come as no surprise that this was a moment in which I felt called to stand up.
As soon as I did, a young woman from across the way motioned to me – did I see what was going on?! We have to tell someone! What should we do? She was whispering anxiously, terrified by premonitions of what awaited the captive woman.
The subway car was full mind you, plenty of others were seeing what was happening, but in our typical worn-out and violence-weary New York way, we were working hard not to see. As if blindness could excuse us from making an effort. I do this all the time. This time I didn’t, maybe because it was so close to me and maybe because I felt that I actually had the energy to make an effort. After all, cultivating energy is what my work at Force and Flow is about, and using that energy well is my highest prerogative.
I don’t know what to do, I confessed to the concerned woman, who I later found out was a young grad student from Ethiopia, recently arrived to NYC via Kansas. But I’m going to stand close to them so I can keep an eye, and if they leave the train I may follow and get some help.
I’ll come with you when you get off, she said, and we reached our hands out and held them for a moment, two strangers sealing a pact.
Here’s where knowing how to stand comes in handy, because other than standing I really didn’t know what to do. The bench where the couple sat happened to be at the end of the car, and the woman was pinched right into the corner. I stood against the back door, feet grounded, weight centered, body relaxed and at a slightly open angle to them. There was nothing threatening in my posture, but there was no doubt that I was there with them, aware and present to the situation. When the young woman leaned over to cover her eyes and start crying again, her head practically fell into my hand and I instinctively touched it lightly and asked her if she was ok?
She looked at me through heavily made up eyes and said, Oh, um, I’m just having allergies. I kept eye contact with her, didn’t say a word, just shook my head very slightly: no, that’s not it. Almost immediately, the man grabbed her again and pulled her out of the seat and away from me, muttering something or other. I touched the woman’s arm lightly as it flew past me and asked her again, are you ok?
When the man turned to me and started barking that’s she’s fine and to mind my own f-ing business, I admit my heart started racing. But I know how to stand, so I stood. This is what I train my body for these days – not just for muscular strength, but for the strength to stay soft, focused and grounded in an emergency. For the ability to calm my breath and my heart down, and for the power that comes from feeling my feet on the ground.
I do this because I’m under the impression that in the big picture, we’re in an emergency and this is the kind of strength we need in order to take it on: calm, focused, loving. But Monday night brought an emergency into the small picture of my day, and when my heart started racing I knew how to stay relaxed and say to the young man with my body language, I’m not here to attack you, but I won’t be averting my gaze.
When the train stopped at Nostrand a few seconds later, the young man said let’s go and grabbed the woman by the wrist to exit. I followed, because this was my stop and because frankly I was afraid for the woman and what would happen to her when no one was looking. I wanted to keep looking as long as possible.
The grad student from across the way also came out, and we made eye contact and checked to see where the couple was going and if there was someone to turn to for help. They were moving awkwardly and as the train was about to leave he grabbed the young woman and pulled her into the next car just as the doors were closing, leaving us in the station with no attendant or police officer in sight. My new friend started bawling. I wrapped my arm around her and we walked up to the street, looking for a cop: none in sight.
We have to call 911, she said through the tears, we have to call 911!!! So I did.
911 picked up right away, in less than one ring, and for this I am incredibly grateful. For someone who has spent most of their lives outside of “the system”, it was a reminder of how lucky I am to live in a time and place where there is someone to call when I see a potentially dangerous situation, where the phone is answered right away, where the police arrive almost immediately to help: not every city in the world has their act together to this extent, you know? And there are plenty of places in the world where what we saw happening is not only commonplace, but culturally condoned, so that the fact that the police were ready to stop a whole train of people in order to intervene is, as far as I’m concerned, on the scale of miracle.
Please forgive me if you were on that train, I would have been cursing too if it were me stuck in the station at the end of a long, cold day. But as a woman, I’d be contributing to a much bigger and older curse if I pretended that I didn’t see what was going on and at least try to do something about it.
Because I’d been able to stay calm and grounded, I had the wherewithal to get the train number as it was pulling out. I gave it to the 911 operator right away and she was able to get the train stopped as it arrived at its next station. Between my new friend and I, we were able to provide a slew of identifying details, including which car the couple went into, what they were wearing and how they were moving. Two officers met us on the corner of Nostrand and Fulton almost as soon as I got off the call, checking to see if we were OK and asking for any other details. When they left I helped my friend figure out how to get back to the Pratt housing – she was farther into Brooklyn than she’d ever been and still terrorized by thoughts of ‘what if’. Then I walked home the same way I always do.
I don’t know if there’s a happy ending. Even if the police were able to intervene and help the woman go her own way that night, I can’t stop her from going back to that or any other abusive man. And there are plenty of other women in similar or worse situations. But I admit that I went to sleep feeling good and incredibly grateful that night – for my new friend who reached out and helped me stand up for what I believe in, for the NYPD and the system that brought them to my assistance so quickly, and for the practices I have that help me cultivate and apply my energy to the things I believe in, no matter how unknown or threatening they may seem.
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Monday night I was on the A train around 8:30PM, coming back from rehearsal with