Yamas of Yoga-Satya

As Yoga is the longest lived barefoot exercise and as the Yogic lifestyle involves going barefoot often, we dig Yoga articles.

Yamas of Yoga-Satya

The second Yama of Yoga is Satya which translates in English to "truthfullness"


The famous, former US House Speaker Tip O'Neill is credited with saying:

"Always tell the truth, that way you have a lot less to remember"

Or something very similar. Of course, O'Neill was speaking with reference to politics, not Yoga. But as Yoga means the connection and union of all forces and all things in proper measure, we can contemplate the Speaker's quote quite handily.

Former House SPeaker Tip O'Neill, right, shakes hands with former President Ronald Reagan. While O'Neill was a harsh critic of Reagan, he became famous for working across the political aisle to broker successful and fruitful political compromises.

Being truthful protects us from being roiled in scandal that can come from lying; scandals can range from political issues at work to conflicts with clients in business, and problems with friends and family.

Often, what makes it tough to be truthful is the timing of a specific situation. Sometimes, it is more proper todelay the truth in order to avoid doing harm, especially in a truly grave situation. This tactic can also backfire, say, if we lie to someone and later tell the truth while also saying:

How often has someone told us: "I lied becasue I didn't want to hurt your feelings" ?

It's happened at some point, to each of us. We've either done it to someone or had it done to us, or both.

This tactic will always backfire, because you've already hurt the person's feelings by lying, and by trying to do right by truth telling at a later time, you hurt that person double fold.

It's easy to learn from mistakes involving other people, quite simply, because after making this type of mistake, people react and want to push you away. You get lonely and you feel like a schmuck and don't ever want to feel that way again.

So what does this have to do with your Yoga practice? Without digging deeper into dogmatic moral contexts, let's look inward to ourselves.

Without other people to scrutinize our thoughts and actions, it gets tougher to tell how truth telling can be beneficial or negatively consequential.

The tenet of truth is to be honest with yourself, always. When dealing with your inner self, you need only be able to forgive yourself and love yourself. There's no timing involved with that; there are no political or social situations that are at stake when we are dealing with our own selves only.

Be honest with yourself and you won't create situations of denial that cloud our ability to see who and what we really are. When we see our true selves, and act in honest accordance to that knowledge, then we don't make clouded decisions.

When we don't deny who we really are, we are better to see who we are really talking to and interacting with, and we're far less likely to speak or act in a manner that distorts the truth.

Be truthful to yourself, and you'll have less trouble seeing the appropriate boundaries of truth with respect to to others with whom we share our world.

Namaste

Leading Instructors Say Barefoot Fitness Is Just Getting Started

It's been seven years since Chris McDougall's book Born To Run turned the world on to barefoot running. The barefoot running craze seems to have sputtered a bit since the hype has calmed down, but five famous fitness gurus say barefoot fitness training is in its infancy. 

"To be sure, the fitness industry did not teach foot awareness until recently, despite the numerous claims that fitness starts from the feet up," says instructor Lawrence Biscontini, MA, winner of 19 major fitness awards since 2002.

Biscontini is internationally known for his blending of mindfulness techniques with many excercise methods. The recognition of barefoot fitness, and how icredibly effective it is, is still in its infancy, 
despite seven years of exposure, he says.

"Many readers who worked as fitness professionals in the last century will recall male and female muscle diagrams where the feet were cut off from the illustrations, or were shown with shoes and no labels. Today’s take proves different," 
says Biscontini is an article he wrote for American Fitness Magazine's 2016 summer issue.

Lawrence Biscontini, MA

The article included comments from other well-known instructors, among them, Stacey Lei Krauss, owner and founder of the The willPower & Grace Method®. While Krauss's empire is not as large as Biscontini's, her Denver, CO-based stuio is thriving. Meanwhile, Krauss travels the world teaching and her method is becomming nationally-known as more and more fitness instructors train in her patented program.

“Working with foot fascia is the new black,” says Krauss in Biscontini's recent article.

Far away in Hanoi, Vietnam, AFAA Fitness Instructor Yuri Rockit is also touting the benefits of barefoot fitness. He talks of the benefits of the well-known Vibrahm Fivefingers shoes. Krauss is also a Vessibrahm Advocate and is a direct representative of the product.

Stacey Lei Krauss demos a Couger Lunge in a willPower & Grace fitness class

Baring this in mind, fitness sans shoes doesn't mean getting rid of shoes altogether, and a good program can include a combo, says instructor Peter McCall of Mesa College in San Diego. So does Fabio Comana, Faculty Instructor for the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM)

Yoga teacher gives good reason to go barefoot more often.....

Here are three ways to do better balancing poses in Yoga....and it starts with your feet, even if you're upside-down. 

Go barefoot more often

For you to have good balance, your feet need to be able to assume their natural shape. Wearing shoes conmpresses the feet. The bones are pushed together and the muscles and tendons get squeezed out of shape and can't fully function. The resulting effect is instability in your stance and your walk, which will also lead to problems of the ankles, knees and hips. Even flat sandals such as flip flops can cause some drag on the soles of the feet and result in restricted movement.

The solution: go barefoot when you can. When you get home from work, get out of your shoes and socks. If you have high atrches, you'll have to build a tolorance for being barefoot and you'll feel fatigue more quickly. You might need to put on your Birkenstocks or running shoes after you've been barefoot for a while.

Going barefoot will help most directly with standing balancing poses, but will help with all balancings, including handstands and arm balances. Tight muslces on one end of the body always affect the body elsewhere.

Learn to Fall

This is something I tell every Yoga client in every class, no matter what. I don't mean hold the pose until you fall over. What you need to do do is practice falling out of the pose-properly. Take a pose such as Salamba Sirsasana, or supported headstand.

The obvious, and sage advice, is to practice the pose on a wall. The wall will prevent a major accident; but many students become physically capable of getting into the pose and holding it without needing the wall, but hesitate to move away from it. The issue they have is that they have not intentionally tought themselves how to fall.

What one needs to do is practice repeatedly dropping the feet back to the floor-a.k.a. falling properly. Also, one must talk herself through the whole process of movement.

Talk yourself through the movement

Talking yourself through the process of moving into a balancing pose, and falling properly out of the pose isn't any different than doing so in any other pose. You move slow enough that your conscious mind, and your consious heart have time to "see" the movement by way of feeling it. Before even trying a balancing pose, take a moment in a more-basic pose, such as Virabhadrsana-Warrior pose.

In Warrior pose, we distribute our body weight between our feet by adjusting every muscle from the toes, ankles and legs to the torso, right up through our shoulders and arms.

Blessings!

New Minimalist Runners Need Not Take Too Long to Transition

The founders of the original minimalist running shoe are people I trust. After all, I was part of the original experiment circa 2009 that ultimately led to the creation of Xeroshoes, the first barefoot running sandal to hit the market-yes, the one on Shark Tank.

How fast can I transition to minimalist running, or running barefoot?

An article on their blog says that one should take the instructions to "transition slowly" with a grain of salt. What they're really saying is: don't be nuerotic about the time table.

• It's true that if you start running barefoot all the time, your feet will get big blisters and you won't be able to run at all, at least until they heal. Of course, the only way to toughen up the soles of your feet is to keep running barefoot. If you decide to run with Xeroshoes or any other minimalist shoe, this won't be an issue.

You do need to pace your transition, and here's what that means.

• World-famous runner Michael Sandler, who tought me much of what I know through his classes and lectures, does advise gradual transition, The first timeyou try it, do it at the end of your run. Take off your shoes and run the last 100 yards, he says in his book, Barefoot Running, cowriten with his wife, Jessica Lee Sandler. 
• As with anything, if you stick to it, you'll get better and better. Sandler's book does offer a 12-week plan to transition, but it's nothing like a boring 12-step plan, and it's geared for going the full gamet- that is, running completely barefoot. The instructions in the book will work for any budding minimalist runner, with or without shoes. The book, by the way, is a very fast, easy read, and it is the one how-to manual on this Earth that isn't boring. 
• Your transition to minimalist running really depends on how you focus, not on how much time.
• It's also a matter of perspective. 

• "Many of the other instructions about how to run barefoot are really just cues to help you get the correct foot placement and use less effort. For example, the idea that you need to run at 180 steps per minute — it’s not a magic number. It’s that picking up your cadence makes it easier to place your feet under your body, at the correct speed, and with less effort. You can’t “plant” your feet, when they have no time spend on the ground.
• 
  
• "Rather than “landing” on your feet, think of your feet as something that only touch the ground for as little time as necessary, and have them moving at the speed you’re traveling across the ground. Your feet should contact the ground more like a wheel that just rolls over it, than like a stick that gets planted and pulled out," is one example of perspective provided by Xeroshoes."
• 
  
• Don't do "No Pain, No Gain" It doesn't work here.
• If you find yourself making progress and you're not in pain, then you've found a good pace to transition.

Read the whole article from Xeroshoes, and shop for some very cool running sandals by clicking HERE

Get Michael Sandler's book, and learn lots of cool things by clicking HERE

Barefoot Dancing In Russia-Bollywood Style?

Olga Gavva, Owner of Dance Company Chakri

When it comes to dancing, Russia may be best known for ballet.

A Russian dance company, the Dance Company Chakri, is changing all that. Among the many performances by this company based in St. Petersburg, are Indian dances with popular Bollywood themes that have taken off.

Funny that that the name "Chakri" would suggest this, since the "Chakra" is an Indian word. (Chakras are part of the system and science of Yoga, also created in India 5,000 years ago. Since Boolywood dance is the focus for Chakri, we can guess the name wasn't a coincidence.

It's likely no coincidence that the choice todo Bollywood might have been influenced by lifestyle.

Traditional Indian dances are performed barefoot, which might have helped motive Dance Company Chakri's owner, Olga Gaava. Olga goes barefoot all year round, yes, even in winter in St. Petersburg.

Video of Russian dances performing traditional India dances.

Olga, left, makes no shame of her practice of going barefoot

Barefoot and Powerful-Danica Patrick

Danica Patrick in Sirsana Pinned by Mark McKay

Danica Patrick does call herself a "girly girl", and she said she was also a cheerleader, not exactly descritption that would be given to a woman who's bringing change to the patrarchal establishment. 

NASCAR hasn't banned beer or tank tops, but it has seen Yoga be introduced by popular race driver Danica Patrick. Other race drivers do yoga, but few who have such a high profile. Patrick has also appeared in adds in Yoga Journal for various health products while posing in lotus.

Patrick, who is now 33, said she started doing Yoga when she was 19. Doing the math, that takes us back to 2002, a year after then-iconic super model Christy Turlington appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in Rooster pose. Time's article about Yoga also talked about how Madonna had become Yoga's other celeb spokeswoman.

Like Madonna and Turlington, Patrick was already ingood shape before taking up yoga. Her bigger challenge was the more subtle aspects of the 5,000-year-old athletic discipline.

"It's relaxing. It's calming to me, and the challenge to me is really the breath. It's hard for me to use one breath to get to one pose and exhale getting back out of it, but that is my practice, and that's what I have to work a lot on," Patrick told TonyFabrizio in February. Fabrizio was writing a story on Patrick's yoga practice for ESPN.com. 

Barefoot and Bendy with Danica Patrick

Danica Patrick maybe best known for auto racing, but lately, she's made a bigger splash doing yoga on a boat. While the boat included a crew of partygoers, Danica's yoga is as serious as her racing.

Posted viaInstagram by Danica Patrick (left, in Wheel Pose) with Katylin Sweet (right, in Camel Pose)

Maybe its that the NASCAR crowd isn't so into Yoga, and that's why Danica gets so much attention. It doens't hurt that she did her latest yoga poses for the public in a bikini. She's posted pletny of Instgram pics of her posing in, well, regular Yoga clothes. 

She was described earlier this year as "rediculously good at yoga" by USA Today, and as far as the physical practice goes, the proof is in the pose pics. Of course, any practitioner of yoga knows there's more to it, and so does Danica, when she talks of breathign exercises being essential to her yoag practice. 

“Breath is the one thing that I really do use from yoga in the race car,” she said. “When things get tense it’s in through the nose, out through the mouth. Inevitably it calms your heart rate down. It calms you down. I by all means use breath in the car, which is something that I’ve used in yoga,” 

-Danica Patrick to USA Today Sports, Ferbuary, 2016.

She'll no doubt add the Yoga helps her avoid the aches and pains that come from all the sitting and driving.....Namaste!

Barefoot and Powerful-A Woman's Journey to Power Through Love

It's true that "female empowerment" is a buzzword these days, and that everyone is talking about it because the idea is popular.  For Charlotte Cressey, an well-known feminist and activist, the idea is no exception to her list of priorities; but Charlotte says her priorities all come back to something that's more than just an idea; she's talking about Universal Love.

Charlotte will be one of eight speakers at this year's West Coast Ecofeminist Conference, while she is the anchor sponsor. The conference is about more than popular political perspectives. Ecofeminism, loosely defined, takes us beyond just women's suffrage and asks us to look beyond the need to dominate others before we can have a sense of self worth. To engage Ecofeminism is to make ourselves evolve beyond a world whose social model depends on exploiting others.

We all know that it is possible to operate a profitable business and still have morality; we all know that people can respect each other's boundaries and still find prosperity for their own. The conference also focuses on the theme of a vegan lifestyle, which Charlotte has practiced since her teens. She was not even ten years old when she stopped eating meat. To have a compassionate heart is to consider the welfare of animals before deciding what to eat or what to wear. By making compassion-based decisions, one fights the battle to change the world by showing love, she explains.

Charlotte has also practiced Yoga for many years. Among the many tenets of Yoga as a lifestyle in practice is to show love to one self and others.

The physical practice of Yoga prompts the practitioner start to feel its positive effects as soon as you move into any pose. The awakening is as simple as when you take off your shoes and touch the ground barefoot. The energy you connect with on the ground is immediately more powerful, and so are you.

To learn more about the West Coast Ecofeminist Conference and to buy tickets, CLICK HERE

To learn more about Charlotte Cressey, her Yoga classes and other wellness offerings, CLICK HERE

Blessings!

Why is barefooting so popular in Russia?

Здравствуйте дорогие друзья! Hello, dear friends.
It's been a while since we published. I'm sorry we're not literate in Russian. Russian readers seem to be good with English, since we have so many as of late. In July, about 15% of our total readership was from Russia. Nine other countries comprised our readership list; but none of them had nearly as many readers.
Last summer, some long-time readers and Facebook friends Igor Rezun and Olga Gavva published some of our posts on Russian websites; it was a honor and a privilege. Olga is a ballet dancer as well as the owner of a ballet company, so it seems natural she'd go barefoot a lot-but keep in mind that she, as well as Igor (who is best known professionally as an author) goes barefoot on the snow in Moscow in winter; we need not say more about winter temperatures in Moscow.
Perhaps our Russian readers migth comment about why some Russians seem so into barefooting. The blog Understand Russia talks about taking shoes off in the house-a custom that exists in many cultures, and gives some advice to travelers. But we're still not sure where interest in barefooting begins or ends. Shoes from Soviet times were of course uncomfortable and nevertheless hard to come by, so going barefoot when it was warm helped save one's shoes. Now that Russians are becoming more affluent in the post-communist era, they may take a different approach.
Who knows? Perhaps our Russian readers do....

До скорого! 

Blessings!

Barefoot and Powerful-Meet a Powerful Woman Who is....

Charlotte Cressey is someone who is quietly changing the world while totally being herself. On the same day that might you see her dancing barefoot on the beach, you’ll find her carrying a clip board, taking information and giving instructions. She’s an activist and a teacher, and the newest addition to the Barefoot and Powerful series that Almost Barefoot started two years ago.

Charlotte was a vegetarian before she was ten and a vegan by her mid-teens. Before she was 30, she was a globally-recognized speaker and an authority on animal rights and feminism. The two causes, she says, are inherently linked, and she speaks simultaneously for humanity and for animals each time she’s at the podium.

“We are committed to co-creating a kinder world for all beings and helping people learn to live in harmony with each other and the Earth,” says Charlotte on her website, www.charlotte cressey.com

Ecofeminism, which, as an idea and an ideal Charlotte focuses on, says that the exploitation of animals and women are connected in a social mentality that focuses on exploitation, hence the social mentality that condones destroying the environment for humanity’s personal gains. Charlotte is committed to changing the world to one where Ecofeminism is a social norm.

What’s different about her presentations is that, even as a powerful feminist, and one who is not afraid to say so, (ask her about God and she’ll tell you about how to see God as a woman), she is committed to a kind approach. Her tone is one that sticks to being kind, and still, she draws and keeps the crown engaged. Even if she’s in a street protest, she stays committed to a kind approach, and even she’s speaking while wearing a dress and heels in a formal ballroom, she won’t likely be shaking her fist.

Instead, she’ll be raising her hands gracefully as she leads her audience with Yogic breathing techniques and brings the whole crowd together before she speaks of deep topics like feminism and the environment. Attending her speech means going to Yoga while you’re at it.

We’re going to visit more with Charlotte, who has been unavailable for interviews, which we hoped to finish before our own summer break, but Almost Barefoot promises more to come. We want to know how Yoga has helped Charlotte empower herself, so that you can too. We are committed to empowering women and thus empowering all of society for positive change, and we’ll be back in early August.

 Blessings!

 

 

 

Why is Yoga so popular?

Yoga is likely the most popular of any athletic activity that is practiced barefoot, and its popularity continues to expand among different social circles.

Yoga has also not succumbed to the constraints of trendiness like so many other popular. As popular exercise fads continue to come and go, Yoga's presence continues to grow.

So...why is Yoga so truly popular?

• Yoga can start doing yoga at any age. Students and teachers from age 20 to 90 are not hard to find
• Yoga will compliment any exercise work out. Pro football players, baseball players and martial artists are all practitioners of yoga.
• Yoga's vastness provides something for everyone. There are hundreds of yoga poses which provide different opportunities for all different kinds of people.
• Yoga brings harmony between the minds and body. Other exercise methods require the body be a slave of the mind, or the mind to be subdued by the body. Yoga requires connection and partnership between the mind and body, so the practitioner receives spiritual energy on a higher lever and at greater intensity.

Barefoot in Japan-and enduring perspective

A few years ago, the idea of having little kids wear shoes in school was pondered in Japan.

Almost Barefoot learned that the idea was shot down...err.. handily.

British podiatrist Tracy Byrne discovered this while studying the condition of children's health in Japan, where their conservative culture encourages going barefoot, or going Almost Barefoot with slippers in every home and inmost public buildings.

Byrne's 2013 article explains that children do go barefoot at school-parents shot down the idea of sending kids shod inside, she explains. They go barefoot on the playground, and clean up for class in hands-free footwash stations.

As for most grown-ups, people go almost barefoot by wearing socks or slippers indoors. Some travelers advise bringing extra socks.

Learn more about Tracy, barefoot extraordinaire at her site

Read her whole article by clicking here

Blessings!

Yoga tidbits-barefoot living...

Yoga is like anything else we do....progress starts when we stop making excuses

 

 

Progress can't be made as long as we keep making excuses. 

 

          Progress in life often depends on trial and error. 

 

Pick four or five Yoga poses and keep doing them. 

 

          Pick from the many poses that exist, and choose a few that make you feel good. 

 

 You are a competent judge, so trust yourself. No one knows you better than you do.

Kriste Brushaber, owner of Homeostasis Movement, cofounder of the Frontrange Barefoot Hiking Group, enjoys the view that comes with
 a barefoot rock climb

Hello!

After a long hiatus, AB now continues it's Barefoot and Powerful series which explores how being barefoot is empowering to women. Up to now, our specific focus has been on Yoga. Barefoot and Powerful explored how being barefoot on a Yoga mat is empowering to the women we interviewed

Almost Barefoot continues to support positive female empowerment and we are now branching beyond the confines of Yoga.

Our newest interviewee is Kriste Brushaber. Her own holistic life practice includes Yoga but takes us far beyond previous confines. Her own journey of discovery began with teaching Pilates, another discipline that is always practiced barefoot. She got into integrative therapy and coaching and now teaches therapy and rehabilitation from the ground up, literally.

Her clients break old habits and learn constructive reconditioning from their foundation-bare feet-and reconstruct the entire positioning of the body for improved health through a process called Somanoetics. 

She is the owner of Homeostasis Movement in Metro Denver, CO. 

Kriste shows the complexities of the foot, the foundation for the body that is often forgotten until injuries occur.

When she's not working with clients, Kriste can be found rock climbing and hiking barefoot in the foothills near Denver. She tells us a very inspiring story.  

 

AB How has being barefoot in Pilates and beyond empowered you as a woman?

Kriste  Practicing holistic well-being is a personal choice contributing to my body/mind’s most efficient state of being— bio-mechanically, energetically, emotionally, and spiritually, and exploring new frontiers as a spirit having a human experience.  As any choice, the choice to do so comes from an already empowered state of being. 

AB Before you began doing Yoga or Pilates, did you go barefoot very often?

Kriste Before I was a holistic movement practitioner, I wore shoes at work, but they were off as soon as I was home.

AB When did you start practicing holistic movement?

Kriste I was born into a movement and performing arts family by vocation.  In my 20’s, Pilates, Gyrotonic®, Feldenkrais®, then just exploring what “natural” and “functional” movement really was as a modern human.  This led to physiology, neurology and psychology beyond the bio-mechanics.  More recently, adopting a regular meditation practice, increased diligence in observing my daily choices, behavior and emotional states, and utilizing a variety of heart coherence practices. 

AB  What made you decide to teach it?

Kriste  I witnessed the pathological side the pursuit of health, and wanted to improve that.  There’s a fundamental difference between movement practice motivated by fear, competition and entertainment, and movement inspired by authentic well-being that varies by individual. 

AB As a coach and a teacher, you’re a woman who not only has the power of authority also the ability to empower others. What’s one way you encourage your students to empower themselves?

Kriste working with a client at Homeostasis Movement

Kriste To drop any story/belief/habit that keeps them from discovering and expressing their unique potential, no matter it’s source or even if if was helpful in the past. 

AB  What’s an empowering message you would offer to women and girls?

Kriste  That the more they strongly identify themselves as a gender, race, age, or any other label, they limit themselves accordingly, adopting the baggage of everyone else’s struggle.  When they categorize and make judgments of others by those categories, they limit everyone, and further isolate themselves.  None of these labels are who you, or anyone else, really are. 

AB  The Yoga community has also been very welcoming to men. How can we continue to make sure that the Yoga community remains a place where women can empower themselves and have it still be as open as it is today?

Kriste  Empowerment is a personal, unconditional connection with Source: genderless, raceless, ageless, and timeless.  I have both male and female clients.  Each client is welcomed as a unique Soul, already powerful, seeking some temporary guidance.  It’s a deliberate choice of every teacher to create an inspiring, welcoming environment as an expression of their own beliefs and what they feel is the potential of their students.  If any student doesn’t feel welcome, hopefully they will choose elsewhere, even if they have to begin with an online course.  There’s so many choices, something for everyone no matter their comfort level or personality.  The responsibility lies in everyone. 

AB Add something else that is your unique thought on this discussion……

Kriste:

1. Due to the core intention of any spiritual practice, which includes forms of Yoga, I feel many of us, and therefore humanity as a whole, is realizing our personal connection to Source.  A natural result of this is experiencing wholeness.  Within wholeness, there is no other.  Any duality that exists in the human psyche such as gender inequality does not exist within an experience of wholeness.  As we integrate this experience into our ever-evolving identities, we perceive our external environment differently which changes our behavior and the energetic signature we are emitting to the Universe.         
2. Empowerment is misunderstood. Power is omnipresent, it cannot be given or taken by anyone.  You can also view power as Love, Source, God, Universal Intelligence… We can choose to align with it at any moment, but so many are conditioned to believe otherwise.  “Empowerment” is simply recognizing you are already powerful, and every choice you make is proof of this.  It’s not THE choice one makes, but the act of choosing anything, and that you can choose differently regardless of past choices.  Practicing that recognition helps break the old conditioning.   

Thank you, Kriste!

Blessings!

Barefoot in the Netherlands

OK, you're probably better off bringing skates if you're visiting the Netherlands right now, but spring will be here soon enough, and it will come withe the urge to take off your shoes.

Here's a park in the Netherlands that offers optional obstacles for the adventurous barefooter and over Four KM of walking trails, plus a coffee house for a proper finish.

 Click HERE for info to plan your trip!

Blessings!