Teresa Malins

Holiday Blues!

Well, my holiday's over and after spending the weekend teaching a course in London, I feel like I've hardly been away!

My time in Grenada was spent well though -plenty of R and R and lots of sunshine!(R and R being rest and relaxation NOT rum and roti's although come ot think of it, both were consumed!!!)  Grenada still remains top of my list for my favourite places in the world.  I love it there and if I'm honest I've never felt  completely settled since I returned back in 2003.  I've always felt a pull towards the place.  A Grenadian friend of mine calls it the Grenada Magnet!

Still, I'm home now and need to get my sleeves rolled up and get suck in to things over here, like waiting for my apartment to sell and ...becoming an Auntie for the second time. I have a new little niece; Elodie Alexandra, who was born earlier today weighing in at 7lb 15oz...

My holiday blues have suddenly turned pink!

 

Where does the time go?

Goodness, I've just read back to my last post and realised that I've done it again, let more than 2 weeks slip without writing on my blog! 

I could pretend that I've been away on holiday, but no..in fact it's probably the excitement that I'm going next week that has prevented me from writing!?! (poor excuse!)

So I'm off next week, to Grenada.  I've had a slight change of plan, after the holiday operator that was running the sailing holiday I booked onto called me and wanted me to change dates.  He was a bit shadey about the reason behind it and then admitted to me that I might feel a little uncomfortable because everyone who was going on my particular holiday were in their mid sixties!

Now it sounds that i'm being harsh on the older generation, and I'm not, my Mum and Dad are in their mid sixties!(sorry Mum and Dad) I just didn't anticipate that! So, I cancelled and re booked. 

Some friends of mine are on their travels right now and are planning the next leg of their journey to Grenada, which just so happens to be one of my favourite places, after living on a boat there a few years back.  To say that I miss the place is an understatement, so I jumped at the chance to meet them out there after finding that our dates coincided!  So Caribbean- here we come!

So,the moral of this story... even when a plan seems to fall apart, it could be the making of something else even better. This is just an example that shows that we must not stress and worry about 'stuff' because 'stuff' will always sort itself out, with a little bit of awareness, courage and trust that things will come together!

As Dr Wayne Dyer once said, "If you only knew who walked beside you along this path that YOU have chosen you would never, ever be afraid".

What a weekend!

WOW!

I've just completed the last three days of a six day course on Structural Anatomy and my brain feels a little frazzled to say the least! 

To say that this course was an anatomy course wouldn't give it, or the course leader, Jo Avison enough credit. This course was a journey, not just for the body but for the spiritual and the emotional aspects of ourselves that we so often choose to disregard as we get caught up in our day to day life of distraction and entertainment.  Aspects such as intuition and instinct, like energy flow and creativity and like, dare I say it...clairvoyance and intuitive healing.

This course has made me look at anatomy in a completely different way.  Rather than just focusing on the nice, tidy, 'pockets' of muscle, that those in any human body work proffession have related to for so many years, ie; biceps, triceps, deltoids, pec minor, pec major, gastrocnemius...etc, I have been made aware of 'lines' of intellegent connective tissue that run through our bodies encompassing those 'tidy pockets' of muscle along their way, following lines which are pretty similar to those meridian lines that have been used for thousands upon thousands of years in Chinese medicine.

The fibre of these lines of connective tissue (fascia) run in different directions through the body.  For instance, the Superficial Back Line, as it is refered to in Tom Myers book Anatomy Trains, runs from the bridge of the nose (inbetween the brow) over the scalp, down the the erector spinae(muscles each side of the spine), past the sacrum, down the hamstrings, down the gastrocnemius(calf muscle) and achilles tendon, underneath the foot to the tip of the toe! This is just one whole line of connective tissue, there are lots more which include all other areas of the body.

Watching the whole Superficial Back Line of the body taken off a cadavar during a human dissection proved that our muscles are totally connected and affected by one another. By observing this complete line of connective tissue being removed in full and then placed back onto a skeleton, showing the bony landmarks it covers, just confirms the fact that if there is an area of tension or dis-ease somewhere along that specific line, we can affect it by treating another area of this line where the localised pain does not reside.  This may happen by treating the lower leg, or the sole of the foot to realease tension in the upper back or around the neck - as long as the treatment that is given is on the same fascial line as the injury or the tension, it will be released!

Results can be achieved and chronic pain can be eased by treating these lines of fascia through either manual or movement therapy. 

Although alot of my Pilates movement work already includes queing these lines to allow clients to achieve subtle and yet optimum results, it has dawned on me that I have just scrtached the surface of something huge here and something I will undoubtably explore in more depth.

For more information take a look at www.anatomytrains.com

Where's my energy?

Self practice at the moment in't coming easy to me!

After teaching so many classes aswell as doing my 'day job', some nights I get to the evening and putting my feet up is about all I can manage!  LAst night was a typical example!  I started the day with all good intentions to finish the day by winding down on the reformer, but 5 classes later and I had zero energy left for myself.  My self practice has seriously gone out of the window!

I truely love my work so I'm not complaining, but sometimes I forget just how much energy I give away.

For instance, at the weekend I was tutoring a matwork Pilates course, which was great as all the students were really interested, focused and eager to learn, which made my job very rewarding but the amount of energy I gave away was astonishing! I always come back after tutoring feeling very satisfied that I have been able to pass on my knowledge, it's fab, but I always forget how tiring it can be. Sounds funny- I mean how much energy do you actually expend whilst teaching Pilates?  That's not it.  I suppose I'm a perfectionist and want the students that I teach to be able to fully understand why we do the things we do rather than just showing the exercises, so in a way a make a rod for my own back as far as giving is concerned. I give them SO much information, maybe sometimes TOO much.  I'd rather do that.  Give more, take less.  That's what I say. We could all do that a little more I think.

So, today will be different.  I'm raring to go, I'm as fresh as a daisy and willing to take on anything life throws at me! ( Good job I'm not doing this by web cam- sitting in my jim jams, yawning!!!) Today I'm going to take some time out and give back to myself which doesn't always come easy to me but this time I really need to and you know what they say, if you NEED to then you MUST. 

 

Back Again!

It's been over a week since I've updated my blog!  How neglectful of me!!!

I've got my excuses...I've not been well...I've been run down(ahhhhh)so, I've booked myself a holiday and I'm going sailing in Greece...hooray!

After coming back from spending around a year living onboard a sailing yacht in the Caribbean, I have been in a state of longing for the sea -and then I decided to move to Nottingham- the furthest place from any coastline!?!

I miss the constant movement, and the energy that the sea brings.  I miss the sky, I miss the smell of the sea and the sheer liberation of living so naturally without the weight of possessions and ties of bills and mortgages!  I miss the natural feeling of being driven by the wind and hearing the wind against the sails...ooh it's all coming back to me!

The countdown has started and I've got around 6 weeks to go until I put my sailing skills back into use!  Until that time I promise I to write more frequently!! 

Spring's Sprung

I love this time of year. 

Slowly, the dark nights and the heavy layers of winter become more of a distant memory as we start to look forward with a sweet anticipation for smouldering days and long balmy summer evenings...

It seems that we become more alive in the springtime and we can finally strip ourselves of the caccoon of winter and fly like a butterfly into the summer months (if it decides not to rain constantly throughout June, July and August) Ah the great British Summer!

It's an exciting time where we all want to look and feel at our best, ready for whatever we decide to throw ourselves into during the hot summer months.

It seems that with a hint of summer comes the sudden realization that at some point soon we are going to have to don a pair of shorts/bikini/swimsuit!!!  Suddenly, the body that has been kept so deep undercover for so many months has no choice but to be exposed into broad daylight. Aswell as our poor old bodies being shocked from snow one minute to bright sunshine the next, we head out of our hibernation looking a touch on the whiter shade of pale and wishing that we hadn't eaten as much chocalate as we did in the Great Easter Egg Extravaganza!   

No wonder this time of year classes get busier and sales of sunbeds and fake tan go through the roof!!

Even still, this time of year excites me and makes me smile aswell as making me feel like going for a run and getting a spray tan or two!!!...Roll on the Great British Summer!

The Law of Attraction

Just like the law of Gravity, the law of Attraction is one of life's natural forces...

It simply states, whatever we think about the most we attract into our lives and whatever we focus on we draw to us.  Whatever we REALLY want, we will get if we think about it enough.  Sounds great doesn't it! - It Is! 

Wherever you stand in your life today is a product of what you have focused your mind on and given enough of your own personal energy to.. is this something you're proud of?  Wherever you are today, whatever you're doing with your life, YOU (no-one else) are responsible for getting yourself to that point.

If it's all well and good, if you're happy with your lot and things are going 'swimmingly' - give yourself a pat on the back!  If it's the opposite for you, then you may find my next statement a little hard to swallow!   

We are all completely 100% responsible for where we are in our lives and the thoughts we chose to focus on.

The thing is, it works the same in reverse too.   If you focus on stuff that you dont want in your life, this is going to show up too! For example; If you focus on having no money and feeling overweight, then having no money and feeling overweight is what you're going to get.  If you change your mindset and think about earning lots of money and looking and feeling slim, then you'll manifest it into your life.  It really is that simple.

The same thing happens if you focus on what you've got now.  More of what you've got now is going to turn up.   

So what do you REALLY want?  What do you dream?  If you could have anything, be anyone or go anywhere, what would you chose?

As 'The Secret' says - use the Universe as your catalogue and draw into your life whatever it is you want.

LIVE THE LIFE YOU'VE IMAGINED!

The Power of Intention

For me, Pilates has an enormous amount to do with intention.  It's about connecting with that part of our spirit that allows us to become really honest about the movements we are making. Most of the time we are pretty unaware of ourselves.  We trust this innate force within to just move us, and it does- without fail.  Pilates for me, means tapping into this field and questioning some of reasons behind our movement patterns.  There is an old Chinese story by Chuang Tzu that goes something like this:

There once was a one legged dragon called Hui.  "How on earth do you manage those legs?" he asked a centipede.  "I can hardly manage one!"  "Matter of fact" said the centipede, "I do not manage my legs."

So what the centipede is saying is that there is an invisible driving force that allows him to move in that 'centipedish' way.  For us humans, it's the same.  It's that same invisible force that allows our hair to grow, our heart to beat, our food to digest and our bodies to move and heal.  It's that same force that allows us the creativity to write the things we write, play the music that we play and dance the way we dance. It's that indescribable force that lets the universe unfold.

I nearly choked on my omlette the other day when I read a headline that stated that scientists have now come up with a brain scan that actually detects human intention!  Don't ask me how, but they've actually managed to tap into that  part of our brain, which is the guiding force behind our decision making and motivation and apparently it is 70% accurate. 

It's truly amazing and a little scarey at the same time.  I'm aware that we only use about 5%of our brain - this just shows us how much the human brain is capable of! How much more do they know that they're not telling us?...Don't get me started on this one!  I believe that we, as a nation are held back and lead to live a life of mediocrity though the rubbish that gets fed to us through the TV and media and the foods that we are being told are 'safe' to eat... We are being penned into an existence that funds huge organisations through scaremongering tactics and dare I say subliminal messaging.  We have become sheep- followers of fashion, hypnotised by the things we 'should' have to make our lives 'better' or 'easier' or more 'flavourful'- things that pollute the atmosphere, are toxic, and chemically treated.  We have become too scared to 'march to the beat of our own drum'.  I told you...don't get me started!

Anyway back to intention and a thought for you...

One individual who lives and vibrates to the energy of optimism and a willingless to be non judgemental of others will counterbalance the negativity of 90,000 individuals who calibrate at the lower weakening levels.

I believe the power of intention is stronger than any of us can conceive.  It became apparent to me last year, when my Mum was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  Obviously it was a difficult time to say the least.  My Mum remained so strong throughout it all with the help of family and friends.  Cards, prayers and well wishes flooded in from different parts of the planet all willing my mum back to heath. At one count I think there were about 80 or so get well cards- (she's a popular lady!)  I like to think that with the power of intention, the well wishes helped Mum through this, as well as her own intention to get through it. There were many, many people tuning in to the same energy field and sending healing vibes. Her operation was successful and she has responded well to her chemo treatment, the last one of which she finished a week ago.  Everyone is continuing the good vibes now to help with the grow back of her hair ready for the summer!

I know some of this may sound to you like gobbledy gook, but i just don't think we can underestimate the power of intention!

Some Nice Thoughts To Live By...

• Take into account that great love and achievments involve great risk.
• When you lose, dont lose the lesson.
• Follow the three R's- Respect for self, Respect for others, Responsibility for all your actions.
• Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck!
• Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
• When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
• Spend some time alone every day.
• Open your arms to change but dont let go of your values.
• Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
• Live a good honourable life, then look back- you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
• A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
• In disagreements with loved ones, only deal with the current situation.  Dont bring up the past.
• Share your knowledge, it's the way to acheive immortality.
• Be gentle with the earth.
• Once a year go somewhere you've never been before.
• Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
• Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
• Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
• Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

                                           -Dalai Lama

Shake, Wobble and Roll!

After spending 3 long hours on Friday driving from Nottingham to Richmond, I walked into my brothers house only to be greeted by my beaming 9 month old niece Madeleine.  She crawled over to me at lightening speed, waved frantically at me with one hand, while her other hand slapped me round the face! She then proceeded to place her fingers up my nostrils while seemingly trying to pull my nose off!  I took this as a term of endearment and thought to myself, those long 3 hours on the M1 were worth every minute!  The rest of the evening consisted of me crawling around the floor, playing 'peek-a-boo' and doing everything in my power to make Maddie laugh.  Needless to say it was lights out by 9.45pm for the entire Malins household!

It was a fleeting visit really. I left at 7.30am the following morning after a semi sleepless night...Maddie was crying though out and I couldn't help wondering if it was the thought of me chasing her around the floor, pulling faces and acting the clown that disturbed her nights sleep.  Bless her!

However, I was on a mission!  I had a Trager session booked for 8.30am, followed by a Trager Workshop...

I've heard about Trager and was curious to find out more, so I did some enquiring which lead me to a Trager Practitioner called Tania.  It's pretty difficult to explain what Trager is really.  There's two parts to Trager, or Trager Physcophysical Integration( to use it's proper name!): Mentastics and tablework.  Mentastics (in the words of Milton Trager) "is an indirect approach for releasing blocks and tensions". It's a system of movements which are really simple and effortless and enhance the sense of lightness, freedom and flexibility that were bought about by the table work.  Mentastics is Dr Trager's coined expression for 'Mental Gymnastics'.  These movements are designed to recreate the feelings that were produced by the practitioners hands during a tablework session.  So what's tablework I here you ask...!

Let me do my best to explain!  It's strange because when I was trying to find out what it was, no one seemed able to tell me.  Now I know why!  Let me say first that this technique was developed by Dr Milton Trager in the thirties.  He discovered he could bring about a sense of ease and comfort in others by using gentle, rocking and stretching movements.  When it comes to the Trager approach, generally less is more.  Each body part is rocked, rolled, stretched and almost wobbled to create a sense of freedom and 'lightness' in the muscles, the aim of which is to get the body back into a state of balance.  This non invasive technique is more than a massage but less traumatic than other deep tissue therapies such as Rolfing or some chiropractic treatments for example. The Trager approach works on reaching the unconscious mind through extremely gentle movement.  When applying less movement to tighter areas,  the body relaxes and allows itself to let go;  It makes sense really.

It's a weird one that's for sure.  It's really profound and is said to have some amazing effects.  These rocking motions send echo's all around the body and apparently massage the internal organs, deep muscles and even bone!

I know one thing- I slept really well last night.  Whether that was due to Maddie keeping me awake the night before or the Trager, I will never know!