Dynamic Embodiment of the Sun Salutation®: Pathways to Balancing the Chakras and the Neuroendocrine System guides you to do the Sun Salutation with more ease by integrating awareness of glandular and chakral embodiment cues and neuro-developmental movement. Everything in this book can be applied to your personal practice and overall health, or to teaching others. It offers a soft, organic yet powerful approach to being in the poses and transitioning between them. What you will learn is effective and surprising. There is tangible mystery in accessing this ability, which we all have, to embody the endocrine system and the related energy fields.
By working with the endocrine system and their correlations with the chakras we are grounding the subtle within the physical body. Learn about the dynamic combination of the specific electrical and systemic circulatory nature of the neuroendocrine system. Discover how the anatomical placement of the glands and the spatial tensions (or tensegrity) surrounding them are the natural bridge to activating the energy needed for a fulfilling life.
One access route to these dynamic stimuli is through Body Mind Centering's developmental approach, conveyed through the lens of Dynamic Embodiment by BMC® Master teacher Dr Martha Eddy and Shakti Smith, Master healer, Somatic Movement Educator, Yoga Teacher and Psychotherapist. This approach includes an understanding of careful skeletal positioning, brain-activating movement and hormonal balancing as well as integrating broader social somatic contexts such as the impact of lifestyle, cultural and intergenerational influences. In an age when, most likely, at least one person you know is struggling with thyroid, adrenal, or reproductive glandular imbalance, this book will provide information on the physical, emotional and spiritual impact of attuning with the glands and early childhood development imprints while practising the Sun Salutation. It includes clues for what to do when yoga or endocrine work brings on chaos - from trauma triggers, kundalini overwhelm, to basic life confusion. It gives you the tools to help ground yourself and others, and to take centered action in a dynamic world.
Table of Contents:
About the Authors
About the Artist
Foreword by Eleanor Criswell
Foreword by Per Erez
Preface
Salute to our Teachers and Acknowledgements
Introduction
CHAPTER 1 Somatic Awareness and Dynamic EmbodimentSM – Components that Support the Sun Salutation
CHAPTER 2 History of Yoga and Chakras/Sun Salutation
CHAPTER 3A The Nervous System, Glands and Neuroendocrine System
CHAPTER 3B Diving Deeper into Glands
CHAPTER 4 Layering in the Chakras
CHAPTER 5 The Sun Salutation – Entering the Practice
CHAPTER 6 Developmental Movement and the Sun Salutation
CHAPTER 7 Considerations for Practicing the Sun Salutation – Preventing and Countering Pain
CHAPTER 8 Managing Glandular Challenges
CHAPTER 9 Considerations in Teaching the Sun Salutation
CHAPTER 10 Get Moving with Glandular and Cultural Awareness, Supported by Nature
References
Permissions
Index
About the Author :
Martha Eddy (Author)
Martha Eddy is the Founding Director of Moving For Life (non-profit); Founder and Director of Dynamic Embodiment Somatic Movement Therapy Training; and Founding Director of the Center for Kinesthetic Education. She has taught at Columbia, Princeton, San Francisco State and New York universities and currently is the Geraldine Ferraro Fellow of Social Justice through Movement at Marymount Manhattan College where she also advises the Body, Science and Motion program. She has been a strong advocate for Somatic Movement as a Certified Teacher of Body-Mind Centering since 1984, former President and Executive Director at the Laban Institute of Movement Studies, Past-President of ISMETA and author of Mindful Movement - the Evolution of the Somatic Arts and Conscious Action.
She began practising the Sun Salutation in 1975 and continued taking yoga classes together with Body-Mind Centering (BMC) community members including Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. By 1984 she was teaching the neuroendocrine developmental courses for the School for BMC and quickly began to apply that knowledge to her Sun Salutation practice which she has sustained for the past 35 years. This Dynamic Embodiment somatic approach has become a road to trauma recovery Post 9/11 (Inner Resilience-Tides Program) and for cancer survivors (Moving For Life Gentle Yoga Moves) as well as a gentle health giving force for dealing with her own Lyme Disease, Hashimotos and other immunological and inflammatory stressors.
Shakti Andrea Smith (Author)
Shakti Andrea Smith, RSMT, LMT, RYE, APP is a registered Somatic Movement Therapist, Licensed Massage Therapist, Registered 500 Hour Yoga Teacher, Polarity Practitioner and owner, teacher, and healer at Prema Soma Healing Arts. She also teaches at the Swedish Institute College of Health Sciences, and is a former faculty member at Movement Research in NYC, as well as being a member of ISMETA and of Yoga Alliance.
She has 30 years experience as a student and teacher of the key areas the book is focused on: Yoga, Movement, Chakras, Glands (body-mind centering and anatomy), developmental movement. Shakti has been a yoga teacher for 20 years, movement teacher since 1992, and a licensed professional health practitioner since 1998. She is based in New York City.
Review :
A rare gem, this book demystifies our bodies' inner world and provides clear pathways to explore the wisdom of many generations of visionaries and seekers. A great resource for all.
In reading Dynamic Embodiment of the Sun Salutation by Shakti Smith and Martha Eddy, I am struck by their clear and comprehensive presentation of the material. They interweave Yoga, Body-Mind Centering®, Laban/Bartenieff, and Dynamic Embodiment...It is thorough and profound.
It's astounding how many healing portals into the body there are! This book is guaranteed to open you to new possibilities and potential in healing, growth, and self-awareness. Eddy and Smith offer a masterful and comprehensive synthesis from the ancient chakra system to current research and the experiential connection of the Chakras to the endocrine system, nervous system, and the mind-body. This book is a valuable resource for self-exploration, and for health care practitioners looking for innovative ways to work with their clients.
Readers are guided to take inventory and cultivate a ritual of self-inquiry into their 3-D body for courageous self-care.
As conscious yoga practitioners and business owners examine their degree of cultural appropriation and attempt to rebalance more respectfully, Dynamic EmbodimentTM of the Sun Salutation addresses that adjustment on a holistic level. It is timely and an essential read for anyone looking into their blindspots and hoping to awaken.
Eddy and Smith draw on their profound understanding of the interconnections between yoga and other movement modalities, healing arts, and wellness. Though nominally about the yoga sequence called surya namaskar, the book is in fact an in-depth resource on anatomy, philosophy, human movement, the endocrine system, and somatic awareness as they apply to yoga.
This is a comprehensive and carefully laid out guide to expand and spark one's imagination, curiosity, explorations and understanding of '"body mind' mind" in yoga practice...This book provides broad support for establishing an embodied asana practice and designing classes that are life affirming and empowering.
What a resource! The wise, substantial, and deeply researched material will enhance the work of any movement teacher and practitioner. As a movement teacher, working with people of all body types, levels of trauma, and emotional expression for over 25 years I'm thrilled to bring this knowledge to my students in training and to my own personal learning and continued study. Anyone in the Conscious Dance modalities has a new book on their reading list!
When a lifetime of personal and professional experience, as well as research, inspiration and intuition, culminates in a revolutionary approach to our bodies, hearts and minds ... we are truly given a gift to light our paths.
Do you know when you hear a word or a phrase, and your body reacts to it, like it's been called it's real name? This book is like that: it gives us a new language, giving weight to the somatic, and helping us connect to it. This book is...a fresh approach to body-mind integration.
I've experienced and witnessed the impact of movement on human health, the human spirit, and the human community. After reading this book, I'll never be able to practice the "familiar" Sun Salutation again in a superficial or routinized way.
This book makes a valuable contribution to the field and offers much to inspire practitioners and teachers of both yoga and somatics.
This innovative, pragmatic text integrates yoga principles with somatic research as a valuable contribution to literature on balancing the body, relating chakra energy vortexes with the functioning of the endocrine system.
