Articles

The Art of Yoga

Oh no you may be thinking not more yoga - Madonna, Sting - everybody's doing it. Maybe you still think yoga is too hard, or even too easy, too boring or too challenging. You can't do it because you just aren't flexible? Laying aside the beautiful people hype, I will say that yoga can transform your body and your life.

Take my husband Davide who I introduced to yoga 8 years ago. Yoga was his turning point. His life was in crisis - his father had suffered a severe stroke, his business was going under, and his back had siezed up. In short he was a great ball of stress. The first thing yoga did was give him space, space to reconnect with himself away from the pressures and demands of life. Relaxation was the key - once he was able to release the tension in his mind and body, both grew stronger and more flexible. He felt empowered, connected to his centre and able to refocus his energies on what he wanted in life.

Relaxation is the alpha and omega of yoga and whether it be experienced through stretching and relaxing into a posture, resting between poses or in the final relaxation process, the act of letting go, frees us. Releasing our fears and desires brings us into the present, free from the past and the future. so Yoga really enables us to be really present - in every action, in every moment, fully aware and alive to the potential of the moment.

My own yoga path began at a time of transition 13 years ago as I opened to my potential as an artist and performer. My weekly class nourished my body and my mind and I was amazed at the sudden leaps in strength and flexibility that my body would make. but more importantly I noticed the quality of joy and peace within myself. To my mind this is the true art and purpose of yoga - to maximise the potential of the self by recognising one's own inner goodness and the goodness in all others. this quality has grown and deepened as I have committed to my own practise and have chosen to teach others. After all a teacher teaches what they most need to learn.

Over the past 4 years I have taught adults and children from every walk of life, from every profession, level of fitness and ability and age from 8 years to 83 years. Students have come to me to build their strength, flexibility and stamina, others to improve focus and concentration, or to build confidence and self esteem. I have taught clients specific breathing techniques to alleviate conditions such as asthma, and grounding exercises with breath awareness to reduce the severity and frequency of panic attacks. Clients suffering from depression or grief have greatly benefited from the energising and focused meditative quality of the chakra yoga practise.,

So whether you wish to simply de-stress or improve fitness, or rather boost your immune system in recovery from illness, yoga can assist you. I believe that we all want to remain youthful, vital and live out our full potential into a hearty, healthy old age. I have not doubt that yoga can help everybody achieve that aim. Whether it be gentle or dynamic, active or meditative, you can do it your way. You can choose the pose, the movement and the methods that speak to you, that you find fun and fascinating, or relaxing or energising. So go buy a book , a video, take a class or one to one, see what appeals to you, what compels you and seems like fun. You decide, you choose, - you may be surprised at the person waiting inside.

esther de angelis copywright 2004

Food for Thought

The year is 2004 and becoming a vegetarian has never been easier. Our supermarkets are awash with succulent cumberland veggie sausages, delicious veggie burgers, frankfurters , pasties, roasts and dips. We are blessed in the west to have an abundance of sumptuous fruit and vegetables, a feast of colour, taste and sensory delight.

There are 4 million vegetarians in the UK with an estimated 5000 joining their ranks weekly. And do you know why? Because eating meat is bad for our health, catastrophic for the environment and a living nightmare for animals. I've been a vegetarian for 8 years and the decision grew out of my yoga practise and search for a spiritual path where all life was sacred.

I wanted to make a difference to animal welfare and the environment with the added spin off of excellent health. Studies show that meat eaters are far more likely to die of heart disease and 40% more likely to die of cancer and meat and dairy consumption is linked to diabetes, arthritis and osteoporosis. But you're not eating enough protein we hear our mother's cry! No bigger lie has ever been told that human beings need a high protein diet to maintain optimum health. What phase of life do you think people are most in need of protein? Of course, when they are babies. Now, mother nature has provided a food that supplies the body with everything it needs. Guess how much mother's milk is protein? 50%. 20%, 10%? In fact mother's milk contains 2.38% at birth, then reduces to 1.2 - 1.6% at 6 months. Moreover excess protein overloads the body with excess nitrogen causing fatigue and has been linked to osteoporosis. The strongest bones on the planet belong to vegetarians.

A vegetarian diet is not only good for you , its good for animals. How many animals do you think the average meat eater consumes over a lifetime? 1000, and 1000 more fish. That's 760 chickens, 5 cows, 29 sheep, 20 pigs, and on it goes. Now we probably still have the idea rooted in our childhoods, of a traditional farm with green fields full of grazing animals, animals lying on straw in barns with hens scratching around the farmyard. Sadly this is far from the reality of a modern farm. The vast majority of animals will never see daylight or feel the sun on their backs, spending their entire lives in cages, stall or huge windowless sheds where they can barely move. 750 million broiler chickens are raised in sheds of thousands in the UK, each living in a space the size of an A4 piece of paper. They routinely suffer broken bones from being bred too top heavy, from callous handling and being shackled upside down in slaughterhouses, Chickens are often still fully conscious as their throats are cut or when they are dumped into tanks of scolding water to remove their feathers. When they are killed they are ust 6 weeks old, out of a natural life span of 10-15years.

Now, I could talk about lame cattle in fattening sheds, frustrated pigs biting one another's tails and as a result having their teeth crushed with pliers, usually without anesthetic. But I want to talk about fish, Most people presume that because they're cold blooded that they don't feel pain, but they do as recent research at Edinburgh University has revealed. Anatomically, physiologically and biologically, the pain system of a fish is virtually the same as birds, and mammals. Fish along with the unintended victims such as dolphins, birds and turtles are captured in huge trawler nets and squeezed for hours along with any netted rocks and debris. They are then dragged from the ocean depths to experience excruciating decompression and often the intense internal pressure ruptures the swimbladder, pops out their eyes and pushes their stomachs through their mouths. Then they're tossed on board to duly suffocate or be crushed to death on 'factory trawlers' the size of football fields.

And that's not all, in the process of slaughtering billions of sea animals, trawlers also dump into the ocean - 52 million pounds of plastic packing material, 298 million pounds of of plastic fishing net, And this is just one example of pollution - raising animals for food causes water pollution as excrement leeches into the waterways. In some parts of europe, slurry is the single greatest cause of acid rain. But worst of all is deforestation. since 1950, half off all the world's rainforests have been destroyed to make way for grazing animals..

Finally, lets consider Economic resources - of all agricultural land in the UK, 90% is used to raise animals for food and requires one third of all fossil fuel consumption. Producing a singe burger uses enough fuel to run a small car 35 km and enough water for 17 showers. Using precious land to raise animals for food is utterly wasteful. On 10 hectares of land you can grow meat to feed just 2 people, maize to feed 10, grain to feed 24 people and soya to feed an incredible 61 people.

Let me leave you with one statistic - the world's cattle alone consume the same amount of calories it takes to nourish 8.7 billion people - more than the entire population of the planet.

If there ever was one thing you could do in a lifetime that would make a profound difference for future generations - it's becoming vegetarian. Join role models such as Isaac Newton, Leonardo De Vinci, Socrates, Carl Lewis, Ghandi and Martina Navratilova., goveg.com

esther de angelis copywright 2004

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