Gregory Ormson

Writer, musician, yoga-loving motorcyclist.

686 dare to be dope

 

Someone working below the surface wrote. “A life truly lived constantly burns away the veils of illusion, burns away what is no longer relevant, gradually reveals our truth.”

Yoga is an intensive course in illusion busting; its teachers and leaders are reformers and gurus. The best ones serve by pointing back to water birthing life, back to the child, back to the self, back to burning energy gathering in the depths, back to breath  

Yoga takes us back to the essence – heart and breath – where its repetitive commencement enables inner courage to stand near the depth of self with clarity, without illusion, and with truth.

Its therapeutic and method are the same: mobilize prana, surrender cares, embody asana, settle the monkey mind

Yoga Song, p. 26… read more...

The Slow Burn of a Yogi’s Becoming: milestones to 700 Bikram yoga classes

Moved to a new center, fired by a disciplined pattern moment by heated moment, yoga fastens you into a deep curriculum of transformation where your spine moves as it was meant to move and your breath deepens your experience of life. When you step across a liminal threshold into a ritual container – like a yoga studio – and follow the guru (your breath) you drop into a deep well of wisdom.

 

Yoga invites you to dig deep; when you do, you’ll catch a glimpse of the periphery turned central. You’ll learn to inhabit contentment and put on garments of integrity and your life will feel like slow-motion shapeshifting in space. Bodily shape shifts happen in yoga, but meditation and movement also shift perspectives.

 

These psychosomatic shifts are yoga’s therapeutic, opening a gate between conscious and unconscious, laying bare a pathway for a return to the depth of self. In the self that is you – the same through all time – a bodily physiology meets a mental/spiritual soul where all space and time is negotiable. This meeting alters the nervous system by pausing the strategic and analytic mind while feeding the meditative mind. Yoga calls this a state of yogacittavrittiniroda.

 

Yoga’s activation of mind, body, and spirit doesn’t happen on the same timeline for everyone, but yoga’s journey will take each yogi to the ground of their being in a breathcentric and healing therapeutic, setting them on the way to their good things comin’ . . .

 

 

 

 

… read more...

The Black Box of America

First published in Oddball Magazine, November 20, 2024

No one missed that country
Men were soft, angry, and violent
Life was brutal and unforgiving
Pretentious and vacuous

Decisions and mutations were cut
in candle-lit back rooms, women were victims
They grabbed what they wanted
Fooled by the same illusion driving men, CONTROL

In apocalyptic bunkers
Dark physicians sang Odes to depression
Men were sheep and folded quickly
Not crying, but telling

Terrifying stories of bad things
Children were frightened and dogs were wild
No one cared about their neighbor
Everyone pretended at everything

The winner’s faces were tan, they lifted weights
Arenas were filled with men and women
Fighting women and men
Everything broke except the glass ceiling

Yuppies kept on building, kept sailing
Went on painting their ceilings
White, of course,
Ignorantly marched toward the future

They cheered the New Year
Hell, everyone cheered the New Year
And drove ATV’s and big boats
Rednecks toasted Monster Trucks as they mashed tiny Japanese cars

Christians decorated Christmas trees in suburban homes
To shots of Irish Crème or Asti
They drank while listening to strains of Bing Crosby’s
White Christmas on their stereo

They made yellow popcorn strings and dutifully attached them to the Green branches.
A ritual ‘round a tree,’ but nobody knew why
There were no ritual elders, there was no ritual wisdom
There was no embodiment of grace

After New Year’s celebrations and narcissistic resolutions
And the dark, wasted days of another empty year,
They awoke bored, helpless, angry at mothers and fathers
Sons and daughters, aunts and uncles, children and in-laws

The population chugged bourbon in the afternoon
And on vacation, they counted numbers in their bankbooks
Children were confused, scared, frozen
Occasionally they trusted a teacher

Once they trusted a priest, just once
But in time, their trust was betrayed
Their faces, tight and alarmed
They suffered daily with headaches and stomachaches

Kids starved for attention
But they got dollar bills
Parents screamed at them
Hurt and eating hot dogs

A 21st Century Recipe For Disaster:
Take a young man and put him in a high-powered car.… read more...

The Black Box of America, a poem by Gregory Ormson

This poem and image was originally published November 20, 2024 by Oddball Magazine. Editors calling it “a monster piece.”

The Black Box of America

Few people called a spade a spade
before the country went up in flames.
-Anon

No one missed that country
Men were soft, angry, and violent
Life was brutal and unforgiving
Pretentious and vacuous

Decisions and mutations were cut
in candle-lit back rooms, women were victims
They grabbed what they wanted
Fooled by the same illusion driving men, CONTROL

In apocalyptic bunkers
Dark physicians sang Odes to depression
Men were sheep and folded quickly
Not crying, but telling

Terrifying stories of bad things
Children were frightened and dogs were wild
No one cared about their neighbor
Everyone pretended at everything

The winner’s faces were tan, they lifted weights
Arenas were filled with men and women
Fighting women and men
Everything broke except the glass ceiling

Yuppies kept on building, kept sailing
Went on painting their ceilings
White, of course,
Ignorantly marched toward the future

They cheered the New Year
Hell, everyone cheered the New Year
And drove ATV’s and big boats
Rednecks toasted Monster Trucks as they mashed tiny Japanese cars

Christians decorated Christmas trees in suburban homes
To shots of Irish Crème or Asti
They drank while listening to strains of Bing Crosby’s
White Christmas on their stereo

They made yellow popcorn strings and dutifully attached them to the Green branches.
A ritual ‘round a tree,’ but nobody knew why
There were no ritual elders, there was no ritual wisdom
There was no embodiment of grace

After New Year’s celebrations and narcissistic resolutions
And the dark, wasted days of another empty year,
They awoke bored, helpless, angry at mothers and fathers
Sons and daughters, aunts and uncles, children and in-laws

The population chugged bourbon in the afternoon
And on vacation, they counted numbers in their bankbooks
Children were confused, scared, frozen
Occasionally they trusted a teacher

Once they trusted a priest, just once
But in time, their trust was betrayed
Their faces, tight and alarmed
They suffered daily with headaches and stomachaches

Kids starved for attention
But they got dollar bills
Parents screamed at them
Hurt and eating hot dogs

A 21st Century Recipe For Disaster:
Take a young man and put him in a high-powered car.… read more...

Sunburst Amber Fractions and A Hat Full of Rain

A magnetic north of the heart draws me back again. It’s all rain and wind in my beloved Midwest where dusk is augmented by a beautiful amber-orange sunset. It means fires are raging in the west and people are getting hurt.




I’m reading, Let It Be Told In A Single Breath, by Michigan poet Russell Thorburn. He prods me to take a slow, big breath before speaking. My yoga training opened the wisdom of this act, and now, I'll tell it in a single breath and in my northern tongue where the Ojibwe have influenced my wild outlook.


But my telling will be, as Emily Dickinson counseled, slant or in burnished red angle.


This slant tells of coffee and root beer, motorcycles, music, and slow-motion videos of grandchildren appearing ever so resilient in ligament and laughter. We’re all on a journey, delicate and mysterious, held in place perhaps by rubbery ligaments only.

This trip north has placed me back on sidewalks I traversed in my youth when a long-haired, three-piece rock band from Flint, Michigan sang of the Grand Funky Railroad Closer to Home. Aging in slow motion, I grow closer to home and deeply grateful as the years go by.








For a long time now, I’ve used music and prose to navigate my life: guitars, drums, banjos, fiddles, mandolins, and lyrics, like this favorite by Tom Waits, an important anthem to someone like me who sucks at Capitalism.

“Money’s just something you throw off the back of a train. Got a head full of lightning. A hat full of rain.
… read more... 
Do We Love Women? Let Us Speak of the Ways, O Man  (Published originally on July 25 by The Good Men Project)






A consciousness raising exercise for men. Grounding your reasons for loving women


 by  Leave a Comment





In her 43rd Sonnett, Elizabeth Barret Browning counted the ways she loved her lover. Her love, she wrote, was beyond the reach of the soul and yet inclusive of breath, smiles, and all of life. Her sonnets penned a far-reaching love that promised to do more than we can imagine and that was to love her lover even better after death. In many ways, all women are Elizabeth Barret Browning, and it is one reason I love women. And can we speak of the ways we love women?

I’m just a man trying to do the best he can, and I want to know if it’s ok to count the ways too. I will speak of and count the ways because women never quit on love. Women remember every act of love and they are determined to bring, bear, and carry it to the grave and beyond. How can I (we men) not love women? How can we not count the ways – death will not stop them or their love – if we are still able to count our breaths? Let me count the ways and speak of something in the way women move me to love them.


How do I love women that I adore, admire, hold dear, and treat tender like the night? Can I speak of the human women I know, the women I dream of and think of? And can I count the ways I love in these beings I see and hear and touch?
… read more... 
Check out my Royal Enfield with this day travel bag for motorcycle or bicycle


I’m convinced of a product’s worthiness when I see comparisons between two or more with similar features. I’ve been in the market for a day bag to mount on my Royal Enfield Bullet 500. There are lots of bags out there, but they never appealed to me.


I hadn’t found one that met my needs for convenience and ease of installation and removal. I hadn’t found one that was not overpriced. I hadn’t found one that looked as if it fit my bike until this one.


“MotorcyclingYogiG” is my handle, and I ride a motorcycle to yoga class which means I need to carry a mat, towels, and clothes. The right bag has to be sleek in appearance and yet roomy enough. It needs to attach and detach easily so that I can remove them when needed. The bags also must not sag in (like the leather bags on my Softail) which I previously owned. This one fits all categories; it attached easily with four small zip ties, and I set it on top of a rolled-up yoga mat over the back fender. This protects the paint, and when I sit on the spring seat, it holds the yoga mat in place.


This KEMIMOTO day bag fits my needs. It’s designed smartly with protected zippers and Oxford fabric (a sturdy form of polyester and nylon) the single white reflective stripe on the side, the angled front panel to lessen wind resistance, the zippered inner pockets for cell phones and other valuables that must be protected, the orange semi-hard panel to keep the bags from sinking inward, the hooks placed smartly on the panel facing the wheel for convenient attachment to the frame, and the fabric loops on the bag’s outside for quick access to tools or other accessories.… read more... 
RESPLENDENT PASSAGES: Motorcycling to a Yoga Festival, Diaries in Soul Craft




Motorcycling many miles is one way to participate in a mythic American grand narrative. It looks like a story of freedom and independence, but that is not real. If you think freedom and independence is real, then try being truly free and independent and see what happens.




The grander narrative, one animating dreamers everywhere, is change, and the will to leave a better world for our children and children’s children. I’ll embody that mantle anytime and do my part to create that story. I choose to bear this weight even if my shoulders are heavy and draped with an old story of Stoll and yoke.


On my bike, handlebars into the wind, riding above the suck, bang, and blow of explosions under me, I’ve searched out places of vision and intent.


Riding to Wyoming’s Red Desert — from Upper Michigan — for a three-day vision quest, my guide explained how and why I had to cleanse myself for unseen encounters. He did not say it, but I learned that if I were not truly prepared and if my ego was not set aside and my aggression diminished, the crows would pick me apart and drive me far away from their land. Wyoming’s Red Desert is like Hawaii that way. “If you are a prick,” a guy in Hawaii told me, “The island will kick you off.”


Without preparation and a willingness to listen and learn from a guide; without training and preparation to lay down an honest oath and true intention, I would not have heard an ancient ocean singing its song beneath the hardened desert sand in Wyoming; I would not have learned how I was to hold the bowl; I would not have learned that in Hawaii, gardens and graves grow up through lava and bend toward the ocean; I would not have learned from a geologist in Upper Michigan — based on gouges in the dark rock — which way the glacier went; I would not have learned where, in the far north, dragon and damselflies emerge, crawl, hatch and take flight for their brief, acrobatic life.
… read more... 
SAGA OF A LOVE AFFAIR WITH RADIO


 


The radio was on in my childhood home, always. A radio keeps songs alive – long after they’re hits – if you find the right station. 


I was two years old when Harry Belafonte’s Banana Boat Song climbed the charts, but my hometown station played it for years where it lodged in my mind. Belafonte’s energetic tenor belting, “Day-O, Day-O,” where it reverberated up the wooden stairs of a small house in North Menomonie, Wisconsin. 


As a teen learning drums, the car radio became my portable music room and my gateway to rock and roll, leading me to mind-blowing world-beats from brothers of other mothers. Voodoo Child by Hendrix haunted my teens and Day-O became old and decidedly un-hip. Rock ruled, and I tossed Day-O to the wind like a well-worn carpet, exchanging it for a Steppenwolf kind of carpet and ride. 


In the 70’s, Ginger Baker and Keith Moon were my gurus and they rattled my brain. I tried copying them, my hands building an iron-grip on my drumsticks like mighty magic wands. I figured if I gripped my Ludwig 5A’s tight enough, and pounded my drums hard enough, my boring Midwestern clothes would burst into technicolor garments, the kind worn by wizards, rock stars, and Jimi Hendrix’s voodoo child in flaming yellow and orange.


When my parents bought a small cabin on a lake in Northwest Wisconsin, a transistor radio perched on the ledge of a south-facing window for better reception. Almost 50 years now, and it’s still there. Over the years, I listened to that radio, waiting for the dawning of a wild child and a new song.… read more... 
OM    Let it find a way to you


 




 


“Wowing”


It’s what a listener in Vermont wrote.  Yoga Song, the audiobook, is not just speech, not just chant, not just song, but an integrated presentation of yoga as a healing force-factor multiplier for body, mind, and spirit. Click below to hear Yoga Song, an instrument of mass inspiration.


Skip ahead to 4:37 for the words quoted below and my original music piece: “Ruah, Pneuma, Prana.”


From Chapter 3 OM “We do yoga with attention. We live yoga by the counsel of its ethics, and we embody yoga in the depths of our nature.


We follow its counsel to move in firmness and ease while remaining present in each moment’s experience. There, in the great quieting and stilling of mind and body, we come face to face with a golden child.


In the chant of OM, we step away from distractions to find a livable balance between the business of the world in which we engage and the song of yoga and its compelling melody taking us home to contentment.”  The directions are clear . . .


Finally, at the end of each practice, our body chants the sonorous Om of creation’s note, the unstruck sound of the heart, the meditative point of deep consciousness, a luminous internal state.


This is yoga’s song arising and trembling from the body electric. It’s a song lodged in primordial consciousness signifying that we are part of the universal Om of creation. OM, the well-trod path providing yogis with something the broken world cannot. The deep abiding peace of coming home.”… read more... 
Part IV. Shavasana (death) A Gateway to Yoga as Spiritual Practice




       


After high school at 17, rather than immediately going to the university, I decided to work for a year to prepare myself. I found a job at a furniture store in my hometown where I thought I would deliver furniture, sell furniture, and take care of stock in the warehouse. It did include all of that, but when I was asked to help lift corpses from a table and into a casket, the job turned out to be much more.


In the early days of this country, the furniture maker was the logical person to turn to when a loved one died and the family needed a well-constructed wooden box. In the 19th Century, caskets were wood and since furniture makers worked with wood they were called upon. It’s easy to see how furniture makers became trusted with handling specific requirements of the casket, and from there, not hard to imagine conversations about the deceased spilling over into a pastoral care-type situation. It’s also not difficult to imagine these furniture builders doubling up on their businesses and offering funeral services. This is why so many furniture stores doubled as funeral homes.


Seldom thinking about death as a teenager and with no preparation for handling dead bodies, I was thrust into a situation where I touched the hands and lifted the bodies of deceased people. It freaked me out a little bit. In time, I became comfortable around dead bodies, and one time before a funeral, even drove the Goodrich Funeral Home’s Hearst to the car wash with a casket and body in the back.… read more... 
Can Yoga Spirituality and Christian Spirituality Co exist?  Part II




  — a five-part series by Gregory Ormson


Part I ONTOLOGY explored the place of divinity and humanity in yogic and Christian philosophy. 


Part II BREATH Yoga and Christian Spirituality Within Their Creation Narratives


In both Christian and yogic traditions, a divinity emerges from primordial dark and emptiness – or a watery void – and gets to work creating light and dark, establishing time, and creating living beings. Most creation stories start with God creating the human, but others do not. Following the establishment of beings, good and evil are introduced, animals are created, and the world is set in order. The sociological questions that arise in any group of people: questions of where I am, who is in charge, and who else is here, are answered in creation stories.  


Similarities abound between the Christian narrative in Genesis from the Old Testament (what some call the prime covenant) and the stories of Judaism and Islam. But when Indigenous North American creation myths are included, like the Salina Creation Story, an (Eagle) makes a man and from that a woman. In a modern poetic and literary contribution, Joy Harjo from the Muskoke Nation tells the story of a lonely rabbit who created a man, and then blew air into its mouth, upon which the created man stood up. Breath as the genesis of creation across many creation narratives is one reason why I call yoga a “breathcentric” practice. 


But the Divine-human connection in yogic and Christian spiritualities is an elusive subject because the “hidden God” (Deus absconditus) is not physically manifested. This is not the same as false, but divine essence remains elusive.… read more... 
Lessons from 30 Years of Teaching . . . It’s Not About You – Ever


10 Principles for Teachers Ready to Receive




Undergirding all communication is attitude to learners


Most of my teachng was in yoga, but much of it took place in three college settings with diverse subjects: speech, writing, employment skills, English, film study, best sellers, sociology, philosophy, and theology. In my career, I had students from pre-school age up into their 7th and 8th decade. Outside the classroom, I taught motorcycle rider certification for the State in Hawaii as a Motorcycle Safety Foundation rider/coach, and I’ve taught yoga, coached youth soccer, and taught guitar to several people, but my listing of this experience is only a way to say that it’s unimportant compared to the experience of the learner no matter the setting.


The key to being an effective teacher


I’ve been called both a good and bad teacher, but no matter what the review was, one fundamental concept carried me through all my years teaching, presenting, giving instructions, listening to speeches, teaching in classrooms or meetings, and leading my faculty union. It is the core from which I operated. It’s very simple: it was not about me . . . ever. I’d like to unpack what this means and why it’s important for teachers.


Teachers are usually responsible adults, and they often take upon themselves more responsibility than required. Yes, teachers are responsible for presenting content, for managing the classroom, and having a well-defined curriculum and effective pedagogy, but they are not responsible for learning, and neither are they central to student learning.


This is hard for teachers to hear because it requires putting ego aside.… read more... 
Can Yoga Spirituality and Christian Spirituality Co exist? a five-part series


 




































Introduction


To be a well-informed yogi, it’s important to recognize how yoga grew from a spiritual environment that included scriptural components, ethics, a devotional aspect, and a governing religious goal. Anyone who has been to India, the seedbed of yoga, quickly notices its spirituality is deeply embedded in the cultural fabric, one could accurately call India’s spirituality its fascia holding everything together.


In my trips there, I noticed the country’s intense spiritual nature and I remembered something I had read from the American Author Flannery O’Connor when she wrote of the American South. “It’s not ghost-haunted,” she wrote, “but Christ-haunted.” India is spiritually haunted too, but it’s a spiritual haunting I’d identify as complex and inclusive, not bad or scary. Christ is there, and so are Krishna, Allah, and Buddha. It’s a pan-en-theist culture, which I will write of later. Christian Spirituality and Religion


I’m a former clergy of the Lutheran Church in America. I’ve been keenly aware of spirit, and it’s part of the reason my first trip to India happened when I was 22 years old. I went there as leader of a music and ministry team on a four-month tour sponsored by members of the Lutheran churches in the United States and Canada. For many years afterward, ministry was my career, and I was employed by the church as a clergy and worked in campus ministry.


Campus pastors are well-versed in the Christian faith and its theology, but also current events, and other religions. Campuses are highly diverse settings, populated by intelligent people from all corners of the Earth; therefore, if I as a campus chaplain and voice of social conscience were to engage this population meaningfully and with integrity I needed a thorough understanding of religions and world events, geopolitics, science, art, history, and its biases.
… read more... 
Teen Mental Health Workshop at Mesa Public Library Main Branch Monday, October 9th







STRESS is real. It affects all of us.


In this workshop (open to the public) I’ll provide tools for handling stress in a one-hour workshop. The steps are: rhythmic breathing practice, posture movement with ease, and guided meditation with music.


“My program is built to treat the physiology of stress – felt in the body – not the perception of stress – registered in the mind,” Ormson said.


This workshop is open to all teens and is part of the library’s ongoing programming for teens.


Yoga mats will be available; light snacks, and refreshments will be served following the program.


 


google-site-verification: googlec0f089d24e056128.html


 … read more... 
Your Yoga and Breath . . . a way to unfold


I want to unfold.


Let no place in me hold itself closed,


for where I am closed


I am false


-Rainer Maria Rilke


At times in yoga, locked in with heightened attention and awareness of emotion in motion, we catch glimpses of our story in every breath in and breath out. Fully present and coming into perfect energetic alignment, the class seems easy, and in these moments of ease we find the inner therapy of asana.


A trained response to stress – when we move into ease – is built by years of practice, gallons of sweat, hours of driving time, bundles of cash, hours of study and stillness, and attention to the inner dialogue between mind/body/spirit, and the application of hatha (force).


Seldom does the 26+2 series of 90 minutes in 105 degrees and 45% humidity seem easy, but recently if your leader takes you through the series in a systematic and artistic way and with a body/mind/spirit presentation that is incisive, insightful, and inspirational, it can become easy in time.


You will learn to be at ease in stress, and you will be reminded that “Breath is your guru.” This is a frequent statement by my teacher and he’s right. Thinking of this opens a fresh new way of viewing yoga, what I’ve called, a breathcentric practice, one animated by hatha. Hatha yoga is the application of stress and ease balanced and then applied in every posture; it’s discovered in contraction and expansion, ease and tension, puraka and rechaka, strength and flexibility, the hard and soft. Hatha moves at the cosmic level too: the sun and moon, fire and water, heat and cold, and the spiritual imprints behind the energy of Earth by night and day, tide-shift, sleep, and work.… read more... 
ANNOUNCEMENT:  Yoga Song on LANTERN AUDIO AUDIOBOOKS coming this month


I’m happy to announce the impending release of YOGA SONG as an audiobook available on LANTERN Audio Audiobooks, Audible, and these distribution networks:  Kindle, Apple Books, Bookbeat, Audiobooks.com, Audiobooksnow.com, Downpour.com, Findaway, Google Play, Biblioteha LLC, Baker & Taylor, Follett Libray Services and 10 others, Hoopla, Kindle, Macklin Educational Resources, Overdrive, Kobo, Libro.FM, Nook Audio, Scribd, Odilo




Yoga Song is an instrument of mass inspiration in 21 vignettes and five original songs. While you listen, yoga’s song will fall upon your heart, register in your body, and spark new life in your mind and spirit. I narrate this book with my conviction that breath is yoga’s song, and when you breathe doing yoga, you are singing your yoga song.




   Hear Yoga Song on your way to yoga class, while traveling this summer, or when resting in your comfortable place. Listen to an integrative description of Humble Warrior Pose in “Yogi, Heal Thyself,” follow my excavation of Camel Pose in “Making Heroes,” or let the deeply affirming mystery of yoga’s therapy fall upon your ears in “Yoga, A Breathcentric Community.”








   Thank you, and please tell your friends about Yoga Song as a LANTERN Audio Audiobook available soon.








   The excerpt below is from Yoga Song Chapter 2, “Yoga, A Breathcentric Community.”








   “Yoga brings a heightened discernment when yogis are pressed into a crucible of equal but opposite force. This force (hatha) presents us with the task of being at ease while stressed. It is yoga’s therapeutic, and we get it every time we bend, stretch, and breathe.








   I glance around the outdoor space where I teach and see the outline of my community becoming new every day.
… read more... 
500 A Milestone & Therapy for my Spine


My first 26+2 teacher Mark Hough December 2012 @ Bikram Yoga Kona Hawaii; and my 500th session of 26+2 with teacher David King @ The Foundry Yoga, Tempe, AZ March 28, 2023. In between there were many others, and classes in vinyasa, yin, javamukti, and other yogas, but for my spine I choose 26+2 which I address below. Please read on.


 


I’ve told a common yoga story when writing about what happened to me. I moved to Hawaii but couldn’t enjoy paradise because I had a bad back that limited me. Out of desperation, I tried yoga in Hawaii and my back healed. I believe that yoga can fix our backs, spines, and minds. It’s as simple as that.


From the first glimmer of life, our spines constantly evolve. At first (in utero), the human spine looks no different than any other animal as it’s one simple curve resembling a comma, called the primary curve. When we make our way through birth trauma, our cervical spine begins its evolutionary adjustment and shifting of its shape which allows us to stand upright. This adjustment continues throughout our lives.


After several months and into our early years, we develop a second curve in the thoracic spine trailing down to the lumbar spine. This secondary spinal curve serves us well until our later years, especially if we begin to stoop forward (and we stop bending backward). If the older adult continues to stoop forward, the spine begins to look more and more like it was when we were infants.


The spine is made to bend and flex; it is built with both firm and soft mass which allows it to extend and compress,  to rotate, support, adjust, and keep adjusting through life.… read more... 
“Playing in Space: a yogic way of being,” the 102nd of my #yogainspirationals in March, 2023 Om Yoga Magazine


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 




Her comment had me think about yoga as play in space. Playing doesn’t eliminate effort and the physical work of asana, but I think it can lighten the mental aspect and open a sense of joy in us that may be a timely renewal point.


In the book, Work, Play, and Worship in a Leisure-Oriented Society, Author Gordon Dahl issued a stern critique of American culture when he wrote, “We work at our play, worship our work, and play at our worship.” Dahl maintained that we miss the point of all three if our intentions are misaligned with our actions.


From the age of 16, and through college, I had to work part-time at my father’s grocery store, and since I had to spend a lot of time there, I never liked going into the grocery store as an adult. We are required to work for our living, and work is satisfying when it’s something aligned with who and what we are, but at 16 I was just doing it from necessity, and it wasn’t my intended career.


In time, I started thinking about my avoidance of grocery stores and realized the problem was me, so I set out to change my perception (an important aspect of yoga life according to Patanjali). I tried to make grocery store visits fun by putting a smile on my face and offering random comments to people. Occasionally, I stopped to juggle oranges or avocados. Now when I go to a grocery market, I tend to frame it as play.… read more... 
ON JOINING  the 400 CLUB  10/27/22


400 sessions of the 26+2 yoga series known as Bikram Yoga. Each class is 90 minutes in a hot room, a yoga style that builds mental and physical willpower. For ten years now, I’ve observed and experienced how this yoga changes people.


The Tapas (fire) of Yoga




First, it will get harder


Then it will get easier


Then it will get different


Then it will get way different . . . but so will you.


I started yoga in Hawaii when I happened to walk into a Bikram Yoga Studio to fix my bad back. After starting, I kept track of each session because I knew it could become important. I completed 325 classes during the four years I practiced in Hawaii. Most of my Arizona practices – by contrast – have been 75 minutes with music and limited dialogue.


It’s been known for Centuries that applying heat in ritual transformations tends to create and accelerate change. Mircea Eliade, former chair of the Department of History of Religions at the University of Chicago, wrote in YOGA: Immortality and Freedom, that the Rg-Veda identified heat and ardor with ascetic effort as a tapas. It serves to “heighten the Physico-chemical processes (of making gold) and is the ‘vehicle’ for psychic and spiritual operations.”


North American Medicine Men shared this practice too in the sweat. Eliade wrote of this, and other transformational rituals in his 1951 book, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy.


Yoga people find out that the practice of yoga in a hot room is hard. Writer Alyssa Dunn put it like this, “My yoga practice isn’t always stable.… read more... 
Our world is in need . . . people are distracted, fractured, and busy.


Our world is in need. People are distracted, fractured, busy, angry and vulnerable to emotional hijacking. When this happens, its hard to experience the joy of being alive because we lose touch with ourselves and others.


Yoga meets this need by offering time for the busy to rest for a few moments, connect to our battered selves, and learn to breathe again which brings us into wholeness and gives us permission to focus in on the moment and the experience.


In yoga, we put-away the agenda for just a few minutes to remember who we are as people imbued with a divine spark that need not be named, claimed, or tamed.




Tune in at 7:05 pm tonight when I read sections from Yoga Song. Live Facebook feed from Salt Motion and Meditation in Wausau, Wisconsin.  Here’s the link:  https://www.facebook.com/events/1382068342295624/… read more... 
Read what others say about Gregory Ormson’s songs of redemption and transformation in Yoga Song.    


“Your writing is very good and would be ideal if you ever fancy contributing on any regular basis, especially in our OM spirit section.” Martin Clark, ed., Om Yoga Magazine UK


“Gregory eloquently expresses from a place of depth and authenticity, inviting his readers to fully partake in the journeys he shares.” Cassandra Bright, Gilbert, Arizona


“Greg, you are a remarkable writer!  I found it really interesting because so often we think about what yoga gives to us or what we get but very rarely do we think about what we give to the practice.  I think what you wrote was thought provoking and absolutely beautiful expression. Leley Pelkey, Phoenix, Arizona


The book has been beautifully written and its words are well crafted. It will undoubtedly inspire students of yoga.  Dr. Yogananth Andiappan, Hong Kong, Asana Journal, ed.,


“Your description of yoga as martial art of the soul, I love it, awesome.” Christen Tanner, Mesa, Arizona


“You are a very talented writer and storyteller, Greg. Congratulations on being published in Om Yoga Magazine and for sharing your path to self-discovery. You are an inspiration.” Bobbie Schmidt, Marana, Arizona


“This writing is really interesting and deserves to be in top 5 Google Search Results.”  Sergio E (via Webpage email).


“Your articles interest our readers and that’s why we allocate pages every month in our magazine. Your view – and writing – of yoga practice is amazing.” Joe (sub-editor) Asana Journal


Yogi G! I feel so honored to have met Gregory while leading music and yoga . . . we have collaborated several times for Sound Meditations and Kirtan Cacao Ceremonies .… read more... 
TAPAS from YOGA SONG Coming June 21, International Yoga Day


Chapter 11, Tapas


New Year’s Eve resolutions are often made with an eye toward immediate results but without a long-term vision that includes commitment to a future that is different. Not even three full weeks into the New Year, New York University published a story stating that 90 percent of New Year’s Eve resolutions are abandoned.


It’s because changes happen by small degree and over time. It’s not by adding requirements or resolutions that our lives change; it’s by subtracting from our lives that which is unnecessary or unproductive.


This is one gift of yoga, we learn by the process of tapas to define more clearly what is necessary and leave the rest; it is yoga’s counter-intuitive mathematic, an equation suggesting that discovery and addition happens by negation and subtraction.


Yoga philosophy develops within the ebb and flow of culture, story, and time. It’s an ongoing journey of subtraction and addition. Civilizations grow, but they also burn to the ground. This is the key to yoga’s tapas, the burning away of that which is unnecessary.


More on Yoga Song, https://gregoryormson.com/writing/yoga-motorcyclingyogig/yoga-song-press-kit… read more... 
PRESS KIT Yoga Song – audibook version Lantern Audio


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – 


Lantern Audiobooks presents Gregory Ormson’s Yoga Song, a print publication in 2022 by Rochak Press, now available on Lantern Audiobooks and other platforms. Ormson states the song of yoga is the breath that turns ordinary moments into the extraordinary. In 21 vignettes and five original songs, Ormson narrates a journey of self-discovery, sharing knowledge, understanding, and quotations to inspire listeners.


Every yoga song is composed by the yogi, an instrument made of mind, spirit, emotion, energy, and consciousness. In chapters like, “Transforming the Emotional Body,” “Ritual Process and the Yogi’s New Song,” and “Yogatecture: Blueprint of Transformation,” Yoga Song becomes an instrument of mass inspiration in a melody proclaiming to every yogi that their breath is their song, a sacred song and the soundtrack to their journey of transformation.


Bounced from a trampoline at 10, enduring a second back-injury weightlifting in school, and falling from a roof at 40, born-to-be-wild biker Gregory Ormson moved to Hawaii but was sidelined by debilitating back pain and couldn’t enjoy paradise. Dipping a toe into yoga, he discovered a healing road that reformed his mind and fixed his spine.


Yoga Song is an instrument of mass inspiration in the song of the body which includes mind, spirit, emotion, and energy. Its melodies are alive in the sound of Om or a vocalized heartfelt Namaste. In breath-centered yoga practice, yogis experience a therapeutic and healing power where ordinary moments stretch into extraordinary.


“The yoga mat became my turf of tears, washing, and regeneration . . . these essays deliver us to a place of beauty and grace in words lyrical and reverential.… read more... 
OM YOGA MAGAZINE, Yoga, the Sailing Forth


A day after moving into my apartment in Hawaii, I was on the floor with back pain. I had endured many injuries: at 10, I bounced off a trampoline and landed on the ground, a second back injury I endured while weightlifting, and yet again in my 40’s when I fell from a high roof.


In Hawaii, I noticed signs for yoga studios everywhere and I started thinking about claims I had heard regarding yoga and healing for back pain. One day, in a desperate attempt to fix my damaged back and with no background or knowledge of yoga, I decided to try it and hoped to find something to make me strong in my broken places. I feared collapsing in the hot yoga room, but was also confident that if my back held up I would too.


I planned to try yoga for 30 days and then decide if I would continue. I made it through 24 classes that month. My resolve was galvanized and my hope for healing ignited. In my journal entry I wrote, Yoga is the way to go for healing back pain. It’s so simple, why don’t more people do it?  But my transformation from injury to healing went beyond my back as yoga steered me into deep waters.


“Sail forth – steer for the deep waters only


Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee and thou with me”


American poet Walt Whitman in, “Passage to India,” from Leaves of Grass


I continued with yoga and wrote about my experience because I thought my practice in a heated room would also benefit me in other ways.… read more... 
YOGA 4 BIKERS at Bull Falls HD


https://www.wausaudailyherald.com/story/news/2021/08/18/motorcycling-yogi-teach-yoga-moves-bull-falls-harley-davidson/5416236001/?fbclid=IwAR07msLeXONfmeVRqaIXKbJZACQNn1V6WN9erv05pc5SS-xCWbP-itnf1vk


The ‘Motorcycling Yogi’ brings his calming yoga methods to Bull Falls Harley-Davidson


Keith Uhlig


https://twitter.com/gaormson/status/1428311933388787712?s=21


Wausau Daily Herald


14278f8d-b827-4fe2-a5aa-91bbd5d9f48d-Tree.jpg.webp


https://www.wausaudailyherald.com/story/news/2021/08/18/motorcycling-yogi-teach-yoga-moves-bull-falls-harley-davidson/5416236001/?fbclid=IwAR07msLeXONfmeVRqaIXKbJZACQNn1V6WN9erv05pc5SS-xCWbP-itnf1vk… read more... 
THE LANTERN from UW La Crosse, on yoga and leather
















This isn’t your ordinary biker gang.


Technically, it’s not a gang at all — just a community of denim-clad Harley enthusiasts who love to roar down an open road, and then unwind with some deep breathing and meditative poses.


“Learning to breathe, be calm, work on your body — these are all things that you practice in yoga and that can translate into motorcycling,” explains Greg Ormson, ’77, founder of the Yoga and Leather: Yoga for Bikers program at Superstition Harley-Davidson in Apache Junction, Arizona. “It’s all predicated on the notion that, if you’re at ease in the saddle, you’re going to feel better and be a much better motorcyclist.”




Greg Ormson, ’77


Ormson is a true renaissance man — a biker, a yogi, a writer, a musician, a world traveler and a student of several religions. He is a shining example of someone who doesn’t just defy stereotypes, but disproves them.


After retiring from his marketing and communications job at Northcentral Technical College in Wausau in  2012, Ormson and his partner moved to Hawaii.


But in paradise, Ormson felt mostly pain.






I saw all these signs on the street corners: yoga, yoga, yoga, I decided to try it.


He had long struggled with back issues — the result of falling off a trampoline as a child and tumbling off a roof as an adult. Years of motorcycling only made it worse.


Then, walking around the streets of Hawaii, Ormson had an epiphany.


“I saw all these signs on the street corners: yoga, yoga, yoga,” he remembers.
… read more... 
QUALITY MILES 4 QUALITY REASONS






For just one hour through town on Sept. 27, I’ll join the Distinguished Gentleman’s Worldwide Ride, this year titled, “SOLO but TOGETHER” in spirit. On that day, over 300 thousand bikers from 104 countries will ride and call attention to and raise funds for men’s health programs.






*MENTAL HEALTH*        *SUICIDE PREVENTION*


*PROSTATE CANCER*      *TESTICULAR CANCER*






During this time – riding my Enfielder 500 – I and other riders will don our most dapper apparel to ride classic and vintage bikes. Last year, the DGR raised over 24 million in just the US.








This ride is not about competition or speed or miles; it’s about awareness and slowing down to think of our own good fortune – especially those of us lucky enough to spend some quality time riding cool bikes.








Please join an anonymous donor, and my friends Sara and Dina, Brina and Superstition Harley Davidson, Kimberly, George, and Debbie to participate by contributing any amount for men’s health programs.








The funding and blog link to my Official DGR page is below (with more explanation and the health programs); I invite you to see the progress over the next two weeks, by watching my page, as contributions add up toward my modest goal of $500.









Thank you,


… read more... 
THE WORLDWIDE DISTINGUISHED GENTLEMAN’S RIDE


Phoenix area video including gentlewomen riders (story here) 


We’re asking all our friends to share this video and share widely by liking, and promoting it with this hashtag:  #dprdapperchallenge


Putting the fun in fundraising for a good cause, classic and vintage motorcyclists from around the world have ridden on the last Sunday in September since 2012 to raise funds and awareness for prostate cancer research and men’s mental health.” In the US alone, DGR has raised 24.5 million dollars over the last 8 years. Men’s Health Issues addressed by the DGR are:


*MENTAL HEALTH*        *SUICIDE PREVENTION*


*PROSTATE CANCER*      *TESTICULAR CANCER*


One of DGR’s primary concerns this year, due to COVID-19, is the effect of social isolation on mental health. Studies show those who are socially connected in a positive way share a better outlook for well-being and mental health.


Because of COVID-19, the worldwide 2020 DGR ride  – on September 27 –  will be different this year. Everyone will ride alone but share it virtually as a way of riding alone but together.


To promote this, the DGR challenged riders from around the world to submit a video highlighting the 2020 theme: “Riding Solo Together.” Randy Anagnostis and I put together a team of riders and produced this video as part of the DGR 2020 challenge contest.


Our Phoenix area video is now submitted (thanks to Randy for his filming, editing, organizing, and original music score). Thanks also to the riders, to Kyle (Eyes Across the Sky) for the drone photography, to Chris and his partners at Eleven 10 Moto Garage, and to Paul and partners at Phoenix Triumph.… read more... 
DGR Dapper Challenge


https://gfolk.me/GregoryOrmson288222


The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride (DGR) is a worldwide classic and vintage motorcycle riding event with a focus on fundraising for men’s health; the vehicles used to put the fun in fundraising are motorcycles. Since 2012 in the US alone, DGR has raised 24.5 million dollars with 316,000 riders participating. Its been held on the same day around the world in over 104 countries.


One of DGR’s primary concerns this year, due to COVID-19, is the effect of social isolation on mental health. Studies show those who are socially connected in a positive way share a better outlook for well-being and mental health.


DGR, and its partner the MOVEMBER Foundation are committed to raising awareness of these issues:


*MENTAL HEALTH*        *SUICIDE PREVENTION*


*PROSTATE CANCER*      *TESTICULAR CANCER*


The 2020 DGR will happen this year, but is a solo riding event on September 27. Before then, DGR has invited riders from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK, and the US to put together a video highlighting the 2020 theme, “Ride Solo Together.” Link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHi6-npVfiw


Tomorrow (Aug. 23), 10 of us will meet at the Eleven 10 moto garage on Grand Ave. in Phoenix. Randy Anagnostis and I have have formed a beautiful story board and we’re prepared to film video and still shots in creating our “DPR Dapper Challenge” submission. By September 1, we are required to send the video of 10 Phoenix area riders to the DGR review board for prizes.


Once the video is shot, edited, produced, and submitted, we will share it widely on social media under this specific hashtag:      #dgrdapperchallenge


If you see this on any social media in the next week or two please share it widely and often on yours.… read more... 
YOGA: Melody in Motion and Stillness


Embodying asana, I rejoice in the glimpse of periphery turned central, and inhabit an identity formed of particularity and universality. I pause to center myself in each moment and from this still point, know we are all a beautiful grey, a crush of salt and pepper.




Surrendering to moments that bend and shape me, no matter how I fail, I open as a flower to spring and seek to correct the direction of my inward compass. When I insert my ego and rough-hew the curriculum’s established gravity, I dim its shining divinity waiting to guide me.


Steadily I release into yoga’s entry point, listen to its song, and follow an inner melody to the beautiful transformation becoming me. Near the end, I sink into a container of heat and transformation, a liminal space where a guru points the way.


Yoga class ends. I hear my teacher, dedicated and honorable, give her blessing. Her voice, like the chant of angels, sounds a comfort upon the gathered yogis, one I accept.


“May this practice give strength to your body, kindness and compassion to your heart, calm and clarity to your mind.  Namaste.”


I let this hold me as close as breath holds my life underwater. I walk away telling myself to take it all in deeply, to embrace yoga’s alchemy that connects me to all, and to not dig up in doubt what I’ve planted in faith.


Photo by Randy Anagnostis at the Salt River, Mesa, AZ., 7/22/2020… read more... 
Alumnus Leads ‘Yoga and Leather’ Class for Bikers



















Ormson with his Harley (photo by Randy Anagnostis)


After falling from a roof and injuring his back, NMU alumnus Greg Ormson (’99 MA) found that yoga delivered both pain relief and a new vocation. He became a certified instructor in the practice, just as he had with another avid interest: motorcycling. Ormson has found a unique way to blend both passions. He leads “Yoga and Leather: Yoga for Bikers,” the first—and, to his knowledge, only—specialized class of its kind in the nation to be held in a Harley-Davidson dealership.








It may not seem a logical pairing, but to H.O.G. (Harley Owners Group) member Ormson, the two effectively complement each other and share some similarities. He said beginners in either activity benefit from the guidance of a qualified trainer.


“With motorcycle instruction, the emphasis is on developing riding skills and environmental awareness,” said Ormson, also known as Motorcycling Yogi G. “But spending several hours in the saddle and handling unexpected situations that may arise requires mental focus, strength, flexibility and stamina. That’s where yoga comes in. It is increasingly viewed as the ideal exercise to improve overall mind-body performance.


“When riders are faced with executing a challenging move like a tight U-turn on a heavy bike, breathing shallows and the body tenses, affecting performance. Yoga training can lower stress levels through controlled breathing and meditation. The stretching and strengthening poses reduce the risk of injury by keeping the joints and muscles bikers rely on—hips, back, neck, shoulders, elbows and wrists—flexible and strong.”
… read more... 
TRANSFORMNG THE EMOTIONAL BODY




Louie Netz, former director for Harley Davidson’s Styling and Graphics Department once said, “Form and function both report to emotion.”


It’s likely when observing a yoga pose, or the stylish symmetry of a Harley Davidson cutting a sharp curve, to believe motorcycles are about speeding through turns and yoga about perfectly aligned asanas, and it’s true that a yogi on the mat or Harley-Davidson on the highway both perform their function at a high degree and garner attention, but the brilliance of yoga – and a great motorcycle – is its move from form to function and ultimately to emotion.


Like many newcomers, when I started yoga, I thought it was about what I saw; and I noticed people bending into forms that were – at first – perplexing. I also thought it was about what I heard yoga could do for my injured back. I believed if yoga could heal my injuries I would feel better and that would be all I could expect.


My yoga evolution was gradual; I practiced to feel better, then to learn good alignment, and finally to accomplish more asanas. As a dedicated student, I paid attention to words from my teachers as they led me to correct placement of my feet and hands. I followed their instructions which led me through breathing techniques and transitions.


But right away, I sensed there was something happening well beyond what was taking place in my physical experience on the mat.


I didn’t know it, but I was on my way to connect, or yoke deeply to my full self, and at the same time, touch something much broader and deeper than just me.… read more... 
How bikers and yogis can get their zen (and their maintenance) in yoga and on the bike.


Thank you to Om Yoga Magazine for covering Yoga & Leather (May 2020 issue) on how bikers and yogis can get their zen (and their maintenance) in yoga and on the bike. Teaching yoga in a Harley Davidson Motorcycle dealership in the American South is not common but OM published this story of an uncommon yoga outreach. Read all about it here, or see the video link at the end of this post.


 




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opNRRVg8O_M&t=185s&fbclid=IwAR0BYkPKzvvUTjSkTdlzDK_3pQ0tzv4eD6QBznvIa6m9o5IipiDuoz4tWP4


See the May issue by going to pocketmags.com., where a free digital issue can be yours, or by ordering a subscription for the hard copy magazine. Yogainspirationals number 97 by Gregory Ormson,… read more... 
Yoga and Leather: bikers get their zen on


Bikers: Covid-19 has paused everything.


It’s a gift given to us, a rare break in normally busy lives to think about things and even make plans to do something new. “Yoga and Leather: Yoga for Bikers,” is for you. This is not gymnastic yoga where your goal will be to nail a handstand or accomplish the splits. Yoga for bikers is for motorcycle riders showing up to a space apart for breathing with simple movement; and it’s a settling down in one place for a few minutes.


Doing a yoga class doesn’t mean you give up your identity, or that yoga makes you stop doing what you do. But yoga will lead you to experience yourself in a different way from what you ever have before. That’s it. Anything and everything else is your choice.


The story of yoga for bikers – in the OM Yoga Magazine May issue is for you. It’s now free to read because OM Yoga Magazine will not be printed for the month of May.


Take a moment to read how yoga benefits bikers. It’s all right here, the story of Yoga and Leather at Superstition Harley Davidson.


Here is your link for a FREE issue of OM Yoga Magazine:  www.primeimpactmags.com


And if you want to see what Yoga and Leather looks like, follow this link to a YouTube video of our class from February, 2020.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opNRRVg8O_M&t=185s… read more... 
OM Yoga Magazine writes how Bikers and Yogis get their ZEN ON.  Where? At Superstition Harley Davidson


Thank you @omyogamagazine for sharing (May 2020 issue) how bikers and yogis can get their zen (and their maintenance) in yoga and on the bike. Teaching yoga in a Harley Davidson Motorcycle dealership in the American South is not common. What is common is your willingness (Om Yoga Magazine) to publish a good story when you see it.


 


Your sharing of this three year outreach to bikers was wonderfully done, and I’m grateful to Martin ed., and the entire staff of Om Yoga Magazine. See the May issue by going to pocketmags.com., – or by ordering a subscription for the hard copy magazine – where a free digital issue can be yours. #yogainspirationals number 97 by Gregory Ormson, #motorcyclingyogiG.   Writing on yoga, motorcycling, music, and landscapes at https://gregoryormson.com


… read more... 
YOGA & LEATHER  H.O.G. MAGAZINE STORY


“Rough Road? Breathe . . .” Just published in H.O.G. Magazine. I’ve been reading H.O.G. Magazine since 2002 when I joined the national H.O.G. organization. This is the first time they’ve ever published a story on yoga, or yoga for riders. H.O.G. riders and all of us realize the times are a changin’ and if we are fluid we’re better able to adapt. Breathing well and being fluid is what we do in yoga. Check it out bikers. Thanks to H.O.G., (ed., Matt King), and Superstition H-D in Apache Junction, AZ.


Motorcyclists love to ride, they want to ride longer, and they want to ride skillfully. That’s why I started Yoga & Leather: Yoga for Bikers at Superstition Harley Davidson in Arizona. The story is now published in issue 51 of H.O.G. (Harley Owner’s Group) magazine in digital format accessed by HOG members. 


Two pages of the hard copy I’ll pass it along here. Thank you Matt, ed., H.O.G. Magazine. Get your copy of H.O.G. magazine for updates from the world of H.O.G. and Harley-Davidson. it includes riding tips, vintage bike notes, mechanical advice, riding tales, and stories of the next ride. 




 … read more... 
thanks to OM YOGA AND LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE.


(Colchester, Essex Co., UK) for including “Conducting the Awesome,” in your October HOT YOGA special.


This magazine is ‘with it.’  Last month, they celebrated their 100th issue, and have published extensively on inclusivity, body positivity, yin yoga, retreats, men in yoga, Western Yoga, and breath training as the new yoga.




Breath Training is what I do, having just completed two yoga workshops in Wisconsin and Michigan on “Yoga Breath, Breath of Life.” Breath training is a new – but very old –  emphasis growing from the needs of Westerners. By engaging the breath, we learn to calm ourselves in a conflicted world. My workshop is integrative: meaning it includes philosophy, linguistics, biology, mobilization of prana, execution of the bandas, the embodiment of asana, a practice of mindful release, and attentive work on drishti.


At my teaching site, Superstition Harley Davidson in Apache Junction, AZ., when motorcycling yogis focus on breathing, when they hear sitar gently pinging above the roaring big twin engines, and when they receive my final salutation, breathe deep and exhale a final OM, it begins to look and sound like something not heard or seen before; indeed, Western yoga is changing (practice at a HD dealership proves it) and slowly taking on a unique form and function. For me, it starts with the building block of it all – BREATH.This fall, I’ll bring even more breath training to my teaching at YOGA AND LEATHER (Superstition Harley Davidson) in October as we start year 3 of Yoga for Bikers.


If anyone wants to learn more about this focus on breath, I’m ready to conduct a two hour workshop for you – with original music on sitar and guitar –  “Yoga Breath, Breath of Life.”… read more... 
YOGA MAGAZINE FEATURE STORY: Yoga and Leather: A New Road for Bikers  (#yogainspirationals 79).


 












YOGA & LEATHER: A New Road for Bikers


Every yogi is the same. But every yogi has been injured in their own way. Debbie McGregor, passionate yogi and motorcyclist, was first injured at age 11. It happened in a rodeo mishap when she was locked in a cramped chute with a panicked horse. A broken back sustained in a motorcycle accident in her early 30’s became major injury number two, and she suffered a broken neck in a car accident during her early 50’s.


“When I read about YOGA AND LEATHER: Yoga for Bikers,” she said, “I couldn’t believe it; something combining my two passions, I had to come.”


After her car accident, Debbie was told she’d be paralyzed from the neck down, but she resolved to walk and was determined to ride her Harley Davidson motorcycle again. She invested in physical therapy and added yoga as a daily routine. Three years after the accident, Debbie is doing yoga and motorcycling around the country. “It’s unexplainable how much yoga does in the path of healing. The more I do, the more I want and the more I heal,” she said.


Paul, a 79 year old retired Chicago police officer, is another dedicated rider of Harley Davidson motorcycles but new to yoga. Like Debbie, he found his way to YOGA AND LEATHER, and considers it healing balm and an island of peace.


Recently, Paul’s 900 pound motorcycle tipped over and landed on his foot. He hobbled into class wearing big boots and blue jeans, but did what he could. “I need it, it’s good.… read more... 
Hey riding yogis, a reminder for Wednesday MARCH 13, 4:30 in the Eagle’s Nest




Sunday, March 3, I attended RIDING FOR THE LONG HAUL, a day long event in Phoenix sponsored by the Arizona Motorcycle Safety and Awareness Foundation along with the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, Dignity Health, The Arizona Trauma Association, and Law Tigers.


While I’m no longer a rider/coach with the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, I can help all of us remembering safety tips that could save us or the lives of others. I’m going to incorporate two or three tips into every Yoga and Leather class at Superstition Harley Davidson. There are many, but for now just these three:


    

  1. Wind gusts and gusts from large vehicles can be a serious hazard for motorcyclists
    2. 

  2. Motorcyclists have to be much more concerned about road obstructions such as debris, potholes, and railroad tracks
    3. 

  3. BE SEEN! The most common reason given by other motorists involved in crashes with motorcycles is, “I didn’t see the motorcycle.”
    4. 



https://www.facebook.com/events/593443927797513/


YOGA BENEFITS FOR BIKERS


Increased strength and muscle tone through weight bearing and power postures / for large bikes and long tours, building strength for long days on the road.


Improved balance by practicing one-leg standing postures / better control in tight U turns and backing.


Increased mental focus and coordination, clarity of thought developed by balance and silence in yoga practice / life and death on the bike is directly related to mental focus and clarity.


Improved sleep after a hard yoga practice / no dozing while driving, deeper sleep leads to increased energy on the road.


Improved posture / back pain can be a thing of the past.… read more... 
YOGA AND LEATHER – new moves for riders and yogis




Shipra Saraogi (pictured) at the Usery Mountain Regional Park, Mesa, Arizona.


#MotorcyclingyogiG teaches yoga for riders (YOGA AND LEATHER) at Superstition Harley-Davidson in Apache Junction, Arizona. His classes demonstrate to riders how they might use their bike for a prop to stretch when taking a break from the road with the goal of  keeping riders in the saddle.


Shipra Saraogi, yoga teacher and performance artist from New York City, stopped by Superstition Harley-Davidson and the Arizona desert for some warm up-on Greg’s 2016 HD Road King. This not recommend or taught in Yoga and Leather.


March 31, 2019 is the date for our next “Stretch Ride,” in Arizona led by #motorcyclingyogiG, Gregory Ormson. Meet at Superstition Harley Davidson 10:30 am. Ride to the desert, stretch, breathe, pose.


 


   … read more... 
Don’t miss Marlon Darton on the marvel of the human body.


This workshop will be held at MOTTO YOGA in Queen Creek, AZ., from 2:00 – 3:30 pm. January 13, 2019






LEARN FROM A WORLD CHAMPION


TOPICS


Tune into Diet and fitness


Sculpt body and breath


Develop mental and physical strength


Learn self-discipline and willpower


Study yoga poses and competition poses


Experiment with movement


Parallels with yoga are direct and applicable, starting with one’s intention long before lifting a weight or stepping onto a yoga mat. Yoga or athletic outcomes are unique to each person, but mental discipline and focus is required for both.


Mr. Darton has delivered workshops around the world detailing what it takes to sculpt a human statue. He will tell his story and offer experimental movements based on his lifelong experience and expertise.


People are drawn to Marlon and enriched by his knowledge and experience. The workshop will conclude with a brief yoga session.


REGISTER AT MOTTOYOGA.COM.  Click on the Menu and choose the WORKSHOP option.


$25. in advance.


 … read more... 


Subscribe for Updates