Gregory Ormson

Writer, musician, yoga-loving motorcyclist.

From The Mesa Tribune on Yoga Song

When teaching motorcycle riding for the state of Hawaii, I noticed a few students having trouble on the practice range with the bike. Some tightened up and held their breath when trying to execute a tight figure-8 turn on the range. The figure-8 is a requirement to pass the riding test.
During this time, I found myself in a stressful situation on my bike and I executed a difficult escape maneuver with ease. It surprised me and then it dawned on me that practicing yoga taught me to be at ease in the midst of stress.’
That’s when I realized I could translate lessons from yoga and take them to the riding range when teaching bikers. In time, I decided to share this with more motorcycle riders. That’s how “Yoga and Leather,” yoga for bikers was born.
Bikers are good at shifting gears and they have to be.
They also love movement, so when teaching yoga to bikers I try to integrate the language of motorcycling and shifting into the yoga process.
When learning to ride and control the clutch for example, motorcyclists are taught about the “friction zone.” To shift gears and get moving, bikers must smoothly move the clutch – by hand – in coordination with their foot.
Yoga does the same thing with its warmup as yogis shift from non-movement into easy and slow postures at the start. As they warm up, they shift gears again and move their bodyweight into slightly more challenging postures. Even more than postures; however, both motorcycling and yoga are more fun and are easier to do when we learn how to relax in the midst of stress.
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YOGA SONG: a lyric narrative of transformation and redemption, coming this summer from Rochak Publishing

When born-to-be-wild biker Gregory Ormson (#motorcyclingyogig) moved to Hawaii, he 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. Ormson’s yoga writing and publishing (#yogainspirationals) led to Yoga Song.

From YOGA SONG

Yoga equips us to meet a stressful world and greet it with equanimity; it’s why we practice, study, and seek to discover who we are as we fall back into the fullness of Self. We breathe deeply to inherit yoga’s spiritual science, and with that breath, release and enter the realm of Om, the universal vibration of creation animating all life.

Yoga sings a song of connection to the ground of our being that his holy at its core; and it offers a redemption song for our mistakes and failures. We meditate, practice asana, or follow yoga’s inner path to the eternal Om and experience how yoga expands the dimensions in which we live and move even as the cultural spaces we inhabit are pressured and restricted.

Yoga’s melodies come to us in soothing voice, chant, or in the spirited sound of a group together in deep exhale. It leads us to deepen our range of motion, expand our lungs with full breath, increase our stretch of spine, and extend our energy body into space.

Formed from the crucible of scholarship and exercise, yoga empties and then fills the thinking reed that is hu-man and teaches us to inherit new dimensions. In time, yoga levels our judgments and brings us to the healing ground of calm detachment while simultaneously counseling us through the yamas and niyamas to do the right things.… read more...

ON WISCONSIN: This is for bikers at Bull Falls Harley-Davidson August 21

Learn how to extend your riding life and improve overall well-being through a FREE 90-minute yoga workshop at on Saturday, Aug. 21, where Gregory Ormson #motorcyclingyogig will lead “Yoga for Bikers” from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at Bull Falls Harley-Davidson, located on 1570 County Road XX in Rothschild.

“Ultimately,” Ormson said, “both motorcycle riding and life are enhanced when riders continue applying the key lesson of yoga . . . and that is being at ease in the midst of stress.”

ALL ARE WELCOME to attend this workshop; no yoga experience or special clothing is necessary. The active movements are beginner level and focused on bikers’ needs: backs, necks, hips, hands, and wrists. Passive movements and a continuation on breath management will be part of this workshop.

Ormson is a former certified Motorcycle Safety Foundation rider/coach for the state of Hawaii, a long time Harley-Davidson rider, and a certified yoga teacher. He started YOGA & LEATHER: yoga for bikers, at Superstition Harley-Davidson in Apache Junction, Ariz., in 2017, and has led yoga and breath workshops in Queen Creek, Ariz.; Marquette, Mich.; and at D.C. Everest Fieldhouse in Schofield.

Ormson first saw yoga in India and started practicing in Hawaii where his injured back had forced him to temporarily suspend motorcycling. “Healthy spine, healthy life they say in yoga; and after I started yoga, I could bike again and do many other activities I had to quit for a while,” he said.

Story and poster by Scott Steuck, courtesy Bull Falls Harley-Davidson

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“Clearing Space” or social distancing. YogaInspirationals from #motorcyclingyogiG

Thank you @omyogamagazine April issue, for publishing “Clearing Space,” #yogainspirationals number 96. It’s appropriate to our situation as the virus is doing its best to make us do the work of the niyamas. In “Clearing Space,” I cite the writing of San Francisco based yoga teacher, musician, and leader @janetstoneyoga, who spoke of this work as being an inside job in her newsletter from December, 2019, “Unwrapping Your Gifts, Healing Family Wounds.” “Buckle up, it’s not for the faint of heart,” she wrote. In the US, we have lots of buckling up to do. Friends . . . Clear Space, and do it now before its too late.

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MEN: Yoga’s Outliers

Check out my 83rd published yoga article, “Yoga’s Outliers,” in the January, 2020, Om Yoga and Lifestyle magazine. Better yet, get the mag. 

“Men are still the minority when it comes to yoga in the West. They are yoga’s outliers,” says Gregory Ormson.

Read MORE below …

“Yoga’s Outliers” is a featured story along with an interview of London based international yoga teacher Sarah Highfield (#yogagise), Ibiza detox retreats on the Balearic islands off the Spanish east coast, and special coverage of vegan recipes and much more for the learning yogi. Thank you #OmYogaMagazine      #yogainspirationals 83.

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Silence and Slow Time

The December 2019 Om Yoga Magazine has published “Silence and Slow Time,” the 82nd of my published yoga articles under (#yogainspirationals). Thank you OM. Also see in this fine 114 page issue features on yoga at home and office, aromatherapy, meditation, breath work (pranayama), body positivity, and many more necessary reads for your yoga practice. In addition, as an end of year bonus OM Yoga Magazine has included a 2020 calendar and a 50 page insert on “incredible yoga retreats from around the world.” I’m honored to be a regular contibutor for OM Yoga and Lifestyle Magazine.

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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. 

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Move and Breathe with Ease and Attention to Experience Peace and Relaxation

Move and breathe with ease and attention to experience peace and relaxation

Hello everyone, here’s Analysa, one of the Rez Riders Angels, demonstrating the anjali mudra this past weekend on my bike. Notice she’s at ease. To be at ease on a motorcycle and in life is what we practice at YOGA AND LEATHER: Yoga for Bikers.

In our session this week, you’ll learn what this pose symbolizes and what means when yogis bring their hands together in front of their heart. You’ll also learn why yoga classes use this posture in class or at the end of class.

The anjali mudra (hands together) has to do with connecting the inner and outer self. Here, you see the left and right palms meeting at the center of being (the heart). There’s a lot more too, but I’ll save that for Wednesday.

The summary: Move and breathe with ease and attention to experience peace and relaxation.

 

I’m asking you to try this experiment sometime. When you are waiting at a stoplight – whether on a motorcycle, in a vehicle, or on a bicycle – tune into how you are feeling in your body. I’d almost be willing to bet that you will notice tightness. This might be in your shoulders or neck, maybe in your jaw, or you may even feel strain in your eyes.

We may think we are not under stress, but if it’s all around us, it’s hard to avoid and while we perceive stress in our minds, we feel it in our bodies. Yoga treats the body in order to treat stress.… read more...

Breath Notes

 

  • The practitioner is ATTENTIVE to breath while focused on the process of asana and quiet.
  • In movement, consciously linked to breath, we produce the rhythmic effect of life. It’s what humans have done for centuries; and therein lays yoga’s simple yet profound magic: breath in movement and rhythm.
  • When a yogi comes home to their breath-centric core they kiss the soul to receive their full inheritance.
  • At the center point, breath is the building of consciousness and through breath in heightened consciousness, jettisoning old scripts, the yogi constructs a personal story of renewal formed by inspiration.
  • A breath focus narrows the gap between body and mind so that when the yogi concentrates on the physical act of breathing, the mind comes into the here and now.
  • Breathing is both automatic and responsive to signals.
  • Anyone can relieve tension within the body by using breath.
  • Vinyasa is really about breath directed by asana.
  • The all-encompassing breath within (samana vayu) circulates from the solar plexus in the middle of the body and contributes to healthy metabolism and digestion.
  • Breath movement is secondary muscular movement.
  • Pranayama (breath management) is a “calm and lucid entrance into the very essence of life.” M. Eliade
  • When yoga teaches us to breathe with ease and move in awareness, and when we learn to arrive at a pose – and life – with equanimity, that memory is lodged as experience in the body. In this way, yoga’s therapeutic is embodied and forges a connection between the physical and non-physical. It works by calming the body to treat agitation driving the monkey mind, for while stress is perceived in the mind it is felt in the body.
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