Yoga Report

Can you really improve your IQ ?

johan flod — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 23:41:33 +0000

The only thing we can be sure about in life is change and that seems to apply to our brain as well. According to a study in 2008 there seems to be a correlation between a certain brain game, dual n-back and our problem solving ability. If we get better at the game we also score higher on IQ tests, in some cases the increase was as much as 40 % ! When it comes to IQ tests the general notion is that IQ is something static but you can get better at IQ tests to a certain degree. With the latest findings on the brain and it’s plasticity it is tempting to believe that IQ can be increased but this is a debated topic.

The IQ tests who are supposed to be culturally unbiased usually consist of progressive matrices. Find the next logical step in picture sequence. If you are familiar with boolean operations you will notice a few similarities here and there.

I decided to give this game, dual n-back a try. I noticed how my thinking speeds up right after gaming. In the mentioned test they used it for 19 days and that is what I am going to do as well. The game is available as freeware for android devices, I-phone etc.

Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory - Susanne M. Jaeggi,
Martin Buschkuehl, John Jonides and Walter J. Perrig

Where can I be of service ?

johan flod — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 18:03:00 +0000

Meditation/Yoga/Pranayama is the planning phase for physical results. Everything starts with a thought which is then materialised. As long as there is suffering in the world there is work to do. That is the reason I am going to study digital media engineering at the Danish University of Technology. A lot of suffering in the world could be avoided if knowledge was available. The only way to democratise information is to build digital bridges between nations. Wikileaks, Wikipedia, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Firefox, Android et c are all important tools to share information and there is more to come.

Get happiness now !

johan flod — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 11:57:17 +0000

It struck me as simple and yet so perfect, May you reach love, happiness and truth. The words uttered silently in my head when I meet an animal, a plant, a stone or a person. In silence the words came to me and after more than a week of running, yoga, physical work and talking they surfaced with ease. 11 years ago I met a Buddhist monk in the Indira Gandhi International airport and his smile really made me curious. How could he be smiling with this natural smile all the way into the centre of Delhi, surrounded as we were with poverty and suffering ? Now I realise how you can choose happiness as an attitude towards life. All the time we have thoughts in our head and some of them cause suffering and some of them causes a good mood. If we truly love a person we really want them all the best and with no expectation we give them freedom. As soon as we expect something in return we are caught in suffering. I can say to you that suffering is avoidable but if you do not have that experience it is just words for you. Of course there is suffering in life and we are forced to make decisions. The only thing we can be sure about in life is change. Our body is getting older, friends disappear to foreign countries, love turns into hate, summer turns into winter. Some times in meditation and life we reach a feeling of emptiness and this can be both a terrifying feeling and a liberating state. From emptiness something new can be born and you can always chose to be the light from which love and compassion is flowing.

Meditation in motion

johan flod — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 14:18:18 +0000

My running track

I feel in great shape and I lost a few kilos in the last two months. Running on the sandy beach 6 times a week really gives me clarity.

I had quite a powerful experience yesterday. Around 18:00 a close friend of mine said she did not want to follow me to Sweden this summer and I know I am going to miss her laughter and smile on this journey. I felt an urge to give in for old patterns and go for a pizza but I decided to try a new way. Some weeks ago I went past a restaurant and rather surprisingly considering the name, Crazy Chicken they had an enormous salad buffet. I went to this place and had a plate with humus, broccoli, olives etc. The BEST salad I have eaten in a long time.

A crazy chicken salad

When I teach yoga it is so easy to get dragged into peoples dramas and problems. 90 % of the teaching takes place when I am running on the beach, planning the lecture, learning Danish. When I enter the room there is not so much I can do about it, I am there vulnerable.

breatheology-expand – workshop review

johan flod — Thu, 13 May 2010 12:01:53 +0000

I came to this workshop expecting a lot. Last time I got coaching from Stig Åvall Severinsen was during the Copenhagen Dive Show and it was a personal break through to try apnea/kumbhaka/breath-hold in water (read more about that in the blog post). Since then Stig have appeared in media a few times and he have two new world records , the Guinness ice world record and the Guinness World Record for breath-hold . The workshop was intended for people with previous experience of breathing exercises and most people had some experience with yoga or similar . It started out with warm up exercises very similar to pawanmuktasana if you are familiar with Satyananda yoga. The intensity increased with a culmination at lunch time. I recognised a few of the practices, Headstand Shoulderstand ,Plough etc, from hatha yoga , and on top of that he added a few techniques developed in the freediving world. The focus was as the title suggests on breathing and with quite a few practices to increase the lung capacity it delivered on the premise. I now have some powerful exercises to work with.

What really makes Stig stand out as a teacher is that he have combined the yoga techniques from the east with the latest knowledge in biology. It feels safe to go beyond your mental limitations when you know what effects the practices have on your body. At one point we were instructed to take a deep breath in and walk as far as we could on that single breath. He reported the times at regular intervals. I tried this some months ago and stopped at 1:10 . Now I stopped at 3 minutes and since the last time I have been training some freediving so it is by no mean a magical feat . I got dizzy and disoriented and this is the first time this year where I am close to my physical limit, or at least it feels this way. Stig talks openly from his own experience and even if his track record is very impressive he comes across as very humble.

For me freediving is an excellent way to achieve more knowledge about the human body and I am surprised with myself when it comes to results. I do not see myself as a competitive person but it is really rewarding to add a few seconds to your personal best in static apnea for example.

I would say that this workshop is a must if you like freediving and want to improve your performance ! It is great to learn from the master directly and he patiently answered all of my questions.

I really like the combination of relaxation and challenging tasks. It felt totally safe to go beyond what I thought was my limit.

Many of us broke our personal records during this day and my neighbour added more than 2 minutes to his static apnea time.

Reflections on the science of yoga

johan flod — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 21:45:25 +0000

I feel confident in teaching a form of yoga which is scientific/agnostic in the approach. I have chosen to leave out god/goddesses/mantra/chakra in the lectures and there is a reason for this. We live in dualism and we label things good/evil, warm/cold and meditation is to go beyond that dualism for a short while. Yoga has the simple purpose of releasing muscle tension and prepare the body for meditation/flow/samadhi/nirvana/contemplation/heaven. Your cultural background will dictate the labels you put on the state.

Something which I hear a lot is this statement ” I am working really hard in this project “. then a saying comes to my mind “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. Not that meditation is a contradiction to working hard but you could be cutting the branch you are sitting on. Where do you spend your energy ? Do you choose the right battles ? Here is where I think meditation have a function. To help you with the overall directions in life.

I am happy to point you to people who teach about chakras, kundalini yoga etc. if that is what you are after.

4 minutes static, dry

johan flod — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:50:27 +0000

My experiment with static tables started yesterday.

general note: the increase should be 0’10” between each hold and that there should be 8 breath holds. I chose to use the first sessions to find my current max and where my training level should be.

I started with nadi shodan pranayama, Alternate Nostril Breath (16:64:32:32 ) , with emphasis on the exhale being longer than inhale. I did this for roughly 10 minutes and then I started the O2 table, increasing hold and fixed recovery time. Slightly longer recovery time were used :

hold: 2’00”
recovery: approximately 3 minutes
hold: 2’10”
recovery: approximately 3 minutes
hold: 2’30”
recovery: approximately 3 minutes
hold: 2’30′

today I did the same nadi shodana 10 minutes warm up.

hold: 2’00”
recovery: approximately 3 minutes
hold: 2’10”
recovery: approximately 3 minutes
hold: 3’00”
recovery: approximately 3 minutes
hold: 3’00′
recovery: approximately 3 minutes
hold: 2’40′
recovery: approximately 3 minutes
hold: 4’00”
recovery: approximately 3 minutes
hold: 3’00”
recovery: approximately 3 minutes
hold: 3’10′

I was happy to reach 4 minutes for the first time this year.

breath-hold and freediving videos

johan flod — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:33:23 +0000

World Record under the ice – Stig Åvall Severinsen

Crashing heart rate from 57 to 33 in less than a minute – Walt Johnson

50m DYN Apnea technique – Elisabeth Kristoffersen

Michael Phelps freestyle multi angle camera

Pranayama Stages described by an authentic Himalayan Yogi

William Trubridge freedives THE ARCH at Blue Hole, Dahab

bare essentials of yoga

johan flod — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:05:55 +0000

You can find yoga sold as a package to suit different activities. Yoga for rowing, yoga for running and yoga for health to name a few.

In my honest opinion I think you would get more out of joining the local yoga club for a beginners class. Just make sure the teacher is the real deal with at least a 200 hour certification.

If you want to be beautiful or successful with yoga I have to burst the bubble and state a few facts. Beauty is mostly genetics and you will not get to the cover of Elle with yoga alone. It can give you a better posture and more deep breathing and this is about it.

Yoga as a tool to become successful in a sport or in a career is a bit tricky. People doing hardcore yoga in India usually give up there belongings and travel around. Are they successful ?

Sure we can train our muscles and get ourself a nice house but everything we do for an egoistical purpose will be washed away when we die. When we truly realise that all we do is to build castles in the sand will hold on to it ?

To develop in life you need friction. This is summarised in the following verses:

When I Asked God for Strength
He Gave Me Difficult Situations to Face

When I Asked God for Brain & Brown
He Gave Me Puzzles in Life to Solve

When I Asked God for Happiness
He Showed Me Some Unhappy People

When I Asked God for Wealth
He Showed Me How to Work Hard

When I Asked God for Favors
He Showed Me Opportunities to Work Hard

When I Asked God for Peace
He Showed Me How to Help Others

God Gave Me Nothing I Wanted
He Gave Me Everything I Needed

Author: Swami Vivekananda

mental visualisation in freediving

johan flod — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:35:15 +0000

I arrived early at the pool. For some reason I decided to lay down and relax on a bench close to the water. I felt this calmness that I feel at home when I meditate and now it was like the whole place was more friendly and open to me. I visualised how I swam slowly and relaxed for the whole length of the pool, close to the bottom. Then I decided to do an apnea walk at the side of the pool to see how far I could walk, that proved to be 75 meters. We did the usual warm up in the pool and I was a bit surprised when the coach told us to do a 8 x 50 dynamic apnea since the longest we have dived so far is 25 meters. I get a reaction of panic very shortly into my dive and I have no clue on how to manage the whole length. Then this sensation fades away and I do 20 more meters without problems and then I want to see how much more I have to go. As soon as I see the finishing line, far away in the distant, I get depressed. I decides to hang in there until I get some signs of the breathing reflex. All of a sudden I am at the end of the basin and I am happy that I made it. Then it struck me that this is just 1 out of 8. With some struggle I made 7 more and I am quite surprised that it was possible !

I think it helped a little bit that I visualised the dive beforehand. I think it also helped that I watched quite a few videos on youtube with freediving. I got a tip, increasing the amplitude of my dolphin kick, and as soon as I followed that I got a better flow.