Author Archive for RegulaFrey

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What’s new at Regula’s Joy of Movement studio for fall 2008

Published on July 20, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Regula’s Joy of Movement has new classes for fall 2008, Pilates Mat, Feldekrais Awareness Through Movement and Gentle/Medical Yoga. These new classes all emphasize alignment and core strength.

Pilates Mat: Joseph Pilates said that mat class is the essence of his work. In the mat classes, you learn about neutral spine, and what that is, how to move from it, through the whole hour. From there, you learn flexion & extension, flexion & extension with rolling movements that incorporate inversions. Spinal misalignments become very clear to you, fast. Props (magic circle, ball) will be added to aide in moving through these misalignments. Pilates mat is a dynamic, fun, challenging and gentle workout that helps lengthen the spine and limbs. In Pilates mat, we learn conscious breath, and to move with conscious breath for the whole hour, and to take it home into whatever we do. My teacher Romana, a pupil of Joseph Pilates, used to emphatically say, “It’s a dance!”

Awareness Through Movement (ATM): These classes are specific for a certain area in the body, such as neck, shoulders, arms, hips, lower back, feet, ankles, etc. ATM emphasizes the skeleton and it’s connections. It makes you become aware how muscle is attached to bone and how when bones are out of allignment, the muscles become cranky. With movements that are familiar to your body because we were all babies, having to learn how to crawl and walk and run, ATM is an exploration of how to come back to this wonder of freedom, of how to lift the head, how to be on hands and knees, how to stand up. It’s a journey connecting bones, through motion, where they need to be for you to feel well. One discovers very quickly that the human body thrives on circular movements, and lives well once those circles are round. In the fall session, the first 8 weeks, we look at the function of hips and lower back. After that, the focus will be feet and ankles. Please bring a notebook and something to write with. Wonderful for sciatica sufferers and those recovering from disc injury, it is very gentle.

Gentle/Medical Yoga: This is a good class for people that suffer from MS or other disabilities (not yet wheelchair accessible – looking for accessibility consulant to help us change this). With the help of chairs, blankets, belts, and above all, the wall, we find support to do things that we think are not attainable. It is a very restorative class. With breath and opening the lungs and heart, or making the legs move up a wall, the nervous system can deeply relax. Eyebags will be used to relax the eyes and therefore the brain.

MS and brain roto rooter

Published on June 18, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Hello everyone,

Some time has past since I last wrote to you. I kind of scared some of you, but some of you really connected from your own life story with me, and that was beautiful.

As some of you know, this past Monday I had a brain intervention. This was done in a acupuncture clinic and the method of the intervention was assigned by Dr. Sun Beck, a physician who grew up in Tibetan monastery where he learned aoubt acupuncture, herbology and chi gong. It was him that designed this brain treatment for MS. It was done then by a master teacher in Evanston who is a friend of mine, and has been helping me for the last 15 years, John Neighbors.

The treatment started at 9am and was supposed to last 5 hours. In the treatment plan, 1500 pyramid-shaped piles of herbs (moxa) were burned on 5 points of my skull, relating to the elements. We started with metal, burned 300 there. I was able to use my yoga breathing to make it through those 300, and had incredible experiences of energy/heat being pushed through the folds of my brain (I call them worms). I experienced the opening of those folds and it was quite colorful.

As we then moved on to the other 4 points, since the first one took 5 hours, John Neighbors lit all 4 points at the same time. There was no chance I could follow the experience through my brain, because it was sooooo painful. When I “hissed like cobra” John made smaller pyramids, and I had a relief for 3 or 4 rounds. Sometimes I thought I wouldn’t make it, because it was just too painful.

I had gone through days before the treatment of knowing I wanted and needed to do this, linked to fear. I didn’t know how I would make it through 5 hours of sitting, if I had to pee! Yes, I did end up buying Depends for that day. But the sphincter muscles, during the treatment, actually contracted, so I didn’t need to depend on Depends.

The last 80 rounds of burning, I asked my partner Ted (who was there throughout), not to count up anymore, please, so he started to count down from 80. What a relief! And during those 80, my first thought was, I shall reach 80 years old in this life. I had always thought I’d die before that since my parents both passed on younger. And every number thereafter was a revalation of where I would be at that age in time. When I came to 47, my present age, I felt like I was reborn, and could count down from then on, letting go of all that had happened in my life, from bad relationships, to my own anger and resentments and jealousies, that I have housed in my brain. When I came to 19, when MS started for me, I felt I could let go of a bad dream. From then on, all I was thinking about was that I would be coming back to teh state of a brain of a baby, untainted. And that I would never, ever, let anyone walk on my brain again, abuse me, control me.

I was so tired when the treatment ended at 7pm that I fell right into bed, fell to sleep, but when I woke up I felt a lot of energy. My walking, my gait had normalized 100%. Many things felt better. The day after, I was teaching one class, and fell into deep sleep thereafter. So the recovery is now also one of a baby having learning to walk and then being dead tired from teh exertion of being alive.

much love and joy,
Regula

PS from Ted: The bathroom is down a long hallway from the acupuncture studio in this particular office, and the first break we took, Regula needed my help quite a bit, to even make the trip. Throughout the day, however, every time we made that walk, Regula needed my help less and less. By the end, before than last 80, I could hardly keep up with her, walking down that hallway. I’ve never experienced her walking quite so quickly before. Today we walked to lunch, to a place we often walk to. And again, sometimes it was hard to keep up with her.

Yes, in many ways, I experienced this burning of herbs on her head as quite surreal. “What the fuck is this?” I thought. And yet, the results speak for themselves.

MS and chemo

Published on May 3, 2008 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

As many of you know, I have been having MS for 28 years. It’s only now that I’m in a place of acceptance and talking about it and know deeply in my heart that I will find a way, but it’s not on my own. I have made due with herbs, accupuncture and functional integration. Though it seems still to work, I know that it’s only band-aids, and not the deep internal work and process that I need to do.

One day ago, I met my acupuncturist and it was the first time that he suggested, for my last exacerbation, chemotherapy. I had heard about it before, from my doctor from Evanston Hospital, but I always thought there was no way I was ever going to do aything like that. Because the acupuncturist is a friend of mine, and has helped me a lot, I could not only listen, I could filter it from my head into my heart, and I am certain if Dr. Sung Beck (MD and acupuncturist, and my acupuncture’s teacher) from Seattle supervises the treatment, I need to do it.

I foresee a letting go, and a welcoming of something new. Perhaps you have yourself, or family or friends, who went through things like this in their life, or are going through things like this. I appreciate any communication.

I feel so lucky that I’m not alone. For the first time in my life, I have somebody with me (Ted) whom you perhaps know, who is there for me, helps me a lot, and is involved in all that is happening. I have other friends who I am not shy to talk to, to communicate, which is quite new for me.

Love,
Regula