Scott Anderson, Ph.D.

This morning's Movement Lab garnered lots of positive feedback, and I'm happy to share the sequence that we explored. For those of you who are not familiar with Movement Lab, it's a class that's based on my expanding knowledge of the body, the Movement Lab does not involve cats, though I didn't want to post two consecutive blog entries without a photo. mind and their intersection. Movement Lab integrates what I consider the best-of mindful approaches to Pilates, Western fitness and Yoga. I hope that you can join me on a Tuesday morning for Movement Lab this Summer. The class is getting bigger almost every week, and it's been fun to watch people apply their Yogic fundamentals to a wider repertoire of movements. Movement Lab 05/30/17 Pilates Mat Knee Folds Leg Circles Roll Down Rolling Like a Boat 100-prep Fointing Lunges Squats Push-Ups Foam Roller Stabilization Lift legs Lift arms Contralateral Ring (ar...

As many of you know, my home base is the Village of Blue Mounds, Wisconsin. For those of you that have not made the trip to Blue Mounds, the village meets the criteria of blink-you-missed-it. Blue Mounds is very small, though as small communities frequently assert, it has a big heart. I've been headquartered in Blue Mounds for almost 25-years, now, and have found the land and its people a steadying and supportive environment. One of my neighbors is Oscar. I don't know many details about Oscar's life, though I do know that he's a hard worker, a retired mason and a WWII veteran. I also know that we share the same birthday (November 1st) Oscar's birthday is exactly 40-years prior to mine, which means that he's pretty old. I haven't seen much of Oscar over the past few months, though I'd heard through the neighborhood grapevine that he'd taken ill. Yesterday morning as I was heading out for a run, I caught sight of Oscar lugging his trash cans back ...

Simple foods = the best foods for me. Steel cut oats, fruit, ground flax seeds, salt and cinnamon. Plant Power! Today feels like the first day of Summer break, and I'm alternately excited and apprehensive to behold the relatively unstructured days that are ahead. This past academic year, the days were carefully assembled to reduce interstitial-time inefficiencies, and I'm pleased to report that I largely kept up with schoolwork, maintained my commitment to practicing the Dharma, and stayed pretty physically fit. Whew! Now a new relationship to time is unfolding in front of me, and I'm eager to feel this new time-relationship in my body/mind This morning felt like the first day of the new chapter, and it sure has gotten off to a great start. After a cup of quasi-Bulletproof coffee (espresso, chia seeds and coconut oil), I donned my FiveFingers for a run in the UW Arboretum . Today's training agenda was LSD (long, slow distance), though the first step was to set a ...

Blue Mound State Park (BMSP) is an ideal setting for Running Yoga This morning I went out for a relatively low-intensity run in Training Zones 1-2 (50-70% of my 187 beats-per-minute maximum heart rate). After a few minutes of cruising along at this pace, I noticed my senses sharpening; the wind in the trees became more audible, the trail beneath my feet provided sensory feedback, and the in/out movement of breathing woke up my ribcage. For the next 50-minutes, I enjoyed a Running Yoga practice in the forest that's near the Blue Mounds Dharma Center. The physical body can be a direct portal to experience the mind's true nature. Over the past few years, I've been exploring how running may offer the opportunity to pull back the curtain to reveal the state of Yoga. In my experimenting, I've found that running at different intensities influences the mind in specific ways. For example, when I'm approaching aerobic threshold (when heart-rate is ~50% of maximum), ...

This past academic year was highly satisfying. I learned more about the nervous system than I could have imagined, and felt like I grew in so many ways. While I have a few woulda/coulda/shoulda sentiments about this past year, I'm resting in the aftermath of this academic year with an overall feeling of quiet contentment. That is not to say that this past academic year passed without incident. There were certainly periods that were trying, and some stretches that were downright stressful. The arc of growth seems inevitably to include a bit of messiness, and the Fall of 2016 was no exception. Sleep-time and study-time were often in direct conflict (sleep usually lost), and there were periods where my academic performances were a bit, ahem, suboptimal. In the interest if full-disclosure and truth in advertising, this blog posting describes one of my favorite lowlights of this past academic year. Part of the challenge of this past academic year, the Fall semester in particular, w...

I've recently completed my Spring semester at the University of Wisconsin, and am excited to share more of the neuroscience that I have learned. Within the next few days, I will begin a series (a bombardment?) of blog postings relating neurophysiology, yoga, exercise and meditation. In the meantime, last night's class seemed to be well-received by many participants. For those that are interested in practicing at home, here is the sequence that we worked with: Yoga Sequence 5/10/17 Class Inhale – arms up, exhale – arms down Exhale – arms up, inhale – arms down Sumo series ¼ Sun Salutations x3 Warrior II ½ Sun Salutations x3 Psoas Walk ¾ Sun Salutations x3 Side Angle Full Sun Salutations x3 “High” Lunge Projected Lunge (Bend/Straighten) Prone Mountain Locust x2 Reclining Leg Stretches (I & II) Deep Breathing Alternate Nostril Breathing Dhyana (objectless meditation) ...