The Jennifer Kries Blog

Some new “tools” for strength-training and rehabilitation!

Today, I wanted to share some inspiring programs that can help to make your body feel “new” again–wonderful “private” instructional classes on DVD and audio that you can participate in any time the spirit moves you, so that you can cultivate greater mind-body awareness and reach new heights in your Pilates practice!

I am especially excited to announce the release of New Body Pilates III, and the upcoming release of New Body Pilates Toys (Fall, 2010)!

The long-awaited, New Body Pilates III, is now available on my website, and is the most advanced installment of the New Body Pilates Series and features my dear friend and Senior teacher, Kim Reis, Pilates devotee extraordinaire!

For all of you advanced students and teachers out there who want to experience an inspiring advanced session, I wouldn’t miss it.

*Includes the “Bonus Feature,” The PhysioBall workout; learn new techniques for increasing your overall core strength and balance, as well as bringing your mind-body awareness to a whole new level! The Physioball workout, though it does appear in this Advanced DVD, is suitable for All levels, so if you find yourself working out at home and you have a friend visiting who is new to Pilates, you can invite him or her to join you for this section- fun!

Read the rest of this entry »

Wanted to share my morning meditation today that followed my Yin practice:
We are all energy beings–we vibrate with our thoughts; Whatever we think about becomes our reality. When you are in the vibration of hope, you align with the energy of manifestation. How do you create abundance? Imagine how much fun it would be to have it, rather than thinking about what you do not have. Feel appreciation for the tools you possess, your natural gifts … How do you get where you want to be? Look in the direction of where you want to go and never look back over your shoulder with regret. Love yourself for your humanity, if you feel frustration or sadness because of the past, allow yourself to feel the feelings, and cry — move the feelings out, and if you do look back over your shoulder, look back in gratitude, for the past is what brought you to this moment of awakening. This moment where you can decide that anything is possible.

This past week I was at Canyon Ranch in the Berkshires. What a beautiful, gentle place, there in those motherly mountains of Massachusetts … I went for a walk yesterday on the grounds and found myself at a crossroads in front of a babbling brook. I was suddenly overcome with emotion, and the only way I can describe the feeling is by describing what happened in my stomach … I felt it rise and expand in an instant– it swelled with a kind of mini-explosion of joy that flooded my entire system, and then washed over me the way the water in the stream below me was washing over the river rocks. I was immersed in a sensory bath– the sun on my skin, and sparkling through the trees, dappling the forest floor, the pungent smell of winter becoming spring mud, coming alive again, birthing … the gorgeous, calming sound of the brook, playing its way down over the rocks into a larger source, its destiny someplace far away and of course, the breeze blowing through my hair and cooling the tears on my cheeks that were streaming down into my mouth– and then the taste of those salty tears. All such a cycle, all so connected, no separation between my tears and the water flowing through that brook. No separation between my skin and the air around me, the sun on my body, the rich smell of the earth I was standing on.

And my thoughts now go back to what happened inside me when I came to that place — that clearing where I was overwhelmed by the simple, powerful, healing beauty I was a part of … what flipped over in my stomach– what the ancients called “True Mind.”
Never mind what we know as “the mind.” I am smiling as I write this … your true, thinking self is your feeling self, your intuitive self and it resides in your stomach, in your very center.

I attended a talk on “Clearing Energy Blocks,” given by a Doctor of Chinese Medicine, and most of what he discussed was how much of our body systems are controlled by the stomach, or our “second brain.” Whatever we think and feel, manifests in our bodies, and very often, more specifically in our stomachs, of course showing up as digestive disorders of all manner and variety– so many of which would be easily healed alternatively– with mind-body practices, such as yoga, Pilates and my favorites: Yin yoga and Waking Energy.  What most of us don’t realize is that we are our thoughts and our feelings. We ARE physical manifestation of the energy of what we focus on, and very simply, when something hurts us in our bodies, when something causes us DIS-ease, it is our body’s way of communicating that it needs attention. And usually, the antidote to the pain or disease is so very, very simple and obvious: movement!

Read the rest of this entry »

Today is the Spring Equinox, the very special time during the year when day is literally equal to night and things are in an almost perfect balance. It is also the day to send out into the universe what you wish to birth. It is the day of new beginnings …

When I look at this awe-inspiring image of the stallion charging down the beach, my spirit soars and all I can think about are new beginnings, movement forward, and manifestation–through energy and intention and motion, what I want to see take flight in my life— what I want to charge ahead with and make into a reality.

And because today presents us with such a unique opening, this equal day and equal night, what comes to mind next is balance— the balance we all seek in our lives– that perfect combination of yin and yang we observe in nature –the very same we strive to create within our own selves.

I love this image of the sun and the moon and the energy that flows between them, the rays that are clearly reaching toward one another, and the harmony of that balance. I also love the fact that the moon, a yin energy is curling inward towards the sun, and appears to be receiving the rays that the sun is emitting … and in contrast, the sun faces away from the moon and projects outwardly, demonstrating yang energy, with its face open to the space around it. Yang and yin; sun and moon. Male and female. Day and night. Open and closed. Light and Dark. Opposites. And together, they create balance. Without one, the other could not exist. Read the rest of this entry »