Jason Alan Griffin :: The Blog

There’s an adage that goes something like, “If you visit a doctor, you’ll get medicine. Go see a nutritionist and you’ll learn that all of your problems are caused by your diet. If you visit a chiropractor, you’ll find the problem is your skeleton.  Visiting a massage therapist, you’ll be told it’s a muscular problem. A neurologist will find a nerve issue.  A Reiki master will tell you it’s all about your energy. Go see a psychiatrist and it will become clear that it’s all in your mind.” Basically, you can’t really trust anyone who’s set up to make money.  Once someone is getting paid for their information, they immediately become biased. I’m not saying they can’t be trusted at all, but I’m advising you keep in mind that if someone is making a livelihood from giving you specific information, then they’re going to be highly motivated to believe and dispense said information; no matter what. Paula Deen is an example of this.  When she was told she had Type 2 diabet...

My mentor, Jill Miller, taught me to address "those poses we hate." Everyone has a certain yoga pose that they resist doing because it's just plain hard and seems impossibly insurmountable. So what we need to do is go after that pose. Doing all of the poses that we're already good at isn't going to provide us with as much benefit as it would to overcome whatever challenges are held in the mastery of that baneful pose. So my Battlestar Gallactica is ARDHA CHANDRASANA, the half-moon pose. I can get close to the pose if I turn my head to face the ground, but if I want to follow Iyengar, I should be looking upwards, and that's when I lose it. I tumble, usually backwards. Working the Yoga Tune Up® way, I first did some preparatory exercises and other poses to open me up and stretch me out in all the right places. But what really made my Half Moon shine was putting my heel on the fence. I could then adjust my body in a closed chain instead of flailing around mid-...

In November 2008, I had just gotten fired up by yoga. I was determined to study and practice yoga in depth. In January 2009 I had some photos taken of myself demonstrating the sixteen yoga poses that I was going to be working with, so that I could chart my progress for the year. Well, about two weeks after that photo shoot, I injured my shoulder. And suddenly my life became about something else. Dealing with pain, Loss of function. Starting over. I went from doing over 200 pushups, to not being able to do a single pushup. I could barely put on a shirt. In March I started to feel a bit better and wanted to be buff for a show I was doing, so I started to lift weights again. I was pushing them around as best I could do. And I was smart to start light and build incrementally and slowly. And I warmed up well and stretched afterwards. But the pain came back. I also noticed I was building my body incorrectly. I was building asymmetry and imbalance by using compensatory movements to ma...

JAG Energy Flow builds holistic fitness. Using basic, body weight movements to build strength, flexibility, coordination and agility. JAG Energy Flow burns fat and tones muscles. You feel stronger, and more at peace because you don't have to do any jarring, repetitive, boring movement for your cardio. There are four segments to an Energy Flow Class 1) The class begins warming and preparing your body by moving through the Five Stages of Human Development. Embryonic, Creeping, Crawling, Standing and Walking. This practice alone is one of the best exercises you can do for yourself. By moving your body through these five stages, it basically realigns your body every time you do it. If you learn this practice from this class and do it every day on your own, you will be amazed at the way your body responds. You will notice a freedom and an ease in your movements. 2) Then Energy Flow moves into HIIT. High Intensity Interval Training means that you take your heart rate up high for short pe...