lifestyles
Relax . . . lose your worries and untie those knots with ancient healing arts.
By Casey Barnes Kansan staff writer
Acupressure Meridians
Stress. It is not prejudice and takes many prisoners, attacking in the form of backaches, headaches and fatigue.
Noah Musser/Kansan
Carman said being in the hut was not really relaxing because your body was so hot.
"When you come out, you pour cold water on your body, which feels really cold, but your body heats back up, and it is really relaxing." Carman said.
Yoga
Yoga is a multidisciplinary lifestyle that unites the body, mind and spirit, said Paula Duke, instructor of a yoga class sponsored by the KU yoga club.
"The combination of deep breathing and relaxation releases stress," Duke said. "When you do yoga, you focus on the posture and relaxation, which takes the mind off whatever it was spinning on."
While there are many denominations of yoga, the KU club practices physical "asanas," or postures, which is the basic beginning form of yoga. Duke said
Michele Risdal, Springfield senior and president of the KU yoga club, said there were certain poses in yoga that relieved stress around the neck, shoulders and upper back
"My body can get so tight and rigid from school," Risdal said. "Yoga is a good way to loosen up because it involves so much stretching."
Risalid said yoga participants stretched to the point right before pain was felt.
The result is a more limber body and a clearer mind. "I like the fact that yoga helps you become aware of your body and attuned to the rhythms of it," Risdal said.
Massage therapy and Acupressure
The KU yoga club meets from 7 to 8:30 p.m. every Monday in the Daisy Hill room of the Bure Union.
Good hands could be the key to stress relief. Massage and acupressure treatments are part of an Oriental philosophy that is more than 5,000 years old.
Acupressure is oriental acupuncture without the use of needles. Curtis Maendele, independent masseur, said that by pressing appropriate pressure points with finger tips or knuckles, energy blocks were released and various ailments can be cured.
Massages are a kneading or rubbing of the body to relax muscles and aid circulation.
Maendele said he gave acupressure treatments and massages to people for a variety of reasons.
He has given massages to people before they go to chiropractor appointments so their muscles relax and bones can be adjusted easier. He also has massaged women to help them start menstruating.
"Women don't start because they are freaked out about something, then they don't start because they are freaked out about not starting." Maendele said. "When they get a massage, it gets the energy moving and flowing properly, and they usually start the next day."
Maendele, who has been masseur about 15 years, said that massages helped stress because they made you healthy in general.
"When you are stressed out, toxins are created in your system, and you can feel them in the form of knots," Maendle said. "The knots can be massaged out, and the toxins released into the bloodstream."
He said he suggested a person drink water after a massage to flush the toxins out of the blood stream. Gretchen Van Hoet, Shawnee senior, had a massage after this year's sorority rush. As president of Pi Beta Phi, she wanted something to help her relax.
"I was in a dark room with soft music, getting a massage, and I didn't have to think about any outside forces," Van Hoet said. "It was like nothing I ever experienced before. I was totally relaxed for at least a few hours."
Native American Art
Sixth Annual Lawrence Indian Arts Show has paintings, jewelry and pottery at local museums
By Umut Bayramoglu Kansan correspondent
The men gathered the clay and painted the designs. The women shaped the pots.
The art of pottery, which tied the Native American family together, was passed down from generation to generation. Now, this art is on display at the Spencer Museum of Art and the University of Kansas Museum of Anthropology as part of the Sixth Annual Lawrence Indian Arts Show.
When the Lawrence Indian Arts Show began the artists were mostly local, said Maria Martin, museum secretary and coordinator of the arts show. Now the art show features 100 artists from around the nation.
The Southwestern Pueblo Indian Pottery exhibit at the art museum has examples from most of the Pueblo styles, which include Acoma, Cochiti, Hopi, San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, Santo Domingo and Zia. The exhibit opened Saturday and will end Oct. 23.
"The pots are beautifully designed and wonderful to touch," said Andrea Norris, director of the art museum. "This is an exhibition that is exciting personally for me because the more I looked at them, the more I wanted them."
There are 40 pots in the exhibit that are works of contemporary and traditional artists.
The anthropology museum has an exhibit of contemporary Native-American jewelry, pottery and paintings from artists throughout the United States. The techniques used for the pottery and paintings are traditional, Martin said, but the look of the artwork is contemporary.
"Some pots are so old that we don't know who made them." Norris said.
Norris said one of the purposes of the exhibition at the art museum was to demonstrate the different kinds of ceramics of Pueblo Indians Pueblo Indians, who traditionally lived in villages in the Southwest. Each pueblo, or village, had its own set of traditional pottery shapes, finishes and designs. The colors were usually black and white.
Paul KOZ/KANSAK
Jim Jackson's "Power of the Shield"
Norris said the tradition of pottery making was revived at the end of the 19th century by women potters.
Barbara Gonzales and her great-grandmother Maria Martinez are originally from the pueblo of San Ildefonso and are part of one of the best known families in pueblo pottery making. Norris said. They both have pottery on display at the art museum.
"Maria Martinez, who had learned making pottery from her aunt and went on making pottery with her husband Julian, said that it was the woman's part to make things whole," Norris said.
The exhibition also displays works by Maria Martinez' son and grandson, Popovi and Anthony Da.
Not every family in a pueblo made pottery. Each town had certain families that made the pottery for everyone.
Norris said the Lawrence Indian Arts Show was begun at the anthropology museum. The art museum asked to join with a Navajo exhibit three years ago.
"Last year we had the baskets, and this year we are having pottery," she said.
The Sixth Annual Indian Arts Show
Barbara Gonzalez also will teach a workshop from Sept. 19 to 23 at the KU Museum of Anthropology. Participants need a reservation and must pay a fee.
Museum of Anthropology
Exhibit: A Juried Competition.
Museum hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Monday to Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m.
Sunday. Dates: Sept. 10 to Oct.
23. Admission: Adults $3, Students $1.
Spencer Museum of Art
Spencer Museum of Art
Exhibit: Southwestern Pueblo Indian Pottery. Museum hours:
8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday,
Wednesday, Friday and Saturday,
8:30 to 9 p.m. Thursday, noon to
9 p.m. Sundays. Free.
Museum of Anthropology
Lawrence Art Center
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Exhibit: Recent works by Osage Indian Artist Chris Musgrave.
Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday,
Dates: Sept. 9 to Oct. 5, Free.
For more information, call Maria Martin at 864-4245.
News of the Weird
In June in Baton Rouge, La., the body of 25-year-old man caught fire in his closed coffin minutes after his funeral ended, causing smoke to come shooting out of the cracks. Investigators said embalming fluids spontaneously combusted.
KULife
COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE TRUE
In May in Kissimmee, Fl., William Nelson was shot twice at point-blank range by a man with a .38-caliber snub-nose revolver. One shot went through his shoulder and exited his back. The other bullet hit Nelson "square in the forehead and just stopped," said police officer Jim Lakey. Lakey said Nelson's only major problem only was that his ears were ringing.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission's May report on sports injuries said 1,455 people were sent to emergency rooms in 1992 with injuries from playing Ping-Pong.
In March, a Haitian woman, who had just landed illegally in St. Croix, the Virgin Islands, was arrested when she hailed what she thought was a taxicab but which turned out to be an official INS car.
PEOPLE IN THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME
In a story on Elvis Week '94 in August in Memphis, The Commercial Appeal newspaper reported its selections as the two most bizarre pieces of Elvis memorabilia, both of which belong to Joni Mabe of Athens, Ga. One is a toenail she claims was Elvis', picked out of a carpet in the Jungle Room during her 1983 visit to Graceland. The other is a wart that was removed from Elvis' right wrist in 1957. She said she purchased the wart, encased in formaldehyde, from the operating surgeon's estate in 1990.
In January and February, inmates escaping from prisons in Lancaster, Calif., and Immokalee, Fla., by hiding in garbage trucks failed to get out of the trucks before they were compacted into bales of trash. The California man survived, but the Florida man, who was serving a life sentence for kidnapping, was found dead and badly mangled in a landfill.
William Powell, 35, was convicted of assault in June in Detroit after a court found that he intentionally pulled his pregnant, 33-year-old girlfriend part way through the window of his van as he sped through the neighborhood, rammed her body against a telephone pole and kicked her after he stopped the van. The woman, who lost the baby as well as an arm and leg in the incident, testified in support of Powell, saying that the incident was her fault.
LEAST COMPETENT CRIMINAL
Danny Kelley, 17, was charged again in August for burglarizing a home near San Antonio, Texas. Last year, the 400-pound Kelley was arrested for another home burglary, during which he had also raided the refrigerator, after police traced a trail of discarded ice cream wrappers from that house to Kelley's in the same neighborhood.
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