Рождение Звезды
Рождение Звезды => English version => Тема начата: Taya от 08 Мая 2014, 00:05:08
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We started to select and translate the most impressive passages from the diaries from our gymnastics forum - so that English-speaking girls could also learn about the effect that Zvezda exercises have on a woman’s body.
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This website dedicated to Gymnastics appeared relatively recently, about a year ago. There is also a forum. It is a space where women are writing about their work on themselves and their lives, where they pull themselves out of complex circumstances and then carry on writing. You would not find random people there – the forum is for those who do Gymnastics. The initial set up defines the forum’s spirit and the common mindset. There are few discussion threads or to be precise there are a lot of them but they are not dynamic.
There is a section called “Diaries”. It is my personal joy and pride. There is an amazing amount of life stories, changes and discoveries. Every woman is writing about her own, then others comment on it or just read. Diaries are live. When you are reading those diaries you live through them with their authors and truly feel when and what exactly gets transformed.
Surely there are those who don’t stick to the forum for long but those who have been writing for some time can outdo the most popular novelists. By the way novelists could pick up a lot of story lines there. Though if you don’t like shoddy fiction and are after the original do come to the forum – you won’t regret it.
The last but not the least thing to say is that our forum is very therapeutic. Letting a large audience see the whole, very intimate truth of one’s life is healing. Others read the story, think about it, get aggressive or sympathetic, express their emotions and all of those things all together are called “group energy”. That is how the author of a diary after writing another story gets the group energy which heals. At the same time the auditory of the forum is good minded, sympathetic and on the same wavelength. I would also describe it as “safe” though safety is very subjective.
Extract from “Gymnastics Forum – Space for Self Therapy” by Maria Guseva
http://charaunitsa.livejournal.com/667192.html
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An extraction from Elenka’s diary
Recently I started to have a better connection with my body. I adjusted my basic stances and now I stay in them for approximately 5 minutes each time relaxing my body as much as possible. I feel that my buttocks and lower back muscles are taut. On the right hand side sciatic nerve is cramped and I can feel the whole length of it. Nowadays the word “painful” has a new meaning to me. Some time ago I wouldn’t have paid attention to the disturbing feeling and certainly wouldn’t have called it “pain”. I used to think that pain was a feeling when I could not bend or unbend, when it stabbed so badly that I jumped up because of it. Now when the body is healing I want to feel it getting healthier. My back is improving through doing Gymnastics.
I was lucky enough to visit a skillful chiropractor. He helped me a lot. When he was working with me I was surprised to feel my suppressed emotions hidden in my lower back coming out. After the first visit when I was standing at the reception desk waiting to pay I was asked how I felt and all I wanted was them to take the money because I was just about to burst into tears. The last thing I wanted was queries about what had happened.
I used to be very sarcastic and had an answer for everything. Since I started doing Gymnastics I do not respond straight away and struggle to find the right words. Now if somebody hurts me I just say that I am hurt and I can start crying in my husband’s presence. Before I could not cry in front of other people, the initial reaction was to go to my shell, hide or run away. I was embarrassed to show my weakness and was ashamed to cry in public. The following day after I did not let myself cry after a visit to the chiropractor I fell ill with a sore throat and blocked nose.
Speaking about the chiropractor, I was impressed by the way he was moving about. I had never met such a solid person before. The first time I saw him was when I brought my son to him. When he, a tall man with a belly, entered the room I thought “Well, blimp, let’s see how you squat” (all doctors squat in front of their kids patients). He threw a glance at me and gracefully squatted in front of my son. That moment turned my world upside down. I have always thought that plump people (I thought he was plump) were inactive and clumsy. The doctor was solid, I don’t know another word to describe him. He moved with perfect coordination. I, on the contrary, occasionally felt as if I borrowed my body from someone else, as if was not mine. My arms and legs felt as if they were not connected. It felt that all my life was in my head. Today I noticed that I have not stumbled for a long time though some time ago I would stumble or trip over a lot.
I started meeting interesting people. Since I started doing Gymnastics I visited a girl who ebbs wax. After that a few unsolved long term issues got resolved. I met the wonderful chiropractor who healed not only my back but also self esteem. He kept calling me “girl”. I was trying to explain to him that I was a mature woman but he just laughed back at me saying that I was still a girl. A few phrases of his made me revaluate and comprehend a lot of things. He said: “I can see that you are with a good touch with yourself”. That perplexed me. I have always thought that I am wooden. I was afraid of feelings. It was painful to feel, to fall in love, to trust people. I used to feel my body only when it was in pain and took it for granted.
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A new diary. Tatiana’s writing:
I realised that I should write a diary or at least try to.
Gymnastics came to my life at the time when my soul was longing for changes. I came across Maria’s page in LiveJournal and started exercising. I started on the 7th of February. I did not really believe in changes at the time because some time before I had tried yoga and it did not become a part of my life. The only thing that I can remember is that I permanently felt cold then. I did not find any form of fitness that I could stick to.
Gymnastics surprised me. It was and still is physically difficult to do exercises but in spite of it I have never felt lazy to do the exercises. On the contrary my body wanted to do them. I never had draw backs, resistance or anything of the kind.
Here are some of the things that happened to me since I discovered Gymnastics:
- During the first two weeks I had a mix of emotions. One emotion came after another and I could not control them.
- This emotional state was followed by a period of emptiness where I did not have any emotions at all. Whatever happened I did not have any reaction.
- Then my emotions returned but they were positive. To be more precise I do not believe any more that there can be any hopeless situations. I feel that everything is going to be fine, just the way I need it to be against all odds. Negative scenarios – products of my imagination do not get energy supply of my emotions and at some point disappear. It got difficult to think about other people’s behavior in different situations because I started concentrating on myself. Briefly I could describe it as “Watch what you are doing and everything is going to be good. Other people will get what they deserve”. This is my current approach to life and I like it. I like not to be scared.
- My body is definitely happy. My back is straightening though there is still much work to do especially on my shoulders. Some time ago I had some eruption on my face but now it is gone. I also stopped using make up foundation because I don’t feel comfortable. I like the look of my skin without any make up. I had a time of meteosensitivity aggravation. When the weather changed I used to have nagging pain in my calves, sometimes they were cramped. I had a few sleepless nights because of it but now it is over. My periods did not used to be painful and I never used painkillers anyway but now I do not have any symptoms at all. I have neither a sore back nor tummy and I don’t feel weak during a period.
- It got easier to communicate with people and nice things started to happen in my life. When I really want to go somewhere or do something things come naturally without any efforts from my side. I like it.
That is what things are like at the moment. I feel that great things are waiting for me.
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NataliaB is writing:
Today Demyan the osteopath said that I had light scoliosis, just a tiny touch and my major problem was in other parts of my body.
Later on I went to see my neighbor who is a massage therapist. I did that not because I did not believe Demyan, I just struggled to believe in such a wonder. My neighbor said that I had a slight problem in thoracic spine but only a professional could notice it.
I am shocked! 2-3 degree of anterior curvature and 30 years of slouching disappeared! I did not leave any photos showing how bad my back used to be. It is a shame as I could have posted photos before and after for comparison. After three and a half years of gymnastics professionals say that there is no scoliosis as such. I can feel now that I can straighten my back when for years I could not do that at all. I have not taken it in yet and writing in euphoria.
While I was looking for the X ray I came across another interesting thing. Look at the pictures. On the left hand side photo it is my foot half a year before Gymnastics. You can see my overgrown toe joints.
On the right hand side there is the same foot after three and a half years of doing Gymnastics. The toe joints have significantly reduced.
I frequently hear comments like “The toe joints can only be reduced by a surgeon!”. I agree and add that Zvezda exercises are also effective.
Before I started doing Gymnastics I could not wear high heels for a long time. I would limp for a week after wearing high heels for one evening. It changed now. I recently wore high heels every day during a week and all I felt was only tiredness.
(http://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/5306/13553512.0/0_e8f63_b31dfd66_XXXL)
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Maruchella's writing:
My relationship with Gymnastics is like in that anecdote:
- What can you say about yourself?
- Been through different things.
I can say the same about me and gymnastics – been through different things. The only thing that I have not done is have a break longer than two days.
During the first year I was doing all 27 exercises every day. The advice that the optimal number is 7-9 exercises a time went over my head and even after Maria’s class in Gymnastics I carried on the way I thought was right for me. Only after a year of doing the whole complex I started to feel that something was wrong.
In the beginning I was very fit. I used to go to 2-3 power trainings in a row and surely Gymnastics did not have the same effect. Even 27 exercises did not feel sufficient. At some point I hit a wall and felt I could not carry on. At the same time Gymnastics proved effective and I did not want to do fewer exercises as I did not want the effect to disappear. I convinced myself to do an individual complex each time and if things got worse then I would get back to doing 27 exercises.
So a year down the line I pulled my first complex out of the pack and that was when the proper Gymnastics started. I was doing the exercises slowly, my movements were smooth and I could feel all the nuances when my body was relaxed. I had felt the energy before but then the feeling was more intense and pure. Now I am not sure what is my starting point of doing Gymnastics. I can divide my life into two periods – BEFORE and AFTER I started doing Gymnastics however the AFTER time also splits into the time when I was doing all 27 exercises and the time when I started pulling out an individual complex.
These days every new complex of exercises is like a new beginning for me and things are permanently moving, changing and reshaping.
I must say that things don’t look good all the time. I went through different things. There was a time when I had pimples all over my body and there seemed to be no remedy for it. Around six months after I started exercising I had the worst and the longest drawback. I fell ill and it seemed that the whole of my body was sore. I had enflamed gums, body temperature went up and down on top of weakness and permanent ache covering all of me. It lasted for ten days. There was also a time when my sweat had a pungent odour. I wash myself regularly however at that time it did not take me long to sweat and I was smelly because of that. I had to bin a few things as they smelt of my sweat even after washing them with conditioners. There were periods of gluttony, flaky nails and falling hair. I was well prepared for it due to multiple stories about drawbacks and I knew that it would be the case and was happy to contemplate. After the time of pimples my skin improved, after my illness the whole body renewed, after the unpleasant body odour I stopped sweating as much and the smell disappeared. Nowadays I struggle to tell if the top has been worn or just out of the laundry.
Now I have smarting eyes (and I believe it is connected with some insights and willingness/unwillingness to see the truth) and it is very uncomfortable. I am confident though that it is a temporary thing and it is high time to work with this aspect as Gymnastics will give the resource for working on the problem and it will disappear in some time.
Since I started doing Gymnastics my large breasts have grown even bigger. My lips enlarged naturally and it is the consequence of relaxing my tummy and vagina. My top lip got fuller. I noticed that if I strain my lower tummy the lower part of my face gets taut.
I have put on some weight but I don’t worry much about it. My body got a different shape and I become different, more relaxed and calm. I am permanently getting more and more relaxed. It is funny that men started giving up their seats for me in public transport though I am not pregnant.
It is a body orientated feedback though Gymnastics helped me to sort a few things in my head as well but I will write about it the next time.
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Musya (Anna) is writing.
When I saw a diary section on the Forum I thought that I would start writing as well after I have done Gymnastics for around half a year. However things started to change rapidly and after a fortnight’s hesitation (I am a reserved person) I started a diary too.
How I started doing Gymnastics.
For all my life I have tried to start exercising as women around were permanently either trying to get a beach body or get into a dress and it was catchy. I failed miserably as I hate vigorous exercises. Gymnastics let me realise it even better. I like smooth movements and I tend to stay in basic positions concentrating on my feelings and thoughts. It is totally different from a fitness club where I am focused on doing exercises simultaneously with the instructor and trying not to hit people around.
I tried doing different exercises like bodyflex and many other similar ones at home and in the gym. I bought a year’s membership to come to the gym around ten times all together and each time was quite an effort. So after two years of doing nothing I became absolutely tight. My shoulders were stiff, my back was absolutely non flexible and I had to start thinking about buying a gym membership again. I loathed those thoughts. I think someone out there heard my thoughts full of despair because one day I visited my friend’s page, opened a list of groups she was registered in and found a group dedicated to Zvezda exercises. I was reading about the exercises during a week and by the weekend I printed cards with exercises and pulled out an individual complex.
I started with repeating each exercise 3 times but in about 2 weeks realized that it was too much and turned it down to doing each exercise only once. Now I have been doing Gymnastics for two months and here are brief results.
- In a couple of days I stretched my neck and something cracked at the base of the scull and it felt like squeezed blood vessels got released. A flow of energy streamed into my head.
- Sometimes I start when falling asleep – it is my muscles relaxing. In a week after I started doing Gymnastics my inner muscles started relaxing too and it felt like shots inside my chest, in the lungs and around my pelvis joint.
- I thought I might develop some aggression and was nervous about it as my temper is far away from being good anyway. Nothing extraordinary happened though. I was anticipating aggression so intensely that missed the moment when it manifested itself at work two weeks later. It was not bad emotions (I was rather calm) but intolerance. I started reacting badly to one of my colleague’s habits, I just did not want to put up with it and kept doing things the way I thought was right. Then I had an insight that it was my own habit and I did things exactly the same way. It was my mirror reflection and my nose was rubbed into it. I understood what it was for and why but I could not accept it. I did not have any major problems at home except a couple of my replies to mum instead of keeping my mouth shut as I would have done before. My replies though were said in a calm and assertive voice without any shouting. It happened because I just could not keep it in. It felt like I cut some channel off.
- My hands are very sore. I can’t put them back in the basic stance of stand- up exercises. After the first exercise it feels a bit better. During the second month I got kneeling and elbows exercises 9 as a part of a new complex and realized how inflexible my shoulder joints are. It is very sore to stretch. I keep doing it though as I feel very good after the exercise.
- At the second month of doing Gymnastics my period started. I have had problems with it since youth. The previous period was in May 2013. So we shall see what is going to happen.
- I don’t feel energetic, I just feel hot when doing Gymnastics and my heart beats faster. Actually I feel a decline of strength. I do Gymnastics before going to bed and then switch off completely. I think that I possibly need it as I exhausted my body with work, late nights and early mornings. Now my body does not let me stay up till late and takes me to bed.
At the moment I am reading diaries and getting to know people. It is very nice to see that there are neither judgements nor moralising and even I started to write. Normally I am restrained about writing as on one of St. Petersburg forum you come to ask how to tune a piano and in a hundred of pages leave reading comments “shame upon a lousy gardener!”
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Shelkovaya is writing in her diary:
Speaking about the Gymnastics:
I heard about it a long time ago. But I just looked, read, observed and passed by. A year ago I heard about it again from one of my acquaintances. I began to study it in greater detail and just started doing it!
I didn’t feel anything specific - no energy, burning or anything else. I just felt my wooden non-bending body (by the way, I had always considered myself quite flexible), and these exercises, that looked so easy and simple, turned to be so difficult for me! In short, I just decided to do the Gymnastics and that’s all. And for the whole year I did it in the following way: two months of the Gymnastics, then a break of 1-1,5 month. So, here are the conclusions that I can draw for this period:
1. For the first 5 months after exercises in the elbows and knees position my vagina always started speaking. It is really so! And it was loud! I mean, either before that it was permanently strained and after deliberate relaxation it released air, or something different happened )))
2. Stresses and strains in the back are worked through from top to bottom. At first I had a pain in the neck, especially, after the elbows and knees position, then the pain in the neck disappeared, but there came a strain at the level of the shoulder blades closer to the central axis, and now it is lower! The posture is also changing, though, there are no miracles. No wonder! I’ve been stooping for so many years!
3. In the first month of doing the Gymnastics I got rid of the pain in the shoulder joint that hurt from time to time, especially, when my children were small and I carried them a lot. However… this pain came back during the Gymnastics, and even became stronger, but then disappeared. By now it hasn’t already hurt for about half a year! The best is yet to come!
4. Enormous aggression towards men got out of me and turned into an ulcer. My nearest get a lot: my husband and sometimes my father and father-in-law.
5. In the background of this constant aggression and unsatisfaction, in 8 months of the Gymnastics (and some sessions of authentic movement) I got dermatitis all over my body with round the clock itching. My inner abscess opened, I felt at peace with myself and even got some relief!
6. The used-up energy release. I clearly got the notion of used-up energy release in 10 months of starting the Gymnastics. I closed my eyes and clearly saw that some thick and viscous liquid like lava moved from top to bottom and out of me. Every day it became thinner and thinner and went faster out of me!
So, these are the things that I can recall now!
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A small but important post about smoking. Marya@ is writing in her Wind of Change Diary:
I quitted smoking thanks to Zvezda Gymnastics in the 4-5th month from starting it. I do 7 exercises by 3 repetitions every day. In the first 2 months I still felt like smoking. Now I don’t smoke at all. And I don’t care if someone is smoking beside me. My smoking period lasted for 12 years and I had lots of attempts to quit that failed. As of today I’ve been doing the Gymnastics for 1,5 year.
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Natalya Konoshevich’s feedback on Zvezda Gymnastics:
The Gymnastics came into my life in the period when again I clearly understood that it was time to change something in my life, when it became obvious that I cannot be good for everybody and I don’t have any energy to be my true self. And there also rose the question – who I am, actually? without any connection to my children, husband, boss, students etc. The first day, or the night to be more exact, when I was kind of “tasting” the Gymnastics, suddenly my husband woke up, though it wasn’t typical for him before. He roamed around for some time and looked puzzled by my behavior.
The next day one of my exes called whom I had neither seen nor communicated for years. He said that he was in town for some business and suggested having a lunch together. At that moment, for the first time I suspected that the Gymnastics really worked.
After that I was doing the exercises in my garden. It was hot, clouded and it looked like it was going to rain. And such weather had already been for several days: heat and rain. Then suddenly a neighbour came out and started watering his potatoes.
Today I’ve already done my 7 exercises twice and agitation started.
I have an obvious problem in the shoulders. Especially in the left one, that hurts when I’m stretching in the elbows and knees position, and besides I cannot join the elbows.
However, I feel that, without any doubt, this practice helps me to discover my backbone the existence of which I’ve doubted a lot.
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Vi-Vi’s post from Zvezda Gymnastics Forum:
ABOUT THE BELLY, FEMALE BEAUTY, STRESSES AND RELAXATION
My body build used to be a skinny teenager with a stooping back that I tried to straighten making a lot of efforts. However, it didn’t last long. I got tired of controlling my back all the time and it started hurting. Also, I had an ideally flat belly. It was permanently sucked in and I could feel my muscles. I mean, by poking it with fingers you could always feel how hard my tummy was. However, I didn’t have a six pack, because I didn’t do any fitness. But that was another reason to be proud of my belly – without any physical exercises, it was hard and beautiful. And I sincerely believed that it was my bonus. However, very often I critically studied myself in the mirror: I straightened my back and my body kind of looked beautiful, a model’s body, and without any sports violence, but something was missing…
What is female beauty? Maybe, it means to be slim, to wear any clothes you want… That was what I thought that time. What else could it be? However, I didn’t have any inner confidence, awareness of my beauty. There are so many slim women around and young girls who are even slimmer, with more beautiful body build, with flatter bellies and longer legs. Well, my legs are also long, but my hips could be narrower, the boobs could be bigger… In short, I was in constant inner war with my true self - the one who is here and now. I wasn’t sincere in my attitude towards myself. How is it possible – just accept myself? No way! Then, who will make me ideal? (Now I understand that this idea was forced from outside, but at that time I truly believed it…). Who will control the minuses and hide them behind the pluses? “Relaxing” was a synonym of “not caring about myself”. You know, how scornfully they often say: “She relaxed. She stays at home, does nothing and has gone to seed”. However, “keeping oneself fit” sounds like something positive because a woman makes efforts, polishes herself, gets rid of something with a diet, increases something with physical exercises…in short, she makes herself. Making the diamond perfect. But how many stresses there are behind this polishing and perfection!
But I was lazy. Now I see that it was for a reason )). I started going to the gym for this stupid perfection but quitted very quickly. It was hard and uncomfortable and there were many other reasons. Only 2-3 pilates classes, aerobics instead of PE classes at the University (it was convenient: we had to pay for aerobics. So, I could pay and skip it and automatically passed the subject without doing any running or pull-ups). One class of yoga… I loved yoga. From a distance ))) I collected good articles about yoga exercises, even bought a couple of books about yoga practice for women, borrowed some yoga magazines. Classical love at a distance))) I didn’t make up my mind to practice yoga at home and didn’t manage to go to some classes. I worked in the office for 4 years and it was classic: sedentary work and none of fitness. Then I had a baby. Being pregnant I was obsessed with the idea of not gaining weight. Thanks God, my diet was more or less good. My son was born in good weight and on time and my weight immediately returned to my pre-delivery value. Wow! Good girl! I did it! But then I started having some pains in the back. I found an osteopath. He said that he wouldn’t touch this scoliosis. He relieved my osteochondrosis pains and I prepared to visit him once in half a year. Usually in such intervals I got pains in the back.
Zvezda Gymnastics came to me when my son was 2 years old. At first, I was struck by the thought that I really wanted to do it! It wasn’t my tender love for yoga (to put in the frame and look at a distance), it wasn’t aversion for sports that I couldn’t control even by efforts (you can’t say “I don’t want to go”, this is a “must”; “if you paid – go to the gym”). This was something unexplainable - I really WANTED to do it. And after that I started my long way to Zvezda Gymnastics… I’ve been doing it for a year and 4 months already. And this is the way that I don’t want to leave.
So, let’s go back to my belly. It is relaxed now and I see that it’s nice. It’s not a jelly (as I thought earlier it should be if I relax it). It is a beautiful, resilient and round belly. Some muscles hold it. And these are not the six pack, lateral or other muscles that we are used to. These are some invisible but very strong muscles. Deep ones. The essence of female power. You can’t see it but it is there, you can feel it. And at the same time, this power is relaxed. It flows without any suppressing. It lets itself be. It is so simple and so difficult at the same time. Just relax, just be. Without any standards, ideals. I used to think that these are just beautiful trite words. I said them, I thought them but there was no essence. I didn’t feel the essence. I didn’t release my strains, didn’t let my TRUE SELF open. And even now I don’t always manage to do it. But even the fact that I approached it is a miracle to me. I wonder: “How is it possible? How 10-15 minutes a day could help me find my true self? Helped me to listen to myself and let me tell myself so much about me. How is it possible?”
Beauty is in relaxation, beauty is in health, beauty is in your true nature. Zvezda Gymnastics helps to feel within yourself these commonplace truths.
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Ira is writing in her diary: “I am a cup and I choose what to fill myself with!”
I noticed that my sense of time had changed. I thought that I had not written in my diary for a week and it turned out to be only four days. Time could fly or drag but my thoughts of it always had negative context. It was either “Oops, a couple of months have passed and I never got round to doing things” or “When will this damn winter be over – it lasts for ages.” I don’t feel time anymore and it might be not so good but it is something new for sure. Recently my mum had visitors and they went out for the whole day. They got back in the evening and asked if I had been missing them. It struck me that I had not managed to realize that they were not about. That day I did five home tasks for my Russian school, wrote a letter and received a two pages long reply from an American school, cooked dinner and then it was the end of the day. I thought then that the most important thing was the state of mind. To casual observers a person staying home alone all day may seem lonely or bored. The reality is totally opposite.
Speaking about state of mind. I learnt about associative card from Irina’s diary and since then I have been doing card reading from time to time. I would often get a card with a picture of a cup. It took me a long time to understand what it meant as I did not have any associations other than with alcohol. Some time later I realized that I was the cup and only I could choose what to be filled with. I think this thought is worth a million. Up to some point in the past my inner state entirely depended on my parents and people around and then came the time when I got the right and opportunity to determine it myself. Now I can’t overestimate the importance of taking responsibility for own physical state and the state of mind. Recently I had to wait for a friend of mine outdoors for an hour and I did not have a mobile with me. As I have a reclusive life first 20 minutes it was interesting to look at passers - by. The more I watched people the more I could sense their grief and see negligence of women. I remember looking at my new sports shoes with a bit of dirt on their front and thinking that I needed to wash them as soon as possible because I did not want to look like all those women around me. I did not want to make an impression that I was so miserable that I did not care about what I looked like.
I think it was Paolo Coelho who said that devil was in little things. I am not sure what he meant by it but I have my own interpretation how it applies to my life. Little things make the whole life. I was puzzled at my emotional uplift mysterious and unusual for me. It feels like my character has changed and even a friend of mine said that she does not remember when I was depressed or complained about anything. Now I know that everything is very simple - I started to get rid of nasty little things which I used to have a lot. My entire life consisted of those seemingly meaningless things and naturally these days I feel a lot better after I got rid of a significant amount of them. Our state of mind determines everything.
I can’t help saying yet another time that writing a diary is a brilliant idea. I am very happy that I simply started it and had a certain goal – tracking both good and “bad” (or being optimistic I call them “resourceful”) things. I can see so many good things that thinking about writing one more interim results of doing gymnastics in May or June. I can see changes every day and I think that I can see them because I had a goal to observe.
This is what things are. At times I have little drawbacks but I feel lazy to describe them this time.
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Alexandra’s feedback on Zvezda Gymnastics:
I want to say about the changes that I’ve already got.
- I can’t sit with the legs crossed. And that has been my favourite pose for many years and I didn’t care about all the arguments that it is bad;
- I realized how my jeans press the belly, especially, when I’m sitting. That’s awful! And I didn’t even notice it before. I will certainly buy new things giving priority to the comfort of my body.
- I’ve got a curvature in the thoracic spine and that’s a pure pleasure to stretch and lengthen it out, especially, in the elbows and knees exercises when you have to touch the floor with the breasts. I get rid of constant tensions, imbalances, discomfort that even make my mood low: when I’m sitting and the back is in discomfort you think that everything is bad and sad (scoliosis is incurable, bla-bla-bla… it will be even worse). Now I’ve got a real tool to take care of my health and gradually to correct it in order to feel good in my everyday life.
- In the low part of the belly I’ve got a little hearth of warmth. It is pleasant and it is warm. It is an amazing thing for me and so unusual!
- While doing the Gymnastics warmth and life reaches other parts of the body. Today, during the exercises I felt the heat in the basis of the skull. The area between the breasts is also being worked out: for a week I felt some strain there and yesterday it became warm. I’ve started a way from a stressed robotic zombie to an alive warm person )))
- I walk in a different way. I mind my belly, relax it consciously, then the perineum is relaxed and after that the hips start swaying. I walk slowlier because if I move very quickly I don’t manage to relax. But I have a lot to do here.
I want to thank Maria Guseva for promotion of Zvezda Gymnastics and for writing about her way of life. Many things get into their places in my head. And thanks to all the girls who write their diaries and to the instructors who support the pages in social networks because constant reading of other feedbacks helped me to remember about the Gymnastics and to finally start doing it.
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A feedback from Zvezda Gymnastics Forum:
I’ve got a lot since the time when the Gymnastics appeared in my life.
Some time ago when I was looking through my things that I don’t use at all and that lie as a dead weight for giving them away to somebody someday, I realized the interesting thing: if you don’t share the accumulated, at least, something that lies at the very edge, there will be no movement ahead. It anchors you. The same goes for anything – things, knowledge, experience and your impressions in general about the seen and understood within yourself. So, after sorting out the things I sat down to write about what had been waiting to be written for a long time.
The fact that Zvezda Gymnastics leads to flexibility, femininity, smoothness and helps to get rid of rush in movements is definite. Recently I met a friend whom I hadn’t seen for a long time. She sighed and expressed her surprise for some time asking me what had happened and where the former tomboy disappeared. )) She supposed that I had a rich lover and got prettier under his influence. Ha-ha! ))) That was an interesting point of view that women get prettier only because of rich lovers ))). I told her about the Gymnastics. About my changes. My friend expressed some doubt saying that it wasn’t possible, that she didn’t believe in fairy-tales and magic wands. Ok. I wouldn’t make her change her mind and prove something. It is not my competence any more. Here I am, my personal experience and my life, some certain results. And all these things about “believe it or not” are something personal. I think if my friend really needs it, this way or another, she will come to the Gymnastics. Anyway, I’ve planted a seed about existence of this practice in her. So, we parted.
And here are my changes:
I’ll start with the women’s health.
In 2005 I had an erosion. I had been married for 2 years and I was fed up with the sexual life with my husband. In fact, if you love your husband and if you listen to each other, you can’t get tired of your intimacy. That’s what I understand now, but at that time the moments of abstention when between unstable periods I was treating my erosion with a course of suppositories, cautery and others, it felt like a pleasant rest from my husband. Now I’m very surprised at myself of that time. I realize how much I didn’t love myself, my body and the man I was even officially married to, so that instead of honest conversations (about what we don’t like in our life together), I fenced myself off from him with my erosion. I even arranged a surgery: some excess centimeters were removed from my neck of womb. And that also limited the sexual life with my husband for half a year.
Today, in almost two and a half years after starting Zvezda Gymnastics I have neither that husband nor erosion. Recently I visited a gynecologist. I did tests for different viruses, fungi and other foreigners. The candida I knew of wasn’t found. The neck of womb is pink and neat (with a little surgery scar, of course)))) The doctor asked me why I came if nothing disturbed me. And I came out of curiosity )) How could this happen? Before I had unstable periods that could start any time and now the cycle is accurate, they start the same day for about a year and last for no more than 3 days. And I also wanted to know what had happened to me in March when my sister was giving birth to her daughter. I had the second day of my period and some lumps came out of me. It was like a post-delivery scraping. My doctor did it to me mechanically when after giving birth to twins the womb was so stretched that it was shrinking back very slowly. Yet, the doctor gave me no definite answer. She told me that I should have come to her in March not later. And in accordance with the tests I was healthy in her area. Later, reading feedbacks on Zvezda Gymnastics I understood that this often happens. But I was surprised that my inner cleaning coincided with my sister’s delivery. As if I was also helping her.
Another important change for me: my left tube (that was turned in the other side since I had a strong inflammation at the age of 13) came back to the normal position. The doctor who did pelvic ultrasound didn’t find any abnormalities. But long time ago the gynecologist told me “Don’t be afraid. They get pregnant even with one good ovary!”. Yes, they do. And I got pregnant very quickly and had twins (God’s providence, of course). But to have the word “healthy” in my medical record and to hear “everything is Ok” during the ultrasound investigation is worth a lot! ))) So, you can’t but believe in the magic of Zvezda Gymnastics, plus work of a good chiropractor.
Speaking about much talked-about sexuality and great orgasms I will humbly say that I do have this effect )) Thanks to the Gymnastics I stopped being ashamed of my body, I allowed myself to BE. The way I am. I set myself free without controlling any movements, sounds. I set myself free and let be everything I feel during intimacy. I repeat once again I didn’t get this understanding at once. The understanding that you can live every moment through your body and soul and that you CAN enjoy intimacy with the man you love without any hurry, rush just following your own rhythm that appears spontaneously; the understanding that intimacy can be SO great that you want more and more )
Speaking about other changes in my health: since the age of 10 I had chronic maxillary sinusitis. Now I don’t visit an ENT doctor or go through any tests. There has been no need for that, nothing serious ))) Here I have to note about changes in my diet. In my opinion, the diet and ear, nose and throat are directly related. Mucus appears for a reason, only when the body cannot cope with the problem itself and starts getting rid of the waste. This is very common for those who like meat and dairy products. I haven’t eaten meat for a long time. Since the age of 17 I haven’t eaten any sausages or beef. That was the time when I read books by Bragg, Shelton, Gogulan and others. However, I made myself eat chicken when was pressed by doctors, during pregnancy when they told me that due to low level of ferrum I couldn’t do without meat. I decided that chicken is the only thing I could stuff in myself. By the way, it is during the pregnancy when I had the last acute fit of maxillary sinusitis. I could hardly breathe every other time. At that, my love for chicken imposed from outside disappeared. I continued eating dairy products. And from time to time I had some light rhinitis.
After Zvezda Gymnastics appeared in my life it looks like there was another rearrangement in my body. Everything got very acute: smell, touch, hearing. Milk, especially whole (even from a store) and hot, started smelling a cow (apologies to all the fans of this product which is even sacred to Hindus). Now I take it very seldom (in dull and cloudy days when I feel like taking a coffee I put some milk to soften it). The diet itself and quantity of food has also changed. During a day I can have some salad, bake some homemade flat cakes (I can’t eat any bread from shops). I can have some fruit or even seeds. I’ve got addicted to flax seeds. I hardly cook, only for children. In short, I stopped bothering about my diet. There is the saying: “it’s good if you’ve had some food, if not, that’s not bad either, it’s hunger cure”))). And my body has acquired another smell, it is tasty to me )) I’ve got a hint of sweaty odour when I take some coffee with milk.
My skin care has also become simpler. Deodorants and other chemicals were dismissed even before the pregnancy. And it is Zvezda Gymnastics that ousted face and body cream. The skin peeled, scaled, and through skin rashes everything that I restrained and accumulated within myself before the Gymnastics went out. By intuition I understood that I shouldn’t treat it any way, I shouldn’t apply any cream. I just have to overcome it. Now my skin is tender, smooth and even. Once a day before going to sleep I slightly moisten it with olive oil. In winter I used flax oil (it made my skin darker as suntan). That’s all. The only thing is that in spring time pigment spots appear. It looks like cleaning goes on. And now I know that this will also end. So, I’m waiting. The hair and nails got stronger and grow faster. And the upper-lip hair that became slightly visible disappeared without any efforts. I think that this way my endocrine system thanked me for making Zvezda Gymnastics part of my life.
Currently I’m satisfied with the physical changes. Other changes in my destiny, life and in every day are worth a separate post.
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Extraction from Undina’s diary about her belly.
This year it was the first time in my life when I kept a fast. I must say that it was my own genuine necessity. Actually I have always seen fasting as unnecessary limitations and believed that people did not have anything else to do. I thought that a fast was something like a diet for brainwashed people, like a trend and I have always been against vogue and gregariousness.
Here is the background to my story. Last year I had a very hard autumn. It did not manifest in any particular events but deep down there were issues to resolve. There were different reasons to it. I realized that I could not carry on living the old lifestyle and was not sure what the new one should be like. I was not fulfilled and was torn apart in search of a solution. I had to face a weird situation with children. On top of everything I was not present in the current moment. I kept thinking that if I travelled to a dream destination life would improve or if some long waited event happened I would feel brilliant. It was a pretty standard situation. So I had many different issues leading to being out of sink with my own body, having a very taut belly and consequently uncontrollable overeating and obesity. It was a vicious circle and I could not get out of it for 4 or 5 months. My overall state was crap. I could not see a way out of it. A needed professional help but I could find it in Prague and at the time I did not have an opportunity to travel somewhere else.
I asked myself honestly what I could do in my situation. It was a task to solve. The initial set up described above. It was obvious that I could keep staying in my swamp and pile up fat and get extra tensions (I have always had a correlation between them) or try and find a solution myself. It had to be done then and there. I had to stop thinking about what I had had before or what was out of reach and stop dreaming about my new life after I had been to a professional.
I thought about means I had to improve my life with and it turned out that I had quite a lot of them. I had been doing Gymnastics for two years, had a good feel for myself and some knowledge about belly massage. I would not be able to massage other people’s bellies as I do not know what I can do and what I cannot but when it comes to massaging my own one it is a lot clearer what to do. At that point the idea of fasting occurred to me. I was not driven by the idea of getting a beach body and I certainly was not trying to keep up with trends. It was my genuine necessity and one of the ways to break out of the vicious circle. Up to the last minute I had doubts and fears. I was scared that I would not cope and there wouldn’t be a way back. I was not in control of my life and it brought up my childishness. Everything turned out to be a lot simpler. All I needed to do was to remember that I could decide myself what to do. I could choose my own way to fast. I had read before that that fast is different for different people. For one keeping fast would mean to eat only dried bread and drink water and for another person a way to fast would be to stop drinking vodka. It applied to me too though in my case it was not vodka but sweets. I started it thinking that it was me who set the rules. If I am too uncomfortable with the whole thing I will change the rules. When I feel that there is no need to carry on and I have achieved the goal I will stop fasting. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. There is no need to write about the fasting. I did not eat sweets for about five weeks. I realized that I did not need the amount of meat I eat by habit. All I needed was eating it once in a few days. It was quite a discovery as I had been confident that I needed meat. I did not starve while fasting. The only change in my culinary activity was that I had to cook more and invent new salads. I felt light.
It was only one aspect of my fight with excessive eating and attempt to get out of my squirrel cage.
On top of other issues I had a very taut tummy. In the stomach area it was rock hard and around the belly button it was also painful. The rest was far away from the ideal. Below I describe my own experience and I was absolutely sure that I was doing everything correctly but I would not recommend to repeat it.
I introduced self massage. I usually did it after doing Gymnastics. I must confess it was hard and at times unbearably hard. It is a lot easier to let someone else cause pain during a treatment. In my case I had to hurt myself. Sometimes I was very exhausted to carry on but I was absolutely sure that in that situation I needed it and it was possibly the only solution. To find a way out I just had to do things I had never done before. At first I was lying on my back and massaged my tummy, applied pressure on sore areas and hold on till the pain eased off and the tummy relaxed. Very soon I understood however that it was not effective because my arms and shoulders got tired immediately and I could not provide necessary pressure. In two words it was not quite the right thing. I remembered that once an osteopath said that we could work with tummies ourselves. One just needs to take a tennis ball, put it on the floor, lie on it tummy down. Then they needed to find a sore area and lie still until the pain goes away. That was exactly what I needed but it was extremely painful. When I could not take it any longer I would lie on a sofa. I was working my belly that way till I could. It was sore but I could feel that gradually pain was easing off and I was getting better. After I did all “stones” in my belly that way I continued massaging with my hands.
On top of intuitive massage and massage on a ball I started watching videos and reading about the theme. All together those things gave results.
Some time down the line this story got an interesting continuation. My friend turned out to have gone to see a chiropractor a year ago. He specialized on backs and tummies. She told me about her visit but I did not pay any attention. This time I made an appointment. It was funny that the chiropractor said that there was nothing wrong with me. Well to compare me with his usual patients who come to see him when they are very poorly I am very well. He also gave recommendations and confirmed my thought about my pancreas (I made a diagnosis by reading books) and its connections with my dry elbows. I also found out the reason of sharp pain between my neck and left collarbone that occurred around ten years ago. It was caused by my pancreas too. This issues runs in the family and I need to pay attention to it too.
After that I went to a workshop on belly self massage taken by the chiropractor. I learnt there what organs compose abdomen and what scheme of massage suits different situations better. I also liked the integral approach to a human body and flexibility of methods. For self massage as it turned out I can use a plastic bottle. The ingenious is always simple. It does not take any extra effort. All you need to do is to put it on the problem spot and then it is a work of gravity.
In conclusion I can say that gymnastics with a strong accent on relaxation, tummy self massage, change of eating habits and psychological work let me significantly improve the situation. I keep going.
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A feedback about plugged milk ducts
I will write about my problem with the plugged milk ducts, maybe, it’ll be useful for somebody.
Here is the prehistory. I’ve been doing Zvezda Gymnastics for 2 years and now I breastfeed the second child.
In March I unexpectedly faced the problem of plugged milk ducts. I had a high temperature, pains in the breast and some hardening like a stone. I didn’t have such problems with the first child (I didn’t breastfeed him for a long time), so, I got really scared. It happened just before weekend. I found a doctor with difficulty. However, he calmed me down assuring that it wasn’t mastitis yet. Then, step by step doing massage, Zvezda Gymnastics and using some home remedies I cured it in a week.
In a week it started again, though this time I wasn’t running a high temperature. I took the necessary measures in time. This way the story started. Every 2 weeks I had some hardening that was painful. This lasted for almost 2 months.
And here is what I understood. First of all, doing Zvezda Gymnastics with a request helped me to clarify the situation. Absolutely unexpectedly I understood that care should bring joy. At that moment it is was very relevant to me because I was very nervous. I didn’t have enough time to do housework and I bothered my people. Secondly, at home I found the book “Your Body's Telling You: Love Yourself!” by Lise Bourbeau. I was amazed that the description of problems with breasts coincided with the ideas I got with the help of Zvezda Gymnastics. I will include here some quotes: “A woman does her best for those she loves forgetting about her own needs. At the same time she gets angry with the people she cares about because she doesn’t have time to take care about herself. As a rule, if such person cares about someone she does it in a hard and demanding way”. And another quote: “The right breast relates to husband, family and other close people, the left one – to a child”. I was struck by these ideas, but in the book there are more causes for such problem. My personal experience proves that the ideas about the right and left breasts are true. So, now as soon as I feel slight tingling, hardening I pay attention to it and… relax. I start living for myself: reading my favourite books, embroidering, even at the expense of cleaning the house. I let everything be as it is and enjoy the communication with my family. It helps me a lot.
And another thought. When the problem of plugged milk ducts appeared for the first time I couldn’t understand for a long time why I had this problem if I did Zvezda Gymnastics. These exercises had to prevent such problems and maintain the body balance. But one day reading the newsfeed in the social network I realized that the Gymnastics showed the psychological problem at the physical level preventing it from accumulation. As if immediately giving signals that something went wrong. Though such “demanding care” was typical for me before without any consequences.
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Mayskaya Roza’s feedback.
I keep beating about the bush in every feedback I am writing. I am going in circles around the main things.
I should write about the changes and I will start with the ones in my body. It is not strange, it is fairly normal.
My stomach is not sore anymore and my gall bladder does not irritate me. It is a wonder given the fact that I have had a stomach ulcer and gastritis for many years and doctors have always been puzzled when they saw a sonogram image of my gall bladder. The skin on my face and on the rest of the body got a lot better. My spots are well in the past. Recently I asked my friend what she thought about the skin on my face. She could not understand why I was asking as she said I had normal skin. Her reply meant a lot to me because I had been covered with spots from the 9th grade. I tried everything to cure my skin and spent a fortune on it and it was all to no avail. Now all of a sudden my skin is normal. What a relief.
Also I seem to have stopped eating meat. I have a severe eating behavior disorder and I gobble up the food I see and I can’t stop. Recently my mum noticed that I do not eat meat and asked if I decided to keep off it for a while. I said that I just did not want to eat it. I would still prefer not to eat sweets and half a cake at once instead. It is weird though not to want meat. I even refuse from shashlyk (barbeque) these days and before that I could not get past it. Nowadays at receptions when nice food is on the table I just don’t pay attention to it exactly as I don’t pay attention to a vase. It would never occur to me to eat a vase would it? Today I had meat and potatoes for dinner. There was a little of meat and I ate it. It did not change anything.
From this strange change of my food preferences I am moving on to strange things of a different sort. They are rather mystique. To describe them I need to tell you the background. I found my old diary the other day and it brought up memories. I had had a developed intuition for quite a long time up to a certain occasion in the 9th grade which I am not going to mention. I did cards reading to different people, even adults and my fortune telling was very accurate. I always knew if the teacher is going to be at the lesson. I missed a lot of classes at school and never got caught. There were times when I insisted on going to the class because I knew we had to. Those times a deputy head teacher or other authorities would come in. I could feel the future. I put it down in my old diary exactly this way “could feel the future”. I felt it like my hand or leg. I could not manage it but I knew what was right and wrong for me. I tried to manage the future but failed of course.
Later in life I lost that ability and the future felt like a bunch of threads. I could feel those threads and I could untangle them when in trance. It is so difficult to write about it because I don’t remember it well. It feels like explaining what light is to a blind person.
I have been through divorce and I was wrecked by it. I had signs of clinical depression and attempted suicide. Then I discovered Sinton and got over my issues.
Now I have a feeling that I am blind in the world of sighted. It feels like something is trying to get through to me from out there like weak radio signals, I know that the word is not what I know about it but I am unable to make out the other (true?) world.
Changes started gradually. My tastes in video have changed. My favourite pastime is to knit and watch series like Dr. Houseee, Castle once a week. I still knit but the series I used to watch are now seem dull for me. I watch only a few of them but I feel it will be over soon.
Then Nadezhda Pavlovna Kokhanova started finding my things. Things are not where they are expected to be ironed and folded nicely. There is no one except me to put them there.
Events make completed scenarios with the beginning, middle and a happy end.
The universe gives answers to my questions. It scares me slightly.
I am happy. I did not used to be happy before even in my childhood. I seem to have been born miserable.
These days I can be annoyed and yell because of it. Or I can smile and be happy. All these emotions however are the top of the iceberg and deep down I am happy and confident.
It is my feedback on gymnastics. All of the above started half a year after I began to exercise and it gathers pace.
Now on top of everything I want dress size 48 or 46 even.
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A feedback from the Forum:
When Zvezda Gymnastics became part of my life I learnt and felt the poses and movements that help to structure and relax the body. With some things the Gymnastics was a real help. 1. The stiffness of shoulders and neck. I felt tiredness in these areas almost round the clock. Now I structure my body in the Gymnastics and I move in a different way even without doing the Gymnastics. I can stretch, bend and make a slight movement when I feel my neck to get stiff. All the poses in Zvezda are whole, one movement flows out from another. But mostly I feel effect in my problem with the shoulders and neck from the arm movement in upper exercises (even if they are behind the spine in the basic upper position), in the middle exercise when I have to touch the floor with the breasts and in the floor position when I bend the spine. 2. Sexual relations: When I just started the Gymnastics my friend advertised this effect. I was curious what could happen with such cold woman like me. After the first week I suddenly felt drawn towards my husband. I just wanted him. Though usually I only had desire in response to his actions towards me. And this time it was my initiative. It is cool to feel the desire; as if I had been unfrozen, and the life was full of new colours. It was my feeling that didn’t require any actions from outside, it was born inside of me independently. I wonder how my husband wanted me before when I was empty and indifferent towards him. Of course, he loves me and lovers are drawn to each other, they kiss, hug and make sex. And I am also attractive: with big boobs or whatever men pay attention to. But I think that in terms of sex we were close to the format of “to wank with a magazine”, I mean I was just a beautiful picture that doesn’t care but who wanted to make a good impression, and he was a man who needs regular discharge, who has fantasies and who possesses a beautiful girl from a magazine. Yes, he was tender to me and I liked the moments when everything was over and we just lied hugging.
But this time everything changed. When I got defrosted he also felt the change. He started acting in a different way and got different things in response. In a word, the first month the atmosphere in our flat was hot and lecherous. Then some balance established that suits both of us. In some periods everything is quiet, in the others we are on fire. In general, we are more open and trustful to each other. We don’t bother about the rules. Here is our couple and we decide what is good for us.
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From Hasmik’s diary
I used to be naïve enough to believe that to swim against the stream was something heroic. I thought that achieving a precise goal to get to a certain point at any cost with a slogan “can see the aim and cannot see the obstacles” made a person strong, brave, persevering and strong willed. In my eyes it was pure heroism.
Nowadays I am smiling at that teenage 2D thinking. Thanks Goodness “the stream” cast me ashore. I had to take a time out to think and finally see that it was not the only stream.
There is a little digression.
When I was a second year student I was greatly inspired by hyperbolic geometry which gave me an opportunity to peep through a keyhole at infinite number of opportunities. The 5th postulate in Euclidean geometry is equivalent to the statement that, in two-dimensional space, for any given line and point not on the line, there is exactly one line through the point that does not intersect the line; i.e. that is parallel to the line. In hyperbolic geometry there are at least two (which means infinitely many) distinct lines through the point which do not intersect the line. Lobachevsky, the founder of hyperbolic geometry made a revolution in science and in my life perception.
When I was “stranded” I realized that it was not the only “stream” but one of the infinite set and there are a lot of ways to get to a certain point. There was not a need to go against the stream. On the contrary to achieve a desired goal it is necessary and sufficient to relax fully and let the flow bring you to the point you wish to get to. In religion it is called “to give oneself up to God”. All you need to do is to relax the body, loosen the grip of expectations, especially if you expect a certain result, let the past (and the future) go and let the flow go through and carry you to the set point and even to the source of all flows.
I did not mean to say too much, I just wanted to make a note that it is easier to go with a flow. It is an exhausting and fruitless ordeal to swim against the stream and going with the flow brings drive. So ride the wave and get the drive.
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Anastasiyaya’s feedback on gymnastics.
I will start with physical changes.
I decided to write a post mainly about my body and then turn down writing in the diary for a while.
1) I have a straight back now. My shoulders are on the same level which has always been unheard of for me. Before I had my shoulders forward and thought that it was my body structure. Now I keep them back and they are pulled back automatically when I am trying to give in to my old habit of slouching. I can remember how torturous it was to straighten my back in winter. I could last only two minutes and then I was relieved to be back to stooping. Now I can feel my wings when walking which triggers comments of the nearest and dearest that an upright back is not natural and it strains the spine. What a risky person I am!
2) My neck has straightened too. I do not raise my shoulders and carry my head forward any more.
3) My jaws are relaxed most of the time too. It does not happen all the time yet as I am very good at being upset about things and grating my teeth. I catch myself doing that though and then relax again. I frequently wrote before (or was meaning to write) that my facial muscles and mouth made my face a bitter mask. These days my mouth is relaxed and does not twitch every second. I used to make involuntary movements all the time and give angry looks and now it is gone.
4) My troubled leg has also got a lot better though it still bothers me at times. I can tell that I am still to work on it. I still haven’t got rid of my upset feelings about mum who hurt my leg somehow when she was giving birth to me.
5) Now about my hands. Volodya had a lot of troubles with them some time back because they were like two lumps of stone ruled by my brain. I could not relax them and when I heard the phrase “relax your hands” I felt very anxious. I then remembered images from my rough childhood when I had to play piano. My mother would hold my hand up and let it go in hope that it will drop; yelling at me “Relax your hands or you’ll get into trouble”. However my hand would stay up in the air because I was petrified and so my mother would hit it with a music sheet shouting “Why are you so ham fisted?” My clumsiness became infamous as I could not do simple dexterous activities, I dropped things or spoilt them and could easily upset a neatly set laid table. I recounted this story from my childhood and stopped trying to kill people with my looks when heard a phrase “Relax your hands”. After that my hands relaxed. Now they can be taut but mostly because of physical activity which can be eliminated.
I have always been lucky with my figure and now it got even better. My weight is 48 kilos (or probably slightly more than that, I am too lazy to weigh myself) and I have nice curves instead of angles. I am a representation of softness.
All of a sudden I figured out that my lovely friends and relatives were lying to me when saying that I was ugly. Some of them were saying it with good intentions. My granddad was doing it because he was scared that I would become a prostitute. I realised it myself first and then I pushed a few well wishers to the wall to make sure that I was right. On the one hand it is all nice and on the other hand it is sickening. Surely some of them said that I had blossomed but then they added that it was temporary and actually a bit dangerous. I was also told that I had a few things to improve. There was advice of “strengthen muscles, do yoga and you don’t look good in skirts” type. I gladly sent them hmmm to do yoga.
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A feedback from the Forum
After I did all 27 exercises by the video in a proper way, I couldn’t do the Gymnastics for 3-4 days. My stomach and all the inside hurt greatly. Each visit to a WC was a heroic action. But! After these days I felt that some comfort appeared inside. The womb kind of pulled up, I can’t even explain it.
Some more things that surprised and made me happy:
1. In the first month my breast became bigger and resilient. My husband hugs me all the time ))) Usually it happened only before the period for a couple of days and now it became permanent )))
2. Men give me compliments, hold the doors, make acquaintances. Even my husband noticed that. He guarded me before but now he clings like a limpet to me. )))
3. My haemorrhoidal node that appeared after the delivery became smaller.
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Anna’s feedback on Zvezda Gymnastics
It’s been a year since I started the Gymnastics. I am proud of myself!
I want to thank God, Maria Guseva, all the girls who write and who do not write, thank you.
This year was full of different events: ups and downs, throwbacks and mind cleanse, however, the Gymnastics was with me. Thanks to Maria for her constant appeals to write about our state. Without this diary, I would have exploded or gone crazy. Some months ago I stopped reading the diaries, for me it was just a collection of letters and words. I wanted to go deeper into myself, to understand everything with my own efforts to get my own experience.
I haven’t had any special insights or understanding this year. Everything went in the light of my unrealized relations, unrealized love. It’s been the year of the sole topic: my man and me. A couple of days ago this subject was closed.
Starting Zvezda Gymnastics a year ago I thought that in a year I would be an absolutely different person. I began to do it not for the body but to cleanse the blockages inside of my soul. If my body becomes healthier that will be a plus, a pleasant bonus.
So, a year has passed. A year ago I wouldn’t believe that I would live this year the way I did. But internally… I think I haven’t changed. Yes, a lot has changed but the essence has stayed the same. I don’t expect any spectacular events or miracles any more - here I do the Gymnastics, wave a magic wand and … bang! I become a different person. I was, I am and I will be myself, the way I am. And gradually everything unnecessary and alien will fall off. The soul diamond also needs cutting. And it is Zvezda Gymnastics that helps to do this cutting.
My body:
1. The back. It’s become feast for the eyes: straight, strong and trimmed. I feel my muscles there.
2. The periods. Nothing I can boast. It is still painful. However, it’s become different. It doesn’t pour down greatly. It is strange to write this but I started loving my periods because in this moment the connection of wrong thought and pain becomes much clearer. I noticed many times that once you pay your attention that you shall change your thought and pain disappears. No more pills, only right thoughts.
3. The eyes. Before starting the Gymnastics I didn’t complain about my eyes much. The sight was Ok for my job when I spend the whole day in from of my PC. But I had astigmatism that worried me much more. You look at things and you need some time to focus your eyes and to see objects clearly. And I worried even more about my lack of attention. So, what I have now: my sight has become better. In the e-book I use a smaller font. I couldn’t read it before. The other two problems are still with me.
4. I’ve got a problem. My hand nails. They stopped growing. In 8 months I cut my nails 4 times and always to the quick. And I am always with these stumps. I am not used to this.
5. The body skin has become soft and velvet. I can touch it for hours. My face skin has variable success.
6. The gastrointestinal tract. It is not that good. I don’t rely only on the Gymnastics in solving this problem. I have had it almost since my birth so it will take some time.
In general, doing Zvezda Gymnastics I understood that I disregard my body. It looks like I thought that this is only a body. The soul is eternal and the body is only for this life. But this is my body, my dear thing. Why do I abuse it? And it tolerates me. Now I try not to do any harm to it. I try to respect it and care more. I try to listen to my body and understand what it wants.
Speaking about Zvezda Gymnastics, I still do my own version of exercises. It looks like everything is clear. I watch the video all the time I draw cards with the exercises. And every time I notice that I do something wrong. So, from time to time, I look at Maria’s photos as a primary source. Nine months later I found out that in the basic down position my arms are perpendicular in a wrong place and for this reason I fidgeted all the time. I still sway, especially, in upper exercises. I cannot rise on the tiptoes standing on one leg. It is top class for me to do the exercises like Maria in the video.
In a year I’ve got the feeling that I am at the very beginning. It feels like I’ve only started Zvezda Gymnastics. The only different thing is that I am not that delighted. I’ve been doing the same exercises for a year, that is how they appear when I draw them. I was surprised to find out that I haven’t even tried some exercises. There was a moment when I drew a new set of exercises every day. And for the first time I drew middle exercise No. 2. I looked at it and understood that it was too early to go to a new level. When I try all the exercises then I can go further.
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A feedback from the Gymnastics Forum about physical changes:
1. I fell in love with my body ))) I suddenly discovered that my cellulitis disappeared! Though I had never really cared about it.
2. The legs. All the time I notice that I stand on the inner part of the feet (not when I’m doing the Gymnastics). Now I correct it. As a result, I see the calves from inside, the knees turned in the right position, the “closed pose” disappear. I notice it even when I’m driving – the legs are folded inward, closed, the thigh bones are also turned inward. Now I relax, open them. You cannot see it from outside but some block is removed.
3. The belly. Yeast dough has become ravioli dough ))) Nothing to add, but I adore it! )
4. The breast. Now it lives without a bra. Sometimes it is cold and kind of loose so that I want to “fix” it. But I sweat MUCH less (any connection?)
5. The shoulders lowered. I also notice that when I am nervous they go up. Now I found my collarbone and neck! ))
6. The arms. Thanks to unfolded shoulders the corpulence of arms is not so noticeable. And they have also got tighter. They haven’t changed in size, but the yeast dough has also become ravioli dough )))
7. The skin under the chin has become tighter.
8. The look is straight with a quiet defiance. I feel like a free she-wolf.
9. Everything that can crunch continues crunching ))) (even the metatarsus bones). I’ve concluded that in this way the mobility and plasticity of the joints improve.
10. When I am standing, I feel like a tree planted deep in the ground and at the same time as light, fast and graceful as a fallow deer. I always feel the impulse to take off and fly ))
That is really COOOL!!!
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Valentina’s feedback:
Yesterday I was thinking about my way in Zvezda Gymnastics. And here is my new report on the results. In total, I’ve been doing the Gymnastics for 2 years 7 months. The first 2 years I did it with breaks, the last 7 months every day.
1) My body is fitter.
Especially, I can see it in the butt and legs. They used to be the heaviest.
My belly (my huge belly) has become tighter and that is amazing! It used to be my problem No. 1. The breast!!! After a 4-year period of constant pregnancy/breast-feeding it is tight, high and very beautiful! Wow! ))) I don’t wear any bra at all for 2 months.
2) The body is full of life. The body is fluent and smooth. When I’m walking I feel like I’m flowing. I like it a lot.
The posture. Everyone admires my posture. And I feel like a queen with such back ))) When I walk with the kids, sit on the bench and watch the children, some known and unknown (!!!) mothers come up to me and tell me about my beautiful back and posture.
3) In the last 7 months I lost about 15 kg (I was about 100, and now 84 kg). I attribute it only to Zvezda Gymnastics. Since I did only this and mind cleansing (also thanks to the Gymnastics). I harmonized my relations with food. Now I don’t eat to forget about my problems. I eat whatever and whenever I want. The only condition is to be really hungry. Before the Gymnastics I knew all this but I couldn’t do it. The Gymnastics cleanses the mind very well and give you resources.
4) My back doesn’t hurt at all. Considering the fact that for 9 months I lay in bed and couldn’t walk. Osteochondrosis, preliminary state of vertebral disc prolapse and the vertebrae that started destroying in the lumbosacral part, heavy endocrine problems, 20 kg of weight gain.
I didn’t do anything but Zvezda Gymnastics. The doctors told me that the only thing they could do was to block the pain and that was all. It is the Gymnastics that pulled me out of that condition.
5) I’ve already written about painless periods and disappearance of an ovarian cyste Now this area of my body is also good ))
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Taty’s feedback from the Gymnastics Forum:
Zvezda down exercises are perfect to get rid of a headache.
I’ve just come back home after a very stressful day. I rarely have such tense days, one problem after another, and everything has to be solved immediately, or even yesterday. I managed all that but I came home with a severe headache. I understood that in this condition I couldn’t do anything but the Gymnastics.
First, I do the upper exercises, then the middle ones and then the down exercises (3 exercises in each position). Doing the upper and middle exercises I was like in a fog. My head was almost empty because thinking hurt . Then I started the down exercises, first, the basic position. At first I couldn’t even believe what I was feeling. I felt as if small dots one by one were running across my head. And the pain started disappearing. I stayed in the basic down position for several minutes, don’t remember exactly how long, just observing the process, feeling “the dots running” and feeling them to leave me with an absolutely healthy and clear head,
It was amazing!
After I did the down exercises, I started the last main exercise. And I got overwhelmed with a pure joy. The body was light as if I hadn’t had all that tension from the very morning.
Now I wonder how I could live without Zvezda Gymnastics before. Like a fairy godmother, it solves all the problems!
Tired? - Do the Gymnastics.
Hurts? - Do the Gymnastics.
Nervous? - Do the Gymnastics.
I constantly tell about this Gymnastics all the women I know. Many of them listen, believe and agree but don’t do anything. Or they try and then quit saying: “I’ve been doing it for 2 weeks, my scoliosis hasn’t disappeared, I haven’t got pregnant…. So, the Gymnastics is stuff and nonsense”.
I’m surprised hearing that. Here is a great tool that allows a woman to live better, healthier and to be more awaken. It can solve different problems. It requires 15 minutes a day. Yes, at first you can have throw-backs and aggravations. But, first of all, any disease can be cured after the stage of its aggravation. And secondly, you have to master this tool. Nobody says that the piano sucks, only because one tried it twice and couldn’t play Beethoven music…
I find myself thinking that I want to make some women believe that it works and it’s worth the efforts So, I have to sort out why I want it so much. Though sometimes I really have such thoughts: “It’s a pity that Elena doesn’t do Zvezda Gymnastics. She’s been having polycystic ovaries for 10 years, 5 operations, cannot get pregnant… and she doesn’t do the Gymnastics”.
Well, looks like she doesn’t need it.
In other words, girls, do the Gymnastics. We are so lucky that we know about it! )))
And again I want to thank Maria Guseva for giving it to us!
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Maruna’s post:
I’ve got the following ideas about this practice. I’ve been regularly doing Zvezda Gymnastics without any throw-backs for over a year. All this time I’ve been thinking about the recommendation to do these exercises for exactly this period. I was curious what was there after this first year. I patiently waited for this moment. And now, I think, I can describe the changes I have.
Before Zvezda Gymnastics, the greatest time of my life I resembled a faded bud due to my level of energy. Now energy flows quite evenly. I feel like a full-grown flower, properly open, sometimes showing its thorns, sometimes soft and delicate exhaling fresh fragrance. Of course, some blocks appear from time to time, but soft work fixes them.
In a year of doing the Gymnastics I feel more responsible for everything that I do or don’t do. At the beginning I was very enthusiastic and even wanted to become an instructor. Now I understand that this is a great responsibility, it requires lots of knowledge and I’m not ready for that.
I actually felt all the pluses and minuses of Zvezda Gymnastics. Now I know for sure that the Gymnastics is not for everybody. It tears off the veil, throws away your rose-coloured spectacles and leaves you one on one with your mind. And then you have to decide either to live as before and continue grunting in your mud puddle or to go further, to fix, to repair, to forgive and to ask for forgiveness, to lick your wounds, to sew them, sometimes through pain, fall on the knees that have just healed up, but then to get up and go forward with the head up.
When I found the Gymnastics two and a half years ago and started doing it I had the illusion that all these warnings were sure not to concern me. But I was wrong. The bandage on the soul wounds was torn off because it started rooting in the flesh and decaying. The wounds didn’t bleed but they regularly emitted unpleasant smell. And everything was revealed. Naturally, after that I suffered from pain for a year. And as a child, at first I didn’t know what to do. But I was clever enough to disinfect everything, apply ointment and change the bandage every day.
Gradually it started healing up and new healthy tissues grew… I use these metaphors to make the process, that the Gymnastics is capable of, more obvious. There was a phrase in a movie: “I am a surgeon and my job is to hurt people so that later they could feel good”.
Now I feel good. And I feel that a lot of work is ahead of me. But I am happy now that at least nothing is decaying or stinking.
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A feedback from Zvezda Gymnastics Forum
I’ve been doing the Gymnastics for a year and 3 months. So, what are the results?
Some time ago I read: “Do the gymnastics for a year and you won’t recognize yourself”. In my case it is THE OPPOSITE. I did it on and on and I learnt about myself more and more! All my virtues and vices, strengths and weaknesses, light and darkness… And sometimes it was really painful. I became aware of many things: my Persona (that I show to the people), my psychological defense and its mechanism, the parts of my personality and this everyday commonness of other people’s voices and patterns in my head that I used to follow. Now I hear my own voice. I’ve come closer to my true self. I saw the real me, all my power and filth.
I managed to accept my sensitivity. Instead of overwhelming fear or childish exclamation “Oh, I can do it, great!”, thanks to the things that the life gave me, I’ve acquired a calmer attitude to some unusual things of my perceptibility of people and the surrounding space, to some field that gives knowledge about people, events etc. I realized that it had always been with me, I am always inside of it. I only have to switch my attention, look within and feel, listen…
It took me so many efforts not to pay attention to it and to explain with the brain the things that go from the sacral centre of myself. Now I pay attention to the insistence of my intuition not only in this part but in all the areas of life, even in the smallest ones. There is always some message or information (I’ve got the impression that there is some informational flow, there is always information it’s up to you whether you take it or not). Out of habit you ignore it and don’t use, and then suddenly recall with surprise that there was an insistent desire to unmute the phone but you ignored it and missed an important call. As a result, you have some unpleasant results.
In half a year after I started Zvezda exercises I felt that my psychic changed. I don’t have an explanation for it but I feel that it’s become different. I’ve got the feeling that it used to be stiffer, more structured. Not it is softer and more flexible. Something like that was mentioned in the book “The Kunta Edge” or in comments to it. I notice that the ego melts away and if I am within some moment, I can be fully present there, unreservedly.
My relations with money and professional area have changed. We are becoming friends! ))) In this field I’ve got more confidence and calm. Gradually plans become events. I’ve got closer to the reality, become grounded. I like it a lot.
The relationships with my husband have also changed and continue changing. We improve our relations and ourselves. We try to understand and get rid of childish ineffective patterns and programs. We live through hard times, argue, reconcile, realize and go further, grow and get mature. And I also like it. Instead of waiting for a Prince Charming who will come and save me from unpleasant reality or calling for help “the ideal father that I have never had”, more often I see the real man who is beside me, who loves me and does a lot for me. I take for granted only good things and when there is something I don’t like, I “switch on” a spoilt Princess, roll up my eyes and call for the desired Prince Charming. And I feel terribly resentful towards my real husband (for betraying “our greatest” trust) and think of packing up my things (such a childish thing!).
My body. My body has suffered a lot. It is crooked, blocked, worn out. Of course, now it is better, but still there is a lot to do in this area. It’s been treated as “perishable clothes” for too long. After the first inspiring months of Zvezda Gymnastics, blamestorming started. The head hair started coming out and there appeared unwanted hair in other places. I have an endocrine problem and I’m sorting it out now. Every month I have storms of PMS, the cycle has changed, however, it is not as long as before. The thing that has, fortunately, remained unchanged is my relations with sex that harmonized in the first months of the Gymnastics. For me it is joy and pleasure, an art of communication and simply art: genuine, human and sincere! I’ve got a lot of desire and I don’t conceal it, I enjoy it.
I move in the right direction of accepting myself and other people. More and more often I defend myself, my interests and my borders.
In a word, this year I’ve become more awaken, more mature and more loved (first of all, by myself). I am more desired, more confident, calmer and more sincere with myself, the life, the world and the surrounding people. And I feel more beautiful and whole. Sometimes, glancing at myself in the mirror, I found myself admiring my maturity and beauty. I enjoy being 32 years old.
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A feedback from the Forum:
3 months of Zvezda Gymnastics.
I want to write about my legs. Since the changes I have are exactly there.
Preface.
My legs are fat, especially, in comparison to narrow shoulders. The hips are wide, the ankles are large. And my knees are a bit fatty. Even in my “slimmest years” they were this way. I managed to solve the question of beauty and attraction. Shop assistants strive to offer me clothes a couple of sizes less than I wear. It means that thanks to properly selected clothes the heaviness of hips and ankles is not so remarkable.
The looks don’t worry me, however, my health does… I’ve always paid attention to my legs. I’ve got exactly the same body build as my mother and her aunt. And I see what happens to such legs with aging. The legs of my mother and those of her relative got wider, more uneven and bluer with the increase of years. The waddling gait and the obligatory varicosity. As far as I understand the problem lies in inadequate blood supply and deposition of different bad stuff (waste?). I remember my mother screaming with pain in the legs in the morning when she was putting on compression stockings even in very hot weather. The varicosity caused that pain. And I knew that I was sure to have the same because I have the same body build.
Before Zvezda Gymnastics
I have to say that my legs were not so bad as my mother’s. I didn’t see varicosity but I permanently had heavy legs. Constant pain in the right knee, especially, at night. It didn’t let me fall asleep. A bunion in the left foot was very big, in the right one - slightly visible. Sometimes the bunion hurt. In the morning I had rigid joints and pain in the small of the back. Cellulitis in the last stage.
Immediately after I started Zvezda exercises
My knees became loose. When I was walking I was afraid that my bad right knee was going to go to pieces )) The hips became tighter.
Now (the third month of exercises)
My legs feel less heavy. I easily fall asleep. The knee rarely hurts, though sometimes it happens. “The instability” disappeared. No changes in cellulitis yet )) I easily get up in the morning, NO pain in the small of the back AT ALL!!! Zvezda Gymnastics is worth doing even for this easy and comfortable falling asleep and waking up. Even only for this. This is mine, I’m not going to quit it.
I’ve got interesting changes in my right foot. The foot set exactly toe forward. I feel the ground with those parts of the foot that didn’t touch it before. The front part of the foot straightened up. Now when I am walking I have foot massage. I don’t manage to step straight with the left foot, maybe, because of the bunion. And when doing Zvezda exercises I have to stand on my left leg, I fall. The pain in the bunion got stronger. And I am happy about it.
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A feedback from Zvezda Gymnastics Forum:
So, I’ve been doing the Gymnastics for almost 7 months. Here are my results:
- I look better (well, that’s men’s opinion :));
- I like myself more (I’m not looking for defects; they are also part of me. I’ve realized that and we’ve become friends);
- I’ve become calmer. I can share my own problems and those of other people;
- I admit my mistakes and correct them;
- I’ve got the inner pin (don’t know how to explain it. I just know that I have the titanium spine. My friend described it this way);
- I learnt how to communicate my desires;
- I am calmer, slower or smoother. I haven’t fully understood it yet;
- I’ve already written about my head: at work I am focused, but in real life sometimes I am such a fool that I even can’t recognize myself. (I watched an animation movie about dragons with my child and now I urgently need a dragon. I want to fly. What would you say about that??). I’ve got less serious. I learnt how to smile again.
- I’ve acquired confidence that everything is good (recently I tried to weep in sympathy but couldn’t (there was no reason (I couldn’t find one) to pity myself));
- At work I got the nickname of Empress. When I asked; “Why?”. They said: “Because of your gait”. I’ve got nice bearing.
If I recall something else, I will add it. That’s all for now. However, considering the initial condition: this is not me, it is somebody different.
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Elena’s feedback from Zvezda Gymnastics Forum
My name is Elena. I am 46. Though it’s late but I learn to live.
I started Zvezda Gymnastics in March 2012. So, it is over 2 years, though there have been throwbacks and breaks of 1-1.5 month.
I don’t remember where I learnt about the Gymnastics. At first I read a lot, then registered at the site and began to do it. My initial condition included arthrosis of almost all the joints, thyroid and gall bladder problems.
In the beginning I was completely delighted though I couldn’t properly do the majority of the exercises due to the joints problems. And I had a lot of energy. I did 7 exercises every day and in 2-3 months I was in the first throwback. I was depressed. I didn’t want to do anything. I could hardly make myself do the basic positions. Alongside with that I had a conflict at work with a colleague (now I understand that in this way I stood up for my borders). And she told me: “We didn’t think that you can make a row”. At that time it sounded like a compliment to me because I had always tried to smooth away the differences even against my own interests.
Now I do 7 exercises 3-4 times a week. I try not to make big breaks of over 2 weeks, only if I am out of town or I don’t have any possibility to do them.
I also had the blonde effect. In the corresponding thread I wrote that I had nearly taken another person’s red suitcase.
So, the things I have now. The whole body has got fitter. The flexibility of shoulder joints has significantly increased. There are only 10 cm left and I’ll be able to clasp the hands together behind the back. I will write a lot about my joints because this is my problem. In spring and in autumn my knees didn’t get swollen or hurt without any medicine. I can sit on the heels for 1-2 minutes (it may be simple for somebody but for me it’s a real achievement). The mobility of hip joints has also increased. I still have problems with the exercises when I have to lift the leg and put it aside but still there is improvement. Almost all the joints crunch but this is not a breaking sound; it is pleasant… don’t know how to explain that.
Formerly, before going to sleep, I had to rotate/crunch the shins, otherwise, they were twisted with pain and I couldn’t fall asleep. I don’t have it any more and I haven’t even noticed when this problem disappeared.
As many women who practice Zvezda Gymnastics, I don’t like to wear a bra. I can’t give it up completely, still I take it off as soon as I can.
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Marina Putilova’s feedback:
Something else about my changes. Sometimes it seems that nothing has changed but when I read about the changes of other women practising Zvezda Gymnastics I also find them in myself. I just get used to them and take them for granted.
So, my physical changes:
- A beautiful posture. My hyperlordosis is gradually improving;
- Straight feet; light step;
- The periods are painless, without delay;
- I almost don’t get cold (I haven’t caught a cold for 2 years, but sometimes I have a running nose);
- The breast is high;
- The hump on the back of my neck has disappeared;
- I eat less (though I still love sweets));
- The hair grows faster, less hair loss;
- The nails are good. They are pink without white stripes. They look natural like a French manicure.
- The shoulders and breast are getting more open. Before I couldn’t understand how it can be. But now I feel the changes.
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Maruna’s feedback:
I’d like to mention some changes in the body. First of all, I’ve lost about 10 kilos without torturing myself! Of course, it wasn’t a miracle. I had to work for it and I’m still working. I had to structure my diet and to start drinking more water. But it was in a very natural way. Now I eat everything that I want observing some rules. Of course, sometimes I can break them but now I don’t feel guilty and don’t reproach my body for it.
And I’m falling in love with my body. I understand that Zvezda Gymnastics plays a special part in this. Trimmed muscles, skin, beautiful lines of the body, belly, hips, breast… Sometimes in the morning I stand naked in front of a mirror and simply admire myself. I’ve started buying beautiful things for myself. Today I’ve bought a red nail polish and painted my nails. Now I’m sitting and enjoying myself )))
Secondly, I’ve become slow. It doesn’t mean that I do everything slowly. It means that I’m not in a hurry. Before I rushed around without realizing where I was going to, now I cannot walk fast physically. No, of course, I can do this if there is a need for that. But in most cases I do everything in a more conscious way.
Thirdly, Zvezda practice becomes deeper and more beautiful. I’ve fallen in love with middle exercise 2. Now I go out of this exercise in a more beautiful way. And it was horrible before.
But I still lack energy. I cannot do many things because I get tired fast. Maybe, my energy is used for some internal processes and there is little left for the outer world. But it’s ok since now I work only three days a week. In a word, I enjoy myself ))) And my mood changes from light to deeply thoughtful and back.
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A feedback from Zvezda Forum:
Hello! I want to tell you about my way to my true self. I’ve found my true self thanks to Zvezda Gymnastics!!! I’ve been doing it for a year and 10 months. All of us have their own hell and heaven inside. The hell is pain, fears, grievance, shame, self-accusation, guilt, accusation of others and shifting responsibility on others… The list can be continued. My hell was the life I had before Zvezda Gymnastics, my immature behavior… It is difficult for me to write about my hell and it is even more difficult to forgive myself. How could I smoke poisoning myself for so many years??? Or how could I take oral contraceptives for many years??? It is the same as smoking, poison… How could I have an abortion? why? Was it out of fear? ?? How can I forgive myself? This was because of lack of love, love for myself. If a person doesn’t love himself or herself, he or she cannot love others… But that was me… And I have to accept myself with all this and go on living.
I forgive myself but this is difficult… I love my true self and this is heaven. I cannot allow myself to do the things I did before. I accept myself with my past mistakes and now I realize how much light I have within when there is forgiveness and love… This is Heaven. And it is easier to describe. This is family, husband, children, work, all the good things, joy, euphoria, happiness, creativity, inspiration, success, health, beauty… Heaven is inside of us, in the very centre. However, to get to heaven, you have to go through hell, through forgiveness and acceptance, through love… To peel yourself from hell you have to take care of yourself every day, at least 15 minutes a day… Do whatever you want… Everyone has his or her own way to heaven. Someone does yoga, others do chi gung or some other Chinese practice, someone goes to the Church and prey, others do something creative… You can continue your own list… No matter how, it is the result that matters… And it is for this reason I love Zvezda Gymnastics. This is my way to heaven. It is light in my life, energy charging, self-healing, self-cleansing, return to myself, to my female essence to give light and life, return to my centre where I love myself and the world… where I love everyone in the world… I radiate light… Thank you… Ladies, I wish you to shine!!!
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Taty’s feedback from Zvezda Forum:
When I started doing these exercises by myself, I didn’t question why the exercises are the way they are, why I shall do them this way and not another and what if I did them in a different way. I watched Maria Guseva’s video. I liked her grace, the way she moves. I decided that “I want to do it like she does”. And I started Zvezda exercises. Some time later (in 2-3 months) I almost mastered all the exercises. I could do them fairly well. I didn’t fall on one side or the other any more. And the most important thing was that with surprise and pleasure I noticed some obvious changes in the body.
I don’t think it’s necessary to describe these changes. However, these first small results motivated me to continue Zvezda Gymnastics. It became obvious to me that if in a couple of months the body gave such a good feedback to 7 exercises a day, then later the results must be more convincing. Actually, that was true for me.
Now I give classes of Zvezda Gymnastics and I have to explain to beginners how these exercises shall be done and what they shall do if they face some difficulties or cannot do some exercises at all. I rely on Maria’s recommendations to start the Gymnastics with the basic positions, to do the exercises according to your own lengths, to re-read Zvezda Guidelines, to aim at doing the exercises the right way but considering the limitations of your body.
It is important to understand how Zvezda exercises work. Even the basic positions, done in the right way, trigger the mechanism of harmonization of the female body geometry. The work is done at the level of muscles and ligaments. The spine is worked through in a very delicate way. The results cannot be seen immediately. But these are the fundamental processes that work with the deep muscular layers, at the level of muscles restoring the body harmony, straightening the spine, relaxing the tensed muscles and making work those muscles that have been idle for years. It is clear that after the years of stooping at the school desk, then at the computer, you can have scoliosis and one shoulder might be higher than the other. Of course, Zvezda Gymnastics won’t fix it in a month, not even in a year. However, thanks to these exercises you can start harmonizing your body. And, as we can read in feedbacks, in some cases spine curvatures can also be fixed with the help of Zvezda exercises.
So, Zvezda exercises described in the Guidelines really work. They are verified and they are effective. Doing them in the RIGHT way we help our body to be healthy and we aspire to harmony, balance and beauty. Why is it important to do them slowly, smoothly and gracefully? The reason is that when we do these exercises slowly, we can concentrate on our body. We start hearing it. We understand how it works. Only in this case we can clearly understand when we do the exercises in the right way. And doing the Gymnastics slowly and smoothly we understand how these exercises work.
Why shall it be beautiful? Harmony is always beautiful. There is no awkward harmony. It’s clear that at the beginning it won’t be always beautiful. And it shouldn’t be. And it’s ok. However, you shall aspire to it if you want Zvezda Gymnastics to make your body healthy.
I insist on the health-giving effect of Zvezda exercises. In this respect, I think it’s important to remember that the basic medical principle is “Do no harm!”. It is because of this doing Zvezda exercises you have to LISTEN to your body taking into account your limits and making allowance in case of some health issues. And for this reason you should follow Zvezda Guidelines describing the exercises in great detail. However, listening to your body you shall do the exercises in the right way. There is a difference between “I don’t manage to do it the right way” and “the right way is how I manage to do it”.
Regularly doing the basic positions in the right way will help you in the course of time to do correctly the other Zvezda exercises. Ignoring the correct exercises might not do you any harm, but there is no guarantee for it.
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A feedback after 2 months of Zvezda Practice:
I should probably start my story with the moment when I decided to seriously start the Search without playing with this idea, when I decided to start listening to myself, to my guts, to my deep inner world. About three years ago I had a car accident. I had two bad pelvic fractures, two lung surgeries, a broken skull and almost a week coma.
During the time I spent in hospital and in rehabilitation I had a lot of lucid dreams. I “saw”, if I can put this word, some strange things that weren’t visible to anyone but me. So, that was what made me start some serious work. My body begged for attention and proper care in order to recover. However, intense physical exercises were forbidden. The brain demanded to clarify what was happening in the hospital and afterwards and even now, though not so often. At that moment I was close to a friend who did reiki, yoga and meditations. I also went for it. Thanks to her soft guidance I realized many things, not only the hospital ones, but also everyday things when I used to either make a row or go away slamming the door or accusing everyone and everything around me but myself (the victim state that was accompanied by pity for myself together with the desire to shift all the problems onto others while I’m waiting somewhere in the corner for the end results letting it all get destroyed by itself and waiting for somebody to solve my problems).
However, approximately in a year I realized that doing asanas, listening to mantras, meditating and folding my legs in a lotus weren’t my kind of thing. It wasn’t really my thing and I could do nothing about that. I quitted these practices. Then for about a year I did nothing and my body and soul cried for attention, care and exercise. I was tired of going around in circles and I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that I’d stuck in a swamp.
Once I met a friend who casually mentioned Zvezda Gymnastics. She said that this practice was very useful to her. But for some reason I wasn’t convinced by her words at that moment. For half a year I fooled around until my disquiet grew very high. Then I asked my friend about these exercises again and she sent me the link to this wonderful group.
After I joined the Zvezda group, read Maria Guseva’s articles that immediately got hold of me by their clarity, honesty and simplicity and after I read other women’s feedbacks, I finally got enthusiastic to start my acquaintance with Zvezda Gymnastics. It’s been about two months now since I started this practice, on December 3, 2014. That day I drew my first set of 7 cards. Before I only did the basic positions for 2-3 weeks. I got accustomed to it. And my body responded almost immediately! That was the first miracle because considering my previous experience I expected that it would take some time before I had some changes. My body felt light. Gradually, my back was straightening. The pelvic pains diminished. Even the pain and crunching caused by turning the thigh ceased in the first week of exercise.
Of course, in the lower exercises it was difficult to keep balance like for all the beginners. Especially, in the exercise where you have to keep balance on one elbow and one knee. However, gradually I mastered it after I watched Maria’s video several times and read the guidelines for this exercise. At the beginning, my elbows and knees hurt, and even now sometimes they do. There was a week when my elbow skin peeled and cracked. The elbows itched and even bled a little bit. But in a couple of days everything was Ok.
Now I pay attention to my belly. Before I tried to keep it fit, flat and trimmed though I’ve never wanted to have a six pack. After starting Zvezda practice I realized how much I pressed everything inside the belly! And even now, out of habit, everything gets tensed there if I forget to relax it, even when I’m sitting in an armchair or at the computer at work. When I notice it, I try to relax the belly and immediately I feel better.
My figure and posture have improved. I’ve become smoother and softer. The gait is also gradually changing. In particular, I feel it the first hour or two after the exercise. I’ve acquired a kind of cat’s grace. And also I start accepting my body the way it is. Earlier when I read feedbacks about accepting your own body, I thought that it wouldn’t work for me. But now I realized that I have a lot of work to do for accepting my Body! Recently, for the first (!) time I could look at myself naked in the mirror without any embarrassment or shame. And without any unnatural doubt, I felt that I Liked myself, that I am Beautiful the way I am. In a word, I continue practicing and observing )))
As for energy things, my story is even more interesting. The first month of exercise I was overwhelmed with euphoria, lightness, desire to love the whole world and at that moment I truly believed that I could kiss and hug everybody and forget about conflicts. But that was in the first month. The last two weeks this positive and joyful mood has been accompanied by irritation, even on trifles. I get irritated with my dearest, especially my mother and sister (we live together in a house), in a very harsh and rude manner. Then I repent. But I get so furious that I’m scared of it. Before I was known as a calm person, even too calm. I always controlled my reactions. But now I feel something untypical for me. I try to realize and analyze it. I observe it.
Now I want to attend a Zvezda seminar in Moscow. Though I don’t know exactly what I want to gain from it. Still, if there is a desire, I have to make it real. Everything happens for a reason )))
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OlgaB’s feedback on Zvezda Gymnastics:
I would like to describe the changes resulted from 8 months of these exercises. Time flies! ))) My exercises are not systematic; sometimes I do them 5 times a week and sometimes only once.
1. The periods. They are not painful any more, the same as for many women practicing Zvezda. When I was young, they were very bad. They were very painful and sometimes I even needed injections. Before Zvezda Gymnastics it was painful and on the second day I had to take 2 pills to get rid of spasms. In the last half a year there has been some drawing pain in the small of the back but it was quite bearable.
2. The belly. It is relaxed as much as possible. Now I don’t even know how to gather it in ))) I cannot do it any more… I wear only comfortable clothes, not too tight for the body. Otherwise, the belly hurts if it is squeezed too much.
3. The bras. I got rid of them. I can afford it since my breasts are small. In 3 months after starting Zvezda practice I tried to put it on, but it was very uncomfortable. Now they are idle on the shelf. Instead, I bought lots of beautiful tops.
4. Aggression. In the first half a year I was overwhelmed with it. My mum and husband got a lot. I was very quick tempered. Now I can also get into a rage but this happens more and more seldom. The main thing is that my emotions calm down quickly. One of the reason why this sh*t poured out of me was that I’d always been a quiet and silent girl. It was difficult to express my opinion. Even speaking about my needs was a problem. At last I can say what I think. Of course, now it is exaggerated. I am always right and I want everyone to agree with me. But I feel that soon it will subside.
5. I feel that something is changing deep inside of me. My attitude, my views… I cannot explain it but later it will get clearer.
6. Self-fulfillment and work. It’s already been three years since I quitted my job. And I still have some quirks and twists about it. On the one hand, I like being able not to work and I don’t want to come back to work. On the other hand, it seems that work and occupation is important for a fulfilled person. Though, it’s so silly! It is all rooted in the fact that I don’t fully accept myself the way I am. I always have claims to myself: I was not good at school, I haven’t got a proper education, my job wasn’t prestigious… Oh!... Although I understand that people go to work to get money. And only few of them really like it. Work takes a lot of time and you get too little. My husband works a lot and, mainly, it is not gratifying. I have a hobby. I try new things. But I don’t think this is some achievement on my side ))))
7. Children. We have been together for 3,5 years. We don’t have children and we are over 30. My husband has children. He wanted to have children later, then we had to arrange a flat… I was furious but put up with this. Then gradually I got used to the idea of not having children. Now we both want them. Recently my husband has spoken openly about it. Zvezda Gymnastics results…. We still don’t have a flat, but time passes… So we shouldn’t wait too long. However, all in good time. Now I want to have home birth or to arrange the conditions as close as possible to home delivery. If my age and eye sight allow this ))) Before I thought that it is easier to have Caesarea Birth. A cut… and all is finished. It’s so easy versus delivery pain. But now I understand that naturalness is more important.
8. Alcohol. This is a problem for me but I’ll write about it later. The day before yesterday there was a family constellation about alcohol in the skype chat. And Maria said what the husband should decide and do. It was the same situation for me. I fought it hard for a long time. But I understood that until he himself took the decision I could do nothing. During the Gymnastics I understood that there was no point in fighting it and I calmed down. I understood that I loved him and it would be difficult to leave him, but… For the last 3 months my husband hasn’t taken any alcohol at all. But I believe if the man himself doesn’t want to quit, no matter how good you are, he will continue doing it. But this is interdependence: one is drowning, the other is saving him. I will write about it later because I faced the problem of alcohol even in the childhood….
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Tatiana's feedback
I’ve realized that thanks to Zvezda practice I’ve got more energy. Now I don’t have to choose to do this thing or that one… I've got enough energy to do everything I need. I was in search for my true purpose in life. I was uncertain about how I should live, where and who I should live with. Now these questions don’t bother me anymore. I just live and enjoy my life. I understood that these questions cannot be answered artificially if you don’t have enough energy resources for changes. No matter how much you think about them, there won’t be any changes for a better life. However, it can change for the worse if you have your head in the clouds and you are not grounded in real life ))
Another new thing for me is that I don’t force events. Even under time pressure. Actually, there’s no pressure for time. There are days busy with different things to do. You just write them down and then complete them. Without any rush. You interact with other people and accept their help and assistance. It is very interesting to live with this attitude: you keep in mind the end result and enjoy the process. You don’t live for the event to happen, you live to experience this event in full ))) Now I truly feel that there’s a time and place for everything. It has always been like that. Now I’ve learnt to listen to it and to trust it following my inner impulses instead of external circumstances.