Prana Journal
Checking out new spaces
I went to
Flow Yoga Center in downtown DC tonight for a class with my first yoga teacher, Andrea Franchini. She is a very thorough teacher who really enjoys helping you explore poses while keeping the alignment true.
The Flow Yoga Center requires good conditioning to get started because it's on a third floor, up narrow steep stairs. It has two salons and limited change space. But I liked the smaller class size, about eight tonight. I'm used to being elbow-to-elbow at TranquilSpace. Nice welcoming atmosphere.
It's a good 25 minute walk from my work place, but the extra steps were worthwhile. I will go back -- I've got a free class coming.
100 words -- actually 95
The following paragraph is an entry for a reader-contrbiuted section in the
Sunday Washington Post called "LIFE IS SHORT | Autobiography as Haiku." The instructions say, "Find a way to give insight into your life in under 100 words." It's my favorite part of the paper and I read it religiously every Sunday because the writing is surprisingly good and most people "get it."
During my senior year at college, my friends provoked each other, half in earnest, half mocking, with the question: "So, what are you going to do for the rest of your life?" The question's immensity made us laugh uncomfortably at our cloudy career paths. Now 33 years later, I realize that I missed the point completely -- it's a trick question. There is no such thing as "the rest of your life." There is only now, and if you are going to accomplish anything, it has to be done in small breaths, one after the other.
Well, it's been four weeks since I submitted it so it must have gotten lost among the hundreds of other entries. The Post just publishes two a week. So I am going to post it here. When I get a seed of wisdom, I have to share it -- because it so rare.
How yoga did NOT change my life
In the early 1970s, I was living dangerously -- I smoked, I drove a Ford Pinto, I worked in a steel mill outside Chicago because it was the quickest job I could get after graduating college, and I was unhappy and didn't know why -- or blamed the wrong things for being unhappy. On my first vacation, I decided to do something special -- go to a week-long mime workshop in Wisconsin. I had picked up some mime in college, helped form a troupe and put on several performances, but had no real technical grasp of the art form.
At the workshop, at first I had trouble fitting in because my blue-collar, non-theater persona did not seem to mesh with the artsy, semi-hippy environment. On the daily schedule, there was an informal yoga group practicing at dawn. It was not a class. Since I was already in an adventurous mode, I mustered the courage to show up, even though I had never done yoga before. The first morning, I found a dozen people in a studio going through Sun Salutations and other poses that I could not name. I joined in as best as I could, nervously glancing at other people as they went through the movements and poses, trying to match my movements to theirs. I did my best, but I was grunting, gasping and hissing, having no awareness -- much less control -- of my breath.
At the end of the session, the workshop instructor who was leading the yoga practice pulled me aside. He said that he could not allow me to disrupt the other people's practice with all the noise and commotion that I was introducing. He would appreciate me not coming back. I felt humiliated. I almost threw in the towel on the whole workshop and went home. I consoled myself by sleeping in and stayed on, learning a lot about mime and theater.
Months later, I learned that my troubled breathing patterns were also part of my mime routines as well. I was holding my breath, spewing it out in sputters and grunts. A friend mentioned this to me, and I worked at relaxing my breath and coordinating it with my movements. My mime improved.
When I recently started thinking of picking up yoga, the Wisconsin incident stuck in my mind like a thorn. I feared that I once again would make a fool of myself in front of the other students. I overcame that resistance and have never regretted the decision. At least, I had read enough about yoga and done routines at home so that I was not completely lost.
Today, I wonder:
- What if the young instructor had drawn attention my breathing trouble, suggested that I start out gradually and ease myself into the routines.
- How I would have found a place to learn yoga in the Midwest in the 1970s? Aside from joining a commune or hooking up with one of the early pioneers.
- How difficult practice would have been working shifts at the steel mills.
- What if I had run off to India instead of Latin America, as I did four months after my close encounter with yoga.
These are the kinds of questions that run through my mind when at 55 you discover the world of good that yoga is doing for me and kicking myself for not starting earlier. In my first trials on a mat in my basement, I remember saying to myself "Boy, this feels so right!" Of course, a whole life had had made me thirsty for this fresh rendezvous with yoga, one that I am trying not to let slip by me.
Profit and Lose in the yoga business
Everything’s Not Zen: As yoga’s popularity explodes, a battle rages for its heart and soul
"No matter what caused the financial collapse of three quality yoga studios in the past year, the 5,000-year-old Eastern spiritual tradition is a tough fit for Western capitalism. In India, yoga classes are traditionally free, the gurus supported by communities, and such yogic principles as ahimsa (non-harming), satya (truth-telling) and aparigraha (greedlessness) are not so bruised by the constant fight for profit. Everyone agrees that yoga will evolve in the United States, but differences arise when they discuss how." LA Weekly
This is a fascinating account of what's happening on the Los Angeles (CA) yoga scene, kind of the epicenter of the yoga explosion in the USA.
More on Lotus
Alan Little has again come to the rescue with more advice on how to ready yourself to get into
Padmasana (Lotus position) without injuring yourself. Coincidentally, last night I read an excellent article, "Yogi Beware: Hidden dangers can lurk within even the most familiar pose," in February 2005
Yoga Journal by Judith Hanson Lasater. The article is not yet online or I would point to it. She also warns about three other poses:
Paschimottanasana (seated forward bend),
Marichyasana III (pose dedicated to the sage Marichi), and
Chaturanga Dandasana (four-limbed staff pose).
Lasater's article is useful because it points to other yoga poses that will help prepare you for Padmasana. She specifically mentions Baddha Konasana (Bound Angle Pose) and Prasarita Padottanasana (Wide-Legged Standing Forward Bend), as well was others. In my case, I can't get either of these positions right so I am far from attempting Lotus itself. The beauty of yoga is that there are a variety of poses that address the same muscle groups, some more advanced than others. In addition, there are modifications that can be made to poses to make them more approachable for beginners.
Like Alan, it may take me seven years (or more) to feel comfortable in Lotus pose. You start by accepting your own limits and use awareness to explore those limits without harming yourself. It's not "no pain, no gain." You patiently put in the time on the mat, and you will be rewarded in due course.
Chair versus floor
I've taken to heart what Alan Little told me in his comment on the previous entry:
Of course the correct answer, long term, is to develop the ability to sit comfortably for long periods in lotus. Which, however, starts with developing the ability to sit very uncomfortably for very short perods in lotus. And takes years.
My daily practice of pranayama and meditation are back on the floor, rather than in my comfortable Norweigan balans chair, except when I do them at work during lunch hour. Twenty minutes in easy pose is close to all my legs can take, but it's important to start down the road, even though I can't do lotus now. I sense that it will help increase my strength and flexibility. I still need to sit on blocks so that my knees are at least at the same height as my hips.
I got away from doing my practice on the floor when I injured my lower back and long stretches in a cross-legged seated pose tended to put more stress on my lumbar area. But now my back is no longer a primary concern.
Chairs for the mind
I like these
meditation chairs from
Zen by Design. They have a variety of models, ranging from a foldable portable unit to full-blown furniture. If you're going to spend much time meditating, it makes sense to get adequate seating or create a sacred space. I can't take too long seated in easy pose.
There is also a tantra chair on a separate site, appropriate viewing for adults only. Tantra is a Sanskrit term that means "looms" as in warp and weave of male and female in the universe. It can also mean framework or structure. Tandra yoga emphasizes sensual powers and tries to tap into the magical cosmic forces.
Yoga coming to a shopping mall near me
I woke up this morning and found some good news in my Inbox. A new yoga studio is opening up in my town, a couple of miles from my house. Because Susan Bowen made a comment to a previous entry in my blog, I've been unable to find it quickly so I am reposting it here as a full-blown entry:
Thrive Yoga is opening in two weeks. Vinyasa yoga will give you the more strenuous yoga that you are looking for. I am one of the owners. We are located at 1321B Rockville Pike. Check us out. I know the gym yoga gig and it is time to Thrive! We created Thrive because Rockville needs a yoga community and a great place to practice. So for the last year, me and my partner Kim put our blood sweat and tears into creating Thrive.
Susan makes reference to my frequenting Bally Fitness for yoga sessions. Unfortunately, Susan and her partners can't offer one part of the Bally experience -- it's free for members. But she is right that yoga studios are scarce out here in the suburbs and especially in Rockville, and the convenience of having Thrive Yoga just five minutes from my home may win me over.
Daughter walks in my shoes
My daughter, Stephanie, has her own, brand spanking new blog,
MediaChola -- which means halfbreed in Peruvian Spanish (By the way, my son calls himself Semicaucasian, so they're both thinking in the same mode.). Right now she's mostly outraged at the Bush inauguration plans as an arrogant waste of money.
Worthy reading
Jon Kabat-Zinn's new book
Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness
has now appeared. All 656 pages of it. Kabat-Zinn probably has a lot to say, and I will definitely read it. I have sworn that I will finish at least two of the books I have already begun reading before I order it.
I should mention that Kabat-Zinn has done some of the most respected scientifically based research on the effects of meditation, mindfulness and yoga in the past 20 years. The book brings together his investigation and thinking since his previous book, published in 1995.
I have already purchased a new set of Kabat-Zinn audio CDs/tapes, including a bodyscape, a soundscape, a mindscape, a nowscape, and a bunch more fun things to do while you're mindful. Almost four full hours of programming -- of course, most of it is silence. I've used his previous set for more than two years and enjoyed them. They are currently on loan to my son in graduate school.
Small conquest
Yesterday, in my yoga class while I was in downward-facing dog and looking back between my legs, I noticed that my heels were almost touching the ground. For someone who has been working for the past six months to loosen up the hamstrings, the "almost" seemed like a breakthrough. Of course, there were other facets of my practice that still lagged, that are even laughable, but when the journey is so long, you have learn to enjoy the scenery each day.
An encounter with pain
I went to a dental appointment in the morning; it was a followup to treatment that had been done last week. By the time the anesthetic started wearing off, my jaw was throbbing. The nerve endings must have been hyper-sensitive the second time around. The pain was distracting and made me feel like a zombie. Coincidentally, I've been reading Jon Kabat-Zinn's
Full Catastrophe Living, which is about using meditation and yoga to face pain. Of course, Kabat-Zinn is talking about chronic pain from serious illness, not just pain resulting from a dental visit. But pain is still pain, in the last count.
I decided to see if my yoga practice could help me. At lunch, I went to an available meeting room at work and shut the door. I did 15 minutes of pranayama and 30 minutes of meditation. It really did help me. The pain was still there but it seemed to shrink. It was no longer throbbing and radiating down my neck.
After work, I went to my evening yoga class. During warm up, I scanned my body and noticed that the pain had stiffened up the muscles in my neck and shoulders, even though the pain in my jaw was less severe that earlier in the day. By the end of the class, the tension had been released and I was drenched in sweat and energy.
And to top it off, I shared the class with my 27-year-old daughter. We had a light supper afterwards talking about yoga, football playoffs and life plans. Talk about feel good.
I originally wrote this account as part of my participation in the
online course with Kelly McGonigal. It's been quite enlightening and empowering. We'll see how it plays out over the next 50 weeks.
Meditation Gives Brain a Charge, Study Finds
WashingtonPost.com: "[The University of Wisconsin's Richard] Davidson says his newest results from the meditation study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in November, take the concept of neuroplasticity a step further by showing that mental training through meditation (and presumably other disciplines) can itself change the inner workings and circuitry of the brain." This is the latest installment in the long-standing cooperation between the Dalai Lama and the international scientific community. The results of this study were actually published in November, but the Post gives this item a big spread and a lead-in from the front page of the paper edition. The print newspaper had a really neat photo of a Tibetan monk wearing a bizarre-looking network of 256 electronic sensors on his head.
This research is changing the way that the Western scientists see the brain. They now recognize that significant changes can take place well after the formative development years (childhood).
