A month ago, I was traveling in Colombia and spending evenings alone in my hotel room in a kind of personal retreat (no television, no alcohol, no distractions). I was doing pranayama, yoga and meditation, as well as reading and journaling. In meditation, I've often found it hard to focus so I've used techniques like a mantra or my breath as my target of attention. In meditation classes, I tried other technique, like focusing on my third eye (the point between the brows, associated with the anja chakra and enlightenment). I was told to focus on the bridge of my nose (with eyes shut) and then move up to the third eye. It's still a tough task for me because it's an imaginary exercise. I've never seen my third eye.
That evening in Santa Marta, I found myself befuddled as I tried to focus my attention on a single point. I asked myself whether it might be more feasible to focus my eyes on something more meaningful. What could I focus on that would instill a deep sense of wellbeing and stillness? Well, the object could be looking into the eyes of a loved one, I said to myself. But rather than referring to my wife or kids, I tried to raise the practice to another level: the Beloved. I settled into this mental stance and felt a groundswell of emotion. I then realized that the Beloved was like a mirror and I was looking into a pair of eyes -- my own. This sudden stroke of wisdom hit me with a visceral truth in my core.
This event sealed a year in which my intention was self-acceptance as a necessary step in my personal development. It is so hard for me to accept and love myself without conditions or expectations. My work with yoga has been to come to terms with my physical body while with meditation and self-inquiry I've tried to tackle other realms.
Last night, I went to the gym, instead of the yoga studio, and ran for about four miles on the tread mill. It was my first time running since December 22 so I felt as if I was making up for lost time. This morning, I could feel the soreness in my thighs, hips and shoulders and sensed that I had lost form in such a short time.
I guess this precarious status of conditioning is due to my age since I am fighting against the natural tendency of the human body to lose muscular strength. Or it may be that it just takes a long while to rebuild strength and flexibility after letting it slide so far. It's a sobering thought, one that I've mentioned before, and reminds me that it's probably not wise to take time off from my yoga practice or my conditioning work.
Of course, who am I trying to kid? I've only been running for the past three months, and have had several extended breaks due to travel and work commitments so it's not as if I were training for a marathon. It's not even long enough to draw any conclusions about what my body is capable of. I should understand by now that any meaningful change in body, mind or spirit has to be measured against a much longer stretch of time.
Labels: conditioning, practice
Following up on an entry a few days ago, I went to Thrive Yoga three days in a row — my usual weekend classes and a hot yoga class on Monday morning. Each day opened up a different view on my body as I played with the boundaries of my practice. Moving into handstand in the middle of the room, without a wall to serve as a back-stop going into and out of a headstand from crow pose; dealing with the new balance requirements in tree pose of placing my foot on my thigh, rather than on my calf; noticing that when I'm in an inversion, like plow or shoulderstand, my stomach no longer suffocates my breath by pressing down on my diaphragm. These small nuances in my practice are the blessings that come each class and keep my routine from getting monotonous.
While I was away in Colombia, my travel reading was Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart: A Buddhist Perspective on Wholeness
I managed to get through the whole book (181 pages) by the end of my meeting thanks to Epstein's effortless writing style and the compelling content. He illustrates his central theme drawing on his own personal path of discovery and on his patients' case histories. A saving grace of the book is that Epstein does not bite off too much by trying to be an authoritative text on Buddhism, meditation, patient-centered therapy or any other big concept. He is not selling a particular theory or political line. Instead, he argues that we need to relax into the flow of life, rather than lock into an attempt to control our experience or accumulate pieces of self-improvement until we have attained perfection.
Since I finished reading the book about four weeks ago, I'm trying to reconstruct what I found most rewarding in the book -- without re-reading the book again. I am going to do some scratch writing off-line before posting it here.
Labels: meditation, philosophy, reading
Susan Bowen has announced the start-up of teacher training at Thrive Yoga. ISHTA Yoga founder and pioneer, Alan Finger, will be leading the four-month process. Alan knows a lot because he was born into a yoga-inspired family, knew original thinkers and grappled with translating these concepts into the U.S. culture as a business and as a philosophy. He co-founded yoga studios, like the Yoga Works studio in LA and the Yoga Zone studios in NYC, which later became the Be Studios.
The training will start in late March, mostly on weekends, and last until June. At 2:00 on January 20 at Thrive Yoga, Alan and Susan will present an overview of the program. Alan is actually based on New York City so he will be commuting a lot next year. I might add that you can take the course without wanting to become a teacher; it's an intensive gateway into a deeper understanding of yoga.
ISHTHA is an acronym for the Integrated Science of Hatha, Tantra and Ayurveda, and also a Sanskrit word meaning that which resonates with an individual's spirit, according to Alan's website. With Katrina Repka, he wrote Chakra Yoga: Balancing Energy for Physical, Spiritual, and Mental Well-being (Shambhala, 2005), which synthesizes his long evolution as a practitioner, teacher and thinker. There are also a bunch of Yoga Zone videos available that feature Alan.
Labels: life style, philosophy, reading, workshop, yoga
I've begun to notice changes in my body during my yoga practice. For instance, last night when I was in Warrior II, I was able to move my shoulder blades closer together and further apart independent from my pose. My arms felt lighter and more free. A month ago, my shoulders and scapula seemed to be one solid block of bone and muscle -- roughly the equivalent of a clinched fist. I've commented here before, about getting really fatigued in Warrior II because I seemed to be fighting against myself as well as gravity.
There are other small changes that I've discovered. To prevent myself from trying too hard, I used props as supports (a block under my hand in Half Moon, for instance) so that I did not go too far. I've tried to remove those artificial benchmarks and explore where my body takes me know. I've been surprised. Last night, I skipped the block in Half Moon and accepted the balance with my hand to the floor.
I joined with my workmates running on the Mall at lunch hour. The four of us did about five miles in an hour, including warm-up and cool-off. Because of travel, work obligations and bad weather, we had not followed through on our two-days a week commitment. It's been three weeks since I ran so I was a bit hesitant about how much I could tackle, but I got through without undue duress. There was certainly nothing left in the tank in the final stretch. We noticed that there are fewer runners on the Mall in December than November. I had four layers of clothing on to ward off the cold — the wind on the Mall can be brutal.
Post data: the day after, I can say that my thighs and arms/shoulders are sore and stiff. I slept like a log last night. I've allowed myself to talk myself out of doing yoga and running too often recently because rational excuses are available during the holidays.
Labels: conditioning, running
That past few weeks have confirmed that the quality of meditation/yoga that appeals me to me most is stillness or samahdi; it's the pay-off for the investment of time and energy in practice. There are many definitions for it. In the Buddhist lineage, it is "concentration of the mind." It's not the easiest quality to attain and it can be fleeting, but even a short exposure to it can pull you up from a stormy emotional current. It's that instant when the white noise of our minds goes silent and we can turn our gaze inward.
Labels: blessing, meditation, yoga
You can see a historic video of Iyengar from the same period.
Labels: history, inspire, philosophy, videos, workshop
The workshop this past weekend was a milestone in my practice. I've been noticing a shift in my focus on yoga for several weeks now. I notice how incomplete I feel when I'm not able to get to class and how energized and alive I feel when I have done a good practice. When I was traveling, I made it a point to reserve an hour or two in the evenings to roll out my mat and do some work. What a glow this solitary practice gives to your body and mind as you move through the vinyasa moved only by the rhythm of your own breath! No instructor, no audio cues.
I came to yoga four years ago because I wanted to reap from its benefits — yoga for depression, anxiety, and heart aches; yoga to deal with back pain and aging; yoga for losing weight and gaining flexibility. The US market is full of this message. I still want those pluses, but I noticed that I am motivated less by the benefits and more by the practice itself. The most succinct explanation I've heard for this attitude is Shiva Rea saying that she was not interested in "doing yoga," but rather in "being yoga." That shift in focus makes a big difference. I not only get the same benefits as before, but they seem to be compounded because they are unencumbered by the resistance and tension that build up when I am specifically seeking an outcome; I become aware of other aspects of my practice that I failed to sense because I was targeting my efforts too narrowly.
In a sense, my purchase of a new mat and other paraphernalia and my participation in the workshop is a long-term investment in my yoga practice. It's not just a hobby, a pastime or a fitness exercise, but an integral part of my self-image and a tool in my personal development. I am taking a stake in the future.
And this past weekend, I celebrated my four-year anniversary by tapping into a shared energy and flow with other yogis who also realize the prospects of the discipline and rejoice in the varied stages of practices that others might bring to the mat. In other words, no novice, no expert, just yogis sharing the reward of the practice. Beryl told us that in India yoga was originally meant to be practiced in a group setting, in the neighborhood shala with other practitioners. She was so right. I was fortunate to celebrate this milestone in the studio that has been my shala for the past three years.
I wanted to put up more remarks about the workshop but I am just too tired physically and psychologically. Three days in a row of full-bore practice really depleted my energy stores and left me flat, but my muscles were not sore. At my age, energy recovery comes more slowly. I am making a point of getting to bed by 11:30 tonight. More to come later.
I've just spent three days focused on yoga with Beryl Bender Birch at a Thrive Yoga workshop. I am writing this posting on a staggered basis because I'm still putting my thoughts together about the workshop.
Beryl has been a pioneer of introducing yoga in the United States, starting nearly 35 years ago. She now operates out of the Hard and the Soft Yoga Institute on Long Island and has taught several generations of yoga instructors. She built up traction teaching yoga to athletes in New York City in the 1980s. She coined the phrase Power Yoga as a more appropriate tag for Ashtanga yoga that American could understand. She also wrote two books, Power Yoga and Beyond Power Yoga: 8 Levels of Practice for Body and Soul, that were among the first to reach a broader audience.
We had four 2.5 hour sessions, one Friday, two on Saturday and one on Sunday. In the second Saturday session, we did a restorative pose for 15 minutes and closed with a meditation. In between, Beryl distributed a half dozen different translations (or interpretations) of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras and had us read them out loud. Then, she led us in a discussion of what yoga is, why we practice it and what we want to obtain. That was one of the traits of her teaching. In our first class before doing a jump-back or starting ujayay breath, she held up her hand with about an inch between thumb and index finger and said, "Yoga is this much about asana." The conversation was lively and informative.
For the actual practice, Beryl led us through the Ashtanga Primary Series. It was my first time following a traditional sequencing of poses, though many were modified for practitioners who had not mastered a specific pose.
I think that the appeal of a workshop is the chance to discover the alchemy of shared practice, bringing together an experienced teacher and a roomful of bodies and minds focused on getting the most out of the opportunity. 50-60 sets of lungs churning up the prana in unison -- that's some pretty powerful magic. Beryl did an excellent job of creating the right atmosphere. She always spent the first 30 minutes of a session building up a rapport with the students, giving us an idea of where she wanted to take us, letting us tap into her wisdom and getting a feel for how we could handle the work.
There were actually students who had not taken more than 10 hours of yoga before the workshop. On the other hand, several yoga instructors who had trained under Beryl also showed up for the workshop. At several points, Beryl stopped a student from doing the vinyasa and had them looked at other students as they did the practice: "You can learn as much from watching as from doing."
Beryl had a nice gesture at the end of the final session: she brought out a box full of yoga books (a few courtesy copies but most purchased with her own funds) and she gave them away to the students. Spread the wisdom!
For the past six months, I have gone back and forth about buying a new yoga mat. I even returned one because it did not suit me. After looking at several brands and styles, I decided to get the Mandruka eKO because it comes in a larger size (26" x 71" x 5mm versus the more traditional 24" x 68") and I need the extra width, thanks to a correction made to me by Jordan Bloom. The mat is environmentally safe (natural rubber). Of course, at something like 7 pounds, it cannot be considered a travel mat -- in fact, most people would not think twice about picking it up and taking it to class. It's not going to fit into my current mat bag. It's literally laying a foundation for my practice. I really like the sticky touch of the dry surface, but it gets slick when wet.
I also picked up a large eQua towel. With eco-friendly mats, you can no longer dump them into the washer and put them through a cleaning cycle because that starts the bio-degrading process. They have to be cleaned by hand with cider vinegar and water or a specially formulated cleaner. I concluded that it's best to have a washable layer between me and my mat that will absorb the sweat and grim. Now, I just have to get used to doing my practice with the equivalent of a sheet under my soles. It's really hard in Warrior I and II because my feet start slipping out from under me. But I soon discovered that I needed the towel once I started sweating hard and dripping on the mat. Without a towel, my hands were slipping out from under me in Upward Bow or Wheel(Urdhva Dhanurasana).
Labels: hardware
I started the week thinking that I would have time to practice yoga and pranayama, meditate, and blog now that I am back at home, safe in the structure and security of my daily routine. Fat chance!
I have made it to the studio once, on Sunday evening. I have meditated twice late in the evening. I got to run on the Mall on Tuesday, 4.5 miles. A clipper weather front has blown through Washington, giving us our first blast of cold and has caused my car battery to go belly up, leaving me stranded at the Metro when I wanted to rush over to Thrive for an evening class. My mother-in-law has arrived from Peru to spend the holidays with us and disrupted household routine. My brother in Dallas, Richard, was hospitalized with what looked like a heart attach, throwing in family deliberations about his health.
I will have a full weekend to compensate because I am taking the Beryl Bender Birch workshop at Thrive Yoga -- 10 hours over three days.
Yogichocolate has eight yoga teachers offering downloadable (audio) classes: David Romanelli, Rudy Mettia, Terra Gold, Liz Hage, Travis Elliot -- you get the idea. Nice web design, easily accessible and you play whatever you feel appropriate -- a donation. Via Drishti.
I was outside the country last week on a work assignment, which prevented me from posting any blog entries. I could check my e-mails a few times, but really did not focus to put together even a short item. I was in Santa Marta, Colombia at my organization's semi-annual meeting. I was able to do pranayama and meditation each day, and even fit in some yoga in my yoga room a few days. I needed the healing to recover from the wear and tear of flying and hectic meetings. You would think that being forced to sit in a seat for extended periods of time would be conducive to calm and clarity -- it's not. I will try to put something more substantive than this notice shortly.
