The DC area yoga page has become the second most popular page on this site so apparently someone finds it useful. As an additional feature, I have done a little online research and determined which studios offer teacher training and certification. This training component is a sign of a studio's professionalism and scope of services because it takes a substantial investment of knowledge, resources and energy to pull off a 200-hour (or 300 or 500 hour, or pre/post-natal) accredited training program.
Teacher training does not have to be just for those who want to become a teacher. Anyone who wants to deepen his or her understanding of yoga can take a course. My daughter took teacher training last year at Flow Yoga and only a handful of the 20 students are currently teaching. Another way of doing yoga intensive is the 108-hour Anusara immersion program, like the one at Willow Street Yoga.
Finally,
my main yoga shala, Thrive Yoga, is starting a teacher training program in affiliation with Alan Finger and ISHTA Yoga. Two weeks ago I participated in a weekend workshop and was really impressed with Alan Finger's depth of knowledge of yoga, tantra and ayurveda. He's an ol' school yoga guru who traces his lineage back to his teachers: Paramahansa Yogananda (author of the classic book Autobiography of a Yogi), Swami Nishraisananda, Swami Venkatesananda, and Shuddhanand Bharati when they frequented Alan's father's home in South Africa. This is a tradition that is different from the Krishnamacharya branch of the yoga tree (B.K.S. Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois and T.K.V. Desikachar) that predominates in the States. Finger came to the States in 1975, founded Yoga Works in LA and then came to NYC and founded Yoga Zone/Be Yoga. His participation in the Thrive ISHTA program sets it apart from most teacher training offerings in the Washington area.
The Finger workshop had a strong emphasis on the underlying universe of knowledge that supports yoga. Alan also integrated pranayama and meditation into the experience. He explained how the chakras related to the whole energy system and why they were essential to understanding yoga. He encouraged questions from the participants and let their interests guide the discussion. His laughter was the mantra of the workshop, punctuating his self-deprecating humor and joy of living.
Most people came to the workshop expecting to work up a good sweat with a vinyasa practice. Instead, we really had to exercise our minds. In the lone vinyasa segment during the workshop (I attended Saturday AM and PM sessions, and went to the Sunday session to take photos), Alan gave two adjustments that helped me correct some bad habits: in downward-facing dog, I was not maintain the curve in my lower back; and in twists, I tended to lead with my head and neck, over-exerting, when my head should be the last element to come into play. In other words, I was trying to hard to get into poses.
Labels: dc_yoga, website, yoga_resource
- LA Times Making yoga a professional's sport
- Boston.com Stretching benefits: Companies offer yoga as perk, curb on health costs
- Denver Post Stretching across cultures
- Washington Post Mentoring Tips: Susan Bowan of Thrive Yoga.
- LA Times Surviving the heat in yoga's Death Valley
- LA Times Seane Corn: A world beyond yoga
- And from the United Kingdom, Telegraph Bad etiquette from beginners sparks yoga rage
Labels: news
SFGate Breathe in, breathe out. Then get crazy. Yoga Journal held one of its big conferences last weekend and made a big impression with the fusion of music and movement.
More than 2,100 practitioners came to be inspired by yoga's top teachers - some rock stars in their own right - and bask in the glow of shared experience with like-minded souls. The sold-out event was the biggest yet, its popularity thanks, in no small part, to the participation of Michael Franti, front man for San Francisco band Spearhead as well as an activist and dedicated yogi. In addition to being the event's keynote speaker, Franti gave a benefit concert for Youth Aids and his own organization, Power to the Peaceful, and co-taught two workshops that incorporated his music with the ancient practice of yoga.
Washington Post Competitive Yoga? Not a Stretch It's hard to accept the idea that the practice of yoga can be inserted into a competitive system in which one practitioner is matched against others. But Bikram Choudhury, the India-born guru and businessman, likes being outside the mainstream of yoga.
In a pose called the standing full bow, (Sonja) Wyche does the splits while standing, pulling her back leg forward with both hands until her foot touches the back of her head. It's moves like that -- ones that require a trifecta of strength, flexibility and balance -- that landed her in second place out of 16 women in a regional contest in November.
Labels: news
New York Times Bending, Posing and Teaching Beyond the Mat is a nice article about karma yoga, taking the practice to the prisons, shelters and schools as a selfless act of service.
Research in the United States on yoga's effectiveness in helping treat drug addiction or mental illness is limited. Most studies have been done on a small scale in India, and the findings aren't universally accepted... But yoga's function as a stress reliever is not in dispute. “Yoga and meditation do several things, and perhaps one of the most important is that they allow individuals to cope with stress better," said Sat Bir Khalsa, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who studies the medical effects of yoga. "At the core of a lot of addiction is a search for that kind of relief from the stressful world."
There have been two recent articles in the Washington Post that I have not mentioned before: "The Family That Ohms Together..." (January 4, 2008) and Om for the 'Olidays: Breathe. Release. Repeat. What Stress? (November 20, 2007). Both mention Thrive Yoga. Also seen the feature on Diamond Dallas Page, a three-time World Wrestling Champion who has taken the virtues of yoga to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has a Yoga for Regular Guys DVD and a book out. See his site.
The MAYA Yogathon is taking place on Saturday, January 26 at the Josephine Butler Parks Center, 2437 15th St., NW, Washington, DC 20009. More details at MAYA site. World Yoga Day is February 3. Karmapalooza was a Miami-based event, but is now expanding nationwide. It is on March 1. So many events, so few opportunities to get the news out.
Labels: dc_yoga
Boston Globe Don't just stand there, think - Embodied cognition means that motor experience can influence intelligence, and that idea resonates with a yoga practice and the mind-body connection:
"It's a revolutionary idea," says Shaun Gallagher, the director of the cognitive science program at the University of Central Florida. "In the embodied view, if you're going to explain cognition it's not enough just to look inside the brain. In any particular instance, what's going on inside the brain in large part may depend on what's going on in the body as a whole, and how that body is situated in its environment."
My own efforts with yoga are to explore the full range of my physical body and its dynamic relationship with space, movement and gravity, something that I never attempted when I was younger. Intellectual knowledge was cut off from the body, isolated in the head, confined to a book. There was also a divorce between thought and action.
Via Mind Hack who also points to here for a more complete academic explanation.
Labels: brain_science, news
I had a colonoscopy last week, the first time in 15 years, which means that it was overdue. They found four polyps, all of which appeared to be benign, were extracted and then sent to a lab for a biopsy. I have not heard anything else since then. The procedure is intimidating because you spend a couple of days restricting your diet, a full day purging the digestive system of all contents (by taking some pills, no enema for me this time) and practically a full day recovering from the procedure because of the anesthesia (called conscious sedation) and the fasting. While I was under, I felt nothing and remember nothing of the procedure itself. I left work at midday the day before to start the purging and took the whole day off following the AM procedure.
As I've taken a renewed interest in taking care of my health over the past six months, a colonoscopy was the one health measure that needed to be put in place, especially since preventive care can dramatically reduce the risk of colon cancer. I could feel the anxiety building up inside me over the weekend before the procedure as I had to acknowledge that I should have done this a lot earlier. Fortunately, the worrying was cut short abruptly by the purging process.
I have to go back for my next one in three years because of my risk factors and my age. I will be less reticence to go because modern medicine has made the procedure as painless as possible, though it still not pleasant. But it's really a necessary test for anyone over 55 years old. As far as how this all relates to yoga, I am now more aware and appreciative of all my body parts.
Labels: health
Last weekend I walked into Metro Run and Walk and asked to be fitted for some running shoes (as opposed to walking into a discount shoe store and walking out with a pair that seemed to fit me comfortably). After watching me walk and job around the store a bit and asking me about how much I had been running, the young sales woman told me that I showed signs of some serious overpronation and needed as much support as any running shoe could give without adding orthopedic supports. In other words, when I run, my planted foot rolls inward and flattens out the arch, which in turn puts a lot of stress on the lower leg muscles and knees. In the end, I paid a pretty penny for a pair of Brooks Beasts (appropriate name). I figured that if it kept me from getting shin splints or other injuries, it was money well spent.
Once home, I examined my feet more closely and came to the conclusion that I am heading in the direction of having flat feet. If in my early stages of learning yoga, I complained about having stiff ankles and feet, I now have gone the other direction of not having tensile strength in the arches to hold up under the stress of running. I guess this news is just another sign of aging -- the body parts will wear out over time and no amount of restorative practices of yoga will return them to their youthful flexibility.
This condition does not mean I will stop running. I will just be more careful, concentrate on keeping good form and listen closely to what my body tells me. I am going to do some exercises meant to deal with fallen arches and see what happens. I am told that it's really hard to reverse overpronation.
Labels: conditioning, health, running
I did five miles of running on the Mall at lunch time, into the cold winds coming off the Potomac. It was the first outside run that I've had since before Christmas, though I did make it to the gym for the treadmill several times. I thought I has not lost much strength over the holiday break, but I felt exhausted by the time I got home.
I am still concerned that the pounding of running will erase the benefits of my yoga practice. I remembered an interview that I heard on NPR about chi-running, a concept started by athletic trainer Danny Dreyer. I looked up his website and found his approach to be a technique that melded well with yoga and mindfulness. The technique combines "the inner focus and flow of T'ai Chi with the power and energy of running to create a revolutionary running form and philosophy that takes the pounding, pain, and potential damage out of the sport of running."
I ordered his book and DVD. Expect reviews shortly after they arrive in the mail. Meanwhile, you can check out what other people think by consulting news links or by reading a collection of longer articles. You can get a clear idea about the program by going through a few of these online resources. This NPR story is a good start.
I took my first yoga class tonight and faced the question of what intention will guide my personal practice this year. I decided that I would have two: The first one is discovery because I want to explore the boundaries of my body, mind and spirits. The second one is to use my practice as a cosmic empowerment for my brother, Richard, who is still fighting cancer. Although he made what seemed to be a promising recovery from his initial diagnosis of lung cancer, he recently had a small tumor removed from his brain and, then a few weeks ago, his doctors detected that the lung cancer has come back. Last year, I shaved my head in solidarity with my brother. Apparently that modest gesture was not enough so I am throwing in sweat and energy from my yoga practice this time around.
Last year, my intention was self-acceptance while two years ago it was awareness. I have an annual intention to avoid the uncertainty of picking one at the start of a yoga class.
Thrive Yoga will be offering a series for women with breast cancer. It starts on January 14 and goes for six weeks, on Monday mornings. This course is a great initiative for women going through a really tough experience so I wanted to make sure that the word gets out. Thrive is a really supportive environment.
