Prana Journal

What would Patajali think? !

2009-07-01T22:15:00.005-04:00

I was flipping through the channels on Verizon FIOS this evening and landed on the Pentagon Channel. There before me were three stocky, muscular drill instructors (one female and two males) in their PE kits, getting ready for the Fit for Duty show. What I mistook for "attention" was something completely different. Instead of a cadence for jumping jacks, the lead (Major Lisa Lourey) brought her hands into namaste in front of her heart, and her partners followed. I then noticed that they were standing barefoot on yoga mats. Airy music came over the sound track. She was leading a yoga class!

Admittedly, this was "Yoga for Golf," but further investigation showed that there was a wide selection of routines, plus Pilates, strength training and kick-boxing. But no matter what their intention, the mere fact these American bodhisattva warriors were "doing yoga" on the Pentagon Channel in "prime time" means that yoga has gone well beyond "mainstream" or even Main Street America. For that matter, the Veteran Administration is now using yoga nidra and pranayama to rehabilitate victims of post traumatic stress disorder so it should come as no surprise that yoga could be used as a "prep" for combat.

The Fit for Duty programming, now in its second season, is available as a podcast.

Anusara's John Friend leads a class

2009-07-01T14:56:00.003-04:00

I was following John Friend's twittering and came across a link to this shot. Twitpic has several other shots of massed yogis in formation. Awe-inspiring gatherings that project channeled prana. Friend is on tour, currently in Canada, putting on workshops for Anusara yoga teachers.

As a hack photographer, I am fascinated by shots of yoga practice, both the group sync and the individual pose. John -- or his people -- have many opportunities. It's a lot harder than it looks because the photographer has to capture the instance of grace in poor, indoor lighting, and frequently in movement.

Art of Living course gets spotlighted in the Washington Post

2009-06-23T11:34:00.001-04:00

washingtonpost.com Nonprofit Group Teaches D.C. How to Take a Breather also has some great photos of the open-air event in downtown Washington.

"Take a Breath DC" ran from Wednesday to Saturday and culminated in a group meditation for about 600 in Lafayette Park. The course was organized by the Art of Living Foundation, a nonprofit group that has its national headquarters on 15th Street NW. The cornerstone of Art of Living is a rhythmic breathing technique called Sudarshan Kriya. About 30 years ago, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (not the sitarist who knew the Beatles; different guy) discovered that this type of breathing, combined with yoga and meditation, can bring inner peace; he and his followers have taught the art of better breathing to millions since then.

I learned the AOL routines back in early 2004 and have continued them to this day, though I don't do them everyday because it's hard to fit all my practices into a single day. If I do yoga, I usually won't do a kriya unless I'm really dead tired and need to revive my energy. I haven't been to a Art of Living weekly session for several years and need to go back just to refresh my memory of the whole process.

Trying to practice what I preach

2009-06-07T14:03:00.007-04:00

This weekend, I got in my two sessions of yoga at Thrive Yoga, with Dana Cohen, who has been subbing a lot recently. I also took a class from her last Thursday so I've been getting a steady diet of her brand of intense, burning vinyasa. Actually, my class today was hatha yoga and there was not a sequence of asanas in sight. Instead, we held poses for what seemed like an eternity and then came back to revisit the poses or variations repeatedly during the session.

I am trying to follow through on my intention of "not working too hard at my yoga." I am consciously pulling back from poses that test my limits, taking a modification. Even still, today, I was in Intense Side Stretch Pose (Parsvottanasana) and found myself tensing up my shoulders, unnecessarily. I know that I instinctively tighten my shoulders in many situations, from typing at the computer to driving, to pranayama. For the time being, I am taking my shoulders out of the shape in some poses, like Extended Triangle (Utthita Trikonasana) whenever I feel them tightening up.

Where I am concentrating my efforts are in my hips, especially my psoas. I am not really engaging them in many poses, and compensate by overusing other muscle groups. For now, I try to make sure that I am pulling my pubic bone up towards my stomach, the oft-repeated pelvic tilt formula that requires you to "pull down on your tailbone and up on your pubic bone." Because I could never seem to access the specific muscles to accomplish this rotation, it was all very abstract. Now, in practically every pose, I try to identify the expression of the pose and establish it in the hips first. What has really surprised me is that correcting my hip tilt also eventually results in a correction of my shoulders and thoracic spine.

Bikram interviewed again

2009-06-06T13:33:00.004-04:00

This article in the Boston Globe, Yogi Bikram Choudhury likes the finer things in life, is a short piece with a big photo. Post data: And this article, Yoga Fever: Bikram Choudhury's 105-degree workout is a hot ticket, came out on Sunday in the same paper and is a much longer feature piece that focuses on some of Bikram's ego-centric rants and commercial hyperdrive. Tenley Woodman, the columnist, ends her piece with her own personal experience in a Bikram class: "The last 20 mintues of class leaves me feeling nauseous and exhausted. I begin to question my sanity. My heart races, my knees shake from fatigue. I swear I will never, ever submit myself to this torture again." But she does. The article is accompanied by a nice photo gallery.

To compensate for this fluff, here is a more substantive article about a woman taking a Bikram class from the Everett (Wa.) Herald.

How and why one writer took up yoga

2009-06-06T13:28:00.001-04:00

Los Angeles Times Yoga opened doors she had long ago closed - Writer and teacher Colette LaBouff Atkinson describes how she came to her yoga practice when her body seemed to be breaking down:

But in yoga, as anyone and everyone who's ever benefited from it will say, all kinds of things became possible. I was there only to breathe; nothing to revise or make again. The yoga instructor -- more than one, really -- would walk by me and say, "Soft face." Sometimes the teacher would put her fingers into my furrowed brow as she passed.

Follow-up on the passing of a yoga master

2009-06-05T13:47:00.000-04:00

Catching up on the news about Pattabhi Jois's death, I pulled together more obits from major media: The Economist (a good article), Guardian,Times (UK), Examiner (this chain of suburban tabloids has a lot of yoga articles because many local editions have independently contributed articles.).

Indian newspapers seemed to give less space to his obit than international media: rediff news Deccan Herald The Hindu with a nod to Churumuri for the Indian links.

Working too hard at yoga

2009-05-29T22:13:00.000-04:00

I was at my class on Thursday sweating profusely as I was crumbled in child's pose after some extended holds and vinyasa flows out of Warrior II. I realized then and there that I work too hard at yoga, put too much effort into the asanas and movements. I always marvel at slender women getting to poses that defy gravity even though they do not have bulging muscles. It's not because women are innately more flexible than men because many of these poses do not require "being bent into pretezels" (I hate that cliché because it appears in almost every newspaper article about yoga).

I no longer grunt when I go into Crow pose or Revolved Side Angle pose (Parivrtta Parsvakonasana), but it does not come easy. Part of the problem is that I am not efficient in using my muscular strength. I don't access the right muscles to make the pose possible and try to overpower the pose by using more (but inappropriate) muscle. That creates more rigidity, which in turn makes the pose harder.

So I have decided to back off my practice a bit, and focus on catch each pose correctly.

Guilt pays a visit

2009-05-27T17:51:00.003-04:00

I've been feeling guilty because I have not posted much recently, even over a long weekend, even with Twitter as an incentive to think of communicating with the outside world. I also got in three days in a row of intense yoga so it's not as if I did not have any raw material to sprinkle on this blog. And I keep catching news from regular readers, friends and strangers that chance by this blog. Well, that's what stirred this guilty epistle.

I just have a problem with thinking too hard, and this blog has tended to pay the price because the words are immature and not ready to opening them up to the public or too narrowly focused to be of interest. I will try to do better.

New yoga star rising in the West

2009-05-21T10:33:00.001-04:00

New York Times He Rocks, They Flock: The Yoga King is Vinnie Marino, a former drug addict and New Yorker:

Mr. Marino leads challenging classes of nearly 90 people, six days a week, twice a day, at the Yoga Works studios. His class fuses different types of yoga that incorporate flowing from one pose to another (vinyasa and Ashtanga) and holding certain poses for a long time while focusing on alignment (Iyengar). The sweat alone makes it seem closer to a high-impact aerobics class than a discipline with a meditational aspect.

In many ways, this piece runs though the usual clichés of personality profiles of yoga/spirituality teachers, whether he/she's a street-smart Buddhist or a business tychoon on a mat. But you always learn something new. For instance, Marino teaches the actor Robert Downey Jr.; somehow, I knew that Downey's turn-around from drug- addled trouble-maker to elite actor would have a different twist.

The Brain and Spirituality on the radio waves

2009-05-20T19:04:00.000-04:00

National Public Radio Is This Your Brain On God? is a five-part (full week) look (or should I say "listen") at how spiritual experience can be understood. Listen to the radio feeds, and also check out a couple of videos, as well as some illustrations of the geography of the brain.

The radio correspondent is Barbara Bradley Hagerty, who handles the religion beat at NPR. She has a new book, Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality. There are some excerpts of the book available on the NPR site.

I've only caught part of today's broadcast so I am going to have to hold back on any definitive opinions, but this is a subject that fascinates me so I will catch up tonight and follow the rest of the week.

K. Pattabhi Jois has passed away

2009-05-18T12:06:00.002-04:00

A global yoga pioneer has died, as announced on SHRI K. PATTABHI JOIS ASHTANGA YOGA INSTITUTE:

May 18, 2009 Guruji passed away today at 2:30pm (Indian Standard Time). Thank you for all your condolences and prayers. Please kindly refrain from contacting the family directly at this time.

Sad news for anyone who has been touched by his work. Below, I am posting the best articles and tributes that I come across:

New York Times: Krishna Pattabhi Jois, Leading Expert in Yoga, Dies at 93 (nice piece, not just a news wire story)
Guardian: Yoga Guru Dies
USA Today: Major yoga figure dies
Hawaii Health Guide: Sri Krishna Pattabhi Jois- Ashtanga yoga legend passes

Guruji (K. Pattabhi Jois) hospitalized

2009-05-08T15:00:00.004-04:00

The great master guru Shri K. Pattabhi Jois has been hospitalized, according to the K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute. His son, Sharath, who was a guest teacher in the United States, has been called home so it must be serious. Last year, Pattabhi Jois had to postpone a scheduled trip to inaugurate a yoga training center in Florida. He is going to be 94 in July.

Too busy to get to class

2009-05-06T22:41:00.003-04:00

Three nights in a row I get home after 7:30, which means I can't make it to yoga class. Just too many things bubbling at work to get out in time for class. Big meeting this week so everyone pressing to get ready. I'm writing this at 10:45 pm so when am I supposed to pull out the mat at home. Last night I didn't get to bed until 2:00 am because I had to reformat my netbook and lay on the operating system and all the other software. Got up at 6:30 so I've been dragging my body around today. And just to prove that it's not the same old rut, I am going to sit and mediate before bed. Good night.

DC Yoga Week sneaks up on me

2009-05-02T10:25:00.003-04:00

Before it's too late, let me mention it's DC Yoga Week, May 2-9, at a host of yoga studios in Washington. Free and inexpensive classes are offered at 10 participating studios. Next Saturday, there's going to be a Yoga on the Mall event from 2-5 pm.

The yoga meme even slips into the Wall Street Journal

2009-05-01T14:53:00.001-04:00

WSJ Magazine From Navy Whistleblower to Warrior Pose is the story of Paula (Coughlin) Puopolo who was the focal point of the U.S. Navy Tailhook scandal in the early 1990s. This story tells her story well and also how yoga allowed her to come to peace with herself and the repercussions from the public airing of her ordeal in a hotel corridor in Las Vegas. She now owns her own yoga studio, Ocean Yoga.

Of all the yoga styles she’s experienced since then, the one Puopolo has focused on is a tantric variety called Anusara, created by the American teacher John Friend in 1997. Its guiding ethos posits the inherent goodness of human beings. Over time, it replaced smoking and prescription pills, and her anger at her attackers receded, until Puopolo decided she wanted to teach others about the restorative powers she found in the practice. "I wouldn’t be talking to you if I didn’t really think I was finally getting some clarity," she says. "The philosophy opened me up to the idea that I could really stop hating so much stuff."

The Wall Street Journal keeps a lot of its content behind fees-based barrier so you may not be able to access this story after a few weeks. Enjoy it while you can.

Back to the mat

2009-04-30T13:41:00.004-04:00

Because of my illness (sinus infection) over the past week, I've refrained from full-bore yoga practice. Yesterday, I returned home from work at odds and out of sort (two phases that are nonsensical, but appropriate). I had been unfocused at work and less productive than I wanted to be. Once home, it was too late to go to class, but I am not going to miss it tonight. I really need it. I've also put on a couple of extra pounds so that's even more motivation. Even though I lay out my mat on the floor, I never could put in sufficient time, except for a couple of nights of ying yoga. Too many distractions at home. There is something about arriving home, stripping off the cloths, donning my yoga duds, picking up my kit and mat, and driving to the studio. It's like flipping a switch.

Power yoga advocate gets profiled

2009-04-29T11:35:00.002-04:00

Denver Post Delicate balance of a yoga master It's unusual that the paper gives this much space to a yoga teacher, Baron Baptiste, who will be going to Denver in October for a one-day workshop. Baron is not even a high profile teacher these days. He has a strong following, a large list of certified instructors, three books and multiple videos. The article has extensive quotes:

Baptiste, 43, is the scion of yoga pioneers Magana and Walt Baptiste, who co-founded the first yoga center in San Francisco in 1955 and owned one of the original health food stores. He is married and the father of three boys. He and his family split their time among Boston, Los Angeles and Park City, Utah, where Baptiste enjoys snowboarding. Despite a demanding schedule that includes teaching, traveling and television appearances, Baptiste manages to practice from three to six days per week.

Keeping plugged-in on web tech

2009-04-22T11:27:00.005-04:00

I have joined Twitter because it seems to be what all the plugged-in, tech-savvy pros are doing. I had been holding off because I don't need another toy to break my focus, but there comes a time when a IT guy has to show that he's on top of things. If it's too distracting, I can let it idle away, but can add it to my social profile (Google, Facebook, LinkedIn). I can see that in order to make it really useful, you have to spend some time building up networking capital (critical mass) so that people pay attention to it.

A book to add to your must-read list

2009-04-22T09:40:00.005-04:00

Jamail Yogis contacted me about a month ago asking me to read his book Saltwater Buddha: A Surfer's Quest to Find Zen on the Sea. He wanted some comments and some coverage in my blog. I got a PDF advance copy of the publication, which became available Amazon and will be officially released on May 1. I started reading it and was impressed with the first 25 pages. But, as might be self-evident from the frequency of posting on this blog, I could not keep up with the reading. I had a couple of books and magazine already loaded into my shoulder bag for reading on the Metro, and other matters (2008 taxes, wife's birthday, consulting work, and yoga) keep stealing my free time. This lack of follow-through should not be viewed as a judgment on Jaimal's writing. All you have to do is look at his list of published articles to know that he can string words together proficiently.

As we all know, "anything can be yoga if you focus on your breathing," so it should be no surprise that surfing can serve as the plot line for self-discovery. There are lots of books on the contemplative side of surfing. It still tough to condense this kind of daily reflection on a board and wave into a book without meandering all over the expanses of the ocean. But Jamail has the discipline to pull it off.

Jaimal will be promoting his book in the coming months, so you may be able to catch him at a bookstore near you -- if you live on the West Coast. More info on the book.

I am flattered that Jamail thought of me to read his book, and thinking that my visitors might also benefit from reading the book. I have promised him that I will get around to reading it, but I don't want to hold up the outreach so I am posting now to give a heads-up and let others now about the book.

Yoga as a balm for the soul

2009-04-17T11:48:00.002-04:00

TIME plays up Psychotherapy Goes from Couch to Yoga Mat, which is about five years behind the wave of awareness, at least mine:

Since the days of Freud, research into the mind-body relationship has come a long way. Studies show that not only are your mental health and mood dependent in large part on physical factors like exercise, but also unchecked stress, anxiety and depression can affect physical health, increasing blood pressure, heart disease and even risk of death. So it was perhaps inevitable that patients would start bringing their yoga mats into therapy.

The latest conference of the International Association of Yoga Therapists shows that momentum is building for yoga's benefit for both the mental and physical wellbeing. Over at respected World of Psychology blog, Alicia Sparks is also looking at the rise of yoga as therapy. Just a week before, she had laid out her own experience with yoga.

For those who missed it from eight years ago, the TIME article The Power of Yoga was a milestone for yoga's emergence into the American mainstream. The article used to be buried in a pay-to-see archive.

Five years and going

2009-04-07T21:59:00.003-04:00

On April 18, this blog will complete five years online. That also means that about two months ago, I should have celebrated my fifth anniversary of practicing yoga. I let the milestone slip by with no major hoopla. Part of this attitude is that yoga has infiltrated itself through many acts and moments during the day and I do not necessarily think consciously about it. It's frequently a kind of mental nagging — "Walk more erect; you're slumping again. Tuck that tailbone; you're not supporting your spine correctly. Slow down; you're just falling forward into the future without being present in the moment."

I'd still like to fit in more classes, workshops and other learning experiences, but my practice does not have the urgency that it used to have. I find it hard to fit in time to read the latest issue of Yoga Journal, much less the stacks of books that sit next to my desk. It's hard to find time to sit down, parse my practice and write in this blog.

I think this new pace is due to an awareness that my body and mind will accept and meld with yoga in their own time. I welcome my Level 1 classes because they allow me to get into the poses without striving (or by sweating less). I like taking my classes with my wife because she keeps my feet firmly grounded.

Seane Corn: yoga as prayer

2009-04-06T12:23:00.005-04:00

Seane Corn was the focus on a Speaking on Faith feature on Yoga: Meditation in Action in September last year (How I missed this, I don't know. I suspect it was because I was absorbed by my injured knee). I've mention her before in the blog because of her yoga outreach program, Off the Mat, Into the World. There is a podcast or you can listen online, but there's a lot more to explore that goes beyond the radio program. As a teaser, The video that follows is from Yoga Journal's Yoga from the Heart and was recorded at a conference. Seane mentions that she practices as a prayer for her father fighting cancer, and that touched me because my brother is going through the same struggle. I was in awe of Seane's control and pace during the Sun Salutation.

Seane Corn Demonstrates "Body Prayer" from Speaking of Faith on Vimeo.

Music as medicine

2009-03-29T15:45:00.002-04:00

New York Times Musical Pharmacology - Concerto in the Key of RX gives some interesting insights in efforts to marry music to the healing sciences. Most of this stuff is in the early stages of investigation and trial, but it all rings true.

Stefan Koelsch, a senior research fellow in neurocognition of music and language at the University of Sussex in Brighton, England, agrees, and is working on participatory musical treatments for depression. But in the long term, he sees broader possibilities. "Physiologically, it's perfectly plausible that music would affect not only psychiatric conditions but also endocrine, autonomic and autoimmune disorders," he said. "I can't say music is a pill to abolish these diseases. But my vision is that we can come up with things to help. This work is so important. So many pills have horrible side effects, both physiological and psychological. Music has no side effects, or no harmful ones."

One discovery is that if the music is too familiar or has identifiable words it does not have the same effect as "anonymous music." I suspect that's one of the reasons why kirtan chants and Sanskrit lyrics are so appealing.

A chain reaction from the core

2009-03-28T15:50:00.004-04:00

Since coming back from my knee injury and yogic abstinence, I noticed for the first time that I have access to the muscles at the base of my spine. I can tell the qualitative difference between allowing my hips to tip forward and engaging my mula bandha (or maybe some other combination of muscles) to support the stem of my spin. When I do it right, it sets off a kind of chain reaction up and down my body. My abdomen automatically firms up; the same of my back feels an instant release from tension as it straightens up; my shoulders loosen up and I am actually able to access my shoulder blades to move them closer together or farther apart; the shift in my thoracic spine means that my chest girdle opens up, broadens and allows a deep breath. On the lower end of my body, my hips immediately line up under my thighs, encouraging the energy spirals that the Anusara teachers love to emphasize; the alignment automatically kicks into the rest of the leg all the way downs to the soles of my feet.

A couple of times when I've had to stand all the way home on the Metro, I've been sensitive to this new alignment and can engage and sustain it consciously as the car sways and lurches. "Correct alignment" is much less tiring than a slouch (just letting it all hang together loosely); it's almost like the kundalini rising up from mula bandha. But I can't seem to maintain the alignment when I am not consciously enforcing it. I will get distracted in something, then snap out of it and see that I've lost the posture.

This new awareness has also driven home the need for core strength, but aligned correctly. The days that I don't have yoga classes, I am trying to fit in exercises that strengthen my core.