The Holiday season is a disruptive time. Routines are thrown to the wind. Even though I've been off work, I have not been able to fit yoga classes in since last Friday, a full week. The blizzard locked us in for two days, and then I was too sore to go to class on Monday. My wife has been using the car a lot so that pins me in the house, especially with the heavy snow and messy streets. And when I do have the car, I need to run my own errands to the stores or visit my parents. Because my daughter is coming back home to live, it's been doubly hard to clean up for the festivities. All the boxes (for storage, donations, and logistics) get hidden in my new office space.

Last night, after our guests left and my wife went to bed, I cleared out a spot in the middle of my office space and sat in meditation for about 20 minutes and then did an extended yoga nidra session. No special intention, just the need to find some stillness and dwell in it for a while. I got off my mat, went to bed and was asleep in seconds. I'll have to remember that trick the next time I can't seem to turn off the mental overdrive in the evening.

In any case, I want to wish all visitors to this site "Happy Holidays and a Prosperous New Year." May you all find renewal and faith in the stillness that comes in the wake of celebration and fellowship.

Labels: blessing, meditation, website

Richard gets a kick out of his T-shirt with the Monty Python line.

Clarification: the blog entry title is actually a stretch of the time frame of my visit with my brother, which was six days. What I meant was that the trip occupied my mind and energies for about that time, preparing for and then recovering from the trip, both ay work and home.

I went down to Dallas, Texas, to spend a week (June 24-30) with my brother, Richard. As some may know from reading this blog, Richard has been fighting lung cancer since December 2006, as well as the consequences of treatment. I could have blogged about my time with Rich and his wife, Susan, but it was far to raw to register in daily entries. I twitted a few times just to update where I was.

The last time I went to Dallas was for his wedding in 2005. Now, my brother is fighting for his life. With his cancer now in stage 4, he is undergoing maintenance chemotherapy to slow down the growth of his tumor and prolong his life. So far, the results have been good: the tumor have not grown. Of course, he's down to 103 pounds, skin and bones. He's fought off multiple infections, which have weakened his defenses further, on top of what the chemotherapy does to his metabolism. But despite his plight, my brother demonstrates amazing courage, fortitude and perseverance. He's my little brother, but he's big in so many other respects.

Equipped for hard knocks and saw dust, Richard works in his shop.

While I was there, I focused on doing tasks that were too demanding physically and energetically for Richard to undertake. I helped clean up his garage and woodworking area, which did not benefit from air conditioning in Dallas 100-plus temperatures, though it did have shade and a couple of fans. I also helped reorganize his home office so he could tackle his paperwork. Since I am the geek of the family, I next took on the two computers in the household, requiring two days of steady work to get them into shape because they had not been downloading MS updates and were running really slowly and crashing. One was infected by a virus.

Over the course of Richard's illness, we've often spoken over the phone about how yoga, meditation and other methods could aid him in his struggle. I wanted to follow through on that. I got in contact with a great group of people at the Yoga Bear Foundation, which provides cancer survivors with more opportunities for wellness and healing through the practice of yoga by connecting them with local yoga centers. The idea is that Richard would benefit from free or minimum-cost classes. I got in contact with Kelly Hollis, who's been coordinating activities in Texas. She suggested I contact the Ananda Yoga Center in Dallas to arrange for yoga classes. As it turns out, my brother had actually gone to Ananda Yoga Center for several years and felt comfortable in going there.

Yoga Bear Foundation aids cancer survivors.

On Thursday evening (June 25), we went to a class. Sue, the woman who runs the center, remembered Richard and proved to be a conscientious lead in the yoga class. Four other people attended the class. Sue made sure that Richard did not try to do too much, and gave modifications in practically all the poses. My brother has a torn rotator cuff and could not raise his arm above his shoulder. At one point, Sue helped him by positioning blankets to support his shoulders and legs in a prone twist that that might have stressed him too much. In one of the pose, his joints all popped in unison and he thought he had disrupted the class with the noise. Sue's class was very serene and contemplatively paced so it was within his reach.

Now, it's in Richard's hands as to whether he wants to continue. The center is a good 20-minute drive from his home in Garland so it will require some effort to make it to classes. He certainly does not feel like doing yoga after taking chemotherapy. A few days later, I accompanied Richard to his physical therapy session for his shoulder, and the staff said that his shoulder had improved substantially. This was not due to the yoga, but rather the slow accumulation of therapy, treatment and rest over time.

In addition to the Ananda Yoga outing, I introduced Richard to yoga nidra, giving him Richard Miller's CD on the approach. This is definitely something that he could use on a regular basis. But I didn't want to insist too much because Richard has to decide how he spends his time and energy.

I flew back to Washington on Tuesday, and have been trying to catch up with what's piled up at work and at home in my absence. Now is the first opportunity to put together some thoughts about the experience.

Labels: blessing, brother, health

Labels: blessing, philosophy

I did not go into the workshop with Desiree Rumbaugh with any special expectations, aside from that of knowing that an excellent instructor would be guiding the process and a group of yogis would energize the environment. I saw the occasion as a mid-term evaluation about how my practice has been maturing since my last workshop. I wanted to see how the work invested on the mat has paid off. So I pick up where I left off yesterday.

Thrive Yoga's Dave Bowen gets a taste of Desiree's adjustment of wheel pose.

Fourth Finding: The day after the workshop was over, I felt really fatigued, my whole body burnt out. I pampered myself and did not try to do any yoga or exercise except for my walks to and from the Metro, a couple of miles. I felt sore as if I'd really gone through an extreme physical ordeal. I was especially sore and stiff in my hips and shoulders, thighs and arms. Curiously, my knees hurts when I walked, as if I might be a risk of tweaking a tendon. Throughout the weekend, I had been probing my edges and it was natural that my body should feel the strain. At my age (two months short of 59), the energy reserves are shallower, the recovery capacity is slower and the need for healing is more pronounced. But it took me a while to realize that this sensation is really a kind of muscle memory of all the poses that I did and the new edges established. I stop, focus in on my aches and pains, and sense what muscles involved, and then I feel myself drawn into alignment and something lights up inside me.

Desiree stands back in awe, watching Christine Peterson
(you can tell she's a Forest Yoga buff because she uses gloves)
settle into Diving Osprey pose.

Fifth Finding: yoga is an experimental, experiential science. It is a sophisticated universe of knowledge about the body, mind, spirit, energy and their complex interrelation, which has been accumulated, filtered, refined, and aged over millenia. But the application of this knowledge system on the body and mind is left to the individual practitioner. Desiree said that you can tell when a yogi is advanced because they take their time getting into poses. It almost looks as if they were practicing in slow motion. That's because they are observing and parsing all the information coming back from the far reaches of their limbs with scientific rigor: how do the muscles feel, have they reached their edge, is there a risk in pushing beyond the edge, do I feel at ease, can I dwell in stillness in the pose, how can I get out of this knot, what emotions and energies are released by this pose, what am I revealing about my mind or spirit in this vulnerable pose and so on. A beginner will zip through the vinyasa, and in and out of poses, as if he/she is sprinting to a finish line. The intermediate yogis are the ones who get themselves injured, Desiree pointed out, because they are pushing recklessly beyond what is physically safe and worth the risk for the practice. She admitted that she was guilty of this excess in her early years, and her current skills at practicing advanced poses and assisting others to learn yoga were acquired through painful mistakes and the need to heal and avert them in the future. She got really amped up when people started asking questions or giving insights that showed that they were paying attention to the details. The workshop drew a pretty experienced crowd of yogis, but we went over the details of the poses as if we were all beginners.

Thrive Yoga's Lisa Johnson turns inward in Eight-Angle pose (Astavakrasana).

Sixth Finding: Anusara yoga practitioners have their opening invocation "Om namah shivaya gurave..." that starts each session, and then there's the mantra that they repeat for every pose: "Shins press towards the mid-line, thighs spiral in and back, the sit bones widen, the tail bone tucks into the space made by the blossoming of the hips..." The Universal Principles of Alignment are the guidelines that John Friend laid down to unify all the yoga practices and poses across multiple lineages and traditions. Desiree repeated the instructions over and over again, and then came back to them, again and again. But I never found this repetitious or boring. Even though the instructions are similar, each pose opens a different gateway into the body. And since your body is changing in the process, each time you approach a pose, the experience is going to be unique. You can be practicing mountain pose or a complicated arm balance, and the same attitude and approach apply.

The reward of sweat

Seventh Finding: at any time during the workshop, I'd look up and see yogis and yoginis, teachers and students doing their stuff, and all of them were bumping into what seemed to be their own bodies'limits. Desiree would come up and apply pressure with a hand or knee on a specific area and show that it was merely a false floor, that there was space beyond that faux boundary. Desiree was asked about the ideas of some yoga teachers, like Paul Grilley, who make a point of highlighting the anatomical limits that exist in all people, and may be quite different, the conclusion being that you should not ask students to go beyond their physical limits. Desiree said, however, that Anusara celebrates freedom of yoga (as opposed to anatomical limits) and that each individual should assume ownership of his or her own body and take it as far as they can.

Labels: blessing, core, hips, milestone, shoulders, workshop

Desiree Rumbaugh
Anusara Yoga teacher

I wanted to sketch out some ideas about the Desiree Rumbaugh workshop at Thrive Yoga this weekend. You would think that 13 hours of yoga spread over three days would generate a lot of grist for the mill, but there's been little opportunity to clarify my mind. Friday night after the first two-hour session, I was involved in family affairs (my mother-in-law arrived from New York City and daughter spent the night on her way to Philadelphia for the weekend.) until late.

Last night, I went straight home and ate anything to give me some quick energy. I thought about doing something useful, but I was too tired to write anything about the workshop. In the end, I went to bed. The next morning, I dragged myself out of bed, served myself a bagel and a cup of coffee and made it to the studio by 8:45. I wondered if I had made the right decision: my hips, thighs and calves were all stiff and felt like dead weight. I felt flat and a bit burned out. But once the yoga started moving my limbs, my energy got better. By the end of the last session (Yoga Therapy), all I could think of was to get more fuel into my system.

Kathy Donnelly, Desiree Rumbaugh, Suzie Hurley and Susan Bowen welcome
all the Anusara aficianados to the first night of the workshop.

First finding: all-day yoga workshops make it hard to get adequate meals. I did not want to overeat at breakfast and lunch for fear that it would interfere with the yoga. But all the energy consumed during the sessions means that a late dinner just makes you want to go to bed. If I had taken just one session a day, it would not have made much of a difference, but double sessions are grueling.

Second finding: Anusara yoga has a strong foothold in the DC area. Desiree drew workshop participants from as far away as New York, Pennsylvania and even California, but many current Anusara teachers from the DC area (and their students) renewed their relationship with Desiree. Lots of hugs and kisses before and after each class: Willow Street Yoga, the Yoga Center of Columbia , Inner Reaches Yoga, and probably a few others, were all present. Friday night and Saturday morning, not another mat could have fit into the expanded room (maybe 70 in all). The other sessions still had slots available, but there were a lot of new faces. That's pretty good, considering that the workshop fell in the middle of summer. Thrive's owner, Susan Bowen, says that Desiree will be back soon.

Desiree demonstrated how to get deeply into cobra pose.

Third Finding: Desiree Rumbaugh is an exceptional teacher, and it's easy to see why she's gained such a great reputation. She has a knack for driving home the Anusara message of proper alignment, joyful attitude and balanced action in asana after asana, spotting the necessary adjustments to more fully manifest the pose in her students, and enthusiastic narrative that intertwines her own self-discovery and healing through yoga and the principles of Anusara philosophy. She's really able to break pose down into pieces that can easily be digested and enacted. And it's the details that make the difference in the asana.

These "findings" are the low hanging fruit that I can easily pick before going to bed. More considered remarks will come later, with at least one good night of sleep and a day without yoga under my belt. Plus, I've got photographs of the sessions.

Labels: blessing, dc_yoga, studios, teachers, workshop

Following up on my inventory of physical achievements, I want to clarify why that list was important for me. I am negotiating a new contract with my body. When I went through childhood and adolescence, I was laboring under several handicaps about how I perceived myself:

• Trauma: At the age of six, I had an appendectomy. I had felt a pain in my side for several days, but did not recognize it as a serious symptom. I kept asking my mother for aspirins. I was at school when it worsened substantially. After school was out, I tried to walk home, a mere two blocks, but that distance seemed as if it were two miles. (The sense of distance is still engraved on my mind; when I went back last year, I saw that my sense of dimension had been blown out of proportion.) I did make it home. The crossing guard saw that I was doubled over in pain, and got help. I was rushed to the hospital for an emergency operation because it was close to rupturing. While recovering from the operation, an infection set in and I had to stay another week. I was conscious when the doctors drained the abscess. I remember the putrid color of the pus as it flowed out of my belly and into the metallic pan. This was also my first separation from my mother so it must have been traumatic for me to spend the evenings and nights alone. When I went home, I was hit with several other childhood illnesses, which kept me out of school. I ended up repeating first grade.
• Wimp: I had allergies that caused asthma and skin rashes. I did not participate in organized sports or engage in fights or quarrels because I feared an almost pre-ordained defeat because my body could not defend me, it would break first.
• Feet of clay: I had a fungal infection under my toe nails and on my soles. My nails were very disfigured by the time I was a teenager. I did not want to show my feet in public, which meant that I hated going to the beach or the pool. The biblical metaphor of having feet of clay seemed to apply to me. About eight years ago, I saw a dermatologist and had the condition treated. I don't think I could have started practicing yoga if I had not first cured my skin condition; I would never have taken off my socks.

The unspoken conclusion of these visceral experiences was that I could not trust my body. It was going to fail myself. If tested, it was going to break. What's more, I could not anticipate when and how it would betray me. So I discounted it; I ignored it; I concentrated my efforts on a mental realm, in a fantasy world that consumed my energies during childhood and then intellectual efforts once I got into junior high and found that I could distinguish myself in the academic world. I did not participate in sports because I could never push myself to the maximum because I misinterpreted the exertion required for sport competition as a warning that my body was near its limit and close to a breakdown.

Those perceptions of my physical body have followed me for 40 years, shaped my self-image and conditioned how I dealt with the physical world.

Over the past four years, I have been moving slowly, gradually and hesitantly towards a new awareness of my body, a prolonged dialog between my body, mind and spirit to reach a new agreement about how all three hang together and establish a different interface with the outside world. I did not even know why yoga and pranayama felt so "right" to me when I started back in early 2004, or why meditation has been so liberating. But I have kept engaged in this new flux and have gradually changed the terms of the partnership. I am reverting to childhood and the primal tasks of walking, running, bending, lifting, extending. I even find myself re-examining something as fundamental as how I take each step, what parts of my foot are employed and when, and how that changes translates up my limbs and changes the way that I carry myself. It's a much bigger challenge than becoming physically stronger, more flexible, more skillful at moving my body. In a sense, I am taking ownership of my whole body and exercising full dominion over my personal space, rather than being confined to my head. It requires a greater command of sense and awareness. and an extension of my will through my core, out to my fingers and toes -- and beyond.

That's why this physical side of change has taken on so much significance. If I am able to run five miles or push myself into wheel or crow pose, that small achievement means that I can take a childlike joy in possessing my body and its capabilities.

Labels: blessing, life style, philosophy, practice

I have not been posting much recently because I had so much to say backlogged in my head that I did not know where to start — so I did not. There's a personal contradiction for you.

My skin is as white as the sands on Salomon Bay beach, St. John, US Virgin Islands.

My wife and I also took a quick trip to St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, for four days so I was out of circulation for a week. A couple of days getting ready, and then a couple of days to recover. There's another layer of overwhelm that can get in the way of writing. And I get all tied up in knots when I travel so there's another issue to deal with. But sandwiched between the prep and the flying were two days spent chilling on the beaches, Magens Bay on St. Thomas and Salomon Bay on St. John. When we lived in Peru, the Pacific Ocean beaches were something that we took for granted and enjoyed every summer; now residing in the States, beaches are out of easy reach. The Caribbean is just a world apart. There is nothing as mellow as the sound of the surf against the shore. Lots of sun screen to keep from being burned to a crisp, and keeping covered up when not on the beach. During the day, St. Thomas tends to be overrun by day visits from the cruise ships that dock every day in Charlotte Amalie, but the rest of the time, a visitor has plenty of room to enjoy the place. We took a 45-minute ferry to St. John on the second day and came back in the evening. It was worth the trip because more than half of St. John is a US National Park and contains one pristine beach after the other. According to National Geographic magazine, we were told, Magens Bay beach is the number 3 beach in the world. If that's the case, then, there are a dozen other VI beaches that deserve a similar ranking.

Labels: blessing, Teresa, vacation

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.

Labels: blessing, class

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

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.

Labels: blessing, inspire, practice, workshop

Alan Little tagged me and then forgot to tell me, and I did not check out his blog until two days later -- so I've already blown the eight-hour deadline. The premise is that I have write about eight random facts about me. Here goes:

1. I did the pre-production coordination in Peru (government liaison, media contacts, customs clearances) for Shirley McClain's bio-pic "Out on a Limb" and then failed to charge Hollywood rates for the work I did -- boy, was I dumb!
2. I was invited twice to spend extended weekends with my wife, all expenses paid, at Arthur Hailey's home in Nassau, Bahamas because he wanted me to read drafts of his novel about a journalist's adventure in Peru, The Evening News.
3. I don't write long hand, but print as if I was still in elementary school. I've done this since high school when I was bored with taking notes in history class and decided to add a degree of difficulty to the task.
4. I was the character Potzo in "Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett in my senior year of college. The actor who was going to play Potzo backed out and I was the understudy. I was skinny so I padded out with blankets and towels, wore abundant makeup and a plastic skull cap so that I could be bald. During the play, I perspired so much that water poured out from under my fake nose in the middle of my dialogue. My friends told me that my acting was brilliant -- but since no one could recognize me under all the makeup and costume, I did not get any cred on campus.
   
5. I sang a capella in the madrigal singers of my high school. Now I can barely carry a tune.
6. When I was in college, I used to perform mime, picked up from watching a street mime in Lima, Peru.
7. My favorite novelist when I was an adolescent was Robert Heinlein.
8. I tried to sell Bibles and reference books door-to-door in South Carolina in the summer after my freshman year. It was sheer torture and I gave up after six weeks -- I was stubborn.
   

Here are the rules for the next generation:

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
   
2. People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names. Don't forget to leave them a comment and tell them they're tagged, and to read your blog.
4. If you fail to do this within eight hours, you will not reach Third Series or attain your most precious goals for at least two more lifetimes.

I am tagging:

1. Stephanie
2. Raj Waghray
3. I'm even worse than Alan; I can't come up with anyone else off the top of my head or skimming through my e-mail. I guess my circle of friends and acquaintances don't have blogs that allow them to respond to being tagged.
   

Labels: blessing, inspire

I am months away from being 58 years old and the 60-years-old milestone is just around the corner ("Do not go gentle into that good night..."). My generation may have been pioneers in introducing yoga and other Eastern disciplines in the States, but I don't see a lot of them out on the mat. What lessons have I learned from yoga and fitness in general? None of the following is earth-shattering, but I just want to list them.

1. A senior body is on a steady downward slope of entropy. Having a practice may slow the decline or, more hopefully, reverse it. Taking a week off can be a real setback to keeping fit. You need to do something everyday.
2. Muscle strength is acquired more slowly than during early adulthood, and recovery from exertion takes longer. For me, that works out to taking two days of vigorous yoga and taking a day off for more restorative or yang yoga.
3. Flexibility can be changed over months of work, not days or week. My sense is that it's much harder to change fascia than muscle tissue.
4. Balance seems to be the slowest factor to come around. I still feel that I need a wall nearby, just in case.
5. The natural weight gain that comes with age is really hard to get rid of. My extra 15-plus pounds really weighs me down through a 90 minute practice, and even gets in the way of certain poses.
6. My metabolism seems to function at a different level than younger practitioners. My breathing rhythm seems to be a lot faster than the pace given by instructors, too, especially once we've built up some heat. This may be due to pre-existing diminished lung capacity (I was a smoker for too long): I am still surprised by nuanced improvements from pranayama.
7. The key qualities that I need to cultivate are awareness and acceptance -- awareness because I need to perceive and know where I am and how far I can go, and acceptance because that's the starting point for change and emotional release.
8. Use it or lose it. Given these conditions, anyone should always have a fitness practice and never abandon it in the first place.

But in the end, yoga is yoga. Even if I cannot transform myself in the equivalent of Ana Forrest or Dave Williams, it will still reward me in other ways that have nothing to do with my body.

Labels: blessing, class, life style, practice

I have subscribed to the eMusic online music download service. I selected it because it had the most unrestrictive policy on digital rights and an extremely inexpensive subscription system. I pay $10 a month and I can download 30 songs. That can be deceptive because if I want to download Bach's Goldberg Variations, I am going to buy the equivalent of 32 songs and use up my monthly allotment. But it still comes out less than for most CDs and even the 99 cent per song services.

With eMusic, you are not going to get the latest pop and rock songs on the big labels. I've been interested in building up a collection of classical and jazz music, as well as world or New Age stuff that goes with my meditation and yoga. I've grown attached to some of the songs that the instructors play during a class. Because eMusic is dealing with a lot of small or independent labels, you're going to get a mixed bag of talent and repertoire, but it's going to be interesting exploring what's available.

Exception to the rule: Paul McCartney is distributing his latest album, Memory Almost Full, through eMusic, among other circuits, so you can get some top-billed musicians.

Labels: blessing, life style

Let me count the ways:

1. I can put my arms behind my back and reach it as far as my opposite hip and even get as far as touching my thigh. I can clasp my hands together and press my arms together, getting a good stretch in the shoulders and opening my chest and collarbone.
2. In extended side angle pose I can get into the bind, which consists of slipping my arm under my thigh and reaching up for my other arm coming behind my back, which is why point one is so important.
3. My heels touch the ground in downward facing dog, but only when I shorten the stance a little. If I move my hands further forward, my heels rise up a little.
4. In the jump forward in the transition from downward facing dog to standing forward bend, I don't land in a semi-crouched position, but with my legs almost fully extended.

None of this happened overnight. I noticed some of these changes months ago, but the accumulation of evidence shows that no consistent practice stays static. The body responds to stimulation, to challenge.

Labels: blessing, class, practice

I took a break from blogging these past few days because I needed to catch my prosaic breath and I was just physically exhausted. On Monday and Tuesday, I took two Level-2 vinyasa classes at Flow Yoga with my daughter, Stephanie. I felt pretty good after the first class, but the second one really made me notice that my body had not completely recovered from the previous class — the strength was just not there, especially in my core, thighs and shoulders. By the time I got home last night, I just wanted to eat a light dinner and then go to bed. I got a full eight-hours of really deep sleep, which is unusual for me.

But I notice that throughout these intense sessions, there was a subtle shift in my body's conditioning. In most practices in the past, there would be a moment when I'd say "What am I doing here? Why am I putting myself through this torture?" These past few sessions, I was waiting for that threshold to be reached. I may not have the flexibility or strength to get into a particular pose or through a transition, but I never let that bring me out of my focus. There were poses when I was in way over my head, but I just explored the approach and space into those poses. It's intriguing that a milestone so intangible could seem so significant to me.

So tonight, I am taking it easy. Doing some pranayama, meditation and core strength conditioning. And I'm getting to blog a bit.

Labels: blessing, class

While shaving (beard and scalp) this morning, I realized that it had not always been so easy. For the past 10 years, at least, I have cut my own hair, basically buzz-cutting my hair to the smallest setting on the electric hair clipper. This year, I have gone even further and applied an electric razor to give me the billiard ball look. It used to be that I could never get my right hand to reach the left side of my head; I'd have to switch the clipper or razor to my left hand. I noticed this morning that I don't have to make the switch anymore, unless my right arm becomes fatigued from the awkward position. I attribute this improved range to my yoga practice -- what else could it be. All my time spent in downward-facing dog has served a purpose.

I went for the shaved head look as a gesture in support of my brother, Richard, who was undergoing treatment for lung cancer and losing his hair involuntarily. After an operation, chemotherapy and radiation treatment, his doctors have declared the cancer in remission, allowing him to look forward to some semblance of normalcy in his life. I don't know if I am going to stop shaving my head. I kinda like it -- a Buddha look that goes with my increased emphasis on mindfulness.

Labels: blessing, brother, inspire

The separation of ownership at Thrive Yoga has altered my yoga routine, as I mentioned two months ago, in unexpected way. I studied under both owners and maintain the studio website, which gives me no-costs yoga sessions at Thrive. I have just gotten through working with the site designer to purge the site of pictures of Kim Groark (at her request) and bring the graphic design into alignment with the current status at the studio. So much work that I missed two class this week, and I probably missed a few the previous week.

Over the past couple of months, Susan Bowen has brought in several new teachers, which required me to adjust to different voices, paces and sequencing. And there's been a swell of new people taking classes, many of them just getting their feet wet with yoga. Combined with my frequent travels, I seem to be practicing in a different environment even though the physical facilities remain the same.

Kim Groark, the renegade owner, as she likes to call herself, has started teaching elsewhere, and uses the facilities at the American Dance Institute for three classes a week. Her schedule has not fit mine so I have yet to take one of her classes, and not because I am taking sides in the split. She has a newsletter (PDF and a whopping 2.6 mb) that conveys her love for yoga and unique approach to the practice. She does not have website yet, but I would probably offer her the same deal as I have with Thrive -- hosting for classes.

My first reaction was that yoga and meditation should have prevented this breakup that was due to bad vibs between two friends. If yoga is going to bring harmony to the world, why can't it heal a business partnership? But then, I realized that yoga does not keep people from being human. I am sure that both Kim and Susan struggled with this contradiction and decided that the split was the best way to restore their own personal and separate balances. All these changes have meant I have become more detached from my instructors and listen more to my inner teacher about how and where my practice should be headed. They can lead me skillfully in a vinyasa, but they are not going to give me wisdom necessarily.

Labels: blessing, class, meditation, yoga