I went to Thrive Yoga for my Saturday morning vinyasa flow 2/3 class just as the snow storm was hitting the DC area. There were treacherous driving conditions. I took my camera with me because I thought I'd try to take some cuts with a 50 mm f/1.8 lens, which gives some interesting effects. After about 15 minutes of practice, I stopped and picked up my camera to take some shots. I wish I hadn't. After about 20 minutes, I got back on my mat and I did not get into the full swing of the inspired vinyasa that Susan Bowen had put together.
During workshops, like the recent ones with Rumbaugh and Kest, the sessions are 2.5 hours long. There are natural pauses and interruptions. I sometimes need a blow. Even then, I felt that my mind was divided; that I was rushing through the shots without carefully surveying the full scene to capture the details in my mind before shooting; that I was skipping steps in making sure the camera had the right settings.
Norm classes are shorter (75-90 minutes) and the segments hang together more integrally. For instance, today, I missed a segment to loosen up my shoulders so I was not prepped for the segment on revolved bound side angle pose. On the other hand, taking good pictures requires concentration and patience to capture the right angle, light and pose. If I'm constantly thinking about when I should get back to my yoga practice, I am not giving the photography sufficient attention.
Lesson learned: in most daily circumstances, either practice yoga or take pictures; don't try to do both. I need my yoga just as much as I need to practice taking photos, if not more. I put an example of the shoot (on right) in this blog entry.
Bonus point: I did feel the difference for having practiced three days during the work week and doing some simple yoga on the other days. I also fit in a hot vinyasa class with Stephanie Rosenbltatt on Thursday so I pushed myself physically at least once during the week.
At the Desirée Rumbaugh workshop, I was explaining my knee injury to Desirée and how I had recovered from the surgery. I told her that although the downtime from yoga had been felt, I did not look at it as a loss. In fact, it had helped in many respects; most importantly, it had allowed me to approach yoga from a beginner's vantage point. My muscles had softened, loosened up and become more malleable. I had to slow down my practice and become more aware and alert to what my body was telling me. And even though I was once again a beginner, I was not coming at yoga from the same point of five, six years ago. I had learned a lot about yoga; I was less fearful of "doing something wrong;" I understood the importance of consistency.
In other words, to paraphrase a quote from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, you can never step in the same river twice; for other waters flow flow over you. And, for that matter, you are never the same person.
It occurred to me that this is good advice to any beginner (or practitioner). You have to accept the injuries, the illnesses, the interruptions in practice, as opportunities to approach yoga from a fresh angle. The lapses are also chances to emphasize the other aspects of yoga beyond the physical asanas: meditation, pranayama, seva. After "backsliding," the first reaction is to feel regret or peeved.
Tonight I went to a Hatha yoga class with Marylou McNamara at Thrive Yoga. Some practitioners would look down on it and consider it only appropriate for novices. I call the Tuesday night session my "remedial" class because it always makes me come back to the basics. Last night, Marylou gave a masterful class that was full of nuances and subtleties grounded in Anusara principles. These details probably went over the heads of most people there because of the peculiar vocabulary of cuing that Anusara instructors use and because their practice probably is not yet mature enough to recognize the ins and outs of this type of instruction, but the yoga still did them a world of good and they will reap its benefits, as I did.
Every year, I set an intention for my yoga practice that I bring to the mat every time I take a class or do my home practice. Last year, it was "Listening with the whole body." In 2008, it was "discovery" and empowering my brother's health.
This year, my intention is a kind of mantra that I repeat silently to myself: "Mike, don't work so hard."
I've been practicing yoga for six years, often with explicit goals, like "changing my life," "managing my depression," "improving flexibillty," — and the list goes on. Any when I come up against my limits, whether physical, mental, spiritual, whatever, my instinct is to try harder, to redouble my efforts, to suck it up. But that approach does not necessarily get the results that I want. Yoga is different than Western disciplines and sports in that it requires that you be present in the moment, dwelling in the body as it is now, aware of the present. If I am constantly measuring my posture against some ideal or counting how long I can hold headstand, I am not fully grounded in the moment.
There will be times when I want to explore my edges, as during the Desirée Rumbaugh or Brian Kest workshops, or trying a pose that I had never attempted before. That's fine. But I also need to find the ease and grace that allows me to fully inhabit my body as it is here and now. At my recent workshops, I became aware of what could be called "black holes" in my body — areas that I could not touch or access so I could not move past them to attain certain poses because I could not exert any power or control over my "black holes." Pushing hard does not do anything.
What's required at this stage of my practice is to pause, pull back and focus on determining the topography of my "black holes." I have to let yoga itself show me the way, let yoga do the work. I don't have to "work harder," but sit back in patience, ready for a new compass to guide me forward.
I got back from Miami about 2:00 am on Saturday. I had a brand new desktop computer waiting for me at home so I spent Saturday installing all my programs and transferring files. About 6:00 pm, I started getting error messages from Windows 9 and finally I could not get it to boot up. After several attempts to roll back, I decided to start over from scratch because I could not determine what the cause was and I did not want a potential problem hanging over me in the future. I reinstalled Windows 7 and then reinstalling my applications. I also took precautionary measures so that I could more easily roll back the configuration and have backup copies. Nothing was lots was my time and energy. Nothing like disaster to make you exercise good computing practices.
With all the things that I have been trying to juggle, this additional setback meant that I did not make it in to yoga this past weekend. While in Miami, I had lots of opportunities to practice my mindfulness, but I did not make it to the fitness center, the pool or my yoga mat, except for some abbreviated routines on Thursday evening. This kind of meeting tends to suck all the energy out of me, and I become a zombie -- which is precisely why I should have been reserving time for yoga, but that's typical of how things fall apart.
I find it hard to start blogging again by touching on either the Brian Kest workshop (last weekend) and my brother's funeral (Friday). The first's too expansive while the later's overwhelming and painful. It's easier to start with something simple: this is how I felt today on the yoga mat.
I had my first class in a week. It was a Hatha yoga class with Lisa Johnson at Thrive Yoga (Marylou McNamara, the normal instructor, was probably celebrating the Celtic New Year). I wanted to ease back into my practice slowly and gently. The biggest surprise was being able to get into extended side angle pose (Utthita Parsvakonasana) with a bind for the first time since the August 2008 workshop with Desiree Rumbaugh and my knee injury. For some reason, I had been unable to grasp my hands behind my back and around my front leg, probably due to tightness in my shoulders as well as how deeply I could fold into my forward leg. I had purposely been holding back from trying to muscle my way into the pose. This time, I just eased into the pose without giving it a second thought.
The other surprise was a couple of bouts of dizziness when I came out of intense side stretch pose (Parsvottanasana). Normally, I am not prone to dizziness, but this time a sudden rush of blood hit me like a wave. I had to drop to child's pose to be on the safe side.
Finally, when I came out of yoga class, I noticed that I was really hungry and thirsty. My irregular eating during my trip had probably depleted a lot of energy stores. Instead of going to the gym to get in some aerobic training, I simply headed home to fix a smoothie.
My wife has left me.
More accurately, she has flown to Lima, Peru to take care of her mother for a month. Luisa is now over 80 years old and really needs someone to keep an eye on her. Teresa's sisters have been visiting for a while so now it's Teresa's turn. It's the only window of opportunity because Teresa does not have classes in the summer.
Her absence means that I have to take care of two dogs and two cats. The cats take care of themselves, except for emptying their litter box and filling their food bowls, but the dogs are more time consuming. I try to give them at least one 20-minute walk a day to compensate for being coop up in the house during my work hours. Their walk comes after they've had their dinner. What they want most when I come home is attention.
My daughter, Stephanie, has offered to come by to help out some so my housekeeping and pet caring duties may not be as extensive as I fear.
All this interrupts my daily routines so I may not have the same amount of time for yoga and meditation. I was able to fit in my two weekend classes, in between helping Teresa pack and taking her to the airport. That came after a week in which I had been unable to take in a single evening class because the Washington Metro was not cooperating. Trains were packed, stopped frequently, even went out of commission due to mechanical problems.
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.
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.
Labels: practice
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.
Labels: practice
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.
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.
Labels: audio, life style, practice, teachers, videos
Three days straight without going to a yoga class when I had promised myself that I would not allow myself to back out of practice. At least, I got one evening of practice in at home. There's a small window of opportunity at Thrive Yoga in the evening. I get off work between 5:30 and 6:30, and need a full hour to get home. Classes start at 7:15 or 7:30 so I have to make a point of leaving closer to 5:30 than 6:00. I then can't have any delays on the Metro, and my wife has to pick me up on time. Otherwise, I can't change my clothes and drive to the studio in time for class.
Of course, I could always back my kit and go straight to the studio from the station. I would have to decide that in the morning, and carry my stuff with me.
I have not been back to Flow Yoga Center since my knee injury. That's used to be a lock each Tuesday or Wednesday. My daughter, Stephanie, and I have fallen out of the habit of taking classes together. She has gone back to college at the University of Maryland to finish off the last 16 credits for her BA and that ties up her evenings. Back in the old days, I would walk over to Flow in 30 minutes and start class at 6:30. Fewer chances of happenstance impeding my practice. I do miss my exposure to a different class of yogi/yogini, and the smiling face of Debra Perlson-Mishalove, who was recently blessed with a baby. The absence of a downtown practice also means that I don't shell out money of classes in a time of tightening budgets.
I took Susan Bowen's 2/3 vinyasa class at Thrive Yoga and had to "cry uncle" about two thirds of the way through the class. I was running out of juice, breath and focus as I paid the physical price for skipping yoga practice for a full five days (see yesterday's post). There is no suspension of asana practice: you're either practicing regularly or losing out.
Because of a variety of issues, I did not go to any evening yoga classes. Nor did I do any make-up practice at home. Today, I ended up with really tight shoulders, which seem cramped and tied up in knots, as if all the tension and stress of the week had been stored up in their fibers and cartilage. You'd think that after five years of yoga, I would know better by now. I can't skip more than three days of practice without it affecting me physically and mentally. I start paying a price, even though I am taking away some time to devote to other priorities.
It's ugly, but it's the biggest obstacle to my practice right now. Twenty-five days after I jammed my left big toe while doing a jump back, my injury has improved only marginally. It's no longer black and blue (I should have gotten a photo of it the day after). It's still swollen, sore and stiff. Touch the toe in the right place, and it's like needle throbs in a major nerve. As can be seen in the photo, the swelling is located from the first joint up. The cartilage around that joint is probably bent out of shape, and I may even have a hairline fracture. Some of the redness (even rawness of the skin) comes from my big toe rubbing against the second toe, even though I wear my loosest fitting shoes during the day and remain barefooted or in socks as much as possible. Range of movement is limited only when I try to curl my toe.
I've decided to treat the injury each day, rather than pretend that it doesn't bother me: I'll apply ice in the evening, take ibuprofen to hold down the swelling, and raise the foot as much as feasible.
Although my knee injury, operation and recovery have been primary concerns for my yoga practice, a more modest injury has been holding back my practice for the past two weeks. I jammed my left toe on a one-legged jump-back (my torn meniscus, by the way, is on my right side). When it happened, I barely noticed it. It made a sound like cracking your knuckles. In the evening, it start to swell up. The next morning it was black, blue and purple, and throbbing like mad. I made it to work, but saw my doctor the next day to make sure that nothing serious had happened. He said that at most there was a hairline fracture and there was not much that could be done: I should take some ibuprofen and raise it off the ground when seated, whenever possible. By the end of the week, the bruising had gone away (so it was no longer a source of conversation at yoga class), but it will take weeks to get back to normal.
Even though the injury is getting better, it is a major speed bump for my practice (not necessarily a bad thing). I now refrain from doing jump-backs and jump-forwards in vinyasas. When the toe jam happened, I was really feeling a rush in my practice, which may have caused me to be over-aggressive. I had gone to class four days in a row, and was starting to feel some momentum. Where the toe injury really hits me is with balance: the big toe plays a big role in keep the foot (and the rest of the body) level. It's probably better to rely more on the sole of the foot (the old "four corners" mantra) as the touch points of balance, but a jammed toe affects the foot all the way back into the ball of the foot and then up the leg.I have made headway in getting back into the swing of my yoga practice. My acupuncturist says that I am ahead of the curve. He's seen several people, 40 years or older, who had have had knee surgery, and in my case, my knee has full range of movement, and I no longer have serious swelling or other side effects. With one month of yoga practice under my belt, I can see I am recovering. I know of two people at my office who've had knee surgery in the last six months, and one has already blown out his knee again because he went back to running too soon.
Knee support and rolled hand towels that are placed behind the knees when in child's pose. At Thrive Yoga this past weekend, I took a vinyasa 2/3 class with Susan Bowen and managed to get through it. The following day, I took a hatha yoga class with Marylou McNamara. It's a nice combination: the advance class tests my limits physically while the hatha class keeps me grounded in the basics of alignment and breathing, and allows me to recover from the hard work with Susan.
I keep some props with me on the mat: a knee support and two rolled-up terry cloth hand towels that I put behind both knees to create some "space" in my joint whenever i am in a stressful pose, like child's pose. The knee support is more to remind me tactilely that I should keep my awareness on my knee, rather than to brace my knee. When I fold my knee, there's always a double-ply of Neoprene between my thigh and calf, offering a minimum of protection. The support also keeps my rolled-up hand towel from slipping out due to lubricating sweat. It keeps my knee warm, too.
Each year I decide on a new intention that will focus my yoga practice. This year, I've decided to use "Listen with my whole body," taking up on my previous blog entry. My body tells me lots of stuff about myself and the world around me, and I don't pay enough attention to it, instead getting carried away by the stream of consciousness that flows through my head like a storm pipe. To start, I need to pay more attention to what my knees are telling me so that I don't get into any more trouble. The intention is also a reminder to slow down both breath and movement.
I've been able to fit in classes at Thrive Yoga every day this week, except for New Year's Day, when the studio was closed. Teresa has been going to most classes with me. I think that I've gotten back into a regular practice and could handle any level of class. It's still going to be months before I recovery my full strength, flexibility and ease.
I was able to fit in two hot yoga classes with Susan Bowen at Thrive Yoga before Christmas. I've been holding off on taking one of Susan's classes because I wanted to regain strength, flexibility and confidence before taking her classes again. She can lead you to the edge in her more demanding sets, and I did not want to fall off. I now know most of the poses that I have to be careful with, and modify them to protect my knees. All my teachers know that I have knee issues, and they usually alert us when a knee-sensitive pose is coming up and offering alternatives. Since the first class was in the evening and the second the following morning, I was sore afterwords.
I went to class with my wife, Teresa, which was nice that we could share time on the mat together. She's been using my unlimited pass with Thrive Yoga for the equivalent time that I was out of circulation. Next year, we'll have to see how we can keep her practicing at the same pace.
I was finally able to fit in a yoga class at Thrive with Pierre Couvillion this evening. My first class since mid-August and almost two months after my knee operations. I forced myself to go by packing my kit and rolling up my mat this morning before I left for work and giving my wife instructions to take it to the studio when she went to her class in the afternoon. I knew I had to put some kind of imperative in the formula because I was building up all kinds of resistance to the yoga class and even going to the gym, even though I can feel the adverse effects that their absence is having on my body and temperament.
Pierre led a pretty straight forward class that was good for me because it was am all-levels class that emphasized grounding in the basics of good form and breath. I did not do anything crazy — no jump-backs or jump-throughs, no wheels or advanced inversions. I just wanted to feel easy and comfortable in my asanas, and focus on my knees to make sure that they were solid and fully engaged. Pierre led us through some fundamental variations in standing poses that reinforced the tracking of the leg muscles. I think the factor that had deteriorated the most during the break was balance.
In preparation for the class, I had a session of acupuncture in the morning that was supposed to help break up some of the scar tissue in my knee.
I've been taking some class of Forest Yoga from Christine Peterson at Thrive Yoga. So I was bouncing around my usual surfing points and came across an audio interview with Ana Forest herself at Yoga Peeps. I listened and was impressed by her life story and attitude towards yoga (I was already impressed by her yoga performances). She is exploring the depth of yoga by bringing the optics from her Native American heritage and her own physical handicaps:
"What I've been found, no matter what age we are, we can build healthy muscle tissue or we can rot. And the choice is always ours. And I'm not into rot."
Forest Yoga classes are intense and physically demanding, focused on physical core strength and body integrity. They hurt, but I know that they target areas that I need to strengthen to get to the next level. I find it a nice counterbalance to vinyasa classes that emphasize ease of movement, balance and flexibility. There are not many instructors that are certified to teach Forest Yoga, so probably the easy way to incorporate some of her techniques is to her DVD Strength & Spirit at her website. If you want to read articles and interviews, she has an exhaustive selection.
Labels: life style, practice, teachers
I had not commented about this last week, but I had an interesting experience during a session with Susan Bowen at Thrive Yoga. She made us do much of the practice with our eyes closed. It made some poses a bit precarious for me because I am challenged in terms of balance, and need my visual drishti. But I could get through most of my vinyasas without any trouble. However, when I was seated in Easy Pose with my eyes closed, I became conscious of my heart beat, and was surprised at how clearly it was coming through. It was not because my heart rate was up from aerobic exercise, throbbing at my temples. What I noticed most was that each subtle beat was like a ripple that expanded from my chest and washed over my torso and out through my limbs. It was almost as if I could feel the blood flowing from my chest throughout the circulatory system. Instead of focusing on my breath, I focused on my pulse.
Today, I did not do my usual Sunday routine of meditation and vinyasa at Thrive Yoga in the morning. I took a special master Ashtanga class that Devon Roe offers, usually on a monthly basis at Thrive (next time is in August or September). Devon studied with Beryl Bender Birch and teaches in several yoga shops in the DC area, mainly in Virginia. It's two hours and focuses on the primary series. There were only four students in the class so it was a chance to focus on the asanas and get hands on corrections.
I have taken a few Ashtanga classes or workshops in the past so it was not completely foreign to me. For that matter, the whole vinyasa trend is strongly influenced by Ashtanga. I was surprised that I could handle the class physically, that I did not have to fall down in child's pose in order to recover my breath, recoup my strength and steel my will (except for one brief time in downdog, but that does not count). After the whole thing was over, I did not spent two hours collapsed on my couch at home because I have developed stamina, thanks to my running and practice. In other words, I did not feel intimidated by the difficulty of poses, I just knew that some of them were beyond my reach.
If it were a strict Ashtanga class, I would never have gotten beyond the first pose that requires anything approaching half-lotus: hips and hamstrings are still too tight to allow me to fold. Then, there are still issues with behind the back binds because of stiff shoulders and my inability to rotate my should joints more than a few degrees. The other major flaw is core strength, especially in the lower abs: I still don't have enough strength to lift my legs off the ground when seated in staff pose, for instance, or when sitting cross legged.
My biggest surprise was that when I was in shoulder stand and plow poses, I was able to breathe smoothly. In the past, my stomach (and probably other organs, like liver, kidneys and intestines) pressed down on my diaphragm and made me feel as if I was suffocating. I suspect that I've gotten rid of some belly (omentum) fat. That changes lifts a burden off me in the inversion phase of my yoga practice because I don't have to fight off the panic feeling of suffocation and can concentrate on balance and breath.
Labels: class, conditioning, core, hips, practice, shoulders
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
This evening, I was suddenly inspired to stand in tree pose (Vrksasna) as a preparation for heading to bed, a different meditative pose than I usually take. I concentrated on how my feet were supporting me, serving as the foundation for my limbs and torso. It made me sense viscerally what "four corners of the foot" really means. I could feel all four points on the sole of my right feet and the tension of strength that held them together. As I moved into the pose on the left side, I became aware that I was really not standing on the ball of my foot; it was more accurately a midline of the foot, thus turning the base into a narrower and, therefore, more unstable platform. I pressed more firmly into the ball of my foot and immediately felt the shift towards a broader base. As I've been running regularly over the past month, I've become more conscious of my overpronation and literally walking and running on the outside edge of my feet. Now I walk around purposefully pressing in the balls of my feet. That refreshed awareness paid off tonight in understand a structural weakness in my tree pose.
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.
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
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.
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 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.
I went into my class tonight really eager and energized to get back on the mat. I've become aware of increased control over my lower core (thighs and hips) because of my new jogging regime. That strength gets reflected in my balancing poses because there is a firmer foundation to build on. I can hold something like Lord of the Dance (Natarajasana) pose (with a strap to pull my raise leg higher) for more than 30 seconds without wobbling, and I can transition in and out of the pose more smoothly.
This sense of enhanced power and skill is something new for me & and a bit bewildering. On one hand, I feel as if I'm falling into a trap of vanity and pride, that I am betraying the very mindset necessary for practicing yoga. On the other hand, this confidence and enthusiasm are what propel me to get back on my mat, make me aware that there are really changes taking place in my body and my mind. This contradiction is paralleled in my practice by the conundrum of strength and flexibility, rigidity and suppleness.
I don't have an answer for this dilemma right now. But I do get another chance to respond the next time I get on the mat.
I had a great inversion workshop Jordan Bloom at Thrive Yoga today. Jordan is a gifted Anusara instructor who's based in the DC area, but travels around the world. I can tell why he is such a popular teacher. He spent a lot of time dealing with the basic truths of alignment, building gradually so that when it came time to "invert," it was relatively easy to take the plunge. For me the key was working on my shoulders. One of the first pose that he had us do was a deep lunge with arms stretched above the head. Jordan then had us repeated take our shoulders further back and then reach the arms higher and toward the back. Each time, I got a little deeper back bend. But then, Jordan came behind me and gently pulled my shoulders back even further. It was not a forced pressure, more like the touch used in breaking an egg shell. I could feel the knot of muscle between my shoulder blades dissolve. Once I knew where to focus my efforts, I was able to work on bringing my shoulders back in other poses, like downward-facing dog. The three-hours of the class went flying by.
Another adjustment that Jordan made was for me to widen the placement of my hands on the mat in poses like downward and updward dog, chataranga and other prone poses. He said that the middle of my hand should be even with the outside of my shoulder. That put the little finger of my hand of the edge of the mat and my ring finger running parallel to the edge. They don't make yoga mats wide enough for many men. This adjustment also helped me broaden my shoulders.
Jordan will be coming back to thrive for a three-day workshop in February next year.
I've started jogging three times a week to improve my physical conditioning. It's been almost a decade since the last time I tried running. I stopped because I developed shin splints and never got up the energy to go running again. Since taking up yoga, I've looked down my nose at running as repetitive torture of my joints and hamstrings, but I've changed my mind. It's just so convenient to put on my running shoes, plug in my MP3 player and head to the Rockville High School track and jog alone -- or go to the gym if the weather is bad. I know I need to fit in 30-40 minutes of physical exercise on my off-days for yoga.
I've been jogging about 2 miles, plus another miles for warm-up and cooling off, for the past two weeks. I was surprised that I was able to manage that distance with ease, though I was not pushing myself, just jogging. So far, no sore joints. In my yoga class yesterday, extended and repeated holds in chair (http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/493) pose finally made me collapse into child's pose. I did not have any stamina in my thighs. I had depleted my reserves by jogging during the week -- not that there were lots of reserves under normal conditions. That's precisely why I started running, because I wanted to gain strength in my legs and hips.
At this stage, I'm being very gentle with myself, warming up thoroughly, stretching before and after, keeping the pace under control and concentrating on form. The running certainly makes me appreciate the stretching in yoga.
Labels: conditioning, practice
I have had to swear off the wheel or upward bow (Urdvha Dhanurasana) pose after 5:00 pm. Whenever I've done it at an evening class, I have been unable to get to sleep that night. It became to be one of my favorite poses because I've been able to get into the pose only the past year and every time I do it, I can go a little deeper. But it's just too intense for late in the day. It's as if I drank a couple of double expresos before bedtime, a jolt of energy. I substitute Bridge (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana) pose, instead.
New York Times Yoga Is More Than Just Showing Up, but That Does Help. This article is about the approach of some yoga studios having challenges for their clients, like 21 or 30 consecutive days of classes. It's not clear whether the author's concern is the business practice (can the studio pick up new students or make a profit with this marketing technique?) or yoga practice (does a daily practice increase the benefits?). The reporter seems to be dumping multiple issues into a single article. Remember this article came in the Fashion & Style section of the Times.
As a way of creating loyal regulars out of monthly drop-ins, studio owners recently have pushed the self-serving idea that yoga is not to be done lightly, casually or sporadically. They have stopped short of telling erratic classgoers to give it up, but their message is loud and clear: committing to a regular practice is the only way to progress in life and on the mat.
At Thrive Yoga, another 40 Days to a Personal Revolution in the style of the Baron Baptiste school of power vinyasa yoga will be offered starting this month (September 24–November 2). This is a six week program in which you have three class sessions at the studio and the other three can be at home, plus daily meditation (two sessions each), journaling, nutrition and some group talk. This is the second time it's being offered in Rockville. For me, it just comes at the wrong time, since I will be out of town twice during the period.
Flow Yoga frequently has 30-days challenges. Both of these studios do not pitch these packages to newcomers. They are meant for studio regulars who want to push their practice up a level or two.
For the sake of a personal practice, it's far more important to have a home practice because it requires far more discipline and dedication. Of course, taking in a class or two a week is better than nothing, but it's going to be hard to make progress. There is also the issue whether just yoga is enough to keep you physically fit (cardio and strength).
I've been rewarded for working on my balancing poses in the evenings by getting into a pose that has eluded me from the beginning: Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana (Extended Head-To-Big-Toe Pose). On Wednesday evening at Thrive Yoga, Lisa Johnson led the class into the pose and I set up without giving it a second thought and lifted my left leg into the simplest variation, with the leg extended straight out in front. I was able to repeat the pose standing on my left leg (my less secure side for balancing). Of course, when I started thinking about it too much, I began to wobble.
For the past month, I've incorporated at least three balancing poses into my evening routine, holding them for long 20 counts, with repeats if I can fit them in: Vrksasana (Tree Pose), Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana (Extended Head-To-Big-Toe Pose) in its easiest form, no hold on the toe, and Virabhadrasana III (Warrior III Pose) but moving into the pose repeated so that my muscles get used to the movement in my hips.
Why did I start emphasizing balances? Because I knew it was a part of my practice that is lagging behind the rest and it's been that way from day one. I've also read that developing balance stimulates the cerebellum, a region in the brain that links to cognition, mood, physical sensitivities and coordination. Oh yeah, and balance is one of the faculties that deteriorates in old-age.
I did my usual weekend routine of morning sessions at Thrive Yoga. I noticed that I need to improve my cardio conditioning because I am not able to manage my breath once I've gotten into the heat of the practice. I've had to drop into child's pose and take a couple of breaths. I've assumed that regular yoga practice (3-4 times a week in studio) would be enough to get my aerobic conditioning up to scratch, but now I have my doubts. I may need to head to the gyms a couple of times a week.
The other surprise of the session today was that while I was in vasisthasana (side plank pose), I was able to raise my top leg. Previously, I had either kept both legs down on the ground and concentrated on getting my hips as high as possible or I took the tree variation with my top leg cocked and my foot resting on my calf. Either way, it's a demanding pose because it takes a lot of core strength and balance in a way that we don't traditionally practice outside of yoga. Whenever I tried to do a more advanced variation (even with the top leg raised a few inches), my whole body could collapse or totter. My support ankle and my hips would give out. It's also a physically fatiguing pose so I usually end up in child's pose afterwards.
Today, I was able to go for the more advanced pose. I did not plan to do it, but merely said impulsively "What the hell" silently in my mind and raised the leg. I surprised myself with how long I was able to sustain the leg in the air and did not lose my balance (except when trying it on the other side).
What was the difference? My home practice has include a variation on side plank for the past six months and it has taken that long to build up the necessary strength.
Get ready for the next big world yoga event: Global Mala Project: on September 21-23, the United Nations International Day of Peace, the Fall Equinox and my birthday!! Big yoga names, like Shiva Rae, Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa, Seane Corn and others are organizing it. A variety of causes, from trees to AIDS to ware orphans are being supported by the fundraising campaign.
The only local DC studio supporting the initiative so far is Little River Yoga in Annandale/Alexandria, Virginia. This will probably change soon.
In Sanskrit, mala means garland or a string of beads used to count mantras.
Labels: life style, philosophy, practice
I have been paying closer attention to my breathing during my yoga sessions and meditation since I've regained some space in my nasal passages. It's almost as if I were breathing for the first time. I've noticed that what might appear a slight adjustment in my spine can result in a dramatic difference in the quality and depth of my breathing. As a person who works constantly stooped before a keyboard and monitor, I have a strong tendency to round my spine forward. That's the direction that my body is being pushed By keeping a small curvature to my lower back and a slight tilt forward of by pelvis, I seem to find the optimal position for getting maximum movement from my diaphragm, my rib cage opens up and my shoulder blades draw together. If I ever so slightly move towards a straight back (no natural curvature in my lower back), my breathing seems to start shutting off. It's almost as if my diaphragm got turned off.
Why is this important for me? Because I've noticed times in my practice when my breathing seems to shut down. I could never understand why. Now I think that in certain movements or positions, I lose form in my lower back and that triggers what seems like a diaphragm freeze.
I first felt the difference when I was seated in meditation. I usually sit on a block because I want to keep my knees below my hips. In that position, it's very easy to slip out of the correct posture because the back gets tired of holding the position and I start gradually slipping into rounding my back forward. I then sensed the quality of my breath as I tilted my hips forward (putting in curvature) and then released my hips to a lazier position. This has almost before a focus of meditation as I savor the quality of my breath depending on the slant of my back.
Labels: breathing, meditation, practice, spine
I bought two videos produced and distributed by Pranamaya: Anatomy of Yoga with Paul Grilley and Insight Yoga with Sarah Powers. I took advantage of a 10% discount when you buy more than one video at a time. These DVDs are more expensive than most demo and instructional videos because they have a huge amount of material in. Both DVD have nearly four hours each of lectures and practice material, plus other instructional aids.
Why these two DVDs? I wanted to explore yang style of yoga with a strong fusion of Buddhadharma. The idea of slowing down the pace of my practice appeals to me. I want to understand the physical limits that the body imposes on yoga practice. I also needed to learn visually, as opposed to my normal use of reading.
Pranamaya has very high production values and seems to pick instructors and themes that dig deep into yoga practice. They don't produce DVDs for beginners. Gary Kraftsow, who heads the American Yoga Institute, has just released two DVDs on viniyoga therapy for back problems. Andrey Lappa has multiple releases that record his unique vision of yoga practice. Dharma Mittra, the NYC-based teacher who gained renown for a 908-pose chart, has two DVDs.
Labels: hardware, meditation, practice, videos
I've had a couple of class sessions this week in which I've been testing some of my understanding about my edge. I've prided myself recently in considering myself a Level-II practitioner, but to be perfectly honest there are parts of my practice that are Level I and others that are even less, as I've mentioned here before. I can "double-dip" (do a full push-up during my Sun Salutation vinyasa) and keep one-leg up in my Chaturanga Dandasana and think I'm going great. But at the same time, my balance poses have barely progressed since I started yoga. Some of these obstacles in my practice are deeply rooted in my musculature. My arm "strength" may actually hide a deeper problem in my shoulders' flexibility.
Because of this uneven quality, I've have a hard time focusing on my edge because it shifts constantly as I move through different poses. By nature, an edge is dynamic and fluid any ways so I am doubly challenged. I can be breezing along and then hit a rough patch, like riding a bike and suddenly hitting deep mud on the path). In some cases, I am actually fighting against my own muscles. I want to power my way through through the resistance. No wonder I expend a lot of energy and end up being really tired. "Ease and grace" would not describe my practice when I am trapped in this kind of negative flow.
As I've stated before, I sense that I have to slow myself down to avoid overrunning my edge, focus inwardly to center my awareness on what is happening now, and be really faithful to the pacing of my breath. It means practicing truthfulness fearlessly, rather than operating under false assumptions about what my yoga and my life should be like.
I did a Flow II class with Angela Cerkevich at Flow Yoga. I tried to slow down intentionally and focus inwardly on what was happening inside me. It was disconcerting because I found myself frequently out of sync with the class. I lost track of my breathing and even time itself because the class seemed to flash by quickly.
Wednesday evening, I took in a vinyasa flow all-levels class with Lisa Johnson at Thrive Yoga. She was video recording the class as part of her requirements for Anusara certification so she was zeroing in on good, solid form in alignment and getting the basics right. It made for a really slowly-paced class, which was what I wanted anyways. I think I did a good job of matching my breath with the class and did not get ahead of my breath. One thing that Lisa mentioned really struck a nerve with me: fear cause psoas muscles to tighten (shorten) up; a good way to counterbalance is to hollow the lower abdomen to allow more room for the psoas to lengthen above the hips.
I took a two-hour workshop at Thrive Yoga today with Susan Bowen: "Are You Edgy?" Good question in more than one way. The premise was that any practitioner needs to find how deeply she can move physically, mentally spiritually into the flow. The "Edge" has become an almost mystical state of hatha yoga in which awareness, breath and body seems to meld into nirvana.
As I mentioned a few days ago, I tend to be utilitarian about my practice. I want to become stronger and more flexible physically, and move with grace and ease through my vinyasa. I wield my practice as a "cure" for my depression. I point towards self-realization of my full potential as a creative force. So my practice is always "out there," probing the boundaries.
So I need to find the balance between the soaring for achievement and the grounding of self-acceptance and peace. Where is the line on my mat between those two dimensions.
We were about a dozen students. These were not necessarily the most accomplished yogis at the studio. Most were mature adults who were coming to terms with the physical demands of yoga, the limits of their bodies and the aspiration to maximize the benefits of the practice. Susan led an initial discussion to find out how we perceive the "edge" and how we thought we could get there. Then we did 20 minutes of intense pranayama, which was very useful in taking me out of the normal frame of reference for practice. We then did a vinyasa practice that emphasized holding the asanas for a long, long time — downward facing dog held until my biceps, tricepts and hamstrings quiver. Sun salutations as a slow progression of endurance. We then did some long restorative poses. Finally, we ended with meditation.
Did I find my edge? I noticed that I have a tendency to overrun my edge. My breathing rhythm becomes accelerated and I just try to push through the need for more air in my lungs. I don't pull back or drop into child's pose to regain my breath. I frequently ascribed this breathing pace to my condition as a guy in his late 50s who is carrying 10-20 pounds more than his ideal and has not been doing enough cardio and aerobic exercising. But now I think it's more complicated than the mere physically. I am not paying attention to my edge.
I also noticed that my practice is uneven — my chatarunga is strong, but ask me to balance on one leg and I fall over. Because there is so much divergence in my practice, it is easy to lose track. Not only to I tend to get into a hyper mode, but when I go through a less than optimal segment of my practice, I start to think I have to catch up.
I've been dialing back my practice lately. A spiritual adviser told me recently that I have a tendency to be utilitarian with my yoga and meditation: I am seeking to improve my physical stamina, flexibility, mental state and the quality of my bowel movements (— just kidding on that last one). Although I don't consider myself competitive, I know that I attack my practice with the goal of changing myself. I try to cram in pranayama, meditation, reading, blogging and journaling, and then feel guilty when I can't keep up the pace. I've explicitly stated the goal of my practice in the blog more than once.
It's like those riddles in the TV series Kung Fu; Little Grasshopper has to understand the apparent contradictions in the master's teaching. Can I try to hard to be mindful? What if I inhale and exhale too forcefully during pranayama? Is grunting permitted in vinyasa?
So I have given myself a new goal — be more mellow and let my practice take care of the rest.
Labels: practice
I've been doing my body scans nightly as a kind of back-to-the-basics initiative to rein in my central nervous system. I have not had another bad scan in which I get jittery and overanxious for nearly two weeks. At most, I've had a couple of arm jerks in which my hand and forearm snap up. A more serious problem is not dozing off momentarily. Laying prone on the ground at 11:00 pm at the end of a long day is probably an invitation for sleep so I should not be surprised. I'll just have to find a coping strategy — maybe opening my eyes for the whole session.
This week, I've been fitting in my sudarshan kriya practice in the morning before heading off to work. It has really kept me upbeat the whole day. It's amazing how a breathing practice can change my outlook to sunny. Why do I ever skip my breathwork?
Labels: breathing, meditation, practice
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Balance seems to be the slowest factor to come around. I still feel that I need a wall nearby, just in case.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
A few days ago, I wrote about a couple of small milestones in the practice. I don't think they contained revelations about my yoga practice, but were simple, small changes that remind me that it has changed over time, even though I may not notice it at the time. However, an anonymous visitor posted a comment about that entry:
What about your breathe? Your tolerance for yourself? Your medi[t]ation? Equanimity? Now that would be most interesting to know!
I would like to know that too, but it's a tall order to uncover the most intimate aspects of my practice on the web. I've had some misgivings about "letting it all hang out" lately. I've already confessed that I suffer from depression and that I turned to yoga to heal my suffering. That's going to be hanging around in the archive.org for decades to come. I don't know if I want future employers to know what mood disorders I suffer from. But I crossed that bridge, and I have to live with the consequences.
It's a lot easier to write about bending over and touching my toes than it is to reveal the intimacies a yoga practice. For one thing, it requires me to be aware to all these facets of my body and mind. I know that there are whole regions of my body that I really don't feel, that seem to be numb. There are parts of my mind that baffle me. It takes time to write about them because language — at least, my command of language — may not always capture the nuances of spiritual practice. Sometimes, I just want to make a daily entry and get on with my life.
Of course, I never meant to confine this blog to my just physical practice on the mat. My tag line is: "breath, energy, life, spirit = self-discovery through yoga." That's why I write about my readings, my more intensive work with meditation, my pranayama, the intersection between yoga and the broader world as seen on the Web, and other twists in my life. But these internal process have their own pace of change, and I may have to wait until I can catch up with them or they reveal themselves to me. Certainly, the comments of the visitor remind me that I should aspire for something more insightful about this path.
Let me count the ways:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
I've come to the conclusion that two days in a row of yoga flow 2 classes or equivalent is just about all that my body can take. Even though today is a holiday and I could have taken in a morning class without complication, I needed to allow my body to recover. Yesterday, I could tell that I had less reserves of strength. I could not get into crow and hold it (all the sweating did not help either because it made my knees slip off my elbows.), meaning my core strength was depleted.
I will probably still fit in some yoga today, working on my core and problem areas, doing my pranayama and meditation. I find that doing some pranayama goes a long way for picking up my energy levels. It's nice that I have something to fall back on.
During my yoga class tonight, we were going through a series of twists. I was again contemplating the lack of range that my body has, especially when dealing with my core. After three years plus of yoga (of which a good 18 months could be considered consistent and persistent), I am still very far from half lotus, from eagle arms, etc. I've worked at tackling specific issues, like my hips or my shoulders, but that does not seem to make a difference, except when measured against months of time.
While I was trying to relaxing into the poses, I thought about doing something drastic, like taking a day or week off and work on nothing but my hips, or using sandbags (weights, my wife's body) to push me past my limits, or hiring a personal trainer to whip me into form or a private yoga instructor to show me whatever I am missing to get through these obstacles.
In yoga, kundalini is the female energy that lies coiled at the base of the yogic body, a sacred power that rises out of the loins, coils around the spin and rises upwards towards the crown; the goal is to enable the free flow of kundalini, Well, my kundalini seems to be firmly knotted around my hips and wound tightly around my spin.
Then, I thought that perhaps it's not the physical side that is holding me back. There must be something non-physical inside me that is tightly bound and thoroughly even entangled. I like to pretend that yoga and meditation has made me mellow and grounded, but I am just deluding myself: hidden underneath the surface is a small boy who's afraid of moving or even fidgeting and freezes his muscles to the bone. When the musculature has been locked in position for nearly 50 years, it's excruciatingly difficult to ply it loose.
I've noticed that I can usually hold most asanas individually, but when they are combined into vinyasa sequences, I have problems with the transitions, especially around the hips. For instance, tonight at Thrive Yoga, we were moving up from Reverse Warrior to Warrior II into Half Moon (Ardha Chandrasana), in which I transition into balancing on one leg and a hand on a block. I never seem able to make the same movement twice; I'm wobbling in and out of the pose; I easily lose my balance and fall out of the pose. It's also a completely different feeling working with the left leg forward from the right leg.
(On the other hand, with Sun Salutations A and B, I've done the sequences thousands of times over the past three years so they've become second nature to me.)
I am sure that this problem is related to my "spinal knot" -- the tightness of my hips, spin and shoulders. If muscles are clinched permanently, they are not going to allow for smooth movement.
A tip of the hat to my teacher tonight, Andrea Creel, who says she reads this blog regularly, bless her heart.
I've had only modest progress towards switching to doing meditation and pranayama in the morning. I missed Thursday because we had to leave home early that morning so Teresa could make it to her Spanish class. Today, I missed because I got to bed so late last night that I could not get up to fit in my practice. I definitely have to get to get earlier than I have because even though it may not affect me the next morning, it will catch up with me later in the week. I am really tired tonight and simply cannot concentrate on writing, reading or anything else that requires an alert mind. So sweet dreams.
Someone told me that by slowing down, breathing deeply and listening intently you could probably reach a goal just as quickly as if you had rushed towards it like a race. This advice came to mind because I was in yoga class tonight and a woman was rushing through her vinyasas as if she was in a sprint. She was obviously an accomplished yogini because she had her asanas down pat. I took the opposite approach. I slowed down my vinyasas so that I could savor each pose, the counterposes and the transitions that bind them together. And I still worked up a sweat.
I could probably benefit by following that advice in my professional pursuits and my personal ventures. Fewer brain cycles would keep my mind from being overworked and my imagination overheated. Mindfulness opens up other venues of inquiry.
This was my first class since Sunday because I worked late Tuesday evening and missed my normal class at Flow Yoga (I even forgot to cancel the reservation). Boy, have I felt the absence. It was sweet to be on the mat again.
Labels: practice
I got home late last night and could not get settled into bed until well past 1:00 am. I did some yoga in an effort to unwind, but I was still alert and vigilant afterwards. It was nearly impossible for me to wake up at 6:00 am to do my pranayama and meditation. That's par for the course -- on/off, and always a worthy excuse.
While doing my routine last night, I noticed that my thighs were stiff and a bit sore, probably from my hip-opener workshop.
I went to a hip-opener workshop today at Thrive Yoga with Susan Bowen. The two and a half hour session is the third one that I've taken from her, a sign of her commitment to addressing this need and my own recognition that my hips are tight. I've been "working on my hips" for the past two years, and I can see only marginal improvements. I still cannot get into easy pose Sukasana without a support under my hips; otherwise, my knees are above my waist. Like most Westerners, I've spent all my life seated in a chair, as opposed to on the ground; I am a man so my anatomy is less flexible than a woman; finally, my professional bondage to a computer means that I spend too much time seated in front of a keyboard and monitor.
I think that my lack of progress is due to the fact that it's not just a hip problem. It's a kind of muscular knot that tangles together my whole core, legs, hips, abs, spine, and even my shoulders, ensnaring both strength and flexibility. Focusing exclusively on the hips is not going to fix it. It's not going to get better until the whole problem is corrected.
So until then, I just accept it as the state in which my body is, and get back on the mat. At least now I enjoy half pigeon (Eka Pada Rajakapotasana).
I got up at 6:20 this morning and did my pranayama and meditation before sitting down to breakfast. I felt proud of myself. I don't think it had a lasting on my day -- lots of tension at work that seeps into my bones and muscles and weighs me down like wet clothes. I did not have much of a chance to do anything else in the day because it was my wife's birthday and we went out to eat with my son in the evening.
Obviously, the real trick will be to do this a full week to make it a habit.
Labels: life style, practice
Last month, Teresa and I took a long postponed vacation, five days in Orlando, Florida. For two days, Teresa kept me running to the Gulf and Atlantic coasts so that she could satiate her thirst for the ocean -- white sands, waves and sun. We stopped at the Kennedy Space Center for a couple of hours, not long enough to take the whole center in. We also spent one full day at Epcot Center, Disney World and also another day shopping for gifts and bargains at the outlets that tempt the tourists to delay their return to the Magic Kingdom. Teresa complained that we had waited 15 years too long: we should have brought the kids to Orlando when they could have enjoyed it. Of course, in those days, we couldn't have afforded it.
For me, the highlight of the trip was the Cirque du Soleil, the Canadian ultra-circus, had a resident show, La Nouba, at Disney World. I had seen Cirque du Soleil on television and was intrigued by the concept. But TV or phtographs could never capture the electricity and scope of the performance. First of all, the Disney World show is presented in a custom-built freestanding theater so it is a magical setting. The lighting, the set and wings were exploited to increase the impact. The audience was seated in the round and the actors frequently ventured into the audience. I thought the music was recorded but there was a full musical band seated in the elevated wings and the singers roamed the stage.
House Troupe, Cirque du Soleil's La Nouba at Disney World
© The Walt Disney Company
Costume credit: Dominique Lemieux
Once the lights came down and the show got underway in earnest, I gasped. It was overwhelming; I felt as if my senses were insufficient to take it all in. My eyes were darting back and forth trying to catch all the action. As the performers soared through the air, danced across the stage, balanced on the edge and tumbled, it suddenly occurred to me that I was seeing something that I aspired to in my own yoga practice. The grace and strength, the imagination and dexterity, the playfulness and wit that drove the performance were the essence of my intention when I stepped onto the mat. Not that I could ever aspire to the sheer athleticism and skill that the Cirque du Soleil cast displayed, but that joy and courage could propel my own body as it flew out of downward-facing dog to forward bend or balanced in crow.
Teresa in front of the Big-Tent-style theater where we saw La Nouba
A week later, I was in Barbados at an evaluation for a new online education program that CICAD, my employer is sponsoring. After our last session, I went back to my room and did a yoga practice on my balcony -- maybe it was something magical about Caribbean seas, winds, sand and sun. As I stretched out in side plank, my top arm reaching high and my shoulders arching back, my vision just took in the blue sky above the railing and it felt if I were balanced precariously on a high wire, and in a daring flourish, I lifted my top leg into tree position, resting my foot on my thigh. It was all an illusion, a trick of tunnel vision and concentration on my practice, but it was also a seed of intention.
For purposes of clarity, I am adding the explanation of the term "La Nouba" because there's no way of know what it means. I says through the entire show and I did not get. Of course, I did not buy a program.
La Nouba originates from the French phrase "faire la nouba," which means to party, to live it up. It transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary, engaging the imagination from beginning to end with opulent sets, brilliant choreography, theatrical lighting and provocative music.
Postscript:
Debra Perlson-Mishalove told me that she had read that many cast members of Cirque du Soleil practice yoga. It wouldn't surprise me. Yoga Journal has a mention of cast members in a yoga class.
