Prana Journal

How did this happen?

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:21:00 +0000

This past week, I got a message from a friend asking if this site was down. I checked and sure enough, I had left the domain name hanging because the domain registry had an old credit card for automatic renewal. I quickly rectified that mistake, and the site was available again. But I was embarassed further because I had not made a blog entry since March 27. That's a full month of silence. And that was on top of another month of silence from February 23 to March 24.

How did this happen? Well, life has a way of consuming time:

My mother's fractured pelvis and elbow required her to remain in rehab for six weeks, which threw my parents' daily structure out the window. My mom still can't cook. My parents need a lot more help from me and my sister.
My wife had to go Peru to see her mother whose health has been slipping, and she ended staying seven weeks. That left me with two dogs and two cats and a household to take care of. Luckily, I had my daughter to share the load with. Luckily, Teresa is coming back on Wednesday.
Doing my tax returns, which always requires me to wall myself off from other distractions to get the damn things done in time. This year, I had to do my parents' taxes for the first time.
My 9-5 job demanded that certain tasks be finished on time. I could not take time off because I had to save it for my parents' doctor appointments.
All the other tasks of daily life.
Given these time constraints, I had to choose between blogging about yoga or doing yoga -- or doing neither. I got in a fair number of classes each week. Sometimes, I'd go without yoga on weekdays; other times, I'd skipped a weekend class to get errands done. Each evening, I always fit int about 15-20 minutes of restorative spinal twists and backbends because I found that it allowed me to sleep more deeply.

Dialing back the yoga

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 16:48:00 +0000

I was feeling too depleted of energy and strength to go to my usual vinyasa flow class with Susan Bowen at Thrive this morning. Although my sinuses have tried up, thanks to the recent rains, I am still hoarse and congested in my lungs. I just have to keep this from developing into something more serious, as it has in the past.

Yesterday, however, I made a point of taking a yin yoga class with Michelle Fry at Thrive. This style of yoga is the opposite of most vinyasa classes: you need to release and relax into pose and hold it for 3-5 minutes. I constantly had to remind myself to pull back my effort, that I did not have to push until I reached my edge. I liked it because it was a kind of yoga lab in which I By the end of the class, I had made up for some of the yoga missing from my life during the week (I had not been able to make it any classes since Sunday).

For the past week, I've been treating myself to 20 minutes of spinal twists before I go to bed. I find that the practice releases the muscular tension that I have built up during the day in my lower back. I've noticed that I am tighter on my left side and have doubled up the time I hold that side to see if I will eventually even out my alignment.

BuddhaFest - DC-area event for June

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 18:12:00 +0000

"BuddhaFest: a film festival with talks & meditation" will take place at the Katzen Art Center at American University on Thursday, June 17 through Sunday, June 20. Dharma talks and meditation will be led by noted American teachers Tara Brach, Lama Surya Das and Sharon Salzberg. Details are still missing from the site, but I have it on good word that it will be fantastic. It is sponsored by the IMCW, the Washington Buddhist Peace Fellowship and the AU Office of the Chaplain.

The importance of listening

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 02:56:00 +0000

I went to the Wednesday evening dharma talk at the Insight Meditation Community of Washington. Tara Brach led the group in several rounds of meditation. Every time I've heard her speak, I've struck by how she always manages to deliver a message that is extraordinarily meaningful to me. That evening, she spoke about the importance of listening, opening our ears, indeed the whole body, to awareness of what's going on around us. Listening is the first step towards being mindful about the present. Tara's words struck a cord with me because my father is increasingly impaired in hearing and I've experienced how this isolation is walling him off from his family, his community, the world around him. I came away from the session with a commitment to find a way to break through to my father so that he gives in to buying a new hearing aid.

This was my first time, though I know several of the IMCW teachers, like Hugh Byrne, who I know from Flow Yoga Center. I'd been meaning to go to one of IMCW's classes or dharma talks for some time. Since my wife is off in Peru and I take the car to the Metro everyday, it's easy to go to the IMCW Wednesday evening session in Potomac, instead of heading home. It just means that I get home close to 10 pm. There must have been 300-plus people at the Wednesday session, and parking was a hassle.

I highly recommend the IMCW dharma talk archive. Whenever I've felt the need for a dose of mindfulness, like during the February snow storm, I turn to Tara's talks. These weekly talks and meditations, mainly of Brach, but also of guest speakers, go back until 2006. If you listen to an audio file, I encourage you to make a donation to IMCW's work.

Excuses on the road to bliss

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:41:00 +0000

I don't know how I do it, but every time I sit down to write something for this blog, something comes up that requires my immediate attention or addles my brain so much that I can't string words together. This week, I've been hit between the eyes by my sinus allergies. Spring is in full bloom here in DC, and my nose is running like a fountain. Last night, I felt as if I had drained out my brain along with the mucus.

This is exactly the kind of blog you're not supposed to write because who wants to read about why I can't find time, energy or focus to write. Excuses are plentiful, but they don't pave the way to enlightenment.

Yoga for Pain Relief -- what I read during the snow storm

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:16:00 +0000

Kelly McGonigal sent me a copy of her book Yoga for Pain Relief: Simple Practices to Calm Your Mind & Heal Your Chronic Pain (New Harbinger Publications, 2009) and I've been sitting on it for nearly two months.

Kelly does not need another review of her book. Eighteen endorsements from yoga experts, health advocates, pain relief specialists, and scientific researchers are spread over four pages. Timothy McCall, the medical editor of Yoga Journal and author of Yoga as Medicine, wrote her foreword. She got a review from Yoga Journal in the March issue and also publishes an article on Surya Namaskar (Sun Salulation) in the same issue.

She has a blog, The Science of Will Power, on Psychology Today (looks like it comes out twice a month), as well as her personal blog, Science and Sutras.

She's giving seminars at the Omega Institute (New York). She's quoted in Time magazine and the New York Times, the Washington Post (her listing of interviews). She's starting to make appearances on TV.

As a psychologist at Stanford University, she's uniquely positioned to see where yoga is interfacing with Western scientific investigation and medical practice, both in terms of theory and practice, at a time when neuroscience is redefining and re-dimensioning our understanding of the human mind. She's also an accomplished yoga instructor and teacher of instructors, as well as the editor for the International Journal of Yoga Therapy.

Do we see a pattern developing here?

She definitely does not need another book review or endorsement from a blogger.

New Harbinger has produced an understated book format, looking similar to the scores of other "Yoga for .... [name your disease, symptom or preferred body part]." Clean design, large font size, gray scale photos. So what sets this book apart from all the stock in the self-help section?

Once I started reading her book, it impressed me as an important blueprint for yoga in the United States. It's a book that I would recommended to anyone who wants to understand what you can get from yoga/meditation. The book hits a kind of "sweat spot:" this is yoga's entry point with the minimal initial physical investment, the lowest opportunity cost and the biggest pay-off. You don't have to get in shape, build up your aerobic capacity, muscular strength and flexibility before seeing results. You don't even need to know what's wrong with you for yoga to do you some good.

The book is extraordinarily accessible: No jargon, either from the Sanskrit or from the academic/scientific lingua franca, no intellectual arrogance, no magical incantation, no gateway to esoteric wisdom, no complicated sequences of poses. Within the first 25 pages (out of 183 pp), she's giving you easy routines to start using what's she teaching, in this case, observing your breath.

One of the things that Kelly said five years ago has stayed with me and she repeats it in the book: people seek out yoga because they are suffering, either physically, psychologically or spiritually. Human suffering is a great motivator and a constant of human existence. The book's virtue is simplifying yoga down to a concise, clear message: Relieve your suffering; start with these easy steps. If Patanjali had written like Kelly, yoga would have taken over the world (kidding -- a little).

Kelly also understands the value of personal narrative alongside the findings of randomized, blind control experiments, and she has included compelling stories of people impacted by yoga throughout the book.

I also appreciate her thoughtful listing of resources: meditation and yoga instruction books, audio/DVD, music for movement, meditation and relaxation, books for people with pain, non-profit organizations supporting people with pain, and organizations supporting research, education, and professional training in yoga and meditation. In addition, she has 50-item bibliography. If you poke around her blogs, personal website or her book site, you'll find lots of pointers to central reference texts, scientific studies, resource centers and specialized knowledge hubs -- stuff that she did not include in the book because they would have gotten in the way.

Accidents and tools in life

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:15:00 +0000

Not much posting here in this corner of the blogosphere lately. The reason is that my mother fell this past weekend and fractured her hip and right elbow. She was hospitalized for four days and then released to a rehab home where she will probably spend a couple of weeks, if not more. The experience of seeing my mother in intense pain and not being able to do anything about it gives new meaning to the definition of helplessness . At 90 years old, she's not prepared for this type of painful injury, and the whole bundle of medical emergency and information overload has been overwhelming for her and my dad. This has meant that Judy, my sister, and I will have to take a more active role in their health issues.

Of course, you can also through in the overload of work from by my 9-to-5 job because of the extended downtime due to the DC blizzard, so I've been forced to work extra time to catch up.

All that has meant that my yoga classes have been confined to the weekends, and anything that I can fit in on my own at home.

I was talking to a friend about how I could really use a yoga class and she responded with the question "Why wait?" I can deploy tools that I already have in hand from my practice. We immediately set up two little postures that I could use when I felt I needed the boost in prana:

Standing posture - a disguised mountain pose with my arms held in front with one palm over the other in a shiva or Buddha mudra (tends to have less muscular tension than other mudras) that seals in my energy.
Seated posture - in a chair, weight firmly over my sit bones, no slouching back, my legs crossed at the shins to relieve any tension in the legs; again, a mudra helps focus my mind.

Whenever I slip into one of these postures, I get the sensation that I am deploying my invisible superhero powers and they expand around me like an aurora.

Open spaces for yoga in downtown DC at new studio, but...

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:13:00 +0000

Express Night Out (Washington Post) A House Divided: Strength Meets Yoga at Stroga highlights a newcomer on the DC yoga scene.

... Stroga resides in a mansion with floor-to-ceiling windows, stained glass, chandeliers, exquisite detailing and, most important, a heck of a lot of space. The entire second floor will be devoted to classes that can fit up to 125 people — comfortably. "There will be a foot between mats. We want people to be able to do a pose without getting a foot in the face," he (Doug Jeffries, the co-founder of Stroga) adds.

Jeffries is a smart businessman, as seen with his four Results gyms in the downtown Washington, but in this article he only provides a partial strategy for his yoga venture -- the facilities and amenities, but what kind of yoga is he going to offer?

A different kind of yogini

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:50:00 +0000

At Thrive Yoga's recent Rumbaugh workshop, I had my mat next to a special yogini. I never caught her name. She was hearing impaired and she had brought a sign language interpreter with her. Dave and Susan gave them plenty of room in the corner of the studio (actually, my favorite turf for taking pictures, which is why I ended up next to her). The interpreter frequently stood off to one side signing Desirée's lecture and demos. During the routines, she was sat or stood near the woman and passed on the instructions.

I got a chance to partner with her when we were doing handstands in the inversion session. She was able to get up fine, and I goofed up a couple of times with the support. I also did not know the sign that she gave to let me know that she wanted to come down. I let her get out of having to support me for the hand stand, in part because she could never have supported my weight. I could see that she had a very good personal practice and she was capable of absorbing everything that Desirée was offering.

After the session was over, the woman and her interpreter approached Desirée and had a conversation. There are some obvious obstacles between a hearing-impaired yogi and an instructor because hearing is so important in cuing through a practice. In the workshop's case, this was not even a standard class, but an extended demo/lecture/try-it-yourself format. I am pretty sure that the woman did not know exactly what to expect. Plus, Anusara has its own specific terminology for how a posture is put together and an interpreter would have to be familiar with it to translate that language into appropriate signs. At one point during the session, I was tempted to grab one of Desirée's associates and ask them to actually help the hearing-impaired yogini get a clear idea of what Desirée was asking of us by actually laying hands on her and rotate muscles in spiral directions.

I had been meaning to blog about this encounter on the mats with the hearing impaired, but I forgot about it until I came across a tweet from the Deaf Yoga Foundation, based in New York City. It's main mandates are preparing a yoga sign dictionary, teacher training, and community outreach. The dictionary is interesting because it is drawing on hand gestures in Indian (Hindu) dance. Check out Dancing for the Gods.

Jivamukti invades Washington in March

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 00:37:00 +0000

I need to put up this news item before it gets stale or overcome by events: Sharon Gannon and David Life, the co-founders of Jivamukti, return to the DC area from March 27-28 at Flow Yoga Center, they'll lead four amazing workshops incorporating all the elements of Jivamukti yoga: asana (postures), pranayama (breathing exercises), chanting, meditation, scripture, and spiritual insights. They alternate leading the sessions. This workshop series is for those practitioners who want to remake their lives along radically different lines. Debra Perlson-Mishalove, the Flow Yoga Center owner, will probably have to go outside her studio to hold this event. Otherwise, there's not going to be enough room. In any case, you definitely want to register early in order to guarantee your slot.

Correction: in the blog entry's comment, Debra provides more information about the locale for the workshops, the Franciscan Monastery at Catholic University, which opens up for 175 participants. She expects those spaces to sell out within a week, so the call to action still stands.

No work and no yoga today,

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:58:00 +0000

I spent the day running around on medical errands that had a kind of deadline hanging over them: the impending snow storm that will lock us in our homes for another 24-36 hours. Take my wife for a chiropractic evaluation, pick up prescriptions from the drug store, take my dad for blood tests, pick up x-rays of my wife's back before the doctor's office closed at 4:30, fight the traffic out of DC even though there should not have been a rush hour because there was no Federal employees working today. There were a couple of other odds and ends thrown in the mix too.

And to top it off, there was no class at Thrive Yoga this evening. I know that snow flacks were falling by 5:30 and traffic was wicked so who could blame Susan Bowen for canceling classes for most of today and all tomorrow. After all, schools are closed for the rest of the week. Sure, I could have gone for a yoga class in the morning, but that would have made my day even more stressed out. I needed the yoga to unwind, not complicate my schedule on a day when I could not be sure how long it would take me to get from one end of town to the other.

Lucky for me, I took a yoga class at 6:00 pm last night. Susan combined the vinyasa and prenatal classes. You'd think that would be an odd mix, but it worked out just fine. As Susan said on my Facebook Wall: "Labor will be much more challenging than a yoga class -- so why not practice at a level that helps prepare the body, mind and breath for Labor." In other words, maybe the vinyasa class was stepping up to the ladies' level. In any case, I was rewarded with a nice practice. In Wide-Angle Seated Forward Bend (Upavistha Konasana), it occurred to me that the pose was about knowing which muscles to release instead of which muscles to contract. It also means releasing the muscles, and keeping them released over an extended period of time. Because I am so tight in the lower back and core (I basically can't fold over; I'm practically upright), the time available in class to release and re-release is not going to make much of a difference. I need to practice it at home and actually play with accessing muscles and letting go.

Too tired

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 02:38:00 +0000

I had all these grand ideas of what I would do because I was isolated by the snow storm -- revamping websites, reading books, taking online classes, writing some reviews, backing up my data, archiving my music collection, etc. etc. What I did not count on was the physical exhaustion from wrestling with the snow for hours. In the morning, I shoveled because I did not want to get overwhelmed by the snowfall. In the afternoon, I shoveled because I wanted to get newly purchased book (The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama.) out of the car. After dark, I shoveled because the snow had stopped — finally — and I needed to finish digging the car out from under the snow. There was at least 24 inches on the ground, though it could have been more because the bottom layers were getting more compacted as the snow kept falling

In between those episodes of physical exertion, I laid around on the sofa focusing on the dull ache in my back, the soreness in my hips, the dead weight of my arms. Who can engage in intellectual activities when corporal sensations are so amplified? I need to do a session of yoga nidra to heal.

In the end, we were digging out to go nowhere because the snow plow was unable to get into our neighborhood because a tree fell on the pavement. By the time the tree was removed, the plow could not get up the slope because it got stuck in the snow and ice. So we have not seen a snow plow in 24 hours, and have no idea of when the contractor will get back to clean up the street. For that matter, we have a serious problem of where we are going to put all the snow. Just doing the sidewalks has piled up the snow to more than six feet tall.

I was too tired to even pick up my camera and take some shots of the snow, like most other people enjoying the blizzard.

Yoga class before isolation

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 02:49:00 +0000

I took advantage of the unscheduled leave option and early dismissal at my job due to the looming snow storm (my employer, an international organization, follows the lead from the Federal Government) to get in one more session of yoga at Thrive before being trapped in my house for the weekend. Between fitting in a couple of hours of work and getting some time on the mat, I'll take the yoga this time. Next week, probably, I'll have to give priority to work.

Stephanie gave another hot vinyasa session at 9:30 and it was about the same as last night. The only difference was that my muscles were showing signs of fatigue. I had not had enough time to recover from the exertion of the night before. The room was full so there was plenty of energy to carry us along so it was not hard to let the sequencing take me through the process. I just had to take a break once in a while to allow my breathing to catch up. I noticed that I was able to get into lizard pose (Utthan Pristhasana) much deeper than I had in the past, a sign that my hips are opening up. I can get both forearms down to the mat without having to compensate.

After class, I ran around making grocery purchases to get us through a long weekend, checking on my parents, filling up the gas tank and other errands. In the evening, the snow started to pile up and I did two rounds of shoveling sidewalks, parking space, and our back patio (our dogs need access to some free space to relieve themselves). By the time this snow storm is over, I will wear out the shovel.

Getting in some yoga before the big snow

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 04:39:00 +0000

I made it to Thrive Yoga tonight and got in a hot vinyasa class before the region is shut down by a huge snow storm heading our way. I suspect that any yoga I fit in over the next four days will be in my own study or living room. We'll see how long it takes everyone to dig out. Despite the sweat dripping from head to toe, I repeated to myself, "Don't work so hard, Mike, grace and ease." It seemed to soothe my mind and body as we went through the sequences of postures -- until the instructor, Stephanie Rosenblatt, led us into abdominal work, and then I just caved in after a couple of sets of bicycle crunches.

These winter storm are becoming a real pain in the butt. It shuts down studios for 2-3 days so that means there's a hole in my routine, and shoveling snow does not make up for it. Home practice starts to look like a necessity. Where have I heard that before?

Golden rule of yoga practice

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:26:00 +0000

Yesterday I broke a personal rule about my yoga practice. I talked myself out of going to yoga on Monday evening because I was tired, had things to do at home and did not feel all that gung-ho about doing yoga. I thought I would be able to grab my Tuesday night class, as usual. I had even talked my wife into taking the class with me. Well, another snow storm moved into the DC area and Thrive Yoga canceled the evening class as a precaution because of the bad weather. To make it an even bigger downer, both evenings at home got sidetracked and I did not get to be as productive as I wanted.

I have this personal rule for a reason: I grab classes when I can, as early in the week as possible. All kinds of circumstances crop up to interfere with my yoga practice and there are only a specific number of classes at Thrive Yoga that are available to me, unless I don't go to work. For all I know, I'll have an urgent task at work or the Metro will be delayed and I'll miss the Thursday class.

Of course, the skillful response to this predicament would be to have a complete daily home practice that would satisfy my yoga needs. Instead, I'll be lucky to get in 20 minutes of meditation before going to bed.

My second rule of yoga practice is that I get up the next day and try to do the best that I can.

Divided attention in the yoga studio

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:30:00 +0000

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.

News that will put you to sleep

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:29:00 +0000

I open my daily Google news alert e-mail this morning and a pattern immediately emerged from the selection.

WOOD TV8 Yoga for better sleep - informative five-minute video feature on a bedtime routine
Huffington Post How Laughing Yoga Helped Me Take Relaxation Seriously about this twist. Also see Yogalaff.com
Globe and Mail Night moves: Sleep yoga may be better than counting sheep- more info about yoga as "foreplay before bed to set the mood before sleep."
SFGate Restorative yoga for those who want to relax
Reuters Rwandans reach to yoga as a trauma therapy

I had made a decision to refrain from posting a lot of news items on yoga and meditation unless I could really add something to the content. These short entries were easy to fire off, but others sites, like YogaDorks, do this job well and with a lot more humor that I can muster about the yoga scene here in the States and around the world. I wanted to refocus my blog on my practice, photography, reading, and other assets that a reader would not find elsewhere.

And to contradict what I just said, let me close by pointing to this New York Times article, When Chocolate and Chakras Collide about the trend towards mixing yoga and food. Anything that appears in the NY Times is an indicator of what's happening culturally around yoga.

Nice pix from NYC's Yoga at the MoMA

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:45:00 +0000

Let's just say that I appreciate the photographs of the Yoga Day USA event YoGA at MoMA. My problem when shooting at a yoga studio is that I have a limited range of angles from which to take a pictures, none of them giving me a wide shot that takes in the full array of yogis and yoginis. I also encourage you to take a look at the videos on Elena Brower's Virayoga. Elena was the lead instructor at the event, and has a beautiful practice. Better yet, I'll show it here.

Yoga's like a river

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 03:08:00 +0000

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.

Getting grounded in seated position

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:16:00 +0000

As part of my intention of "not working so hard" at my yoga, I've been practicing more seated poses, usually cross-legged Easy Pose (Sukhasana). In the evenings, I get up from my computer and take a seat on a zafu cushion in the middle of my study. I'll listen to some music, read or simply rest my attention on my body. I don't necessarily intend to meditate, but it often moves in that direction. Sometimes, I will transition into yoga nidra or a restorative pose as a release from being seated more than 15-20 minutes.

I notice that it takes a while to sink into the seated posture. It feels different after 10 minutes, and not just because my legs are losing sensation. I start working through my musculature, which is pretty substantial, lots of thick muscles working all day to keep me upright and moving. It takes time to get through the resistance and "touch bottom." By the end, I feel that I'm resting more on my sit bones than on the muscles. I also notice a change in my breathing as my upper torso (rib cage, diaphragm, solar plexus, thoracic spine) gains freedom from the lower half.

Obviously, if I lived in a non-Western culture, I would be spending a lot more time seated on the floor and the uniqueness of what I experience on the zafu would be routine.

One benefit I find so far is that it makes for much sounder sleep. Because I am really working my core in seated Easy Pose, my torso and thighs are really grateful for the relief of lying doing. I've exerted a lot of effort holding the upright position without really working up a sweat or increased aerobic activity. I sense that it bleeds off a lot of the nervous energy that builds up during the day.

Intention for the year 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:19:00 +0000

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.

Delayed Vision

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 04:25:00 +0000

I am unable to write any comments about the Desirée Rumbaugh workshop; just no time to string together more than a few lines. I have posted more photographs on the Thrive Facebook gallery. I was trying to take shots without a flash, relying on opening my lens as wide as possible. The more settings and options you have, the more likely you'll forget something or just get it wrong. Plus people are moving, which may complicate things with slow shutter speeds. In other words, I am saying that there's a high failure rate in these photographs. I might be able to rescue some of them with Photoshop, but it's a steep learning curve.

Two quickies

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:26:00 +0000

I want to spotlight to news items:

Detroit Free Press Matthew Sanford links yoga's self-awareness and healing about a paraplegic whose experience with yoga sheds light on the mind-body connection. Desirée mentioned Matthew at the workshop. She also recommended his book, Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence. He has a team of professionals working with him at MindBodySolutions. Here's a series of videos at a 2008 Yoga Journal confernce.
San Francisco Chronicle Restorative yoga for those who want to relax because I'm focusing on this facet of yoga and the reputation of West Coast yoga is usually the opposite: upbeat, intense and driven.

Yoga Workshop Fatigue

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 02:51:00 +0000

I have put in ten hours of yoga in three days at Thrive Yoga, participating in the Desirée Rumbaugh workshop this weekend. It was intense, fulfilling and insightful, thanks for Desirée's infectious dynamism and deep knowledge of yoga. I also had the distraction of taking photographs whenever I could break free from the mat. I filled up one memory card with shots, and it will take a while to process them all. Since getting back home after the class, I have been blissed out (or burnt out) and don't think I could muster the energy to write too much about the experience.

Hip Openers and Resisting Temptation

noreply@blogger.com (Michael) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 04:31:00 +0000

This weekend I am participating in the Desirée Rumbaugh's "Heart Stimulus Plan" workshop at Thrive Yoga as resident photographer and yogi pretender. Four two and a half hour sessions. Thankfully, we had MLK's birthday holiday on Monday so I will have a day to recover from this excess. Tonight, it was a sizeable class, but there was still room to spare. I've heard that there are still spaces available for the other sessions.

Tonight we worked on hip-openers and inversions: inversions were stuffed into the last 20 minutes (not a complaint), and Desiree really led us through a series of demos and highly focused postures that gradually led us deeper and deeper into the contradictions of how to spread your sit bones. This was not a vinyasa flow class with sequencing to work up a sweat and work the whole body (as with the Brian Kest workshop in October.) No, Desirée had us apply "shins forward and hugging to the midline, thighs back and spiraling inward, hips scooped to support the core and spine." Anyone who has taken an Anusara class knows the alignment principles that are repeated over and over again. If you confront this vocabulary for the first time, you're baffled, but Desirée does a good job of wittily describing and joyously demoing how the principles are applied in poses.

July 2008 workshop at Thrive and more comments
Tale of my knee injury coming out of the workshop

At the end of the class, I sat crosslegged in Easy Pose (Sukhasana) on my mat. In the past, my right hip was always so tight that my knee would jut up at a 45 degree angle. More recently, my left hip had actually opened up substantially and came close to resting on the ground ("cheating" with a blanket under my hips). Tonight both hips were open and I could rest both legs on the ground. Even though I was protecting of my right knee like crazy, not pushing it too far, pulling back from the edge, that's progress. Maybe I should not give up all hope of one day doing Lotus (Padmasana)

The danger with Desirée is that she is so inspired and energetic that you want to follow her off the deep end, take a pose to the next level and compete with your neighbor as to who can get deeper in a split (not me). Desiree warned us that we need to protect ourselves with the right tools and techniques.

Well, I have two sessions tomorrow so I should to bed. I need sleep.