10,000 Vinyasas

I am teaching this week at a resort south of Cancun. I’m intending to post a more detailed explanation of how I got here and my experiences soon but just to say today, it has been a wonderful experience and yet another example of how yoga just takes you places, opens doors, and connects you to people. If you are considering a yoga practice, do not wait, just do it now!

I love Primary Series, because afterwards, I feel great for the rest of the day, and it feels like my body was meant to be this free, open and flexible.

Yoga is one of the disciplines that is most unforgiving of excuses for age: I have seen way too many older people doing amazing and inspiring yoga to let anybody off because of their age.

“Yoga is like brushing your teeth. You have to do it every day.”—David Swenson.

The good feelings you get after yoga practice are addicting, in a good way. You tend to seek these out as you practice yoga more and more. This, in my opinion, is the reason yoga kind of takes over your life, after awhile. It is so much more than just exercise.

Yoga is a practice that causes you to question what you think is important, just because it changes you so much. Modern industrial civilization is, at heart, incompatible with yoga, or rather, the lessons that yoga teaches are opposed to industrial civilization, because industrial civilization depends on convincing you to want more, and yoga teaches you to be happy within yourself.

Yoga is a lifelong practice; to be successful, adopt a longterm attitude.

I really wish I were a more consistent photographer, but I rarely can be bothered to take pictures, even when I have a decent camera phone as I do now. Recently, I was invited to a photo shoot at the studio, where some actual professionals took pictures of us. I was expecting a head shot only, but they wanted us to pose as well. Here are some that I did:

Well, as of yesterday, I’m officially done with teacher training, following a brief and painless meeting with our trainer. I note that this certification has really very little to do with how good a yoga teacher one is, and it was only for the value of the credential that I undertook to obtain it. It was the only ambition that I had regarding my yoga practice, and now it is over. Seems that I can now consider teaching at resorts in exchange for free or reduced stays, which would be interesting, I guess. I did actually learn some new stuff during this training, and I enjoyed getting to know many of the trainees (“yoga brings people together”). Despite the above, I did feel an unexpected sense of accomplishment when I exited from the meeting yesterday. Not that I’m looking to expand my teaching much at this point; my “other” job has been busy and I also have many other interests and projects that take up time. Nonetheless, I get enormous gratification from teaching people yoga, and my life would be quite empty without it. Sure, it sometimes infringes on practice time, but the psychological benefits are tremendous. That was one point of agreement I had with our trainer.
(practice notes) I’ve been doing more Ashtanga, both on my own, and in led classes lately. The style really is cathartic; it burns away mental impurities and leaves me feeling relaxed and joyful for the rest of the day. At the same time, it’s challenging enough to retain my interest and record my progress, at least in my head. I’m picking up a lot of good practice tips from Lisa Long’s led class. Oh, and acro’s going well too.

I just realized that it’s been two years since I started teaching yoga, and wanted to comment on that. During the last two years, I’ve consistently taught at least 3 classes a week, and for most of that time, taught one or more private lessons averaging twice a month. I’ve watched as my teaching has grown more confident and my classes have gotten larger, for the most part. I now have what I consider to be the best teaching schedule, at the right times and places, and so I don’t spend a lot of time traveling or finding subs when I have schedule conflicts. I’d have to say that teaching yoga has become one of my great joys in life; it is just so much fun to help people discover the benefits of practicing yoga, and to think that I have something to offer, well, I still find that kind of amazing. Part of me still wonders sometimes why people come to my classes; I guess I have a little of the “imposter syndrome” when it comes to teaching yoga, and this is probably because I started teaching only after I took a weekend yoga teaching course. Of course, what I didn’t realize was that I had accumulated quite a bit of knowledge about yoga that wasn’t reflected in the brief formal teacher training, and so I do feel that one should have a strong yoga practice before beginning teaching. From my teacher training (the 250 hour one), it’s clear that some people who want to teach yoga don’t begin this way, to their detriment. At any rate, I no longer have that little gasp of apprehension when I face a large class, or some other yoga teacher appears in my class. From the howling success that I’ve had, I’m glad that I started teaching by trying to modify Primary Series, because I believe in the Ashtanga system, but at the same time, its full application to a mixed-level class has some challenges. A balance between authenticity and not scaring off beginners, is what it boils down to. From here, I’m looking forward to wherever this second career will take me. Namaste!

I got this from Amazon, using their 15% off discount for Subscribe and Save. It comes in small plastic bags, and looks somewhat like steel-cut oats. Anyway, I tried it this morning; here’s my first impressions: interesting texture. Reminds me of the Cream of Rice hot cereal I used to eat when I was a kid. Thick and hearty when prepared with 1% milk. Good flavor; easy to make. Highly recommend. Of course, this stuff isn’t cheap; as I’ve mentioned before, buying your own cereal ingredients from bulk bins is the cheapest way to go, and offers the most control. Still, it’s good to have some variety.

For awhile now, I’ve been trying to learn to count in Sanskrit during Suryanamascar. It’s kind of difficult, especially the B, since the count goes up to 17, and the words are relatively unfamiliar, mostly because I learned Ashtanga Primary Series from Ken, who did not count, but instead used descriptive words to get students into the poses (no doubt reflecting his background in teaching yoga at the gym, which was where I met him). It has become clear to me recently that the benefit of learning Primary from this kind of teacher turned out to be that I can quite effectively take new (or newish, I guess) students into the poses easily, using descriptive words. During my attendance at some of the community classes we are required to teach and go to, I noticed that other teachers don’t necessarily have this facility, to their detriment. What this did for me specifically was to allow me to more easily move into teaching, since I had basically memorized without trying, the descriptions of the large number of poses in Primary Series. So, back to counting: I’ve been practicing it during my private lessons, and last night felt confident enough to count the last “B” all the way through (I made it funny by using my “Pattabhi Jois voice”). It was fun, and added a new dimension to teaching. In other notes, I’ve been expanding my pose repetoire to include some Second Series poses, like Dhanuasana, Ustrasana and Bhekasana. I’m sure my longtime students appreciate the variety; I sometimes feel like I’m in a bit of a rut teaching the same order and kind of poses every week (then again, it’s modified Primary, so it should be mostly the same, I suppose).

Well, I’m continuing to make more progress in acro-yoga. My handstands have a lot more control, and my drop-overs are getting better. I’m almost ready to do kickovers by myself; I only need a tiny push to get airborne, most of the time. On the other hand, I’m having some knee pain, and I suspect that it has to do with my lack of cardio activity; a muscle imbalance my have formed, is what it feels like. At any rate, I have a month of Kundalini classes at a local studio, and so I think I will take this opportunity to get more experience with this style of yoga.

With teacher training. It’s been a long slog, and I’ll be glad when it’s over. I’ve learned some things, and have gotten more exposure to the Yoga Sutras, chanting, meditation, and other practices. It certainly has taken up a lot of time, and I’m sure I’ll breathe a sigh of relief when I have more space to do stuff (like rebuilding a used espresso machine, to be discussed in an upcoming post). Anyway, I’m not sure this particular version was exactly what I was expecting, in the sense that I was thinking there would be more Ashtanga-specific teaching. At any rate, I’ve picked up a new private lesson this week, and a potential opportunity to teach a class, outside of a formal studio. My practice is going well; my knees are still sore but sometimes allow Padmasana and other poses.

(Update) Ok, we are done (well, not quite–still have to teach three “community classes,” my exam is not graded yet, and there was a mysterious hint about a possible “additional assignment” for some), but at least most of it is over. Will be nice to concentrate on other things. In addition, it may be a while before I take another workshop; I think I’ve done enough for now and want to concentrate more on my practice.

I’m giving props to Shelley by billing her equally with her husband, since she was such an integral part of the instruction (and, I liked her very much). David Swenson is perhaps the last of the traditional Ashtanga Yoga people that I’ve been taking workshops from over the past year (readers will recall David Williams, Doug Swenson, Nancy Gilgoff, and Tim Miller), so I was eager to hear his perspective. The first session was a led primary class; I got a lot out of David’s suggestions for modifications to some of the poses. In the afternoon session, it was nice to get, yet again, another perspective on lifting up and jumping back. I guess I would say that David Swenson is pretty close to Nancy Gilgoff in his traditional style, although he has a sense of humor very similar to his brother, Doug. Doug, of course, is kind of a maverick in the traditional Ashtanga area, and incorporated some tai-chi movements into some of the transitions between poses. David does not actually have a studio in Austin where he and Shelley live; apparently, he just travels and teaches, along with the sales from his books and videos. Nice way to make a living from yoga, in my opinion. The second day’s opening session was an introduction to Second Series, and of course, I’m familiar with this, having practiced many of the poses in some of Yoga Shala’s classes. I’m only able to do about 50% of Second, but it’s still fun to try. We did a lot of work with partners in this session, and overall, it was a very nice experience. (I had to skip the pranayama session at the end, since I had to go teach). I probably should purchase at least one of his books, since it seems very helpful in teaching modifications to difficult poses.

I’ve progressed to the point in my drop-backs (into backbend) that Vladimir now refuses to “assist” me anymore…yay! I’ve never actually gotten to that point in anything I’ve attempted in acro-yoga, so it feels nice to master a skill like this, even though I do recognize that I could do a lot more to improve my form, and I will, of course. It seems to me an amazing accomplishment, since I had so little ability when I started, and it took a loooooong time. I’m learning, though, that some of the more advanced poses and sequences in yoga may take quite some time to master, and this process is just normal. I’m really trying to move away from being so result-oriented in this activity, and I think I get more serenity that way. It’s difiicult not to envy someone who can easily do what you struggle to accomplish, but remembering that no one’s practice is perfect, and that even your teachers struggle with poses, gives one more serenity. A report on the David Swenson workshop is upcoming…

“Pain is not a punishment. Pleasure is not a reward.”–Chodron, Buddhist nun.

My assignment for teacher training is to expound on the meaning of these aphorisms. First, we observe that many benefits come from pain, especially in the physical activity realm. I’m thinking specifically about when I broke my ankle; it was upsetting to not be able to do cardio for six weeks, but I addressed my upper body and core in that time and emerged from injury much stronger. Also, progress in yoga practice is only gained through effort (which might be called pain); certainly poses which come easily to one do not present a challenge, or an opportunity to deepen one’s physical practice. The observation that a perfect pose or sequence is the product of years of dedication and hard work certainly applies here too. Pain can also be a valuable warning in practicing asanas, sounding an alarm that the body is unready for the chosen pose. Conversely, indulging in pleasure often comes with an additional, sometimes unintended amount of pain. Giving in to one’s appetites for sweets or other culinary temptations produces a momentary feeling of pleasure, but later, this fades and is replaced with dissatisfaction with the additional weight gain. Drinking alcohol in excess is an even more obvious example. The natural human tendency is to seek pleasure and avoid pain, but as we can see, this strategy is shortsighted and fails to take into account the true nature of these two opposites. As yogis, we are called upon to recognize the deceptive appearance of pain and pleasure and rise above our natural inclinations. Ultimately, we should look at these two equally, with indifference to their effects, and treat them both the same.

1. you wear nothing but Lululemon, not just to yoga practice, but everywhere.
2. you practice counting in Sanskrit under your breath at odd moments during the day.
3. the words “pincha mayurasana” no longer strike fear into your heart.
4. the only thing you care about is getting to that next yoga class.
5. conversely, your home practice is just as satisfying as your studio practice.
6. bending over to pick up something is an exercise in pleasure.
7. you can wear through a travel mat in about 2 months.
8. you sit in Virasana while watching tv at home.
9. watching tv seems kind of meaningless compared to yoga practice.
10. you harangue your significant other into taking yoga classes.
11. you find yourself using ujjayi breathing throughout your day.
12. and it makes you calmer.
13. you mostly hang out with other yogis; other people “just don’t get it.”
14. you can turn on a light switch with your foot, while loaded down with bags of groceries (thanks, Becky!)
15. you can’t understand why people think jumping into seated is hard.
16. you think the opening and closing mantras are “cool.”
17. you’d rather sit on the floor than in a chair, to open your hips, of course.
18. practicing Primary Series seems more relaxing than strenuous.

Readers, any more?

Through practice (both Acro and yoga), my Pincha Mayurasana has improved to the point where I can know expect to perform it away from the wall, at least according to one teacher I took last week. I never thought I would get that one, at all; for some reason, I just found it to be especially difficult. On another note, my Primary Series practice has improved to the point that I’m able to do a passable version of about 90% of the poses. The practical effect of this is to make my self-practice even more enjoyable. Yesterday afternoon I went to a practice room at Spectrum and just worked through it…it was wonderful in restoring my peace of mind. I can now perform dropbacks and standups from backbend without a whole lot of fear, and once again, this is something I would never imagined doing even a couple of years ago. Steady progress does wonders for your motivation to practice more. It really is like a drug, sometimes. On the teaching front, I subbed for Ana a couple of classes at the studio, the more advanced ones, and had a great time doing it. I do like teaching a less mixed level class sometimes, and trying to get people into more advanced poses is fun.

Sadly, we are about to say goodbye to a local restaurant which, for whatever reasons, has started sliding down the slope of good service and food. I refer in this instance to Sogo, a place I discovered last year, mostly because we would congregate there after acro-yoga practice; Vladimir was fond of it, you see, and to my slight surprise, the food was outstanding, particularly the soups. The owner/chef has some serious cooking chops, and we began to visit it for dinner and some Sunday brunches. Alas, the last few visits have revealed that the local economy is taking a toll on this establishment; first, most of the stock of market items, along with their shelving, was eliminated, leaving a cavernous dining area that scaled poorly in human terms. We noticed also at this time that the menu, which had previously changed daily, had been reduced to “regular” items, with the exception of one soup and one entree. Our last visit was also disappointing in other ways; there was no chilled white wine available at all, even though the wine refrigerator stood empty. When we ordered glasses of red wine, the food arrived quite a while before the wine; in other words, we sat there with our food while the staff, who looked like high school students, struggled to get two glasses of wine to our table, for unknown reasons. Further, there was no acknowledgment on the part of the staff about the lapse. At any rate, we may have eaten our last meal at Sogo, especially for dinner. My heart goes out to the owner; it is certainly not easy to maintain a small, cool gourmet restaurant in an area where most people define “food” as something that is obtainable at a drive-through window, and certainly the irony of having a golden arched establishment in the same strip as Sogo is not lost here. Our opinion is that poor Sogo is not long for this earth. Sad.

I took the workshop this weekend.

The first substantive portion (after the led primary, which I had to skip) was the building strength and lifting up module. Kino Macgregor has studied directly with Pahttabhi Jois, which was entertaining, since she shared some stories about Guruji. Kino has an interesting diction, which reminded me of the skateboarder/surfer Jay Adams, and made me wonder if she originated in California. She spent some time talking about the common personal excuses that we utilize in avoiding difficult poses in our yoga practice, i.e., “my arms are too short, my butt’s too big, I started too late,” to be able to jump forward and back. This is a favorite topic of mine. At any rate, she most effectively broke down the jumping forward and back process, differing slightly from Mike Matthews’ approach, who encouraged us to jump into a preliminary position with the tops of your feet to the floor, before scooting the feet forward of the hands (Kino referred to it as walking the feet forward), whereas Mike told us to pulse the hips, bringing the feet forward until they came past the hands and “kick the feet out.” In contrast, Kino spent quite some time teaching us what she called “building the foundation,” which meant placing the hands with fingers slightly digging into the mat, bringing the “ball” of the index finger deeply into the mat, rotating the eyes of the elbows in to a 45 degree angle, and emphasizing the strength of the deltoid muscles, along with bringing the spine into flexion and drawing the lower belly in. We went from all fours into plank with these cues. From there, she encouraged us to bring one foot forward, placing the top of the foot near the hands, and then the other, and walking the feet forward, straightening the legs, and then lowering the hips. I can mostly do this without instruction, so this part of the workshop was not enlightening for me, although I did enjoy the different perspective, and the emphasis on uddiyana and mula bandhas in attaining this difficult skill. Separating out all the parts seems to be Kino’s special talent in Ashtanga yoga. The part for me that needed clarification (and Kino gave it to us) in this workshop was the action of bending your arms and bringing your chest forward and down before jumping back. I attained several almost perfect jumpbacks using all of Kino’s cues, and of course, doing it once means you can, eventually, do it again, and then over and over with practice. Speaking of which, Kino mentioned that it takes about 10,000 repetitions of movements to enable familiarity within the body, so once again, we have to practice over and over. Kino also said some things that I’ve been noticing, and have previously posted here, specifically about the long horizon in yoga, the fact that beautiful-looking poses should be looked at as expressions of the amount of work and dedication involved, and that injuries result from students trying to push themselves into poses their bodies are not yet ready for. That was kind of cool, to hear someone that accomplished say what I’ve thought for awhile.

The second day was Mysore, followed by a module on backbending. I loved the Mysore in that hot, crowded, sweaty room, but I must’ve done a little too much, since I injured my left hamstring pretty severely (it’s frustrating that I can never pinpoint when I actually injure myself, apparently; it just happens, and the effects show up later). The backbending was interesting. Since I’ve been practicing with a former gymnast, Vladimir Vladev, I have gotten his instruction on backbending, and it’s slightly different than a yoga-style backbend instruction, but I’m always eager to get a different perspective, and maybe even blend some things if possible. I really liked Kino’s approach to this area, beginning again with building a foundation with tucking the tailbone and drawing the lower belly in, and lifting the stomach, ribs and chest up, creating space in the spine, and then bending the upper back. I can see that my chronic lower back pain has to do with not tucking the tailbone, and this I certainly can use in my practice. All in all, an excellent workshop, taught by an extremely accomplished and charismatic teacher. I can only imagine what my practice would look like with regular lessons from this yogini.

Continuing on last week’s theme of opening, I observe that much of the pain that beginners feel (and let’s not kid ourselves, as much as we try to make yoga a pain-free experience, it just isn’t, not by any stretch of the imagination) has to do, in my opinion, with the feelings of opening parts of bodies who’ve spent years behind a desk, or doing some monotonic exercise (running, weights, and don’t even mention golf!), or some other sedentary aspect of what passes for life here in industrial civilization. People spend years and years cultivating stiffness, rigidity, lack of inner strength and flexibility, and then come into a yoga class. The movements being taught there are designed to open the body and increase strength and flexibility and so of course the sudden opening of previously closed parts is painful, often excruciating. This may, in fact, be the reason that many people’s first visit to a yoga class is their last. This also suggests that there are more than one level of opening; in fact, there are multiple layers of openness, and this is echoed in the seemingly endless progression of ever-increasing levels of difficulty. I can also see from this that a lot of injuries can occur when people don’t understand this principle, and attempt to force their bodies into poses that their level of flexibility doesn’t yet allow, and realizing this brings up Pattabhi Jois’ admonition, to much clearer effect: “do your practice, and all is coming.” Of course, Guruji was Indian and his pithy aphorism must be explained to literal Americans, I suppose, but that’s my shot at an exposition.

Note: teacher training starts Monday. Should be fun and exciting. I’m looking forward to it.

I wanted to relate an experience I had last weekend, and connect it to yoga practice. If you’ve attended my Tuesday night class, you heard this already, but here goes. Last Saturday night we got together with some of my old running buddies; I used to run 10 miles on Saturday mornings with these guys, and sometimes a few more during the week. By the way, I always thought of myself as a lifetime runner; just couldn’t imagine my life without it. Funny how things change. Anyway, of course my new avocation (hah!) and passion got some interesting comments from these quite conventional fellas. They were all excited about running the half or full marathon that was being held this weekend, and were obviously puzzled that I wasn’t participating, and that I had, in the last five years since we got together, changed into something else. One guy had apparently attended a yoga class in Oklahoma where he lives and described it as being a lot of chanting and meditation. His view of yoga was “stretching,” and he demonstrated his lack of flexibility by trying to touch his toes and not getting very far, to put it charitably. This particular gentleman, I know, does weight work in addition to running, and so I had to wonder, just exactly how useful this exercise routine is, if it results in someone being incredibly rigid and inflexible? I can only contrast my own experience, since I was once in roughly the same position as my friend, and what I find is that yoga comes closest, of all the ways of moving your body, to being the complete exercise program, especially if your goal is to be able to undertake normal activities well into your advancing age. Running and weight lifting, while good, simply don’t offer that kind of completeness. My friend and wonderful yoga teacher Meg once described an early morning event in her kitchen when she reached deep into a cabinet and how good that bending over felt, and this post is my echo of that. It’s taken me quite some time to achieve real flexibility in my chest, shoulders, and hips, but oh how good it feels to have this, and to be able to use it in every day activity. It’s almost indescribable, this feeling of openness and freedom, but certainly achievable by most people, and this, I think, is really the unstated value of yoga: we all aspire to be able to continue our normal activities as we age, and yoga gives us a way to do that. People who find themselves addicted to yoga probably experience similar feelings to mine. When you think about it, it’s pretty understandable; yoga is ancient, five thousand years old or so, and you’d expect there to be some wisdom coming down from all that experience.

Those of us in South Texas, who are little used to a marked change in seasons, have to look for other signs that we’re moving away from the staggering heat of late summer/early fall and into the cooler, more festive months. We know, for example, that the holiday season officially starts with the arrival of seasonal beers, and this one is the best. Not the best seasonal beer, but the BEST BEER ON THE PLANET. Today, I’m happy to report that the 2010 holiday season has officially started, since I picked up a few six packs of this wonderful, extremely hoppy IPA. As a bonus, I found a place that has the absolute best price in town–yay!

Yum!

Ok, I’ve officially had enough. I shop at Costco often, mostly for the fruits, vegetables, and other whole foods. (The processed foods are another story; the famous samples they give out are a horrorshow of really bad food ideas, so much so that I frequently amuse myself cruising around noting the various blandishments the food “industry” offers to overstressed, poorly exercised, overworked, unhappy people). At any rate, I’ve bought the fresh organic spinach for quite awhile now, because I like eating lots of spinach, and Costco offers the best price in town. Sure, the quantity is a big much, but up until recently I haven’t had too much trouble keeping most of it fresh. Lately, though, for some reason, the spinach has been rotting earlier and earlier. The final straw came last week, when I brought some home, and by the next day, when I opened the package, it was already rotting. Let me tell you, there’s nothing worse than trying to separate out the slimy parts of the spinach from the good. Well, that does it: I will no longer buy spinach from Costco. It is way too much trouble to track down your receipt and go all the way back to the store to obtain satisfaction. Sorry, Costco, but you’ve made your decaying green bed this time, and you’ll just have to lay in it.

Yuck!