|
|
…or, as Mario would say, “Here we go!”
One of the commitments I made when I started writing and teaching was to maintain reverence to the yoga sutras and to consult them- in the decisions I make both on and off the mat. They’re non-dogmatic*, and provide what I consider a pretty beautiful basis for the practice and observation of what we have encoded in other disciplines. If you read this blog regularly or know me, you know that those things are important to me- dogma-free, reliance on one’s own wisdom to interpret any instruction, working together with various disciplines (science, philosophy, even pop culture).
Lately, I’ve been wanting something more structured to frame my practice. Vinyasa is great, but sometimes its flexibility leaves me wanting something more solid (much like, if you are very physically flexible in the practice, the challenge is to learn to engage the appropriate muscles). I thought going through a sutra at a time would be a great way to examine, in a structured way, how the roots of yoga show up in my practice, my teaching, and my life right now. It’s not likely that I’ll get through all 198 of them, but I won’t get through any if I don’t ever start.
One other caveat- I don’t read Sanskrit and I am not an academic of yoga philosophy. Luckily, those aren’t bars to the practice or reading. You may not agree with me- welcome to blogland.
I’ll be using the Interpretive Yoga Sutras from Swamij.com.
1.1 Now, after having done prior preparation through life and other practices, the
study and practice of Yoga begins.
(atha yoga anushasanam)
The first translation I got for this was, “Here begins the inquiry of yoga.” Love I haven’t liked many others.
But if “shas” implies a teaching relationship, according to this translation, maybe “inquiry” is not quite accurate. It’s a question of agency- as students, do we inquire or do we remain receptive while someone or something else does the teaching? My guess- both.
So every time we walk into class or unroll a mat in our living rooms, are we starting? Is it auspicious (love that word!) or blessed? I’d vote YES- the only thing that matters is the current practice, not the day before. The day before might have been that “prior preparation.” The ten years you spent doing the ashtanga primary series six days a week is prior preparation. The thirteen years you’ve spent teaching, that old rotator cuff injury, your anxiety- yep, all prior preparation. If you’re not starting now, if you’re not working with what you’ve got, if you’re not showing up ready to accept teaching (even if the only teacher is you), you’re doing it wrong. This is a very Pema Chodron/Thich Nhat Hanh/American Buddhism concept.
I posted this on The Mindfulist but I think it’s helpful, so I’m re-posting it here. It’s a modified-for-being-at-work sun salutation, with the forward fold and backbending action without having to put the hands or whole body on the floor.
Be BAREFOOT or at least in flat shoes. I put a towel under my feet so they don’t have to touch the nasty floor. This instantly grounds me as I spend all day in heels.
Feet hips width apart; inhale and arch into a backbend, raising arms to the ceiling and gazing up.
Exhale into a forward fold, interlacing fingers behind the back.
Inhale halfway up with a flat back, maintaining fingers interlaced.
Exhale and fold more deeply.
Repeat three times… This gives me (and hopefully you) a bit more energy and hopefully helps to fend off the sitting-itis!
I took a class recently where, I felt, the teacher was heavily egoic and focused on creating distance between herself and the students. I read it in the way she spoke and the way she gave adjustments- she adjusted me in ways where, if I were to respond verbally, I would have said, “No, actually, I’ve checked with alignment experts and read Iyengar and am currently listening to my body and am 99% sure that this is the correct expression of the pose for my body right now.” Instead, I tried her adjustments although my body was not loving the idea- and, sure enough, the practice was uncomfortable and definitely not meditative. It felt like her adjustments, to me and others, and her verbal instructions, were all centered around her saying “I know more about yoga than you.”
Whether this was true is, of course, pretty irrelevant. How would I know, empirically, that she had ego issues? And how would that knowledge benefit me? No, this was all about my experience with it. I perceived a certain dynamic. Wanting to both preserve my own ego (I’d also like to think I know quite a bit about hatha yoga) and have an enjoyable class, I constructed certain defenses.
I didn’t realize this at the time. The next morning, I had a discussion with a friend and, of course, felt like they were trying to assert some kind of intellectual status over me and reacted. Slowly, I realized I was mindlessly repeating the pattern from the night before, softened up a bit, and we were both able to learn a lot from the conversation.
I’m bringing this up as a reminder that yoga doesn’t necessarily happen on the mat. In class, it had just been calisthenics, and not letting go of that reaction was definitely not yoga. The next day, with that sudden spark of awareness- that was yoga.
Maybe that teacher, through no merit of her own, wasn’t such a terrible teacher after all.
As some of you know, I spent the first half of January in Israel- on Taglit-Birthright’s Ultimate Extreme Israel trip. I have always had some ambivalence about the Jewish side of my background, and had embarrassingly little knowledge of the history- what better way to explore that than to go there, face a few fears, and jump right in?
I was thrilled to discover that Judaism has a rich meditative tradition as well. In Tzfat, I picked up The Breath and Body of Inner Torah by Miriam Millhauser Castle. It’s really interesting to see how the basic precepts of yoga- the breath connected to our divine nature, the importance of the body in terms of self-knowledge- show up in other traditions. It’s not a yoga book. She’s got a different approach- never trying to alter the breath, for example- but emphasizes a very deep and nuanced physical awareness as a religious experience. I consider myself devotedly secular and would call the same kind of subtle, focused awareness a psychologically integrative experience. It’s a nice reminder of the idea that “all paths lead to yoga.” We may have different words, sources of truth, and feelings, but anything done with love and awareness will lead to union.
…
Loving The Mindfulist.
The Perfect Stretch: great article offering some ideas on what makes yoga, well, so awesome.
I’ve been thinking a lot about commitment lately- and with the New Year coming up, maybe you have too. A long time ago, I committed to showing up on the mat daily. This was not some arbitrary decision, and I couldn’t tell you when it started. It arised organically as I came to understand how yoga made me feel.
At home, I’ve been playing with the Ashtanga primary series, but I’m not in a place where I can or want to commit to it every day. My commitment is to do some kind of yoga daily, but a 90 minute practice six days a week is just not fitting with my lifestyle right now. It has been in the past, and I’d love to have that time again, but the practice has taught me that balance is key, and yoga is only as good as it fits into and complements the rest of what’s going on in your life. Plus, I can’t commit to doing a daily practice of the same poses every day. My heart and soul and training is in creative vinyasa, and allowing for spontaneous movement is a big part of figuring out what I want to create for my students. I try out others’ sequencing to mix it up, challenge myself, and to better understand what makes it work.
I wrote last week about how what I really needed was to just breathe. I admit, I didn’t roll out the mat that day. But I showed up. The next several weeks will involve the New Year, traveling, and taking on some new commitments and goals- so it’ll be interesting to see how a daily practice will show up in my life.
_________
I really love this article about how journaling can compliment your yoga practice. One other way for you to “show up” to your practice.
(yeah, I can’t resist using cheesy post titles. Sorry.)
Breathing. Sometimes that’s about all you can do.
My shoulders and chest are aching from being maybe just a little overeager to rock out some arm balances in an ashtanga practice the other night. Part of this path is the pursuit of self-knowledge, so I’ll admit I went a little too far.
So there’s no vinyasa practice for me tonight. But I need grounding- a lot going on, a lot changing, and I know I’ll have much more energy to heal my muscles and confront life’s challenges if I can just pull some of it away from my very active mind.
So my practice, throughout the day, is to just breathe. To stack sitz bones, lower belly, ribs, back of the neck, top of the head. To soften my belly, gently remind my ribs to expand laterally before lifting, try to smooth the flutter between a deep inhale and an exhale.
It’s surprisingly subtle, complex, and yeah, kind of difficult. My breath doesn’t want to be smooth and long; it wants to be kind of choppy. I can’t force it. I can breathe with the intention of, thread by thread, releasing the ache in the front of my shoulders and between my scapulae. I can breathe, asking politely for the breath to descend into my lower belly to root myself deeper into my chair, literally, and figuratively into the earth that supports me. I can breathe, not trying to change anything.
Sometimes your yoga is about figuring out how your practice is going to show up. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be ready for an intense vinyasa practice. But today, I’m just breathing.
 Exploring Balance [25:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
(If the player won’t cooperate, click HERE.)
“Balancing poses make us newly grateful for having two legs and feet.” -Robert Butera, Ph.D.
This quote was the inspiration for this post-Thanksgiving mid-Holidays vinyasa flow, which is about 25 minutes long and involves lots of balancing poses. Intermediate level- since we’re not using any visual cues, you should already have a grasp of the poses.
To me, balance is all about foundation- whether you’re balancing on two feet, one foot, two hands, whatever- it’s all about appreciating and bringing awareness to what is connecting with the floor and softening into it. Maintaining balance involves a complex system of muscular engagement and release- so challenging balance postures can be a great way to get to know your body.
And remember, the way you are on the mat helps to shine light on how you are off the mat. When you think about the things in life that throw you off-balance, so to speak, how can you maintain groundedness, a connection with that which supports you? Can you engage the “mental muscles” that are needed and soften the rest? Just like falling out of tree pose isn’t such a huge deal, can you forgive yourself for stumbling once in a while when life gets crazy? If you lose your balance, how to you get back onto your feet?
Tiny print stuff: not all yoga practice is suitable for everyone. Please always consult your doctor before beginning this or any exercise regime. The instruction herein is in no way intended as a substitute for medical or mental health counseling. If you feel any discomfort during these routines or any other fitness program, you should consult your doctor or healthcare professional. By downloading the podcasts you accept full responsibility for the instruction given. Abby Thompson and LBY accept no liability whatsoever for any injury or loss in relation to the podcast recordings.
*Public classes returning to Brooklyn in January! Follow LBY on twitter for updates!
My first podcast! To be honest, I am NOT happy with the sound quality on this baby. But it’s about the yoga, right? I just really wanted to get something to you guys before the holiday. So just put on some music that blisses YOU out (which is why I didn’t add my own playlist), pull up a mat, and rock out.
EDIT: Going rogue without a plugin. Get the file HERE. It should play in most browsers without a download necessary.
Tiny print stuff: not all yoga practice is suitable for everyone. Please always consult your doctor before beginning this or any exercise regime. The instruction herein is in no way intended as a substitute for medical counseling. If you feel any discomfort during these routines or any other fitness program, you should consult your doctor or healthcare professional. By downloading the podcasts you accept full responsibility for the instruction given. The producers, performers, distributors, production cast and crew accept no liability whatsoever for any injury or loss in relation to the podcast recordings.
I wanted to write a follow up to my last post, which claimed that asana practice with breath is a complete system in and of itself. I’m slightly relieved to not have received a mailbox full of death threats- that could be because I don’t have very many readers, or, hopefully, because yogis aren’t really the death threat type. I’m hoping its the latter. Anyway, I want to get into a bit of my philosophy about why that works for me. You might say to me, after reading that last post:
“But Abby, don’t you know about the eight limbed path? DIDN’T YOU READ PATANJALI?!”
And I would respond, “yes, Virginia, I sure do/did. I’d be a pretty crappy teacher if I didn’t, no?”
A bit of a refresher here: The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is a brilliant text. If you walk into a bookstore awesome enough to have a whole shelf or more about yoga, 80% of the books there will be based in some way on interpretation and application of these sutras. “Sutra” means thread, or string, just a bit of guidance that we are then instructed to follow and interpret. This means that, no matter how it’s translated, the sutras won’t just lay out an obvious path for you to walk.
The eight limbed path described in the yoga sutras: restraints (do nots), observances (do’s), asana (poses), pranayama (breath work), sense withdrawal (towards meditation), focus on an object (towards meditation), meditation, all towards contentment/enlightenment/liberation. It’s from interpreting these that you get the “everything else” that asana practice doesn’t cover.
I have a deep respect and love for the body, cultivated through study of yoga, martial arts, feminism, and psychology. Pretty much every learning experience I have, academic or otherwise, had has eventually driven me back to the amazing capacity of the mind-body connection. And it’s from that belief that I make that claim. Every time you practice yoga, go for a mindful run, make love, dance, or just sit in a chair and read this is an opportunity to tune into the sensations in your body. You are breathing all the time. Every time you shift your awareness to your body and breath, you learn a little bit more about yourself. And to me, this is the most pure kind of knowledge there is- a stronger truth than any religious text can offer. It’s from this place, I feel, that you can build an entire lifestyle practice. It takes time, maybe years, to learn to access this body knowledge, but it’s from here that you can sense when things are stressful on a deep psychological level. Things like eating habits, relationships, career stuff- all the choices we make in life can be informed, deepened, made meaningful through practice with the body and breath.
I’m thinking this is what the texts, the eight limbs, were made to codify. Knowledge acquired through years of mindfulness and contemplation. They’re an offering to us, available for us to practice with.
So, my beliefs and teaching philosophy in a handy diagram:
Body > Text
Body > Dogma
Body > Guru
There’s debate all over yogablogland about what constitutes “real” yoga and I haven’t really gotten elbow-deep in that discussion. I know some of the comments I’ve made in this blog haven’t exactly been peace-love-and-harmony yogic, and while I apologize for anything that might have come off as flippant, I’m a human who just happens to really love yoga, not a role model for virtue.
One of the big arguments around these parts is that asana practice is overemphasized in American yoga teaching. I disagree- I think that with the proper attitude, movement can be an incredible platform for emotional and spiritual transformation. Getting into your body, breathing, dealing with the reality that in this moment, that sensation in your hamstring is pretty much everything. It takes a long time to cultivate, but once you get there, it’s more instructive than any text or guru. Yes, I will repeat that sentence in case I wasn’t quite clear: I believe that movement and breath is a complete, transformative practice in and of itself.
There’s a similar debate in art therapy. There’s “art IN therapy,” meaning that artmaking is useful in conjuction with talk therapy, as both a diagnostic tool and a therapeutic activity. Then there’s “art AS therapy,” the idea that sitting down to make art with (or even, somewhat less safely and effectively, without) a therapist guide, is a complete therapy in itself: revealing, allowing expression for, and encouraging integration of any disordered thinking or troubling experiences. You can guess which school I tend to agree with. This can be scary for the yoga or art therapy professional as it really limits their role- rather than guru/expert they become a facilitator/guide/midwife/cheerleader. There’s still a huge amount of responsibility in this role, but it’s significantly more nuanced than it might seem. It is still extremely valuable.
My background in power vinyasa yoga meant that for the first several years I practiced, it was just body and breath. There was a bit of wisdom from the teacher about how life is like this pose or that transition, and what it means to really “practice” in life and yoga. There would be some kind of inspiring text, but not necessarily from the Upanishads. And that was fine for me- a complete sequence. The transformation left me hungry for more and I branched out into other practices and deeper study- reading the Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita, trying out wildly diverse yoga schools, participating in workshops, giving serious thought to how I would incorporate the yamas and niyamas (yoga’s “do/do not” list that’s a pretty great template for living) in my life, practice, teaching, and career in a way that makes sense to me. That’s pretty much what this blog is about. Some practices resonated with me, and some didn’t. I let the ones that didn’t work for ME fall away from my daily routine and teaching. For example, I’m not so big on chanting to gods that aren’t part of my belief system- but if the invocation gives you a great warm fuzzy feeling, makes your practice fuller, and allows you to carry a greater zest for life off of the mat, then by all means, do it! But if someone would prefer to really work with their triangle pose (maybe not even refer to it in sanskrit)- well, condemning them as somehow not yogic enough is underestimating their enormous potential for growth.
There is definitely a place in this approach to yoga for studying ancient texts. You don’t need to throw away your neti pot or cancel your kirtan tickets or flight to Ibiza (though I’ll happily take your place!). But when that stuff- and yes, if it’s not making you feel great, it’s stuff- becomes the main dish and confronting the reality of who you really are at this moment in compass pose just becomes the appetizer- that’s when you’ve lost sight of your yoga.
——–
*This Thursday, 11/19, will be our last public class of 2009 in Brooklyn. I’m going on hiatus from these classes for the holidays and will resume on 1/21/09- so be sure to get that last bit of lifebloom yoga in! After this week, keep watching this blog for upcoming classes and other goodies, and I’ll still be around for private/group classes!
|
|
