yoga

I rarely do the work of yoga now that my life is getting back to normal.  I am questioning everything.  I'm less present.  I'm soft when I should be strong and overpowering when I should liquify.  When I do "get the opportunity" to do yoga, I am easily distracted, as I was in the beginning.  One year ago, I could take a yoga practice in a fully packed class and never once lift my gaze to another soul's mat, rarely break bandhas or ujjayi.  But now, I mourn that loss.  And yesterday, I decided that I've been making excuses.  If yoga is what I need to get sane, then it should be first priority in my life, right?  No excuses.

I am present at six am on a Saturday ready to roll the mat out.

When I was pregnant  I unfriended nearly everyone on my facebook page that was a yoga teacher or who frequently posted about yoga.  It was a relief, I realized.  It relieved the yoga pressure.  You see, lately I've been feeling a funny unsettling way about yoga.

Say you stumbled across a gorgeous, scenic cliff overlooking a glorious river with a perfect balance of shade and sunlight.  It was a long agonizing time getting to this particular spot - you got banged up making it to that place...but oh! it was serene, you could think there, you could NOT think there.  Perhaps you found your lost little overstimulated self up there:  quiet, expansive, tiny.  One morning, you came across a couple here in your very spot.  How nice that other people enjoy this glorious view, you nod and feel a strong union with humanity.  Perhaps a few days passed, weeks, months and soon, it's become so crowded with fellow shelter seekers and oh yes, they've brought their iPhones, iPads, expensive hiking gear, they're texting and talking waaaay too loud.

This is how I've been feeling about yoga.  Yeah, I know that non-attachment means that one should be cleverly unattached the the masses toting showy yoga mats and designer yoga "outfits" and rockstar yoga teacher mentality.  It means I should be unattached to the place that heals me and take with me instead that which heals me.  It has seemed to me for a long time, people are clutching at yoga poses, yoga property, and the desire to have a "yoga butt".  And how dare I begrudge them for it?  Because even though we all come to the practice for our own reasons, ultimately the path stands.  The path is so good that yes, it has every right to be crowded.

effort & grace

For as many translations of the Yoga Sutras as there are, there are variations of the wording sukha and stira. I resonate with effort and grace. Other translations include hard & soft, steady & comfortable, strength & flexibility...you get the idea.

When I came to yoga, I was a weakened bookworm. I enjoyed the stretching and hated the effort. I put up with all those horrific downward facing dogs in order to get to the delicious stretches. After going through a rigorous Pilates Certification process, I threw myself into my practice - attacking chaturanga dandasana, not feeling fulfilled unless I glistened in a layer of my own toxins, striving toward my checklist of perfect (yet contrived) anatomical grace.

In my yoga teacher training, I learned to circle back to that softness I once cherished. When had I become so rigid and goal driven in my practice, I wondered...and in my life as well? I began to work toward a balance of effort and grace. What a challenge!

The real work of yoga: realizing that the way you lay it down on the mat is symbolic of your life at large. So, sipping in my greater picture - I knew I had some changes to make. All the perseverance, muscular strength and, well, goal oriented thinking I had been submerged in --and to be fair needed to be thoroughly committed to in order to make it through my Pilates Teacher training-- had made me rigid in my thinking. I had become critical, judgmental and found it hard to understand why others didn't follow simple rules of etiquette (read: MY way of thinking).

Yoga was about to undo all of this. What a nice little capsule of a sentence. Like wow, I can just take my yoga pill and be balanced. Yoga, life, it is all hard work!

I began to notice that I was not the only one struggling with this particular judgy-ness, over-hard issue. As I look around the Fitness Industry, particularly the Pilates realm in which I teach- I found a compulsive drive to perfection.

This makes me sad now that I have a daughter. I don't want to see her get banged around by perfectionist thinking. I don't want her to have to grow up thinking that it's an either or world. How on earth can one instill both sukha and stira in a world of extremes? I don't really know the answer but I can take a stab that it involves the hard work of softening into motherhood.

I'm starting to feel like myself again! (cue the singing cherubs) Is it the fact that my back is healthy again and I can exercise? Or that I'm starting to crave my usual healthy foods? I even dare say I've started to lose some of those darn 12 pounds left behind since the baby. Maybe it is due to the fact that my daughter is able to play independently on fleeting occasions and no longer needs to nurse 12 hours a day. In other words, I feel like the yoga ninja!

I'm still trying to figure out the focus of this blog. Most likely I will talk about the things I am passionate about: no-fuss fitness, being present, eating mindfully, & people who take themselves too seriously.

Do prisoners deserve yoga?

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/03/139550/

If you expect more from yourself than from others, you are saying you are better than others and, therefore, must perform at a superior level.
~Judith Lasater

"As the mind, so the man;
bondage or liberation are in your own mind."
~Sandskrit saying

Protect dharma and dharma will protect you;
nurture dharma and dharma will nurture you.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.
~Buddha

To live a creative life we must lose our fear of being wrong.
~Joseph Chilton Pearce

Whenever you do something, do it as a piece of art. Otherwise just don't do it. Let everything express the creativity of you.
~Yogi Bhajan

Our goal should not be to place our body in the position of an asana. Rather, we must seek to develop the strength and flexibility that will enable us to assume such a position. That is, the goal should not be the asana itself but the attributes of the physical fitness that are implied in the ability to assume that body position. This is a crucial distinction, for it is possible to assume some asanas without developing such fitness. To focus on achieing the ideal form of an asana without paying adequate attention to the effect of the practice on the structural qualities of the body is to lose sight of the true goal of asana practice. ~Mohan