Self Practice: Moving Toward Balance

I'm on Day 4 of the first week of Moving Toward Balance, and this morning as I went through the series of standing poses outlined in the book, I started to feel...angry. Insecure. Anxious. All of the above.

I have started getting into a little bit of a routine before I practice at home. Kind of like Colden's bedtime routine, it gives my body the signals that it's time to become aware, be present, and get ready for some yoga.

I roll up the rug from the living room floor and put it in the corner. I sweep the floor, then light two candles and a stick of incense (if it's not terribly muggy in the house). I turn on some music and roll out my mat, open my book and lay it out on the table behind my desk so that I can see what I'm going to be working on.

The first couple of days that I followed the poses laid out in the book, I found myself feeling positively lightheaded after going into a standing forward bend for a minute. I started to feel frustrated at my body that I couldn't fold very deeply without bending my knees deeply. When I tried using blocks, I felt tense AND frustrated.

Then I started moving through the sequences. My emotions were all mixed up: first I was bored, then frustrated, then I wondered why I kept fidgeting during the poses. I kept thinking to myself, you KNOW these poses - why do you insist on making microadjustments every time you take a breath? Can't you just settle in and enjoy it?

Today's practice, I found myself adding a vinyasa in between each pose to keep my focus, because my mind would not stop wandering. I found myself trying to count the seconds for holding the poses as instructed in the book by listening to the clock ticking in the corner of the living room.

Then I started questioning my motives for taking the teacher training in October. Am I really strong enough to be a yoga teacher? It certainly didn't feel that way today. Is this just another flaky thing I'm doing?

Questions, questions, questions, with a side of anxiety over my upcoming bead retreat to Colorado in September: how am I going to pay for it all, how am I going to get out there and back without having an anxiety attack? What if I get sick in Colorado? What if I get sick on the plane again? What if, what if, what if?

I started to feel like none of the yoga was working, and that I was almost right back to where I was back in January when I couldn't leave the house for a haircut without getting the dry heaves.

Meditation was, as expected, something close to a disaster. It was just constant Monkey Mind, going in every which direction... I started to wonder just what the hell I was doing with this practice, this book, and what it all meant.

And then...and then...

I opened up my email, and there was something from Yoga Journal about how to go deeper in standing forward bends. Curious, I clicked on it, and read:

"Forward bends teach patience. It takes a long time to enter them deeply. Enlightenment doesn't necessarily occur when the head reaches the legs, so there's no need to get it there soon, if ever. The realization of yoga is to be fully conscious, present, and content at whatever stage of the practice you have attained. Paradoxically, when you are truly satisfied right where you are, your pose often opens up and you can easily move forward.

If you're in good physical condition and your alignment is good, one way to progress in forward bends is to vigorously practice standing postures, with a strong Uttanasana (Standing Forward Bend) between each posture. Standing postures such as Utthita Trikonasana (Extended Triangle Pose), Utthita Parsvakonasana (Extended Side Angle Pose), and Virabhadrasana I, II, and III (Warrior Poses I, II, and III) work well. Do each standing posture twice on each side. Hold each pose for 30 seconds to one minute, and you'll find a deeper stretch and a greater sense of awareness."

Which is exactly what I have been doing in this practice for the last few days.

Huh.

So, not to think too deeply about everything, I think it's time to call it quits with work and writing and go hang out with my kid before it starts raining again. 

 

Elvis Does Yoga?

No words.

Challenge: Home Practice

So, this is the week that there are a limited number of yoga classes at the studio while Robin is in Vermont at a teacher training with David Swenson. While I'll still be attending a few classes at the studio taught by some of the new teachers (yay!), my original plan was to travel around to some other studios and experience yoga in a new place taught by more new voices.

Well, financially, that plan isn't going to work out this week. While I'm a little bummed out that my finances won't allow me to travel this week, I've turned my attention to using this week to starting a home practice.

Now, it's easy for me to do yoga at the studio. Probably for anyone else, too. You get there, you arrive, you change into your yoga clothes, unroll your mat, and you're there. Not quite the same at home, where there's a five-year-old clamoring for attention, telephones ringing, visitors dropping by, dirty dishes and laundry to do, housecleaning, a 103-lb dog who wants to lie across the middle of your mat...

You get the idea.

The first hurdle that I have to overcome in establishing my home practice is finding a space to practice.

We live in a tiny house. I mean, tiny. The top floor is about 1,000 square feet, and while we have a semi-finished basement, it's always chilly down there, and the ceilings are so low that I can't raise my hands above my head.

We have a lovely back porch, which is a little on the small side, but still great for the summer and warmer days, but in the winter (which is 7 months out of the year), it's just not practical. No heat, and the temperature out there averages around 20 degrees F.

Okay, that leaves the kitchen (which is also usually pretty chilly, since we don't heat it when we have the wood stove burning), and the living room.

The living room is tiny, but a nice place to practice. As long as we don't have the clothes set out drying on the drying rack (we don't have a clothes dryer), and as long as the Christmas tree isn't up, and as long as Colden doesn't have his train tracks set out on the rug in the middle of the floor...

Do you see my problem here?

The bedrooms are too small - there's absolutely no room for me to spread out my mat in either of them. The dining room might work, since it's warm and the ceilings are higher than the basement and living room, but we have an enormous dining room table that takes up the whole space.

So what's a yogi momma to do? I'm just going to have to do some creative furniture arranging before I practice, I think.

The second hurdle is finding the time to practice, especially on the weekends.

Weekends around here are packed. We're trying to get caught up on housework, cook a few good meals, maybe take some time to spend together as a family and go to the Wild Center, or the VIC to go birding or for a hike, or take the canoe out for a paddle... There's grocery shopping to do be done, gardens that need tending, play dates, meals with family...

I usually go to a Sunday afternoon yoga class, but that's at the studio, and I leave the house so I can get some peace and quiet. If I tried to do an hour of yoga on the back porch at 4 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon at home? Yeah. I'd probably get 15 minutes in, and then Colden would come and want to talk or tell me to come play with him, and Moose would plop down in the center of my yoga mat, and our friends would stop by... It's like Grand Central Station here when everybody is at home.

My only options, it seems, will be to get up earlier than everyone else, which means waking up around 5 a.m., or doing yoga after everyone has gone to bed, around 8:30 at night. Neither one seems terribly attractive, but the early waking might be the best option for me.

Now, I just need to get an alarm clock...

What NOT to Say to a Yogi Momma

If you had told me a year ago that I would become such a dedicated yogi, I would have told you that you were nuts. It seems to have happened so fast that even I have a hard time wrapping my mind around it.

Maybe it's just my personality, but I get the distinct impression that certain people around me are confused about my passion for yoga. That said, because I'm something of a sensitive person, there have been things said to me about my relatively new practice and my decision to take a yoga teacher training course that have left me feeling less than confident about my choices.

Listed below are five of my least favorite things that I have been asked since embarking on this new path of a daily yoga practice. Can you relate?

1. Doesn't it take time away from your family? Yes, I'm a working mom. And I have a somewhat demanding job that requires a lot of hours writing and creating and photographing and editing photos and... You get the idea. And since I can't go to the yoga studio in the early mornings, I go to the evening classes - when my son is home from preschool and my husband is home from work.

Asking someone if yoga takes time away from their family, for some of us, is like saying, "Don't you feel guilty about not spending time cooking, cleaning the house, or otherwise doing something useful for your family?" It's a good way to make someone feel like a bad person.

On the other hand, in my case, if I didn't go to yoga every night to help relieve my anxiety disorder, I'd most likely just be crumpled on the bed in a crying heap or sick as a dog from the medications I was on to relieve the anxiety disorder. So, I really wouldn't be functional, anyway, and on top of that, I'd be causing worry and distress to my family.

So, sure, taking a couple of hours every night to do yoga is time spent away from my family, but on the other hand, it makes the time I *do* spend with my family much better.

2. Do you really have time for that? There's a saying I've seen going around lately: I meditate for twenty minutes every day, unless I'm too busy, and then I meditate for an hour.

Yes, I'm a busy working mom. I carve out time for a lot of things: time for my son, time for my husband, time for my friends. And it's just as important to carve out time for myself, too.

In a world where a lot of people equate busy-ness with success, we are losing sight of things that are really important. Yes, some days it's really, really hard for me to shut down the computer, kiss my son good-bye, and get into the car to drive to the yoga studio. But at the end of class, my mind is clear, my body feels energized or relaxed or a combination of both, and I can go home and feel like my life is a little better under control.

3. Does doing yoga mean that you're a Hindu now? Just the act of doing yoga doesn't make me a Hindu any more than saying the rosary makes me a Catholic. That said, I am drawn to the spiritual side of yoga as much as the physical practice. The idea that I can get in touch with my spiritual self through a moving meditation is part of what makes my time spent practicing yoga very important for me.

Also, doing yoga does not mean that I am going to hell, consorting with the devil, or going to start sacrificing goats in the backyard at each full moon.

4. So, can you bend over backwards to touch your toes? The point of yoga is not just to be able to execute crazy bends and twists with your body. It's about building strength, both physically and mentally.

And no, I can't bend over backwards to touch my toes. As a matter of fact, I still can't do a standing forward bend without having my knees bent. A lot.

5. I'll bet yoga is great for your sex life. If you mean that doing yoga makes me feel more confident and relaxed, yes, those things do contribute to improving my sex life.

If you mean getting myself into crazy sexual positions a la late night pay-per-view, then, no. That's not why you do yoga.

6. If you're just doing yoga to treat anxiety and depression, why can't you just take prescription drugs instead? For some people, that's an option. It's not for me. We tried the prescription drug route, and honestly, I felt worse from the side effects of the drugs than I did from the anxiety symptoms.

On top of that, the way I see it, the prescription drugs weren't actually fixing anything, anyway. They're just a Band-aid for whatever the real problem is. For me, yoga is my way of fixing the real problem - being able to relax and regain control over my mind when the anxiety kicks in.

Update, 7/8/2013 - 7. But yoga isn't "real" exercise. The next time someone tells me this, I'm going to have them work through a few Surya Namuskara B with me and see what happens to their heart rate.

Has a friend or family member ever said something to you about your yoga practice that just makes you cringe? 

What is Yoga All About?

You know, I look at a lot of yoga websites lately. There are websites for individual studios, websites like YogaDork, and websites like MyYogaOnline that offer dozens and dozens of individual yoga practice videos.

Most of these places show yogis doing incredible things with their bodies in poses like pigeon pose or even handstand or headstand. And the other day when I saw yet another ad with a naked picture of Kathryn Budig performing some feat of yoga (well, she WAS wearing her ToeSox, so I guess she wasn't completely naked), I started to wonder: what exactly is yoga all about?

Yeah, it's fun and a total rush when I find myself in headstand. (But that's not very often, and I'll talk about that in a future post.) And really, yoga was created as a way to strengthen the body in preparation for long stretches of sitting absolutely still in meditation.

But what's it all about?

The other night in class, Robin asked us, "Why do you practice yoga?" without expecting us to answer. Just to give us food for thought.

Is yoga really about just strengthening the body, and being able to do flashy moves like binds and headstands? Or is there something else, something lurking just below the surface?

What if when your spirit were just as strong as your body when you performed a headstand or bind? For me, that's what yoga is really all about.

Yoga Teacher Training: Creating Myself

I went and done it: applied to and was accepted into the Advanced Yoga Studies/200-hr Teacher Training course at True North Yoga down in Schroon Lake.

Beginning October 5, for one weekend plus one-half day per month for six months, I'll be traveling down to Schroon Lake to take my yoga practice deeper, learn more advanced techniques, and  eventually, earn my 200 Hour Teacher Training Certificate.

If you want the truth about the matter, I'm just as scared as I am excited about this new venture. It's never easy to learn new things about yourself, and I'm not sure what I'll discover or if I'll like what I discover.

But we are all works-in-progress, and if we don't seek out new experiences, challenge our beliefs and our bodies, and look for opportunities to grow, well, there's not much point in living a life like that, is there?

So, I'm heading down to Schroon Lake a couple of times when I can fit it into my schedule prior to October (I'll be traveling in July, August, and September) to learn the lay of the land, get to know the teachers, and get some more experience.

Between now and October, I'll also be working harder at developing a steady home practice, with the first step being trying to carve out a little sacred space in this teeny tiny house of ours.

Life should be an adventure!

Yoga On the Roof

We took the canoe out for a paddle on Sunday morning before it started raining (again - it's been raining for a week solid up here, with maybe a 12 hour break when the sun came out on Saturday afternoon), and I was thinking about a place to do a yoga pose outside.

Colden kept asking to go to this one lean-to that we saw from the middle of the lake because it had a ramp, so figuring that it was a good time for a snack, we pulled in and got out the food.

After the snacks, I went around to the back of the lean-to to see if I could scramble up on top. At first, I was a little nervous that my Tevas would slip around on the shingles, but once I got up there, it was all good.

Except for my balance. I had thought about jumping into extended side angle stretch (one of my favs), but I didn't feel like I could stand up on both feet without losing my balance, falling down, and breaking my neck out in the middle of nowhere, New York.

So, once I was comfortably seated, it was half lord of the fishes pose. Tom took the picture with my phone, and Colden was standing down below, showing off his muscles.

It's one of my favorite photos, ever.

Where do you take your yoga?