The Seven Deadly Sins are those Transgressions Which are Fatal to Spiritual Progress.

In his book, The Inner Tradition of Yoga, Michael Stone talks about a meeting with Patthabi Jois,  or Guruji as he was called by his devotees, the Father of Ashtanga Yoga. At this gathering, students were asking questions about their practice of yoga. When students would ask simple questions about their physical practice such as: “How long will it take to practice a good back bend?” Guruji would often simply smile or state his famous reply: “Many lifetimes, all is coming.” The questions that seemed to most interest Patthabi Jois were those regarding the breathing, self or God.

“When students breathing,” he said, “trying to practice yoga, breathing into heart. Students breathe into heart looking for God right here. God is in heart. Students want to find God, but not finding God. Students breathe into heart finding enemies.”
These enemies of the heart are the same thing as the seven deadly sins from the Christian tradition.

They are:

Enemies of the heart
kama (desire)
krodha (anger)
moha (delusion)
lobha (greed)
mada (envy)
matsarya (sloth)

– Deadly sins
– Lust
– Anger
– Pride (excessive belief in one’s own abilities.)
– Gluttony, greed
– Envy
– Sloth

These six poisons, or seven deadly sins are symptomatic of a heart that is unsatisfied, of a life characterized by suffering.
We begin practicing yoga postures in an effort to relieve suffering and find a way to meet life with less effort and more flexibility. Yoga is a path out of suffering. But what we find after our initial foray or honeymoon period is a matrix of psychological and physical holding patterns that have captured our minds and bodies within tightly conditioned parameters. How do we release these patterns? There has to be more to the practice than just the purely physical.
To release these poisons that are choking our heart, we have to understand how they got there. The poisons arise from the five kleshas, or obstacles, that are the impediments on the path to yoga.

These five kleshas are:
Avidya – is not seeing things correctly. We think we see reality as it is, but we really see the world as we want it to be. Avidya is a descriptive state of mind and body unengaged with the present moment.

Asmita – is often defined as ego.  We construct our egos out of stories of “I, me and mine”.  We create a self-image that we believe is us, but it is not us.  This self image can be constructed of external (I am clumsy) and internal (I am a coward) false projections.  We become trapped within the projections we have created for ourselves.

Raga – is attachment, or the desire to repeat pleasurable experiences.  Our desire for pleasurable experiences creates mindless action.  When we don’t get what we desire, we suffer.  Soon after obtaining what we did desire, our feelings of pleasure fade and we begin our search for pleasure again, becoming trapped in an endless cycle.

Dvesa – is aversion, or the leaning away from what is unpleasurable.  If we cannot avoid the things we dislike, we suffer.

Abinivesha – is often described as the fear of death, but it also refers to the fear of letting go of the story of “I, me and mine”.

The first stage of working with the kleshas is to simply acknowledge them. Reflection promotes self-awareness, self-understanding and self-knowledge to uncover and see the kleshas and their roots as well as how they create suffering.

Concentration and mindfulness can counteract simple kleshas. Gross kleshas are overcome with tapas (effort), svadhyaya, (seeking wisdom) and Ishvara pranidhana (surrender to God or a higher power, opening to Grace). Yogic techniques are said to burn away the impurities of the kleshas to purify the mind. By ridding ourselves of our kleshas, we are able to embark on the path of yoga; a path of freedom from our habitual cycles of discontent and to enter into the space of the heart.

The King of Asanas - Sirsasana or Headstand

Sirsa means head, Asana means posture. This posture is head posture or Headstand.

One time, many years ago, my doctor was asking me about my yoga practice.  I was suffering from headaches and I told him that if I did my yoga practice and did Headstand, that my headache would go away.  He told me that if God wanted us to stand on our heads, he would have built us upside down.  I decided to not talk to my doctor about my yoga practice anymore.  He couldn’t understand why on earth anyone would want to stand on their heads.

As a yoga teacher, I realize that Headstand is not for everyone.  But I like to do it, and I feel that it helps me focus, gain clarity and get a new perspective on things. If you look in Light on Yoga,  Mr. Iyengar will tell you that it is good for a lot of other things as well.  He calls it the King of all Poses.  He says that its mastery gives one balance and poise, physically and mentally.  And it used to help a lot with my headaches!  In yoga we regularly engage our bodies in different relationships to gravity to help build strength, awareness and integration.   As part of my Iyengar yoga practice, we did Headstands regularly.  I think regularly is an important word here.  I don’t think doing random Headstands is a good idea.  And I think that students who come in new to an ongoing class should be patient and wait until they are ready and strong enough to do Headstand.

How do you know that you are ready and strong enough to do Headstand?  First, the idea of doing Headstand doesn’t strike fear into your heart.  Doing a pose with fear causes you to contract.  Moving into any pose with fear and contraction is not good.  Second, that you have no neck issues to start with.  Third, your neck is strong.  Lastly, you know how to muscularly engage your body to make it strong and stable, not loose and floppy.  Mr. Iyengar often describes this as being “poker stiff”.  Stiff is not often a word you would associate with yoga, but it means that one part won’t sag, think of the whole body as being engaged.  Sagging in Headstand, especially in the neck is not desirable.

As we work on Headstand this month, I would like to offer a few alternatives for those of you who might not be ready to go upside down.  First, let me say that I am not a big fan of Legs-up-the-Wall Pose as an alternative for Headstand. Headstand is a fiery pose, it heats you up, and it demands a lot of energy.  Legs-up-the-Wall-Pose is not a fiery pose, it is cooling and it does not demand any energy. It is very relaxing.  It is a good alternative for Shoulderstand, but not Headstand.  If you are doing an alternative pose, it should be form-wise and energy-wise related to the main pose.  Here are some suggestions for alternatives to Headstand:

Sitting or standing upright, with your hands clasped behind your head (like Headstand), supporting a blanket on your head and forearms. (This is more taxing than it looks!) (Sorry the picture is out of focus.  I’ll have to take a new picture!)

Doing “Airplane” on your knees, with your head into the wall.

Doing Dolphin Pose.

Dolphin Pose

Horizontal Headstand. This is where you are supine with a block under your head, your shoulders and your heels.  You press into your heels and lift your buttocks off the floor. To make this feel even more like the real thing, interlace your hands behind your head and draw your elbows towards each other so that they are shoulder width apart.

(Sorry, I don’t have a picture of this one, yet.)

You may wonder how come I don’t mention right angle Headstand (like right angle handstand).  The simplest explanation is that if you are not perfectly vertical in Headstand, then the angle will put strain on your neck.  This is less critical in handstand where you adjust your shoulders to the angle of your pose.

Every pose has its benefits and its detriments.  Every pose has a counter pose to offset its detriments.  The counter pose to Headstand is Shoulderstand.  If I teach Headstand in my classes, I usually end with Shoulderstand.  Fish is the counter pose to Shoulderstand; and the counter pose to fish is Savasana.

This will be an exciting month as we work on going upside down.  I hope that this is enough to get you started.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.  Here is a link to some FAQ’s about Headstand to check out first.  I’ll see you in class!

Karin

The Emptiness of All Things

Pen grass

In his book How Yoga Works, Geshe Michael Roach uses a simple story to illustrate some of the core teachings of the Yoga Sutras.  The first and probably most important lesson from the Sutras is from the second verse:  Yoga citta vrtti nirodah.  Y.S. 1.2  -  Yoga is learning to stop how the mind turns things around.

To illustrate this lesson the teacher, Miss Friday, picks up a stylus, which has been cut from a piece of green bamboo, from the Captain’s desk.  Miss Friday asks the Captain, her student, what this thing is she handed him: 

He says it is a pen.  (The story takes place in the year 1101 A.D.)  She asks him if he is sure it is a pen, and is it a pen from its own side?  She asks him if everyone would think it is a pen.  He looks at her as if she is crazy and says of course it is a pen.  Miss Friday hands the pen to a cow that happens to be in the front yard.  The cow happily munches on the “pen”.    So, the question still is:  Is it a pen?  Is it a pen from its own side?  Would everyone agree to the fact that it is a pen?  The answer is that it could be a pen to you and it could be food to a cow.  We think we see things as they are, but in reality, we see things as we want them to be; or, how our past has colored our vision to see things.

We may see a person whom we find irritating.  So, we think that person is irritating.  But, that person has friends and family and people who love them and think they are charming and witty.  Is that person irritating?  Or, do we find something irritating about that person because they exhibit some behavior that we find irritating about ourselves?  Is the quality of being irritating coming from their side, or is it coming from our side?

In a yoga class we do a lot of poses.  Are all of the poses good poses?  Or, are some of them bad poses?  Do we like some poses and hate other poses?  The poses are all just poses.  They, themselves, are neutral.  They are neither good nor bad.  It is just what we assign them.  But, yet we like some poses and hate other poses.  Our judgments might be based on whether or not we can “do” the poses.  If we can learn to pause and look at something as simple as yoga poses and notice when our mind begins to turn things around, we can begin to get a glimpse of where we get stuck by our own limiting beliefs.  If we can get beyond those beliefs we can begin to get a glimpse of the freedom that yoga promises.

The Yoga Sutras ask us to practice seeing the emptiness of all things.  To see, in the words of William Shakespeare, that “… there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”  To learn to see things as neutral and to watch as our mind judges and assigns value to things.

So what do you think?  Is it a pen? Or…

The difference between teaching and leading a yoga class

In my Yoga Teacher Training Programs I emphasize the importance of learning to teach a class, not lead one. Not that there is anything wrong with leading a class, but there is a big difference between the two.

Leading a class is when you get on your mat and call out what you are doing while you are doing it. Any dedicated yoga student could easily lead a class. There is a time and a place to do that. Leading an advanced practice class where everyone is at the same level is one example, or, when you are practicing with friends. Leading is not necessarily teaching. Leading can often be a lot like playing “Simon Says”.

Teaching a yoga class is standing up in front of a group of people and talking them into and out of postures. Part of teaching is also noticing what your students are doing and helping them improve their postures.

In the first teacher training program I took, my teacher taught us how to teach a class. She did not want us demonstrating or doing any of the poses with our students. She said that wasn’t teaching. I remember this as being difficult. It was so much easier to have the students follow what I was doing. My teacher didn’t even want us to raise our arms up in the air as we gave the cue “Inhale, reach your arms up.” Once she asked me to sit on my hands while teaching. That’s how hard it was to stifle the instinct to do the poses with my students. I am ever so grateful to my teacher for insisting that I learn that skill. I know a lot of yoga teachers who never made that transition from leading to teaching and they can’t seem to get up off their mats now to teach.

There are several reasons why you should learn how to teach a class rather than lead one:
To help your students improve their posture. The hardest thing to do is to see one’s self. Having a skilled teacher’s eyes on you and having an adjustment or an assist to improve your posture is one of the reasons I like to go to class, otherwise I could just as easily practice at home. Sure, there is the energy of the group that helps with your practice, too. (And, yes, assisting and adjusting can be problematic, but that is a topic for another blog post!)

To keep from getting burned out. Some students may be drawn to teaching yoga because they think that they will be able to get paid while practicing. In the beginning when you are only teaching one class a week you can get away with practicing with your students. However, if you are looking to make a career out of teaching yoga and you are teaching several classes a week and more than one class a day, you will burn yourself out practicing with your students. I teach nine classes and five or six privates a week. I couldn’t practice with all my classes, I’d be exhausted! On some days, I might not feel up to doing a Level two Vinyasa class. But that is what I have to teach if that is what is described on the schedule. You have to honor the class description for your students. And, you have to honor your own body as well.

Listen to your body. Maybe this is my problem as I have never heard other teachers admit to this, but I find that it is difficult to listen to my body when I am up in front, leading the class. There is an adrenaline rush to being in front of the group. I feel I want to do my best and perform each posture perfectly. I find that I push too hard when I practice with my class. Practicing yoga is a right brain activity. It is important to pause and feel. Teaching yoga is more of a left brain activity. When I am responsible for bringing people out of Savasana I find that I cannot relax myself.

If you have an injury or don’t feel well. I have been teaching since 2000. Over the years I have had various injuries, some related to yoga and some not. Of course, I took some time off when I broke my wrist while snowboarding, but I was able to get back to teaching yoga long before I could put weight on my hand. There have also been times when I did not feel great, but couldn’t get a sub and had to teach anyway.

Standing up in front of a class to teach is not something that you can naturally do. There are tips and techniques about what to do as well as what not to do. When you are practicing on your mat you probably never think about what to say to get into or out of a pose, you are probably just focused on the posture. But, to teach a class you need to be efficient and precise in your speech to move people into and out of poses safely and without losing their interest by taking too long to say what you need them to do.

It takes a fair amount of experience practicing on your mat to know how to get into and out of poses and how to say that most efficiently. Good teachers are those ones who do their own practices and don’t just take someone else’s classes. You can tell a teacher who has spent time on their mat playing with postures and figuring things out. They are able to draw on a richness and depth of experience that you don’t get simply by parroting back what you have heard another teacher say.

My 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training Program starts in September. Part of the program is called The Art & Craft of Teaching. This is where I teach these skills of how to teach and not lead a yoga class. The Art & Craft of Teaching is also open to newer yoga teachers who may want to improve their teaching skills.

Savasana or Final Relaxation Pose

At the end of every yoga class we come into Savasana or Final Relaxation Pose.  But, did you know that the real translation of Savasana is Corpse Pose?  The ancient yogis meant for us to contemplate our own death.

I heard this statistic on the radio this morning. Here in the US, as elsewhere in the world, we have 100% mortality rate.

Right?!

We know that, but we try not to think about it. We will all die someday, in the far future. Not today. Not tomorrow either. But who knows when they will die? This particular program was about being financially prepared for death by making a will. We need a will because we cannot take our stuff with us when we die. So what happens to our stuff? And how important is our stuff?

Imagine an angel comes down to tell you “Straighten up your affairs; you will not awake from your sleep tonight. You are coming with me.” How would that change your life? Would you worry about your stuff?  Making a will can give you some peace of mind, at least in terms of taking care of your material possessions. But contemplating your own death can be trickier. Death can be a great teacher. This ties in beautifully with the yogic idea of contemplating death as a way to live your life more fully.

I was talking about death in class last week. Savasana, or what we call Final Relaxation, literally translates to corpse pose. The ancient yogis meant for us to contemplate our deaths, not to fall asleep after our asana class. If you think about it, on a sub-conscious level, maybe that helps explain why a lot of people skip Savasana. It’s too uncomfortable. Just like contemplating death is too uncomfortable. But, we must not be afraid to discuss death. Let’s not get uptight about it. Instead, let this knowledge help you live every moment of your life fully, because every moment matters.

A friend recently recommended a book about mid-life. The book is called: Life Reimagined, The Science, Art and Opportunity of Midlife - by Barbara Bradley Hagerty.  In the book the author describes a conversation she had at lunch with her mother and another woman. She was recounting how her mother taught her integrity and her father taught her delayed gratification. She says, “Sometimes I wonder when it’s time to stop deferring and start gratifying.” Her mother looks at her and says, “It’s now, honey!  This is the time to enjoy your life. Don’t waste another moment!”  Barbara says something clicked inside her, and in that moment she realized how incredibly fortunate she was. She took stock of her life and counted her blessings, saying to herself, “Remember this moment, Barbara, life is very good.”

As a researcher, Barbara Bradley Hagerty found out that if you do this frequently, if you stop and take mental snapshots of meaningful moments in your life, it gives you the sensation that life is slowing down and it takes on more meaning.

From his book The Untethered Soul, author Michael Singer says this, “Learn to live as if you are facing death at all times and you’ll become bolder and more open. If you live fully, you won’t have any last wishes. You will have lived them every moment. Only then will you have fully experienced life and released the part of you that is afraid of living. There is no reason to be afraid of life. And the fear will fade once you understand that the only thing there is to get from life is the growth that comes from experiencing it. Life itself is your career, and your interaction with life is your most meaningful relationship. Everything else you are doing is just focusing on a tiny subset of life in the attempt to give life some meaning. What actually gives life meaning is the willingness to live it.  It isn’t any particular event; it’s the willingness to experience life’s events.”

What would you do differently if you knew you would not wake up tomorrow morning?

Pose of the Month - Dwi Pada Viparita Dandasana

Dwi means two

Pada means foot,

Viparita means reverse or inverted

Danda means staff pose

This pose is called “Both Feet Inverted Staff Pose” – got it!??  Sometimes the English translation is more obvious, not so with this pose, I think.  This pose is a deeper backbend than wheel, or Urdhva Dhanurasana.  In Dwi Pada, as it is often referred to, the forearms are on the ground, and the legs are straight.  Mr. Iyengar must think this is hard because he rates this pose a 24/60 where as Urdhva Dhanurasana, or Wheel, is a 7/60.

All of the work we have been doing for Scorpion in July will be put to good use as we focus on more back bending in August.  We will continue to open the shoulders, quads and abs and continue to strengthen the legs and core.

Pre-requisites for Dwi Pada are Cobra, Up Dog, Locust and Bow.  Forearm Balance is a great precursor to this posture as well.  Not to worry if you aren’t ready for this asana.   There will always be plenty of modifications.  Instead of doing Dwi Pada, you can be working on Urdhva Dhanurasana (wheel) or Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (bridge).  All of these poses fall under the same category of backbends.  Each one is a variation of a supine backbend and as such they all have similar benefits: they all tone the spine by improving its strength and flexibility and they improve and aid digestion by toning and strengthening the abdominal organs.  These backbends are all invigorating poses, often recommended for relieving depression; and, in India, they are often prescribed for the treatment of cardiovascular ailments*.  There are also supported versions of this pose, to make it more accessible.  Don’t be surprised if you also see a lot of headstands in the coming month.  One way into Dwi Pada is from Wheel, the other way into it is from Headstand.  With all the work we’ve been doing on opening the body in Scorpion we should be ready to play with Dwi Pada.   Keep practicing.  Remember, it’s not about the posture, it’s about the practice!

I’ll see you in class!      Karin

*Please see your doctor about this before self-prescribing.

Top 10 Reasons for Doing Yoga

I recently asked my students to write down their three top reasons for doing yoga.  I received 40 responses.  Basically, I had a list of 142 different answers. Some of you could not restrain yourselves to just three reasons!

Without being able to ask for clarification on responses, I tried to put the answers into groups.  For instance, I put friendship and community together under the one category of community.  I put “Improves my posture” together with stretching and flexibility.  Does it really belong there?  Or is posture improvement more related to strength?   My list is more subjective than objective.  But the overall sentiment comes through.  I edited out a couple of outliers and this is what I came up with:

#10.   Peace and serenity.  5/142.  Someone used the word “oasis”.  The overall feeling for this category was a feeling or a period of calm in their day that they could count on.  I got the sense that this calmness sometimes carried over for a longer period of time than just the duration of the yoga class.

#9.  Spiritual practice.  9/142.  Some of you come to class for a connection to something greater than yourself.  Some spiritual seekers are non-denominational.  But, there were some who felt that their yoga practice deepened their particular faith.  I was heartened to know that people can do yoga and it does not interfere with their religious beliefs.

#8.  Community. 11/142.  A lot of you appreciated being in the company of like-minded individuals.

#7.  Energy and breath. 12/142.  Responses that fit into this category included everything from doing pranayama exercises to being able to take deeper and fuller breaths in general to feeling more energized overall.  Stress and anxiety create restrictions in the breath and some of you commented that find relief from that in your yoga practice.

#6.  Strength. 13/142.  Some of you do yoga to get stronger.  No one said this in their answers, but I would guess that, like most yogis, you don’t want to go into the gym and lift weights.  I always say that yoga is a balance of strength and flexibility; although, flexibility ranked much higher in this poll.  Read on!

#5.  Improved health. 15/142.  Creating this category was tricky.  Certainly peace and serenity, energy and breath and strength are all part of improved health.  But what helped me define this category were the responses that said, “yoga helps me with my… arthritis, low back issues, general issues of pain, headaches, …”

#4.  Feel good about self. 16/142.  What differentiated this category from peace and serenity was the self-reflection.  There seemed to be a distinction between being calm and being able to quiet the negative self-talk.

#3.  Stretching and flexibility. 18/142.  This one is self-explanatory.  More of you want stretching, though, rather than strength.

#2.  Mind, body and spirit. 18/142.  This category encompasses some of the others.  (Perhaps I should have made the top 5 reasons for doing yoga!)  But, what caused me to make a separate category was that some people lumped these three reasons were in one answer.  It seemed that you couldn’t separate the physical effects, from the mental, emotional and spiritual effects.  Apparently yoga makes you feel good on all levels.

#1.  Thoughtfulness. 25/142.  Meditation, centering, thoughtfulness, mindfulness, clarity, enlightenment, focus, grounding, being present, improved awareness, inspiration, nourishment, encouragement and feeling alive were all responses that seemed to fit into this category.  Since this was the number one answer, it is not about the poses, is it?

Thanks to all of you who participated in my informal survey.  I look forward to seeing you in class!

Karin

Finding Balance

We’ve all heard that balance is something we lose as we get older. Losing your balance puts you at risk for falling and getting injured. Working to improve or maintain your balance is important.

Four sensory systems that help us balance:

1. Proprioceptors: These are sensors in the muscles, joints and skin that sense the position and rates of motion of various body parts with respect to one another. As far as we know, proprioceptive skills are learned by practice.

2. Sight: The eyes play a key role in determining if the head or body is being held in an upright position. Since more than one third of the neurons in the brain are involved in some way in the visual process, it is no surprise that the eyes are strongly involved in balancing.

3. The inner ear: The vestibular organs in the inner ears sense both static head positions and movement of the head. Factors that affect the inner ear and can negatively impact balance are: dehydration, excess salt, simple sugars, caffeine, alcohol, nicotine or aspirin.

4. Pressure sensors: There are large numbers of pressure sensors located in the skin in various locations around the body: soles of the feet, big toe, fingers, thumbs, belly, thigh, calf. These sensors indicate any shift in weight. Unfortunately they become less sensitive as we age.

Another thing that is a factor in balance is strength. And it is something we can lose as we age. But, like proprioception, it is a skill we can work on. Assuming that your sensory systems are all in working order, let’s look at some simple things you can do to improve your balance.

Do more yoga. Any yoga posture more elevated than Savasana (Final Relaxation) works on balance. Not just the obvious, one-legged postures such as: Tree, Eagle, Warrior III, Half Moon and Dancer’s Pose. There are three components to balancing in yoga postures: getting into the posture, holding the posture and coming out of the posture. So, make sure you pay attention to getting into and coming out of the pose as much as you do holding the pose.

Hike. Get out and walk on uneven surfaces. We spend so much time walking on engineered and flat surfaces that our feet and legs get lazy. Walking on uneven surfaces develops the muscles in our feet, calves, legs, hips and even some of our upper body as well. This develops strength and proprioception.

Exercise. Naturally, I like to recommend yoga, but any form of exercise will help build strength, coordination and sharpen your proprioceptive sense. Play golf, tennis, ride a bike, lift weights. Do anything that requires you to move your body, makes you sweat and gets you tired out (in a good way).

Stand while getting dressed. (What?!) In my friend Anna’s class one day, she remarked about how one of her senior students has amazing balance. She even has good balance with her eyes closed! When asked what she attributed her great sense of balance to, the student remarked that she never sits down while getting dressed or undressed!

You might say you don’t have time to do exercise, but everybody has to get dressed and undressed. What do you think? Can you do it? I challenge you to give it a try. For one week, at least, stand every time you get dressed and undressed and see if you notice your balance getting better. And then, let me know how it’s going.

Working on any of these postures will help you improve your balance by increasing your strength and proprioceptive sense.
As one of my yoga teachers says, “Balancing is a significant part of every yoga pose more elevated than Savasana.”

5 Tips for Doing Yoga on the Beach

Do you love going to the beach in the summer? I do. And I love doing yoga on the beach. Some resort towns offer yoga classes on the beach and that can be great, but it is often fun to just do your own practice. I love to go for a long walk, stretch out and do a practice and then go for a swim.

If the idea of practicing yoga on the beach appeals to you, I thought I’d share some of my personal do's and don'ts before you head out:

1. Do your practice on the beach before 10:00 am or after 4:00 pm when the sun is not as strong. I especially prefer the earlier time because I am a morning person. But the real reason I prefer these times is that I do not like to practice yoga on the beach while wearing sunscreen. Sand sticks to the sunscreen and makes me uncomfortable.  Of course you can wear athletic clothing that has an SPF factor if you are concerned about sun exposure, but I like to get a little of direct sun in the off hours for the production of Vitamin D. Also, unless you like attracting a lot of attention, the off hours give you a little more space.

2. Don't take your sticky mat to the beach!  Sticky mats were made to work on hard floors, not sand, dirt or even grass. Sticky mats will attract and hold onto sand.  When teaching yoga at the studio, I have often stepped on a pile of grit on the floor from someone's sandy yoga mat. It is hard to get the sand out of the mat. Even after washing sometimes sand remains. Let your hands and feet feel the earth. It is grounding and good for the soul.

3. Use a towel when necessary. I use a towel mostly to keep my hands clean.  When I do Downward facing Dog, I place my hands on a towel and keep my feet on the sand.  I definitely use my towel for seated and lying down poses.  When the towel gets scrumbled up and sandy, I just shake it out and reposition it on a fresh patch of sand.  Although I have to say that I love doing a split directly on the soft sand.  Your heels will dig a little trench and the warm soft sand will support your whole thigh in a way that allows you to relax into the stretch.  Usually after a split, I might rinse off in the water, do a Seated Forward Bend on my towel and then do Savasana.

4. Change your practice to suit the conditions.  Instead of coming into your standing poses from Down Dog, start them from Tadasana.  This way your hands don't get sandy.  You can do Sun Salutes directly on the sand. That will inspire you to not lower onto your belly, but to hold the Low Push Up and transition into Upward Facing Dog instead of going to your belly for Cobra. If you do need to lower to your belly, either do it on a towel, or skip the sun salutes.

5. Find the most level part of the beach to practice on. Sometimes this is hard as a lot of beaches slope to the water. You can adapt most of your poses to a slight incline, but headstand and a lot of the hand balancing on anything but a truly flat surface is tricky.

Revolved Triangle on the Beach

Bound Triangle

While I specifically mention the beach, you can apply these principles to any outdoor yoga session.  You don't need a yoga mat to do yoga, sometimes it is helpful and sometimes it just gets in the way.  I hope you get out there and enjoy doing yoga outside. Working on different surfaces causes your muscles to work in a different way. It’s a refreshing addition to your practice.

Have fun out there and feel free to post a picture of yourself doing yoga on the beach, or any other place outside.
I’ll see you in class! Karin

What is yoga?

Is it exercise? Religion? Lifestyle?

I originally got into yoga for the physical aspects. I was told that it would help me relax, and it did. I liked the way I felt after a yoga practice—calmer, certainly, but also more flexible and stronger, too.

In the yoga studio where I first started practicing, there were these printed signs around the ceiling: Ahimsa, Asteya, Satya, Aparigraha, Brahmacarya, Saucha, Santosha, Tapas, Svadhyaya, Ishvara Parnidhana ... I remember vaguely wondering what they meant but ultimately I did not care enough to inquire until several years later.

Eventually I learned that these were the first two steps on the path to yoga: the Yamas, or how you act in the world and how you treat others, and the Niyamas, or observances and practices that you do for yourself. I also learned that while the yoga poses were a doorway inside of yourself, these Yamas and Niyamas were the real tools that helped you be calmer and more content in your life.

It seems that I followed the natural progression of most people in yoga of starting with the physical when you are young and moving toward the more philosophical as you age. (I was in my early 20s when I started.) As a general rule, as people get older, they tend to turn more inward, becoming more philosophical.

Over the years, I have become more interested in the other steps on the path to yoga other than just asana. There are eight of these steps. The first two are the "Yamas" and the "Niyamas." The third is "Asana," which is what we practice as Hatha Yoga, and then "Pranayama," or breath work.

The next four steps are about turning inward. This was probably the real reason I wanted to get into yoga, but I just didn't know it. It took many years to get here. Like most people, I resisted these steps.  I just wanted to do the poses.  These four steps start with "Pratyahara," or withdrawal of the senses. This is the ability to not be swayed so much by our senses; to not be affected as much by attachment and aversion, which is often the cause of suffering. The next step is "Dharana," or concentration. If you can control your senses, then you can concentrate. It is hard to concentrate when you are being pulled by different likes and dislikes. After you develop the ability to concentrate, then comes meditation or "Dhyana."

Meditation isn't something you do; it is a state that can be entered into after controlling the senses and developing your ability to concentrate. When you can keep your concentration and stay in the present moment, without worrying about the past or being anxious about the future, you might be able to enter into a state of "Samadhi." This is the last step on the ladder of yoga. It is often called Bliss, which can be misleading. It is more like a calm and connected state. While Joy is part of Samadhi, it is not the joy of winning the lottery. It is more of an inward contentment and sense of connection with the world around you. Most yoga practitioners experience brief states of Samadhi. Maybe you have, too, and just didn't know what it was.

If you are ready to learn more about yoga, it might be time for you to sign up for an immersion experience. I recommend that you start with the Foundations Module of my Yoga Teacher Training Program. You don't need to want to become a teacher to take this module. This first step is simply to learn more about yoga. You will learn how to develop your own home practice. I will introduce you to Pranayama, or breathing exercises. We will begin to develop habits that lead toward meditation. We will also contemplate the Yamas and the Niyamas, the practices that lead to more happiness and contentment in your life.

Contact me to find our more about teacher training.