Yoga Lifestyle: Self Care Rituals – Abhyanga or oil-massage

As the weather begins to get cooler, I begin my daily practice of Abhyanga.  My skin gets very dry in the winter when the humidity drops and we turn the heat on. I used to get painful cracks in my fingers until I learned this Ayurvedic technique:  Abhyanga is a Sanskrit word that means "oil massage".  It is a form of Ayurvedic medicine that involves massage of the body with warm oil. The oil can be pre-medicated with herbs for specific conditions.

I do this every morning before I take a shower.

• First I take my bottle of oil* and I put it in a sink of hot water to warm it.  While the oil is warming I begin a dry rubbing of my body to increase circulation and remove dead skin cells which helps the oil to soak in.

• Using exfoliating gloves, I rub down my whole body.  I use rather vigorous long back and forth strokes on the arms and legs and gentler circular movements on the face, chest, knees, shoulders, neck and belly.  While I am doing this I pay attention to my body and send it lots of love.  I appreciate all that my body does for me on a daily basis that I usually take for granted.**  Don’t forget your feet!

• Then I pour out a bit of oil on my hands and rub it into my body. If I am washing my hair, I will massage my scalp first, but I often skip this step on days that I don’t wash my hair.  I put oil on all parts of my body using the same strokes that I used for the dry rubbing; long straight strokes on the limbs and circular motions on the other body parts.  I do my face first and work my way down, doing my hands and feet last. (I am careful not to get oil on the bottoms of my feet.  That would make it very slippery and dangerous as I step into the shower.) As I massage each part, I mentally thank each body part for doing its job and for moving me through my world.  If I have any part of my body that is injured or just feels like it needs a little TLC, I send a little extra love to that particular spot.**

• If I have time, I will sit for a few minutes and allow the oil to soak in. This is a good time to nourish my physical self with thoughts of gratitude for all the things mybody does for me.  **  On most work days I practice feeling gratitude for my body while I am dry-rubbing and massaging the oil in.  I usually let the oil soak in while I brush my teeth.

• Then I turn on the shower and get in.  I allow the water to run over my body, but I only use soap on the essential parts.

• When finished I pat myself dry and get dressed.  My body feels warm, well loved and lightly moisturized.

According to the Charaka Samhita Vol. 1, V:88-89 (One of the great texts of Ayurveda):

“The body of one who uses oil massage regularly does not become affected much even if subjected to accidental injuries, or strenuous work. By using oil massage daily, a person is endowed with pleasant touch, trimmed body parts and becomes strong, charming and least affected by old age”

*About the oil

In my early studies of anatomy I remember learning that the skin is the largest organ in the body.  I was taught that it will absorb whatever you put on it.  My teacher told us that if you rub a clove of garlic on your foot it will give you garlic breath!  She suggested that you never put anything on your skin that you would not put into your mouth.  The only moisturizer I use on my skin is oil from my pantry.  I have used extra virgin olive oil, sesame oil and coconut oil.  I like to use coconut oil in the summer time as it feels lighter on my skin.  I often scent my body oil with a  few drops of lavender essential oil.

There are different oils you should use depending on your dosha or constitution: If you are vata use sesame, almond or olive oil;  for pitta coconut, almond or sunflower; for kapha use sesame, safflower or corn.  (To find out your dosha you can take this quiz.)

Besides preventing dry, cracked skin in the winter, there are other benefits of abhyanga:

1. Nourishes the entire body—decreases the effects of aging

2. Imparts muscle tone and vigor to the dhatus (tissues) of the body

3. Imparts a firmness to the limbs

4. Lubricates the joints

5. Increases circulation

6. Stimulates the internal organs of the body

7. Assists in elimination of impurities from the body

8. Moves the lymph, aiding in detoxification

9. Increases stamina

10. Calms the nerves

11. Benefits sleep—better, deeper sleep, especially if you do abhyanga at night right before bed

12. Enhances vision

13. Makes hair (scalp) grow luxuriantly, thick, soft and glossy

14. Softens and smoothens skin; wrinkles are reduced and disappear

15. Pacifies Vata and Pitta and stimulates Kapha.

**The part about appreciating your body is an important step in your daily self-care.  All too often we take our body for granted.  If we get injured, rather than listening to our bodies, we often get impatient and aggravated.  Our bodies have a miraculous ability to heal.  Sometimes, all we need to do for this to happen is to allow it to happen and appreciate it.

Our bodies are always sending us messages.  In her book Healing Consciousness, OB-Gyn and Breast Oncologist Dr. Beth Dupree talks about how our bodies are often communicating with us.  We will often get subtle impressions and inklings or sudden urges or instincts to act on something, or not to act.  If we listen to these urges, they tend to guide us. If we ignore these messages, they will become stronger and more insistent until one day they “hit us upside the head with a 2 x 4”.  These events are usually major health crises.  I recommend that you use abhyanga as a means to love your body and to get in touch with the subtle messages it is sending you.

The Eight Steps to a Yogic Lifestyle - Step # 1 - Ahimsa or Non-Violence

Sometimes the stages or steps of yoga are described as a ladder; you progress in an orderly fashion from one stage to the next. At other times the stages of yoga are described as spokes of a wheel that radiate in toward a center. In either case, the point is to be working toward a more highly evolved state, or Samadhi. In reality, the stages tend to overlap each other and lack of progress in one stage may send you back to one of the other stages looking for answers.
For instance, say you want to work on meditation, but you have a hard time sitting still; you can’t get comfortable, you have difficulty concentrating and you find your mind filled with thoughts of anger. If you have trouble sitting, maybe you need to look at the third step on the path: asana. Perhaps doing more asana would help you open your hips to sit more comfortably, or learning how to prop yourself into a more comfortable positions would be a good idea. If you have difficulty concentrating (Dharana) it might be because you feel strongly pulled by your senses (Pratyhara) and have trouble closing your eyes and turning your attention inward. You might need to go back one step and look at where your attention is being pulled to. Or, especially if you are struggling with negative emotions like anger, you would have to go all of the way back to the Yamas and the Niyamas and see where you are being tripped up by not observing moral restraints (Yama) or your personal observances (Niyama).

In one of her contemplation articles, Swami Nirmalanda talks about this:
"You are the light of consciousness, manifested in a unique and individualized form. That light shines through your eyes, fills your heart and sparks your greatest ideas. The light of your own being arises from its source, spills into your life and fills your relationships with light and love and joy.

This happens consistently and reliably only when you have cleared the pathway. The pathway for the light of consciousness is your mind. This means you must do some yogic work on your mind, not just yoga for your body and breath. I would like to make two related points here: 1) working on your body is not enough; 2) when you work on your body, more begins to open up.

Working on Your Body Is Not Enough
Perhaps you expect your yoga practice to perfect your body. If so, is this a reasonable prediction of your future? I know many yogis who have been practicing for decades. This means they are now decades older than when they began. While their aging process is profoundly different than any non-yogi, none of them expect their body to return to the condition it was in when they were 15 or 25 years old (assuming it was perfect back then).

Still, if your goal is to perfect your body, does that mean you will shine with the light of consciousness when your body is perfect? If so, the fashion models, TV & movie stars, professional athletes and singer-dancers would be enlightened. This is clearly not the case!

Thus working on your body is not enough. You must begin aligning your life with the principles of light by following yoga’s precepts for living, so your own inner radiance can shine through your life. Yoga’s precepts for living are titled the Yamas and Niyamas. There are five of each, which we’ll explore in next few months."

The Eight Stages of Yoga are:
Yama – moral restraints. There are five of these: Ahimsa (non-violence), Satya (truthfulness), Asteya (non-stealing), Brahmacarya (restraint), Aparigraha (non-hoarding)
Niyama – observances. There are five of these: Saucha (cleanliness), Santosha (contentment), Tapas (effort), Svadhyaya (study), Ishvara Pranidhana (surrender to something greater than yourself).
Asana – physical postures
Pranayama – breath work
Pratyhara – withdrawal of the senses
Dharana - concentration
Dhyana - meditation
Samadhi – enlightenment

In my teacher training, I talk about the stages of yoga in a ladder form. We always start with the first Yama, which is Ahimsa. The Sanskrit word Himsa means violence. Whenever you put an “a” in front of a word, it means “not that”. So, Ahimsa means non-violence. I think most of us would describe ourselves as non-violent. And I hope that is true. We don’t go around killing each other, or even hitting each other. I remember when I adopted my son I had to sign an agreement with the adoption agency that I would not use corporal punishment as a means of disciplining my child. Maybe because my parents used to hit me, I had no intention of ever hitting my child, but still, signing the form was interesting and reinforced my practice of ahimsa.
But is outward violence the only form of violence? I like to think of these practices as having layers or a series of concentric circles; you can get closer to the core, or you can be working out on the periphery. You may not act out in a violent way, but do you have murderous thoughts? Have you ever said to your kid (not meaning it literally) “If you get mud on my clean floor again, I’m going to kill you”? Of course you aren’t going to kill your kid, but what does the choice of language do to our psyche? How angry are we? Sometimes students will ask what the difference is if I think these thoughts but I never act on them; nobody will know but me. And I would say to them, but, you will know. Why are you so unimportant that you are willing to harbor those thoughts? This is your mind, your conscience, your soul that you are talking about. Inside of your head, you are the only one who matters. This is a deep level of integrity to practice non-violence at this level. It is also you alone who sits on your meditation cushion and practices turning inward. If you have even these seemingly innocuous thoughts of violence in there, is the inside of your head a comfortable place to be?

Peace and Ahimsa
In her book Practicing Peace in times of War, Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist nun, talks about how to cultivate peace. She says:

“War and Peace start in the hearts of individuals. Strangely enough, even though all beings would like to live in peace, our method for obtaining peace over the generations seems not to be very effective: we seek peace and happiness by going to war. This can occur at the level of our domestic situation, in our relationships with those close to us. Maybe we come home from work and we’re tired and we just want some peace; but at home all hell is breaking loose for one reason or another, and so we start yelling at people. What is our motivation? We want some happiness and ease and peace, but what we do is get even more worked up and we get everyone else worked up, too. This is a familiar scenario in our homes, our workplaces, in our communities, even when we are just driving our cars. We’re just driving along and someone cuts in front of us and then what? Well, we don’t like it, so we roll down the window and scream at them.”

“War begins when we harden our hearts, and we harden them easily – in minor ways and then in quite serious, major ways, such as hatred and prejudice – whenever we feel uncomfortable. It’s so sad, really, because our motivation in hardening our hearts is to find some kind of ease, some freedom from the distress that we’re feeling.”
“Someone once gave me a poem with a line in it that offers a good definition of peace: “Softening what is rigid in our hearts.” We can talk about ending war, we can do everything in our power, but war is never going to end as long as our hearts are hardened against each other.”

In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali gives us a way to measure our practice of Ahimsa:

Ahimsaa-pratishthaayaam tat-samnidhau vaira-tyaagah. Patanjali Y.S. 2.35
All others will cease to feel hostility in the presence of one who is firmly established in ahimsa.

If you are firmly established in the practice of non-violence, others will cease to be violent in your presence. This means that you don’t feel hostility towards anyone. It even means that you don’t think harmful thoughts towards anyone. Not only do you refrain from hitting someone, you even refrain from yelling at them or from making snide or sarcastic remarks. (Yes, to that deep a level!) But, as human beings we have violent impulses. What do we do when they arise? First, we acknowledge these feelings or impulses. Second, we wait with them. Remember the old count to ten technique? Do it! Breathe. Wait it out. If you truly practice this, the violent urge or impulse will fade and eventually disappear.

Again, Swami Nirmalanda says:
"This is not suppression, denial or avoidance. You’ve already tried these strategies and know that they don’t work. Now you’re taking the intelligent path: simply don’t hurt others. You’re only tempted to hurt them because you’re not getting your own way. But don’t take it out on them. Even if they could improve the situation, hurting them is not the most effective way to make progress. Thus intelligence demands that you don’t act on your harm-causing impulses, even though they will continue to arise inside for some time. It takes time to eradicate your own violent tendencies.

You have violent impulses because you are a human being. It is a human characteristic. Everyone feels this way sometimes, until they’ve used yoga to become free. You will feel like hurting someone but, since you’re a yogi, you are simply not going to do it. What do you do instead? Simply feel it. Feel the violent impulse. Don’t deny that you feel like killing that person, but don’t kill them. The yogic key is this: you must be aware that you feel like killing them. Let the feeling arise; don’t even put words to it. Just feel it, and while you are feeling it, don’t act on it.

If you let it arise, and you don’t lie to yourself about the feeling, it will only last a short time. It might last 45 seconds, or it might last 3 minutes. But it won’t last long. If it lasts longer, you weren’t actually allowing yourself to feel it; you were trying to justify it, or trying to figure out what to do about it. Just feel it. It dissolves, like fog in sunlight.

That is exactly what it is, brain-fog. It is the clouds of confusion, the mists of delusion, and the fog of dependency mucking up your innards. When you go outside and stand in the fog, which I love to do especially at sunrise, the sun comes up and shines through the fog. Slowly the fog dissipates. It melts away.

You must do the same thing with your brain-fog. Stand in the fog, being aware of the fog. Your awareness is the sunlight. It is the light of consciousness, and it dissolves the fog. It dissolves your anger and fear; it dissolves your desire, need and greed; it dissolves your regret and worry; it dissolves your blame and guilt. It dissolves all the reasons you want to hurt someone or something."

Discussing Ahimsa is very interesting. As you can see, it is not just outward violence that we are talking about, it is subtle violence. It can be found in thoughts inside our heads or in snide or sarcastic remarks. Have you ever made a snarky remark to someone where you thought you were being funny and that other person just didn’t take it that way? (Has that only happened to me???)

The beautiful thing about the Yoga Sutras is that all it says is “non-violence”. It is up to us to think about it, tease it apart and understand it on any and all levels. It is up to us to examine and question ourselves. I like to ask my yoga teacher trainees this question.  They are always surprised when I ask it.  o, let me leave you with this question to think about: “Is texting and act of violence?”

What do you think? Leave an answer in the comments below.

Pose of the Month for October - Tittibhasana or Firefly

The word Tittibha means an insect like a firefly.  This is an arm balancing pose where the torso and legs are in a Wide-legged Seated Forward Fold and the arms are doing the same work as in Crow.

That should give you an idea of some of the warm ups and modifications for this pose:  either seated or standing Wide-legged Forward Folds  and Crow.

Since this pose requires a deep forward folding ability we will be working on stretching the hamstrings and glutes in postures like Triangle, Pyramid and Gate Pose.

In addition, we will keep working on opening the hips with poses like Warrior II, Cobbler's Pose and Lizard Lunge.

We’ll stretch the upper back with our arms in Eagle pose.

Since this pose starts from a squatting position, you should expect to work on stretching the quads and calves in order to come into a deep squat.   Oh, and let’s not forget some abdominal work in Boat Pose. Does that have your mouth watering for the month of October?  I hope, so.  I am excited.  And don’t worry; “While it is nice to have an end to journey towards, it is the journey that matters in the end.”  (Ursula LeGuin)   I’ll talk you through it.  It will be fun!

I’ll see you in class!     Karin

The Struggle Between Accepting Where I Am and Trying/Wanting To Do More.

In a recent survey I sent out, I asked students how I can help them with their yoga practice. I have been thinking about one particular response I received. I am so grateful for the person who submitted this response because I think it is something we all struggle with. It has to do with the very nature of practice itself.

The comment is: “I struggle between accepting where I am and trying/wanting to do more.”

Are you practicing because you want to be able to achieve a certain pose; or a particular measurement of flexibility? While it is good to have a goal to work towards, it is the journey that matters most.

My family got into watching the show America’s Got Talent. I don’t often watch a lot of TV, but somehow I was drawn to watching this show. Contestants vie to win first the judge’s votes and then the TV audience’s vote to be the one winner who will receive $1,000,000.00 and a headline show in Las Vegas.

In the first round of auditions, a lot of the contestants do very well. It’s as if they feel they have nothing to lose and they give it their all. In the second round, you can feel the fear and anxiety in some of the contestants. The focus seems to shift to everything they could gain and a lot of them choke. The contestants who win seem to be those who are doing what they love to do and they would do it no matter what. They might be nervous, but once they start performing, they seem to get into that zone or state of flow that makes everything work smoothly.

What does this have to do with struggling to be where you are and wanting to do more? If you are doing your yoga practice to achieve a split, for example, you may try and work very hard to get there. But in the process, if you are focused on the end result only, like the show in Las Vegas, you could miss all of the juice in between. One of the main teachings from the Bhagavad Gita is:

You have a right to your actions,

But never to your action’s fruits.

Act for the action’s sake.

And do not be attached to inaction.

-B.G. ch.2, v. 47

Your yoga practice has to be done for the sake of practicing itself, not just to get certain poses. It is fine to work towards certain postures, but you are not guaranteed to be able to perform that pose. Not everyone’s body is suited to do every pose. Patthabi Jois, the father of Ashtanga Yoga, famously said, “Practice, practice, all is coming.” I’ve talked about this quote before. What does it mean? Does it mean if I practice diligently that I will be able to achieve the pose? Or, does it mean in the process of practicing will I learn what is important and what is not important in the pose or in life? 

In the last line I quoted from the Bhagavad Gita, it talks about not being attached to inaction. The yogi must take action. The progress one makes depends on the intensity of the practice. In the Yoga Sutras it says this:

To the keen and intent practitioner the result comes very quickly. Y.S - 1.21

The time necessary for success further depends on whether the practice is mild medium or intense. Y.S. – 1.22 

Are you a “keen and intent practitioner”?  Is your practice mild, moderate or intense?  Intense doesn’t necessarily mean hard.  It is far better to practice a little every day than it is to go all out once a week. While Patanjali is talking about the attainment of Samadhi (or liberation) in this Sutra, the same principles can apply to our physical practice.

I know that I have worked really hard to try and achieve certain postures.  But if I only focus on the goal, I often miss something along the way.  If I am doing something incorrectly, and I am not aware of that fact, it may be the one thing that is keeping me from getting that posture.  Often, if you have been making progress on a particular pose and then you can’t seem to get past a certain point, it could be a sign that you are doing something wrong.  Something is out of alignment and you have to figure out what that is before you can make further progress.  Just pushing harder won’t make it happen and could possibly lead to injury.

I once asked my teacher why I couldn’t balance in Handstand without the wall.  She watched me do the pose and then she told me that I had too much movement in my shoulders.  I would move into alignment and then past it and then I would have to bring myself back to center again.  All of this swaying back and forth makes balancing very hard.  The way to fix that was to get stronger so that when I lifted up into Handstand, I lifted up right into alignment.

In order to make progress, I have to ask myself a couple of questions.  Do I really want to do this pose?  If so, am I willing to put in the amount of effort required to master it?  Am I willing to look at myself and my alignment and see where I am not seeing myself clearly (Avidya – not seeing reality as it is.  The first klesha, or obstacle).  Am I willing to back up in order to go forward?  Am I willing to do the practices because I enjoy doing so, not because I only want to get the posture?  These are the question a keen and intent practitioner must ask in order to make progress.  It is not enough to want to do something, it is important to take action and apply oneself to the task. In addition, the task must be joyful, or you won't really want to do it.

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.