If you need some yoga bling, give Barefoot Yoga a try. They're a great Seattle local yoga shop with super friendly services, and you can pick up your items in Fremont for no shipping charges.
Here in Seattle, there’s an indie alternative newspaper called The Stranger, wherein there’s a column called Last Days, which accounts for notable news of the last days in the last week, and it’s the inspiration for this blog’s format in Nikki Yoga News (NYN).
My Heart Will Go On
The 2nd installment of Intro to Yoga at Taj Yoga is off and running, starting Wednesday March 3, 2010, from 6:00 – 7:15pm. As always with Intros, for the next 7 weeks I will take the students through a rousing round of the different types of yoga postures, breath work, and dabble into the philosophy of what makes yoga, well, yoga. I’m glad to see new faces as well as familiar old ones from the previous Intro session. It’s always a ton of fun to get to work with students for an extended amount of time.
The 10th, yes, 10th! session of my 500-hour Yoga Teacher Training at Pacific Yoga came and went this past weekend of March 5-7, 2010. That means there are only 2 sessions left and I’ll be a 500-Certified Yoga Teacher (CYT). Big excitement! Big responsibilities! What does this 500 CYT business mean? It means I’ve gone through a certain amount of training that meets the Yoga Alliance standards at the 500-hour level [PDF].
Cora Wen, a long-time yoga teacher who has been tagging the world with headstands, or sirsasana, came to Seattle on Thursday March 4, 2010, and we got to hang out and had big fun talking about The State of the Yoga (Union). Har, har. I’ve gotta go for those cheap jokes when I can, ya know. Cora and I met up with Karen Lindenberg, owner and teacher of Phyzz Yoga, and we did some Down Dogs against the Seattle skyline at Volunteer Park.
I’m starting the next Yoga for Newbies series at Village Green Yoga this Thursday, March 11, 2010, from 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm. Hooray! I’ll be looking forward to new and familiar faces there.
This weekend, March 13 and 14, 2010 I’ll be back assisting the fabulous trio of Theresa, Kathryn, and Paul at the Pacific Yoga 200-hour Teacher Training.
I’m starting a new class called Yoga Happy Hour at Taj Yoga, where the emphasis will be more on working with the breath and doing restorative yoga poses. It’s on Friday afternoons from 5:30-6:45pm. As you know, starting anything new is a little bit of a risky adventure, and I’m trying to see if this time slot will work. I’m asking for your help to please let all your friends who live and work in the Crown Hill/Ballard/North Seattle area know!
Always On My Mind
Many, many projects are swirling around in my head right now. I’m feeling awfully creative. My right brain is seriously working over time right now. I’m interviewing local yoga teachers in a Support Local Yoga Teachers project. If you are a yoga teacher, please let me know if you would like to be interviewed!
I’ve been designing greeting cards and shirts in the theme of tongue-and-cheek quirky sayings.
The 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training has started at Pacific Yoga, and what a privilege it is for me to get to assist teachers Theresa Elliott in Asanas, Kathryn Payne in Pranayama, and Paul Bubak in Anatomy. It’s also great fun for me to get to know the next class of yoga teachers.
All I Have To Do Is Dream
Spring is around the corner, and I’ll be teaching a workshop for a Smoother Sun Saluation at Village Green Yoga on Saturday, March 27, 2010. 9:30 – 11:30 am.
I’m officially enrolled in the Traditional Yoga Studies 800-hour Distance Learning Course on the History, Literature, and Philosophy of Yoga, written and designed by Georg Feuerstein. I’ll be starting this after my graduation from the 500-hour Training in May.
I’m really enjoying teaching Yoga for Climbers at Stone Gardens climbing gym, and looking for ways to create videos for my climbing homies from far-away. Mini-vids are in the work, oh yeah.
I am actively working on another series of interviews and biographies on the senior and pioneer yoga teachers in the Pacific Northwest. If you have any information on any teachers who started teaching in the 60s and 70s, or even earlier, please, please let me know.
Drive, Reverse, Neutral, Park, Drive, Reverse, Neutral, Overdrive, Neutral...
Alright, it’s March! That means the First Nikki Challenge 28-Day Sit-off Meditation Competition is ovar! How’d it go for you? As you recall the rules were minimal. All I asked was for you to sit. That’s it! 60 seconds, 60 minutes, it didn’t matter. The goal was to create a habit, and as all of us know, if the goal is too lofty, we won’t even get started at all.
Kudos to you if you took it the challenge. And a HUGE THANK YOU to our Sit-off sponsors: The awesome people who gave us a little incentive to do our work. Okay, now what, you’re off the hook, right? Actually, no one was ever really “on the hook” with anyone in the first place, really, except with ourself. And that’s the hardest person to hold accountable with, eh?
If you’ve enjoyed sitting, and enjoyed the “sitoff” spirit, fret not, here comes the iEvolve 90 day Meditation Challenge. Yes, that’s a whole whopping *ninety* days, not 28 puny days. Also, this challenge asks that you sit for an hour a day. From their website:
THE CHALLENGE:
Meditate 1 hour everyday for 90 days in a row. You can sit for 60-minutes straight, two 30- minute periods, or 4 15-minute periods. Whatever works for you. Either way, that’s 90 hours of meditation under your belt! Start Spring 2010 off right and re-energize your practice and your life with our 90 day meditation challenge.
As you know, I’m a huge believer of doing things in an easy, steady, sustainable way. So, I’ve decided to tweak the rules a little bit (”they’re more like guidelines anyway”). I’ve decided to use the divide and conquer strategy. I’ve also included Pranayama as part of the sit. Let’s call it MPx4, Meditation and Pranayama by Four sittings a day. An hour seems like a lot, but 15 minutes? We all have 15 minutes here and there to spare.
Every Day Is A Winding Road
The Challenge calls for 90 hours of sitting, that’s 5400 minutes. My take is you ought to account for mishaps in life, and you ought to be able to make up for them.
If you miss a day, add another day to the challenge. For example, it’s March 1, 2010 as I’m writing this, but you’re reading about this on March 2, or 3. Who says you have to finish May 28, 2010? Why not May 29, or 30? This can go too far, however. You might say to yourself, “I’m putting it off until January 1, 2011, yeah, that’ll be my New Year Resolution!”
So, why not set a deadline of the last day of Spring, which is June 20, 2010? It’s like those punch cards where you get a limited time to use. That adds a whole whopping 23 days to the 90-day sit, that’s like 25% more for the same price!
If you miss 15 minutes, add another 15 minutes. If you’ve only done 15 minutes today, add 45 minutes to your “Credit” column, and save it for a make-up day. DO NOT binge and purge. Well, do it if you want to, but I strongly advise against the dieter’s mentality of having “cheat days” where you go berserk with everything in sight. Don’t think, oh, I’m not gonna sit today, but I’ll sit for five hours this weekend. It doesn’t work in the long run. It’s unsustainable.
The exception, of course, is if you’ve signed up for a sit where you really will sit for five hours, then I think it’s cool. What doesn’t work is the old college habit of cramming. It’s 10pm and that 50-page paper is due at 8am tomorrow morning? No problems, I have a whole *twelve* hours to write. Yeah, that rarely ends well.
Okay, here’s a recap:
The challenge is to complete 5400 minutes of sitting, a combination of Pranayama and Meditation.
You must do each session for at least 15 minutes.
You’re strongly encouraged to sit for an hour a day.
You have from March 1, 2010 to June 20, 2010 to complete.
Bonus:
Are you a math/stat geek? Keep tabs and quantify on your effort. For example, you can record when you sit, and do a tally on whether you do more Pranayama or Meditation in the morning, or at night.
Any time's a good time for a spreadsheet!
What do you think? Are you in?
When we take the meditation posture, we’re developing a posture and attitude of attentive openness to whatever arises, and this is actually a very brave thing to do. I think maybe we wouldn’t actually even begin on this journey if we knew how brave that is, to just sit, and open our minds, open our whole being, with attentive openness to whatever might arise.
Because in so doing, we’re actually opening ourselves beyond our usual habitual view of ourself and of reality. We actually don’t know what we’re going to see, and one of the first things that one gradually begins to perceive is that perhaps we aren’t quite who we thought we were.
…
We sit, and we just look, with an openness, as much openness as we can, and in so doing, we’re opening ourselves to letting go, or seeing through, or at least seeing exactly who we are and what we do. We’re setting ourselves up, you could say, for some of the ways, and eventually all of the ways in which we conventionally and habitually view reality, to let those fall apart, so it’s very brave. And this path, is considered the Path of the Brave Ones, which doesn’t mean we *are* brave, but it means we begin to cultivate our fearlessness.
- Pema Chodron, From Fear to Fearlessness, Session 1, Beginning the Path of the Brave Ones.
I absolutely enjoyed reading what Arnold had to say. He said what I wanted to convey in the idea of Santosha, but much more concise. I want to share it with you guys here. I also took the liberty to bold some texts.
We all tend to resist stress. To begin overcoming this tendency, admit that stress is a normal and desirable part of climbing. Accept this not just philosophically but in practice. When you encounter a stressful situation, accept the stress and explore its details. Accepting stress will help you see a situation as it is and avoid the distracting tricks your mind plays to satisfy its desire for comfort.
Acceptance does not equal resignation. It means simply that you avoid wishful thinking and illusions, and focus on gathering useful information about the challenge before you. Saying, “I wish these holds were bigger,” is an expression of resistance. It will not make the holds grow or help you use them. Saying, “I hope there’s a hold up there,” will not create a hold or help you respond if there isn’t one. Saying, “If only I wasn’t so pumped,” will not re-energize your forearms or help you find the least strenuous path through the crux.
If you want to embrace the light, you must also embrace the darkness.
LIVING YOUR YOGA: We all long for love, peace, and ease. But in order to fully experience them, we must also be willing to embrace our hatred, anger, and agitation. Today when you feel any strong negative emotions, really feel them. Cutting off negative feelings cuts off our ability to feel all emotions.
I especially enjoy this, because reading it feels like a long relieved exhalation. It’s given me permission to acknowledge emotions that I once thought were “off-limit”.
The Agony and the Ecstasy
One thing about the yoga and meditation world that I think “hooks” people in is the promise of bliss, and not just any kind of bliss, eternal bliss, ecstatic bliss, (uh, not to mention, yoga bliss hips). If you’re not happy, practice it. If you’re currently happy, you could be happier, all the time. My god, even the mat wash oughta be happy.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for happy, love, bliss, and more happy. Nope, nothing against that at all.
What I’ve learned though, that when we talk about abstract concepts like love, compassion, happy, spiritual, bliss, without setting any context, without any preconditions, we can run into all sorts of troubles when we’re not experiencing any of those emotions.
For example, let’s say something has gone very wrong, everything has hit the fan. My uncensored reaction might go something like this, “I’m so pissed! No, I’m fucking pissed! I HATE HATE HATE.” Or, perhaps something milder happened. Maybe I’m slightly offended by something. I might run off, get on my high horse and judge, roll my eyes and get all worked up. You know the drill.
Uh oh, but, I’m a yoga teacher! I’m not supposed to get upset! I’m not supposed to get livid! Quelle horreur! Seeing this, I might tell myself, “Oh, it’s okay. I’m fine. I’m supposed to be happy, and loving. Yes, I love everyone. And we’re all one. Ommm.”
If this is my approach to every crummy moment in life, I’ll end up with a lot of repression, won’t I?
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
I’m learning that in the context of yoga, things like love and happiness aren’t what we think they are. They’re not the–”I’m so happy it’s sunny out”, or, “I love this present you gave me”–kind of emotions.
Once, when my boyfriend was waiting to hear back from a prospective employer and getting worried and anxious, I told him to be happy and just enjoy the moment. He looked at me like I was out of my mind. “Be happy? How could I be happy when I may not get the job?”. “Is everybody who has a job happy? And all the unemployed people are swimming in giant seas of unhappiness?” I asked him. “Well, yeah. How could you be happy if you don’t make any money?”
I knew then that we weren’t talking about the same kind of happiness. My teacher Shinzen Young often talks about a kind of happiness that’s independent of any conditions. That’s probably the happiness and bliss that yoga teachers and magazines often talk about. But I’m not convinced that it’s clearly explained enough, especially in mainstream yoga. Or, perhaps the ambiguity is intentional. After all, my guess is “Practice Feeling Completely Rotten” doesn’t sell as many magazine copies.
All Fall Down
I’m finding out that taking the role of the Witness, the Observer (or Ishvara) means that I’ve got to call an Ace an Ace. Whatever emotion that’s passing by, no matter how dark, should be recognized. Oh look, there’s anxiety. There’s jealousy. There’s selfishness. There’s self-righteousness.
And the trick is to do so with a kind of tenderness, a kind of… well, love; love for my humanness. How human of me to be scared, to be hurt, to project. Practicing this way, for me, creates a kind of happiness that’s really sweet, and so hard to describe. “I’m happy that I can see how awful this experience is.” I know, it doesn’t make any friggin’ sense, does it?
Well, I can say more, but Pema Chodron has eloquently and concisely put it in one sentence as she talked about Maitri, the practice of loving-kindness.
“Maitri is not about feeling good, it’s about feeling whatever you feel with a compassionate attitude and with extreme honesty” – Pema Chodron, Awakening Compassion Lectures.
Have you ever felt like you were “supposed” to feel anything different than what you’re currently feeling? How do you work with that?
The Yoga studio scene in Seattle is seeing some changes as we transition from February to March.
+ Om Yoga of Redmond is closing its doors after 2 years. Owner Karen Herold is an amazing woman for having a full time executive job, coaching her daughters’ sports teams, and of course, teaching and running a small business. Kudos to her for having realized her dream, and I wish her lots of happy and joyful “me” time. The last day for Om Yoga is March 6, 2010.
+ Hot Yoga of Issaquah is officially Terra Yoga. On Saturday, March 6, 2010, there will be an open-house celebration with food and music between 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m., and a dedication at 2:00 p.m. Owner Carina Ostebovik renamed the studio after her middle name, Terra. The old name also no longer reflects the diverse styles offered in the space.
+ West Side Yoga and Doga is a new studio that just opened this past week, with the opening night on February 20, 2010. Since Ashtanga Yoga School closed in 2007, there hasn’t been a pure traditional Ashtanga school in Seattle (that I know of). West Side Yoga Doga seems to be filling in that gap. The web site also says that they are the only Doga studio in the US. Here’s wishing them the best, and as Neil Young would say, “long may you run”!
Last night in class I put my students in a Restorative Yoga pose. I asked that the students let their mind stay in their body. One strategy to do so is to hang on to something you can hear or feel, such as the breath and sensations in the body.
It was especially noisy outside the Taj Yoga studio, with a party involving a couple hundred children under the age of 9 (I may be exaggerating on the number of children.) One strategy was to use the sounds themselves as the anchor to latch the mind on, without evaluating or reacting to them.
This is one way to practice Santosha, the 2nd Niyama. Niyama itself is the 2nd limb of Patanjali’s 8 limbs of yoga, which consists of 5 observances, or attitudes towards our own selves. Santosha is often translated to contentment–being content with what’s happening right here right now.
The word “content” can give the impression that it’s about being indifferent, complacent, or submissive, but in fact it’s about a choice to be poised. It’s the idea of “staying cool under pressure”, to stick around with the present moment, to not think that you’ll only be happy if this and that happened, some day.
This morning I read this article from the Seattle Times about a recent incident in the Winter Olympics in the Women’s Alpine event. It’s a story involving two of the US best skiers and Something That Went Wrong, which created some bad blood and public display of discontentment.
As I read this quote from Lindsey Vonn about her competitor Julia Mancuso, I saw some glimpses of Santosha, which I emphasize here in bold:
“She was at a huge disadvantage to have to run again,” Vonn said. “That absolutely was not what I wanted but it happened, and that happens in ski racing and all you can do is deal with the hand you were dealt.”
“It definitely has hurt me that she said some negative things about me, and all I can do is continue to support her like I always have been and hope that she reciprocates that.”
Here’s a short video I made last night in my kitchen about Santosha.
If you know me in person or have been following my blog, you know I have a thing for DownwardFacing Dog. It’s nothing I need to get therapy for (yet), but I *can* talk about the fine details of this pose from sunrise to sunset.
So, this week and next, I’ll be teaching a Mini Dog Series at Village Green Yoga in Issaquah. We’ll be talkin’ techniques, wagging, and inverting for fun and profit.
When: Thursday nights, 7:00 p.m – 8:30 p.m. February 25 and March 4, 2010. Cost: $15 for drop-in, $27 for both classes. Where: Village Green Yoga. Google Maps. Contact: (425) 657-0411. info@villagegreenyoga.com
In Iyengar yoga, teachers emphasize classic yoga arms: straight but not stiff (including wrists and fingers). If tight shoulders prevent you from raising your arms straight and parallel, in line with the ears, just separate them into a “v” shape. This ain’t ballet!
…
Some softly flexed their elbows. Others (and this offshoot amused me to no end!) kept their elbows straight but cocked their wrists and splayed their fingers in a dramatic flamenco-rivaling gesture.
Whassup with that?
Seriously, whassup with that?
My first reaction is, I don’t know. As I mentioned in my video on goals and intentions, people have a million and one reasons on why they do anything, and it’s futile for us to try and understand them all.
And so, I let it go.
Well, for a moment, at least With the Super Bowl in February and a post by YogaDork about Yoga in TV commercials, I started to think about how yoga in commercials influences people who aren’t as familiar with it.
Choices, Choices, Choices
I believe in choice. In the asana practice, the more we know what our choices are, the more we can make conscious decisions to explore how our body works. With yoga so widely used for advertising, in and out of the yoga industry, it’s inevitable that someone will look to the advertising images as authoritative sources. And this is where it gets dicey, because they think that whatever they see is what they’re supposed to look like, and that is simply not true.
*Important note:* Before I go on, I want to stress that I do not have the perfect yoga pose. I am in the business of practicing, not posing. Here’s a comment I left on the aforementioned post by YogaSpy:
You can do whatever you want, as long as you’re clear on the options available and your own choice. For the longest time, I didn’t know I had these options, I simply mimicked what the instructor did without questioning why and how.
Okay, back to our regular programming.
So, I will say this about the yoga arms: you can, and should, reach your arms all the way up *if* your shoulders allow that movement. Seriously, try it, like, right now! Put your arms up over your head, bend your elbows, and put the hands together, so you’re in effect making a trapezoid with your arms and framing your head with it. Now, *if and only if* your shoulders will allow it, reach your arms up, the fingertips extending towards the ceiling (or sky), press the palms together and cross the thumbs. Your shoulder blades will slide up.
How does it feel?
For me, the second option feels much more spacious, taller, and energetically bigger and more expansive. And if we were to go there, I would even say that I feel more connected to the Gods and the Cosmos than the option of keeping my arms low and bending my elbows.
Now, lest you think that I’m disregarding those who can’t raise their arms all the way up, I am not. I believe that your yoga practice will serve you with whatever body you have at any moment. I am simply saying that if your body can and will allow for a certain healthy and normal function, you have the choice to do it.
Years ago when I was in college, one day I discovered a cartoon on a Professor’s office door, it was Bob the Angry Flower’s guide to the use of apostrophe. I laughed my face off and fell in love with Bob then and there. So, in the spirit of Bob the Angry Flower, I present to you, Ben the Angry Lotus’s guide to the yoga arms. (I’m still working on the name, so it could very well be Lenny the Angry Lotus next time).
What is *your* experience with this? Do you have any Stock Photo Yoga sightings?
If Stock Photo Yoga Arms ran the world...
And here’s that awesome Bob the Angry Flower’s guide to the apostrophe
Really? Like, really? Just when you thought the yoga world doesn’t get any weirder… it does. I got a tip from my teacher Theresa Elliott about this revolutionary technique! For only $79.99, you can be on your way to increase your bust size by doing these yoga moves for just 7 minutes a day!
I’m speechless, so I’m just gonna leave these screen shots up for you to see, they really speak for themselves. Also, turn on your speakers to enjoy the lovely Chinese music. Yes, that’s right, Chinese music.
www.yogabustup.com Home Page
Exihit 1: www.yogabustup.com home page with the quote by Alice Walker: “The nature of this flower is to bloom.”
Exhibit 2: A thousands years of techniques could bring you the bust line you’ve always wanted.
This is another video in the New Yoga Teacher to New Yoga Teacher series, part of my work to support new yoga teachers. Here I talk about how to deal with both good days and bad days, and yes, they do happen. As they say about riding and laying down a motorcycle: it’s not a matter of if, but when.
I made this tonight at Taj Yoga, but the idea has been on my mind for a long time. It’s a lesson I learned from the Summer Retreat in Leavenworth as part of my 500-hour teacher training. One afternoon after lunch, as we were walking back to our rooms, I caught up with my teacher Kathryn Payne and talked to her about some of my fears and anxiety of being a new teacher.
Kathryn said an important thing that I continue to cherish and put to good use. She said there’s a difference between a goal and an intention. A Goal is something you set, and you may eventually achieve, and then move on to other goals. An Intention is something that can potentially stay with you for your whole career.
Muscles 'n Bones, Oh My! As you know I am big into learning Anatomy and everything that facilitates our movements. The books from Ray Long, an orthopedic surgeon and student of B.K.S. Iyengar, are beautiful to look at and can be a great tool in your exploration of hatha yoga.
With the Super Bowl in February and a post by YogaDork about 
