Category Archives: Teachers

How to Do Yoga for Fun and Profit and Not Wreck Your Body Along the Way

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“Don’t let yourself go.
Everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes.” — R.E.M

Ok, please stand in Tadasana (play along with me for a second). Inhale and bring your arms up into Urdhva Hastasana.

Now, raise your hands if you haven’t heard of *that* NYT article about how, yoga is like your kitchen sponge, innocent looking, appears to be useful in so many ways, but really hiding in plain sight, waiting to bring you to your knees, in a really bad way.

Hey, look at that, you have all heard about it. You can exhale and lower your arms now.

I’m being a little facetious here, and thank you for indulging me for a moment. I realize this is a rather serious discussion, and I’m glad yoga and injuries are now in the same breath and on the lips of so many people, from lunch and dinner tables, coffee shops, to yoga conferences.

Yes, the article is flavored with a bit of what, in my day job, is referred to as FUD, fear uncertainty and doubt, as Sarah Miller acutely observed with her wit. Yes, the article is littered with inaccurate and sloppy anatomical references, as many teachers like Roger Cole, a scientist and Iyengar teacher of 30 years, has pointed out.

So now that everyone has weighed in on this issue, a Good Thing, because it brings this matter to the forefront of our awareness, one question remains.

Now what?

Now that this horse has been well beaten, now that I’m aware that asana done carelessly with overzealous instruction can mess up my body big time, now that I’m aware that the qualification—and quality— of the person telling me where to put my arms and legs really does matter, what do I do?

Below is an article written by my teacher Theresa Elliott, which I have permission to publish here on my blog. It’s a poignant piece addressing the very topic in Mr. William Broad’s NYT yoga article, written almost four years ago.

This article is, as they say in my office job, actionable. It’s not a philosophical discussion of how yoga helps you become one with the divine. It’s not a treatise on abstract themes like spirituality and love, and what our ego is good for.

It starts at the start: how to choose a yoga teacher who will protect my ligaments and guide my joints with care. It’s helped me begin on the path at the beginning. I think you’ll find Theresa’s thoughts useful for your own journey too.

Bolded sentences are mine for emphasis.

Choosing a Yoga Teacher

By Theresa Elliott
Director of Taj Yoga, Co-Director of Pacific Yoga Teacher Training

Yoga has exploded in Seattle as in much of the country. For every coffee stand,
there is at least one yoga studio lurking nearby. With so many places offering
yoga, how do you decide who would be the best teacher for you?

I have encountered many individuals whose primary consideration is location.
This makes sense as yoga is ubiquitous. Why not just walk down to the
neighborhood gym and pick up a class?

Yoga is different than a typical exercise class, and the potential for stress and
strain is far beyond what you could do to yourself in aerobics at the gym. As
yoga has proliferated, so have yoga injuries.

Part of the intrigue is also what makes it risky: Increased flexibility is helpful for everyday living, and the ability to stretch can produce breathtaking forms. However, uncontrolled flexibility can result in muscle strains—or worse.

For example, overstretched ligaments result in the destabilization of the structure, such as a knee joint. Common yoga injuries include hamstring pulls, sacroiliac dysfunction, rotator cuff injuries, strained lumbar vertebra, and medial collateral/lateral collateral
ligament damage in the knees.

Alignment is crucial in posture work, as is an understanding of how to stabilize joints through strength while muscles are being stretched. It is time well spent to do some research on a potential teacher and include factors besides location.

Cost is also a consideration. Why pay extra at the yoga studio when you can
get it free at the gym? The subject of how and what we value is a complex
question in itself.

So, I simply say, is anything free? Hidden costs are not always clear, and somehow, someway, someone is paying for that “free” class.

The following items are usually listed in a teacher’s bio and are a good place to start the winnowing process. Is he or she certified? By whom? How long has she been teaching? How old is he? This last question is an important factor that is often over looked.

When friends ask me about starting yoga classes, I recommend they look for a
teacher within 10 years of their age. This recommendation is especially
applicable if you are over 40. A teacher in your age bracket will understand what
happens to the body as it matures and how this relates to the art of practicing
yoga postures.

Of course, there are highly qualified young teachers, “old souls,” as it were, especially those who come to teaching from other health care professions, such as massage therapy. These individuals are able to bridge the age gap through empathy.

At some point you make your best judgment and take a class. I do not recommend observing a class. You need to be in it, feeling and experiencing it with your body, because your research isn’t done yet. Below are some thoughts to consider once your are in class.

* Good teachers will be able to adapt the work to you when necessary. If they
stick to a regime and cannot or will not modify postures, it’s a good sign you
should not go back.

* A sense of humor is a must. Really serious tends to goes with really rigid, and
that’s a really good reason to exit.

* In cross-cultural arts, your common sense is still valid. People are people, no
matter what continent you are on. If you think something is weird or fishy, it
probably is.

* Can you understand what your teacher is saying? With a component in spirituality, some teachers will use yoga jargon or “buzz” words that may leave you wondering what planet you are on. A competent teacher should be willing to define terms, and do so graciously.

* Look at the other students in the class. Who does this teacher attract? It will
help you understand who this teacher likes to work with and how qualified they are.

* The following saying illustrates the next point: Give a man a fish and he can
feed himself for a day. Teach a man to fish and he can feed himself for life. Teachers who practice the poses at the same time you do are, in essence, taking class themselves and not watching you.

Without an eye on students, they cannot make adjustments to your alignment or teach good form. Look for someone who offers more than a “follow-the-leader” aerobics format.

Think of your teacher as a coach. Yoga is traditionally a solo art and developing a home practice is one of the aims. Ask yourself: Am I being given the tools to begin a practice on my own? Am I engaged intellectually and theoretically so I could start to build a home practice? If you can answer yes to these questions, you are on the right track.

Finally, for those of you who like to fine tune here’s a parting thought. When you
study and learn from another person, you are subtly taking on their ideas and
values.

Sometimes what is taught “between the lines,” often through nonverbal
cues, goes in under our conscious radar. We begin to think like our teacher and
may not realize it.

So, the question is, is your teacher someone you admire? Someone you trust? Do you want that person in your psyche?

Am I engaged intellectually and theoretically so I could start to build a home
practice? If you can answer yes to these questions, you are on the right track.

Yoga can be a deeply rewarding endeavor. The yoga practitioner has the opportunity to work with both body and mind. It’s worth the time investment you make to locate a qualified teacher and ensure a safe journey.

Copyright July 2008. Theresa Elliott. Original PDF: Choosing a Yoga Teacher.

Assisting Judith Hanson Lasater at SF YJ Conference 2012

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Tomorrow is Friday the 13th, a lucky day for me. After work, I’ll be on a bus and a plane heading to San Francisco, where I’ll assist Judith Hanson Lasater at the San Francisco Yoga Journal Conference.

Here are the sessions I’m assisting. If you’re at the conference and we pass by each other, please say hi. Or better yet, come take a class with Judith, you won’t regret it.

The Mysterious Sacroiliac Joint: Anatomy and Asana

Saturday, January 14 — 10:30am – 12:30pm
Therapeutic / Continue Your Education / Mixed Levels

Many yoga students suffer from sacroiliac pain, which interferes with forward bends and twists. We’ll study the anatomy and kinesiology of the joint, and then practice in a way that can prevent problems. **This class has been approved by American Council on Exercise (ACE) for 0.2 CECs.**

Restorative Yoga

Saturday, January 14 — 3:30pm – 5:30pm
Therapeutic / Mixed Levels

Explore the theory and the practice of restorative yoga.
Props are essential to this practice. Bring at least three blankets, an eye cover, a strap, and, if possible, a bolster. The more props, the more relaxation.

The Shoulder: How to Open, Strengthen, and Repair

Sunday, January 15 — 10:30am – 12:30pm
Therapeutic / Mixed Levels

We’ll learn the basic principles of the rotator cuff through a presentation of the anatomy and kinesiology of the shoulder. We’ll then focus on poses that open and strengthen the shoulder joint. **This class has been approved by American Council on Exercise (ACE) for 0.2 CECs.**

Breed and Feed, or, How to Detox and Do Other Things Good Too with Savasana

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I once described Savasana to my boyfriend–who doesn’t do yoga–as, “taking a sanctioned nap in public”, to which he asked quizzically, “You pay people to do something you can do at home?” I laughed, “I guess you can look at it like that.”

In fact, if I didn’t know better, I would look at it exactly like that. And when I didn’t know better, I saw very little value in Savasana, if at all. It didn’t help that in certain yoga tradition, the teacher simply ended class with, “Thanks for coming, now lie in your sweat and your neighbor’s B.O. I’m leaving the room for some fresh air.”

Ok, I’m being a brat, I know, my point is, in my experience, there’s usually very little instruction in how to do Savasana in most public yoga classes. If I don’t know what to do, I’m either going to pass out and fall asleep, or I’m just going to get up and leave.

If the value of Savasana isn’t widely taught and understood, fewer and fewer people will learn it, do it, care about it, and ultimately benefit from it, and that is a crying shame.

This leads to scenarios where students can complain to studio directors if a teacher keeps the class in Savasana for “too long”, and in turn the well-intentioned director, who want happy customers, will ask teachers to not do Savasana, or minimize it.

This leads to scenarios where, when Savasana time comes, for those who’ve come to know, love, and appreciate the nap (like yours truly), but don’t know the benefits beyond getting some much needed sleep, and therefore don’t do the appropriate practice in Savasana.

This leads to scenarios where, teachers go on yoga forum asking things like: “Why is savasana a key aspect to yoga classes? How do you explain it to your students who may feel they don’t need to pay someone to “just lie on the floor” for 5, 10 or more minutes?”

In this post and a few that follow, I hope to make a case for the yoga pose Savasana: what it is, how to do it, and why we care about it at all.

There are multitudes of interesting things about Savasana, but perhaps the most relevant topic to write today is something closest to home for most of us who just celebrated the Holidays Season in North America, starting with Halloween, then Thanksgiving, all the way to New Years.

That topic is digestion and elimination, or, the more trendy and PC word is: detox.

How Savasana helps with detoxing

I don’t want to rehash the list of benefits of Savasana that you can read everywhere. I want to talk about what happens in Savasana and how it helps you digest, or detox.

You may remember the autonomic nervous system from school, divided into sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. You may also know the sympathetic system is associated with the “fight or flight” response, nice and catchy and easy to remember.

Think quick! What’s the equivalent catchy response for the parasympathetic system? Wikipedia will tell you that it’s “rest and digest”. But, I’m here to tell you another one that’s much easier to remember: “feed and breed”. It’s much more colloquial and down and dirty, not something they always tell you in school, but our memory works best with down and dirty things, like learning swear words in foreign languages.

What’s involved in feed and breed? Put it another way, what’s *not* involved in feed and breed? Sometimes it seems like almost a full time job for some people in our culture to keep us preoccupied with those exact two things. Feeding and breeding are big business.

Now think about what prevents you from good feeding and breeding? Bad food, for sure. Bad sex, certainly. What goes in must come out, and if you can’t digest, pee, or poop, it is not a good day in any measure.

Think about the last time you were in the mood for love, were you in a fight or flight response? Were you stressed? Depressed? Anxious? Or were you more relaxed? That’s the parasympathetic nervous system in action.

Let’s have Wikipedia come to the rescue and articulate things more eloquently:

To be specific, the parasympathetic system is responsible for stimulation of “rest-and-digest” activities that occur when the body is at rest, including sexual arousal, salivation, lacrimation (tears), urination, digestion, and defecation.

And the good people of Wikipedia (when they’re not showing creepy mug shots) have provided a useful acronym for the functions of the parasympathetic nervous system too, SLUDD: salivation, lacrimation, urination, digestion, and defecation.

Our days are filled with stimulating activities that call for a well functioning and active Sympathetic Nervous System: driving, work meetings, answering emails, giving speeches, working out, etc.

Yoga asanas demand quite a bit of us as well, thinking about what to do, where to move, protecting or preventing injuries, worrying about doing the right thing, looking good, etc.

The Parasympathetic Nervous System is the counterpart of the SNS. It’s the Yin to the SNS’s Yang. It’s the eggs to the SNS’s bacon (for you bacon fans out there). It’s the coke to the SNS’s rum. Ok, I may be taking this too far, but you see where I’m going. These two systems go together.

The problem is we as a culture has gone so far off the Sympathetic Nervous System’s deep end, that we don’t even know how to relax. We think relax is sitting on the couch watching Dancing with the Stars with our favorite drink. We think relax is watching Tom Cruise scale up sky scrapers with a bare hand.

Don’t get me wrong, these are awesome. I have nothing against holding down the couch or Occupying IMAX. Those activities, however, are fun, but not necessarily relaxing as far as our body’s physiology is concerned.

Now, think about what happens to your nervous system in Savasana. Let’s set the mood: the lights are down so it’s nice and dark, you’re well covered and warm, your eyes are closed, the floor is dry, clean, and flat. You’re not eating, drinking, driving, walking, running, dancing, moving, talking. You’re lying flat down on the floor with all the props you need to support your body position and weight.

It’s the perfect trigger to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, aka, say it with me, the “feed and breed” response. This is where the PNS “mediates digestion of food and indirectly, the absorption of nutrients.” (Wikipedia entry on Autonomic Nervous System.)

“Great, I’m sold on that,” you say, “but why do I have to pay someone to do this?”

You don’t. Plain and simple as that. Just like how you don’t have to pay someone to watch you do pushups, pullups, or situps; how you don’t have to pay to have someone to time you to run around the block or up the hill.

Or, maybe we do have to pay someone to count our pushups and time our Savasana. We need someone to give us instruction, techniques, refinement, encouragement, and the big A, accountability.

If we don’t learn how to, and do, Savasana in class, if we don’t make it a daily habit under someone else’s watch, what are the chances we will do it on our own? If we don’t learn how to relax in a controlled setting, much like having training wheels on, how will we relax when we’re in “real life” and shit is hitting the fan? (Or… not coming out well?)

And… on that note, I’ll finish writing for now. But I am not done with all the amazing things that happen in Savasana and the benefit you get from it. So, ask for more savasana, and I hope you’ll come back for more soon.

The Yoga User Experience

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In my day job, I’m a User Experience Designer. It’s an umbrella term for all the activities necessary to find out about the users and design products that are most useful for them in their particular activities.

Every day, I see parallels in being a designer and teaching yoga.

Recently, I wrote a post in my other blog called: The Trouble with User Experience Design, where I talk about an experience I had in class one night while talking about svadhyaya. A student asked me if I’m talking about self-inquiry spiritually, and I professed to not being in the position to talk to her about her spiritual growth.

“In the context of this class, self-reflection is about knowing where your feet are and how you’re breathing”, I told her.

Highway to the Danger Zone

Talking about other people’s feelings and experience is danger zone for me. Some yoga teachers will go in what I consider “touchy-feely” territory, and I may have been to the border towns a few times in my teaching career. You know what I mean, it’s things like: ” feel grace pouring in” or “let the sense of calm wash over you”, and “feel so much light and love as if you’re going to explode in thousands of pieces of joyful stardust and become one with the divine spirit of the Universe.”

There’s nothing inherently crazy about these statements. They’re not even as over the top as they may seem here, written down in a blog. Sudden feelings of satori, for example, are entirely possible. What makes me weary of these statements in a yoga class is they may or may not reflect the actual experience of the students. They are imposed and suggested, something that’s well and good in the Marketing and Advertising department, but, as far I’m concerned, not the point of yoga.

Down in the Valley

In the User Experience Design field, the title presumes that we have so much control over other people’s experience that we can design it. It may be so, only to the extent that, in a way, everything is design(ed).

In yoga, I am aware that I am paid to provide some sort of experience as well. When I asked my students what the word “yoga” brings to their mind, the answers include: calm, flexible, destress, strong, and peace. That is a tall order for a yoga teacher to create in 75 minutes. Personally, it’d be presumptuous to think that I can single-handedly meet all these needs.

I remember very vividly one private session when I asked a student what he’s expecting, and why he has come to me. He looked at me straight in the eye and said, “You know, honestly, I want to learn to be a better person.”

I gulped. What do I know about being a good person? What do I know about telling other people to be a better person?

Luckily, in User Experience, I know a bit about techniques and principles of Design. In Yoga, I know a bit about where the hands and feet go in Trikonasana and Downward Dog; I know a bit about the kleśā and the kośa. My value is bringing what I’ve learned and personally experienced to create an space where my students can figure out their own relationship with yoga, and with themselves.

Judith Hanson Lasater once said, “We don’t teach the yoga, it’s the poses that teach the yoga.” I thought this was radical, but after reflecting on it, I realized it’s true. It’s in the poses where I learn to observe my own body and my own breathing, and by extension staying in the moment. That is the holy grail of this spiritual practice.

After two years of teaching, I still have moments where I feel the anxiety and pressure to “make students feel good”. In those times, I have to remind myself that I’m not providing a spa service. As the California Yoga Teachers Association Code of Professional Ethics states:

We believe that it is the responsibility of the yoga teacher to ensure a safe and protected environment in which a student can grow physically, mentally, and spiritually.

This is what I am fully committed to. Beyond that, the emotional and individual experience of yoga is not mine to dictate.

Nikki Yoga News: Assisting Judith Hanson Lasater at YJ Conference San Francisco 2011

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Hi guys,

I have the privilege of assisting Judith Hanson Lasater at the Yoga Journal Conference in San Francisco this year. If you’re going to the conference, say hi. If you’ve never taken a class with Judith before, you gotta check her out!

Here are the courses Judith’s teaching, taken from the Conference Website:

The Shoulder: How to Open, Strengthen, and Repair

Saturday, January 15 — 3:30pm – 5:30pm
Therapeutic, Mixed Levels. Lecture and asana.

To understand this part of the body, we must learn about the four small actions that shape all of its movements in asana. We’ll begin with theory and end with an asana practice focusing on the shoulder. **This class has been approved by American Council on Exercise (ACE) for 0.2 CECs.**

What to bring: A mat, three blankets, an eye cover, a strap, a block, and if possible, a bolster.

The Mysterious Sacroiliac Joint

Sunday, January 16 — 10:30am – 12:30pm
Therapeutic, Mixed Levels. Discussion and asana practice.

Many yoga students suffer from sacroiliac pain, which interferes with forward bends and twists. We’ll study the anatomy and kinesiology of the joint, and then practice in a way that can prevent problems. **This class has been approved by American Council on Exercise (ACE) for 0.2 CECs.**

Restorative Yoga

Sunday, January 16 — 3:30pm – 5:30pm
Mixed Levels. Restorative yoga practice.

Explore the theory and the practice of restorative yoga. **This class has been approved by American Council on Exercise (ACE) for 0.2 CECs.**
What to bring: At least three blankets, an eye cover, a strap, and if possible, a bolster. The more props, the more relaxation.

Here's me during the Restorative Yoga Teacher training with Judith

Here's me during the Restorative Yoga Teacher training with Judith

The System of Yoga

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Looking back from where I was in December 2009 to now, December 2010, I’m pretty astonished at what a difference a year makes. I have friends who seem to have been in school forever, and there’s a common joke that they’re Professional Grad Students. If being in school forever earns you the title Professional Grad Student, then, I’ll study forever and be a Professional Yoga Student.

In that studying path, this year I finished my 500-hour teacher training in May, and towards the end of the program, my teacher Kathryn Payne had us read an article that shook up everything in my system concerning yoga. It was an interview of yoga teacher Dona Holleman by film director Diana Eichner, taken from the book Eyes of Innocence.

Yoga is a Man-Made Structure

The interview starts out with Diana asking Dona: “Why do you think that human beings need to create systems that explain the world?”

What a way to warm up, right? These women were not messing around, they jumped right into the deep end. As our (Teacher Training) class read the interview out loud, paragraph by paragraph, question by question, and answer by answer, I grew increasingly uncomfortable. Dona seemed to be saying that yoga is just another system, a man-made structure.

How could it be? Dona Holleman is a long time yoga teacher. She dedicated her whole life to it. She clearly believes in it, and I believe in her. I believe in Yoga. What does it mean if a senior teacher that I respect is saying this: “Any time you have a word you have a system, whether the system is an orthodox religion or philosophy or yoga. The moment you have the word ‘yoga’, you have again a box within the box.”?

My world literally fell sideway. But, yoga is a not a system. It can’t be! Yoga gets you out of the system. It gets you out of the Matrix, right?

Yoga is again an egg within the totality of the universe that says: if you do this then you have a certain result, like all the religions, all the philosophies. It is a system, which was meant to help people to get out of the system, let us say. Paradoxically enough all religions and philosophies are systems to help people to jump out of the systems into this mystical experience, but it is a paradox that simply does not work because the system, including yoga, has to do with language, with chronological time, with psychological time.

There is no way to go from a linear, psychological and chronological time pathway into a state of mind where there is no time, no future. It is an either/or situation. You can use a system like yoga to become healthy, to have a better quality of life. It can have a lot of nice side effects. But to use yoga as a system of reaching a state where time has no longer any meaning is not possible.”

No way. No. Way. No. Freaking. Way! I protested in my mind. This woman is wrong, wrong, and more wrong. I don’t care if she’s my teacher’s teacher. Yoga lets you reach samadhi. Bliss. And if not bliss, then maybe a sense of timelessness, spacelessness, or satori. I know it! I’ve experienced it!

Needless to say, the whole interview was very challenging to read and absorb. Dona confronts things that I thought were true or sacred. It didn’t sit well with me, but I hung on to the handouts Kathryn gave us. Time came and went, and before long, class was over, and then the training was over.

But Then Again, So is Everything Else

Spring became Summer, and Summer into Fall, and here we are in the Winter. You may have noticed that I haven’t been writing in this blog as frequently as before. My job has been consuming a lot of my time, and I continue to teach yoga and take workshops and study Sanskrit. Something’s gotta give, and writing time has been reduced. I’ve also stopped engaging so much in the cyberspace Yoga world. I stopped reading blogs and comments and tweets so much.

During that time, I became more engaged in my other world of Technology and Software Interaction Design. I read books and blogs, I go to conferences, I debate, I tweet. I go to dinner with people in the field. We laugh, we bitch, we support one another. It’s just like what I’d do in the Yoga world, really, the topic is just different, but the activities are the same.

One day, while reading comments online about the merits of Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS, and that of Google’s, Android, and thinking of the debate in Yoga about this style versus that style, I thought of Dona’s interview.

Oh my god, I thought. Everything *is* a system. My mind was once again, twisted and turned sideway.

Because I oscillate in different social and professional circles, this has turned out to be my testing ground. I dismissed Dona’s idea the first time around, but this time, I’m going to put it to the test. With the idea that it’s all some kind of structure human beings make up to explain and to function in this world, I went about my business.

It is a man-made structure and within that man-made structure we function. This is OK; we need to make a man-made world. We need to have a house, we need to have a car to drive to the office, we need to eat, we also need certain ideas, certain beliefs.

The problem starts when we create this man-made structure and then we are trapped in it. We forget that there is a whole universe beyond the structure, that the structure is only a very thin film superimposed on the vastness out there and that this film is only for practical purposes. We get trapped in it.

I began to take mental notes of where my trappings are; when I get sucked into a discussion about Design methods, for example. I’m very passionate about it, and when I’m not mindful, I end up so rigid, so stuck in my belief. Or, the other day, when I was reading a reading Carol Horton’s post about a new book, Yoga 2.0, I found myself getting worked up over the premise of the book, that we don’t derive any juice from books like the Yoga Sutras. “Ok, that might be so if we only read the English interpretation, but if we read the Sanskrit and really think about it.” I thought in my little mind. I was waging a war with people I had only heard fleeting mentions of in a blog. How absurd is that?

The Way Out

So if I’ve come to accept that everything is a system, everything is a box, is there any hope of going beyond it?

Dona gives me some hope that it’s possible:

The only way to stop this fragmentation is by attention, by awareness, to be aware of the whole process of compartmentalization, of fragmentation. This does not mean that we have to get ride of the fragmentation. We need the man-made world function as people, but the problem begins when we get caught in it to the point that we believe deeply in it.

It is OK to be an American but if you take the word ‘American’and the concept ‘American’ as a real thing, not as a phantom, arbitrary thing, then it becomes a problem. Therefore the crux of the matter is to learn to be in two places at the same time: on the one hand to function and live as an American in America in a man-made world, but on the other hand to also be perfectly aware that is is a phantom situation, not a real one, and so we do not get caught. We use it, we function it in, but we do not get caught.

When I read this, I immediately think of what Shinzen Young said in The Science of Enlightenment, that we need to be amphibians, we need to be able to function on dry land as well as on water. Similarly, Tias Little, during his last visit to Seattle mentioned that what we do is just techniques. At some point, the techniques no longer serve us and we have to be aware to not hang on to the techniques dogmatically.

Dona continued saying that this idea is not new, it’s not revolutionary, it’s that it has only been around on a small scale. “The interesting thing in our time is that we now have the possibility to make this awareness mainstream.”.

Well, now, there’s a message of hope for what at first seemed like a cynical and skeptical idea. I have to admit, that I did get a little stirred by that simple sentence. And, from the woman who said that it’s not possible to use yoga to reach a state where time has no meaning, came this:

Therefore if you can suspend everything for a moment you might get a glimpse of the fact that there is something out there that we will never understand. That in itself is the revolution, it is the mystical experience in itself.

A glimpse, that is all, she followed up. That’s enough to keep me studying and practicing for a while longer. And so, with 2010 coming to a close, I’ll say that reading these thoughts from Dona is the most valuable lesson I received this year.

"We create these fantasylands in order to make our world but we should never lose sight of the fact that it is like going to Disney Land. It is fun but you have to be aware that it is pretense and not take it too seriously."

"We create these fantasylands in order to make our world but we should never lose sight of the fact that it is like going to Disney Land. It is fun but you have to be aware that it is pretense and not take it too seriously."

A Motivational Tip to Meditate (and Do Other Things in Life)

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“If you can’t be disciplined, be clever.” – Shinzen Young, The Science Of Enlightenment.

Motivation and Discipline are in that category of abstract concepts that sells books, DVDs, and seminars, not to mention hopes and dreams that we will be a better person tomorrow than we are today.

It is also elusive to us at one point or another. For me, it’s daily. Everyday, I keep thinking that I will go to bed earlier tomorrow, that I will read more books, that I will organize my closet. But when tomorrow becomes today, I lack the same motivation or inspiration that I had yesterday.

For the longest time, I struggled with the motivation and/or discipline to meditate daily. Then I discovered Shinzen Young and his Science of Enlightenment lectures where he gave one little tip that rocked my world. He was addressing the typical challenge of finding time to meditate and … well, just doing it. “If you can’t be disciplined, be clever”, advised Shinzen. Sign up for a retreat and send in the full amount of money. Put it on your calendar. Buy the plane ticket. Create the conditions where you can’t easily back out.

Following this advice, I went on a 10-day Vipassana retreat to kick off my sitting practice. I figured if I could survive that, I just might pick up the habit. This worked, to some extent. After sitting for 14 hours a day, sitting for 10 or 15 minutes doesn’t seem so bad any more. However, I’ve had much more time to practice *not* meditating daily. 10 days is nothing compared to two decades plus. And because the habit of not meditating is that much more ingrained than the habit of meditating, it’s still a daily conscious act of telling myself: I will meditate today.

Telling myself that I will do something doesn’t always mean that I do do it. More often than not, I find an excuse not to follow through. Having an intention is well and good, but without execution, it’s moot. So, I’ve  devised some clever means to “trick” myself into doing my meditation.

  • First, I put my cushion right by  the side bottom of my bed . I see it every day, and if I don’t do my sitting, it’s there to remind me, or actually, to make me feel guilty. I don’t do well with guilt trips, and I’m using that to my advantage.
  • Second, I have a meditation clock (from Now & Zen) which I place right in the center by my bed. I can’t get in bed without stepping over it. Sometimes I put the clock on my bed before I leave my room in the morning. I can’t get under my covers without touching the clock and putting it elsewhere. That extra little bit also reminds me to do my sitting.
  • Third, I put my yoga mat next to my bed as well, not rolled up, but spread out, basically to block the entrance into my bed. I put it there because I know that I would make excuses that I’m feeling “too tight” to meditate, and that I just need to stretch out a bit, maybe do a down dog or two. If my mat is elsewhere, there’s no chance that I would make the extra effort to go get it, especially if it’s night time and I’ve already changed in my PJs. Since my mat is right there, I have one less excuse.
  • Fourth,  I decided that I would meditate before I go to sleep every day. So, the only time that I don’t meditate would be when I don’t go to sleep. This makes it so that I have to do it every single day, save a few exceptions. Night time also works because, again, I have less excuses. In the morning, I might be running late, I might need to do this and that, etc.

The success of building a habit, any habit, depends on the consistent timing. I know many teachers would tell you to meditate whenever you can. The idea is to just do it, regardless of when. I understand this philosophy. Instead of enforcing a time, which can be rigid, giving yourself the permission to do it any time can increase the probability that you’ll do it. However, for someone like me, who can come up with a really good excuse *not* to do it virtually any time of day, this doesn’t work so well.

In yoga, and in life, having a will, determination, goal, or purpose is often the first step to making some sort of desirable changes. I don’t usually lack motivation. Staying focused on what I’ve resolved to do, though, takes more work, since I’m not always focused :) . To make up for that, I try to be clever and trick myself into doing the things I know I want to do, if only my will weren’t so weak and I had more discipline.

Does my cleverness work perfectly all the time? Not even close. There are times when I’m so tired that I trip over my meditation clock and don’t even think twice about meditation. There are times when I don’t spend the night at home with my clever arrangements. But, most of the time is better than none of the time. As Shinzen Young said, “any number of time is infinitely more than zero.”

I write this post in hope of giving you one way to kick your meditation practice in gear. If it works for other things, so much the better. If you have any tips, for meditation or otherwise, please let me know.

George Purvis Workshop Recap

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George Purvis was in town at Taj Yoga last weekend, and I hung out with him for most of it, except for skipping out one afternoon session to go to my friends Kristel and Mikhail’s wedding.

George is a long time Iyengar teacher and is my teacher Theresa Elliott’s mentor. Though he’s been coming to the Pacific Northwest regularly every year. I only got to meet him last year, and ever since then, I had made sure that I come to at least one of his workshops once a year.

How do I describe George? I can’t. He’s completely offbeat and laugh-out-loud funny, which is a cover for his crazy and precise instruction on asana techniques. If you have ever had a “bad” experience with an Iyengar teacher, or if you have a preconceived notion that Iyengar yoga is some sort of deranged beat down of your yoga ego, you are in for the surprise of your life. George is more down to earth than Australia.

Humor obviously makes people relax and makes them more open to listening to what yoga has to offer them. It promotes a certain level of open-mindedness and relaxation. I think of humor as sort of like shaking out the muscles of the brain. – George Purvis, Yoga Journal interview

As one of the senior Iyengar teachers in the United States, George has played his part in the upbringing of many prominent yoga teachers. “But, I’ve never heard of him,” you say. Well, it’s possible that he, from my understanding at least, seems to lay low and away from the lime light. It’s also possible that it’s partly due to his health. He was diagnosed with cancer in 1999 and has had surgery and extensive treatments since then.

Anyway, during the workshop, we got to hear stories about his two mentors, Ramanand Patel and Mary Dunn, and of course Mr. Iyengar. We got to work on our peroneus. Oh boy, did we get to work on our peroneus.

The one thing that’s most striking to me about George is his dedication to teaching. I can’t quite explain it to you in a way that reflects how I experienced it, but I was so moved by how he just wanted to… well, teach. He gave all of himself to making sure he answered our question, and, as he was running late to catch his flight home, he was still explaining things and adjusting people with one foot out the door.

Hey George, thanks. See ya and your cowboy boots next year.

George Purvis, courtesy of http://www.clearspringstudio.com/

George Purvis, courtesy of http://www.clearspringstudio.com/

Seattle Yoga News: George Purvis at Taj Yoga this weekend

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I first met George Purvis last year, and immediately understood why he is my teacher Theresa Elliott’s mentor. Let’s see: there’s the dry and more dry sense of humor, there’s the wild hair, there’s the Texas twang, and the impeccable attention to anatomical details in asana techniques. Did I mention he’s funny? Honestly, I got one of the best abs workout with George the first 30 minutes after meeting him from laughing so hard at his jokes and demeanors.

George will be back at Taj Yoga this weekend, and if you’re in town, you are in for a treat if you come to any, or all the workshops.

From the website:

Iyengar Workshop with George Purvis

September 24-26, 2010 (3 days)
Friday: 6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Saturday: 10:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 – 5:00 p.m.
Sunday: 9:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. (10 hours)
Cost: $185

George has been teaching since 1980, drawing on his exceptional personal practice and years of study with B.K.S. Iyengar. Students will learn impeccable asana technique and gain unconventional insight from this much-loved teacher and devoted practitioner of yoga.

Taj Yoga
9250 14th Ave NW, #2
Seattle, WA 98117

George Purvis in kilt

George Purvis in kilt

Sexy Yoga and Meditation

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Okay, I admit it, the word “sexy” didn’t need to be in the title of this post. I literally spent at least five minutes trying to figure out how to work the words “sexy” or “hot” in with the words “meditation”, to no avail.

I suppose that’s why meditation, or Patanjali’s Dhyāna, gets nowhere near the attention that Asana gets. It just doesn’t go with hot or sexy. I mean, when was the last time you saw a magazine headline with tips to “Last Longer Tonight”, and they’re talking about sitting on your cushion, closing your eyes, and concentrating on your breath? Yup, I thought so.

What’s funny is *both* Dhyāna and Asana are branches of the 8 Limbs of Yoga. What’s funny is we now have to say Yoga *and* Meditation. Oh well, that’s the all verbiage, I guess. And really, it’s better to just do it. Talking about swimming does not get you wet. (Like sexy… or… unlike sexy… or… oh, never mind.)

If I haven’t lost you yet, this post is intended for two things: 1) As a response to yet another exciting development in the world of Yoga and Polititics, and 2) To point out a couple of meditation trainings and resources if that strike your fancy.

Can Yoga be, uh… Sexy? What is Yogic, Really?

If you’re keeping track with the exciting world of Yoga and Business, Business and Yoga, recently, Judith Hanson Lasater wrote a letter to Yoga Journal expressing her confusion and sadness with the gratuitous nudity in the magazine’s ads. She said: “These pictures do not teach the viewer about yoga practice or themselves. They aren’t even about the celebration of the beauty of the human body or the beauty of the poses, which I support. These ads are just about selling a product. This approach is something I though belonged (unfortunately) to the larger culture, but not in Yoga Journal.”

Judith Hanson Lasater is not just any ol’ disgruntled YJ reader. She is one of the magazine’s original founders. And then Roseanne Harvey, who runs It’s All Yoga, Baby wrote about The Letter, and followed it up with an interview with Judith. Even Yoga scholar Georg Feuerstein came out of his semi retirement to write several blog posts about this.

Yeah, it’s gotten pretty, uh, exciting?

Amidst the noise, if you are new, or newish, or even oldish to yoga, you might be challenged with questions such as “What is yoga”? Or, “Is nudity yoga?” Or, “Can Capitalism and Yoga co-exist peacefully?”

I’m sorry to say that I don’t have the answer to any of these questions. (And I’m not sure that anyone really does.) Besides, defining what Yoga is is like defining what Love is, or Compassion is. As Judith said recently in a workshop: “Have you noticed how we can’t really define the things that are most important in life?”

So, like I said, you’re on your own with those inquiries. What I *can* tell you, however, that if you like yoga, you might also like meditation. Yoga is about learning about your Self. Self-inquiry requires meditation. Meditation is hard, it’s frustrating, it’s juicy, every once in a while you get it right. Yes, I’m describing meditation. And hey, if people can call web sites or iPhone apps sexy, I’m gonna call meditation sexy. And you, too, can do it.

Some Meditation Trainings and Resources

Recently my student Marco (hi Marco!) asked if I teach meditation. The short answer is no. The convoluted answer is yes and no. I teach primarily hatha yoga: the techniques of asana and pranayama. I sprinkle in stories, info, lores from historical texts, the other branches of Classical Yoga. In the poses I talk about things like observing where your body is in space, listening to the body’s feedback, focusing in something, stability, ease, etc. Those are things that Patanjali described as the ingredients leading to Samadhi, let’s call it Happy Place (that doesn’t involve roller coasters) for now. In my class, I prepare people for meditation.

However, I do not currently teach meditation. In my mind, one must meditate for a very long time to teach it, like, 10 years, 20 years, 40 years.

So, here are some great trainings that I personally do:

Shinzen Young’s Basic Mindfulness Home Retreat

This is a monthly home retreat usually lead by meditation teacher Shinzen Young on the second weekend of every month. I recommend you follow the Prerequisites, or that you have listened to his lectures The Science of Enlightenment first. Shinzen’s teaching is methodical. His techniques and vocabulary are highly developed, and quite frankly not for the faint of heart. If you are determined to learn meditation, however, I can’t recommend him more. Check out his CD: The Beginner’s Guide to Meditation.

The next dates for the home retreat are:

  • August 13-15, 2010
  • September 10-12, 2010
  • October 8-10, 2010
  • November 12-14, 2010
  • December 10-12, 2010

Beyond Sequencing: The Art of Meditation with Chase Bossart

Yoga teacher Chase Bossart will be doing a workshop at Shala Yoga of Portland in 2 weeks on August 20-22, 2010. From the website:

Meditation is one of the most important and potent tools in yoga. In many ways, it is the crown jewel of all yoga practices. Yet many people experience it as one of yoga’s most difficult and confusing tools. These difficulties, however, can be greatly reduced through proper sequencing of the meditation practice.

When properly constructed, a meditation practice gradually develops the attention and mental stability required to stay with the focus. This happens naturally as the practitioner moves through the different steps of the meditation. Learn the principles of proper sequencing of meditation practices and develop these skills through numerous practical examples. This practical ‘how to’ workshop will be useful for practitioners and teachers of all levels.

There you are. Go sit down and shut up. (Though, if your mind is anything like mine, it will be anything but quiet.)

Do you know of any meditation trainings or events? Do you have any personal favorite resources? Please let me know.

David Tolmie gave me this CD as a gift. This rivals any nude + yoga photography I've ever seen.

David Tolmie gave me this CD as a gift. This rivals any nude + yoga photography I've ever seen.