Category Archives: Videos

What Yoga is Good For

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Needless to say, yoga has been found to be pretty beneficial. Scientists have learned about a great deal about the benefits of yoga, and they’re still discovering new ones everyday. (Here is a list of 54 health conditions benefited by yoga compiled by Dr. Timothy McCall, updated this month-Jan 2011. [PDF])

Different people get different things from their yoga practice, so I can’t speak for them. But for me, one thing, one big thing, that yoga is good for, is that it gives me a process, a technique, to work to cultivate my ability to pay attention.

As part of Generation Y, well known for our ability to talk, roll our eyes, and chew gum at the same time, I grew up honing the craft of multitasking. I do it well, and I like it. I won’t be quick to condemn multitasking. I’m grateful for certain times of multitasking, even, like driving and listening to NPR, or climbing with my headphones on.

The problem with multitasking is that I use it too much, and I single-task too little. It’s like any skill in life, when you don’t use it, you lose it. I’ve been reading the book The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, and the author, Dr. Tony Swartz says:

“Because a short attention span and fractured focus are now so widely accepted as the norm, we’ve failed to recognize that attention is a capacity that must be both intentionally trained and regularly renewed.”

So, I would say that my yoga practice helps me sit, and sitting is a way for me to intentionally train and regularly renew my capacity to pay attention for a prolong period. I’ve got a long way to go, and the uphill incline is steep. But, I guess it’s all about taking that proverbial first step.

Recap from Seattle Insight Meditation Society First 2011 Meeting

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I went to the first meeting of 2011 held by the Seattle Insight Meditation Society (SIMS) last week. I typically don’t attend any group sit, with the rationale that inevitably, I wouldn’t be able to make it to the specific time and place, and I would start slacking off.

I’ve been working with two main lectures: The Science of Enlightenment by Shinzen Young for over three years, and Abiding in Mindfulness by Joseph Goldstein for a little over half a year. In Abiding in Mindfulness, Joseph focuses on the Sattipattana Sutta, and I just found out that teacher Rodney Smith at SIMS has been lecturing on it during the weekly group sit meetup.

So, curious about who Rodney is, I went to the meeting to hear his dharma talk, and also to take the Refuges and Precepts.

Here are some notes I scribbled down. I did not get a chance to ask for clarifying questions. I may have misheard and written down some incorrect statements. Please take them for what they’re worth.

  • You can’t come to that resolution by listening to me. You have to investigate that for yourself.
  • We create the pain that we feel in us.
  • Violence is created from internal pain.
  • Until and unless we own our sufferings we will continue to rage at the world.
  • Fundamentalists are riddled with doubt.
  • The rage of the world is from our own viciousness.
  • There’s a lot of work a lot of us need to do.

2) Ethical integrity

  • As we become more conscious and accepting of this process life moves from isolation to integration.
  • when you stay in the practice and if there’s an intention to move towards that integration.
  • It’s a recovery of self not a condemnation.
  • Our ethical behavior will be as strong as our intention to explore our pain.
  • You don’t have to try to be good. You only have to be fed up with the pain you’re in.
  • The precepts are not an absolute. They’re to encourage us to undertake the training.
  • The pause is such an underutilized thing, the take a pause from the conditioning.
  • A conscious intention to harm is almost an oxymoron. How can you have therapy without being unconscious?
  • As resistance fades so does the internal talking.
  • This waking into relationship… relevant to urban people because we are always surrounded by relationship.
  • You can’t come to compassion without vulnerability. Because we’re not willing to be vulnerable that we become rude.
  • Ethical conduct under samadhi is self driven. It takes self will and ambition. The morality of that is surrounded by the self.
  • Ethical conduct under wisdom is seeing the nature of self.
  • Sila means bedrock
  • Parami, nature goodness
  • The path of emptiness is the path of sufficiency.

Support Your Local Yoga Teacher – An Interview with Laura DeFreitas

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I first got to know Laura DeFreitas about a year and a half ago when she became an independent yoga teacher and started teaching at Taj Yoga, where I teach now, and where I was doing my yoga teacher training with Pacific Yoga at the time. Wanting to support her new business, and as a teacher trainee, I got a super good discount with Laura (that really sealed the deal) I signed up for a one-year membership with her.

So, I got to practice with Laura for a year. She primarily teaches Vinyasa Flow and Yoga Nidra, which, if you have not tried one of her classes, you really ought to.

I met up with Laura in Ballard at a Thai restaurant, and we talked about the practice and business of yoga over delicious Pad See Ewe (no tofu, extra eggs :) ). Laura finished her training in 2002 after college and has been teaching since 2003. Her influences are: Ashtanga, Yoga Nidra, Universal, and Iyengar in her 200-hr teacher training at Pacific Yoga.

What made you want to be a yoga teacher?
I was a gymnast for 15 years, took a break when I entered college and felt like something was missing, not only physically but something else. I feel like I’ve always been a seeker. I discovered yoga through a girlfriend of a coworker, took an intro series, and from the first class just knew this was something I wanted to learn more about. I did it as much yoga as I could. Then I discovered the Pacific Yoga Teacher training. It felt like coming home. Yoga speaks to me on that level of spirit I felt I’d been missing in my upbringing.

How did it become your profession?
I just hoped that I would be good at doing it [yoga]. The students were the ones that told me that I should continue and teach. I started teaching more and working less. It took me a couple years to make me realize that this is something I could do professionally.

How did you get your initial jitters out of the way?
I rented a small space and charged 5 bucks and taught my coworkers, whom I already knew, and that helped a lot.

What has changed the most since you started teaching?
I’ve changed from “spa yoga”, to a “no apology” yoga. This started as an internal shift. I’d catch myself getting nervous about teaching difficult poses and then noticed that I would back down in order to ‘protect’ the student thinking, “This is too hard, they’re not gonna want to do it.” I realize now that this is the place to work and there is a lot to be learned right on the edge of physical, mental and emotional intensity. My classes still leave you feeling great and I offer a Yin Yoga class to balance the vigorousness of my general classes.

How would you describe your classes?
I like think my classes move you into stillness. Yoga Nidra is infused into the movement. My primary influences are Astanga and Universal Yoga. Lately I’ve been drawing a lot of inspiration from Seattle Ashtanga Yoga teacher, Troy Lucero. Classes are modified to suit the level of the student base.

How did you discover Yoga Nidra?
I was at the 8 Limbs advanced training, and Anne Phyfe taught Yoga Nidra. It was one of those moments where you’re like, wow, I need to know more about this.

What’s the hardest thing about being a yoga teacher?
I think yoga is undervalued, it’s more than exercise. Getting that across to people in subtle ways is one of my intentions as a teacher.

Seattle Yoga Teachers Laura DeFreitas and Lux Sternstein at Laura's 1-year anniversary party at Taj Yoga

Seattle Yoga Teachers Laura DeFreitas and Lux Sternstein at Laura's 1-year anniversary party at Taj Yoga

Laura teaches primarily at Taj Yoga in the Crown Hill neighborhood of Seattle. You can find more about Laura at Laura Nidra Yoga.

Here’s Laura on the value of yoga beyond the physical:

Support Your Local Yoga Teacher – An Interview with Diana Bonyhadi

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I met up with Diana Bonyhadi, a fellow graduate of Pacific Yoga Teacher Training, at Grimaldi’s, a great local coffee shop in Issaquah, Washington. Her husband showed up for a short minute to give her a kiss and shared a cookie with us, and was off to work, leave me to chat with her.

What made you want to be a yoga teacher?
I’ve been practicing for 15 years. I grew up in Berkeley in the 60s, yoga was part of my life, but I didn’t actively practice until 1990. I had a lot of people asking me to be a yoga teacher, and I couldn’t ignore it.

What’s the hardest thing about being a yoga teacher?
When I have a student that comes to class regularly and the correction is always the same, and it makes me wonder if maybe this isn’t the class for them? Should I have to ask them to leave? You have to let people walk their own walk and ask, “What is it that has to happen when they refuse to take the adjustment?” Also, helping students to do that om.

What comes naturally for you in your teaching?
Sequencing really comes naturally. When I talk to the students and see what they need, it becomes so clear what the sequencing should be.

What has changed the most in your teaching?
The reliance on notes. I would write up the whole class and study them beforehand. Not to say that I don’t have a teaching plan, but now it comes more naturally and intuitively.

How would you describe your signature teaching style
It’s a Vinyasa style class with therapeutics element and alignment-based. I would start with a seated meditation, then opening up the arms and working through the shoulders, the rib cage and the hips, all are sequenced with breath. You will always get pranayama in my class. There’s always good music.

How do you tend to your own practice?
I do it every day, and it always has a meditation component.

What have you learned about teaching?
You can’t model the full pose, when you look up you’re out of alignment. Also, different people come with different energy and different bodies and i really enjoy that. No matter where you are, you don’t need a yoga room. You can gain deep wisdom from your students no matter where you teach.

What would you tell an aspiring a yoga teacher?
Go study, go get your certification. Learn alignment.

Diana teaches at Samena Club in Bellevue and Urban Oasis in Issaquah. You can learn more about Diana at Kharma Bella Yoga and follow her blog Living Yoga Beyond the Mat.

Issaquah yoga teacher Diana Bonyhadi

Issaquah yoga teacher Diana Bonyhadi

Here’s a tip from Diana on getting started on chanting Om.

When One Door Closes

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Last week I told you guys that a climbing gym where I had been teaching Yoga for Climbers decided to discontinue the program. As someone who enjoys synthesizing the two together big time, I was bummed for not having a place to share that with my fellow climbers and yoga practitioners.

Two days later, an awesome email arrived in my inbox, and I had to laugh out loud while reading it. You know that U2 song, She Moves in Mysterious Ways? I immediately thought of it, and shook my head smiling, thinking, “Okay, the Universe, you’ve got me. I surrender.” All those cheesy self-help feel-good things that you hear started flashing through my mind. Sure, people say when one door closes, another opens. But there is sometimes a long hallway in between, and wow, this one opened almost immediately right after the other one closed.

What happened that got me so jazzed? Check out the email I received and you’ll see:

My name is Danielle, I have very recently opened a yoga studio and outdoor excursion company in Ballard: Backside Bow. Most of our yoga classes are based around outdoor, “action sports” or “surf, snow, and dirt” (climbing, biking, surfing, snow). The Bow’s purpose is to create a community around healthy living, the outdoors, and yoga. Bringing all outdoor creatures to yoga, and yoga to them. Also, there’s the hope that this will bring the different outdoor communities together!

I have heard great things about you and your teaching. I would be very interested in sitting down with you to talk about the classes you have been teaching, ideas, and your availability or interest in teaching more yoga for climbers classes. Please, let me know if this is something you’d be interested in talking about further.

Would I be interested? Hell yeah! And talking about it further I did. This morning I met Danielle Harvey, an inspiring young woman who grabbed the bull by the horns, followed her passion, and opened Backside Bow, a yoga studio for anyone who likes to play outside with snow, water, and dirt.

We spent almost two hours talking about everything from being an entrepreneur, to marketing, to Danielle’s vision for the outdoors and yoga worlds to collide, and everything in between. (When two women with crazy love and ambition for yoga meet, long conversations are sure to ensue.) So, you’ll be hearing more about Backside Bow from me in the future. For a sneak peek, I’ll be teaching there twice a week:

  • R&R Yoga on Sunday nights, 7-8:30 p.m. starting April 4, 2010.
  • 8-week Intro series of Yoga for Climbers, Wednesday nights, 7:45 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. starting May 5, 2010.

In the meantime, here’s a short video of Danielle talking about her vision at Backside Bow. And if I can tell you something a guy named Tom once said, it’s that life is really, truly a box of chocolates, and if something tugs at you, just run like the wind blows.

Backside Bow Yoga Studio in Ballard, Seattle.

Backside Bow Yoga Studio in Ballard, Seattle.

Press:

KOMO: Backside Bow ties yoga to outdoor sports
Ballard News Tribune: 23-year-old creates her dream job

Goal vs. Intention – Yoga Teacher to Yoga Teacher

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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.

Interview with Yoga Teacher Dylan Noebels

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Dylan Noebels is a fellow teacher at Taj Yoga. Last week, I sat down and interviewed him on how he became a yoga teacher, and his new Immersion series at the Taj, which starts Monday March 1st. You can reach him at dylann @ gmail.com

Also check out a short clip of the interview of me and Dylan.

Nikki: When did yoga first come into your life? Like, the first time you ever knew that yoga existed.

Dylan: It was during my sophomore year of college in 1998 at Longwood University in Farmville Virginia. I was looking for a workout book and checked out a Power Yoga book from the library. I flipped through it and didn’t like it. It didn’t make sense, it seemed too stretchy, and not what I wanted. I returned the book and never thought of it again. I forgot about it for a long time.

Nikki: Okay, so it wasn’t love at first pose. Then what happened?

Dylan: I moved to Seattle in 2001 and didn’t want to pay for the gym anymore and was doing this calisthenic exercise with eccentric contraction and using breath with it, and I would make up these poses. My ex-wife told me that I should do yoga, and I said, “No, I’m not joining your cult.”

(Nikki: I was glad I didn’t have any coffee in my mouth at this point, because I totally laughed out loud.)

Dylan: There was an empty room in a house that I had moved in and the roommate had a Yoga for Dummies DVD. One day the house was empty, and I thought, “Hmm, I’ll see what this is all about”. I was hooked from the first time. It wasn’t so hard that it frustrated me and I felt taller and better and better doing it, so I did the yoga for dummies DVD for a while.

(Nikki’s note: it turned out the DVD was Basic Yoga Workout for Dummies by Sarah Ivanhoe.)

Dylan: I found out that it was from India, and I wanted to learn more and find book written by Indian guy. So I found a used book called The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga by Swami Vishnu-Devananda. He talked about other things besides the physical side of yoga, and the philosophy was appealing.

And then, I just thought I’d teach yoga! I knew that I wanted to teach yoga before ever taking a class, because I had gained so much from it.

I was waiting table in Fremont when I heard about a Teacher Training from a fellow waitress who was also a yoga teacher. So, in 2005 I took the 200-hour Pacific Yoga teacher training at The Yoga Tree in Seattle with Kathryn and Theresa.

I met the owner of Three Tree Yoga in the training, who opened a studio during the training, and they asked me to come teach there. I said yes right away, even though it was a 2-hour bus ride away because the studio is in Federal Way. That was 4 years ago. I started teaching at Taj a year later.

Nikki: What are some interesting memories of you teaching yoga in the early years?
 Dylan: I’ve taught yoga to teenagers in Spanish, and I had to learn how to say all the body parts in Spanish. That was really fun.

Nikki: Besides Spanish, what might one experience in a yoga class with Dylan Noebels?
 Dylan:  The mental benefit of a physical practice.

Nikki: What keeps you going?
 Dylan: You’re always learning something new and the learning curve is a spiral, it keeps curving.

Nikki: What else is interesting to you besides yoga?
 Dylan: Acting and writing. I wrote a feature film, filmed it and it’s in a couple people’s closet (both of us laughing). It was about two guys who wait tables and want to get rich quick. I also make short films. I’m part a group called Raw Stock Media. We have 6 short films will be shown at ACT theater. I’m currently doing a film that’s a spoof on yoga.

Nikki: Okay, let’s talk about the Immersion. What can one expect during and after the class?

Dylan: You’ll find that when you do yoga first thing in the morning, other things get to you less over the course of the day, you might feel that there is more energy overall. You’ll be more awake for work. If you haven’t had a regular yoga practice in the morning, you’ll discover the benefits of that can be life changing. You’ll be getting the outside eyes. I will talk about alignment and techniques and some flow, philosophy and meditation will also be discussed.

Nikki: Should I eat anything before class?

Dylan: I’d wait till after to eat, juice is okay, coffee will not be provided but caffeine is okay. There’s a tea pot in the studio and I’ll also be available after class for tea and talk on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Nikki: How much should I expect to pay for the Immersion classes?
Dylan: It’s $150 for for 20 classes for a whole month. If you can only come 3 days a week, it’s $100. There’s a discount of $140 if you sign up before February the 20th. And it’s $250 for 2 people.

Nikki: People sometimes say, oh I don’t have money for yoga, but then they’d spend just as much money, if not more, on other things, like alcohol. As a bartender, what’s the most expensive drink you’ve ever made?
Dylan: There’s a drink at the bar where I work now that’s $20.

Nikki: $20! That’s like, almost three yoga classes! With 20 classes for $150, that’s $7.5 a class.
Dylan: Yup, people spend money on funny things.

Nikki: Okay, speaking of funny. What’s the funniest word or thing you’ve encountered recently?
Dylan: When Andra Devoght (a Physical Therapist and Yoga Teacher) came to talk to us about Therapeutic Yoga and she mentioned a foot condition called “forefoot valgus”, I was snickering when I wrote it down.

Nikki: Haha, that… makes me snicker too. Alright, if you had to come up with some sort of slogan for your yoga teaching, what would it be?
Dylan: Yoga for Americans. (We’re both laughing a lot). Because it would un-American for you to have tight hamstrings.
Nikki: I love it! Yoga with Dylan, because it would un-American for you to have tight hamstrings!

Seattle Yoga Teacher Dylan Noebels at Kuan Yin Tea House in Wallingford

Seattle Yoga Teacher Dylan Noebels at Kuan Yin Tea House in Wallingford