Inward Facing Dog

Education Acceleration

2012-01-12T16:22:00.000-06:00

Time is the best teacher, although it kills the students.

~ anonymous quote from a web page of yoga jokes

I found this quote today as I was googling around. It reminds me of something my teacher Rod Stryker says to inspire his students to practice: “By the time you have finally gained some wisdom and peace of mind, it’s not long before you’re back in diapers.” It’s a grim contemplation. Time may eventually wear away our delusions, but it also wears down our body in the process. If life is a classroom, it’s like waiting to get your dissertation right before your retire.

So perhaps time is the most inevitable teacher, but not the ideal one. Wouldn’t it be nice to speed up the learning process, rather than wait for the next life lesson to smack us in the face? Wouldn’t it be nice to preemptively give up our nonproductive habits, rather than wait for them to create major problems?

This is the promise of yoga. Postures, breathing, meditation, self-inquiry and all the other practices offer us a way to accelerate the learning process. The engine of yoga practice allows us to gain self-knowledge faster - and with fewer negative side effects - than merely the passage of time. No spiritual intentions are required. Simply to live a more effective, satisfying life is a worth educational goal.

As with any mechanism of acceleration, some caution is advised. We want to be sure we are using yoga to fuel our higher qualities, not inflame our imbalances. Therefore, the tradition insists that a teacher is necessary - someone who’s worked through more of the curriculum than us. The classic yogic approach is the guru/disciple relationship, but this appears to be a poor fit for the modern age (all the reasons are a topic for another post). Most pragmatically, there just aren’t enough true yoga masters to fill all the demand for teachers. But there is another way.

In essence, the goal of the guru/disciple relationship is for the student to realize they contain their own inner teacher, just as wise (in fact, identical to) the external guru. We all get glimpses of our inner teacher in moments of intuitive knowing, or finding ourselves in just the right place at the right time. We can cultivate this connection, even if we don’t have access to a “100% certified enlightened” master. We can learn to be our own “live-in” tutor. We can look ahead in the text book and get our assignments done early, rather than wait for the “deadline” of time to force us to take action.

There are many methods for connecting to our inner guide. I’ve found the Phoenix Rising approach to yoga to be one of the most direct. It doesn’t require athletic prowess, prolonged sitting, or any particular belief system - just curiosity, honesty and a sense of adventure. One format for the work is an 8-week group that blends yoga postures, meditation, self-inquiry into a powerful but friendly particle accelerator of learning. Through daily practice, participants learn to use the experiences of everyday life as fuel for the learning process - no Himalayan caves required.

As it happens, I lead these groups a couple times a year. The next one starts January 30, 2012. You can learn more and register through my website.

Learning to Listen: a yoga story

2011-01-03T18:53:00.001-06:00

Sometimes I envy animals. They flow through life, reacting spontaneously to whatever comes, unconcerned with such questions as “Should I eat meat? Is it organic, local, and well-educated enough? Does it work for my blood type?” A lion does not debate these questions. It is the gift and curse of our human neocortex that we have the self-awareness to consider different actions and choose what seems “best”. Moment after moment, we create our lives by choosing some things and not others. Our choices create habits, so in the future we are likely to keep choosing the way we did in the past. This is the teaching of karma in its most practical form.

I grew up in a family that honored the spiritual power of nature, but favored rationality as the criteria for making decisions. I developed a powerful intellect and excelled academically. I figured I’d go into physics, or some other scientific field. I vaguely imagined that my life would unfold as a series of logical decisions, and that I could apply my intelligence to “solve” my life like an equation.

Yet when I reflect on the path that I took to get where I am today - yoga teacher, yoga therapist, studio owner – I see that many key decisions arose through listening, inwardly and outwardly, to receive guidance. I have been discovering my life, not deducing it.

Yoga itself can be seen as a process of sharpening the inner ear so one can “hear” what is true and act accordingly. In this sense, I began practicing yoga long before I actually rolled out a sticky mat. But it was only through training to be a Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy (PRYT) practitioner that I began to consciously cultivate this listening.

In a one-on-one PRYT session, I place the client into supported yoga postures (akin to Thai massage) and use reflective dialogue to help him explore what comes up and how it relates to his life. I am the facilitator, rather than the prescriber. My presence helps the client learn to listen to the rich stream of information constantly flowing from his body, unconscious mind and higher knowing. The results of a session often include physical and emotional release, deep insight, and profound rest.

How do I choose the appropriate postures to use? I listen to the client’s words and movements and select stretches that will help him listen to his own experience more closely. For example, if a client says, “It feels like I just can’t let go,” and I see his shoulders are tight, I may traction his arms to bring more attention to the tension he’s holding there. I may ask, “What’s happening now?” as an invitation for him to notice and speak about his own experience. Or I might feel drawn to stretch his hamstrings. The session arises spontaneously. My intention is not to “fix” his tight shoulders according to a therapeutic plan, but to facilitate a process that arises in the present moment.

This non-planning was tough to swallow when I began my training. My rational, Computer-Science-major self wanted a formula: if client says X, do Y. My Honor Student self craved a guaranteed method to get an A+ in giving PRYT sessions. How could I take action without trying to control the outcome?

As I did the training, I realized this way of being was not so foreign after all. From 6-12th grade I studied improvisational theater at the Piven Theatre Workshop. We mostly played games, which trained us to relax our inhibitions and allow impulses to arise freely, flowing out as sound, movement, and eventually dialogue and character. We were encouraged “listen for the next beat” rather than try to plan it out. It was thrilling, transgressive and a little scary.

Or course, it’s one thing to make crazy animal noises with my peers; quite another to improvise a yoga therapy session with a paying client. It’s much harder to detach from the outcome when it’s part of your livelihood.

The majority of my PRYT training consisted of giving practice sessions and reflecting on the experience with a mentor. I became painfully aware of the many ways my own habits and beliefs condition my decisions. I discovered a strong desire to please the client and ensure they had a good session, which prevented me from doing anything that might challenge them. I started to question my choices, afraid they were tainted by my own agenda. I found myself declining to make any choices for fear of choosing the wrong postures or saying the wrong words.

My mentor encouraged me to reflect on the nature of this self-doubt. Among the many layers, I discovered another link to my past. When I was 14, I happened to pull the The Way of Zen by Alan Watts off my parents’ bookshelf. Something deep inside me recognized the truth of the Buddha’s teachings and the pursuit of enlightenment as a worthy goal. This was the beginning of my conscious spiritual quest.

I was particularly taken by the Zen view of words and concepts as inherently limited; the actual experience of seeing a tree is much different from the word “tree” or our mental image of a tree. Liberating truth is found in experiencing life in its raw state, rather than through the distorting lens of thought.

For this very reason, Zen warns against intellectual study without practice – yet through high school all I did was read about Zen. As predicted, I misunderstood the goal of spiritual practice to be “no thoughts” – that I must somehow eliminate thoughts, and if I was thinking, I must be doing something wrong.

Thus, when I began giving PRYT sessions and looked within for guidance as to which posture to choose, or what words to say, I was skeptical of any thoughts that came, even if they were good suggestions. I had the notion that intuition was exclusively wordless and magical. So I doubted every impulse that came along as a thought – which was most of them! The result was inaction.

Through my own personal work with the PRYT process, I realized that while many of my thoughts do indeed arise from the limited perspective of my ego, others are messengers from the wise part of me that knows just the right thing to do or say. I learned to tell the difference by listening to my body: an intuitive thought arrives with a whole-body feeling of clarity; a biased thought feels trapped in my skull, spinning and bouncing of the walls. When I’m grounded in my body, my thoughts become a tool I can use to help my client discover their own truth within the thicket of messy thoughts.

Following this reflection one step further, I owe that my ability to listen to my body comes primarily from my training in Kripalu Yoga. In this tradition, the student cultivates awareness of internal experience, rather than continually strive to improve the posture. Just as it’s hard to talk and listen at the same time, we can hear our body more clearly when we stop trying to “do” the posture and just allow it to happen. Often, spontaneous alignment, release and insight will arise when the body is given space without expectation. The same philosophy informs Phoenix Rising since Michael Lee, the founder of PRYT, also trained in Kripalu Yoga for many years.

Again and again, my PRYT training encouraged me to reflect on my life and see how my past informs who I am as a practitioner. I discovered that the inner wisdom I was learning to follow had been guiding my decisions all along: which college to attend, what major to pursue, who to date and marry, what work to do, when to open a studio. To be sure, each of these decisions brought moments of difficulty and doubting. Yet each arose with a whole-body knowing that gave me confidence to keep going, despite the second-guessing of my intellect.

It seems life has conspired to show me that things turn out well when I listen to myself, rather than seek external validation for my actions. Even so, when I consider the unknowable future, my mind still strains to figure out what will happen next. My shoulders tighten, and in my more conscious moments, I recognize this physical tension as a sign that my mind is wrestling with reality, trying to pin down an answer. I take a deep breath in and let it fall out of my mouth with a sigh. I stop what I’m doing, relax my body, and rest back into that deeper knowing. I remember once again that all the answers I need are available right here, in this moment. I just have to be still and quiet enough to hear them.

This essay was also published in Yoga Chicago, Jan/Feb 2011.

Negativity Bias

2010-11-28T15:23:00.001-06:00

My current reading. Fascinating stuff. For example:

Did you know our brain has a negativity bias? For the sake of survival, we evolved to pay much more attention to negative experiences (like a predator) than positive ones. We are inclined to overlook good news, highlight bad news, ruminate more on negative experiences in the past, and worry about potential ones in the future.

This might explain our collective fixation on bad news - as demonstrated by the success of our largely fear-based 24-hour cable news networks. Bad news holds our brains in rapt attention. All the better to sell advertising time!

Falling Vs. Letting Go

2010-11-04T11:11:00.000-05:00

I always assumed this season is named “Fall” because leaves are falling off the trees, withered and blown off the branches by the cold, dry wind. I was fascinated to learn from NPR recently that something else is happening. It’s dangerous for a tree to carry leaves during the winter; they get weighed down with snow and tear off branches, or they die when it freezes and hamper future growth. So as the days grow shorted and colder, deciduous trees produce a chemical signal that causes branches to sever their connection to the leaves. Then all it takes is a slight breeze to finish the job. In other words, trees “push” their leaves off before they cause trouble. The beauty of fall is an enjoyable side effect of trees adapting to the changing season.

How do we humans adapt to this change? Do we feel like victims of the cold, dry wind, helplessly blown towards flu season, less exercise, and the busyness of the holidays? Or can we make choices to adapt, like the trees? Before electricity and urbanization, our pastoral ancestors in temperate climates had no choice but to adapt to changing light: more time inside, less work, more rest. Our animal bodies still react to the change of seasons, but modern times demand that we continue our lives as usual. In fact, we tend to be busiest around the winter solstice, when our body’s instinct is to rest and restore.

Since most of us do not have the luxury of hibernation, we should consider how we can support ourselves in continuing our daily tasks within a new season. Starting now through December, we’re going to be crafting our yoga classes to help your body and mind stay balanced and healthy as winter approaches. As warmth disappears from the outside world, we’ll cultivate our inner fire and prepare our digestion for heavier winter foods. As the wind blows and schedules get crazy, we’ll explore our connection to the stable earth. As the trees release their leaves, we’ll take up meditative practices that support letting go of what no longer serves us.

This was originally sent in our monthly newsletter, to which you can subscribe through by following this link.

The Yoga of Example

2010-08-22T14:29:00.000-05:00

We spent the first half of August immersed in the world of Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy. I (Nick) had the chance to assist a Level 1 and 2 training in Northbrook, and then attend the first-ever Phoenix Rising Conference. It was a rich, inspiring soup of experiences. What stands out the most is a new respect for the power of modeling as an educational technique.

During the Level 1 and 2 trainings, I was there as an apprentice to Elissa Cobb, one of the directors of the Phoenix Rising organization. At first I was taking notes like crazy, trying to write down everything that Elissa said in order to reproduce it one day when I lead the training myself. Indeed, there are many important details that need to be communicated. Yet Elissa herself uses just two pages of brief notes for the whole four-day training! Eventually, it dawned on me that Elissa was generating the training from intention rather than a strict set of rules. Her fine-tuned words and actions arose from her deep understanding of the Phoenix Rising work. At that point, I started to pay more attention to the essence of the training process, and my notes dwindled.

Again and again, I was reminded of this quote by Carl Rogers:

Experience is, for me, the highest authority. The touchstone of validity is my own experience. No other person's ideas, and none of my own ideas, are as authoritative as my experience. It is to experience that I must return again and again, to discover a closer approximation to truth as it is in the process of becoming in me.

The primacy of experience is a central tenet of Phoenix Rising work, and this carries through in the practitioner training process. Elissa taught mainly through demonstration and leading experiences, along with some technical instruction. She would freely answer questions, but it struck me that her way of answering the questions was more important than the words she spoke. She was careful in her words, always speaking from “my experience” rather than declarations of the “truth”. She gave examples rather than definite rules. She asked for the questioner’s thoughts before giving her own. She often said “I don’t know” or “It depends”. In all she said, she was modeling a deep respect for experience as the highest authority.

Recent neuroscience has discovered “mirror neurons” in the human brain that appear to synchronize our internal state with whomever we’re observing. Much research remains, but it appears to be a hardwired mechanism for empathy – literally “feeling with” another person. Mirror neurons may offer an explanation for the pedagogical power of role modeling. When we witness another person existing in a remarkable way, our brain takes on those same qualities. We experience life, if just briefly, through the cognitive lens of another.

This is experiential learning at a profound level, and it reminds me of the yogic concept of transmission. Many yogic teachings are considered inert unless they are directly passed from teacher to student. I have found this to be true in my own experience. My thinking mind can always question whether a particular meditation is working or not. But in the presence of someone who has mastered it themselves, I absorb their confidence and understanding, and doubt dissolves.

Finally, I am reminded of the power of sangha or spiritual fellowship. The Buddha emphasized that who we associate with is more influential than ethical behavior or meditation. We have evolved to be social beings. Regardless of our conscious intent, our companions can either uplift us or drag us down to their level. I think this is one reason it’s easier to practice yoga or meditate in a class, rather than solo. Moving and breathing as one, each person positively reinforces the collective mind of the group.

For these reasons, my Calm Within Chaos stress-relief program ends each session with a group speaking circle, where each participant has a chance to speak about their experience, and everyone else listens. It’s that simple. Not only is there power in speaking your own experience out loud, but the chance to witness other people as they work on themselves is deeply inspiring. Through the power of modeling, when one person discovers something true about themselves, the whole group benefits.

For example, I can write, “To truly take care of others, I must also take care of myself.” You may agree intellectually. But to be in my presence as I experience this truth is to receive a transmission beyond the mere words. In some way, you experience the truth of it, rather than just agree or disagree. When a group of people shares in the process of growth, we all go farther on the journey.

My next expedition into self-inquiry and stress transformation begins Monday, September 20, 7-9:30pm, and runs for 8 consecutive Mondays, plus a full day of practice on Sunday, October 17. See our website for details and registration. If you pay in full by September 1, you save $25.

Why Go on a Silent Retreat?

2010-06-27T16:31:00.002-05:00

“I don’t know if I could go a whole day without talking!”

That’s a common response I hear when I tell people about my experience with silent retreats. I’ve mostly done 10-day retreats without speaking – and loved it (mostly) - but even the suggestion of 1 day spent in silence can be intimidating. Yogis and meditators have praised the benefits of silence for millennia. What’s so great about not talking?

It’s fairly obvious that air comes out of our mouths when we speak, but less apparent that we are also expending prana (life force). Think of how exhausted you feel after a party where you’ve been talking constantly for hours. It is not that speaking takes great muscular effort, but it excites the nervous system and often activates stressful mental patterns (“Does this person agree with me? Should I say something different? How could they say that!”) So when we deliberate restrain our speech, we are conserving energy. In a retreat, we use this conserved energy to deepen our practice.

As I discussed in my last post, one of the purposes of going on retreat is to change momentum. Consider a river – the water has considerable momentum as it flows downstream, but it’s not apparent when viewed from afar. The best way to discover the power of a river is to try to stop the flow. Place your hand into a stream - suddenly the momentum of the water is very apparent as it pushes strongly against your hand.

For most of our days, words flow out continually and unconsciously as speech, email, status updates, etc. The strength of this river of speech is only apparent when we place a barrier across it – the practice of silence (called mauna in Sanskrit). Then our words build up like water behind a dam, and we can see the contents of the river much more clearly. For this reason, practicing silence can actually get very noisy – all the words we would typically speak get “backed up” and swim through our minds.

At first, it may seem like our minds are actually getting more active and restless than usual. In fact, we are simply seeing what is usually unconscious. That’s a good thing! We must first see our habits clearly before we can change them. But it isn’t always pretty. Without the escape valve of speech, all our petty resentments and irrational fears are exposed. It’s like cleaning out a dank basement. The techniques of yoga will help us clear the air as quickly as possible, but we still have to sort through all the old stuff. This is one of the central practices of yoga – swadhyaya, the study of the self.

In mindful silence, the Witness emerges – that part of us that is pure awareness, without preferences or plans, yet full of loving-kindness. The more we learn to rest as the Witness of our experience, the more space we have to make clear choices, rather than be swept along in the current of habit. A retreat reconnects us to what is really true, and helps us cultivate the skill to put that truth into action in our lives.

Finally, a silent retreat gives us permission to step out of all our roles – parent, child, spouse, friend, employee – and just be natural, as we are. What a relief! To drop all responsibility and artifice is to rest deeply, to soothe and heal the body-mind. No amount of vacation on a tropical beach can do this.

At Grateful Yoga, we try to offer at least one retreat a year. See our website for details.

How to Take a Day Off

2010-06-14T12:51:00.001-05:00

Nothing sets the heart soaring like the idea of having “time off”. Whether we spend our days making money, volunteering, raising children or all of the above, we often spend spare moments contemplating how great it will be once the weekend arrives. “I can't wait to have some time off! Then I'll be happy!” Even yoga teachers think this from time to time.

Yet a truly restorative weekend is hard to find. Often, we schedule our weekends just as densely as our work week, and end up just running from place to place. Monday arrives and we're still tired. Or, we don't plan anything, but we end up feeling restless and fritter away our time on diversions. We get anxious as Sunday ends, unsatisfied, reluctant to return to work.

How many times do you come to Sunday and feel truly rested and rejuvenated for the coming week? Why is it so difficult to allow ourselves relax and “do nothing”?

Consider an insight from physics. Newton's first law describes the truth of momentum: an object at rest will stay at rest, and an object in motion will remain in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force. The same principle is at work in humans. We tend to repeat the same behaviors and attitudes unless an outside influence forces us to change. It's the natural result of neuroplasticity, our brain's ability to rewire itself according to patterns of usage. If we do the same thing enough times, that habit sinks into our brain structure, and it becomes harder to change.

From this perspective, we spend 5 days building up a momentum of busyness and stress. This momentum carries into the weekend, and so we stay busy – if just mentally - unless something intervenes. Two days off allows us to slow things down a little bit, but then it's Monday, and we're building speed again. Even a whole week of vacation will barely make a dent, especially if we fill it with sightseeing and activities.

We need a direct and sustained intervention if we want to truly slow down and create a new, conscious direction in our lives. Yoga offers time-tested methods for doing exactly that. Yoga class is helpful, especially if it is designed to change our energetic momentum*. But 90 minutes of yoga once or twice a week can only redirect our momentum slightly. How long does that post-yoga bliss really last? How long before our shoulder tense up again, or we find ourselves stressing out over trivial things?

In order to really STOP, we need to separate ourselves from our normal routine for an extended period of time. This the purpose of a yoga retreat. Over a whole day (or week... or month...), in the supportive structure of retreat, we have time and space to 1) see our momentum for what it is – usually a collection of habits we've picked up unconsciously from parents/friends/society - and 2) consciously redirect our life though the skillful application of yoga.

Going on a retreat is a way to truly take time “off”. Stepping away from our daily life, we dive deep into our practice, and reconnect to what truly nurtures and motivates us.

Sense and Sensibility of Effort

2010-04-30T13:18:00.002-05:00

I was teaching a private lesson this week and my student commented that once he really understood the alignments of Mountain Pose, it felt like the effort needed to sustain the posture decreased. This comment made me reflect on the way my yoga practice evolved.

When I started yoga, I put all my effort into each pose - especially the standing poses. This was an important stage of learning: how to engage my muscles fully, how to overcome sluggishness and blockages in my nervous system. It was very satisfying to feel so much power flowing through me. I came to think that doing a pose correctly meant having the feeling of vigorous effort.

But as my body opened and my sensitivity to alignment grew, I no longer needed such great force to create the postures. I could be more discerning about which muscles to engage and which to release. I could align my bones more efficiently. Yet I still carried the expectation that when I was doing a pose "right" that it should feel really intense. So I pushed farther and farther in the poses, seeking the same feeling of effort as when I first began.

It was at my Kripalu teacher training where I realized that ever-greater effort was unnecessary; in fact, it can be an impediment, and in the long run it can lead to injury. One purposes of Kripalu yoga is to attune to prana - the life-force of the body. I found that if I was always pushing deeper into a pose, the sensations would overwhelm my awareness and drown out the more subtle experiences of prana. In the course of twice-daily practice, I also realized that day after day of intense effort was not sustainable if I wanted to keep my body happy.

These days, I enjoy a vigorous practice every now and then, just as I enjoy an occasional action movie or gourmet meal. Most of the time, I use postures to balance my body and prepare for my meditation practice.

Patanjali's classic definition of yoga posture is "steady and comfortable". The effort we make in postures is not an end in itself, but a means to create the stability and ease which open us to the more subtle realms of pranayama and meditation. I'm afraid that much modern yoga misses this point, and the "yogic high" has become another addiction that requires ever-greater doses (of vinyasas, of difficulty, of heat) to sustain. However, of all the addictions available to the modern consumer, yoga is a pretty good one to have...

Self Study

2010-04-08T14:43:00.001-05:00

Our theme in class this month is svadhyaya, the practice of self-study. This is not narcissism, but a curious exploration of the elements of our moment-to-moment experience that make up that mysterious phenomenon we label "myself".

Svadhyaya arises in our yoga practice out of necessity, but we can accelerate our growth if we take up this study of Self consciously. For example, to refine my postures, I must learn how my bones and muscles work together. I must discover how my breath interacts with my physical effort. To remain steady and comfortable in my postures, I must examine how my mind works - either to assist me or hinder me. And then sometimes in the final relaxation, I end up in a place where my body seems to disappear and my thoughts subside. What is left? Who am I now?

Buddhism is also devoted to self-study. The enigmatic 13th century Zen master Dogen wrote:

To study the Buddha Way is to study the self.

To study the self is to drop the self.

To drop the self is to be awakened by the ten thousand dharmas.

To be awakened by the ten thousand dharmas is to free one’s body/mind and those of others.

No trace of attachment to the awakening remains, and this non-attachment to awakening continues forever.

The word dharma has a lot of meanings, depending on who you ask. To the Buddhists, "ten thousand dharmas" refers to the many objects and experiences we encounter in the world and in our minds. Dharma with a capital "d" refers to both the Buddha's teachings and the ultimate, wordless reality that his teachings lead us to discover.
"To be awakened by the ten thousand dharmas" is to receive every experience - a sip of tea, a traffic jam, an aching shoulder - as a Dharma teaching. From this perspective, life is a boundless university. Every moment of our life is a chance to practice svadhyaya, an opportunity to find out who we really are.

Join us this month, and we'll listen for the wisdom that the world (in the form of body and mind) is constantly offering to us.

Stem Cells and Stress

2010-02-18T12:53:00.003-06:00

I recently heard an amazing interview with Doris Taylor, a biologist who has developed a way to grow functioning hearts using stem cells. She washes the dead cells out of a rat heart so only the connective tissue scaffolding remains. Then new stem cells are piped into the structure, and slowly, gradually, they multiply and fill out the tissue, and it starts beating! This work is the precursor to regrowing human organs - custom made from your own stem cells.

SoundSeen: Bioreactors + Building Hope from Speaking of Faith on Vimeo.

The power of stem cells is that they can differentiate into any kind of tissue, depending on what the body needs. They play a central role in healing and regeneration. In Taylor's view:

[A]ging is really a failure of stem cells. For most of our lives, we have stem cells in all of our organs or tissues that can heal them. And they do so by taking care of that normal wear and tear. But as you get to be 52, 62, 72 and you fall down and you scrape your knee, you may have a scar for the rest of your life because as we age the number of stem cells we have goes down and the function of the ones that we have decreases.

Taylor cites research that shows that stress ages stem cells. An "old" stem cells will not be able to divide many more times. As the body's stem cells age, there are fewer in circulation, and our ability to heal and rejuvenate diminishes. From this perspective, aging and chronic disease are the same thing, and both are exacerbated by stress.

If our behavior can negatively affect the functioning of stem cells, it can also enhance it. Small studies have shown that meditation can vastly increase the number of stem cells in the blood stream. Surely yoga does the same thing - especially during the relaxation practice at the end of class. The ageless look of long-time yogis makes this clear.

Most fundamentally, yoga and meditation give us tools to avoid the stem-cell-aging effects of stress in the first place. It is ultimately our mind that determines how we react to the ups and down of life. My 8-week Calm Within Chaos program is designed to explore and transform how you relate to stress - and perhaps make you younger in the process! I have just two spots left, and it begins Monday, March 1. Learn more on my website.

Footnote: The bones contain big reserves of stem cells. It turns out bone marrow transplants are really stem cell transplants. Here I see a congruence between the scientific understanding of stem cells and the Traditional Chinese Medicine concept of jing, the vital fluid that supports all growth, development, sexual maturation, and reproduction. In particular, jing is considered the source of bone marrrow!

Sweeten The World Up

2010-01-22T12:21:00.002-06:00

Passing along a nice quote from Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche which seems especially relevant right now (courtesy of the Dharma Ocean daily quote mailing list):

There are many international problems, and throughout the world chaos is taking place all the time -- which is obviously far from the expression of enlightened society. In the past, various disciplines or faiths, such as Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, had great dignity. There were extraordinarily sane people among the ancients who worked to make the world worthwhile and passed down their wisdom generation by generation. But there has been a problem of corruption. The world has been seduced by physical materialism as well as by psychological materialism, let alone spiritual materialism! The world is beginning to turn sour. Our measures may be small at this point, but we're trying to sweeten the world up. In the long run, we want to offer something beyond a token. We want to make a real contribution to the development of enlightened society. That begins right here. As they say, charity begins at home.
From "Working with Early Morning Depression," in
GREAT EASTERN SUN:THE WISDOM OF SHAMBHALA, pages 26 to 27.

When we sweeten ourselves - through yoga, meditation, walking in Nature, loving each other - the global broth gets just that much sweeter, too.

January's Class Theme: Brahmacharya

2010-01-07T19:42:00.001-06:00

In the past months we've been investigating the five Yamas, or ethical practices, of Yoga. They were most famously described by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras. He considered them to be an essential foundation for the practice of postures, breathing and meditation. In January, we consider the final Yama: brahmacharya.

This term is often translated as "chastity", and sexual abstinence may indeed be part of a professional yogi's practice. For us householder yogis, brahmacharya may be more usefully understood as "moderation". Swami Kripalu comments: "A person practicing moderation is able to channel his or her full energy towards activities that support growth and transformation." He particularly emphasized moderation in our pursuit of pleasure.

Another perspective is offered by Mukunda Stiles: "By abiding in behavior that respects the Divine as omnipresent (brahmacharya), one acquires an inspired passion for life." (Yoga Sutra II:38)

January is a month where we can all use a little inspired passion as we set about putting our resolutions (for growth and transformation) into action. Join us as we explore this powerful and elusive practice.

Poo-chi

2009-12-21T17:38:00.000-06:00

This video demonstrates some innovative moves that I hope to incorporate into my classes soon:

Resistance and Choice

2009-12-06T19:54:00.005-06:00

The ever-thoughtful Earon Davis asked the following question in response to my last post:

"I am not so clear, though, on the nature of the resistance you write about. Is resistance to the program desirable, undesirable or neither? Is the problem when we avoid it or when we honor it?"

There are several layers here. I think resistance to change - whether it comes from intentional self-inquiry or external circumstances - is neither desirable nor undesirable. It is just our nature. It may, however, be necessary to our human predicament, just as friction is necessary in the physics of our terrestrial existence. Resistance gives us something to "work against", to build up our volitional "muscles".

As for whether we should avoid or honor resistance... The language becomes tricky. We cannot avoid resistance, just as we can't avoid gravity. But we can avoid seeing resistance for what it is - something within us. We rationalize; we blame others; we play the victim to external circumstances. "I can't go to yoga, I'm just too busy/hungry/tired."

Yoga in the Phoenix Rising style can help us see resistance honestly. We then have the chance to consciously choose whether to honor it or to move through it. When holding a posture, we may become aware of an urge to leave the posture. If we observe this resistance closely, we may discover our knees are hurting and decide to leave the posture (or adjust it): an act of loving care for our body. Or we may discover the body feels fine, but our mind is getting uncomfortable with the strong sensations. We may choose not to believe our resistance and remain in the posture. We thereby increase our capacity for staying present with intense experience.

There is no formula that tells us when to honor resistance, and when to work through it. Each of us must do the patient work of learning to discern between resistance that is useful, and that which is not. And the "usefulness" of resistance depends on what we wish to do in our lives - another choice we can make.

No easy yes or no answers in this messy world. It makes things more complicated, but certainly keeps life interesting!

Resistance

2009-12-05T09:32:00.005-06:00

A recent topic in the training: how to help participants stay present with their resistance to the program. As Newton put it in his First Law of Motion: objects at rest will tend to stay at rest, and objects in motion will tend to stay in motion, unless acted on by a force. Humans are the same way - we resist change, it takes work to move us. This is not a problem in itself. It is only natural. But often, when we encounter resistance - in ourselves or in the world - we are tempted to give up. Somehow we get the idea that resistance is a problem, a sign of personal failure.

I found an interesting description of this dynamic in the book The Magician Within: Accessing The Shaman Archetype in the Male Psyche. It discusses the classic stages of the shaman's journey:

The seventh stage almost always holds a trial or a persecution... Why a trial or persecution? Because human beings are virtuosos of denial. People work carefully to be unaware of any problem when awareness might require taking an active part in finding a solution. The trial comes because the Magician knows too many uncomfortable truths and calls for action... If we consider the story of Jesus in this respect, we see a man who knows a lot, reveals a lot, and is killed for his efforts. But interestingly the myth's tenth stage [resurrection] suggests how hard it is to kill the truth. (page 68)

The essence of the Magician archetype is the Knower of Mystery. It's part of all of us. And just as other people can get uncomfortable when a Prophet speaks what is true and calls for action, the same is true for the inner community that is our personality.

Resistance arises in a yoga practice - or any personal growth work - when the truth we are uncovering starts to challenge the status quo. "Wow, I am so much stronger than I realized. I guess I don't have to be a victim to my life. I can be more proactive and ask for what I need. But I've always been so easy-going... what will other people think?"

The art of facilitating change lies in helping people feel safe enough to stay with resistance and keep going, to allow old ways of being to fall away, and a new self to be born. (This is one way to understand the story of Jesus archetypally.)

Bodhisattva on a Train

2009-12-03T20:42:00.000-06:00

One of the themes we discussed today was Acceptance. In yoga, and in life, to what extent can we accept our unique experience, just as it is? Can we accept that fact that we cannot accept some things? A friend forwarded the following video, which is well worth the 6 minutes it takes to watch:

It occurred to me that at some basic level - perhaps deep in the brain stem - laughter is a way of accepting life just as it is, in all it's messy and beautiful absurdity.

Word words words

2009-12-02T19:36:00.001-06:00

Today we practiced leading yoga postures with economical, process-oriented language that allows participants to have their own unique experience of the postures. Standard yoga teacher jargon contains all kinds of subtle judgments. For example, the instruction "Come into
Child Pose and just breathe." In that tiny word "just" is the suggestion that breathing is a small, simple thing when for some people it may be difficult or profound. They will unconsciously get the message that there is something "wrong" with them if they have difficulty "just breathing". Other examples: "Feel a nice stretch in your side"; "Open your heart in Cobra Pose". This can seem picky at first, but the effect of language choice on experience is real and well-documented by science.

Notes on a yoga therapy training

2009-12-01T19:46:00.002-06:00

I'm in Bristol, Vermont at the Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy training center. I'm just at the end of Day 1 of a 12 day training that will teach me how to lead small groups in the Phoenix Rising process. I intend to use this blog to set down my thoughts about the process, and perhaps entice some reader into joining me when I start a group in Evanston...

At the center of this program is the work of becoming aware of how we create stress in our lives, and then learning how to make choices in our daily life that reduce or eliminate stress. Elissa Cobb, the leader of the training, defines stress very simply as resistance to what is. Phoenix Rising - both in one-on-one work and in the group format - offers tools to help us learn how to stop fighting with what is and just be with it. That includes learning how to be with our resistance to being with what is (that's the tricky part).

Does my dog have a Buddha nature?

2009-09-08T21:53:00.002-05:00

These days my life is full of puppy, with little time for blogging. We named her Ida Pingala Beem: Ida ("ee-da") and Pingala are the Lunar and Solar energy channels of the body. Here's a picture of her in Ida mode.

I would say she does have a Buddha nature, but only for about 5 seconds at a time. Her attention span is so short! Her focus is one-pointed for an instant, and then she's off to sniff-chew-pee-poop. Not that different from most of us, really...

Mindful Congress

2009-08-13T10:57:00.000-05:00

From the Hope for Humanity desk

Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH) asks Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius if she's aware of the tremendous stress-reduction benefits of mindfulness meditation. This is the fundamental solution to the health care crisis - teach people how to stay calm and centered, and stop flushing their bodies with corrosive stress hormones that handicap the immune system.

Of course, sitting down to observe your own mind is much harder than just taking a pill. And it's harder to prescribe, because success depends completely on the patient's effort.
If I were in charge, I would take the money for a couple fancy jets and use it to establish mindfulness meditation / yoga programs in every elementary school. It's much easier to start mindfulness practice when the mind is still young and malleable. Adult minds get so encrusted with habits and beliefs!

How to Listen to Yourself

2009-07-30T12:27:00.000-05:00

A recent article in the New York Times about learning how to listen to your body when exercising. The basic question is how do you know when to push through resistance and when to back off?

As a yoga teacher, the article made me sad because it contains several stories of runners who push through pain and end up seriously injured. A running coach is quoted:

"I never listened to my body,” [Tom Fleming] said. “Maybe I should have. So let’s get that clear right off: I think it’s an impossible task.”

When he was training, Mr. Fleming said, he couldn’t train less or make himself go more slowly. And, he added, if you really listen to your body, you will not achieve what you are capable of.

Athletes need someone else, a coach if possible, he said, to tell them when to rest, when to take an easy day and when to work hard.

There is a feeling of self-hatred here. It's part of the regrettable Western tradition of separating the mind from the body. (Thanks a lot, Descartes!) This attitude is the total opposite of what I hope to teach in my yoga classes. It is ONLY through listening to your body that can you achieve your fully capacity. Of course, I happen to think our full capacity goes far beyond running insane distances.

Asker Jeukendrup, a triathlete and director of the Human Performance Laboratory, has a more refined view:

Listening, he said, means that you are supposed to listen for “valuable information” and learn to disregard “other negative information that may come into your thoughts that is actually irrelevant.”

Dismiss, for example, “some niggles, some feelings of fatigue,” he said.

The goal is to push your body to its limits, but not beyond. Easier said than done, he admitted. And, he added, not everyone can do it.

The key is learning to distinguish between genuine feedback from the body and mental noise. Yes, it takes practice, but there are numerous modalities that develop this very skill: yoga, Feldenkrais, vipassana meditation, Body-Mind Centering, Integral Bodywork.

I don't believe there is anyone who can't learn to listen to their body. The body is always there, trying to communicate. But many modern Americans (like the running coach) are so alienated from their bodies, so driven by their egos' craving for achievement, so trapped in their heads, that their body's non-verbal messages are drowned out. We do have to slow down and quiet down, which may well feel impossible for some (especially runners?)

Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy is one of the most direct routes to reconnecting with the body that I've encountered. Supported postures create sensation, and the dialogue encourages you to listen - again and again - to what those sensations are saying. Simple and profoundly challenging.

When we really start to hear the body, we find that it wants to move. It wants to exercise and eat a healthy diet and feel good. I think our fullest capability is to live in harmony with ourselves and the world, with abundant energy for all our responsibilities. That may not seem as heroic as running a marathon, but it's actually much more challenging!

Alike in Success and Defeat

2009-07-11T16:12:00.000-05:00

I am reading Eknath Easwaran's excellent translation of the Bhagavad Gita. Very clear and lucid, with an amazing introduction that summarizes the path of karma yoga beautifully. I am particularly struck by Chapter 2, verse 47/48:

You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work. You should never engage in action for the sake of reward, nor should you long for inaction. Perform work in this world, Arjuna, as a man established within himself - without selfish attachments, and alike in success and defeat. For yoga is the perfect evenness of mind.

How do we act without concern for the outcome? The Gita is very clear: serve others. Gandhi lived by the Bhagavad Gita. His life is an example of what happens when this teaching is embodied.

What's counterintuitive is that when we become less attached to outcomes and remain peaceful in both success and defeat, we become more motivated and passionate in our efforts to serve. As mental friction decreases, our capacity for work grows. Our minds convince us that worrying about what will happen is essential to our success. But the liberating promise of the Gita is that we can make our best effort, then relax and trust the process. In fact, our best effort is only possible when we detach from the outcome.

Easier said than done!

The Core Debate

2009-07-01T19:57:00.002-05:00

An interesting article in the New York Times about current research that questions the value of popular "core strengthening" exercises that call for the navel to pull towards the spine and the low back to flatten to the floor. These actions emphasize engagement of the deepest layer of abdominal muscle, called the Transverse Abdominus (TA). It suggests that strengthening the TA may be overemphasized, possibly to the detriment of the lumbar spine which is stressed by pressing the low back to the floor.

Not surprisingly, there are many conflicting views on this subject. The comments on the New York Times website are full of personal trainers, chiropractors, and exercise instructors either congratulating themselves for agreeing or disputing the claim with personal anecdote. One comment I especially agreed with:

It just goes to show you that we really don’t any clue what is really going on here. I’ve always been very suspicious of any simplistic medical explanation for back pain, especially those that make a person’s spine out to be some fragile spun-glass armature that is always about to break into a thousand pieces should one encounter a puff of wind. I had severe back pain for years — then I read that Dr. Sarno book, and poof, it was gone, and has never come back, no matter what exercises I do.

Now, my strong back is the backbone of my being. The only thing that “core” training seems to strengthen is the delusional idea of a fragile back. As far as deep weakness go, that concept has it to the core.

The book to which the commenter probably refers is Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection, which asserts that most back pain is actually psychological, and our medical obsession with rupture discs and pinched nerves is misguided. His main evidence is cases where x-rays reveal a disc rupture that should theoretically be causing great pain, yet the patient feels totally fine. It's a compelling book, though it verges on diatribe at times.

Now in my yoga classes, I do teach engagement of the deeper core muscles by drawing the area below the navel towards the spine. I emphasize that this movement is not infinite - just a small movement is sufficient. David Swenson suggests it is less of a contraction than a sense of stillness, and he says the main purpose is to help direct the movement of the breath.

This subtle action is called uddiyana bandha, and while I find it does give physical support to the spine, its original purpose is more energetic than muscular. Bandha means seal or lock, and what's being sealed in is prana. In the Hatha tradition, spiritual awakening is pursued through directing energy into and up the spine. The bandhas assist in that endeavor.

Many yogic lineages also value the development of physical strength in the abdomen, but not for the sake of healing back pain. The abdomen is the seat of fire in the body, and building radiance in the belly helps to"digest" experiences that otherwise get stuck and start to "rot". See my earlier column about Ana Forrest's ab work for more on this.

I would also observe that in the vast universe of yoga postures, there are definitely some that involve rounding the low back and flattening the lumbar curve. I'm thinking of Ardha Navasana, the standing head to knee pose in the Bikram series, and Plow, among others. So I'm skeptical of alarmist statements that flattening the lumbar curve is inherently dangerous. Countless yogis have proven that the spine can safely move into many extreme positions.

What I think is dangerous is any exercise done on autopilot in an aggressive, insensitive way. I see it all the time at the gym. People blasting through a 100 sit-ups, teeth gritting, breath held. The article ends with a quote from Dr. Stuart Mill: “I see too many people who have six-pack abs and a ruined back.” He seems to conclude the problem is with the exercises being done, but I think the obsessive ego that demands a six-pack is just as responsible.

I am interested in learning more about how the Hatha Yoga bandha practices have blended with the Western abdominal exercise traditions. If any readers have insight into this, please add your thoughts in the comments.

Yoga Chemistry

2009-06-19T18:17:00.000-05:00

I've been delinquent in posting recently due to a flurry of life events, including a training with Rod Stryker. He teaches a modern expression of Tantric yoga called ParaYoga, synthesized from his deep studies with Yogiraj Mani Finger and Pandit Tigunait. I find him to be incredibly inspiring, both as a teacher and spiritual seeker. He offered a wealth of new ideas and techniques in the training, some of which I hope to explore through this blog.

One set of concepts from the Tantric and Ayurvedic tradition that I find particularly intriguing are the three vital essences: Prana, Tejas and Ojas. They are described as the spiritual energies of air, fire and water. Success yoga practice can be viewed as a balanced combustion reaction. This can get complicated quickly. One way I think about it: Ojas is the fuel, Prana is the oxygen, and Tejas is the resulting flame. The yogis valued Tejas because it burns up ignorance, thus allowing the brilliance of our true self to shine through. The Sun Salutation honors that inner radiance.

All three elements are necessary for balanced spiritual growth. We overworked, overstimulated moderns tend to be low on Ojas, the vitality that nourishes and supports the functioning of body and mind. (The Chinese equivalent is jing.) It is the essence of food. It is cultivated mainly through diet and herbs, though also through sleep, restorative postures, yoga nidra, loving and receiving love, and time spent in nature.

I think most people have felt a sense of rejuvenation from spending time outdoors. Walking through a quiet forest is a meal, of sorts. From a Tantric viewpoint, this is not metaphorical. We "feed" ourselves in many ways, not just through the mouth. A simple picnic by the lake becomes a feast. From this perspective, environmental degradation is not just a moral or aesthetic tragedy - we're losing a source of vitality that supports our deep well-being.

Gardeners - bon appétit!

PS - For more details, check out some excerpts from David Frawley on Google Books.

What Happens

2009-05-28T10:16:00.003-05:00

Another great bit from Eckhart Tolle. He relays a story about the Indian sage Krishnamurti:

J. Krishnamurti, the great Indian philospher and spiritual teacher, spoke and travelled almost continually all over the world for more than fifty years attempting to convey through words...that which is beyond words. At one of his talks in the later part of his life, he surprised his audience by asking, "Do you want to know my secret?"

Everyone became very alert. Many people in the audience had been coming to listen to him for twenty or thirty years and still failed to grasp the essence of his teaching. Finally, after all these years, the master would give them the key to understanding.

"This is my secret," he said. "I don't mind what happens." (A New Earth, 198)

You can read an account by Jim Dreaver, one of the people present for this teaching, here. He offers another quote from Krishnamurti that helps illuminate this simple but profound statement:

When you live with this awareness, this sensitivity, life has an astonishing way of taking care of you. Then there is no problem of security, of what people say or do not say, and that is the beauty of life.

I ran this by my grandmother, one of the wisest folks I know, and she immediately agreed without needing any further explanation.

Krishnamurti discouraged reliance on spiritual practices, which can easily become another source of ego building. But nevertheless, I find that meditating on the breath is a very direct way to practice this "don't mind" attitude (equanimity might be a synonym.) The breath is long, then it's short. It's easy, then it's difficult. You're alert, then you're sleepy. You're peaceful, then you're agitated and angry. The practice is to keep going, regardless. Not minding what happens.

There comes a point in one's meditation practice when you get so fed up with your monkey mind that you just give up. You stop trying to focus, to sit still, to do it right... and suddenly the mind gets quiet and concentrated. I think this may be one of the core lessons we humans are supposed to learn before graduation. Paradoxically, when we give up trying to "make something happen", that's when it happens. But we're so programmed to believe that the only way to succeed is through working harder, staying vigilant, pushing through.

Sages from across time and space have the same message for us: surrender to what is true, and the rest will work itself out. Meditation shows this to be true first hand. What a relief! What a blessing!

(As a side note, Tenzin Palmo made a great comment about Krishnamurti when I saw her speak in Dharamsala. To paraphrase: "I love Krishnamurti but he's very naughty. He's like a baker that tells you in great detail about the wonders of fresh baked bread, but then refuses to give you instructions for making the bread.")

The False and the Real

2009-05-16T18:54:00.003-05:00

I've recently been listening to Eckart Tolle's A New Earth as an audio book. Something about his quirky German accent makes the words more resonant than when I read them on a page. His voice conveys his realization. It's remarkable he's had such success, appearing on Oprah and what not. He's telling people to abandon their search for meaning through possessions or accomplishments, to transcend their egos... not exactly mainstream.

I was particularly struck by this line: "Recognition of the false is the arising of the real."

When we find ourselves getting caught up in our ego's story line - "He insulted me! I'm innocent. How could he think that!" - with that very act of awareness, we step into the present moment. The only thing that is real. (The meaning of "real" could be further debated, of course).

I take comfort in this insight. Often, when I realize that I've gotten caught in some negative thought cycle - "Low class numbers today. I'll never make it as a yoga teacher. Who am I kidding? I should just go to law school." - I end up laying on another layer of judgment - "How could I think that? If I have so much doubt, maybe I'm really not meant to be a yoga teacher. I wouldn't doubt myself so much if it was my true calling..." Because I identify myself as a "meditator" and "yoga teacher", I feel like a spiritual failure when I realize my thoughts are as worldly as ever.

But, as Tolle points out, the act of recognition is perfect in itself. No further justification or analysis is required. If anything, I should celebrate my ability to recognize myself getting caught up in thinking. What a relief! Meditation is not some heroic prohibition of thinking, but the repeated discovery that the Real Self is something much larger than our thoughts.

Seeking Satisfaction, or, My Italian Vacation

2009-05-07T12:34:00.009-05:00

Italy, the land of pleasure: vistas, beautiful art, and of course, fabulous food and wine. Lela and I had two weeks to indulge every desire. It was more pure vacation that we've taken in years (we did a 10-day meditation retreat on our honeymoon). It was a blessed, bountiful two weeks that proved once again that no sum of pleasures can ever totally eradicate dukkha - the pervasive residue of dissatisfaction that accompanies all experience, first articulated by the Buddha.

The river of delicious bread, pasta, meat and cheese leads to overeating, dulled senses and constipation. Then regret over the bill. $10 for that tiny salad! The next night I order less food, but it's too little, and I regret not ordering what the next table is eating. We finish dinner quickly and have nothing to do but watch TV because the quaint hilltop village is dead at night. Our hotel room is freezing cold because the building is made of stone. Worry that we picked the wrong place to stay, but now it's too much of a hassle to change...

When pleasure-seeking is the only motive, it easily becomes a "job" that I have to "do right". I must pick the best restaurant, the best museum, the best wine. The mind can make anything into a burden.

After time in Rome and Assisi, we moved to the Cinque Terre, a quintet of absurdly picturesque villages along the Tyrrhenian Sea. We spent a couple days hiking between towns, up and down hillsides covered in vineyards and olive trees. It felt wonderful to use my legs again, to make effort, to sweat. My senses became sharper, my appetite revived. The meals that followed were some of the best of the whole trip.

In recent self-inquiry, I have noticed my tendency to view pleasure as something that has to be earned. For example, a cookie earned as a reward for the completion of some unpleasant task, like homework. There is a subtle self-violence here, a sense that I'm basically not worthy of enjoying life unless I've done something to deserve it. Perhaps it goes back to my Puritan ancestors insisting that leisure is sinful.

But my time hiking the Italian coast showed me a different perspective, which is much more pragmatic: pleasure is experienced more fully when balanced by effort/work/challenge. As the Buddha discovered, a Middle Way between indulgence and austerity is the most skillful path.

I see this dynamic at play in my home yoga practice. It is when I hold myself over the fire a bit - staying in Warrior 3 for 5 more breaths than usual - that I experience the sweetest relaxation at the end of the practice. There must be some neuroscience to back this up - a connection between the challenge and reward circuitry of the brain.

Of course, there is a risk of becoming dependent on challenge in order to feel satisfied. There is also great value in exploring what is simple, familiar and mundane. For some asana junkies, the greatest challenge may actually be to slow down and really experience Triangle Pose, rather than always pursuing the next, crazy arm balance.

That's Not Yogic

2009-04-24T09:00:00.002-05:00

I was talking with a yoga teacher the other day who lamented that some students were making negative comments about her class - a hybrid of tai chi, yoga and pilates - without ever trying the class. She lamented, "Aren't yoga people supposed to be open-minded?" I can sympathize. When I first started teaching, I also expected all my students and colleagues to behave in a serene, compassionate manner. What could be easier than working with yogis? This fantasy was quickly dispelled by the reality of the yoga business, which like any business, indeed like anything involving humans, has its share of delusion, greed, and spite.

Why do we expect people who take yoga classes to behave in a more enlightened way than others? Certainly the traditional practice of yoga emphasizes moral behavior. The Yamas and Niymasa are 10 guidelines for living in a way conducive to spiritual development. The ethics of yoga has much in common with the ethics of Western religion: don't harm, don't steal, don't lie, don't abuse sexual energy, don't cling to things. Gandhi is perhaps the best-known example here in America. Classically, yogis were expected to cultivate these precepts as a prerequisite to further training in postures, breathing or meditation.

But that's not true in the West. Yoga students just sign a liability waiver, not a vow to be vegetarian. Some teachers may mention the Yamas and Niyamas (I do occasionally), but it is not the foundation of yoga practice in the West. So why would we expect students to be particularly virtuous? There is nothing inherent in Downward Dog that makes the brain less prone to judgment and gossip. A butt-kicking sweat-fest may leave me feeling peaceful and open to the universe, but that wears off in traffic. I think this wishful expectation that yoga students will be more enlightened points to a deep longing for practices that help us grow beyond our selfish impulses. Unfortunately, these practices take more commitment than one class a week.

I've also heard students criticize a studio's efforts to make money - through selling merchandise, or enforcing package expiration dates - as "not yogic". Behind this statement I hear the suggestion that "being yogic" means never setting boundaries, always doing what other people want. The original yoga "studios" are the ashrams of India, and they are generally "free"... if you are willing to renounce worldly things, serve the guru, and devote your whole life to practice. They have many more rules than class packages expiring after 6 months. Ashrams survive through donations from devotees. And some of them do charge - at least they ask visiting Westerners to pay for room and board.

But that's not the system we have in the West, and I'm glad. Now that teaching yoga is (sometimes) financially viable career, it has spread far and wide. (You can read my extended rumination on this subject on my website.) Running a profitable yoga studio is HARD to do, and if selling chic yoga pants helps keep the doors open, then so be it. Gandhi may have been austere, but he was also very practical. That said, I find modern corruptions such as Yoga Booty Ballet to be quite disheartening...

The danger is that the practical demands of paying rent may overwhelm the integrity of the yoga tradition. If profit beomes the only criteria for success in American yoga, then we're in trouble. If the goal is more and more students, teachers are tempted to start teaching what is popular rather than what is beneficial or safe. I see this dynamic at work in some Intermediate Vinyasa classes, where the music is pumping and the postures are fast and relentless. It can be great fun to "lose yourself" in the sweat and flow, and you leave feeling wrung out.

The problem is that many students jump right into Intermediate classes and never learn safe alignment. Who wants to admit they're a Beginner, after all? The flow classes move too fast for the teacher to offer much instruction. Injury follows. Habits of restlessness and impatience are amplified. The mind is calmed through exhaustion.

I fell in love with yoga in a vinyasa class. Fresh out of teacher training, I figured I would try to recreate what I experienced. Plus the most successful teachers on the North Shore seemed to be teaching vinyasa. I wanted to be successful like them!

The more I taught, the more I saw students in Intermediate classes doing horrifying things with their shoulders and knees. My conscience demanded that I slow down, go back over the basics that many had skipped. I started to teach more mindfulness in my classes, asking students to examine their urges to always move fast, push hard, do more. Some students really resonated with this approach, but others did not. They wanted to sweat and move, no stop and observe. Gradually, my numbers declined. Studio owners politely asked me to either "try something different" or give up my prime morning time slots.

At first this was a tremendous blow to my ego. Why doesn't everyone recognize my genius? I believed that being a successful yoga teacher meant having big 9:30am flow classes. But it wasn't working for me. Many self-doubting thoughts ensued. What if I'm just not meant to be a yoga teacher? The minutes before class became agonizing, waiting to see if students would come. My sense of self-worth swung on class numbers. Lots of attachement; not yogic!

Four years into teaching, I still feel anxiety over class numbers, but it's less now. What changed? I let go of my morning Intermediate classes. I received many Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy sessions and started to trust myself more. I accepted that my style of yoga is not for everyone. I am practicing the "yoga of teaching yoga". Viewed in this way, the mixture of yoga and business is not fundamentally tainted. It is simply another (very challenging) realm in which to cultivate self-awareness.

Yoga Therapy in the News

2009-04-17T13:00:00.003-05:00

A great article in Time about yoga therapy , including a well-worded mention of Phoenix Rising:

A Phoenix Rising yoga therapist puts clients in assisted yoga postures and does a kind of "verbal exploration" of the present moment. The yoga therapist acts as a witness to clients' exploration, with empathy and positive regard for their experience.

Not sure why "verbal exploration" has to be in quotes... that's exactly what it is.

This is just the beginning of the coming wave of interest in body-mind therapy. I predict/hope that in the future, we'll look back at talk-only psychotherapy and express amazement that we once thought the mind could be treated in isolation from the body.

Yoga in the White House

2009-04-17T12:53:00.003-05:00

A momentous day - there is yoga in the White House:

The Obama family includes numerous yoga enthusiasts, according to People Magazine. Yoga practice is reputed to be one of the ways First Lady Michelle Obama got her famous arms. Her 71 year-old mother, Marian Robinson, is a longtime yoga practitioner. First daughters Sasha and Malia do yoga with their mother, grandmother, and godmother Eleanor Wilson-often led by Wilson's younger brother, yoga instructor Stephen Shields.

Further confirmation that we picked the right president. If only the media would fixate on Michelle's yoga practice more than her fashion choices... what pose is the First Lady doing today?

The Inside Story on Knees

2009-04-10T10:49:00.004-05:00

The theme in my classes this week is the knee joint, by itself and in relation to the foot and hip. I've been contemplating the psychological correlate of the knee. Our connection to our feet, for example, relates to how grounded we feel in our lives. But what about knees? There is something elusive about the knee - it doesn't "feel" much of anything except when it suddenly starts hurting. It's an intermediary, the site of transition between sitting and standing and walking. It's rare that we even notice them.

Yoga is fairly obsessed with the knee, especially keeping it in alignment over the foot, and keeping it supported with muscle rather than hanging into ligament. Most alignment cues in yoga class refer to external landmarks - usually the knee cap tracking down the center line of the foot. But I think it is useful to learn to align the knee from within.

The knee doesn't have many nerves within the joint itself, but it is possible to feel a subtle sense of pressure where the end of the thigh bone (femur) meets the top of the shin bone (tibia). The femur ends in two rounded knobs that roll over the top of the tibia, somewhat like a rocking chair. When weight travels through the knee joint, it can therefore rest more to the inside or outside of the knee joint. You can tune into this internal structure by coming into a lunge position and gentle rocking your front knee back and forth, moving weight between inner heel and outer heel. Focus on the feeling in the knee, a sense of pressure moving between inner knee and outer knee. Try to keep the sensation in the joint, not pressing into sharper sensation that come from the tendons stretching across the outside of the joint.

The more you can feel when weight is centered in your knee, the less you'll need to look at the knee when you enter a weight-bearing pose such as Warrior 2. In Triangle, you can fine tune your muscular effort to guide pressure through the center of the knee rather than sagging into the tendons on the back of the knee. And outside of yoga, this increased sensitivity will help you walk and run in a more knee-friendly way. I've found working on an elliptical machine, with feet fixed in the foot pads, is a really useful way to practice tracking the knees symmetrically.

Of course, the alignment of the knees is only part of the picture. Forcing the knees into a different position without also adjusting the action in the feet and hips may create more strain than before.

Footsie

2009-04-03T14:34:00.003-05:00

I'm going to teach my way through the body over the next month or two, focusing on a different part of the body each week. Starting from the bottom, I'm exploring feet this week.

This theme was inspired, in part, by an article by Maty Ezraty in the latest Yoga Journal. Writing about the feet in Warrior 3, she cues "Ground deeply down into the big-toe mound, the outer edge of the left foot, and the inner heel." Seems simple enough. What struck me was her reference to the "outer edge" of the foot, rather than the outer "corners" of the foot.

I was trained at Kripalu to use a "4 point" model of the foot, compared to a car resting evenly on all four tires. In my own experience, I found a "3 point" model more accessible: heel, big toe base, little toe base. That's what I've been teaching for years. But it's never felt totally settled to me - I knew there was more to discover about the foot foundation.

Something clicked when I read Maty Ezraty's cue of "outer edge". When I stand with awareness not just of points, but an entire edge of fleshy contact, suddenly the pose feels totally different. I feel more relaxed, more effortlessly grounded, more stable. It feels more aligned with reality. After all, the foot isn't just a set of points.

I find it fascinating that a shift in language (and by extension, one's mental model of the body) can have such a immediate affect on physical experience. This is the whole premise of Body Mapping, an extension of the Alexander technique that uses anatomy education to change movement patterns. It's also a strong argument for yoga teachers to cultivate a rich vocabulary and employ it with care.

I intend to write more on the subject of yoga linguistics in the future.

Zen and the Art of Poor Word Choice

2009-04-01T19:06:00.005-05:00

Found my way to this USA Today article (not my regular news source, I swear) about Donna Karan's new grant to Beth Israel hospital to provide cancer patients with:

'integrative therapists,' [that] teach easy yoga poses and breathing techniques, most of which are done in bed and are designed to help ease patient discomfort from surgeries, treatments and anxiety. They also offer patients meditative tapes during treatments, help them access all levels of care and reach out to family members.

Now I think this is a great idea and very admirable. A local teacher named Susan Ginsberg is doing a similar thing - albeit on a more modest scale - here on the North Shore. What spurred this blog post is Karan's name for her project: the Urban Zen Initiative.

Now I put on my cranky old man hat. Zen is a school of Buddhism, and the word basically means "meditation". By what stretch of the imagination is Donna Karan's undertaking - noble as it may be - a "Zen initiative"? Does it involve Buddhists? No, it's mostly yoga teachers. Does it emphasize seated meditation and direct insight into the nature of things? No. As far as I can tell, the only connection to Zen is the aesthetic of the website.

This misuse of the word "Zen" is just one drop in a sea of linguistic misappropriation currently washing through our consumer culture. Seeking to add a tint of spiritual appeal to their products, a sense of calm and Eastern cool, marketers add the word Zen to bath soap, mp3 players, kitchen appliances, spa treatments, etc. I have a profound respect for Zen practice, and part of me takes offense at the ignorant misuse of the term. I doubt Donna Karan would think to name her non-Christian project the "Urban Christ Initiative".

Perhaps it all began with "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", an insightful book only tangentially related to real Zen practice. Now publishers shamelessly use the template of "Zen and the Art of" for any conceivable undertaking: whittling, information security, competitive eating.

But from the perspective of Zen philosophy, it is in some ways very fitting that the word "Zen" should be so distorted. Zen is very suspicious of language, the way words seem to be transparently meaningful yet in fact contain irreducible uncertainty (predating the postmodern interrogations of Derrida et al by many centuries). Zen warns against getting trapped in the idea of "being a Zen practitioner", which builds the ego and leads to complacency. So perhaps it is for the best that the word "Zen" be thoroughly drained of exotic meaning, so we can get on with the experience of Zen.

PS - For a true example of a Zen initiative, consider the National Buddhist Prison Sangha.

PPS - A good use of the word Zen: describing Obama.

Music Meditation

2009-03-23T16:47:00.002-05:00

Sitting at the Evanston Symphony yesterday afternoon, after a day of teaching yoga, I was once struck by how listening to music can be a very enjoyable kind of meditation. Rather than listening in order to "understand" the music, I simply allow the sound to flow past, each note and shifting timbre heard clearly then released as the next note arrives. Like any meditation, the mind wanders off, thinking "Aren't I so sophisticated for liking classical music?" or "I should buy a high-end speaker system" or "What's for dinner?" But then a sudden shift in volume or rhythm naturally calls attention back. It's a practice of "not too tight, not too loose". The mind can't be so fixated on the music that it becomes rigid or exhausted, nor so expansive that it gets lost in reverie. The meditation lasts as long as a single piece, or may continue after the music finishes, listening to the more subtle, ambient soundscape.

I find this manner of listening makes classical music much more engaging and pleasurable, in contrast to my previous attempts to appreciate through analyzing the structure in my "Intro to Western Music" in college. Trying to "figure out" the music got my intellect all stirred up, and I would miss the sensual experience.

The website Pandora is a great resource for listening meditation material. You have to register, but it's well worth it. Check out a few of my stations: Romantic Classical and Instrumental Bluegrass.

Growth/Recession

2009-03-16T18:11:00.004-05:00

I've been in a Daoist mood recently, practicing some chi kung (Daoist energetic cultivation) and doing some reading. Pulling the Tao Te Ching off my parents' book shelf was my first encounter with Eastern philosophy (thanks parents!), and even before that I found myself inexplicably drawn to the yin-yang symbol. Perhaps I was a sage in a past life...

I find the philosophy of yin-yang compelling, elegant, and useful. It offers a way to understand the nature of dualities - light and dark, expansion and contraction, heat and cold - and how they interact within and without. One of the main principles is that when something is taken to an extreme, it transforms into its opposite. For example, hard physical labor requires rest. Cold weather produces a fever. Rapid movement often comes to a crashing halt.

As the recession continues, and the populace cries out "How could this happen?", the Daoist is not surprised. The economy had reached such an extreme state - trillions of dollars in CDO's based on a mathematical fantasy, hyperinflated real estate prices, endless consumption supported by endless debt - it was inevitable that Nature would balance herself out. When the Yang Bull is over-leveraged, it turns into the Yin Bear. In retrospect, to think that our economy could continue to grow forever was akin to thinking summer would never turn into winter.

Our economy has become so disconnected from Nature. When everything is reduced to numbers/screens/images/words, it's easy to forget material reality (exhibit A: climate change). Now as our economy flips from one extreme to the other, many are forced to confront the inconveniently physical needs of the body: food, shelter, healthcare.

But in this return (recession) to the material basis of things, there is great opportunity to create new patterns. Our actual needs are quite small, no matter what advertisers may tell us. I am hopeful that this time of anxiety and uncertainly will inspire us to collectively and individually seek balance, rather than just a return to previous extremes. The Dao guarantees that this time of recession will once again transform into growth, but if we try to return to how things were just a few years ago, the yo-yo effect will continue. The Middle Way may not be as exciting, but it's a lot more peaceful.

To close, a related quote from the latest issue of Yoga Chicago, by Swami Kriyananda:

"All that is needed to break free from past karma is to learn the lesson of this lifetime: to master the mind's infatuation and obsession with excitement."

(To read a entertaining, accessible, but accurate translation of the Tao te Ching, follow this link.)

What is mindfulness practice?

2009-03-06T17:47:00.002-06:00

Interesting blog post by New York Times Judith Warner about Buddhist mindfulness practice, and how it gets (mis)interpreted in the West as becoming bland/blank/boring/fake. I agree with some of the comments much more than the author, especially commenter #11: "What I care about is simply letting my honest reactions come out as they arise in the moment, each moment, and discovering who I am as an unfolding story in my life instead of a scripting part in my head. I hope this is making sense."

The Emotional Brain

2009-03-05T14:31:00.004-06:00

Great 20-minute interview with science writer Jonah Lehrer about the role of emotions in decision-making.

Current neuro research suggests that different parts of our brain/nervous system have different responses to the same situations, and they all argue their position before the integrating intelligence in the front of the brain. For example, faced with the decision to buy dessert: one part of the brain campaigns for the pleasure, another worries about excessive calories, another fears the expenditure of money, another will wax poetic about all previous desserts, etc. A decision emerges from the summation of all these parts, perhaps with a hint of free will thrown in...

Some of these parts don't express themselves in language, but rather through emotion. (One intriguing interpretation of emotions is as an information-processing system that precedes the evolution of language and big, fancy nervous systems.) Lehrer suggests that our "emotional brain" offers valuable information that we do well not to ignore. He discusses a study of individuals with brain injuries that prevent them from feeling emotion. Rather than becoming Spock-like intellectual heros, they end up having a terrible time making even simple decisions, such as whether to use a red or blue pen. The Western worship of rational thinking may be misguided. Just look at Captain Kirk.

All of this makes a lot of sense to me, given what I've experienced in giving and receiving Phoenix Rising yoga therapy sessions. The process of turning attention towards sensation, towards emotion, towards shadowy parts, uncovers a wealth of inner information that transforms sterile thought into potent, embodied insight. For this reason, Phoenix Rising is a great tool for making difficult decisions or life transitions.

Sick Thoughts

2009-02-25T18:00:00.005-06:00

I've been sick for the past week, finally well enough today that I can organize my thoughts for a blog post. I haven't been this sick in years: coughing like crazy, random fever, headache, sore throat, stuffed ears. A few observations:

I normally have a harmonious relationship with my body. But when sick, I was dismayed to see how quickly my mind turned against my body: "Why can't you just get better! Just stop coughing!" The body starts to feel like a burden, a malfunctioning machine, with the mind as the distressed driver. Why is this car overheating? Who is in control? The body becomes something "other".
All the lovely holistic ideas about sickness being a "state of mind", that the mind can visualize its way to health, are quickly challenged by the blunt somatic reality of being sick. It's hard to believe that something as weightless as a thought could affect the heavy, material body. The mind seems helpless, it's voice muffled by the thick sensory experience of discomfort.
Being sick forces mind into the body. It makes the body the center of attention. No matter how hard I try to distract myself with movies and video games, the sore throat will assert its presence over and over again. Living more as a body, my personality changes. I'm less interested in ideas, in reading blogs, in joking with my wife. I'm less mindful of my actions. It's good evidence for the impermanence of self.
Being incapacitated by illness reveals my usually-unconscious need to always be Doing Something Useful. Feelings of guilt arise that I'm just "wasting my time" as I play a game on my iPhone. Of course, I don't have the energy or focus to do anything else. But my Overachiever still can't stop cracking the whip. So I industriously consume different herbal teas and elixirs, so at least I feel like I'm Doing Something.
I think of the story of the Buddha, whose quest for enlightenment began when he snuck out of his palace and saw a sick man. But it could just as well be that he himself became sick. There is something about illness that inspires contemplation. How much control do I really have over my life, if I can just be struck down by illness at any time? If a young yoga teacher can get sick for a week... there's no magic posture/formula/diet that will keep us healthy forever. Illness is a glimpse of mortality, the vulnerability of the body, and it is sobering. Safety is an illusion. What can we do? The Buddha's basic answer: surrender. Stop resisting the impermanence of things. Paradoxically, when we open to things as they are, in each moment, we are totally safe.

But now, how beautiful it is to walk by the lake in the warm air!

Pose Poetry

2009-02-18T16:40:00.003-06:00

In the Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy training which I just recently finished (hooray!), one of our assignments was to explore the "metaphysical elements" of common yoga poses. My method was to spend several minutes in each pose, observing the sensations, images and words that arose within me. Coming out of the pose, I would immediately start writing stream-of-consciousness poetry. After the practice, I went back over the poems and cleaned them up a bit. Here are two I particularly liked. I am intrigued by the ways the body can be a source of creativity, and may one day put together a workshop on the topic.

Plow / Halasana

follow the golden spiral
into the galactic center
snail shell taut and soft
insistent push into earth
winding the spring tighter

lotus curling closed
hide the jewel
block out the noise
private counsel
listen for that sweet voice
singing flame flickering unseen
painting light on lantern pains
whispers of inner mysteries
for your eyes only

Knee Down Twist / Supta Matsyendrasana

dragon's repose
tired of the clouds
laying long on moist earth
basking

light and dark
bleeding into center
mixing spinal spiral
ah! this life!

weapons surrendered
edges softened by rain river moss
may these bones be swallowed up!
a forest from my corpse
white stones in moonlight
a dragon's repose

Meditation in the Media

2009-01-26T16:51:00.002-06:00

A short piece in the Tribune about a fidgety person who tries mindfulness meditation for the first time. She has a great experience, but that's not always the case with first attempts at meditation. She sits for 30 minutes straight, which is NOT what I recommend for first-timers. I wonder if she glossed over some of the difficult moments to make the story seem neater...

Why Meditate? v2

2009-01-22T11:29:00.002-06:00

When I'm asked to give a reason for meditation, I often falter, because it's a practice that explores territory beyond language. But a few points to consider (all with a healthy amount of salt):

Focus Up! Concentration improves. You can finish writing an email without getting distracted by a blog. You do less multitasking, and efficiency increases. The mind stays calm because it's only doing one thing at a time.

Live Vividly: As awareness becomes more steady and subtle, you're more able to appreciate a moment - a fine meal, quiet afternoon sunlight, a moment of intimacy - because you don't get caught up in analyzing, worrying that it will end, wishing it was different. You enter the experience fully, taste the subtle flavors, and then watch it fade away without clinging. If you do start to think about something else ("this yoga class is good, but what will I have for lunch?"), you more quickly recognize what you're doing, let go of the thought, and bring your focus back to what's actually happening. As a result, you experience more of your life. In a sense, you live a longer life, because you're aware of more moments.

An Open Hand: Your "letting go" muscles get stronger. As you learn to sit and just let sensations and thoughts roll by, you become less reactive. Thoughts become less powerful. It's easier to sit in aggravating, stop-and-go traffic without getting irritated. It's still annoying, but it doesn't cascade into a raging inner monologue full of evil thoughts about other drivers. Negative thoughts can be like mosquito bites. If you don't scratch at them, they don't last very long.

Who Am I? You study yourself in the most direct way possible. You watch your mind at work. You see how your the mind filters experience to match your expectations. You see how these filters can make you blind to what's really happening, and can lead you to make self-harming decisions. You realize that you have a choice about what thoughts and feelings you will amplify, and which you will let go and therefore diminish.

Open the Doors of Perception: We have so many ways of experiencing the world besides our usual linear/rational/self-involved mode. Meditation loosens the dominance of the thinking mind, allowing us to explore and cultivate others qualities of mind: creativity, proprioception, intuition, lovingkindness, deep listening, humor, improvisation, deep rest. Why not develop our full multi-dimensional potential?

Being Here Now: We come home to the present moment. Nothing to be done in the future. No worry about what happened in the past. It is a profound relief to rest attention in the present moment. The deepest tension of all - our struggle to stop things from changing, to make things different than they are - has a chance to relax. We develop a sense of contentment with life as it is

Satisfaction: After enough time watching the mind pursue pleasure, obtain the object of desire, then immediately want more, it starts to dawn on us that "more" may not be the path to happiness. More money, more security, more love, more sensory pleasure... none of these will ultimately satisfy. The awareness that we cultivate in meditation allows us to see this truth first hand. Gradually, desires start to lose their potency. They become less able to pull us off center. When pleasure does come, we can appreciate it without getting attached and therefore inevitably disappointed when it ends. Simply to be alive, to be awake, becomes a source of great satisfaction. What more could be added?

Updated January 22, 2009.

First Yogi in Chief

2009-01-20T17:25:00.004-06:00

Such a brilliant, poetic speech. Finally, a president who honors language! Who embodies the calm, centered, disciplined life pursued by yogis and meditators. One line really struck me:

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends -- hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism -- these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths.

These same values (except patriotism) are part of the yogic path. Especially tolerance and curiosity. To walk the spiritual path required tremendous tolerance for uncertainty, discomfort, dark emotions, hard truths. And to stay curious, mindful, open to new insights, constantly striving to go beyond rigid concepts and see how things really are.

President Obama will be known not only for his remarkable accomplishments, but also for his way of being in the world. Whether or not we agree with his policies, his serene presence is an inspiration for us all.

After seeing Bush fly off in the helicopter, I feel calmer already.

Yoga in Prison

2009-01-05T17:23:00.002-06:00

Inmates in a South African prison are doing yoga. It just works!

meditation poem

2009-01-05T10:13:00.001-06:00

saying yes
this is so
the whole mess

dancing through the cosmos
stainless and insubstantial
upon this patient earth

Waves of Practice

2009-01-05T09:11:00.003-06:00

Recently I've had the same conversation with several students. "My practice has really fallen away, I got distracted by other things, but I want to get back to it in January." There's perhaps a slight trace of guilt in their voices, a sense that they should be practicing regularly or else all is lost. But I have found, in my own experience, that there is a natural cycle of increasing/decreasing regularity in practice. As one student pointed out: "That's how Nature works." How could we be any different? We are not linear creatures. It is natural for commitment to wax and wane, as natural as the cycles of the moon.

For me, the amplitude of the wave has decreased over time. The fluctuations have become smaller. Roughly 10 years into my engagement with spiritual practice, I am just now getting to the point where I practice (more or less) every day. But still, the length of practice and the intensity varies from day to day.

So if January finds you on an upward swing of practice, ride it out as long as you can. Notice when resistance or distraction arises, as it inevitably does. By all means, intend to practice consistently. But if you do find yourself slowing down, priorities shifting, don't waste energy chastising yourself. It's only Nature. Trust that a new cycle will begin again, when the time is right.

Learning to Listen

2008-11-25T16:43:00.007-06:00

As my training in Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy progresses, my ability to listen to myself deepens. I find that when faced with a difficult decision that stumps my intellect, there is a knowing voice within me that cries out the answer. It has always been there, but I used to discount it as just wishful thinking, my imagination, or bad habit disguised as intuition.

Those voices exist, too. But now I've started to know the difference. As part of my training, I've received many Phoenix Rising sessions and done a lot of self-reflection through journaling, making art, authentic movement. I've come to know the different characters in my inner troupe: the King, the Honor Student, the Golden Yogi, the Bad Boy (and many more). I am starting to recognize who is present when I react, usually by noticing how I feel in my body.

No, this isn't multiple-personality disorder! There's mounting scientific evidence that "within each brain, different selves are continually popping in and out of existence -- bargaining with, deceiving, and plotting against one another." That quote is from a great article in The Atlantic called "First Person Plural" that discusses this view of the self as multiple.

Not mentioned in the article, but experientially discoverable, is the presence of one voice within us that speaks Truth. The yogis identified this as the Self or Atman - unique among the lower-case "s" selves. It can also be called intuition. Slowly, I am learning to hear and trust this voice. My intention when giving a Phoenix Rising session is to let my intuition guide me in choosing my words and postures. To listen with my whole body and mind. To respond to whatever is happening on the mat, rather than analyze what should or shouldn't happen.

The experience of receiving a Phoenix Rising session is also one of listening. The practitioner is there as an amplifier for the client's experience - not adding anything. The dialogue is designed to help the client hear themselves more clearly. To open to the rich stream of information constantly flowing in from the body, the emotions, the subconscious mind. Therapeutic results arise when a voice that has been silenced is finally heard. Beyond any specific insights, to do Phoenix Rising work is to practice a skill - listening to yourself - that can be applied everywhere. As our inner ears grow sharper, even the most mundane moment of life become fertile soil for insight and growth.

David Foster Wallace on Life and Work

2008-11-03T18:14:00.003-06:00

A friend just passed along a link to this article by David Foster Wallace. A compelling argument for cultivating awareness, expressed in plain English. Some excerpts to tantalize:

Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal-arts cliché about "teaching you how to think" is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: "Learning how to think" really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.

And I submit that this is what the real, no-bull- value of your liberal-arts education is supposed to be about: How to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default-setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone, day in and day out.

My liberal-arts education didn't teach me much about controlling my mind. If anything, all the books and papers only strengthened the existing mental habits: overachiever, intellectual, analyzing everything. It was the Zen sitting group, the yoga classes, the psychedelics, new love, swimming in the Atlantic ocean, that really showed me new ways of relating to my mind. Wallace is getting at the basic premise of Buddhism here: depending on what you pay attention to and how you construct meaning, you can either create suffering or end suffering. It's a matter of how we train our minds. Meditation and yoga are time-tested systems for this vital training.

The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race" -- the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.

David Foster Wallace was recently found dead - probably suicide. How tragic that a man with such insight into the mind was ultimately devoured by it.

Chaotic as a Muddy Torrent

2008-10-31T12:14:00.002-05:00

I'm riffing on a quote from The Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu in class this week:

The sage is as alert as a person crossing a winter stream;
as circumspect as a person with neighbors on all four sides;
as respectful as a thoughtful guest;
as yielding as melting ice;
as simple as uncarved wood;
as open as a valley;
as chaotic as a muddy torrent.

Why "chaotic as a muddy torrent"?
Because clarity is learned by being patient in the presence of chaos.
Tolerating disarray, remaining at rest, gradually one learns to allow muddy water
to settle and proper responses to reveal themselves.

This translation definitely takes some interpretive liberties, but I like how it values chaos as a positive quality. The sage does not fight against disarray, trying to impose order on a chaotic world. Instead, he is patient, relaxing into the turbulent stream of experience and waiting for "proper responses to reveal themselves". I appreciate the Taoist confidence that right action will arise of its own, if only we give it space. It is a soothing antidote to the Western workaholic conviction that hard work is the only way to things get done.

Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy follows this principle. When a muddy torrent of emotion or memory arises, the therapist does not interfere or try to redirect. He simply provides a patient presence that helps the client remain connected to her body and open to the flow of experience. The meaning (and perhaps resolution) will arise of itself. The more sessions I receive, the more I trust that understanding will come without deliberate analytic dissection. It is a great relief! I can be more simple and open, yet still find the "proper response".

The swirling clouds of economic recession and presidential drama offer many chances to practice Lao Tsu's suggestions. But it is difficult to change our habitual reactions in the midst of our daily life. Yoga class offers a refuge where we can cultivate new ways of being - patience in the presence of chaos. The clarity required by a difficult balancing pose stays with us as we navigate our lives. Breath by breath, it becomes easier to surf the muddy torrent.

Notes from class on Ishvara Pranidhana

2008-10-02T22:50:00.003-05:00

Niyama #5 – Ishvara Pranidhana / surrender to the divine

From devotion to the Lord, one is given perfect absorption in Spirit (samadhi).

Yoga Sutras, II:46

In samadhi there is no longer distinction between the person who sees and what is being seen. In samadhi, the separation between ourselves and the universe dissolves. This is what it means to surrender to God... If you are alienated by the God of your childhood, try coming up with another God.

Rolf Gates

The spiritual impulse that compels us to seek enlightenment is that same original intention that has been driving the evolutionary process from the very beginning of the universe.

Andrew Cohen

For [early yogis], the whole world was seen as a vast net woven together in space and time – not unlike our notion of the quantum field. This was called Indra's Net, and at the intersection of each warp strand and woof strand of this net is a jewel. This jewel represents an individual human soul. And it is that soul's duty... to hold together its particular part of the web by being its own unique jewel-like self. In this way, the whole universe holds together as one great interlocking field.

Stephen Cope

As long as we are engrossed in our own needs, in “I” and “mine” we will remain insecure... Cultivating surrender and devotion replaces such self-preoccupation with a sense of our connection that sustains this entire universe. A sense of devotion and surrender opens us to experiences of being nurtured. We also learn that we have the capacity to become instruments of higher consciousness, serving and giving what we can to help others in their own awakening.

Swami Ajaya (Alan Weinstock)

Allow yourself to yield, and you can stay centered.

Allow yourself to bend, and you will stay straight.

Allow yourself to be empty, and you'll get filled up.

Allow yourself to be exhausted, and you'll be renewed.

Having little, you can receive much.

Having much, you'll just become confused.

“Yield and you can stay centered” --

Is this saying meaningless?

Stay whole, and all things return to you.

The Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu, verse 22, translation by Brian Browne Walker

Notes from class on Swadhyaya

2008-10-02T22:48:00.003-05:00

Niyama #4 – Swadhyaya / self-study through reading scripture and self-inquiry

According to Swami Kripalu, the highest form of self-study is “self-observation without judgement”. This type of awareness is often called The Witness.

From The Quest for the True Self by Stephen Cope:

The witness does not choose for or against any aspect of reality.
The witness does not censor life.
Witnessing is a whole body experience.
Witness Consciousness is always present at least in its potential form in every human being at every moment.
The witness is capable of standing completely still, even in the center of the whirlwind of sensations, thoughts, feeling, fantasies – even in serious mental and physical illness.
The witness goes everywhere.

The Self dwells in me as pure witness consciousness, in equilibrium, without form, and without the divisions of time and space.

Yoga Vashista

To study the Buddha Way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self, and to forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things.

Zen Master Dogen

There are many models to describe “who we are”. This illustration from The Kripalu Yoga Experience by Richard Faulds summarizes one view from the yoga tradition. There are many more, each reflecting the truth of things in a different way.

Some other book recommendations to get you started:

A Gradual Awakening by Stephan Levine

An elegant, straight-forward introduction to Buddhist philosophy and practice.

Romancing the Shadow by Connie Zweig and Steve Wolf:

A valuable guide to discovering who we are in our completeness. It explores the concept of the Shadow, the parts of ourself that we've rejected or hidden away from our conscious awareness. These parts can cause great suffering by clouding our perceptions or acting out impulsively. By bringing these parts into awareness, we can live with greater integrity.

Meditations from the Mat by Rolf Gates:

The source of many of the quotes I read in class. A very accessible introduction to yoga philosophy and Patanjali's Eight Limbed Path of Yoga.

A Poem on Contentment (inspired by Rumi)

2008-09-11T23:04:00.005-05:00

just to lie in bed on a quiet morning
to eat whatever food is on hand
read the books on your shelf
enjoy the trees in your backyard

take a stand in this moment
refuse to leave until you see it
is just as perfect as any other
if you wait too long, you'll be dead before
the super deluxe bliss nirvana explosion arrives

why be so stingy with your affection?
the ice cream moments already know they're special
water the mundane tooth-brushings with your appreciation

so you finally got that exquisite pleasure you've been waiting for
was it enough? is the yearning extinguished?
the show always ends, the curtain rises to reveal the next need
by all means, watch the play!
root for the good guy, despise the evildoer
but then be kind enough to applaud the actors
wow, that really seemed real, didn't it?

contentment is the path to peace
no moment is slandered, sought after, shoved aside
settling in as the ten thousand things rise and fall
a sandy shore washed by waves
grateful for each
.

Science Warms to the Mind-Body Connection

2008-09-07T21:51:00.004-05:00

Just heard a fascinating episode of Speaking of Faith on NPR. A biochemist talks about her research into the link between stress, emotions and health. It's exciting that neuroscience and molecular biology have advanced to the point where they can start to "see" emotions and thoughts as they travel through the body. The link between stress and the immune system has become undeniable. As the mind-body connection becomes more widely accepted in scientific/medical circles, the case for bringing yoga and meditation into schools/hospitals/businesses/government will become irresistible! A glimmer of hope for the future of humanity in these chaotic times.

My Mountain Story

2008-08-26T15:36:00.004-05:00

As part of my yoga therapy training, we were asked to write about a time when our body had a story to tell. The following is my response, and I think it gives some sense of the great potential for change contained in the Phoenix Rising process:

Reflecting on my somatic history - from an early head-first fall that led to my front teeth being pulled out, to my rise from awkward dork to blackbelt, and then my discovery of yoga and meditation - I realize that it's only in the past few years that I've been listening closely enough to hear what my body is trying to teach me. Since beginning martial arts and theater classes in sixth grade, I grew up very comfortable and confident in my body. I developed discipline, strength, balance and breath awareness through Tae Kwon Do practice. Years of theater games taught me to move spontaneously, how posture is connected to thought and emotion, how to communicate nonverbally. But despite these physical efforts, I was far more comfortable living in my head most of the time.

I had a strong intellect from an early age, and excelled in school. I dismissed athletes as hopelessly attached to their physical appearance and ability. I was sometimes bullied in middle school, and comforted myself with the thought that my intelligence would grant me a powerful job and great wealth, and my ignorant tormentors would be end up serving me at McDonalds. Even as I progressed towards a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, I mainly identified with my mind as who I "really was". My body was my vehicle, my machine that I operated with great skill.

This attitude came with me into my first years of yoga - in the body but not of the body. I was especially attracted to the transcendent teachings of yoga (astral projection was also appealing). I was drawn to the idea of "mastery" - gaining perfect control of body and even mind (though always confounded by exactly "who" would be the master of the mind...) So I approached asana through this lens, determined to do each pose "perfectly". I had a natural talent for yoga, given my background and genetic flexibility, and quickly advanced in my postures. Yet the one posture that frustrated me the most, that I could never get quite right, was Mountain.

Tadasana, which seemed like it should be one of the easiest poses for such an "accomplished yogi" as myself, was always maddeningly uncomfortable. When I turned my feet so they were exactly parallel, exactly even beneath me, my legs and pelvis almost always felt misaligned. My response was usually to try to work harder, to "do it better", through ever more subtle adjustments to thigh rotation, tail bone tuck, foot effort, knee lift, etc. I could reach what felt like perfect balance briefly, but then as soon as my attention moved elsewhere my body would adjust to put my left foot slightly forward of my right foot, and turned out a bit from straight. My left foot would take more weight than my right foot. The base of my right big toe felt ungrounded.

It was deeply disturbing to me that my body refused to stand evenly. It brought up a deep fear that I was somehow inherently flawed, fundamentally uneven, and thus (irrationally) unable to even fully "master" yoga. St. Peter would turn me back from the gates of Heaven because I couldn't do Mountain pose correctly. I'm certain that my teacher gave many cues to "let the pose happen just as it is" and "there's no such thing as a perfect posture", but I didn't hear him. Practicing on my own, I'd fly through Mountain on the way to other poses, to avoid my discomfort. When I became a teacher, I felt like a bit of a fraud because I was still having trouble with such a basic pose.

I suspected that my leg imbalance might have roots in some past trauma, but I didn't really know how figure out what that was. Sometime in Mountain I'd try to ask my body about the source of imbalance, but my inner voice had an edge of demand and fear of what the answer might be. I never got an answer.

It has only been through work with Phoenix Rising that I've started to learn to listen to my body without expectation, and to hear its nonverbal reply. In my Level Two training, I received a session from a skilled practitioner-in-training named Melanie. Already in the training I had been working with my inclination to control the body, and my irrational fear of what might happen if I did let go of control. In my session with Melanie, she took me into Body Scan standing. She lead my awareness to my feet. I coached myself to let go, to make no changes, to accept everything in its imperfection. My feet became more grounded and even on the floor than ever before, and my legs started quaking beneath me. Melanie deftly followed my cues by bringing her hands to my feet, and then my knees, then my hips, on up my body.

I let go into the experience, giving my body permission to do whatever it needed to do. It responded with a flood of emotions: elation, joy, relief, and grief. Waves of sadness arose from my legs, built up from a lifetime of forcing them to do what my mind wanted, rather than listening to what they wanted. I felt layers of force and control melting from my low back and inner thighs, heavy burdens falling away. Huge surges of prana travelled up my spine, cresting ecstatically in my chest and head. I made animal sounds. Fleeting worries about what others would think were quickly carried away in the current of present moment experience. My mind was incapable of pulling me away - analytic thoughts about what was happening, anxious thoughts that I might ruin the experience by thinking, arose and fell away.

I saw very clearly that my mind is not an enemy of spiritual/ecstatic/somatic experience. When I gave my body's impulses validity, my thoughts had less power to pull me away from the moment. The other big lesson was how sad my body becomes when I try to make it fit some conceptual model of how it "should be". My abstract notion of "perfect balance" caused me to reject my body's natural expression of Mountain Pose. I had turned away from nature, and suffered as a result.

Since the session, I have explored Mountain Pose further, with a curious, accepting mind. Sometime I have a similar ecstatic upwelling. Through other explorations, I have found that engaging my inner thighs, especially my right inner thigh, awakens my second chakra. Fully grounding in my right foot through the base of the big toe awakens the inner thigh line. I find that my right leg is connected to my sexuality, and my masculine nature. I am exploring what it means that my tendency is to stand with less connection through my right inner leg line. Throughout my life, I have tended to be more drawn to feminine energies than masculine, and I wonder if that imbalance is at the root of how my Mountain Pose shows up. When I consciously engage through my right leg now, suddenly my pose feels more muscular, more linear, more Heroic. I am working to accept and understand my masculine nature, and Mountain is a useful mirror for the work. A good stage for watching the dance of control and surrender.

I am thrilled by what my body has shown me, and eager to listen further, learn more. It feels amazing to live as my body, not exclusively my mind. It's a tremendous relief to drop the demand for "perfection" in my asanas, and instead focus on what's happening now. I hope I can help my yoga students taste the freedom and joy of approaching yoga from a place of radical acceptance.

a haiku, to close:

the mountain becomes
sweetly held sand
pouring through our hands

Radical Acceptance

2008-08-04T18:33:00.003-05:00

There's an amazing number of dharma talks available on-line for free - makes great listening when you have some time in the car, or during a commute. I loved this talk by Tara Brach about the Buddhist teaching of radical acceptance. It's a powerful practice - accepting each moment exactly as it is - and something to keep in mind as the presidential race gets increasingly nasty and disheartening. There's a great talk by Ram Das, as well.

I'd like to post more frequently, but I have a lot of work to do for my Phoenix Rising training, so I'll just accept it!

Relaxed Genes

2008-07-16T13:11:00.004-05:00

A recent study found that the practice of deep relaxation creates specific changes in how genes express themselves. What does that mean? A brief review of cell biology: inside a cell, cellular machinery is constantly building proteins and other useful molecules according to the instructions (genes) written in the cell's DNA. These molecules determine what a cell does. Though every cell has the same DNA, an individual cell only reads (expresses) a subset of the whole code at any one time. The genes being expressed can change, and the study found that deep relaxation can create a predictable change in what genes are expressed. It's not yet known what these changes do in the body, but the mere proof that such changes take place is significant.

Put simply, this is evidence that you can fundamentally shift the behavior of your cells - the smallest unit of life - by relaxing! That's pretty remarkable. Most people feel different after a good, long relaxation, but now science has shown that your body is literally different at the cellular level. Though the study only addressed deep relaxation, surely yogic breathing practices, postures held without struggle, and meditations have similar effects. Of course most of us would agree that exercise changes our body, but this study hints that any repeated behavior may be "felt" at a cellular level.

My final thought: if we can influence our cells indirectly via relaxation, why wouldn't it be possible to do it directly, consciously, through intention or visualization? Some great yoga masters have been known to live for hundreds of years...

The original article can be found here.

Partner Yoga

2008-06-25T18:22:00.002-05:00

I was quoted a few times in a recent article on YogaJournal.com about the pros and cons of partner work in a yoga class. I'm pleased with the quotes, much better than my experience being misquoted by the New York Times.

Mindfulness Meditation and Psychotherapy

2008-05-30T19:23:00.006-05:00

An interesting article from the New York Times about the rapidly-growing popularity of mindfulness meditation as an aspect of psychotherapy. What is mindfulness meditation? The practice of witnessing sensations, emotions and thoughts as they arise and fall away, moment to moment, without reacting. For example, as you sit, you may hear a siren outside. Instead of getting pulled into a train of thoughts about emergencies-accidents-death-your dog that died-getting a new dog-etc, you simply perceive the sound as it rises and then falls away. Sound difficult? At first, it is. After spending a lifetime letting our minds run eagerly after every passing thought and sensation, it's a big change to ask the mind to let perceptions flow by without getting involved.

In the Buddhist tradition, where I learned the practice, beginners do no start with mindfulness meditation because the mind is too restless and reactive. Instead, some form of concentration/calming practice comes first - usually meditation on the breath - often for many years. However, I don't doubt the value of introducing moments of mindfulness meditation into a psychotherapy session, expressed nicely by one of the therapists interviewed in the article:

“It’s a shift from having our mental health defined by the content of our thoughts,” Dr. Hayes said, “to having it defined by our relationship to that content — and changing that relationship by sitting with, noticing and becoming disentangled from our definition of ourselves.”

Rather than trying to rewrite or analyze your mental script, you change your relationship to the whole mental drama, seeing it for what it is: A PLAY (rather than objective reality). Of course, it's one thing to intellectually understand that we do not need to identify with each and every thought that passes through our head, and another to experience it.

I try to weave mindfulness into all of my yoga classes, mostly through verbal cues that encourage students to widen their focus from physical to mental alignment. What is the mental tone when things become difficult? How does the mind react to what other students are doing or not doing? In my own experience, I have the most success when I am able to let go of thoughts of success (and failure) and meet each moment with fresh attention. As I wobble in a balance, I may have a flash of "I'm going to fall", but if I can let that thought pass and refocus, most often my body will balance itself. But if I react, thinking "Why can't I balance? I've been practicing for 8 years!" - then I fall.

Another paragraph that caught my attention:

“The interest in this has just taken off,” said Zindel Segal, a psychologist at the Center of Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto... “And I think a big part of it is that more and more therapists are practicing some form of contemplation themselves and want to bring that into therapy.”

I rejoice to read that more therapists are meditating. How can you help others with their minds if you yourself are not actively studying and training your own mind? Ideally, meditation would be a required element of any training program for psychotherapists (or any healing profession, really).

For an excellent discussion of the intersection of Buddhism and psychotherapy, I recommend the work of Mark Epstein. See the Books page of my website for other suggestions.

Effortless Effort

2008-05-15T15:36:00.005-05:00

One concept from the Zen / Taoist tradition that I've found very helpful in my personal practice is effortless effort or wu-wei, expressed nicely by Carlos Castaneda:

If a warrior is to succeed at anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession.

The phrase teases apart two components of the concept effort: physical and mental. Consider your own associations with words like effort or work. There is both the physical reality of washing the dishes and the mental experience of impatience, boredom, haste, etc. Rarely do we consider that there is a difference between what our bodies are doing and how our minds are reacting, but it's certainly true. Our bodies act in the world, and the sensory impressions of our efforts are synthesized in the brain to create a (nearly) simultaneous moment of mental experience. Significantly, en route to consciousness the incoming sensory data is filtered through our mental habits, beliefs, and moods. This may seem technical, but the implications are vast. Our experience of the world is a product of both the world and whatever mental lens we're seeing it through.

Let's consider the effort of a yoga pose such as Warrior 3. On the physical plane, there is full effort: the muscles work, blood pumps, breath is strong. No way around that. But our inner experience is not fixed. We can react to the intense sensations with fear, grit our teeth and push through with short, panting breaths, expending all our energy quickly. Thoughts spin out of control, lamenting our weakness or poor balance. That's effortful effort.

Or we can allow the sensations to flow by, watch our thoughts but keep bringing focus back to a steady breath, relax our jaws and soften our eyes. If we start to fall, we just fall out of the pose and then come back in without thinking nasty thoughts about ourselves. The mind is gentle yet focused. Muscles work steadily but not aggressively. That's effortless effort. Which do you prefer?

Effortless effort also means making exactly the effort required, and no more. In our "more is better" culture, we tend to assume that working harder and doing more always leads to better results. Not so in yoga. It's true that when we begin and our muscles are untrained, each pose may well require our full effort. But after many repetitions of a pose, our muscles get stronger and more sensitive. We learn just how much energy we need, and it's often less than maximum. Thus I encourage students to notice where they can relax in each pose - even if it's just their jaw. Ultimately, a yoga practice should give you more energy and focus. If you consistently leave class feeling totally wiped out and spacey, that's a sign you're working too hard. By working less, you can be more sensitive to the nuances of the body and breath, and you'll actually go farther and have energy to spare!

Body Types - Elastin and Collagen

2008-05-01T17:11:00.006-05:00

We took a 20-hour anatomy training for yoga teachers this week with a woman named Ellen Heed. She's a body-worker and nutritional counselor in LA, and she has many fascinating ideas about how the body works. One of her central assertions is that the state of our connective tissue (or fascia) has a huge effect on how our bodies feel and move.

Connective tissue is the "stuff" that holds our bodies together. It wraps around and interpenetrates our bones, muscles and organs; supports our joints; allows our insides to slide around; provides a bed for blood and lymph vessels; contains immune cells; etc. Though not recognized as such by Western medicine, it is as much an "organ" as the heart or the stomach.
Some of the resistance we feel in a yoga stretch - especially deep, stubborn tension - comes from restriction in our fascia (rather than tension in the muscle bodies).

Fascial tissue is composed of two main molecules: collagen and elastin. Collagen is strong and inflexible, while elastin is more weak and stretchy. (See some nice microscope images here.) Different people have different collagen/elastin proportions in their tissue. Why? One speculation: tissue with more elastin has more intramuscular fat, which would be an evolutionary benefit for people living in cold climates.

This difference has many ramifications for yoga practice.

Folks with relatively more collagen in their fascia will tend to be naturally inflexible, because everything is bound together more tightly. It takes steady, consistent practice with a focus on pushing deeper into poses for a collagen-dominant yogi to get flexible. Because connective tissue gets more malleable in heat, a hot yoga practice can be extremely helpful. If not practicing in a heated room, many warm-ups are necessary before the poses start to feel good.

Ellen noted that the most dense connective tissue she's ever felt is in bodies from South India. She hypothesized that yoga may have arisen out of necessity for meditators to be able to sit comfortably.

Elastin-dominant yogis (such as myself) are naturally flexible because our connective tissue offers less resistance to stretching. We tend to towards collapsing and sagging in our joints, so it is important for us to work on alignment and long, strengthening holds. Because our fascia has more fat cells, it holds more toxins (which are mostly fat-soluble). When we practice hot yoga, the toxins release into the blood stream and can create nausea or dizziness. It's helpful to cleansing the body, but not pleasant.

Of course, some people are in between. Also, even people with lots of elastin may carry lots of muscular tension, so as a beginner it's hard to know where you fall on the fascial spectrum.

The health of connective tissue is intimately connected to overall physical health. With age, lack of movement, and/or dehydration, connective tissue dries out, adheres to itself, shrinks and gets tighter. This increases friction in the joints and can lead to arthritis. Tight fascia in the torso restricts breathing and the free movement of internal organs. Immune cells and nutrients circulate through the fluid matrix of connective tissue, so constricted fascia stagnates and becomes prone to disease. From this perspective, the benefits of stretching in yoga go far beyond doing a great looking pose.

For more information on connective tissue, see Job's Body by Deane Juhan.

A Well Balanced Yogic Diet

2008-04-23T12:33:00.008-05:00

We were in Twisting Warrior Interlock (aka Bound Rotated Side Angle) in Ana Forrest's morning intensive yesterday, and she invited us to take in the "nutrients of the twist". I really like the idea of postures "feeding" us. It's a reminder to use the postures for the sake of our own health and growth, rather than badges of accomplishment.

Like fruits and vegetables, each posture has its own unique set of vitamins and minerals. What are the elements of a posture that determine its nutritional content? Physically, we can consider what parts of the body are engaged or relaxed, where the breath moves, the amount of effort required to hold the pose, the length of the hold, our orientation to gravity, etc. Rod Stryker divides asana into 6 loose categories: forward folds, back bends, lateral stretches, twists, extensions and inversions. He associates these categories with different physical, energetic and mental effects. For example, backbends and laterals tend to be stimulating, uplifting, and energizing. Forward folds and inversions are soothing, calming, and quieting. (Our Home Practice workshop explores this system further). It quickly gets complicated, though, because the way you breathe or visualize in a pose can change its effect. Ultimately, there is no substitute for personal exploration of the nutritional benefits of each pose.

From another angle: the stress (or intensity) of a pose, in itself, is therapeutic. Studies of the effects of stress on mice have shown that some level of stress is necessary for the healthy development of a living organism. Mice raised with zero stress are weak, lacking the resiliency gained from adapting to stressors. Yoga poses offer safe, self-regulated doses of intensity. Ana Forrest seems to favor this type of nutrition, given her long holds, standing sequences of 10-15 poses in a row, and deep abdominal work.

We can ask: what does a well-balanced diet of yoga look like? Like food, the "right" yoga poses vary with the individual, depending on age, health, energetic needs and mental state. But in general, to continue the food metaphor, we do well to consume a wide array of poses to ensure we have all the nutrients we need to continue our spiritual growth. From this perspective, I find Ana Forrest's style a bit narrow to be practiced exclusively. She places little emphasis on relaxation, softening in poses, forward folds (in my limited experience). But what she does, she does really really well. She serves a delicious meal - I just wouldn't want to eat it every day.

Yet to eat many different foods in one meal brings its own problems. An interesting fact: the body uses a different mix of digestive juices for each type of food it eats. Going nuts at a buffet confuses our digestive system, weakening its ability to digest any individual nutrient fully. We assimilate most effectively by eating just a few types of food at once. There is a whole art of food combination, explained exhaustively by Paul Pitchford in Healing with Whole Foods (in short: eat carbs with vegetables, or vegetables with protein, but not carbs and protein together).

To further flog the food/yoga metaphor, a class that includes a little bit of every kind of pose may have a similar, confusing effect on the body. An advanced class that throws in every big pose is like eating a meal that mixes Thai, Indian, Italian and Mexican all together. In my classes, and my own practice, I try to create a balanced series while still building up to one or two more intense poses. So the standing sequence may prepare the body for a big backbend, and then the rest of class works to balance out the effects of the backbend. Or: a variety of appetizers but then one or two main dishes, with an aperitif to aid digestion.

As a final note on this theme, the yogic scriptures strongly emphasize that dietary modification is necessary to have success in yoga. I don't think us householder yogis need to restrict our diet to ghee and rice, but there is a natural progression from awareness of the body in yoga to awareness of how food affects the body. The more sensitive we become, the harder it is to ignore the unpleasant feeling of overeating, too much sugar, or too many refined foods. In this way, I think yoga is one of the best ways to lose weight in the long term. Rather than forcing yourself to change how you eat, change arises naturally as a result of increased awareness.

Yoga and Growth

2008-04-20T13:58:00.008-05:00

Note: I wrote this for the Heartwood spring newsletter - thus it's brevity. I hope to explore these ideas further in later posts.

Surely the verb of springtime is growth. The sight of green returning to bare branches calls forth our own natural desire for renewal. What better time than spring to begin or resume your yoga practice!

Yoga promotes growth on many levels: physical, energetic and mental. Yoga is perhaps best known for its postures (asana), which directly effect the physical body. Asana create strength and flexibility, eliminate pain, lower blood pressure, promote healthy organ function, and more. Regular practice of asana creates a sense of deep health and vitality that goes beyond being not sick. The body can become a source of pleasure and strength, rather than pain and uncertainty.

In yoga we use the word prana (or energy) to describe the life force that animates the body. Breath, blood flow, and the activity of the nervous system are all aspects of our energy body. Imbalanced prana can manifest as stress, anxiety, and insomnia. The breathing practices of yoga, alone and within postures, gradually balance and revitalize the prana body. They offer a way to regulate our own energy without depending on external substances like caffeine or sleep aids.

Finally, yoga develops the capacities of the mind. Yoga postures and breathing techniques cultivate concentration, heightened awareness of the body and positive mental qualities such as patience, equanimity and will-power. Through meditation, we gain insight into thinking patterns that create suffering and eventually let them go.

From the yogic perspective, we all have the potential to grow far beyond "healthy" to live each moment with ease, joy and freedom from fear. If you'd like to take part in your own inner springtime, contact your local yoga teacher!

Forrest Abs and Agni

2008-04-17T16:50:00.000-05:00

Ana Forrest is leading a teacher training at one of the studios where I teach. I've had the chance to practice with her four times now, and I'm extremely impressed. Her decades of practice are palpable in the clarity and energy she brings to each word and movement. She works you hard, but in a very compassionate, friendly way. In yoga terms, her shakti is flowing!

I often hear Forrest Yoga described as "lots of ab work", which doesn't do it justice, but there is a lot of ab work. After a few classes, I'm especially aware of my very lowest belly muscles, from navel to pubic bone. All her different, tortuous variations involve a strong lift of the tailbone, which forces the deep, low abs to wake up in a way that normal gym-class crunches never do. She also does a lot of work with uddiyana bandha, agni sara, and nauli - all techniques based on pulling the abdominal organs up and back when the breath is held out. This requires a total relaxation of the abdominal muscles, so it's the perfect complement to the strength work.

At the same time, I've been working through a training program by Rod Stryker, a Tantric teacher. He says one of the purposes of asana practice is to unblock the lower part of the torso and pelvis: from the navel to the pubic bone, and from tail bone to low back. "Unblock" is kind of a vague term. "Awakening the nerves" might work, too. Why is this needed? To make the unconscious conscious.

According to the energetic anatomy of yoga, the muscles, organs and nerves from the belly downwards map to our primal concerns: survival, sexuality and power. I think it's safe to say that we all have unresolved issues in those areas - unconscious reactions that influence our behavior and attitude. To become happier, more conscious, more powerful, we need to bring these energies into full awareness and air out anything that's gotten stuck and started to ferment. We can do this by opening up the correlated parts of the body.

I can feel this happening in the ab work with Ana Forrest. All the heat, effort, and awareness required by her precise directions create a new, vibrant sense of presence in my low belly. (And muscle soreness, to be sure.) And I do feel more confident and powerful after her classes - qualities attributed to the belly center.

Jaya Ganesha!

2008-04-17T16:32:00.003-05:00

May Ganesha, Lord of Beginnings, and Patron of Letters, bless this humble blog.