Confronting November blues

I have to admit that November has been a horribly depressing month. The election, my mom moving back to New Mexico from Hawai’i, and the passing of my Grandmother are all events that have checkered me in recent days. I think I am still in the shock/denial stage. As a mental health counselor, I recognize that these events need high level coping skills and interventions if I’m going to stay on the unlocked side of the psychiatric facility where I do assessments weekly.

A few coping skills that have helped me tremendously are my yoga practice, gardening, talking to my wife, and utilizing my colleagues who are also mental health professionals and are generous with their listening skills.

I light of these recent events, I have to admit that my yoga practice has been lackluster of late. For me that means asana practice every other day or so. After subbing last month intensively, I was wiped out. Most of my practice lately has consisted of supported postures. Normally, I like to experiment, but now I am just going back to what feels normalizing.

I have also started a garden as seen in my previous post. I was a bit pessimistic as I have not had success in growing things in the past. My wife and I tried growing upside down tomatoes a few years back and put too much calcium in the soil only to grow a tomato as hard as a rock. But lately as I have been spending time in it, I am noticing tremendous success. Things are spouting everywhere. I can spend an hour in my garden just in awe of the new life.

Today I had my first teacher training in a few months as my teachers have been away. I was extremely nervous about the training because of my aforementioned backsliding in practice. Today we went over the fine details of Pincha Mayurasana, or peacock feather pose. My teachers Ray and Shelley emphasized the importance of the base by rolling the forearms in and lifting the biceps to resist the back going toward the wall for prep. My teachers gave me a good feeling about my teaching abilities and I was able to execute the pose well.

Ironically, all the squatting and forward bending I have been doing in my garden has also given me a “secondary” yoga practice outside my field of awareness. Shelley gave instructions for Malasana which has always been my nemesis pose due to my inability for me to get my heels on the ground. Today the pose was still difficult, but I can feel more ease due to my constant squatting in my garden. It’s funny how yoga works its way into your life even when It’s not in your life. Hopefully, I make it through this month and not lose my sense of humor. Once that goes, forget it!

 

Yoga blog trends I would like to see in 2015 – part 1

In less than a week, 2014 will be a memory. It was a very interesting year watching yoga blog trends come and go. Here is what I am putting out to the universe (and other bloggers) of what I would and would not like to see more of in 2015:

1) Fewer Selfies

What do selfies really do? Some say they inspire others to practice Yoga, but I think that is a bunch of bull pucky. Just because you can do Pincha Mayurasana doesn’t mean your shoulders are not collapsing. Having lift in the shoulders is something that is learned in as basic of a pose as Tadasana. I have plenty of pictures of myself doing asana in this blog, but to make a distinction, I am using myself as a guide to teach, not to show off my ego. Believe me, I’m not much to look at! Next time you post an asana selfie, ask yourself why you are doing it. Are you doing it to teach, or show off your new yoga pants?

2) And on that note… less “wild thing,” Bakasana, and Pincha Mayurasana in those selfies

If you really want to show off, don’t be like everyone else. Wild Thing isn’t even a yoga pose, but some John Friend distortion of Urdvha Danurasana. Who would want to follow in that guy’s footsteps? Not to mention it is dangerous. And every other person who has half a practice is doing Bakasana. If you want to really wow someone, do Paripurna Matsyendrasana, Kandasana, or even a well-executed Krounchasana . Just don’t do it unless you are ready because you’ll injure yourself.

3) Less profanity

Lululemon has a recent promotion of being “present” and then shows a yoga teacher saying “f-you.” Every other blog I read has someone dropping the F-bomb or namaste-every-damn-day. Are we yoga practitioners, or truck drivers? I actually know truck drivers who swear less. If you are going to use profanity in your blog, at least make it mean something for emphasis. I don’t mean to be prudish, but Yoga is a sacred subject for those who take it seriously. Can we clean up our language around when writing about this sacred practice?

4) Speaking of Lululemon…less fashion industry influence on our Yoga practice

At what point did Lululemon become the neighborhood Yoga expert? That company doesn’t give a rip about tradition, it just wants to line its pockets. Whenever profit is the first priority, Yoga is not practiced. I am pleased that CEO Chip Wilson was ousted this year, but this company still projects an unhealthy body image with it’s petite line of clothing. As long as you keep shopping there, this will not change. At $100USD for a pair of pants, the real joke is on you. That money is much better spent on a workshop or even a month of classes.

5) Fewer playlists

I hate to break it to you, but people could care less about your latest playlist. Music and yoga may sound like they go together, but music actually gets in the way of the stopping your mind chatter. There are plenty of music fora out there for you to show off your musical taste. Go there instead instead of subjecting us to your latest taste of mixing Math Rock with Krishna Das.

6) More from the other limbs of Yoga

Asana is only 1/8 of the practice from Patanjali’s thread. When I first started doing yoga, everyone was in it for the mind benefits. Now everyone is in it for the physical benefits. It seems like we have regressed. There are a handful of blogs that focus on Yoga Sutras and other classical texts. It would be nice to see more blogs going in that direction. Yoga is a very internal practice when done correctly.

…to be continued

Devoting part of your yoga practice to experimentation

My teachers are making me an offer that is hard to refuse. They will give me free constructive criticism on my teaching for the next level, Junior Intermediate I. The JI1 syllabus is rife with arm balances. In Iyengar yoga, it’s not just one thing to be able to have complete competency in doing the pose. That’s a given. You have to have complete competency in teaching the pose SAFELY to someone who has little experience or has never tried it before. That changes the way one approaches the asanas. One has to try different ways of doing the pose to make them more accessible in stages. Today, after doing an hour of standing poses, I worked on Adho Mukha Vrksasana (Downward Facing Tree Pose) and Pincha Mayurasana (Tail Feather of the Peacock Pose).

 

A nice way to approach poses that counter gravity is to first try the actions of the poses taking gravity out of the equation. Here is how I worked the arms and the chest for Adho Mukha Vrksasana.

I used a wall for Tadasana, and extended my arms to urdvha hastasana. The second action was lying on a block with the far edge at the corner of my C7 and T1 and pressing my hands against the wall. This creates a tremendous opening in the chest.

I would not recommend this pose for beginners until you can do Gomukhasana arms without a strap as seen above.

Next, I used wall ropes to take the weight out of the wrists. 

 

Now I try the pose kicking up to a wall with the hand rotated to the side which is the final version for the JI1 syllabus.

I give Pincha Mayurasana a similar treatment.

I wanted to finish my practice with Supta Baddhakonasana (Reclined Bound Angle Pose). I normally practice with a strap, but today I experimented with a blanket which presses the soles of the feet completely together giving a different effect to the groins. 

And then I tried classic Supta Baddhakonasana. I was inspired by a blogger earlier today who was lamenting about the use of props in yoga practice. Note there are no props with this variation.

The genius of BKS Iyengar is his ability to take the classic pose apart, work on the individual pieces, then put the pose back together. He did this through experimentation with props. Very few would argue that he does not teach “real yoga.”

The advantage of home practice versus taking yoga in a class, is you have the time to experiment with concepts you are curious about. I would advise to experiment within the scope of your ability.