How to have a Home Practice
Posted by Sarah in asana, philosophy, yoga on Jan 2, 2012 | 0 commentsWhen you hear people talk about their HOME PRACTICE it always sounds like it’s in all caps, a hushed and reverent tone as though you’re speaking about the Golden Fleece. We know it’s out there, it can be found, but it will require an epic journey and potentially lost lives. There are articles about starting a home practice in virtually every yoga magazine every single month. A lot of them talk about making a space, allowing yourself to fail, blah blah woo woo.
We’re spoiled by yoga studios and photos of them. Large clean, empty rooms with shining floors and mirrored walls. Clearly if you could have a dance studio in your home you TOO could have a home practice.
Most of us have smaller spaces. One of my favorite teachers always said, “You don’t need a space bigger than your mat. You can do this in a closet.” Yeah right. You haven’t SEEN my closets.
So those are the extremes – a dedicated space or anywhere you can. No one really talks about how, in order to have a home practice, you might need to LEAVE home.
People who work from home or who (like me) are procrastinators understand that home is an obstacle ground of distraction. “I can practice, but if I move these shelves I’ll have more ROOM.” And then two hours have gone by, the shelves have been moved and you’re doing something that doesn’t involve yoga at all. Or you get a phone call and you have to take it because it’s work and then three hours have passed and you’re tired.
I’ve got all the same issues. I can’t really work out in the morning because Spouse is asleep and I don’t want to wake him. When I get home from work I have to cook dinner or I’m tired, or I’ve cooked dinner and I’m tired. There are times when even remembering how much better I’ll feel when I’ve done it can’t prompt me to get to the mat.
So what does it really take to have a home practice? 15 minutes. If you can start doing yoga for 15 minutes on a regular basis, that’s a home practice. In my experience, that 15 minutes will bleed into a half an hour or 40 minutes pretty quickly, but 15 minutes is what it takes. Find a spot where you’re comfortable or have enough room (a chair will do) and spend 15 minutes doing yoga. It might be breathing or stretching or any combination of the two.
My goal for this year is to get in a regular half hour each day. I started today by having to move some shelves but I got on the mat and worked through some sun salutations. I added in tree, twisting chair and Warrior I and II because it felt right. I started out feeling kind of anxious, knowing I was going to have to get ready for work soon, thinking about what I was going to eat. I put James Blake on my 2G Sansa Clip and let him override my worry mantra. I stretched my neck a little and got on the mat and worked it out. There are some muscles I haven’t used that way in a while because I’m the first to admit when I let my practice slack. It was good, though, because the balance poses brought me back to my body HARD and reminded me to be aware of how I’m moving.
Going to classes serves to give you a knowledge base, so that you can do your asanas at home. Classes can also serve as a tune-up or kick in the ass to get you back on the wagon. But the only thing you REALLY need to start a home practice is 15 minutes.
What is making me happy
Posted by Sarah in miscellany, reviews, tv, yoga on Nov 8, 2011 | 0 comments1. I’m about to cut two hours of commute out of every workday. I get to wake up when it’s not dark. I’ll have time to WORK OUT before I leave for my job and a whole extra hour after work. I’m giddy with the potential in those two hours.
2. Books. I’m almost done with my 55 books I’m willing to talk about (my best estimate is that I’ve read about 100 books so far this year total) and I’ve found some that I thoroughly enjoyed and have recommended to others.
3. Yoga! I’ve got fun new yoga stuff around the corner.
4. Guitar! My class is almost over and I’ve learned A TON. I also picked up the free tabs app from Amazon the other day so I’ve got guitar notes for some of my all time favorite songs.
5. Google Plus. With the change away from Reader’s share function and the addition of business pages, I’ve got a lot more activity in my stream that is exactly the kind of stuff I want to read.
6. @ellenbarkin on twitter
7. The Walking Dead continues to kick ass, but I’m practically jumping OUT OF MY SKIN about tonight’s Sons of Anarchy.
8. Last night’s Castle was as Castle ever is – cheeky, clever fun. I can’t wait until I start my new job so that I can watch all of prime time TV during, you know, PRIME TIME.
9. Homeland is epic. Not only are Damien Lewis and Claire Danes amazing, the writing is tight and the storytelling is intense. I am loving this show.
10. Fairy tale TV. I was a huge fan of Grimm’s and Hans Christian Andersen growing up so both Grimm and Once Upon a Time are hitting all the right notes, albeit in very different ways. I found myself *looking forward* to OUaT this week. That hasn’t happened with a network show in a while.
Enlighten Up, Yoga Bitch
Posted by Sarah in asana, books, classes, movies, philosophy, teaching, yoga on Oct 21, 2011 | 0 commentsI’m sick and my husband is going out of town so I’m writing a post for your Friday enjoyment.
Earlier this week I wrote a post about the book Yoga Bitch and a friend commented to ask if I’d watched the film Enlighten Up. I have and there are some striking similarities between the two. They aren’t the same story by any means but I think they both begin with a flawed premise.
In life, if you go looking for A Thing to give your existence meaning I suspect you will inevitably be let down. It’s too much pressure, both on the Thing and on yourself. You’re attaching expectations to an Unknown Thing and it’s also putting pressure on yourself to 1) identify with and 2) attach oneself to that Thing. It’s a bit like hearing from everyone you know that The Alchemist is an amazing and lifechanging book and then reading it and finding it only mildly interesting and/or a little pedantic and thinking that maybe there’s something you’re missing out on. Why no, I’m not speaking from personal experience at all.
I got to yoga by being lazy. It’s a story I tell with some regularity, especially as almost everyone says “I can’t do yoga.” I don’t enjoy running. While I have been known to engage in running as a form of exercise, it’s not fun. In point of fact, I think running should be reserved almost exclusively for eluding a weapon-wielding psychopath although that rather undercuts my argument since without practice you wouldn’t get all that far but I digress.
So I don’t enjoy running. I also don’t enjoy aerobics classes. That’s why, in 2001, I picked up a yoga book on the clearance shelf at the local Barnes and Noble. I was 26, married just over a year, had settled into our house after moving twice within 12 months and working a stressful job in outside sales. The odd hours of my job were not conducive to taking regular classes and I thought I’d see what this yoga thing was all about. I took the book home, tried some of the stretches and thought ‘Hey, this isn’t so hard.’ Some of the stretches were familiar from when I played sports in school. When I looked at the suggested routines at the end of the book, I thought perhaps I’d benefit from some live instruction.
Let me be clear: I was not looking for salvation. I wasn’t looking for enlightenment. I wasn’t looking for inner peace. Mostly I was looking for a way to work out that didn’t involve a gym (I’d tried that unsuccessfully) or rollerblading with my dog (epic disaster). I’d heard yoga was good for you and helped with relaxation. I’ve always had issues with quieting my brain and figured this couldn’t hurt, right? I was nervous though because I’ve always been a fidgeter. Ask anyone who ever sat in a meeting next to me or watch any of my sales videos. FIDGETER. I was not hopeful about my ability to fit into a zen environment.
My first class was at the only yoga studio in my city. It was the basement of a dentist’s office, complete with industrial carpeting and cleaning crew noises overhead. The class was taught by the woman I found out later owned the studio and it was like a reintroduction to my body. It was stringing together movements and muscle actions that I’d never used before and I loved it. It was physical and I could see how it could be made more aerobic if I practiced on my own. WIN.
As I practiced more often and took more classes, yoga seemed more logical. My studio didn’t partake in chanting, which suited me just fine – not even an Om. Then I had the magical class – the class which, once having had it, means you never look back. During the class I was so focused on every single thing that I was doing – each muscle motion and the depth of each breath – that I literally didn’t notice the passage of time. I came out of savasana not just refreshed but energized and motivated. NOW I understood why people do this. It’s moving meditation.
I, who was never able to sit and meditate, suddenly understood the point of TRYING. That’s not to say I started a meditation practice – I didn’t – but I got the idea of focusing inward with practice. Truthfully, in all these years I’ve never been in a class where people are looking around at their classmates (though I guess it probably happens) because virtually everyone is trying so hard to be balanced and graceful that they can’t spare a glance for the person who is UTTERLY CONVINCED that they are the most clumsy yogi ever and replete with the knowledge that they will somehow knock down the entire room domino-style. That said, I now fully understood the concept of using yoga to still the mind – its primary purpose according to Patanjali.
So the more I practiced, the stronger I got and while not every class was in that zen brainspace I still enjoyed it. I didn’t get enlightened, I didn’t find god but I got what I needed. In fact I loved it so much that I wanted to be able to share it with people and I got certified to teach.
Yoga helped me get through a hellacious year where my dad was ill with terminal cancer. It helped me get through the year after his death which turned out to be almost worse than the year he was sick. Most importantly, it’s a space I can always go back to – in a hotel room, in a park, in my house and virtually anywhere I can stretch my legs. With music (I’m a fan) or without. Props or not. Decidedly not in matching designer yoga clothing. Because yoga isn’t about what it looks like or what you THINK it’s going to be, it’s only about what you do.
That old adage from schoolteachers about ‘getting out of it what you put in’ is entirely true of yoga. If you put in more muscle work, you will get more muscle strength. If you put in more concentration, your concentration will improve. In classes geared for 80 year olds, I manage to work up a sweat because yoga taught me how to change the way my body works and how I utilize my muscles. Through yoga, I was able to help 80 year old ladies better understand the geography of their muscles and how to use them.
That is what I love about yoga. No one can tell how much or how little you’re working just by looking at you. You can adjust your workout in mid-workout or in mid-pose. No one is looking at you. We all have our own shit to sort out and work through and sometimes it happens in Warrior II. Sometimes it happens in a class where you infuse your breath with intention.
I once took a Tibetan Yoga class and while much of it was forgettable, the thing which was transformative was the breath. We were to breathe in imagining we were taking in something that we needed. Our exhale was to think of someone we knew who needed something and send the exhale of that thing out to that person. Chock full of woo woo? Hell yeah. But I left that class FEELING like I did something. I was lighter and felt brighter. Do I know that it’s woo woo? Hell yeah. Was some of my euphoria probably from increased oxygen intake? Hell yeah. But in that class I did not cheat on a single breath. I didn’t shorten an inhale or exhale by trying too hard or reaching too far. And sometimes, imagery is what gets it done. Look at sports psychology, for fuck’s sake. It’s SCIENCE. It works.
Some people bring their religious practice into yoga. It can absolutely be done and pretty much any yoga instructor can help you do it. I’ve had students dedicate their practice to Christ or use a prayer mantra to maintain their breath. Yoga is a tool that can be used in a multitude of ways.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you’re looking for a global panacea, you are destined to fail. This may be a newsflash but we’re more complicated than that. I can’t say that this works for me so it will DEFINITELY work for you. The problem of Yoga Bitch was that she was looking for something that no one thing could give her. The protag in Enlighten Up got sold a bill of goods that ‘yoga will do X, Y, Z for you.” We’re individuals. We’re thinking individuals. What thinking individuals should instinctively know is shit’s not that easy.
I’m not trying to convert you to the cult of yoga because there isn’t ONE yoga. I push back EVERY time I hear an instructor say “this is the right way to do x.” We are all different structurally and there are things that my body will never be able to do. I embrace that and don’t stop trying, I just stop expecting a magical yoga fairy to loosen my ligaments or change the shape of my pelvic girdle. For me, yoga is about accepting where you are and just trying to be better. At what is up to each individual.
Ideally everyone picks and chooses the things that the want or need or like to use and everyone has a different result – with one caveat. I’ve never seen anyone leave a yoga class that wasn’t smiling. The key is not to expect a revelation, otherwise you’ll always be disappointed. I felt bad for the narrators of the book and the film because they had this idea that yoga could change their lives. The only thing that can change your life is you. Yoga is just a tool that can help you do it.
Yoga, Bitch
Posted by Sarah in books, teaching, yoga on Oct 16, 2011 | 0 commentsThis weekend I plowed through Suzanne Morrison’s Yoga Bitch and I’m stuck in a mixed response. First, the back cover logline: “What happens when a coffee-drinking, cigarette-smoking, steak-eating twenty-five-year-old atheist decides it is time to get in touch with her spiritual side? Not what you’d expect…”
Anyone who knows me is not going to be surprised that I picked this up. That said, I can’t put my finger on exactly what I was expecting but this wasn’t it. Don’t get me wrong, I think she nailed some of the yoga “pesonalities” but on the whole it just rang a bit false with me. How can it be false when it’s a memoir, you ask? I think that given enough time and space it’s pretty easy to armchair quarterback any of our decisions- especially those made when we’re young, hopeful and more than a little naive. The novel was a bit of that and while it seems to have been written as a response to Eat, Pray, Love it still has a fair amount of that thing where, hey, wouldn’t it be great if EVERYONE could spend two months in Indonesia doing yoga?
I suppose a chunk of my response is also prompted by the vast difference of my yoga experience to Morrison’s. While I got to yoga at around the same time, I came from an utterly different point of view which makes me think I should maybe write about THAT experience. While there’s plenty about yoga to prompt cynicism (you can ask @melissarocks, I’m not immune) there’s also a side that prompts no expectations and therefore no disappointment.
Looking at that paragraph makes me think I could write an entire SERIES of yoga posts about this.
Week end!
Posted by Sarah in asana, books, classes, music, philosophy, teaching, yoga on Sep 30, 2011 | 0 commentsTGIF, motherfuckers!
Coming back to work after a yoga conference has been simultaneously great and awful. Great because I think I’ve got a better lens on things and my role in things and, frankly, the amount of energy I find worth expending on work things. Awful because it’s the same old place and by this point chock full of people who are not only unhappy but thoroughly unable to pretend otherwise or see the bright side of anything. That said, I’ve had a pretty good week.
I’ve been a bit uninspired by my reading material of late – that’s not to say I’m short on options as I’ve got a bunch of stuff on the kindle – but nothing I’m just scrambling to read. After hearing the bajillionth amazing review of The Night Circus, I’m going to start it this weekend. Yes, it breaks my $9.99 rule but the reviews have been SO GOOD that I’m making an exception.
Due to the yoga conference, I missed my guitar class last week and DAMN was that a bad idea. Tonight in class we had to write a song. WRITE A SONG. IN CLASS. And then PLAY it. Holy shit is all I”m saying.
In vaguely related news, I’m kicking around the idea of starting a non-profit organization to provide free yoga classes in my community. I’ve thought about it for a couple of years but a confluence of events (including the yoga conference) have me seriously pursuing it for the first time. Details as they are available.
YJCO 2011 – The End!
Posted by Sarah in asana, classes, philosophy, teaching, travel, yoga on Sep 26, 2011 | 0 commentsI was disappointed for the end of the conference, as the weekend was really fantastic. The weather was gorgeous and everyone was incredibly friendly. Melissa and I sat with different folks at every meal and had great conversation about where everyone was from and which sessions they were there for, as well as their opinions on what they’d done. It actually made me think that, given the right sessions, I’d consider the weeklong conference provided I could put together the scratch (or get a slot volunteering).
Sunday morning began with breakfast and a keynote from the founder of the Africa Yoga Project (which I’ll link to after their promo movie becomes public). It was a great speech and one of the Project teachers led some rapid-fire vinyasa that got my butt (my actual butt) in pics on the YJ recap on the yjevents site. The short film they made about the project was moving and impressive and it’s a fantastic program which is encouraging me to work on an idea of my own.
The vinyasa was just enough to work out some residual soreness from the weekend – a good thing as I had two hour meditation session afterward. “Meditation for the Love of It” with Sally Kempton was a very nice session. We alternated in discussion/lecture and meditation so that we sat for 4 meditations of about 15 minutes each. The bad thing was that Kempton’s voice is great for relaxation and I’ve gotten so used to tuning out voice during savasana that I literally heard nothing she said during the meditation sessions. I think it was supposed to be techniques/pointers but I suppose not hearing her was less relevant than the fact that each meditation session wasn’t as hard as I’d expected it to be.
After session we had lunch, took some photos with the mountains in the background and made our way back home. It’s left a residual… glow. Even the downside of things like the conference were mitigated by a lot of great learning and general good vibes.
Today was sightseeing in Breck and then a mini-tour of the fall “colors.” Colors gets quotations because what passes for color in Colorado (and is lovely, don’t get me wrong) can’t touch Michigan at all. With or without colors, though, the views are pretty spectacular.
YJCO 2011 – Day 2
Posted by Sarah in asana, classes, philosophy, teaching, travel, yoga on Sep 24, 2011 | 0 commentsLet me say that the butt class yesterday was fantastic and I ended the day solidly with Gary Kraftsow’s neck and shoulders session, but I did not plan my Saturday well.
1. Post butt class, it’s maybe not the brightest thing to sign up for Baptiste heated power yoga with Baptiste himself first thing the next morning. That session KICKED MY ASS.
2. Second session with Tias Little was great and a kind of restorative class, but when it hurt to roll over onto my side out of savasana it was VERY clear that I hadn’t worked out all my butt-soreness issues. I HAD, however, compounded them with renewed shoulder soreness from the previous morning’s inversions multiplied by Baptiste vinyasa.
3. Apparently several months ago when I registered for the conference, I was feeling invincible because I had requested ANOTHER Baptiste session as my third of the day. No way, no how. My butt was better but not BAPTISTE better.
4. Before lunch I changed my last session to one on stretching physiology which was pretty great.
Tomorrow we’ve got a closing session at 8:30 that will include some Baptiste vinyasa and then my final session of the weekend is Meditation for the Love of It. It’s a two hour session and I am a bad meditator, so this is the ‘scary’ thing I signed up for in the conference.
It’s really been a great experience overall. I’ve been joking about how yoga conferences are like The Craft but with less dead sharks and more hugging, but it’s not too terribly off the mark. Everyone comes in looking to be hopeful, which is then self-fulfilling, so you’ve got a bunch of happy, hopeful people who want to feel better and help other people feel better. And there are invocations where people call the corners. Still, there are worse places to be.
Yoga Journal Conference – Estes Park 2011
Posted by Sarah in asana, classes, health, philosophy, teaching, travel, yoga on Sep 23, 2011 | 1 commentThis is the view from our room at one of the YMCA lodges. Go look. It’s worth it.
Melissa and I got to Estes Park later on Thursday than hoped – we’d planned to be here by 6 but a wrong turn, dinner and loss of cell signal delayed us a bit. We missed the keynote speech but had plenty of time to settle in and prepare for Friday’s classes. As luck had it, we were in two of three sessions together (first and last) and it was a nice way to re-acclimate (me) and intro (Melissa) to the yoga conference culture.
There is definite verbiage associated with a yoga conference. Things like “the Divine,” loops, spirals, grounding, “hugging in”, melting and “bringing it in” are referenced ALL THE TIME. If you are not down for a little yoga woo-woo, a conference is probably not for you.
Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m not a woo-woo fan, but I love this opportunity to study with teachers I’d otherwise never see and experiment with styles otherwise unavailable to me in person. Also, a little woo-woo does a body good.
This morning I started with an Anusara inversion class. As is typically my experience, I enjoyed the class and I actually like their little opening mantra. My only frustration with Anusara is their default to woo-woo words in a lot of places where anatomical direction would be a lot clearer but they’re not egregious about it. There IS however a tendency (not just Anusara) to talk about how inversions allow blood to pool in the now upside down extremities/reverse/move from the feet and other variations of that ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT which makes me insane. You are talking about anatomical parts and you have missed that the heart is a PUMP. Unless your pump is NOT WORKING, you continue to have blood EVERYWHERE IN YOUR BODY – EVEN WHEN UPSIDE DOWN.
End rant. Sorry about that. It’s shit like that that convinces people yoga is nonsense because it’s just a stupid thing to say. It’s that sort of thing that makes people who’d benefit from it dismiss it out of hand. All in all I enjoyed the inversion class, which I followed up with “Toning Your Butt Can Be Spiritual.” It’s safe to say I wasn’t there for the spirituality, of which there wasn’t REALLY all that much because when it comes to butts, it turns out no one cares about spirituality and everyone cares about toning. It was a fun (and funny) class.
Last session was with Gary Kraftsow who kind of changed my life (and definitely changed my teaching) when I saw him first at a yoga conference in Toronto pretty early in my teaching career. Today’s class was a focus on therapeutics for neck and shoulders and it was just as incredible and helpful as I remember that first session being. When I eventually take on more training, it will likely be with him.
Tomorrow I’ll hate my life a little because at 8 am I’ve got a 2 hour Baptiste session (thanks to a great Baptiste instructor I had in Michigan) and I’m going to be HELLA sore from today’s adventures.
Thus far it’s been the experience I was hoping for when I signed up and it makes me think I should be looking ahead to additional conferences or retreats. Work did not cross my mind for a single second today. There has been good food, beautiful weather, great views, excellent instruction and good company so the conference is a win no matter what.
Yoga travel
Posted by Sarah in miscellany, travel, yoga on Sep 9, 2011 | 0 commentsI’m currently loading a metric asston of my favorite music onto my phone with its shiny new microSD card, so I figured I’d answer a question from Melissa about traveling with a yoga mat.
There are a lot of ways you can go with this, all of which will depend on what kind of yoga and how much of it you’re going to do while traveling.
For example, when we went to India we had a limited amount of luggage and I wasn’t sure how much room I’d have to spread out – not to mention the space a yoga mat would fill could hold a lot of souvenirs. I went with some yoga paws, which are gloves and almost-footies that have contact points made of the same material as an inexpensive ($10-15) yoga mat. They take up almost no space and are good for yoga on the move, but not for a lot of seated or kneeling poses.
There are also travel mats, designed to be folded, which I haven’t personally used.
What I’ve done for almost all my travel is carry my mat on with me. I’ve got a nice little bag which is mat-shaped with an extra pocked on the inside and outside. It provides great protection for the mat (rain or shine) and has just enough space for keys/i.d./towel/small stuff that would be useful in a studio. I use that as one of my personal items and then usually carry a regular carry-on bag rather than checking luggage. Et voila – two bags, no baggage claim.
The reason I carry on my mat is because I’ve got a Jade Harmony mat worth every bit of the $50ish I paid for it. It’s a natural rubber and no matter how much I sweat (I’m looking at you Forrest Hip Hop Yoga class in Boston and Urban Yoga Spa in Seattle) I do. not. slip. Since I sweat like a center for the Detroit Lions, it’s a huge bonus to have my own mat with me unless the circumstances require otherwise (see: 14 hour flight, foreign country).
Yoga Meltdown
Posted by Sarah in classes, health, reviews, teaching, yoga on Jul 27, 2011 | 0 commentsNot THAT kind of Meltdown. The Jillian Michaels kind of Yoga Meltdown, which I do and review so you don’t have to (unless you really want).
Not that long ago (it seems like) I reviewed Bob Harper’s Yoga for the Warrior, for which the overall review was positive though not for beginners. Specifically there are a couple of transitions with twisting triangle where you can grievously fuck up your back if you don’t do it right and his verbal cues for how to do it right are… nonexistent. I liked the DVD, found most of the verbal cueing to be helpful and definitely felt challenged. Today I picked up Jillian Michaels Yoga Meltdown, mostly because it features two 30 minute workouts and of late I’ve been splitting my workout with running followed by yoga.
This DVD (vs. the hour long Yoga for Warriors) means I can run/jog for half an hour and then yoga for half an hour and feel like I’m hitting all the bases. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t watch The Biggest Loser. I’m not a fan of the show but I know who the ‘coaches’ are, obviously. The DVD is billed as “hard-core fitness techniques with the sculpting power of yoga, for an intense workout designed to melt away stubborn fat fast.” I’m down for power yoga, as evidenced by my fondness for the Yoga for Warriors (and the fact that I taught a power yoga class several days a week for more than a year) so I was interested in a shortened version and how effective it would feel.
First: this video is ABSOLUTELY NOT for beginners. If you’ve never done yoga, you need to get to an in-person yoga class before attempting this DVD.
Second: Even if you’re familiar with yoga, you need to watch this DVD AT LEAST once before attempting it. The reason(s) is that this is the worst verbal cueing I’ve ever experienced in any class or DVD. I couldn’t get through the DVD without having to watch the screen because half the time I couldn’t figure out where the fuck she was going AND I’M A YOGA TEACHER. I’m not sure if this is from a career of one-on-one coaching, but if Jillian Michaels has ever taught a group class it’s not evident by this disc. I was doing the Level 1 workout and the absolute lack of direction was shocking to me.
That said: even Level 1 is a fast paced workout that is plenty challenging. Unfortunately because so much goes unexplained and changes are poorly cued, I felt like I was playing catch-up for about half the video. Not great when it’s only 30 minutes long. Not only that, there are some moves that beginners should NOT be doing without quite a bit more explanation (the Camel series, for example). There are a lot of potential injuries in this thing. In point of fact, I wouldn’t recommend this video to anyone unless I was pretty confident in their strength and anatomical understanding of how to protect their joints. There’s a Warrior II flow which made me shudder thinking about how many people probably do it incorrectly.
End result? It was a solid workout that could have used a better cool down stretch. I think once I memorize the sequence it might even be a great workout, so I’m going to give this one a while before I move on to Level 2.
So. Yoga Meltdown. 3 out of 5 stars because it’s a great workout but hard to follow.
Yoga for Warriors
Posted by Sarah in classes, recommendations, reviews, yoga on Mar 25, 2011 | 0 commentsLast night there was a substitute in our class and it got me thinking about 1. why I take classes 2. what kind of teachers I enjoy and 3. what kind of classes I’m looking for.
Living in a rural area, you can imagine there’s not a plethora of yoga options. Despite surrounding resorts, there’s little I find attractive (either because of the class time or substance) and it’s been frustrating. The class I’ve been taking through the college has had me thinking a lot about what I’m missing – what I came up with was my awesome Baptiste-inspired class in the ‘Naw.
I hadn’t gotten into Baptiste per se, but my instructor was great: challenging, understanding and encouraging. As a sweater, I generally avoid hot yoga classes but I braved the additional heat for these classes because they were just that good.
Fast forward to a trip to Target where I find a bunch of yoga DVDs and weigh the pros/cons. 1. Yoga classes are surprisingly expensive. Given that I’m a teacher, I tend to balk at classes over $10/class (hour or hour and half). If we’re going to profess that yoga is something everyone should do and everyone benefits from, it’s ridiculous to price yourself out of the ‘everyone’ market. It’s something that annoys me pretty intensely as a community doublespeak issue.
I found a bunch of discs that were $9. I gambled on two. The first is Bob Harper: Yoga for the Warrior
I get up at 4 am. I go to work, which often involves a fair amount of manual labor (I’d say it’s equally divided between that and paperwork) and by the time i get home at 3:30/4pm I’m pretty whipped. Working out provides an energy boost that helps me maintain a more ‘normal’ schedule of activities. Today I got home and popped this DVD into my laptop to see how it went.
My cardinal rule of yoga instructional videos is that you should watch them before you do them. This isn’t advertised as a straightahead yoga vid, so I wasn’t overly concerned. It is not for beginners – if you have never been to a yoga class, you’ll want to watch the workout before you try it. If you’ve been to yoga classes and done Half-Moon and are comfortable with Up Dog (or a comparable modification) than you’ll be fine.
I don’t watch The Biggest Loser. I am not motivated by people who yell at me or by watching other people yelled at and guilt-tripped. It’s just not my thing. That said, when I read the video description I was intrigued and for less than the cost of 1 class, I get innumerable classes from the DVD -right?
Harper is good. Not shouty and not too hand-holding. While he could do more with modifications, his verbal cues are good – provided you know Half Moon pose. The only part that was confusing for me was his ‘shoulder press’ in Down Dog which I discovered was Down Dog but lowering your head to the ground like a pushup.That was the only time I had to stop and actually watch to see what he was talking about.
It is a SOLID workout. You will sweat. You will feel great when you’re done. I got through the entire workout and, per great yoga class usual, after savasana had all the benefits of having worked my ass off but without feeling tired. Instead I felt pumped and ready to go out. I liked that the ‘models’ in the class came out of asanas/did modifications/joked about needing them and generally made the video feel like a class I was attending. While Harper could do more with offering mods, there are several throughout the routine and, at the end of the class, I feel like he completely delivers what the video purports.
Caveat: did not do (and am not likely to do) the 15 minute ab routine. I get enough ab work from regular practice, so this review is based on the one-hour workout ONLY.
Random things and yoga whining
Posted by Sarah in philosophy, random, yoga on Mar 17, 2011 | 0 comments1. My hair is long enough in the front for barrettes.
2. Banana chips are my latest favorite thing.
3. Banana chips are especially delicious with a chocolate Slim Fast. Just sayin’.
My yoga class tonight was a bit louder than usual, which can make the class more challenging. The teacher has to speak over the background noise (in this case a couple of instances of loud conversation) and the students have to work a little harder to concentrate. To put this in perspective, our class is held in a gym at the local college. It’s never going to be silent. Ever. In point of fact, our teacher also has classes elsewhere in town (as well as some other teachers) so it’s not like THIS class is the ONLY option. At the end of this class, after a particularly loud savasana, a few of the students complained about the noise.
Someone suggested that the college have the class elsewhere, the teacher began to agree and as I was leaving I tossed in my two cents. “If meditation was easy, everyone would do it.” The teacher’s eyes widened and she said, “That’s a good point! This is good practice for blocking out distraction.”
There is no perfect place for a yoga class. That’s right, there isn’t. Because YOUR perfect place is not EVERYONE’s perfect place. There are no completely silent classes – even if a teacher isn’t speaking (Mysore style) there is the sound of other people breathing and working out. Real life has challenges. If a mild amount of ambient noise in your yoga class is a big one, you’re BLESSED. Suck it up.
In my world
Posted by Sarah in philosophy, random on Mar 9, 2011 | 0 commentsIf you can’t even manage to get a Facebook page for your business, I feel like you’re saying “Fuck you, I DON’T WANT YOUR BUSINESS.” And therefore I don’t feel an obligation to search out your GD phone number.
YogaRine
Posted by Sarah in philosophy, yoga on Mar 1, 2011 | 0 commentsI wore my Wolverine t-shirt to work today, knowing in all likelihood I’d also be wearing it to yoga class. There are some people who think that’s strange. Wolverine and yoga? Uncontrollable berserker rage and om?
When I was in class tonight, I was reminded (as I always am) that you cannot control the actions and words of other people – you can only control your own reactions to those things. The first time I remember reading that cogently was in Joseph Goldstein’s One Dharma. It was like a lightning bolt, as overly clichéd as that may seem, but had an electrifying effect on how I looked at the world for that first week.
That initial shock wore off, but the lesson remains – of the very few things under our actual control are our perception paradigms. Reframing them is the single best thing we can do to evaluate where we are and where we want to go, not necessarily an easy process.
What does this have to do with Wolverine? I think he’s a character that so many people identify with precisely because of the berserker rage. We’ve all felt out of control or wanted to behave out of control, to ride the feelings into reaction rather than letting them ride us. Unfortunately there’s always aftermath of those actions. Wolverine is also the flip-side of berserker – studied in martial arts which are all about control and focus. We’re all in some percentage that exact combination. Berserker wannabes and people with job and familial obligations.
So wait. Yoga? What?
Yoga is, for me, the easiest way to bring these two things in line and put them into perspective. Yogas chitta vritti nirodha. Yoga is an exercise to still the mind. Getting to a point in class where I can pay attention to what I’m doing/what the instruction is while simultaneously blocking out the other things – people in the room, clumsy instruction, my own internal natter and distraction. Bringing the focus into my body – breath, muscle and balance – is the challenge that keeps me coming back to practice each time.
Yoga is the thing that keeps my Wolverine in check and I can tell when I’ve gotten away from it for too long. When I’m irritable over small things, when I’m getting worked up about things over which I have limited or no influence – it’s then I have to remember my Buddhist/Yogic/MarvelComics teachings and just bring it in. Dial it down. Take a breath, accept my limited influence and free myself from the internal conflict that doesn’t belong to me.
It was a good class tonight.
Great things about the internet
Posted by Sarah in links, movies, reviews, yoga on Feb 15, 2011 | 0 comments1. Netflix
2. wikipedia, for when a movie is so boring that you aren’t convinced you want to watch the whole thing you can look up the entire plot and make an informed decision
3. Tiramisu pancakes – The only thing better than a breakfast food is one that doubles as a dessert
4. Finding good fanfiction that you first read YEARS AGO and discovering that it’s still good. ahem.
Related:
2011 films
The Fighter – Dude. So good. Christian Bale is creepy fucking talented and if he doesn’t get the Oscar he’s being ripped off – not just for this role but because his entire body of work (except maybe Batman) is just incredible. He INHABITS these people. 5 of 5 stars
Centurion – I liked this far more than I’d expected. Bonus appearance of McNulty as Roman general (how much do I still miss The Wire?). Fairly typical, minus the stirring Gladiator-wannabe speech with a nice surprise of female badass badguys. Just a generally entertaining and solid watch. 4 out of 5
The End of the Affair – Dude. Great plot. SUCH A LONG AND DRAWN OUT PRODUCTION. They could have chopped a half an hour out of this flick and it wouldn’t have suffered a minute. This is the movie I referred to in my wikipedia shout out. Yes, I watched the whole thing. 3 of 5
Conversations with Other Women – I honestly can’t tell you why I watched the entire film. Soft spot for Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter, maybe? Interesting (if familiar) Before Sunrise type plot with a few unexpected twists. Enjoyable but not great. 3 of 5
Dear John – So much less god than the usual Nicholas Sparks film and not his ‘typical’ plot. In other words, I actually liked it. 3 of 5
Unrelated:
Sexy Valentine’s moment #12 – My left big toe, which I ran over with heavy equipment a while ago, shed its toenail. Less gross than anticipated but it turns out I’m probably lucky that I didn’t break the damn toe (having seen the damage).
Further unrelated:
After having a break from Yoga Journal for a while, I subscribed during their crazy $1.99 for 1 year deal and got my first issue today. It is surprisingly… light. Perhaps they’re shifting more content online? Guess I’ll have to check out their website.
In reading notes, I’m currently in the middle of Catherynne M. Valente’s Palimpsest.
