contemplating transformation

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Dr. Howard Thurman

As a high school student, I became an activist. I started a peace club at my school. In our small republican-dominated town, we held rallies, school walk-outs, painted peace-signs on the American flag, wore buttons. We chartered a bus and went to NYC to protest (unsuccessfully) with millions against W. Bush’s plans to invade Iraq. The back of my silver Honda Civic, which was older than I was at the time, was covered in bumper stickers. Way too many to just fit on the bumper. No war for oil. God is coming and she’s pissed. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Live simply so that others may simply live. A Canadian flag. The back of my car was ready to change the world.

Then, in grade eleven, I went to a tiny, poor, resource-depleted, former French colony called Burkina Faso. Generally, people didn’t have a clue that its in West Africa and its capital is Ouagadougou. Mostly I went so I could live in a place with four syllables and three ou’s. Also to go to an International school on exchange, learn French, and volunteer. I lived there for six months, enough time to get really angry and sad about social inequalities, post-colonialism, conservative missionaries, and culturally insensitive development work. Then I came home, with a few parasites in tow, and tried to raise money and awareness for Burkinabe organizations. I graduated, and applied for University with plans to go into International Development, Economics, or Anthropology. Degrees I thought would equip me further to save the world.

But somewhere in between Africa and University I started getting sick a lot. Chronic headaches, thyroid issues, adrenal issues. I cut a number of things out of my diet, worked with a naturopath, made my yoga practice more regular. I got a bit better.

I started doing more activist work again. I volunteered at the University Womyn’s Centre, co-Produced the Vagina Monologues, coordinated the Peace Society. I moved to Montreal for a year, taught English to immigrants, was secretary for a start-up environmental NGO. I got sick again, I got depressed. I was burnt out, and felt like my body just wouldn’t keep up with everything I need to do to save the world.

I started doing more yoga, and less activism. Slowly yoga started to transform me. The practice has deepened for me, to the point where it has been a part of my daily life for over two years. The yoga I have experienced is not a practice that transformed me to be “different” or “better” but a practice that has taken me on an inward journey into a more spacious way of being with what is and recognizing that that is enough. Somewhere I realized that maybe the world doesn’t need saving. The hardliner activist shell softened.  There are millions of things that I’d like to be different in the world. But right now I’m going to start with making peace with my body, and smiling as I say hello to the bus driver. I want to eat a conscious, mostly vegetarian diet, but not be anal or extreme about it.  I don’t want to wear buttons. I want to take a deep breath and notice what’s going on in my body before I make a decision. I want to walk and take public transportation, and buy local. I want to support my students, and try and make their lives a bit brighter. I’m not saving the world, but I do feel like I’m touching people in my community. And if my students feel a little more grounded, a bit less stressed, anxious or depressed, a little more open, a bit more inspired, then they’re probably making a difference in their communities too. And it so ripples out.

This transformation feels whole to me. It feels sustainable. It feels authentic and alive. That’s yoga.

yoga as a community practice

The beginning of my yoga classes begin with a centering. For some classes I have the students gather in a semi-circle, other classes students stay on their yoga mats. During the centering I welcome students, instruct them to sit properly, and talk for about 3-5 minutes to set the the theme and context for the class. This week, my theme was centered around the winter solstice and I talked about the meaning of the solstice and about yoga helps us be present and open to the full spectrum of our lives: lighter more joyful times as well as darker and more challenging times. Following the little talk, I ask students to close their eyes and take a few minutes to feel their breath and I lead a bit of meditation on the theme. This takes 2 or 3 minutes. Then, I invite students to join their palms together over their heart. I’ll say something like this: take a deep breath and soften your skin, soften to those around you in the room, welcoming each other into this space where we can all learn and grow together. Then we breath together and sing the sound of Om three times, in some classes a sanskrit chant is sung after the Oms.

The centering is intended to help students soften and become aware of themselves. My instruction is very intentional during this time, and the instruction to “welcome each other” in particular is intended to help students feel that they are practicing in community, even though most of the time they are alone on their individual mats, and not speaking to others.

Some classes I will have students work with a partner on certain poses. I’ll teach them how to work together and assist one another. For example a simple partner stretch we might do in the warm up would be facing a partner, holding each other’s wrists and then steeping away to get a stretch through the spine and legs.  I instructing partners to be sensitive and supportive each other. I find that students seem to enjoy these exercises and they may learn or feel things that are more difficult to experience on their own. Also it will often help to loosen up a uptight group and bring more lightness to the class.

At the end of class, we finish by singing Om again together. After class students sometimes chat in the lobby area or change room. Often students come to classes with friends, and they’ll come and go together. I notice that students that come to classes with friends attend pretty regularly, they have more incentive to show up if a friend is going to wonder why they’re not there.

Eval from AYTT with Todd and Ann

Program Evaluation

Advanced Anusaraâ Yoga Teacher Training Intensive with Todd Norian and Ann Greene

Location:____ Toronto ____________ Date:__Nov 24________________________

Thank you for sharing your feedback on this training program. Our intention is to serve you in the best way possible. Your honest feedback helps us assess the effectiveness of this program and grow as teachers and staff.

1. What is your overall evaluation of this program?  (please check one)

x Excellent     Very Good     Good     Fair     Poor

If your experience of this program was less than excellent, please tell us what was missing for you or what would have made it an excellent                                       program.

2. What specific experiences were the most meaningful/powerful for you?

I felt so uplifted both as a student and teacher of this powerful training. As I student I felt that I was honored and respected, and I am so appreciative of your particular attention to helping me work with my SI and psoas. Your sharp vision and your kind way of communicating how I can better align to help me get out of pain are very important to me, and I’m learning to be steady in moving into that more optimal alignment, while honoring that it’s a process that will continue for years and years to come. Being seen in such a kind and loving way was a huge first step in my healing and a huge inspiration how to hold presence as a teacher and convey the highest to my students.

As a teacher the power, attention and intention to words was really meaningful to me- It really came through in your teaching. I will never forget when you were working with me, Todd, to help me not bind in my psoas in a standing pose and you said, “open to grace then hug in sweetly.” That last word, and the care and intention behind it, made all the difference- all the sudden muscle energy took on a whole new meaning and shifted from gripping to nurturing stability. This was just one of the many examples of how your conveyed the power of matrika through the training. I found the sections of matrika, heart language, making themes accessible and streamlined with action to be particularly powerful for me. I really appreciate the way you broke things down and gave us a formula to help what starts out as a broad, rambling theme idea for themes become clear and powerful. A big revelation for me was linking the theme to the universal through chit or ananda or both in a pulsation theme. No one had ever made this clear for me before, and I know some certified teachers don’t make this clear in their classes, so I think the model needs to be incorporated into the whole system of Anusara more- contextualizing and the universalizing really make a difference in how much a student can connect to the heart! Maybe you could suggest to John that he make this a little more explicit in the next Anusara Teaching Manual.

I also appreciated the times for journaling and reflecting in small groups, or as an entire group- especially the light-hearted and fun times. These moments help the teachings to solidify for me- settle down from my brain and into my heart. Overall, the training was really well balanced.

3.  Do you have any suggestions for improving the content or presentation of this program?

Everything taught was incredibly valuable, yet at some points, it felt like so much was being covered that things got a bit diluted, or went too quickly. It would be good to narrow the focus of the training a bit and really go deep into the subject matter you’re going to cover.  I know it must be hard, because you have SO much to offer! Also it would be really nice to have at least one longer, uninterrupted asana class. All the asana pretty stop/start- which was great and really useful most of the time, but at least one more flowing practice would have been really nice to replenish our bodies and hearts and get out of all the headiness for a bit. It would be of course useful to break it down afterwards and investigate how you were teaching.

4. Please give us feedback on the staff and guest teachers. (Please list by name if possible.)

None

5. What have you gained from this experience?

The training brought a new level of clarity and meaning to my understanding of the art and science of teaching, the more I learn the more I discover I have SOOO much more to learn and practice- it is certainly humbling and is also exhilarating! I just finished typing up 20 pages of notes and transcriptions from the training- I will be reviewing them and be fed by them for months and years to come. It’s big delicious meal to digest! Ann, I particularly appreciated your class/theme on steadiness. That has really inspired me post-training to remember and stay focused (and take the time to type up all the notes!). It’s easy to come out of a training and go back into old patterns, but I keep thinking of that class and how I have to be steady to stay connected and follow what I want in life and who I want to become as a teacher.

The training was also a wonderful opportunity to be inspired and feel connected to the kula, I really noticed your emphasis on that through little gestures such as saying namaste to each other not just the teacher, and through the way you had us work in groups and share together. Thank you for such wonderful group facilitation.

anusara three A’s

I read this article from an Anusara teacher (Christina Sell), regarding a discussion with John Friend about one of the Anusara’s 3 A.
________________________

So I had an amazing conversation with John Friend yesterday about the 3 A’s and about the lovely and dynamic relationship between Attitude, Alignment and Action and what it really means to be a three-pronged approach to asana practice. Obviously, Anusara is heart-centered method. As such, Attitude is considered the most important A. But really, if we think of a three-legged stool, it is at it most functional when all the legs are equally balanced.

Why I say the conversation was amazing is the clarity that John brought to my understanding about Action. Action is really Balanced Action. (Like maybe instead of 3 A’s, we really have 2 A’s and a B, but I digress…) Action, in our method, is about bringing balanced action to the form of any asana so that the light of the heart (attitude) shines through what otherwise would be a stale pose or a foreign outside imposition of an arbitrary shape to the body. The A’s are in relationship to one another; each A, gives the other A its relevance to the whole.

For instance, if we take away Attitude, we have dry technique-based asana. If we take away Alignment and a sense of clarity as to what the form for each asana is, we have creative movement with little boundary. Also we lose sight of the vision of why the actions are even necessary. If we take away balanced Action, we run the risk of injury in the postures because the forms themselves can be like land mines of potential danger if we do not know how to align ourselves within them. And so on. Each A is important.

So we talked a lot about classic form vs. variations. One of the hallmarks of our method, I believe is our great delight in practicing creative variations on classic form and on our willingness to occasionally, as I say, “put the protractor away for a while” when we practice. But John was insistent that these variations be taught relative to the classic form because in most cases the classic form is the standard for experiencing and expressing balanced action.

Take trikonasana for example. Many time we take that pose and back bend it. But in its classic form trikonasana is straight through the spine. (Check out Light on Yoga or D’s syllabus poster.) The straight spine should be “mastered” first because it is easier to find and express balanced action in that form. (Mind you, I did not say easier to do, just easier to do in a balanced way. If you are a bend-y type, guaranteed you will not enjoy classic form as much!) So if you can find balanced action straight, then you can work on not just back bending the pose, but back bending it in a balanced way- with strong kidney loop and pelvic loop, for instance.) Same goes with all the forms that we back bend- seated twists, Vira 1, anjaneyasana, etc.

Now, I myself have heard John say, Action over Form but I think we have to be mature in our understanding of this. I am pretty sure he does not mean that form does not matter! This might mean that in a back bend like urdhva danurasana the shape is bent but the action is like tadasana; there is still that kidney loop action within the form. The kidney loop in this case is there to bring Balanced Action. And so on. Same with poses like padmasana where the form is extremely externally rotated we still need the action of Inner Spiral to keep the femur set in a balanced way so that we do not aggravate the psoas or the S.I. joint.

So enough on this today. Obviously more could be said. Oh, but the thing I must say is how cool it is to keep plumbing the depths of the basic of this method because as John told me once, “The depth of the basics is infinite.” How crazy after 10 or more years at this with John to go, “Oh, right…. Balanced Action, not just Action.” (I swear this stuff is never dull.) And John’s patient dedication to my love for precise articulation always astounds me.

Tomorrow I hope to follow this up with a discussion on how all of this relates to Tantra because the way we take this off that mat is actually where the fun begins! It is a lovely discussion about discipline, indulgence, rules, guidelines, deference, and the exciting path of discovering and expressing one’s own wisdom and authority. (How is that for a tantalizing preview?)

Immersion Part 1.1, more little notes…

Sat AM

back body= universal> opening and learning to stay conencted to that. Front body= individual, embracing and opening to our individuality and diverisity

Bring meaning to the practice to stay engaged.

Stability preceeds freedom.

Soften first, then ask “what does this pose have to offer/reveal to me?

Place four corners of foot on one foot- press ball down, and then lift heel and pull back to inner edge

DFD demo- often lose connection- arm bones collapse to floor. stablity preceeds freedom. create boundary you can expand out into. donw ant to fall off edge and lose sense of who we are. if upper back is stiff, look forward

Ardha Salambasana- with friend, whole hand under/top of shoulders and then lengthen and lift

Urdva Danurasana with friend- toes in line with their ears, grip ankles. Assistant bend knees. Pull elbows up (NO) push elbows/HAB down (YES!). Armpits towards floor. arm bones back, heart to partner.

Sat PM

balanced action= energy moving in and out. not static- pulsation. learn to play the edge skillfully.

optimal blue print- not  cookie cutter, indiviudal, where balance is optimal for you.

contemplation= be still and be with whatever is. conenct with how it can unfold. reflecting with an receptive mind. leading things arise> creating space for things to arrive. having faith/trust that you know, not thinking something to death.

How:

1. prepare yoursef to ask question.

2. learn to ask clearly.

3. write what immediately arises- what is in your awareness

4. allow that to settle, and extract its essence

5. refine

the process of contemplation helps us to gain clarity. brings sense of freedom and power of transofmration into the moment. helps us to become more fre from incessant thinking. process of self inquiry. listening skills.

Meditiaton- you use all the practices, and then eventually you let them go and all of life becomes meditation, the practice. no separation.

 

Nov 10, home practice reflection

After all the focus of the weekend, today in my practice I just wanted to dance, and feel fluid and light. My practice felt full of discovery as a played with refining the principles in ways that Shraddha illuminated for me this weekend. I felt so balanced, and poised. I felt a spaciousness inside and the alignment just started to flow through.

Anusara Immersion, Part 1.1

An Anusara Immersion is an opportunity to deepen practice and understanding of Anusara principles of alignment, philosophy, anatomy, and ethics. Much of part 1 is a review for me- it feels like a wonderful jounrey of deepening and refinement. Shraddha has a wealth of knowledge and wisdom to share, but also beautifully holds the space for students to share their experience and wisdom.

Here are some questions for contemplation that she sprinkled throughout the weekend:

• What does opening to grace mean to me and how can I experience it in my practice?
• What is god, the universal energy, spirit for me?
• What does it mean to connect to something bigger?
• How to I move into greater alignment with spirit to lead and live an empowered life?

Reflections from throughout the weekend:

Sat AM- I’m thinking so much, trying to figure our the alignment for my back, and to let my psoas release. I need to take a step back and remember what opening to grace feels like in my body- a softening and expansion. OTG is softening into the universal, trsting that I’m at the right place in my journey- the process, my practice and my body will open and unfold over time. In opening I need to remember that I am safe, that I won’t be perminantly hurt or harmed- I can stay with the discomfort and breath life into it. OTG is a first step, next comes action, but they are applied onto this inner body of softeness and expansiveness. That way the actions are not a gripping, controlling effort, but an embrace around what is already perfect.  This is a process, my body, mind and heart won’t get in instantly. I’m happy that in Shraddha’s classes we’re stickying with a lot of basic poses, so I can work on finding that softness and expansion in a place where I’m not right at my edge. Once I find that softness, I learn to balance it with strength, then I can begin to push the edge again. “effortless strength”

Sat PM-What does it mean to connect to something bigger? Seeing the good, looking for the beauty and remembering its a reflection of what’s already inside. The beauty is always there, dancing right under our foot, shimmering like yellow leaves under a blue sky. Connecting means remembering and celebrating our part in the beauty, recognizing that we’re it, there’s no separation. Then we get to play and participate, co-create with it!  We can start in little steps what we want to do in big steps- start by connecting to other people, to nature.

Homework- to look for the good- in the world, in my own body, even in pain. Simple, but not easy.

When you feel helpless, send your blessings. Who am I really blessing? Who am I really forgiving?

Some days we’re cloaked and clouded. But when we get on the mat, we make a committment to be with it all, and open to let spirit come in and be with us there. Often when we leave the mat, we feel a little more clear.

Sunday AM Practice- The theme today was celebrating the diversity. I tried to remember my diversity, and just embrace the actions that I had to do- turn my feet out, more outer spiral. My back started to feel a lot better- I could feel it trusting that it was safe. It also was incredibly powerful to have Shraddha’s support. I walked in Sunday morning and she exclaimed, “I was thinking about your psoas and SI all night!” Feeling her support helped me soften to trust in the process. I started to feel more secure, like I had a container and I didn’t have to hold everything all alone. The power of care is huge. This is the perfect place for me right now, its amazing how life brings you the right teahers and the right points on your path. I’m glad I took the first step in and decided to commit to her.

Align and trust in the process.

Sunday PM Practice- I’m feeling more and more security in my SI. I trust that I can figure this out, and have the tools and support I need. I trust in time. Open to grace is still hugely important- not just inner body bright, but first a downward softening in the pelvic floor so that the inner body has the freedom to rise up and get full. This lengthens and relaxes the psoas. I’m really impressed the Shraddha’s refined understanding of the principles- its these nuances that are taking my practice way deeper. How wonderful! I’ve focused so much mentally and physically this weekend- I’m pretty pooped. But I trust that this work is important, and working with the pain has brought me to a really hightened place of awareness and prescence with my body and mind. I can start to see it as a gift.

creating meaning

Each day, at every moment we can create meaning and value. We are always “Poised for Grace”, poised to receive Grace, poised to offer Grace.

12:42 PM Sep 16th from Ping.fm
from Jamie Allison on twitter http://twitter.com/jamieomzone

Katchie Ananda and the UPAs

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/26/EDF41A9U14.DTL In this article a certified anusara teacher relates the UPAs to death of “spiritual warriors” in Arizona.

In the Anusara yoga I teach and practice, the principle is to say “yes” to life, to our goals and aspirations and dreams. But coupled with that “yes” is an immediate “no,” expressed by creating boundaries, for the safety of our physical bodies and our psyches. We literally contract our muscles to protect and stabilize the joints and the core. Then out of that “no,” that stability, can come another “yes,” a physical (and perhaps spiritual) expansion, one that is more grounded, more realistic and has been tested by life’s challenges. It is too late for the people who suffered and died in that sweat lodge. But it’s time for all of us to insist that anyone who presumes to take on the mantle of “spiritual teacher” must honor the importance of “no” – as much as the aspiration of “yes.”

Katchie Ananda is a Bay Area yoga teacher. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/26/EDF41A9U14.DTL#ixzz0WQ7HllKq

Mullis, revised summary

Mullis (2008)- I’m thinking that this reading reflection could go well in the section on teaching embodiment rather than in the lit review??

In “The Image of the Performing Body” Mullis considers how the body is transformed into an aesthetically expressive medium. Though his work specifically considers dancers and actors, he provides useful explanations of experiences of embodiment that can be applied to the practice of yoga. Mullis explains the process through which the body acquires physical skill using the notions of “body schema” and “body image.” Mullis cites the work of Shaun Gallagher who defines body image as “a complex set of intentional states and dispositions—perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes—in which the intentional object is one’s own body” (2008:62). Mullis breaks body image into three components: body percept, body concept, and body affect. “Perception gives me a sense of the condition of my body at any point in time, while conceptions build upon perceptual content and allow one to understand the nature of one’s embodiment” (63).  Mullis also highlights how body image, particularly body percept and concept are highly influenced by cultural and societal standards of beauty, fitness, health. The ways in which our bodies are “invested with emotion” is also culturally influenced, claims Mullis (63).

 

Body schema as first defined by Head and Holmes in 1911, is the subconscious postural model of the body. “Body scheme functions by continually comparing the body’s present posture to those held in the immediate past. That is, at the preconscious level, schema provides a standard against which changes in posture can be judged” (63).  Mullis gives the example of moving to answer the phone. The body automatically knows how to get up and move to the phone, if you had to think about how to make every little movement you’d never get to the phone on time. Body schema provides the following three functions. First, input is the way that information about posture and movement are processed through balance, joints, skin, and muscular and kinetic sources. Second, output is the motor programs both innate (reflexes) and learned (such as riding a bike) that are elicited by the environment—just like riding a bike; they come back to you when you need them. Third is the translation of visual information to proprioceptive information. For example, if a teacher demonstrates a movement, and says do it like this, the body can imitate. This function of body schema is essential for communication.

Mullis explains that though body schema is normally preconscious, it can enter consciousness. This happens when the body is learning a new motor skill. Mullis quotes Gallagher to illustrate, “the dancer or athlete who practices long and hard to make deliberate movements proficient so that movement is finally accomplished by the body without conscious reflection uses a consciousness of bodily movement to train the body-schematic performance. Proprioceptive information (especially visual and kinesthetic) is used to develop schemata that, in time, will be automatically elicited by the environment.” (CITE!!)

Body schema feeds into body image, providing information for its formation (64).

In yoga, as in dance or performance, students are taught to be more skillful in their movements by becoming conscious of subconscious postural schemas and training the body to do something different. A change in body schema can affect the body image, one’s conscious experience of the body. Mullis (67) cites several studies that demonstrate that individuals who engage a high degree of physical activity tend to be more positive about their bodies. In both performance art and yoga, the body is transformed into an expressive instrument and a higher quality of perceptual and affective experience of the body may be developed.

 

Effortless performance (69): Talking about how performers communicate physically- communicative gesture is contingent upon interaction between performers and audience. The movement itself is meaningless, but because a communicate space (72) is developed meaning is assigned. Same in a yoga class- a teacher creates a communicative space where movements and expressions are assigned meaning. (“like your inner body be bright like the sun in shining in your heart”). Yoga teachers ask students to convey a certain attitude through their movement, which the instructor assigns- having fingers open wide conveys an attitude of radiance.

Mullis concludes that performance arts (and I think yoga too) “entail transforming the body by consciously developing the functions of the body schema…. Ultimately, this transformation entails using intention to consciously develop functions that normally take place below the level of consciousness” (74). > this makes body become an aesthetically valuable (for performance arts). For yoga, I might argue that this is how the practice becomes a vehicle of personal and spiritual transformation.

“Body schema acts as the intermediary between conscious intent and realization of specific goals” (74)

 

Donna Farhi on embodiment

Donna Farhi

“Everything that has ever happened to us—our birth, the fall from a tree at the age of six, our thoughts, feelings, what we eat, the climate we live in—is inscribed upon our body, creating a living archaeological record. When we develop an awareness of the interior movement that permeates the body, we gain access to the movement of our minds. Yoga is a means of revealing our connection to this natural wisdom.” (83).

 

84- objectification of the body. State of dissociation. “Physical fitness” – focuses on superficial appearance of body- armouring of the body “causes a numbing of the subtler sensations and feeling and, not coincidentally, dampens any possibly awareness we might cultivate of deeper body systems.” (85)

 

85-6 “Instead of directing the body as a separate entity, we relocate our minds within our body and begin to listen to the nonverbal, nonmental information contained within the soma. As we give our full attention to every breath, movement, and the subtlest of sensations, the body becomes mindful, the mind becomes embodied. In so doing, we directly experience the body as an opaque form of consciousness, and we start to see the intimate relationship between the contents of what we think, feel, and imagine and our physical reality. In this reconciliation between body and mind we begin to experience a unitive rather than divisive state. This is what distinguishes the authentic practice of hatha Yoga from mere stretching.”

 

-       imitations of the outer world  in asanas- creativity, discovery of origins of movement and original meaning of gesture (87).

 

88-
“when we first enter a posture we are met by our ability of inability to take on this new form. We feel all the palces where we hold tension. These areas of accumulated tension represent the repetition of our ideation process, that is, our thoughts, fears, tensions, and anxieties coalescing into distinct patterns of tension and form our unique individual posture or attitude of life.

2 pages down, 50+ to go!!

Here’s the first draft of my introduction.

Thirteen years old, the YWCA. On my way to tennis lessons I notice a poster for yoga classes. I am attracted and intrigued and I decide I want to sign up. None of my friends are doing this sort of thing. I think yoga has something foreign and spiritual about it, and I like to try new things. I make my mom come to the first class with me, but I won’t let her to sit beside me. After that class, I decide I don’t want her to come any more. I want to do this alone. This will be my thing.

I love my teacher Jo. She is middle-aged, soft, curvy and wholesome. I’m the only student who’s under thirty in the class. She encourages us to notice our breath and let our minds become quieter. We do this sequence of movements with our breath called sun salutations and different poses that are named after animals or the shapes they make. Jo exudes self-acceptance, and comfort with her body. Overtime, I start to feel more at home in my body, and start to mind less that my hips and thighs seem to be growing wider each year.

I continue yoga classes off and on throughout my teens. I don’t dedicate myself whole-heartedly to the practice until years later, but in these initial experiences, I’ve come to appreciate that this practice has an effect beyond the physical.

 

In North America the term yoga encompasses a vast and incredibly diverse array of practices. Many Canadians associate yoga with the popularized styles of Bikram, hot yoga, or power yoga that focus primarily on a vigorous physical practice.  Others hold stereotypes of yoga as an esoteric Eastern spiritual practice that has little relevance to modern life, unless you’re a granola-munching hippie. Still more and more Canadians think of yoga as a healthful practice that promises to improve flexibility and balance, increase mental focus, and reduce stress. These associations and stereotypes hold truth, but do not represent the wide scope that the term “yoga” encompasses in the west.

These surface level associations also miss the important and nuanced experiences that practitioners encounter on their yoga mats.  This inquiry into yoga, in the form of an honours thesis, will not attempt to survey the broad array of yoga practices, nor will it attempt to quantify the meaning or importance of yoga in our society.  Instead I will delve into qualitative research, searching for the meaning of yoga as an embodied practice from the perspective of individual practitioners. (Start with focus on individual, will come back around social importance in my ending analysis and conclusion).

I will limit my research to focus primarily on one form of Hatha yoga, called Anusara yoga. Hatha yoga as an umbrella term that includes most of what Canadians would think of as “yoga”. Hatha yoga uses physical postures (asanas), breathing techniques (pranayama) and meditation with the intention to maintain or improve physical health and mental focus and equanimity. Anusara, which means, “flowing with grace,” is a “heart-centred” form of Hatha yoga founded by an American, John Friend, in 1997. Anusara yoga emphasizes alignment, therapeutic benefits and the transformative power of yoga—physically, mentally and spiritually. John Friend was previously a student and teacher of Iyengar Yoga, a system developed by Indian master B.K.S. Iyengar. Iyengar yoga emphases correct alignment of the body in postures and is known for its use of props to safely support beginning students.  Unless specified otherwise, it is the methods of Anusara and Iyengar yoga that I will be referring to when I use the term “yoga” throughout the remainder of the thesis.

The first chapter will explore definitions of embodiment and contain a review of relevant literature to the study of yoga and embodiment.  The second chapter will focus on my methods of research and the format that my analysis of research will take. Then, we’ll dive into the meat (other way to say this that doesn’t sound so carnivorous?) of this work: accounts of embodied experiences with yoga interwoven with anthropological analysis. These accounts and accompanying analysis will be organized thematically: list themes here….

donna farhi

 

http://www.commonground.ca/iss/0411160/cg160_Farhi.shtml

For many years teaching and practising was stabbing in the dark. I was trying to find a way back to a natural and loving way of being with the practice and that’s what I’m sharing now, especially with people who want to train as teacher. It’s to teach from the heart, from the essential message, of the tradition, as that is so desperately what people need to hear when they go to a yoga class.
JR: What is that essential heart?
DF: I think first and foremost it is to meet every person who comes into the room with an unconditional accepting presence, and to see them as already whole; to recognize that each of us has some degree of fragmentation. We come in with our problems and our neuroses and our physical conditions and our history. So, to see through that and to be seeing each person as whole – and everyone’s desperately wanting to be seen in this way – is healing, to hold the vision of wholeness in the faith in my own wholeness and the wholeness of the student.

The other message which is perhaps counter to how some would interpret this tradition is that I think we all have an inner teacher and if we’re listening and quiet we’ll be given those answers, whether those answers are how to move or what to say in this moment, what to do or not to do in this moment. We all have that wisdom. I feel my job as a teacher is not so much to share my wisdom but to create a context in which the other person can discover their unlimited access to their own wisdom-nature.
It is like setting up a dinner table for guests. You set flowers on the table, prepare the cutlery just so, prepare the meal and then because there’s this expectation that something special is going to happen, something special does happen. I have that expectation in every class, and I think that sets up a field for people to awaken to the wonderfulness of this moment when we just stop long enough to pay attention.
I have a high expectation of teachers.

JR: To set up the context. Could you talk a bit about the difference between teaching teachers rather than students?
DF: Teaching teachers challenges me probably more than any other kind of teaching I do in that I have to break down what may be intuitive or unconscious for me as a teacher. It may be information that I arrived at intuitively or unconsciously and now I have to make that process conscious within myself, stratify and codify it. Deconstruct the steps to this process and help the teachers I’m training become cognizant of those steps. It’s important that they’re cognizant because they have to know where in this series of steps is the student. Where do I meet this person right now, how can I most effectively work with the person who is before me?
I think what is also very challenging about the model that I’m working from is that it’s not formulaic. It’s not paint by numbers. It’s a model that demands a deductive awareness on the part of the teacher to listen and respond to the students. The other part of the model which I think is terribly missing in most teaching that goes on in our culture is that every technique a teacher uses needs to be assessed in terms of whether it’s moving a student towards independence and freedom or whether it’s moving them in the direction of dependence.
That totally alters every word that comes out of your mouth, because you’re guiding a process of inquiry rather than telling the person what it is they should feel or how they should feel it. It’s a very different model for teaching, but I’ve worked from different ones and it does bring the student in direct contact with that force which is animating them. That’s the main thing I think that’s missing at the moment in the popularization of yoga.
The public is being misled in a sense that yoga equals asana, all these wondrous and crazy looking postures. In its essence, yoga has nothing to do with the posture or gymnastic physical feats. It has to do with using the body to connect to that animating force. So, if I’m practising asana it’s to connect myself to that which animates me: to the universe, to life and to nature. If I’m doing meditation or a breathing practice or karma yoga the goal is not to get your foot on the back of your head.
In the last decade yoga has very much gone in the direction of objectification and a complete 180 degrees from the original purpose of the tradition, which is to recognize its paradoxical nature. It’s got a strong somatic base and the purpose of that is to use the body to directly experience that we are more than our body.
JR: Could you describe a direct somatic experience?
DF: Well, somatic is any practice that’s embodied, anything that brings you into the sensation of the physical body.
JR: So it’s a presence that comes with that?
DF: Not necessarily. It is what makes yoga such an extraordinary tradition in that it has this strong basis of embodied spirituality. But there’s a paradox and this is where I think those of us in the West have tripped up.
We have this strong embodied portion to the practice but the purpose of those embodiment practices is to directly experience, not as something intellectual or that “I think,” but directly in-body knowing that while my body is a lovely thing to have, I am more than that. The direction yoga has gone in the last decade in the West is to use the practices to build up the body as our exclusive identity. So, now we have yoga for abs and for keeping you forever young and yoga that’s going to make the body more beautiful and perfect.
Now, it can generally make the body more beautiful and healthy, but that’s not the ultimate purpose of the practise. We call this losing the plot. What is the real storyline here and where did we lose the plot?
On the upside I would say there is a groundswell internationally now. Everywhere I travel to teach there’s a groundswell of people who have done these physical practices to the nth degree. They’ve done their 30-minute headstand. They’ve practised and practised the physical poses, have taken it to the limit and are now asking the question “Is this all there is?” in the same way that someone who collects houses, cars, beautiful women and money in the bank might pause and ask that question.
People who’ve been doing these practices are now asking that question and I see my role as a bridge for people who’ve been working with a very physical practise of asana and are now looking to use it within the context of the whole tradition, rather than as a practise unto itself. It was never meant to be done just by itself. It was meant to be done in relationship to the whole tradition.
JR: What’s closest to your own heart now?
DF: In the last year I’ve noticed a profound shift in my spiritual life – my whole life – it’s all the same to me. I feel an immense comfort in just being and a faith in life that wasn’t there so much before. I always saw the universe as an essentially hostile place and I don’t any more, I don’t experience it that way any more.
I feel it very strongly in working with people now because when I walk into the room there may be a little anxiety before I show up to teach 50 teachers, but after a few minutes I just feel so at ease. I feel such a trust in just being, that I don’t have to know the answers. I can be, as I tell my trainees, in an intelligent unknowing state, and to be teaching from and to be with everyone from that place. There’s a great joy in that and it sets up a joyousness in the room, too.
So, I’m taking immense satisfaction from teaching and practising and being at the moment.
The other thing is that I have a huge passion for horses and studying natural horsemanship. I’m taking my yoga into my relationship with my horses at home. I think that’s going to be my next big yoga, the study of horsemanship.
JR: I have a daughter who’d love to help you with that.
DF: I have two horses at home. I have an Arabian warmblood waiting there for me that has only been ridden a few times, so I have a very exciting project to go home to.
JR: I don’t know much about horses, but I remember the first time one started galloping I had no control.
DF: They’re strong teachers. There are many metaphors between the practice of yoga and the practice of being in partnership with horses. It takes a great deal of training, skill and patience not to control the horse, but all of that work is to be able to ride and allow the spirit of the horse to come through without fear.
I’ve learned more from my horses in the last seven years than I have from any formal yoga teachers, because they put me right up against whatever is stuck in me. If I’m working through a problem with my horse it’s because there’s something stuck in me and the horse has found it and we’re not going to progress until I figure out what that is in me that needs to be resolved, be that unresolved violence or impatience or a lack of acceptance, whatever the issue is.
They’re masters at it, and they’re thousand pound masters. You need to pay attention.
JR: I guess this could be said about all relationships.
DF: The big one with horses is you have to overcome your fear of death, because they’re so immensely powerful that if you’re going to be in partnership with that immense power and not contain, distort or constrict it, you have to have a kind of fearlessness. And you can’t pretend, they know.

Donna Farhi has been practising yoga for 28 years and teaching since 1982. She leads intensives and teacher training programs internationally. Donna has been the asana columnist for both Yoga Journal and Yoga International Magazine, and is the author of the contemporary classics, The Breathing Book, and Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit: A Return to Wholeness. Her third book Bringing Yoga to Life: The Everyday Practice of Enlightened Living (Harper SanFrancisco) is an exploration of yoga as a life-long apprenticeship. Born in the US, Donna now resides in Christchurch, New Zealand. To access Donna’s teaching schedule please visit her website at: www.donnafarhi.co.nz.

Donna’s next visit to Vancouver will be next year. The five-day retreat runs from September 30 to October 5, 2005. Call Leila Stuart for details 604-536-7894 or contact leila-yoga@shaw.ca

yoga stats

how many people practice yoga?

Fifteen million Americans include some form of yoga in their fitness regimen — twice as many as did five years ago; 75% of all U.S. health clubs offer yoga classes. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,106356,00.html

Sunday, Apr. 15, 2001

http://www.namasta.com/news.php#16

What is the number of people who practice Yoga in America?

In the 9/5/2003 edition of the Wall Street Journal, an article on high-end yoga mats quotes a Harris Interactive poll that estimates that the number of people who “practiced” yoga in the United States last year is 15 Million.

This poll was actually released by the Yoga Journal in June and is the latest in a series of statistics that have pegged yoga practitioners anywhere from a few million to 28 million (sociologist Paul Ray).

Trends for the practice of yoga are viewed differently by yoga observers. The Yoga Research and Education Council for instance has reported that internet keyword searches for “yoga” had significantly dropped. Real estate agents on the other hand see yoga studios as one of the hottest sectors for their business.

The YJ poll may be self-serving: the magazine thrives on advertising and the June publication for the survey results comes right before the high-circulation issues of the fall.

The issue so far with yoga statistics has been that methodologies were not consistent so no comparison was possible. The Yoga Journal initiative should be hailed by all yoga professionals as it may correct that lack of consistency:

- it contained some forward-looking numbers such as the number of people “very” or “extremely interested” in the practice of yoga (more than 12% of the U.S. population, or 25.5 million people), the number of those who “intend to try yoga within the next 12 months” (16% or 35.3 million people) and the number of those who have at least a “casual interest in the practice of yoga” (over half, or 109.7 million people).

- the Yoga Journal claims it plans to conduct the survey every year.

CBC article:

Last Updated Oct. 24, 2007

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/exercise_fitness/yoga.html

talks about popularity of yoga and explains styles. no numbers though..

“

Form of yoga

• Hatha yoga: The most widely practiced form of yoga, hatha yoga uses bodily postures (asanas), breathing techniques (pranayama), and meditation (dyana) with the goal of bringing about a sound, healthy body and a clear, peaceful mind.
• Ashtanga yoga: Made popular by Pattabhi Jois, this method involves synchronizing the breath with a progressive series of postures. The process is supposed to produce intense internal heat and a profuse, purifying sweat that detoxifies muscles and organs.
• Iyengar yoga: Created by B.K.S. Iyengar, this style is characterized by great attention to detail and precise focus on body alignment. Iyengar pioneered the use of “props” such as cushions, benches, blocks, straps and even sand bags, which function as aids.
• Anusara yoga: Started by John Friend in 1997, this is a modern school of yoga with a Tantric philosophy. Attainable bliss and joy in practice and everyday life are an important aspect of the underlying philosophy of this school. Many western students with a modernist bent find this school attractive.
• Power yoga: A general term used to describe a vigorous fitness-based approach to yoga. Most power yoga is modeled on ashtanga yoga, but does not follow a set series of poses. This form is said to have brought yoga into the gyms of America.
• Vinyasa yoga: This term covers a broad range of yoga classes. The word Vinyasa means “breath-synchronized movement.” In other words, the teacher will instruct you to move from one pose to the next on an inhale or an exhale. This technique is sometimes also called Vinyasa Flow or just Flow.
• Bikram Yoga: Also known as hot yoga and developed by yoga guru to the stars Bikram Choudhury, this style is ideally practiced in a room heated to 105°F (40.5°C) with a humidity of 50 per cent. The philosophy is that extreme temperature allows for deeper relaxation and stretching. Each class follows an unchanging pattern: A series of 26 poses done twice over 90 minutes.
• Mysore yoga: Students are invited to practise whatever postures they please.
• Jivamukti yoga: A physically challenging form that combines Sanskrit chanting and spiritual discussions – all performed to music.
• Kundalini yoga: This style concentrates on psychic centres or chakras in the body in order to generate a spiritual power, which is known as kundalini energy.

http://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/281

Roughly five millennia after Indian mystics, intoxicated on the sacred drink soma, soared into the ecstatic trances that inspired the earliest yogic teachings, a new incarnation of this ancient spiritual technology has taken up permanent residence in the United States. And you don’t need me to tell you that yoga has made it big. You’ve already heard it from Oprah.

You’ve watched Sun Salutations on Rosie O’Donnell and Good Morning America. You’ve read the statistics everywhere from the New York Times to the Tulsa World: According to a 1994 Roper poll, 6 million Americans do yoga. (One estimate places the current number at 12 million.) It’s the most popular new feature at health and fitness clubs around the country, with close to 40 percent of them now offering classes. The Los Angeles Times estimates that there are more than 70 yoga studios in Southern California alone, with some of the bigger ones pulling in as much as $30,000 a week.

The popular Jivamukti Yoga Center in Manhattan offers at least 108 classes a week, with an average of 60 students packed into every class. The Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, Massachusetts—the country’s largest residential yoga retreat center—draws close to 20,000 guests a year, for an annual gross of about $10 million. A search on Amazon.com pulls up more than 1,350 yoga book titles, ranging in erudition from A Reinterpretation of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras in the Light of Buddha Dharma to Yoga for Cats. I’ve done my share of mocking the way yoga shows up in our capitalist culture. (My new favorite automobile ad: an image of a man meditating in front of an immense mound of outdoor gear and a brand new pickup truck. “To be one witheverything, he says, you’ve gotta have one of everything,” the copy reads. “That’s why he also has the new Ford Ranger. So he can seek wisdom on a mountain top. Take off in hot pursuit of enlightenment….”) But in my more serious moments, I believe that when future scholars write the cultural history of the twentieth century, one of the most momentous social trends they will describe is the transplantation into Western culture of Eastern contemplative practices such as yoga and meditation.

Intro vignette, draft 1

Intro to Thesis! Oh boy!

Thirteen years old, the YWCA. On my way to tennis lessons I notice a poster for yoga classes. I am attracted and intrigued and I decide to sign up. None of my friends are doing this sort of thing. I think yoga has something foreign and spiritual about it, and I like to try new things. I make my mom come to the first class with me, but I won’t let her to sit beside me. After that class, I decide I don’t want her to come any more. I want to do this alone. This will be my thing.

I love my teacher Jo. She is middle-aged, soft, curvy and wholesome. I’m the only student who’s under thirty in the class. She encourages us to notice our breath and let our minds become quieter. We do this sequence of movements with our breath called sun salutations and different poses that are named after animals or the shapes they make. Jo exudes self-acceptance, and comfort with her body. Overtime, I start to feel more at home in my body, and start to mind less that my hips and thighs seem to be growing wider each year.

I continue yoga classes off and on throughout my teens. I don’t dedicate myself whole-heartedly to the practice until years later, but in these initial experiences, I’ve come to appreciate that this practice has an effect beyond the physical.

(dear readers- this is a rough draft not a polished piece. what do you think about starting my thesis with this personal vignette? the intention behind it is to set up my work as personal, autoethnographic- introducing myself as the researchED. i will go on in the following intro paragraphs to introduce myself as the researchER.

I’ll continue on to explain…

-       This description of experience as a young teen in no way represents the diversity of the practice that we call “yoga”, or the breadth of my own practice since that time now nearly 10 years ago.

-     Give numbers of north americans practicing yoga.

-       Literally hundreds of different styles and methods for the practice have been developed since yoga was first introduced the west… The experiences of individual practitioners are even broader in their diversity.

-       More on my experience here? Or transition to ideas about embodiment?

Many Canadians associate yoga with the popularized styles of Bikram, Moksha and Power yoga that focus primarily on a vigorous physical practice.  Others hold stereotypes of yoga as an esoteric Eastern spiritual practice that has little relevance to modern life. These associations and stereotypes hold truth, but do not represent the wide scope that the term “yoga” encompasses in the west. Yoga has much more to offer than an intense workout or nutty spiritual message- THIS SOUNDS ARGUMENTATIVE? DO I WANT TO NARROW THE DEFINITION OF YOGA IN THE PAPER HERE?

It is the methods of Anusara and Iyengar yoga that I will be referring to when I use the term “yoga” throughout the remainder of this paper. Iyengar Yoga is a system developed by master B.K.S. Iyengar. Many of the most influential yoga teachers in North American have studied with Master Iyengar or with his lineage of teachers. Iyengar yoga emphases correct alignment of the body in asanas (poses) and is known for its use of props to safely support beginning students.  Anusara, which means, “flowing with grace,” is a “heart-centred” method of yoga founded by John Friend in 1997 (correct date?). John Friend was greatly influenced by Iyengar’s teachings, but has diverged to the point that he felt he needed to create a new system. Anusara emphasizes alignment, therapeutic benefits and the transformative power of yoga, both physically and mentally.  More about Anusara?

Conversation on the bus with Ian

On the way to teaching today, I happened to be on the bus with a student. Ian* has been coming to the student since September and has been quite regular in coming to my classes. His energy as a student is intent and focused. He seems very open to receive what I have to offer: the quality of student who takes a step towards you as a teacher and you can step in closer from their invitation and offer them more.

On the bus I asked him what brought him to yoga and why he stuck to it. He said that he started because of his mother’s encouragement as a way to help with stress in university. He loved it from the beginning. He noticed improvements in his health: better sleeping, better digestion. As he’s continued the practice for several years now, he feels that yoga has helped him deepen his capacity to be present with everything- including stressful and difficult times. The yoga he described is not a practice that transformed him to be “different” or “better” but a practice that has taken him on an inward journey into a more spacious way of being with what is and recognizing that that is enough.

In a society that is constantly asking us to be more and get more- be more fit, be more beautiful, get more stuff, get more education- seldom do we step back and pause long enough to realize what we already have and explore that more deeply rather than a way of acquiring more or being more.  Ian’s story beautifully illustrates my theme this week of moderation. Through this practice we learn to listen and we grow in our capacity to see what is and see how we truly are.  We learn to accept and respond to that rather than pushing beyond our limits to be something we’re not or try to change situations beyond our control. (Or in an asana push ourselves to open more than we have the integration and strength to support).  We learn to say no so that when we say yes its authentic. From this more genuine grounding we can open up to the abundance that life has to offer us and we learn to abundantly offer back to life our gifts.

(*names on this blog changed for privacy)

Reflection from Anatomy Training with Martin Kirk

Anatomy Training Martin Kirk, Toronto, Sept 11-13

Toronto, Sept 11, 2009

Master Class Sequencing:

Theme: What’s your passion? What is your love? What do you want to be? Follow that thread into your own heart. Others can get a hit off of our passion- you ignite something others feel. It helps us all connect back to that one source. The reason it works is when we follow our passion it takes us to joy> bliss/ananda. Everyone has access to bliss because its part of source. Bliss is a quality of the divine. Celebration of life.

Wow! Rocking sweet class. Martin has a sweet juicy energy, not at all intimidating and very connected. I was way in the back row but felt very seen.

Emma and I were talking after about Anusara and she was saying how with other styles of yoga its unclear or couched that yoga is a spiritual practice, and also disjointed in how it connects to life. But it Anusara teaching, Martin didn’t even use the word spiritual but yoga as a practice that supports and nourishes us to go deeper into life was clear- and this is what a spiritual practice really is. Cope talks about transformation spaces- and i think of yoga as having those components- a space that nourishes us to dig deeper.

The theme of the class was “What’s your passion?”, what gets you excited and how can we connect to that and use it as our fuel for our practice and our lives? The connection to daily life is obvious here. We all have passion, and at its essence passion is joy, joy at its essence is ananda or bliss, and bliss is a piece of the divine in each of us, living through us. Is that an esoteric leap?

In the class Martin had us continually come back to this question of passion, especially before going into difficult poses. At one point he said it has nothing to do with the outer form of the pose, “Let your passion guide you in the pose, its not about how deep you go but that you are staying true and opening to your passion.”

He especially linked passion to inner body bright the first principle of Anusara yoga – I keep coming back to this distinction in Anusara- its the way that mental and emotional concepts are linked through themes to physical actions that Anusara is deeply transformation. The teacher directs the students in embodying a mental/emotional state, enacting it physical, and when these translate into the body it really starts to stick, and things start to shift within me (and hopefully in students).

I realized after the class that up until savasana (final relaxation) I hadn’t had a single thought about life outside of the class/my body/the theme- I was totally there and entrenched. Part of that has to do with the physical difficulty of the class- it took all of me- how wonderful. Its the same feeling I had when i was an art student and hours would pass as a I worked on a painting. Its like a beautiful conscious escape.

Reflection/ big Ah-Ha’s from the anatomy training:

- Action is more important than the outer form of the pose. Helps take away comparisons and competition. Teaching action is how you heal and keep people safe.

- Relating inner and outer spiral to healthy spinal curves was BIG! gives me fuel to really teach this with passion and insistence and I feel like I have a lot more information to explain to my students and help them understand the importance. Especially found demo with hand on sacrum and feel it close as feet are turned out really a powerful illustration.

also loved this theme about how it all relates to the universal- we contain the universe in each and every part of us.

Reflection/ big Ah-Ha’s from the anatomy training:

- Action is more important than the outer form of the pose. Helps take away comparisons and competition. Teaching action is how you heal and keep people safe.

- Relating inner and outer spiral to healthy spinal curves was BIG! gives me fuel to really teach this with passion and insistence and I feel like I have a lot more information to explain to my students and help them understand the importance. Especially found demo with hand on sacrum and feel it close as feet are turned out really a powerful illustration.

-  Loved his theme about how it all relates to the universal- we contain the universe in each and every part of us.

-       Invisible matrix, already laid out in our DNA- optimal blueprint- invisible matrix that we try to line up with in Ansuara. When we line up with it in body our health and life comes together

-       Sutra- tantric- Prayavisna Hirdyah (Recognition of the Heart)

-       Sutra 4- Even the individual who’s nature is consciousness in a contracted state, embodies the entire universe in a contracted form”

Sacro-Illiac Joint

-       holds all the upper body weight and has to be mobile

-       rough surfaces rubbing no each other, smooth couldn’t support your weight

-       joint can get out of position if unstable ligaments, the brain will cause all the muscles around the SI to contract to try to stabilize it. Malifitous and glutes will grip and try to hold things together, then it can’t got back into place easily.

-       Musc get tired and build up lactic acid

-       To put joint back, get off feet, make space in joint

-       Most common for SI to go out in really organic women- ligaments looser and less taut, joints have more movement and can go out.

-       Twists are worst for the joint

-       Need to encourage muscle energy,

-       Before twist- hug beach ball with arms, then bring hug down into pelvis.

-       Women produce more relaxin before ovulation, softens ligaments, more likely to overstretch and lessen stability in joints.

-       Self adjustment for SI- on back, R knee in, R arm under and R hand goes over L thigh, L hand goes on R- hug midline. Do both sides

Creates space in the joint in non-weight baring position so it can go back in.

Power of Intension

Reflection from Shraddha’s class, Sept 4

Shraddha’s (my local Anusara teacher) theme yesterday was the play between expansion and contraction and how we use contraction (such as setting boundaries) to support our ultimate expansion. It was an amazing sequence that felt so great for my body.

The theme especially rings true for me- I could hear this theme 100 times because its just so real and applicable to daily life. I’m starting to feel a bit scattered and stressed about school starting and all the stuff coming up this fall- so this theme reminds me to put into place boundaries and a solid foundation so I can expand in the directions I want.

Expansion for the fall: softening to the universe’s support and guidance

Boundaries/contraction:

- 10 + min daily morning meditation to notice body, breath, set intention, sing invocation

- evening reflection: how did i fulfill my intentions- affirm myself. Where can I work to expand more.

- yoga practice-5- 6 x/week. 40-120 minutes. At least 3 practices a week where I don’t think about teaching.

-Weekly classes with Shraddha.

- Meditation classes with Nancy

-eating mindfully (not studying or reading while I eat)

Its really great to reflect back on this- I wrote them down in September. And almost 2 months later I am really pleased that I haven’t wavered in manifesting them. I thought it would require a lot more muscle energy to get myself to be regular with these practices, but somehow my heart has just know this is what I need to stay steady in my life and I have incorporated them with out much kicking and screaming. What a delight! I’m sure periods will come where I need to renew my commitment, but right now these practices feel very nourishing and necessary.

The Universal Principles of Alignment of Anusara are clearly not just physical- they help me align my  life around a clearer and higher purpose and facilitate my growth and balance.

Reflection from Progressive Teacher Training (from Aug 5)

Gee, where to start!? I feel so empowered from this training. The way Betsy broke things down for us makes teaching feel so much more do-able. I feel like a huge veil was pulled off many poses that are so difficult for my students- now I can name what’s difficult about them clearly and how to teach more systematically over time to build student’s capacity for growth.

The work we did with heart qualities and themes helped me to unpack and realize why Anusara yoga is so powerful to me. We take a heart quality and through connecting it to a physical action we help our students embody that quality. Especially when this trickles through the class and then surges at the apex (a most difficult pose) students can have huge openings and feel really empowered that they can live in a new paradigm. This certainly doesn’t happen in every class, and in the beginning when the body is still quite contracted you might only get glimpses of this sort of embodiment. Often in these beginning years of practice the mind has to shift first, as the body gradually opens. Then once a practitioner gets more advanced the metaphors of the themes in physical poses become much more obvious – such a drop back to wheel pose being an embodiment of trusting.

There are also great metaphors of embodiment in the poses themselves- animals (cobra, dog), occupations or legendary characters (warrior, hanumanasana), and states of being are conveyed through the pose names.

I had glimpses of what we can learn to embody in Kara and Karen’s Anusara classes, but when I had my first class with a Senior teacher, Desiree Rumbaugh, I had a whole new revelation of the power of Anusara. I think the physical difficult of this level of practice makes you become intensely focused and open, you pair down to just your body and heart.  That level of practice Desiree certainly had a part in helping me open to receive her message and have a big mental/physical/spiritual shift. In that class with her (actually it was a 3 hour workshop and a 2 hour class) she talked about the universal as the back body and how we have to tap into that to be more powerful in our poses, stop over-efforting all the time with our small little selves. This was really powerful for me- I had spent the last several years trying to control and take everything on myself- from my diet to difficult family dynamics…

Coming back to Besty’s workshop, I feel like I gained some tools to learn how to create space for students to have these kinds of experiences in my classes. For example we learned a slouch exercise where you have students press on each other’s shoulders in a poorly aligned stance vs a more aligned stance. This is a really clear way to demonstrate to beginners through advanced students how we embody our attitudes and the way that when we shift our embodiment our attitude might shift in response. (This might be interesting to do in my thesis presentation). I used this exercise in the Women’s Studies presentation I did and there was a really good response. (I need to blog about that experience this week!!)

Emotion and Backbending

Today I was teaching with a focus on back bending pose in a class of 7 women. It was a gorgeous sunny day and my theme was on expanding into the abundance (see post below for more on the theme). When we started to get into the bigger backbends, moving towards my apex pose of

camel, I paused the class and did a detailed demo and discussed the philosophy of the front and back body.  I explained that the front body is the seat of our individuality and our perception of the world. The back body, in yoga, represents the universal, ‘the bigger energy’. Backbends like these (camel pose or dropping back to wheel pose as show in the photo in the post below) are an embodiment of trust. To move from the back body backwards- curling the shoulders back, throat back, head back as we do in backbends takes a huge amount of opening and trust. We have to trust that our heads won’t crash to the ground! Moving in this way is totally against instinct, we’re opening our bodies to do something totally new. In moving into the back body we trust that we can move through these poses not just through individual effort but also by expanding into and trusting in a bigger energy to support us. This is what I explained to my class.

As we moved into the apex, camel, I gave each student space to work at their own pace a bit more and came around to do adjustments. Some students needed to come out of the pose sooner than others due to endurance or because they’re weren’t understanding all the actions to make the pose feel better for their bodies. After doing the pose twice, I had the students come into child’s pose explaining that big backbends stimulate the nervous system. Forward bending poses, especially if the forehead is grounded into something help to calm the nervous system.

As I was walking around giving adjustments to my students in child’s pose to help them release their lower back, Dawn (name changed) sat up. She was clearly upset, with tears were streaming down her face. I was slightly startled, but not entirely surprised. I sat down next to her and asked her what she was experiencing. She responded, “I’m feeling really emotional, I don’t know why.” I responded that her emotional reaction to the backbends was not abnormal. In fact I’ve had a very similar response a few times, with camel pose in particular. I explained that in my experience, we often carry a lot of emotional pain around our chests, literally on our hearts. When we start to open this area of the body physically, these stored emotions may open up and surface. We may have no clue what the emotions come from or why they’re coming up now, but that’s not really of matter. In yoga we create a space where these sorts of openings can happen. In this safe space the physical and emotional and mental intertwine and play on each other- so a physical opening may cause an emotional opening or shift, or a mental opening may cause a physical shift.

Before ending the class, I had Dawn do a few extra poses to help calm her nervous system down so that she was in a more stable place absorb the emotional opening. I didn’t want her to leave the class feeling overly open and vulnerable as she made her way through other spaces that might not be as safe for exploring emotional openness.

I wonder if or how much the theme and context I set for the class impacted Dawn’s emotional opening. Did the theme of trusting in abundance trigger something for her, or was it purely a physical trigger? Or were the two working together. For me, being a quite verbal person, when there’s a teacher talking about a theme that I can relate to on an emotional level it sets a context, and creates a container where I may open in new ways that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

One thing this story may illustrate is how a yoga classroom may become a transformational space- come back to this!