Here Be Tigers

TigerCast your mind back about a thousand years.

You’re in India, walking in the jungle.  Suddenly – a tiger!

Your heart races, your adrenaline pumps, you fun as fast as your legs can carry you in the opposite direction.

And you’re safe.

 

Now, fast forward ahead to now.

You’re at your desk.  You open your email.  Suddenly – a deadline has changed!  Your heart races, your adrenaline pumps, and you flurry into panic mode to address the “paper tiger” that has just shown up.

Phew, now you’re safe.   For the moment.

The only problem is that in the modern world, we are surprised by probably twenty paper tigers a day.

Our nervous system and our stress response, so elegantly designed to keep us from getting eaten by hungry tigers, has become one our greatest liabilities in the modern age.  The steady drip, drip, drip of adrenaline and cortisol into our system is causing adrenaline fatigue and a host of other stress- related illnesses.

According to the American Stress Institute’s 2012 study:

  • 77% of people regularly experience physical symptoms from stress
  • 73% of people regularly experience psychological symptoms from stress
  • 48% suffer sleep issues froms stress
  • 48% feel that their stress has increased in the last 5 years
  • 76% cited money and work as leading causes of stress

While stress can be good (achievement, strength, conditioning, awakeness), too much stress over a long time can start to burn your body out.  (Check out these “Six Myths About Stress” from the American Psychological Institute.)

There are many ways do de-fang our paper tigers.  Top choices:

  • Exercise
  • Meditation
  • Hobby
  • Journalling
  • Connecting with friends

While meditation and yoga won’t be everyone’s favorite solution, they do top the list of suggestions.  We have to give a significant shout out here to Herbert Benson, PhD, who in 1975 developed a system for triggering the “Rest and Digest” side of our nervous system.  Through scientific study, he proved that meditation reduced the effects of stress.  Although scientific study has shown that yogis actually don’t stop their heart, many studies have been done showing that they can significantly reduce their heartrate and blood flow.  The long-term practice of yoga has also been shown to lead to a lower resting heart rate.  (See William J. Broad‘s excellent book “The Science of Yoga” for a further investigation.)

As per Benson’s site, to practice the Relaxation Response:

  1. Sit quietly in a comfortable position.

  2. Close your eyes.

  3. Deeply relax all your muscles, beginning at your feet and progressing up to your face. Keep them relaxed

  4. Breathe through your nose. Become aware of your breathing. As you breathe out, say the word, “one“*, silently to yourself. For example, breathe in … out, “one“,- in .. out, “one“, etc.  Breathe easily and naturally.

  5. Continue for 10 to 20 minutes. You may open your eyes to check the time, but do not use an alarm. When you finish, sit quietly for several minutes, at first with your eyes closed and later with your eyes opened. Do not stand up for a few minutes.

  6. Do not worry about whether you are successful in achieving a deep level of relaxation. Maintain a passive attitude and permit relaxation to occur at its own pace. When distracting thoughts occur, try to ignore them by not dwelling upon them and return to repeating “one.” With practice, the response should come with little effort.

Practice the technique once or twice daily, but not within two hours after any meal, since the digestive processes seem to interfere with the elicitation of the Relaxation Response.

 

On a side note, tigers are endangered and there are fewer than 3,500 left in the wild.  The World Wildlife Fund and Leonardo DiCaprio are initiating a campaign to double that number by 2022, the next year of the Tiger.  Help out if you can.

 

 

How to Audition for a Yoga Studio. Includes: the worst piece of advice you’ll get.

AuditionsThe yoga industry has finally made it.  Auditioning has arrived.

The very word “audition” conjures up the image of nervous and leotard-clad showgirls warming for A Chorus Line while singing, “Got I hope I get it/ I hope I get it/ Please God I need this job.”  But whether we call it a “practical interview” or “Karmic Casting,” the yoga audition is becoming a mortifying necessity as the marketplace becomes saturated with skilled teachers.  So while we may cringe at the process, let’s look at the bright side and take heart in the growing popularity of our cherished practice.

The worst advice you’ll get

Ask a studio owner or manager for advice on the yoga audition, and here are some of the pearls of auditioning wisdom that you’ll hear:

  • “Just be yourself.”
  • “Don’t be nervous.  Just show us who you are.”
  • “Have fun.”
  • “Relax.”

Poppycock.

As a veteran of the stage, I can assure you that this advice is absolutely useless because:

  1. It’s impossible to do.
  2. When you can’t do it (because of point #1) you will feel as if there is something wrong with you, which will make you feel more nervous, incompetent and freaked out.

So let’s just be candid.

You will not feel relaxed.  You will not feel like “yourself”.  You will not feel comfortable.

You will feel nervous.  You will feel giddy.  You may even feel nauseous or slightly ill.

Here’s the truth: you are undergoing this icky audition process because you want to be a yoga teacher.  And when you want something badly, you will feel nervous when you put yourself on the line. You are invested. You care. Not feeling nervous would be inhuman – or indicate that you didn’t really want the gig.  So let’s let go of that sweet little fantasy of “just relax” and get real about what you actually can control.

Preparation

Prepare, prepare, prepare.

Every audition is different in its specifications, but usually you’ll know which poses you are going to teach.

 

Review:

  • Your alignment points
  • Breath work
  • Transition cuing
  • Use of imagery
  • Use of effective language
  • Thematic moment

Then:

  • Practice early (as in, a week before the audition) so that your unconscious has a chance to cement all your work into your body and mind.
  • Practice on your friends until you can get them in and out of the pose in your sleep.
  • Practice it until you can do it easefully.
  • Practice teaching the pose in several ways.
  • Don’t script yourself.  Give yourself room to improvise.

Find out: 

  • Everything you can about the studio
  • Who will be in the room, who else will be there (how many participants)
  • The audition format.
  • Know as much as you can so that you can have a good picture in your mind of what to expect.
  • If you can, go to the audition location prior to your appointment so that you can get a feel for the space.  The audition will be different from your expectations, but familiarize yourself as much as possible.

Also find out what kind of teacher is the studio looking for?

While we want to “be ourselves” (more on that later), it’s good to be clear what the tone of the studio is so that you can play in their parameters.  For example, auditioning for a gym is different than auditioning for a traditional shala, and how you teach should adjust accordingly.  An obvious example: if you’re auditioning for a gym, you’ll want to limit your use of Sanskrit, philosophy, and enthusiastic use of the harmonium.

Visualization

As part of your preparation, visualize your teaching before you go to sleep at night.  Visualize it going just as you wish.

Whenever a fear-based thought comes to your head, practice pratipaksah bhavanam and cultivate the opposite thought.  Replace it with a positive thought, such as, “I am going to rock this audition.”  “I am going to be calm, steady, and kind.” Choose a  phrase that resonates with you.  Remember: this is a practice.  You will naturally have fearful thoughts occasionally and it’s not a big deal.  But when you find it happening, deliberately replace them with a positive mantra.

Seem normal. 

“Don’t be a crazy hippie,” as my friend Chris Brandt likes to say.  Studio owners want to work with responsible, punctual, friendly, safe teachers who play well with others and understand professional standards.  This is not the ideal time to burn incense and perform 15 minutes of Vedic chanting (unless that really defines you as a teacher and is appropriate for the studio, in which case, rock on with your Veda chanting self).

  • Arrive at least 10 minutes early.
  • Smile.
  • Be nice to the people who work there.  Especially the desk staff, as they will relay their impressions to the owners.  (Since you’re a yoga teacher, being kind should go without saying.  But.  Just saying.)
  • Dress professionally.
  • Your audition starts as soon as you enter the building.  Be your best from the moment you arrive.

 

How to control your nerves

Your thorough preparation will help you to control your nerves, because you will have confidence in what you are doing.  However, adrenaline is normal.  To take the edge off of this natural response:

  1. Breathe.  Use your pranayama. Controlled breathing regulates your nervous system.  Lengthen your exhale to control your breath and the crazy butterflies will calm down.
  2. Slow Down.  When we are nervous, most of us turn into speed machines.  You have time.  Breathe and think before you speak.
  3. Feel your feet.  Stay connected to the earth.
  4. Power Pose for 2 minutes to reduce your cortisol and increase your testosterone.  (See this amazing Amy Cuddy video).

What they want.  What you want.

Okay, so here’s the trick.  They want to see “you.”  They want you to seem relaxed and confident and yourself.  (Hence, their terrible advice.)   But we generally only allow ourselves to be relaxed when we are, well, relaxed. Which you won’t be.

So, before you go to this audition, do a little research on YOU.  Ask your regular students, “What’s my best quality as a teacher?”  Find out why they come to your class.  If you aren’t teaching yet, then as your 200-hour classmates what they perceive as your strengths. Also, do a little self-reflection: why do you teach yoga?  What do you want to bring to the classroom?  What makes you excited about sharing your passion with others?  And how does this manifest tangibly in your teaching?

When you prepare for the audition, brainstorm and practice different ways that you can create opportunities to share your strength or your passion with your students.  How can you reveal your strength and unique passion through your teaching?  Keep your larger mission in mind during the audition.  Remembering your larger purpose will help to anchor you in a broader and more meaningful context than the audition.

Easy Brownie Points.

Naturally do your research, but I’d wager these actions will be appropriate for most studios you’ll audition for:

  • Make eye contact
  • Smile
  • Stand up straight
  • Be audible
  • Match your vocal tone to what you’re teaching
  • Keep it simple
  • Plan how you want to walk around in the space so you’re not stuck pacing at the front of the room like a caged tiger.  No wandering.
  • Plan a time to give a verbal or hands on assist to a student (they want to know that you can see your students; work an opportunity to display that into your actual teaching plan so you make sure it happens)
  • Don’t sit down or squat, unless you’re teaching the beginning or end of the class
  • Be kind, not casual.
  • Plan one simple and short thematic moment (if you like theming)

And hey, if fun just starts to happen, then go with it.   🙂

Happy teaching.

Psssst: You might like this video 🙂

Squeeze your Ass-ana

 buttsqueeze2

Okay, okay, we’ve all heard it in yoga class:

“Don’t squeeze your glutes,” or “Relax your buttocks,” or something poetic like, “Allow the tissue of your ahem, buttocks flesh, to melt and soften…”

However you’ve heard it, the message is the same: don’t squeeze your ass.

 

Where “don’t squeeze your butt” started

Now this pithy bit of wisdom has very well intentioned beginnings.

First let’s take a closer look at the muscle in question.

 

Your gluteus maximus is a noble muscle, a large muscle, a power muscle.  It’s like a huge and happy dog: it loves to work and get things done.  The glute moves your thigh at the hip in two ways:

  1. Extension of the thigh at the hip.
    1. This means that your glute will move your thighbone (femur) backwards at the hip.  Example: you’re standing and you lift your leg back behind you.
    2. And it also means that it will bring your thigh from a position forward from the hip (flexion) back to neutral.  Think walking up the stairs.  Your glute is what you use to get from having one foot on the stair in front of you to actually stepping up.  It’s also what helps gets you from squatting to standing.
    3. Rotation of the thigh at the hip.
      1. The fibers of your glute run diagonally from your sacrum to your thighbone.  That directionality means that the glute also has the capacity to externally rotate your thigh at the hip.
      2. Try it:  You can easily feel this if you stand up and  – again –  lift your leg back behind you.  Now squeeze your butt.  A lot.  Do you notice that your lifted foot turns out?  This is because when your glute is fully working, it will rotate your thigh.

So, here’s the problem.

When your thigh is rotating outwardly, it can make your lower back feel…well…crunchy.  There’s less space in there now to lengthen your lumbar spine (ie: lengthen your tailbone down, which you may have heard before as a yoga cue) because the muscles around the hip are so engaged.

 

Try it:

You can feel this by comparing how easy it is to lengthen your lower back with your legs neutral versus externally rotated.

  1. First, stand with your heels together and your feet turned out like a ballerina.  Squeeze your butt.  Now try to lengthen your tailbone to the floor.
  2. Now, try the same action with your feet parallel, or even turned in.
  3. Which was more spacious?

 

Most of us will find that it’s more challenging to find length through the lower back when you stand like a ballerina and squeeze your butt.  As a general rule, it has made a lot of sense to not have ballerina legs when we do backbends in order to avoid over-compression in the lower back.  And because the glute muscle is the primary culprit behind the external rotation, yoga teachers started emphasizing a relaxation of the glutes during backbends.  They figured that if we cued everyone to keep the glutes relaxed, the thighs wouldn’t turn out, we wouldn’t get lower back compression, and everyone would be happy.  Presto!  Problem solved.

 

Problem not solved

As you may have guessed, this did not solve the problem.

Instead, over time and years of practice doing this, we’ve actually created another problem.

 

Flabby butts.horrors!

 

That’s right.  Yogis have flabby butts.

See, it’s not just the turning off of the glutes that’s the problem.  As you’ve probably noticed, yoga is all about the forward bends.  You can’t get 5 minutes into a yoga class without doing a forward fold (uttanasana) or downward dog (adho mukha svanasana).  Yogis are just slightly obsessed with opening their hamstrings and – you guessed it – their glutes.  And there aren’t many opportunities to strengthen the glutes in yoga – especially now that we’re cuing everyone to keep them “soft.”.  We don’t have that many movements in yoga that ask the glutes to turn on to their full potential.

So now we’ve been obsessively lengthening this muscle (via forward folds) as well as simultaneously not strengthening it.  And when you ignore them and stretch then for a long time, they’re going to get tired of being ignored.  So they check out and forget how to turn on effectively – even when you need them. 

 

How do I solve my flabby yogi butt problem?

If you’re cross-training – that is, you are doing other activities where your glutes get loads of work – then flabby yogi butt syndrome likely isn’t a problem for you.    So if you’re a power lifter or a marathon runner, then read no further.  Enjoy your glute stretches in yoga class and go forth in happy butt balanced health.

But if you’re a “full-on-love-my-yoga-what’s-cross-training?” kind of person, then you’ll want to take a look at giving your glutes more work during your asana practice.  Let’s look at some poses.

 

Backbends

Most obviously, you can use your glutes more in backbends. Yay!  The curse is lifted!

 

So, for example, Locust pose (salabhasana).

When lifting the legs up from the floor in this pose, we generally keep the thighs neutral (teachers use cues such as, “lift from your inner thighs,” or “keep your thighs parallel to the floor”).   As an exploration, see what happens if you ….squeeze your ass.

Yes, your feet will turn out.  Yes, your butt will become slightly pumpkinish and round.  Yes, your legs will lift higher.  And it might be glorious!   Your gluteus maximus may sing a song of joy!  Like a Burmese Mountain Dog that is finally allowed to run around free through the Alps and do its work.

Or, for example, in bridge pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana).   Explore turning your feet out (just slightly!) as you lift your hips up.  And yes, squeeze your butt!  See what happens!  If your lower back doesn’t like the way that this feels, then by all means back out, return to neutral, and make the lower back your priority.  But if it feels good, then maybe consider walking on the butt squeezing wild side occasionally?

Butt Stabilizing

We can bring the glutes back into the fold by recruiting them as stabilizers.   Take Mountain Pose (Tadasana) as an example.  Yogis have also been a little obsessed with “hugging in” for the last ten years, which engages the inner legs (adductors).  How about pressing your heels out away from each other instead?  (Go on, try it.)  Then you’ll feel your outer hips engage, which is turning on Gluteus Medius and mimimus – Maximus’s little pals!

 

Or – how about this – when we do our (many) forward folds in yoga, engage your glutes and your hamstrings rather than just hanging out in the stretch?   Rather than stretching the sitting bones forever to the ceiling, in a forward fold, instead keep the length of your legs but draw your sitting bones towards each other or towards your thighs to take your hamstrings out of hteir end range of motion.  As a recovering Flabby-Assed-Yogi, let me personally attest that there is a connection between flaccid glutes and torn hamstring attachments.  So protect your tendons by keeping your glutes eccentrically engaged (eccentrically in this context meaning “engaged while lengthening” rather than “bizarre”) as you practice forward folds.

 

Here are some cues to think about when you’re forward folding to keep your muscles engaged as they stretch:

  • Draw your sitting bones slightly towards each other
  • Magnetize your sitting bones to the backs of your legs
  • Hug your outer hips in
  • Root your tailbone down the backs of your legs

 

grainsaltGrain of Salt

Now, as a recovering FAY, I get very excited about all this squeezing of the butt, and it’s been very therapeutic for me to explore it in my personal practice.  However, we must keep in mind that our bodies are happiest when they are in balance.  By encouraging us to lift the ban on engaging the glutes, I am endeavoring to invite the pendulum back to center – not drive it into over-engaged, pumpkin butt dysfunction.  There is intelligence to keeping the lower back lengthened and stable in backbends, and for some of us engaging the glutes is not going to be the best route to stability.

Your relationship to your ass is, ultimately, a personal one.  So let this be a call to personal ass-engaging exploration!  Squeeze your bum in your yoga class and notice the corresponding effect in your hips and your lower backs.  Feel what happens in the backs of your legs when you’re forward folding: are you so tight that you need all the stretch that you can get?  Or are you at risk of going too far with too little stability?

Go on:  explore the full range of your bum’s potential.  Let the ass-ana adventures begin.

Reflections from the River Styx: Near death experience.

Screen Shot 2013-04-28 at 5.30.31 AMI asked my Dad what is was like to come back from the dead.

“Well, it was just dark and peaceful,” he said.  My Dad looks a little like Clint Eastwood. He’s got the same kind of squint and no nonsense style.  (And he spends most of his time operating heavy machinery on a farm.  By choice.)   But he’s also quick to smile and chooses to laugh when life is quirky rather than get mad about it.   Even when “quirky” means near death experience.

“So it wasn’t painful.”

“No.”

“So you didn’t see any lights, or…fairies, or anything like that?”

“No.”

“No one saying, ‘Welcome to the light, Bill?””

“No.”  He concedes,“Okay, there may have been a light, I’m not sure.”

My Dad is very tolerant.

“Were there any feelings associated with that place?”

He looks up and considers.

“Like I was floating,” he shakes his head, “But then it was over.”

“How long were you out for.”

He inhales through his teeth, “About five minutes, I’d say.  A retired New York firefighter started CPR and they brought a de-fib machine.  Rumor has it they hit me with a jolt five times.”

I deadpan.  “They really didn’t want to mess their cruise up, did they.”

“No.”

“That,” I say,” would have been some bad PR.”

We crack up.

“…Okay, so when you came to…”

My dad sighs.

“Hey,” I say, “Hello, excuse me, near death experience, here?”

“Alright, alright.”  He gestures impatiently.

“Would you say that that experience made you less afraid of death, more afraid of death, neither way?”

“Less.”

“Why?”

He shrugs, “I was there.”

“And it didn’t hurt, it wasn’t bad.”

“Yeah.”

“You were like, I can chill here for a bit.”

He laughs.

“Were you alone in that space?” I ask.  He probably knows what I’d like to hear.  It’d be nice to hear that Granddad Scott was just around the corner and that all our childhood pets were romping happily at his feet.  Or that at the very least there was some sort of benevolent indefinable whosi-whatsit floating around.  I’m a yogi, so I’m not particularly attached to a vision of St. Peter.  But I’d be open to some straight-forward experience of one-ness and ultimate transcendence.  But my Dad isn’t one to blow smoke up anybody’s spiritual ass.

“There wasn’t anybody else there,” he says.

“But you didn’t feel lonely,” I press.

He considers, “No.”

“So it was alright.”

“Yeah.”

My Mom interjects from the kitchen, “What are you telling Rachel that you never told me?  You told me you didn’t know anything!”

“He didn’t say he knows anything,” I holler back.

“I told you everything that I told her,” he says, only slightly exasperated.

“You told me you just blacked out and there wasn’t anything!”

He rubs a hand over his head, “No I mean, it was just…peaceful.   I mean, it seemed okay.  But I was gone… “ he laughs at this, “So what do I know?”

“Well,” I say, “I think it’s interesting that you felt alone, but not lonely.”  I am taking this as a good sign.  “I mean lots of people have experience of seeing lights, things like that.”

He tries to humor me, “Well, I was probably in this transitional…” he holds up his hands, demonstrating some sort of supernatural crawl space.

“Right…” I point over an imaginary hill, “Like the trumpets were just right over there.”

He stands up and grabs his coffee, “And they were just holding them up to play…”

“And then they were like, ohhhh!  Snap!  False alarm, he’s back.”

We giggle.  Well, I giggle.  My dad kind of guffaws.

 

He heads back outside to fix up the fence across the road.  That’s enough time today spent on afterworld speculations.   There are stakes to be put in the ground, welding to attend to, and then the deer need to be fed.

And even though Dad wasn’t greeted by relatives, pets,  hallelujah angels, or a benevolent light, the experience was okay.  And he’s not afraid of death anymore.

And that’s something.

How to: Wheel – strapping for shoulder stability

A good – if slightly claustrophobic way – of keeping the arms from splaying out in the ascent to Wheel (Urdhva Dhanurasana).

Tips:

  • I’d be less likely to use this on a really tight guy (who may need a little extra room to find full flexion of the arms) than on a flexible but instable person who needs more support.
  • Work to make the strap loose – not to hang out in it.
  • The key to the backbend is in the upper back – thoracic extension.  For maximum stability, set the shoulder girdle before you become weight bearing and press all the way up.
  • However, this pose is particularly challenging because it also demands full flexion of the arm at the shoulder.
  • For tighter folks, have them place their hands a little further away from their ears and turn their hands out (creates more space)
  • Less stable and weaker folks (more flexible) can move their hands closer to their ears before fully coming up in order to facilitate the press up.

Wheel: modification for splaying legs and feet

Take a look at how the use of a simple block can transform the space and stability possible in Full Wheel (Urdhva Dhanurasana).  Notice how the upper body is also affected by the prop.

Tips:

  • set the feet first and keep the inner edges of the feet anchored
  • use a prop of an appropriate width
  • prop either between the knees or thighs – whatever gives your student the best connection to their adductors

Wheel: Strap assist for spinal traction yumminess

Here is a two person partner assist for Full Wheel (Urdhva Dhanurasana).  This assist is perfect for those needing more space and stability through their lower back.

Tips:

  • place the straps at the bra line and sacrum line
  • guard your own body position (hinge at your hips, not your low back)
  • pull the straps diagonally rather than straight up
  • use your own body weight to pull the straps – not your arm strength
  • stay in communication with both partners
  • To see this with a tighter partner, click here.

Wheel: for wrist issues and tight shoulders – great partner assist

Anyone with wrist issues or tight shoulders knows that Wheel (Urdhva Dharusasna) can be hard to do. Here’s a simple and easy partner assist that you can do (keep it simple by not using straps and just using the ankle hold) to help your tighter students find their way into this complex pose.  For a deeper look at positioning the straps, click here.

Tips:

  • Use just the ankle hold if you’re doing this as an in-class partner assist to help someone with wrist issues and shoulder tightness
  • If you’re using the straps, make sure to place them at the bra and sacrum line in order to facilitate maximum traction.
  • With straps, pull on a diagonal line rather than straight up.  Pulling straight up will overly compress the spine, whereas pulling diagonally will create more length through the lower back
  • You can use a good deal of strength through the straps to create support, so use your body weight (slowly) rather than rely on the strength of your arms
  • Stay in good communication with your partner at all times

 

How To: Forearm Stand

A marvelous doozy of a pose, Forearm Stand (pincha mayurasana) invites into a full inversion and a backbend a the same time. Here are clear and easy steps for safely instructing your students into the pose.

Tips:

  • finding the backbend in the upper back will help you to effectively balance in this pose
  • using props to prevent the shuffling of the elbows out  will help to create stability and open the shoulders
  • patience!  This pose asks for wicked shoulder and hamstring opening.  Take one step at a time.

 

How to: Headstand with a prop assist

Teach your students to find the necessary stability for their upper backs with this simple block assist in Headstand. By placing the block at the level of the shoulder blades, you will help them to find the necessary scapular stability to get move their hips over their shoulders, which will eventually lead them to a safe and slow ascent.

How To: Handstand

Step by step guide into handstand.

Here are some tips:

  • Straight arms: Keeping the arms straight will keep you and your students out of “nose to floor” danger
  • Midline: Hug the inner thighs together to maintain a neutral alignment in the hips
  • Straight legs: Keeping the legs straight makes your students safer, more supported, and more in control.  Resist bending the knee to get to the wall – it will only create instability for most students
  • Shoulder blades: Draw the shoulder blades onto the back strongly to keep the upper back from rounding.  The action of the thoracic spine keeps the upper body from shifting forward (avoiding that “nose-wall” relationship!)
  • Patience: Handstand is psychological as well as physical.  Allow the gradual and calm unfolding.

 

How to: Chaturanga!

Learn to do and teach an excellently positioned Chaturanga. Use props to find your best alignment and protect the delicate shoulder joint for repetitive stress injury. Check out as we do this is in the YYoga 200-hour Teacher Training.

How to: Chaturanga to Updog

This is a challenging transition for the best of us! Check out these options that you can use to help both do this transition – as well as teach it to your students. Avoid “cheating” and be kind to your rotator cuff 🙂

How To: Handstand Prep

Join and and the YYoga 200-hour teacher trainees as we look at how to do and teach Handstand Prep. The secret is in the bent knees and the shoulder blades…. 🙂

How To: Supta Hasta Padangustasana

An awesome way to teach Supta Hasta Padangustasana – the floor gives you great feedback for your spine and the wall allows you to feel the turn out that tends to happen as our leg takes the path of least resistance.

How not “doing it all” makes your Muppets happy

muppetsI have this fantasy.  Involving many muppets.

I attended an anatomy workshop last weekend with Diane Lee and LJ Lee.  Also attending was a constellation of health practitioners: chiropractors, physios, massage therapists, Pilates teachers…

The muppets in my brain went something like this:

Kermit: “I did not know that, that is amazing!”

Janice:  “Wow – being a physio is cooooool!”

Fozzie:  “Wait, HE said something amazing, he knows stuff too!  I’d better be an RMT, too.  No, wait, wait, really maybe med school!  Yes, be a doctor!”

Animal: “An-i-mal!  An-i-mal!”

Beaker: Eeeep, eeep, eeeeep!

Kermit: “Can I do that and work at the same time?”

Miss Piggie: “Moi?  I can do anything!”

Finally, I intervene in exasperation: “Gang!  We are not going to med school.”

They hang their heads in disaapointment, “Awwwwwwww…”

“At least,” I concede, “Not now.”

This muppet fantasy, which I can’t entirely shake, is that somehow I can do it all.  Or learn it all.  And if I learn it all, then I will be okay.  Then I will be worthy, respectable, infallible.  The knowledge in my brain will somehow protect me from all bad things (shame, ridicule, falling down in public, farting in public).

We all have our muppet fantasies, where we miraculously get “that thing” that we need and then the world falls into place.  For some of us, it’s about getting enough knowledge in our brains to feel perfect, for others it’s about getting the right job, the best relationship, the ideal house.  Usually we are “here” and this fantasy involves a mysterious “there” that isn’t quite reachable. Back at the workshop, Diane and LJ were speaking about community.

“So we can send someone to you and you’ll understand when we say that this is the primary driver.   Or when you send a client to us, you can say, this client is having trouble in utkatasana and hip flexion movements.  Then we can work together and…”

My muppets and I look up.

Work together?

So…not do it all?  Just do my thing?

What if I let go of the fantasy that I have to know it all in order to be “good”, and rather embrace my own niche? Not only would this keep me out of school  – and debt –  for the rest of my life, but it would also allow me to help people more effectively by honoring the specialized skills that I already have.  And then I could actually have a life occasionally (read trashy vampire books, see people, go to the beach, breathe) rather than fretting about everything that must be done to get me to my elusive and safe “there.”

My muppets are nodding.

Piggie: (flipping her hair) I like to read trashy vampire novels.

Fozzie: Then we can tell jokes!

Beaker: Eeeeep.

Animal: Animal!

Janice: Groovy.

Sam the Eagle: A very good idea.

Me: Gang, then we can do what we do well, and let other people do what they do well.  And work together.  And everyone wins.

Kermit (worried): But what about learning?  (He looks at the other muppets.)  We like learning.

Me: Or course keep learning!  I mean, there’s so much I don’t know.  But you know…maybe I don’t need to be a doctor.

Kermit (nods): That sounds good to me.

Dr. Bunsen Honeydew: You don’t need to be a doctor.  I am already a doctor.

Beaker: Eeeeeep.

Me: Exactly.

 

The Pilates teacher next me whispers, “I’ve been thinking about doing my Yoga Teacher Training, I think that would be a great next step!”  And I smile.

Because I think I can help her out.

 

 

Looking out the window

photoI went skiing in Whistler last weekend.

Now, I am not the best skier.

I can barely get beyond pizza-french fries with my skis, and I spend lots of time with an inner narrative something like, “Tailbone down!  Now edges..edges..EDGES…turn, phew, keep your body downhill, core…engage your CORE, now turn..OH EDGES!”

You can imagine a tone in varying degrees of panic.

My skiing companion – a much better skier than me – noticed my focus with some amusement.  As I pulled up along him on the slope, he looked off at the mountains.

“You know, Rach,” he said, “when pilots learn to fly, they spend a lot of time looking at their instruments.  Because they think that looking at their instruments will keep them safe and let them know where they are.  The instruments make them feel certain.  But it’s not always true.  So their instructors have to tell them, ‘make sure you look out the window sometime.'”  He looked at me, “Look out the window, sometimes, Rachel.”

I paused and took that in, an then looked around at the gorgeous mountain-scape I hadn’t really noticed until that moment.  I’d been so busy in my technique and trying to get things “right” that I’d forgotten to simply enjoy the process of being there on the mountain.

We do this in so many areas of our life, especially when we care about what we’re doing and want to improve.  But our very zeal for advancement can hinder us from the real juice of the practice.  And I say this with an enormous amount of love and respect for all self-improvement fanatics, because I’ve also drunk that kool-aid.  If we ease up on being perfect, a landscape of possibility open up.  Perfection is all or nothing; win or lose; ski well or suck.  Possibility is mountains, unexpected encounters, seeing the sky change colors.

Let’s look out the window.

 

Single life and Valentine’s Day

A long time ago, I liked Valentine’s Day.

Back in kindergarten and grade school, Valentine’s Day was a fun opportunity to tell everyone we knew how much we liked them.  We spent hours making valentines for schoolmates, teachers, family members, even pets.  All topped off with the little sugar valentine hearts and copious amounts of glitter.

But then, in high school, the import of Valentine’s Day started to shift; it became about “having” or “not having” a sweetheart.  The winners, and the losers.

As I grew older, Valentine’s Day became even further tainted for me by commercialism.  “If he really cares, he’ll buy you this,” ads seem to say cheerily.  Disappointment in the day seemed inevitable: an expensive “date night” could rarely live up to expectations, but not having expectations at all felt defeatist.  To my partner’s chagrin, my preference was to opt out entirely.  “No flowers!”  I’d declare stonily, “they just…wither…and die.”

This year was my first Valentine’s Day as a single gal in over a decade.  Given my grim resistance to the holiday, you’d think that I’d feel relieved.  But rather than feeling liberated, I found myself hypocritically nostalgic.   To top off my loneliness, a last minute cold knocked me out of my usual teaching schedule, so I was on my own, without plans, and under the weather.  So there I was at 7 pm on February 14th,  trudging around Whole Foods, sniffling pathetically, wondering if I’d reached a new low by vitamin shopping on the Most Romantic Night of the year.

Just as the internal melodrama was reaching a crescendo, I got a call back from a gal pal  who was just out of a relationship and in a similarly solitary situation, so we commiserated as I sorted through my kale options.  Then I got another call from a friend checking in on my cold (she was on her way to a date).   A final chat with another friend (in a relationship) took me the the rest of the way through the vitamin selection and check out.  Where I realized that I wasn’t feeling so pathetic anymore.

I did have a Valentine after all.  In fact, I had several.

I’d gotten so trapped in the idea that intimacy equated partnership that I’d forgotten to appreciate the people that I already had in my life.  Partnership – while it can be fulfilling – is just one of many kinds of human connection that we can nurture and be nourished by.  But somehow I’d forgotten something that I’d understood as a little kid: anyone you love can be your Valentine.

I am hereby reclaiming my kindergarten understanding of Valentine’s Day.  From now on, Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to be about cupid’s arrow, expensive dinners, red roses or champagne.  Instead, it can simply be a day where we take the time to tell someone else that we care about them.  And we can relay this message through a phone call, an email, or a fabulously glittery card with glued on sugar hearts.

In “The Art of Happiness,” the Dalai Lama’s message on intimacy is relayed:

“At this very moment we have vast resources of intimacy available to us. Intimacy is all around us. … If what we seek in life is happiness, and intimacy is an important ingredient of a happier life, then it clearly makes sense to conduct our lives on the basis of a model of intimacy that includes as many forms of connection with others as possible. The Dalai Lama’s model of intimacy is based on a willingness to open ourselves to many others, to family, to friends, and even strangers, forming genuine and deep bonds based on our common humanity.”

Now, that’s a Valentine’s Day that I can get behind.