Why the world needs big box yoga

Big Box Yoga.

Mainstream yoga.

Franchise yoga.

 

“It’s so…corporate,” the yogi whispers. “Sure, I occasionally go there, but the real yoga is happening at (insert name of small, financially unstable, ma and pop studio name here).”

The multi-location heavyweights – be it YYoga, Yoga Works, Core Power, or Bikram Yoga – are often criticized for wolfing down market share from the “authentic” smaller studios that once held dominion over the yoga lineage. And while some yogis embrace the change (oh, to have showers, lockers, clean mats, tea lounges, and infrared saunas!), others snipe at the offering: “Those big box studios. It’s just not real yoga.”

So what is “real” yoga, anyway?

Despite its recent appointment of a “Minister of Yoga”, not even India can really say. Over the last three thousand years, the term “yoga” has described a dizzying range of practices and conflicting philosophies. And despite this recent, cheeky bid for ownership, yoga hasn’t always been high on India’s list of national treasures. Many of its practices (like tantra) were initially reviled by the Indian mainstream.

So where does that leave us on this side of the pond? Are we just paying for a Lululemon clad workout rather than spending the same money at the gym?

Not exactly. Despite yoga’s complicated past, its practices have one common aim: liberation from suffering. And while North American yogis may show up at class to get longer hamstrings, a happier back, or a tighter ass, invariably they keep coming back for something else: “I feel calmer,” “I’m less bitchy,” “I’m just…happier.” Yoga teachers – Ganesh bless them – are still managing to get the essential message across.

The mission of “big box yoga” is to bring yoga – and its message – to as many people as possible. It’s true, we don’t look like an ashram: we eschew incense because some guests are allergic, we are wary of hands on assists and inversions because of lawsuits, we avoid naming our classes in Sanskrit because it’s alienating to newcomers. And we have an elaborate, corporate structure so that we can continue creating shiny, cleanly appointed, box after box in cities across the country. Because we want the non-yogis to walk in our doors and feel like they’re at home. And we want them to come back.

Yes, there are problems with our cultural version of yoga. North American practitioners are predominantly privileged, white, and materialistic. The yoga industry here is a strange, bastard child of our cultural heritage and yoga’s historical offerings. We don’t practice yoga in caves on tiger skins; we wear Lululemon, practice on $125 mats, drink $8 juices after class, and accessorize with malas without realizing that they’re tools for meditation.

And yet….

Big Box yoga is our next best chance for a North American spiritual evolution.

If hitting up a Vinyasa Flow class in Kitsilano helps us to feel a little less road rage and snap less at our kids, that’s good. If we experience less anxiety and depression (yoga has been proven to reduce both), that’s good. If we have more capacity to respond rather than react when conflict arises, that’s good. If we realize that our essential spiritual identity consists of more than thoughts in our head, that’s good. And while yoga may be an elitist practice now, these big boxes pave the way to making it increasingly accessible to less privileged communities.

And what about those smaller, more traditional studios? Will they be wiped out by the evil corporate empire? Not at all. Rest assured: those ma and pop studios aren’t going anywhere. In fact, big box yoga may ultimately inspire a whole new generation of seekers to investigate these more traditional venues. Once our newbies have gotten a taste for the practice, that is.

 

So, bring on Big Box Yoga.

Bring on the North American spiritual revolution.

One well-lit, over-packed, commercialized class a time.

What zombie hands have to do with yoga

I have a bad habit of reading my phone while walking into heavy traffic.

Yesterday, walking to lunch, I had to deliberately return my phone to my bag on three separate occasions after, zombie like, my hand decided to reach in and pull it out.

“No, Rachel, No!” I muttered out loud, as if my hand were a recalcitrant child that could be scolded into behaving, “Jesus.” I nearly walked into a parked Volvo. “Get it together.”

We are growing so connected, so “on” all the time. Information is strapped to our bodies, “Let’s google that,” we say, rather than “I don’t know.” “I’ll text her now,” rather than “I’ll ask her later when I see her.”

When there is that odd moment between the doing – like when walking or waiting in line – I instinctively rush to fill it with this information/ connection glut. It is much more comfortable to reach for my phone than to take a breath. There are so many delightful options at my fingertips that provide an immediate rush of competence and popularity: email, texting, Tinder (ahem), flipping through Facebook…there’s always some hook to catch.

It’s not our fault that we are uptrained to technology. Our culture supports this electric conductivity, encouraging us to be in our virtual minds as much as possible to be popular (you’re not on instagram?), well-informed (you don’t get google scholar alerts? what about the political gabfest podcast?), connected (you’re not on linked in?). Information and connection, at this point, are so prevalent that it is no longer a matter of if we can connect, but how we filter out the noise. For human beings, wired for community, connective technology is sugar for our psyche.

Connecting out is easy, fast, satisfying.
Connecting in is slower, messier, and can be scary.

When the furor dies down and the waters become still, pausing and turning into ourselves can reveal hurts, thoughts, vulnerabilities that are easily  scotched over in the fluster of our lives. At the end of my day at home, I sit and watch my compulsion to do anything (budget, email, eat glutinos, watch House of Cards) rather than breathe into the soft animal of loneliness that sometimes comes to visit. But when I am brave enough to turn in, connect, and invite myself to feel, then through the bittersweet human pangs there arises the deep sense of hereness, of being, of safety in myself.

The space between the doings reveals us again as human beings, breathing in the vast, unfathomable, and heart breaking space of simple aliveness and all our unfinished business. We move (as Jon Kabat Zinn eloquently states) from the digital world to the analog. Time is slower, counted by the footfalls on a forest hike rather than in the impatient milliseconds it takes a page to load. In the being moments, we are perfectly imperfect, practicing just being with ourselves as we are.

Yoga practice offers us a rare and precious space to turn inwards. To feel. To reclaim our deeper, older, and wildish aspects. We connect with that which is beyond words and speaks in the language of sensation. We make space to feel our physical bodies, our animal desires, our emotions, our intuition, our breath.

As we move in, we nourish the deep roots, dig into the dark soil of who we are. This re-integration gives us the solidity and form that we need to be steady amidst the winds. We can remember our purpose, our love, our softness.

Our hand then remembers to leave the phone in the bag. Because the walk is so much sweeter without it.

Feeling the whole elephant

Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, “Hey, there is an elephant in the village today.”

They had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, “Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway.” All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone of them touched the elephant.
“Hey, the elephant is a pillar,” said the first man who touched his leg.
“Oh, no! it is like a rope,” said the second man who touched the tail.
“Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree,” said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.
“It is like a big hand fan” said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.
“It is like a huge wall,” said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.
“It is like a solid pipe,” Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.
They began to argue about the elephant and everyone of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, “What is the matter?” They said, “We cannot agree to what the elephant is like.” Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise man calmly explained to them, “All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features what you all said.”
“Oh!” everyone said. There was no more fight. They felt happy that they were all right.

Courtesy of Jain World.

I’m a thinker. Almost everything I experience gets processed through a Spock like filter, “And captain, I understand that the alien woman is throwing herself at you, but I fail to understand the cause.” Our history, genetics, and upbringing all serve to shape the manner in which we see the world. Interestingly, we then start to see the world through this veil of expectations, our experience then in turn lets in the information that reinforces what we already believe. Which shapes our perception of the world. Which reinforces this perception. And on it goes.

These filters are essential to our sanity. Our most basic filter is the capacity of our senses themselves: the perceive only the bandwidth of light, sound, smell, taste, and pressure to which they are sensitive. And thank goodness! How distracting would it be to see radiowaves in our daily lives?

We also filter based on our personal experience. If we have a wonderful experience, we will associate that event with pleasure, and seek it out more frequently. But have one bad brussel sprout as a kid, and that veggie is off the table.

As a kid, I was praised for my ability to think my way rationally through a conflict. With such nice reinforcement, I continued to use my logical brain as a mediator for my experiences. The only problem here is that my logic bias began to dull out some of the other information that was coming my way. Just like someone that dislikes brussel sprouts as a kid may never think to try that veggie again. Like that old story about the elephant, we continue to experience only the part of the elephant that is immediately in front of us, and don’t know that we’ve only got the tail.

One of the goals of our yoga practice is to begin to clear away the veil of expectations, so that have the opportunity to experience the world more freshly and in its wholeness. By quieting our mind’s perpetual quest to associate and evaluate, we can move into a space of more possibility. (Maybe I will sample that green thing on the table and experience how it tastes!)

For me, one of the gifts of yoga is its capacity to invite us to arrive fully and unedited into our experience. In our culture, because we are often praised for thinking and analyzing, we frequently leave our emotional and physical bodies behind. In essence, we are the elephant, and we only get to experience our trunk! Our practice gives us a safe and open space to reclaim any neglected missing pieces. We shed the restrictive layers, and take the time to feel how we feel. By giving ourselves the gift of our practice, we expand our capacity to feel the wholeness of our human experience.

In practice:

  • Take time to settle into your skin before you practice. As you let go of the tension, breathe and create room for your emotional experience. What bubbles up? Give yourself permission to feel whatever you feel, trusting that these feelings will move through you, shift, evolve.
  • As you move into your physical practice, let go of alignment and form as “rule” or “obligation.” Instead, use alignment cues as a way to feel deeper into your body and as an invitation to experience your physical body in a different way.

Breathe. Move. Feel. Better.

What Tinder has to do with Gandhi

Tinder.

The new art of dating.

Tinder is a strangely compelling (and slightly disturbing) app that allows you to connect with potential dating (or friends?) in your vicinity.  It’s like Angry Birds meets Plenty of Fish.  How it works: you set some parameters, view the profile pic of potential candidates, then swipe right if you’re interested, swipe left if you’re not.  If you both have swiped right, then – BAM- you’re a match and can IM with each other.  Whoo hooo!

Friends, I have been astonished by most of the guys’ profiles that I see. Here’s the breakdown (you can see I’ve given this some – uh, too much? – thought):

  • 35%: pictures with girlfriends or wives that have been sloppily cut out (or even sometimes not),
  • 20%: clearly drunk with the homies (or en route),
  • 20%: with a fish,
  • 10%: it’s a pic of Homer Simpson.  Or a dog with sunglasses on,
  • 10%: jaundiced bathroom selfie, brooding gaze, naked abs optional,
  • 5%: awesome.

Given that a picture and a brief description is all you’ve got to go on, you’d think that the fellas would take a little more care with their selected images.  After all, this is the face they’re putting forth to woo a mate.

Tinder as a spiritual practice

Okay, so before I go too far afield with well-intentioned suggestions for profile improvement, here’s what Tinder has to do with living a spiritual life:

Humans have a rare quality on the planet:  consciousness.

We get to choose, moment by moment, who we want to be.  On Tinder (and most social media), our capacity to consciously choose how we arrive in front of people is obvious.  (If it’s not obvious, you may want to consider how you’re tweeting/fbing/ instagramming yourself.)  But outside of social media, we are arriving in our relationships every day, in every interaction that we have.

How we choose to present ourselves in our relationships – with our family, at our jobs, with strange – is a direct expression of who we are and who we want to be.

On Tinder, we default when we let the app post our Facebook pics with no curatorial input.  In life, we default when we show up mindlessly, unconsciously, and without choice.   When that occurs, we are letting the habit of who we have been dictate who we are becoming.

Rather than defaulting to the easiest path, we can take a little care and make a choice in the moment to be better.  We can step up our game and consciously embody our best vision for ourselves.  And when we make these conscious choices, day after day, who we aspire to be becomes who we actually are.

As Gandhi said: BE the change you want to see in the world.

How do you currently arrive in the world?  How do you want to arrive in the world?

Return, moment by moment, to the extraordinary power of your own ability to choose who you wan to be.  Through his courageous act, others will be inspired.  Change will ripple.  We will all become brighter.

So gentleman, cut the selfies and the drunken pub crawl pics.  Pull out that photo of you in the tux, or with your kids, or on the mountain.

In the process, we’ll raise the bar for everyone by arriving in the world as our best selves.

But most importantly, we’ll remind ourselves of how amazing we really can be.

 

The Bodhisattva’s Smile

When I first starting practicing yoga, I knew that it would change my life.

After my first sweet Savasana, I suddenly realized that if I practiced diligently and consistently, I would become calm, kind to stranger, sweet to horrible children, magnanimous with ex-boyfriends and generous with catty women.  As I looked upon the serene and clear faces of sculptured bodhisattvas, I knew that I, too, would undoubtedly become serene, placid, and imperturbable.

Um.  Well.

That didn’t happen.

The more that I practice yoga, the more I feel.  Ugly, gorgeous, complicated, fleeting, terrifying feelings.  Rather than being sweetly equanimous, I have been riding up and down on a rollercoaster of sadness and joy.  Instead of becoming increasingly serene, my palette of experience is widening rather alarmingly.  Rather than muting to a pale and pleasing lavender, the spectrum of my emotions is becoming garish, rainbow, neon.

As kids, we learn to protect ourselves against the heartache of the world by armoring up.  Feel less, guard more.  We are taught to armour up in order to navigate our world with any dexterity; after all, our culture frowns upon open displays of raw emotion.  However, with each application of protective coating, our originally radiant emotional spectrum becomes grimy, dimmed, contained.

In the yoga practice, we are invited into a safe space in which to participate fully with our own experience.  If we allow it, we can peel back the armour that we have diligently applied like so much nail lacquer.  Through our body, we explore a wide array of sensations (some pleasant, some unpleasant) and are asked to breathe, feel, and discover the underlying grace in our the experience.

In our practice, we can choose how we react to discomfort: do we harden and armour up? Or can we soften and sense?  Can we move past an instinctive recoil against uncertainty and instead explore with tenderness the multitude of sensations and feelings that lies beneath our skin?

Practicing courageous and compassionate feeling in our yoga increases the spectrum of emotion that is available to us in our daily lives.  Father than hardening, we learn to soften and sense the wildish emotions off our lives with groundedness and softness.  As we feel into our bodies more with kindness, we begin to increase our graceful fortitude, that is, our ability to ride the waves of feeling and yet stay non-reactive and connected.

I was mistaken about the bodhisattvas: they do not smile so serenely because they only feel peaceful.  No, their emotional cup is not so shallow.

They smile because they feel everything, and hold the ocean of their deep feelings in the open hands of their grace.

Why I stopped practicing. And why I started again.

The beginnings

When I first started practicing yoga, it was one of the most challenging and rewarding physical disciplines I had experienced.  I got stronger, I felt great, and my practice improved.  I felt like I had come home.

After several years of yoga-euphoria, something changed.

First my practice plateaued.  And then it started to hurt.

Although my  mind and spirit loved yoga, my body began to whisper some objections.  I injured my hamstrings (chronically overstretched), tweaked my knee (too much ego in lotus), consistently dislocated my rib, and lost contact with the whole gluteus family: max, med, and min.   As theses injuries compounded, my balance became worse, my hip started to ache, and my practice declined.  Worst of all, the wear and tear caught up to me in my daily activities.   Loathe to change my practice, I decided to “work through it.”

The moment of truth

It was the touchdown that finally pushed me over the edge.

While playing touch football on the beach with my family over Christmas, I made a mad dash for a touchdown. As I launched into my sprint, my chronically stretched and weakened left hamstring finally gave out.  Although I made the touchdown, I spend the rest of my family vacation icing my leg.  I couldn’t walk without a limp.

I loved my practice.  I just didn’t like listening to it.

After my hamstring injury, I finally had to acknowledge that my physical practice needed to change.  The slow, strong yoga style I’d been doing for years had not prepared my body for dynamic movement.  My poor hammies and neglected glutes couldn’t sustain the rapid, power move of my dash.

Now, there is nothing wrong with yoga.  It’s simply that yoga – like any repetitive physical activity  done over time – will dole out specific stimulation and specific wear and tear if it’s the only exercise that you do.  And the way that I was doing my practice had created some weak links.  If I wanted to really take care of my body, then I needed to make a change.

Hello gymrat

I pulled up my yoga stakes and started going to TRX and the gym.  I got a personal trainer.  I did squats.  My goals were straightforward: get my balance back, find my glutes, make my hamstrings happy, and run 20 minutes.

I wasn’t the only yogi looking around for some extra fitness on the side.  Senior yogis in the community were going to Cross Fit.  Teachers whispered to me in secret that they were going to the gym.  Long-term yogis wanted to rediscover the parts of their body that yoga was leaving behind.

Yoga’s new look

As yogis start cross-training to balance out their bodies, priorities in group classes are starting to shift.  New ideas about the form of yoga are starting to percolate.  Whether it’s Jana Webb’s “Joga” (Yoga for Athletes) or Desi Springer and John Friend’s “The Roots” (a glute lovin’ romp that focuses on empowering the back line of the body), we’re starting to see the pollination of modern athleticism into the yoga studio.  Power and core classes increasingly derive ideas from personal training and other physical methodologies.  Functionality is more important than putting a foot behind your head.

Is this yoga?

Does an evolution in the physical form of yoga detract from “tradition?”

Heck, no.

While the physical yoga practice has really only been around a couple hundred years, the meditative heart of yoga has been around for millennia. Regardless of the shapes of the physical practice, the real yoga continues to happen in our mind.  The shapes are the roadmap, the destination is you.

Why I started practicing again

Yoga is a place to come home to my body, my breath, my emotions.  While I love my TRX and HIIT classes, listening to Katy Perry and running on a treadmill doesn’t give me the same kind of self connection.  I returned to yoga in order to find a quiet place to come home to myself. I returned to yoga to address the crazy voices in my mind.  And I returned to yoga because through the movement of my body, I can experience the mystery of being alive.

I’ve returned to my practice with a great deal of humility.  I use props, bend my knees, and do a lot of standing poses.   The daredevil postures that I used to practice may be somewhere in my future, but I’m not in a rush to get there.

And wouldn’t you know: yoga still has some surprises up its sleeve. Even though I’m returning to essentially same practice I left, my body feels radically different.  Hamstrings are happy, ribs are happy, and I’m unearthing some crazy little imbalances that TRX and the gym had left unaddressed.   Most importantly, I’m willing to listen to my practice now.

Love everything

Moving forward, I’ll try to keep up with some jogging…and I’ll occasionally try to lift heavy things. To keep my body happy, I’ll do my best to balance the slow beauty of yoga with some quick sprints and fast movement.  There’s beauty – and yoga – in jogging, too.  And I’ll continue to do my slow-ass, propped up practice, and let it unfold in its own time.

Yoga’s real secret is that is really doesn’t matter so much what the practice looks like. So choose the style that makes your body smile.  Whether it’s hatha, Iyengar, ashtanga, yin, or hot, when it comes down to it, our yoga practice is a safe place for us to be, feel, and come home.

 

Pregnancy and Practice

prenatal Congratulations! You’ve got a bun in the oven and rapid changes are on the way.  Not only is your body undergoing marvelous and radical transformation, but most likely other areas of your life (career, relationships, home) are shifting to make room for this new being.  Whether you’re a novice or veteran yogi, practicing yoga during your pregnancy is a wonderful way to create some time for self-connection, grounding, and nourishment.

Practicing sensible yoga while you’re pregnant can strengthen your body, relieve stress and anxiety, and help you to focus your mind – all great preparations for labor and motherhood. Understanding the physiological changes of pregnancy will help you to effectively modify your practice to suit your unique needs. Here’s a trimester-by-trimester guide to address some of the larger changes you will experience.  As with any physical activity, practice within the guidelines prescribed by your doctor.

Keep in mind: every pregnancy is unique. Pregnancy is an ideal and magical time to really listen to your body and connect with what feels good to you.  Above all else, let your own body be your guide, and enjoy the journey!

Trimester #1.

Fatigue

Trimester number one is usually characterized by fatigue as you (literally!) grow a new organ – the placenta – to nourish your baby during pregnancy.  Though your little tyke is about as big as an egg, your body is working hard to prepare the way.   Choose a class style that matches your energy.  If you’re just starting yoga, hatha or a designated prenatal class will be great places to begin.  If you’re a normal power and flow practitioners, consider adding hatha to your mix to give yourself some space and time to rest and recuperate.

Relaxin

Starting in the first trimester,  your hormones will be changing.  Often, this new hormone cocktail will generate nausea (morning sickness).   More subtly, other hormones will be at work to help prepare the body for delivery.  Although you may not notice your newfound flexibility until as late as the third trimester, the hormone relaxin could start to work as early as the first trimester.  Relaxin, which  loosens the ligaments in your pelvis in order to help the baby make an exit, affects all the connective tissue in the body democratically.  As a result, mothers may notice they have newfound flexibility through their joints. Though it may be tempting to finally get into the full splits, refrain from zealous over-stretching as we will want those ligaments to return to a stable length to support your joints after the baby is born.

Since relaxin can loosen your joints, recruit your smaller muscles to stabilizers to mindfully stabilize your joints.  Explore engaging your adductors (hugging your legs to the midline) and abductors (pressing your feet apart to engage the outer hip) to steady your pelvis.  Also, keep your feet hip distance apart in standing poses to best support your weight.

Heating and overheating

There’s nothing wrong with a good sweat.  Normal sweating indicates that your systems for self-regulating your temperature are working well.  However, since increasing the core body temperature has been linked to birth defects, it’s important to listen to your body so that you can gauge the difference between a satisfying work out and undue heat stress.  If you love strong power and flow practices, tune in to make sure you’re not pushing to far.

Hot Yoga.  Unless you are a seasoned hot yoga practitioner, refrain from practicing hot during your pregnancy.  During hot yoga, you are practicing in an environment that is akin to a moist sauna and the body’s normal ability to regulate heat can be challenged.  Practicing in a room temperature environment will give your body more ease regulating your temperature.

Your amazing circulatory system

During your pregnancy, you will generate 40% more fluid in your body (one of the reasons that prenatal ladies appear a bit fuller  – it’s not fat, but fluid), which means that your circulatory system is working extra hard to pump it all around.  With your heart on double duty, keep your cardiovascular activity reasonable and stay in tune with what feels good for your body.  For example, give yourself permission to skip some of the sun salutations, breathe at your own rate, and avoid holding your breath in pranayama.

Trimester 2&3

Size matters!

The most obvious change during this time is the growth of your babe.  As your uterus expands, the baby will encroach upon your internal organs – including your lungs. As your breath capacity will naturally be a little compromised, take your time in class and let go of the need to keep pace with the class.  Breathe in the timing that you need and feel free to take more breaths than “dictated” by the vinyasa pattern.

Another good rule of thumb: don’t squish the baby!  Take this credo into your practice and play with modifications such as:

  • Take an open twist (away from your thighs) rather than into your thighs
  • Twist through the upper spine; avoid compressing the lower belly
  • Rather than laying your belly in backbending during sun salutations or when they class is lying prone, stay on your hands and knees and do cat cow. Or you can place a bolster under your hips so your belly has space to hang unencumbered.
  • Keep your legs hip distance apart in forward folds to make room for your belly.
  • To avoid overstretching the belly (and the linea alba), refrain from deep backbending

One more note: there’s a vein called the Vena Cava that runs along the right side of the abdomen behind the internal organs. When lying on your back or your right side, the weight of the baby can compress the vein and lead to a feeling of light-headedness.  Modify supine poses accordingly so that you not lying flat.  In Savasana, it can be lovely to lay on an inclined bolster, or cuddle a bolster laying on your left side.

Pelvic Floor and Optimal Fetal Position

Contrary to popular belief, sometimes our pelvic floor can be too tight!  We want strong and supple pelvic floors that know how to contract as well as release and expand.  (Letting go will be important during labor, after all!)  Use this time to get to know your pelvic floor.  Get a perineal massage, send your breath into your pelvic basin, and find opportunities in class to soften the adductors and widen and relax the pelvic floor during your practice.  We often shy away from really  experiencing our pelvis, and pregnancy is a wonderful opportunity to get in touch with this marvelous trampoline.

During pregnancy, the lower back will naturally become more lordodic.  This is a natural adjustment to the weight of the baby.  Poses that take weight off your spine and let your pelvis move into an anterior tilt (cow pose, baddha konasana with forward fold, etc) will feel great.  Avoid slouching on the couch or other poses where the pelvis tucks under. And ladies – you are off the hook from tucking your tailbones. Enjoy your natural lumbar curve in all your poses.  As your pregnancy progresses, this anterior positioning will help the baby to find his or her optimal fetal position by laying the spine along your belly with his or her head down.

A note on inversions

Some schools of thought counsel avoiding inversions in the first trimester.  The first trimester is the most delicate time of a pregnancy, and it’s important to check in with your doctor to see if there’s any reason you should avoid being upside down.  Bluntly, it’s not likely that anything that you would reasonably do in a yoga class would impair a normal pregnancy.  If a pregnancy is risky, then caution will need to be taken for all your physical activities.  While pregnancy isn’t the best time to start a new inversions practice, you are free to continue your current inversions practice if that still feels good.  Exercise reasonable caution as your pregnancy progresses and your weight, center of gravity, and joint stability shifts.  However, abstain from inversions once baby has found his or her optimal fetal positioning in the third trimester.

In a nutshell…

Top suggestions for practicing when pregnant:

  • Don’t squish the baby
  • Avoid squishing your vena cava (squishing occurs through lying flat or on right side)
  • Breathe at your own rate
  • Take your time
  • Get in touch with your pelvic floor
  • Every pregnancy is different; trust your feelings and your body!

Congratulations, and enjoy!

What yoga has to do with time management (answer: everything)

time managementWe’ve all said it, “There are not enough hours in the day.”

I berate myself: why can’t I fit in a yoga practice, a jog, personal study, long walks with my boyfriend, getting a pedicure, making a home cooked meal, and blog writing all into one day? Oh, oh, wait, while working my full-time job?  Surely if I got up earlier, slept less, and were more efficient, I could get it all done.  Right?

Wrong.

We can’t possibly do it all, so let’s free ourselves from that impossible standard right now.   However, it may be possible to do it all over time.  Or to get the essential tasks done, but with more ease and grace…and still leave time for that pedicure.

Here’s how.

Meditation, or, “Do one thing at a time”

As a reminder, I have a post-it note with “do one thing at a time” on my laptop.

Our brains are like little monkeys, bouncing from one point of stimulation to the next.  Multi-tasking is a myth left over from the frantic 80’s and 90’s, where effective workers were seen to be octopi with 8 arms doing everything at once.  When we multi-task, we feel as if we’re quite busy, because our mind is doing the monkey dance.  (And in our brains, “busy” somehow feels like we’re getting a lot done.  It’s the “frantic” = “efficient” myth.)  However, it actually takes our brain longer to multi-task because it has to switch back and forth between activities.  So while we feel really effective checking our email while we work on a project, we’re actually losing valuable time.

In meditation, we task the mind to return to doing one thing.  Despite the natural monkey mind distractions, we return again and again to the task at hand.  In meditation, we usually return to the breath or to a mantra; in work, we can return to our single activity. One-pointed focus stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which creates an environment for calm and healing in the body.   Similarly, working on one activity at a time in our work will help us become calm and more settled.  Don’t be seduced by the outdated multi-tasking myth; equipoise is our most productive mind state. 

Turn off your email

A huge part of “doing one thing at a time” is to address our addiction to instantly answering email.

Email is the “shiny thing” of the 21st century.   Nothing makes our monkey mind happier than the hearing the captivating ping and vibrations that occur when a new email drops into our inbox.  A new email means that we are important.  Monkey mind says, “We must check it now!”

Um, actually monkey mind?   Simmer down now.

Most emails aren’t urgent, and yet we still feel compelled to answer them immediately.  Instead, set aside specific times of day (perhaps one or two) to answer your email – then stick to them.  When you’re not in email answer mode, then turn it off.  If it’s an emergency, they will call.

Same theory goes to our phone.  Turn off your text notifications so that you can stay focused on your task without interruption.

Chunking

A rather inelegant word, “chunking” also goes hand in hand with “no-multi-tasking.”  It involves putting similar tasks together.  In other words, set aside a block of time to do just your email. Then set aside time to do just your phone calls.  Then just your writing.  Etc.  Chunking – like doing one thing at a time – lets your mind settle into a rhythm and become more focused.  Optimal performance happens in 90-minute cycles, so make sure to give yourself the time you need to dig into each of your projects.

Refuel…and Breathe

Productive work is a marathon, not a sprint.  Take some time during your day to walk outside, take a stretch, breathe deeply.  Do a little yoga.  Savour your lunch – and for goodness sake, don’t eat at your desk.  Instead, give your senses the nourishment they deserve.  Taste your food.  Feel your body.  Take a mini-vacation from your left-brain through visualization, imagination, and sensations.

Even a five-minute break will rejuvenate you and allow you to return your left-brain tasks with more focus and energy.

Contentment

When we are planning large projects, we can easily become overwhelmed by the amount we need to accomplish, which may drive us to dive in and frantically try to make headway.  Instead, pause and make a long-term plan that allows you to take small and incremental steps every day to realize your vision.  Practicing pacing and patience will give you the stamina and support necessary to make your vision a reality.

Effective planning will also give you the perspective to know when it’s time to stop working and let a project rest.  Practicing contentment (santosha) with your daily efforts lets you take meaningful steps forward while maintaining a balanced life.

Finally, don’t sweat the small stuff

Great time management means knowing when to not do something.

When you are planning out your day, ask yourself: which tasks are the most important in terms of moving your priorities forward?

Don’t be afraid to let go of tasks that don’t serve your priorities.  Simplify. The Sanskrit word for discernment is “buddhi;” it is the part of our mind that speaks beyond our habitual, ego-driven reactions.  The voice of buddhi is the one that invites us to take a step back, breathe, and make a more conscious choice in the moment about what is important. 

Time Management: your yoga at work

Time Management is more than about completing a task list; true time management is an invitation to assess our priorities, choose with discernment, and practice mindfulness.  Not only will we become more effective at completing our projects, we will accomplish more with ease and a sense of calm.

So remember:

  • Do one thing at a time
  • Refuel
  • Practice contentment
  • Don’t sweat the small stuff

Not only will conscious time management enable us to become more productive and effective, its greater gift is that it offers us another avenue to practice yoga and mindfulness in our everyday lives.

When to say “no” to a yoga job

Still from "Office Space," very funny movie involving spectacularly bad management.
Still from “Office Space,” very funny movie involving spectacularly bad management.

I recently received  an email from a former student.  As a newer teacher, we are obviously excited about teaching and eager to take advantage of opportunities when they arrive.  However, they may not always be the right opportunities!  Here’s what she wrote:

“I do hope you are well! I need some advice, and I was hoping you could offer some.

I have been subbing for a fantastic yoga teacher who has offered me a couple permanent classes. Unfortunately the subbing has not been going well and the management is a real drag to get a long with. They don’t answer e-mails, classes have been canceled and I don’t find up until I get up there, room changes that I am unaware of and doors locked that don’t get opened until half way through the class…

Although the money is great and I don’t want to disappoint the teacher, I feel like I need to pass on the classes. However, I am concerned that I should just suck it up and take the money and experience…. If you have the time to offer any advice it would be greatly appreciated.” What an amazing question!  When we’re just starting off, we often feel pressured to take experience – any experience! – because we love yoga and want to dive in.  My response:

“Trust your instincts.
Express gratitude for the opportunity, but politely decline.  You are not disappointing her (and if you are, then that is her challenge and not yours)..she is offering you something that would need to benefit both of you in order to be a win/win.  And given the situation, it would not.  As much as they audition US, we are also auditioning THEM.
Depending on your relationship (or her inquiries), you could choose to be honest.
“I admire your teaching and am very grateful for the opportunities that have been given to me.  I would love to find a situation that works for both of us.  I have had a few experiences that are a little unsettling and are giving me pause from accepting the classes. (Detail the issues – specifically and non-judgmentally.)  When these communication issues occurred, I felt unimportant and ill-at-ease – especially because I have to travel such a distance to get to the studio.  If I were to join your community, I would want to feel confident that we could communicate earlier about studio changes.  What are your thoughts/ feelings around that?”
If it’s just too far and not worth discussing, then a polite “thank you for the opportunity, but it’s not the right opportunity given my other obligations right now” will suffice.”
Subjecting ourselves to unprofessional management isn’t part of a karmic debt. Evaluate each opportunity as it comes, and consider the proposition in view of the greater tapestry of your life.
  • Will this experience elevate or diminish me?  
  • Am I holding them to the same professional standards that I hold myself?
  • Do I truly feel good about accepting the management limitations because of the experience I will be gaining?
  • What are my instincts?
When we’re starting out, we don’t always have access to the teaching options we desire.  But we do have the power to say “No” to situations that will not serve us.  Being a newer teacher isn’t carte blanche for inappropriate managerial behaviour.  Make your decision clearly weighing your options.  And remember – other teaching opportunities will arise.  Keep your eyes on the studios and management that feel like your community, and focus your efforts there.
Happy teaching!

How to choose your perfect mentor

mentorIn my role as the Director of the YYoga Teachers’ College, I have frequently been asked by recent training graduates, “Now, how do I choose my mentor?”  For yoga students, this is akin to asking the question, “How do I choose my teacher?”

First, it’s important define exactly a mentor is.  From Greek mythology, “Mentor” was the name of the Odysseus’s trusted friend who was charged with the responsibility of raising his son while Odysseus was away on his travels.  A mentor is therefore a trusted guide, whose role is to teach from the light of his or her own experience.  Not only does a mentor advise, but he or she is also expected to model ideal behaviour.

In looking for a mentor, we are not trying to find someone who will simply tell us what to do.  As yoga students, we come to the learning table with the substantial weight of our personal practice and life experience.  As yoga teachers, we can add our teacher training to our list of resources.  At the same time, we want our mentor to have more experience than us, so that they can advise us as one who has already “traveled the path.”  Entering into a mentorship is entering into a partnership, where each party values the others strengths and contributions.

When looking for a mentor or teacher, it is important to find someone with whom you can develop a relationship of trust, communication, and mutual respect.

Ask yourself:

  • Which teachers model the behaviour or teaching that I wish to cultivate within myself?
  • Who inspires me?
  • With whom do I feel that I can communicate honestly and effectively?
  • Who do I feel comfortable asking questions of?  And sharing my own point of view?
  • With whom do I feel mutual respect as a teacher and person?

Finding a mentor with knowledge is only part of the journey; we also need to choose a mentor with the ability to provide us with communicable resources to develop our own skills.

Finally, when looking for a mentor, remember that you are not asking for a favor.  In its best incarnation, the mentorship process is a two-way street, where your mentor will benefit and learn as much – if not more – than you by the partnership.   A good mentor will cherish the opportunity to be a humble student as well as a knowledgeable guide.

Happy learning!

Cirque de Soleil. And your yoga teacher.

In the furor to “get noticed” and have street cred, yoga instructors are often expected to display Cirque de Soleil like physical prowess. Can you do a crazy pose? Do you have mad, unusual flexibility? Then I am impressed and you are suitable to be my teacher!

While I have great respect for dedicated yogis who have developed mastery as a result of their commitment, I do feel obliged to point out that gymnastics and yoga – though they bear some resemblance and have apparently some shared heritage – do not have the same goal.

Because it is challenging to measure someone’s “inner peace” or kindness, the easier landmark becomes what we can see. Can they get their foot behind their head? Do a crazy backbend? Surely physical skill translates to spiritual evolution. Doesn’t it?

A good check in: What is the purpose of your yoga practice? Is it about physical mobility and joint range of motion? Is it about kindness? Awareness? Getting into the “flow?”

We all gravitate to our yoga teachers for different reasons. Perhaps you are seeking a teacher who pushes your physical limits. But if you are NOT seeking that experience, then why become overly infatuated by the foot behind the head thing?

A story: one of my favourite teachers offered to give a student a ride home after her class. At this unexpected expression of generosity, the student said, “Wow, that’s so nice of you!” My teacher paused for a moment, and then replied just a bit tartly, “Well, if yoga doesn’t make you kinder, then what’s the point?”

 

Sauca: transcending body image

A little context

About two thousand years ago, a guy named Patanjali compiled a series of pithy aphorisms called the yoga sutras.  These cryptic sayings contain clues on how to escape suffering and ultimately reach samadhi (meditation/ bliss).  In his compilation, he describes a series of steps called ashtanga yoga, where he offers some helpful practices to practitioners to help them on their path in meditation.

One of these aphorisms asks practitioners to practice something called “sauca” – or “cleanliness.”

Sauca

Most translations of sauca are a bit daunting, and hint that through the practice of “purity,” practitioners will ultimately find that there arises a natural disgust and disregard for their own bodies or the bodies of others.  Disgust? Disregard?  These words are off-putting to the modern reader.   At the very least, they reflect a time where our bodies, emotions, and thoughts were seen as impediments to the realization of our True Self.  Taken at its most extreme, the sutra implies that the wise will eventually feel a natural repulsion towards their physical form.

Recently in teacher training, the students offered a remarkable view on this sutra:

“We’re obsessed with our bodies, with our physical presentations.  Like Facebook, it’s all about our image.  This sutra reminds us that we’re more than our bodies, our clothes.”

“Especially for women,” another added.  “Women have been struggling with body image for a long time.”

I paused to consider their points: every woman I know is challenged by body image.  Every.  Last.  One.

Over the course of our lives, we’ve been taught that the way we look is not enough.  While we can never be too thin or too fit, we’re also not allowed to be caught dieting (ummm, but somehow “cleansing” and “fasting” are okay?).  Effortless beauty.  And god forbid you get old.

One of the most healing offerings of yoga is its capacity to offer a non-judgmental space for self-connection.  According to Yoga Journal’s 2012 survey, 82.2% of practitioners are women.  With so many women on the mat, the yoga space has the potential to be become a supportive forum for radical self-acceptance; a place where we value ourselves for how we feel on the inside rather than how we appear on the outside.

However, as marketing catches up with yoga, we are being encouraged away from the “cleanliness” of a healthy disregard for image and instead being encouraged to look like the cover of yoga Journal or purchase the right yoga outfit.  Lululemon markets its Groove pants for their ability to “create a snug gluteal enclosure of almost perfect globularity, like a drop of water” (“The Science of Yoga,” Broad, p.4).  In other words,  our yoga clothes are designed and sold to us on the premise that they should make our ass look good.  Now, I love my ass to look good on a Saturday night, but do I really want to be worried about this in yoga class?

Brought into a modern context, “sauca” could be a way of cleansing ourselves of our projections and expectations about our physical form.  Consider the following:

  • Are you self-conscious in yoga class about the way you look?
  • Do you dress to impress when you go to practice?
  • Do you worry what other people think of you in class?
  • Is there any space in which you feel comfortable to look exactly as you do?
  • How does this relate to your use of:
    • Food
    • Alcohol
    • Clothes (Lulu Groove pants included)
    • Makeup

We deserve to have a space for practice that is safe from body image judgment.  Where we can feel, and breathe, and move without worrying about who is looking.  Yoginis, we are the voice of North American yoga.  And ladies, it’s high time to reclaim the yoga studio as a safe haven for the expression of our bodies, our voices, and our spirits.

 

 

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.

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: 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.