Oh yeah! I love yoga

Life has been awfully busy recently.  In the last three weeks I've made three trips down to Norfolk & DC.  Two of them got me home at 4 am & 2 am, respectively.  I usually wake up at 4:45 am every morning.  Whew.

Due to the pace & the amount of projects on my plate, my yoga practice has suffered.  Shoot, so has my consistency with running & swimming!  I have gotten physical movement in my days due to epic amounts of planting & garden tending.  However, I have noticed tightness in my upper back & knotted shoulders.

Yesterday I made it back onto the mat for a self-lead practice with my yoga teacher, mentor, & friend, Beth.  I let it be a slightly easier practice, as it was four hours since I'd arrived home from the latest DC jaunt.  It felt like I was coming home to my body again.  I spent a lot of time in backbends opening up all the tension in my shoulders and spine.  I stayed in an extended sirsasana, or headstand, to find balance & a shift in energy.  

I'm starting to feel like myself again.

Kevin told me once that when I don't practice yoga regularly I treat him differently.  He said I'm kinder & more patient with a consistent practice.

Whoa.

Given that some of my work is seasonal, there will be periods like this.  I'm doing my best to at least find a few minutes for pranayama, breath work, and/or meditation each day & especially when I can't commit to a more prolonged asana, or physical yoga practice.  I'm staying present to my intention to grow as a yogini & cultivate health.

Pose Catching

Every year I set aside some money to invest in my on-going yoga education.  This year I'm focusing my courses on anatomy & alignment.  I thought this approach would focus my efforts, & it has, but I've found myself learning anatomy & alignment from a few slightly divergent traditions.  I'm currently studying Iyengar yoga as well as Anusara Therapeutics, while maintaining my on-going Jivamukti-influenced vinyasa practice.

All of these practices have common threads-- both the Jivamukti & Anusara styles were influenced by Iyengar.  However, some poses are encountered slightly differently.  For example, I've been practicing sirsasana, or headstand, with my inner wrists against the back of my head and my palms touching.  Basically, the side of my fist is on the mat, with the back of my head pressing my inner wrists.  This approach is helpful because I can press my wrists firmly on the mat.

One of my teachers is now telling me to open my fists, place the palms of my hands on the back of my head, fingers threaded behind my head, while my wrists & elbows still press the mat.  There are aspects of this approach that feel really beneficial.  I feel like I can use my elbows maybe more effectively.  However, I'm really struggling to press the sides of my wrists onto the mat.

I woke up thinking about pose catching, like song catching.  I have friends who are song catchers.  They track the history of songs, where they were played, how they changed, when lyrics were edited or chords adjusted.  I've never heard of a pose catcher, but I'd love a historian who made the same inquiry.  When were these poses altered?  Who practices them in what ways & why?  What bodies move into any of these variations most healthfully?

Last year I focused my on-going education on workshops geared towards adjusting & assisting students.  I LOVED it!  Not only did I gain confidence, skills, & awareness of working students deeper into poses but I also learned more about the poses themselves.  A few weeks ago, my colleagues & I at Yogawood had an adjusting/assisting skill swap.  It was so wonderful to talk about how to aid a student's practice but also to understand more deeply the mechanics of any pose.  Maybe this is why the poses begin to have various incarnations-- a response to one student's body, an approach towards another end, another gradual uncovering.

Land Sandy

Summer 2012 has become the steamy season of Asbury Park.  My husband, Kevin & I have made it down a few times, initially on a friend's reccomendation.  This past week we played hooky & ran down for a day to show this sweet town to Kevin's cousin, Maria.  We ate red velvet pancakes, romped in the waves, dug our toes in the sand while reading, & eventually I began practicing yoga.

Fear presents itself in most people's practice.  Backbends & inversions are common places to get trepidatious.  It's wise to want to keep your spine in tact & not crack your skull!  With consistency, the spine does become pliable & we do retain the core strength & balance to float into beautiful inversions, though the fear may persist.  I feel significantly more comfortable practicing inversions at the beach because sand breaks my fall.

So there I found myself again.  I placed my towel on the sand.  Tried not to be self-conscious about doing something fairly curious in public.  Put my elbows & the crown of my head on the towel.  Dug in for stability. Engaged bandha.  Lifted to sirsasana.  Eventually my legs fell behind me & I landed in dwi pada viparita dandasana, a backbend that really expands the chest.  Up & down I went a few more times.

Stayed with my breath, planted my forearms, lifted my head so I could gaze at my thumbs, one leg up, then the next for pinca mayurasana.  Up... & over.  Inversion to backbend.  Eventually I heard clapping.  I looked up and a group of girls, probably ranging in age from 13 to 15 wanted me to watch as they did gymastic walk-overs, cart-wheeling from yoga wheel to hand stand!  I gave thumbs up & watched wide-eyed while their nimble strong bodies paraded through the sand.  They then became curious about my practice & planted their elbows on the sand.  I mimed instructions about elbows nearing one another, the crown planting in the sand, & they followed.  Legs rose & a sea of young girls lifted into sirsasana.  They then tried pinca mayurasana play & wound up with the same sandy landings I'd found.

I later went and spoke to these girls.  They were gymasts who had heard of yoga, but not yet practiced.  I suggested they do so as they already had such body awareness & fearlessness.  I then returned to the waves to rinse off & refresh.  I felt so much lighter sharing this practice with young women who were finding joy, purpose, & strength in their own bodies.