A $5bn industry is outraged over a New York Times article saying that the keep fit regime is bad for your body One of the most common sights in New York is slim, young professional women scurrying across the city with a rolled-up yoga mat under one arm and a determined look, cramming in a dawn or lunchtime session between power moves in the office. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that … Read the original: 'Yoga can damage your body' article throws exponents off-balance

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‘Yoga can damage your body’ article throws exponents off-balance

I love the energy and buzz of urban life. But I’ve notice that sometimes after a day out in my beloved city, I feel more drained than when I take a vigorous two hour hike in the mountains. So I wasn’t surprised to read about recent research from Harvard Medical School that shows spending a few minutes on a busy city street can affect the brain’s ability to focus and to manage self-control. That makes sense, because all of the stimulus takes up a lot of the brain’s processing power.  According to an article by Scott Edwards that appeared in On The Brain:  Directed attention fatigue is a neurological symptom that occurs when our voluntary attention system, the part of the brain that allows us to concentrate in spite of distractions, becomes worn down. People suffering from directed attention fatigue can experience short-term feelings of heightened distraction, impatience, or forgetfulness. When the condition is severe enough, people can exhibit poor judgment and feel increased levels of stress. What to do about it?  Next time I’m going to head for the streets, I think I’ll head for the hills instead. Research shows that only 20 minutes in nature is a remedy for getting the brain to recover from directed attention fatigue. When you are overtaxed, overstimulated, overwhelmed,  what will you do? 

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Study: City Living Changes the Brain

If you’ve been reading my blog regularly this summer, by now you know I’m more than a little obsessed with taking my son Lucien swimming. Being in the pool with him is a joy. The cool water, the feel of his body intertwined with mine – it’s delicious. For months I’ve been looking forward to the opening of a new neighborhood pool here in Vancouver, part of the deal the city made with its citizens for hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics.   Vancouver already has some amazing city pools, and this new one promised to be the largest and best yet, and just a fifteen minute walk from my house. (Not to mention affordable, as it’s part of the city parks and community center system.)  I crossed my fingers that Lucien would like it and not be overwhelmed by the sprays and jets and water cannons and lazy river, not to mention the 70-person hot tub. To my surprise and delight, Lucien loves the new indoor pool paradise. So here we were in the pool, having a mommy baby pool party. The first time we visited we spent a record breaking (for us) two hours in the water. On this, our second visit, it seemed like we’d be there all day – fine with me. I noticed though that even in moments of mommy-son bliss in the shallowest end of the hot tub (more like a hot tub river) I kept asking Lucien if he wanted to go see the next big thing in the pool – journey down the lazy river or back to the bubbles or waterfall area. But Lucien was perfectly happy just to be. To sit in the shallow end of the hot tub and look at the families playing, chat with me, sing his repertoire of songs, and be one with the warm water lapping over us. Looking at Lucien, I remembered what had drawn me to yoga asana and philosophy back when I was an ever-searching twenty-something. As Ram Dass famously wrote, “Be Here Now.” I didn’t need to explore the rest of the pool, or teach Lucien how to swim that morning, or even go into a deeper section of the hot tub. I just needed to follow my yogi-in-training’s lead and be here now in that hot tub. And so I did. And it was a time-stopping moment of peace and oneness and through-and through-contentment. Until I noticed them. Tiny brown pieces of toddler poop bubbling up from Lucien’s diaper and into the 70-person hot tub river. Yikes! I felt a wash of panic and then shame come over me, but tried my best to stay calm. I gathered Lucien, ran to a lifeguard, and rushed a howling don’t-want-to-ever-get-out-of-the-water-and-certainly-not-to-change-a-dirty-diaper toddler to the change room and shower. I felt horrible for the other patrons of the pool that day. It’s one thing to deal with your own child’s poop, but nobody wants to encounter other children’s poop while relaxing in a hot tub.  Oy. Needless to say, everyone in the hot tub was evacuated with a whistle as an entire section of the pool was closed off, drained, and cleaned. Once he was clean and dry, Lucien was un-phazed by the events of the day. He just figured he had a dirty diaper – not realizing the hot tub had become a HAZMAT scene. On our way home, I heard employees talking about the “emergency.” Triple yikes.   Enlightened Motherhood Lesson of the Day: Be here now and take each situation in stride. Jessica Berger Gross is the author of enLIGHTened: How I Lost 40 Pounds with a Yoga Mat, Fresh Pineapples, and a Beagle Pointer (Skyhorse), she lives in Vancouver, British Columbia with her husband and two-year-old son.

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Be Here Now

I left New York City on Monday with everything I own packed into a trailer, and set out for Austin, Texas, where I will be living for the foreseeable future. Though this was my decision, and I think a good one for my yoga career, my health, and my sanity, today it hit me: Everything I knew about my life in the city is now technically gone from me. My home, my neighborhood, my social scene, my yoga classes, even my local cafe have dissolved away as if in a dream, since I can no longer rely on them to help me feel grounded and secure. I spent a decade getting to know friends, eating at my favorite places, living in an apartment I loved, and settling into a routine that comforted me.  The fact that I know that moving to Austin will be more productive for me doesn’t change how floaty and surreal the world feels right now. Even the ground itself is moving, the highway spooling out and spinning away beneath my wheels. When most everything external literally proves to be as impermanent as the Buddhists and yogis tell us it is, whether it’s a big move we’re going through, the loss of a relationship, a job or smaller transitions, like a well-worn pair of jeans finally kicking the bucket, there’s always a sensation of shift.  These moments of ebb and flow can be unbalancing and scary.   Yoga teaches us about ideas that come from the things other people have lived. We turn to our teachers as guideposts, as those who have navigated similar situations, and emerged victorious using the tools of conscious awareness they then pass onto us. When our studies meet our personal life, and we are asked to walk the walk along this path, it’s a whole new yoga practice, perhaps the hardest one of all. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather endure Warrior 3 until my leg gave out than go through a breakup or a radical move.   When we as seekers of center experience times where all that we thought was real turns to smoke and slips through our fingers, and we’re dealing with the grieving process of moving from the past into the present, there’s a powerful question I can think of that we might ask ourselves: This is happening. Now, what am I gonna do about it? Believe me, when I was in the space of first realizing how much I’d just given up in order to follow my goals, one thing I could have done was totally, completely freak out. I felt the panic rising, as if I was that little bubble that’s supposed to be in the middle of a carpenter’s level, but someone tipped it, and my poor bubble was squished way up in the corner. In that moment could have turned back, canceled the whole crazy Austin idea, and settled back into what I knew.   Then again, my heart is calling me towards something different, and if yoga has taught me anything, it’s to be able to endure uncomfortable sensations in the body, mind, and heart, long enough to get to that atman, the soul, or center of myself. Once there, I can more easily bring myself back to a leveling off place, and find that calm bubble of my core returning to center. In fact, it’s not our inner peace that wavers as life does, but our moveable parts: thoughts, emotions, expectations, perspectives, and even the physical body. When we remember that just because our outer world changes doesn’t mean our innermost one has to, we dissolve the illusion that we are the constructs, and not the constant. So, we can answer our own question by choosing to draw not from our first reactions, but from the stillness inside. Then we can act from equilibrium to move towards the next, though as yet unformed, part of our journey, with the integrity it takes to create the future experience we want to live most of all.   Here’s the pose I did at the Virginia rest stop that helped me remember that … Core Pose: Natarajasana   If you see a statue of Nataraj, you’ll notice he’s standing on what appears to be a baby. Don’t be alarmed–it’s actually a demon. Nataraj is the cosmic dancer, and he exemplifies the power of riding the wave of universal energy rather than being consumed by the dark forces of doubt, insecurity, lack, and fear. Whenever I want to find my ground, and from there, let the joyful dance of life take me where I’m supposed to go next, I make sure to include Natarajasana in my practice.   Stand with feet hip-distance, about two-fists-width wide. Ground into your right foot, and bend your left knee so you can take hold of the outside of the left foot or ankle in your left hand. As you draw your low belly up and lengthen the tailbone down to maintain space in the front and back of your lumbar curve, begin to kick your foot behind you as you reach the chest and right arm forward, or up to the sky as your balance and flexibility allows. The amount of backbend here is up to you, but if you stay rooted into your standing leg and foot you’ll gain the stability and gravity this pose requires in order to inspire its freedom dance.

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Finding Center

I just did something so major I have to write it down to believe it. I’m relocating from New York City where I’ve lived and taught yoga for nearly a decade, to Austin, Texas. I’ve decided to relocate so that I can focus exclusively on my health, yoga, travel, and teaching for what I’m calling my yogi artist’s retreat year. After that, I’ll see where I am. The requirements of my burgeoning yoga career are intense, and living in a place like New York City doesn’t make things easy. For example, it took me 4 hours to drive 11 miles to the airport the other day, only to miss my flight. Total cost: $1,600. Austin has a shuttle that goes from my new apartment to the airport in 10 minutes. Total cost: 50 cents. I kid you not. Now, don’t get me wrong. Just like the T-shirts say, I (heart) New York. That’s why I’ve lived there for so long. But it’s time for a change, and specifically, I’m interested in what will happen to my yoga trajectory when I steep in it fully for a good period of time. This will be a Dharma Immersion, if you will. At first, I was torn about whether or not to make such a radical move. So I practiced what I teach. I put fears and judgments aside and thought about what would serve my ultimate goals the best. Right now, I require ease of travel; a location that is equidistant to both coasts and the flyover states; an affordable apartment with enough space for me to film my YouTube and training videos; and a community that values health, good food, and good yoga. A creative environment and a lack of traditional winter weather is just icing on the cake.   For these reasons and more, Austin was an obvious choice for me. The cool thing is, once I chose it, I was surrounded by so many universal green lights that I have to believe the signs are pointing me on the road I’m meant to take now. Before I was a yogi, I would have shut myself down before I ever began this journey. I probably would never have left the safety of the Midwest to try my luck in the Big Apple, or taken any of the risks that have brought me to where I am now. Yoga teaches us how to step out of our own way, remove the veils of uncertainty, and quiet the voices that tell us we’re insane to do what we are being called toward. If we can turn down the volume of our fears, it’s possible to hear that still, powerful whisper of our satya , or truth; that core voice that can move us toward transformation. We do this through cultivating a regular asana practice so our limiting patterns don’t build up and slow us down. We learn to sit in meditation and listen intently until we hear only our inner guide and not the confusing cacophony that surrounds it. We implement our lessons off the mat, do our best to be brave, and lead by example into our next incarnation of who we want to be. Most of all, when grounding is called for, we ground, and when flying beckons, we find out how wide our wingspan really is. The yogi is a shapeshifter, an energetic alchemist who uses the raw materials of experience, relationship, self-knowledge, and prana (life force) to create magic out of what others see as a static reality. Is it the perfect choice for me to take a year in Austin? Perhaps not. Staying in the city has its benefits, too. But we can always go back to what we know. So why not try going forward? Yes, it takes a big leap of faith sometimes. But we yogis have that in spades, y’all. So what is your dharma calling you to do next? Core Pose: “First Eye” Goddess This asana is one I teach and do whenever I want to envision my next move. It stimulates the forehead center, the seat of our intuition, and expands perspective away from the constriction of fear. This is why I call it the First Eye. It’s a primary tool of perception, your mind’s eye, and keeping it wide open will serve you well as you navigate your next steps along your path. Sit on your mat. Bring both feet together, knees open wide. With a long spine, tilt your sacrum and top hip crests forward as you bring your elbows onto the floor or two yoga blocks. Place your thumbs inside your eyebrows, just above your nose. Allow your forehead to release towards the thumbs even as you maintain the open hips and spinal alignment of the rest of the pose. Breathe here for 1-2 minutes, and then come into knees-together Child’s Pose for a few breaths to counterbalance the asana.  

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Moving Forward

One of the world’s largest yoga classes proved also to be one of the shortest. An estimated 10,000 people showed up for yoga in Central Park on Tuesday only to find–mid Surya Namaskar–that lightning and rain would cut the solstice celebration short. Legendary yoga teacher Elena Bower lead the mass of yogis. Participants on the scene say even the rain and thunder could not dampen their moods or destroy their inner peace. One of the greatest things about yoga–and New York City–is its ability to unite young and old, and people from all parts of the city proudly waited in long lines for a chance at this great coming together of community in the park. As they waited, they did what yogis often do: yoga. In the end, the day will be remembered as yet another lesson in willful intention with non-concern for results. Aerial image by Geoffrey Goodridge / Michael O’Neill Photos by J oe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan

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The Faces of Yoga in Central Park

Submitted by Megan Ridge We had the most amazing experience today at the Acholi Quarters.  For those of you that are not familiar with this place, let me give you a brief history.  In 1986, an Acholi man named Joseph Kony started a group called “The Lord’s Resistance Army.”  His aim was to overthrow the Ugandan government in favor of a more scripture based government.  It quickly became clear to the majority of the population that the LRA was an unfocused attempt at controlling government, and perhaps more about Kony gaining individual power than anything else.  Kony started abducting Acholi children to create an army.  During these mass abductions, the group would steal medicine, weapons, and money.  On the day of the abductions, Kony would usually make the children commit some kind of terrible atrocity in front of their entire community– bite someone to death, cannibalize a family member, or kill a brother or sister with his bare hands.  They felt that this kind of trauma would make the child never want to return to their previous life out of shame.  This is the LRA’s 24th year of activity, though things have been peaceful in Northern Uganda for the past 3 years.  Most believe that the group is weakening and perhaps has moved up into Southern Sudan.  The people of Northern Uganda are intoxicated with optimism, saying that Kony is now Sudan’s problem.  The fact is, Kony is still free.  30,000 children have been abducted to date, and at the moment there is believed to be about 800 total members in the LRA.  I could go on, but I think you get the gist. Today, we heard two Acholi women’s stories.  We had a translator, and they told us how they fled Northern Uganda to escape the LRA.  They now live in the Acholi Quarters, a piece of land in Southern Uganda, purchased in 1956 by the King of Buganda, and they raise their families there.  As more refugees flooded the land in the 1980’s, diseases spread- especially HIV.  Many of the children died and now many grandmothers are caring for their grandchildren.  Some women are providing for as many as 19 children. It was our great honor to take several donations to the Acholi people.  With additional funds we purchased beans, flour, soap and medicine for each family.  I found out that the two families I was assigned to have a total of 16 children between them.  So I rummaged through the donations and picked out a jump rope, frisbee, several books, baby clothes, and toothpaste/brushes.  I hoped it would be enough.   Most of the people do not speak English.  Only the educated Ugandans speak English.  The Acholi Quarters is so HUGELY different from the city of Kampala, and it’s only 20 minutes away.  These are the poorest of the poor.  We were lead into a large room where about 20 adults sat, smiling and clapping, and as soon as everyone was settled, they sang us a welcome song in their language.  We sang “Amazing Grace” back to them.  Our trip leader, Joseph, explained to them why we were there and what we were going to provide for them.  There are about 1,000 people living in this area, but we were only able to provide for 40 families.   I had the great fortune of being matched with two women- Stella and Agu.  Stella spoke broken English, which was a special opportunity, as most of the population does not.  I was able to communicate with these women in a way I did not think was going to be possible.  Stella took me to Agu’s house first so she could translate.  Agu’s house was at the top of a very steep, rocky, red dirt hill– which was really good for me, carrying a 25-pound bag of flour and beans!  The physical effort it required of me to get up that hill, and still smile and say hello to all of the curious children, really took my mind off the fact that I was clueless as to what I was going to do once I arrived in her home.   Her house…was the size of my hotel bathroom and there were two benches inside.  All of her children came in and gathered around and shook my hand saying “thank you.”  And I immediately understood that there was nothing to do but just be there.  I listened while Stella told me that Agu’s husband passed away and she has been raising her 8 children by herself.  Both of Agu’s parents are gone.  She goes to the stone quarry at the top of the hill every day and works so she can pay the $20/month rent for her living space and feed her children.  They eat one meal a day.  I surprised myself in my ability to be present and grounded in the moment.  I felt very little pity, only compassion.  I reached out for Agu’s hand and held it for a while.  I knew we were one and we were equally blessed to be in the presence of one another.  In reality, she was actually serving me.   After several pictures, we went back down the hill to Stella’s home, and along the way she introduced me to several people, all smiles and handshakes.  Beautiful little kids pointing, smiling, chanting, “Muzungo!” which means, “white person.”  Stella’s home was much the same as Agu’s; perhaps a little sturdier looking, two beat up chairs and a small stove filled the space.  She told me that she went into town to learn English– she is 24 years old, tending to 7 children, three of which are her sister’s children.  Her sister was shot in Northern Uganda during their escape from the war.  She was pregnant at the time.  They thought it best to deliver her baby and she died.  Her son does not have a hand because of the shooting, but it’s truly a miracle that he’s alive.  Stella was as optimistic and generous as Agu.  I wish I could have given them the world, but that’s not what they wanted.  They are the loveliest people I have ever met– they live in a 10X10 room with nothing in it, and love bigger than imaginable.    As I was leaving Stella’s home (and believe me, I didn’t want to go), there were so many hugs.  A young woman I hadn’t met yet came up to me, put a necklace around my neck and said, “I love your name, Megan.  It is so beautiful.”  And then Stella placed another necklace around me, and then Agu.  Three recycled paper bead necklaces that they made in their community, the most beautiful mementos I have ever received.  As I made my way to the bus, Stella gave me another tight squeeze and asked me, “When are you coming back to us?”  And I said, “As soon as I possibly can.”   On the drive back, some emotions finally came up.  It looks hopeless, because it’s not just the Acholi Quarters that needs attention.  It’s the whole country.  These people are living in absolute, unimaginable poverty.  It’s not comparable, not even close to what we witness in America.  There is a reason why our material possessions are ruining us.  There’s imbalance in the world and is the job of the fortunate to sustain that balance.  This is our responsibility. On the other hand, it was a magical, beautiful, joyful day.  I could have sat among these women much longer than we were able.  I feel so lucky that I got to hear their stories and hold their babies.  I realized that each life is unique, but much the same.   I read my mother’s first letter today.  At the end she quoted, “No one can do everything, but everyone can do something.  If everyone does something, together we can change the world.”  Amen.

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Bless The Whole World