Photo: J.T. Liss (Photography for Social Change) Sun Salutations in the late-afternoon sun. Hawks soaring high above. A light breeze cooling down the day while gentle drumming keeps the tempo. Around me, 60 yogis, woman and men, arch into Up Dog, faces radiant as they gaze skyward. Such was the idyllic scene at the recent Mind, Body, Spirit and Wine event at Wente Vineyards in Livermore, California. Leading us through the practice was the lovely Suzanna Spring from Cosmic Dog Yoga studios. And co-teaching on this perfect autumn day was Yogadork, the delightful and prolific New York yoga blogger and teacher. The event marked the confluence of passions for yogin-winemaker Karl Wente, whose love of the practice is something of local legend. Around the winery, Wente is known for his spontaneous expressions of asana, busting out an arm balance to make a point or kicking into headstand when too-long tasting sessions start to dull his senses. Yoga, he says, makes him a better winemaker, helping to cultivate the Beginner’s Mind that allows him to approach each wine anew, fully experiencing every nuance. Watch Wente discuss his yoga-and-winemaking philosophy here . Pairing yoga with wine is a relatively new trend that stirs some debate in yoga circles. But on this day, yogis flush from fresh air and asana happily sampled the Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Syrah Wente had chosen for a post-class tasting. Whether or not you agree with mixing your yoga with wine, it’s hard not to like outdoor yoga. Your inhalations feel deeper; the exhales extend further. Reach for the sky; bow to the earth. No walls, no boundaries. Practicing under an autumn-blue sky, surrounded by grapevines? A votre sante!        

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Yoga Under a Big Blue Sky

The Cowboys’ football stadium was over run with 400 yogis this weekend. Saluting the sun and lunging their hearts out to help raise money for breast cancer, these yogis raised more than $10,000 and showed the country what yoga can do. Don’t mess with yogis, y’all. As Nerissa Knight reports from CBS 11 : While the Dallas Cowboys were preparing to meet the Chargers in San Diego on Saturday night, hundreds of women converged on Cowboys Stadium in Arlington to heal their bodies and minds, and they did it all for a great cause. It was the largest yoga class in Texas. And tickets to the event raised more than $14,000 to help in the fight against breast cancer.

 “It’s a great feeling to be here and help raise money,” said Dawn Dixon, who participated in the class. “I’m a survivor myself and I know what it feels like. “While coach Wade Phillips leads the Cowboys, yoga instructor Wade Morisette (brother of recording artist Alanis Morisette) led a group of about 400 people, mostly women, in the house that Jerry built. The football stadium was the perfect place for them to practice yoga and help others, thanks to the Dallas County and Greater Fort Worth affiliates of Susan G. Komen For the Cure and Indigo Yoga.
 “I’m a breast cancer survivor and I feel great to be here,” said class participant Lisa Prescher. “I feel like it’s a personal accomplishment, and I’d like to share it with others. “More and more women are using the ‘downward facing dog’ to take a bite out of breast cancer, and attain emotional and spiritual strength. “Breast cancer is really running through our population right now,” said yoga instructor Brooke Hinkle, who was at the Saturday class. “Yoga is a very powerful practice. It will not only strengthen the immune system, but strengthen the whole body.” “It was a great time and a great practice,” said class participant Melissa Sexton. “It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it.” The group plans to hold a similar event on Sunday at the Fort Worth Zoo. Tickets are $35 each.

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Don’t Mess with Texas’ Yogis

Yoga teachers often feel the need to inspire others to live consciously. Depending on their intentions and methods, they may or may not be successful. As students, we come to class to feel refreshed, renewed and challenged. Again, depending on our mental state du jour, we may or may not feel much shift. A teacher of mine once said that once the student is advanced enough he or she is able to find that every class is the perfect class. No matter how preachy the teacher, how off-putting the music, or how sweaty the neighbor, an advanced student adeptly extracts the lesson from each situation. But what about those of us just getting in to yoga? There are clearly some teachers who take advantage of their position of power (a roomful of open ears for 90 minutes) to climb onto a soap box and impose their views. Is this ok? As a student, do you find your zen or protest the violation of your space? As Neal Pollack (author of the new book Stretch: The Unlikely Making of  Yoga Dude ) writes for salon.com, it’s not so much about whether or not you’re irritated, but about how you handle the irritation: “The teacher had preached, didactically and unpleasantly. But what I’d done in response, I finally realized, had been totally wrong and disrespectful. It took months for me to understand that I’d gone blindly into one of the founding studios of modern yoga, thrown a fit worthy of a toddler so far gone that no shiny object could distract him from his rage, and left with nothing in return. Before the yoga, I’d behaved that way fairly often. It was about as far from my best self as I could get. In fact, I’d even go so far as to call it my bad self . But even serious yogis, I was learning, are often tempted to get down with their bad selves. This was the true yoga practice, the real discipline and dedication, and getting there, I began to understand, would take a lot more practice.” Have you ever had a class or a teacher that really irritates you? How do you notice it and make it your practice?

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When Yoga Teachers Turn to Lifestyle Preachers

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I was honored when my friend Benjamin Finnerty who is living and teaching yoga in Shanghai, China invited me to come teach the Anusara Immersion at Fine Yoga in Beijing. I must admit a feeling of unease came over me because this would be my first time teaching to students of another language and culture and working with a translator, but I knew it was a great opportunity for me to grow as a teacher.   Over the next several months, as we made the plans the idea became more comfortable. During that time a friend said that “life begins at the edge of your comfort zone”!  This is so true; it is the experiences where we have to dig deep inside our self and find the courage that expands us the most. My yoga practice and years of teaching had prepared me for this endeavor. On my first day, though I was quite jet-lagged from the journey, I was taken on a whirlwind tour of Beijing. First we visited the Temple of Heaven, which is located behind one of the biggest and most famous parks in Beijing.  Like most Chinese parks in the morning, it was full of people practicing Tai Chi, dancing, playing games, stretching and enjoying themselves.  This particular park had a section with equipment like a gym in the USA!  At 9:30 on a Wednesday morning people were playing together, both men and women young and old, were getting exercise, socializing and enjoying life. It was beautiful. Thursday was the first day of the immersion. Though I felt at ease about teaching and comfortable with the material there was still this question in my mind about how to connect to the students.  We spent the whole first day on the First Principle of Anusara Yoga, which is opening to grace. Though the students wanted to learn the alignment very much we kept our focus on cultivating sensitivity, connecting to their breath and their hearts and taking a more expansive view.  In Chinese, just like Sanskrit, the word for heart and mind is the same, and both cultures are very connected to the idea of living from their hearts.  There is a Taoist expression that says, “See every thing from the light of heaven,” so the concept of first principle was not new. As the day went on they were beginning to soften their effort and embody it in their poses on the mat. Though we began worlds apart, by the end of the first day each member of the group shared their experiences, and the boundaries between us dissolved with their shyness. I saw the reflection of my own trust that we would connect reflected back through them, and it was more apparent to me than ever that our hearts’ know no boundary of language and culture.  We connected on the most fundamental level, and I will be forever transformed. When have you had to find courage to do something out of your norm?  How are you better for the experience? Stacey Rosenberg is a Certified Anusara Yoga teacher in San Francisco and around the globe.  Her classes are dynamic and playful and provide a fun, safe, and nurturing environment that invites students to move deeply into their own hearts and transform their lives.  www.namastacey.com

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Boundless Hearts in Beijing

Robin, a local therapist in Haines, Alaska invited me to her home for a private yoga session. She said she had to check the tide schedule to see when it would work. Check the tide? Yes, she lives across Mud Bay where part of the day you can walk across the mud flats, and then when the tide comes in (Haines has the third most changing tide in the world) and you have to canoe across. There are a dozen or so families across the bay that all live by the tide, completely off the grid. I was up for the adventure, so I biked over to meet her. After loaning me a pair of extra tough rubber boots we took the 10-minute walk across the seaweed-strewn mud flats together.  As we walked, I was struck by the color of the seaweed and also at the realization that this was her commute to and from her home in any weather: rain, sleet, snow, hail, wind….this is Alaska after all. On this July day I was still wearing a hat and coat! As I stopped to examine the seaweed she told me about how she had prepared our dinner for the evening. The propane for the stove had run out that morning and her partner had tried to bring the propane tank over in the canoe earlier, but it had been too windy and he had to turn back. Needing to use the stove to boil water she got creative and cooked on the wood burning stove. When we arrived at their home, a three-story cabin perched over the bay, she gave me a tour of her prolific garden. I am continually amazed at the abundance of Alaskan gardens and what vegetables and flowers can do in a short growing season with long, long days. We had a lovely yoga session and delicious dinner with vegetables from the garden and wood stove cooked pasta. After dinner and some greatly enjoyed conversation (Robin’s partner, Dan, is writing a book on the history of the Native Alaskan people) I was informed that we had five minutes left to make it across the bay before the tide came in. We had to leave NOW! Back into the rubber boots I went, and tromp across the bay we did as the tide quickly crept in. Robin told me she thinks about her yoga practice and the support her abdominal muscles give her as she makes the pilgrimage across the bay.  She says she keeps her low belly drawn in and her spine in elongation as she confidently and gratefully makes the journey across. I tried to do the same as I sloshed through the mud and sea weed trying not to fall, my heart pounding in my chest, wind blowing across my cheeks. I was silently hoping I would make it across before the tide came in and that I would not have to strip and wade as I did a previous year when another Mud Bay resident invited me to dinner! Actually, that was great fun as well and its all part of the adventure and life in Haines, Alaska. How can you use your yoga practice during the day? How can you stay connected to the cycles of mother nature? Sarana Miller lives and teaches in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sarana is trained in the Iyengar and Forrest Yoga traditions and is a graduate of the Piedmont Yoga Advanced Studies Program and the Forrest Yoga Teacher training program and is currently studying the Sarah Powers method. She also sings and studies kirtan with Jai Uttal.  

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Living by the Tide

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The other day, my sister’s friend invited her to a different yoga studio for a class.  “I can’t do it”, said my sister. “I’d love to, but I’m not good enough. I suck.”   Fear shows up in funny ways. Tory pictures an entire class pointing at her and sneering.   This made me laugh for about four seconds. Then I realized that whenever a new challenge comes my way – going back to class after weeks away, trying a new kind of yoga, going to a different studio – my immediate, insane response is, “I can’t, I’m too fat.” This is obviously absurd. There is no sign posted anywhere in yoga that says Stay Out If You Think You Are Pudgy .  Nor have I met a yoga mat that hasn’t welcomed my solid thighs. (Oh my god, the mats are too small for my lardy bum! I’ll have to put four of them together!)  Nor, come to think of it, have I ever encountered a yoga teacher who raises one eyebrow and says, “Oh, you think so, do you? If you were enlightened enough to be in my class, you’d be thin.  Now stop crying. You can come to my Class For The Fat and Unenlightened .”    Absurd, excessive, twisted, completely un-constructive, I know. But these are the trolls that leap up from under my bridge when I’m facing something new and scary. Or old and scary for that matter. I like stating my fear out loud. It looks more ridiculous than ever that way. Gives it a loving kick in the head. I suck. I’m too this, too that. Do you have a fear that yoga brings to light? Would you like to kick it in the head? Thanks to yoga for showing me where and how I’d like to be more fearless, and thanks to you for the conversation. Kristin Shepherd is a chiropractor, actor, and speaker (about All Things Wonderful) from North Bay, Ontario.  Join her on Facebook at Dr. Kristin Shepherd or on Twitter at kristinwonders.

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Yoga Trolls

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l What’s new with the Oil Spill in the Gulf? It’s plugged, it’s leaking, there are underwater plumes the size of Rhode Island, the oil is lost? The headlines are kind of confusing, and it’s been a few months so I know it is starting to go out of vogue for the mainstream media, but there are at least a handful of yogis in LA who are keeping it on their radar and are ready to help. Brock Cahill is a surfer and a yogi with a plan. The way he sees it, we can make the most impact if we focus our efforts. His focus, the turtle. His plan: get to the gulf, get a boat, and get to work saving the turtles. He has partnered with Yogis Anonymous and the Insights Foundation to get this grass roots movement off the ground.   Here are a few words of his own on why he chose the turtle and founded Kurmalliance: A s many of you know, kurma is the Sanskrit word for turtle. Sanskrit is the ancient language of India, Hinduism, and yoga–roughly translated our project, Kurmalliance, is yoga for the turtles!  Beloved Kurma is also the second avatar of Vishnu, who, in my humble opinion, is the coolest god in the Hindu trinity. In an age old story, Vishnu comes in earthly form as Kurma to save humanity by hoisting a great mountain up on his shell, churning the seas, and distilling the elixir of life. That was the first time the turtle saved the world. The second is now. The turtle is the totem of this revolution. He is the preserver, the dude who comes to the rescue, and the dude we need now!    He is providing the motivation to get involved and fight for what is right. He saves humanity once again by getting us involved, recognizing that the nectar of life lies with the ocean, and if we continue to kill it, we will be faced with our own death and extinction. Wonder how they knew 5000 years ago that the turtle would play such a huge role in our potential evolution, or our possible extinction. If you want to get involved: to donate . For more information . Join on Facebook . Share with us if you know of any grass roots movements to get people involved in saving the gulf. Erin Chalfant is a writer, yoga teacher and the Web Editor at Yoga Journal.

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Save the Turtles!

During my visits to Haines, Alaska these past several years I have had the good fortune to attend the Southeast Alaska State Fair. It is a sweet fair organized primarily by volunteers that has a wonderful homey feel and also displays a great deal of talent and creativity. The fair has everything from a petting zoo with goats and llamas to a vegetable and pie contest. There is also a world-class puppet show (in its own log cabin) and a line up of incredible musical acts from around the country. This year, I decided I wanted to contribute as well. I have been receiving the benefits of the hard work of the community and I decided a little seva, selfless service, on my part was in order. So, I signed up to work the Hospice of Haines Pie Booth and registered myself to teach a yoga class that included kirtan. Both turned out to be special in different ways.   At the pie booth, I got to receive and sell the dozens of pies as they came in from the woman of Haines. A freshly baked wild blueberry pie is a beautiful site. I knew the woman who made it spent hours picking berries and lovingly making that pie. I was so touched by the love and care that went into each pie, all going to raise money for Hospice. This is yoga in action. I was a little nervous about my yoga class, it being my first time teaching at a fair. I asked my good friend, Bruce Blake, if he had any advice for me. He said, “Just pretend you are at Burning Man.”   Yes, then I got it. Offering a respite from all the activity of the fair and a chance for students to connect in with their breath and their sense of center and home was all I had to do. We were fortunate to have a small dome for the class, and I opened with a short kirtan which droped us all in. From there, I had students connect in with their breath as I lead them through a slow supine hip opening sequence. Little by little I could feel them letting go, and the sounds of the fair (like the train that honked every 15 minutes) around us became just like little bells to remind us to connect back with our ever present friend of the breath.   As my dear friend and mentor Thomas Fortel says of the breath, ” In times of challenge we breath deeply and come into the moment. In times of joy, we also breath deeply and come into the moment.” So there, in that little white dome, amidst the frenzy of the fair, we all joined each other in connecting with our breath and coming home into our bodies.   I give thanks for all the people that made the fair possible and to the practice of yoga, my friend and companion on this journey of life. Sarana Miller lives and teaches in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sarana is trained in the Iyengar and Forrest Yoga traditions and is a graduate of the Piedmont Yoga Advanced Studies Program and the Forrest Yoga Teacher training program and is currently studying the Sarah Powers method. She also sings and studies kirtan with Jai Uttal.

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Puppets, Heart-Felt Blueberry Pie, and Yoga at the Fair

I spent some time in Los Angeles this week, and one day visited the set of the new Shiva Rea video. While there, I had a powerful conversation with the director, James Wvinner. We discussed the importance of media, both social and store-bought. Specifically, we talked about how it’s really helping the world gain access to yoga and to the teachings of great instructors like Shiva, who can’t possibly get to all the students who want to study with her. James related a funny story told to him by another teacher who was recently leading a training in Bulgaria. A student came up afterward and said, “Do you know Sadie Nardini? I study with her!” Now, I’ve never been to Bulgaria, but I bet my YouTube videos have. Wherever I go, I meet students who have studied with me for years, without my even knowing it! This is just one example of what I’m now calling Conscious Media. Anyone with a video camera and a YouTube account can employ these channels to spread the word about how simple and effective it can be to get happy, be healthy, and to rock your awesomeness from the inside out. Before I made DVDs, wrote a book, or did anything else that now comprises my income, I was using social media to create virtual kulas , or communities of the heart and spirit. There are so many ways for each of us to speak our core values, and to a wider audience than just our partners, friends, and students. By reading this blog, you are directly benefiting from my choice to step outside my comfort zone and share my views in a public forum. It’s a vulnerable place to be, letting others see you and, at times, judge or disagree with your offerings.  But I endure this aspect of the job in order to do what I consider to be much more important: Speaking my piece in a way I feel is constructive to both our humanity and divinity. In this day and age, when we’re being bombarded with negative imagery and fluff, the media-sphere is crying out for substance and soul. And it’s crucial that conscious people go first to light the way for those who may not even know they want to watch this mind/body stuff, or understand how much they need it. Who will do this if we don’t? In fact, I feel that as we awaken to our possibilities and become aware of the tools available to transform ourselves toward balance and passionate living, we have a responsibility to really put ourselves out there and lead by example. Now, you may not be a yoga teacher or committed to raising awareness of the joy of cultivating wellness on all levels, as I am. But I’d wager that you have some skill, some creative voice you’d like to add to the mix. You can do this for yourself, so that you live each day as the rockstar you really are, and also because you just might inspire one person to dig deeper and step forward with more confidence to be their best. The amazing thing is, with conscious media, your one voice turns into thousands, and your single moment of sharing becomes a constant message. When it comes to changing the world in a positive way, I say let’s each do what it takes to turn our quiet, inner voices into a beautiful chorus that can be heard all the way in Bulgaria, and beyond. Core Pose: Lion’s Lunge To help you access and then amplify your voice, you’ve got to make some noise. I use Lion’s Pose with a lot of my core poses, to open the channel between my foundation, my core, and the courage it takes to express myself so that people can hear. The muscle meridian closest to our skeleton, called the Deep Core Line, moves from the arches of the feet; up through the legs, hips and spine; and ends at the tongue. Doing Lion’s Pose draws energy and tension up and out through this line, which is why it’s considered an immensely detoxifying pose on a very profound, pranic level. Life force and your ability to speak from your inner knowing will increase as you dissolve obstacles to your inherent freedom and flow. Come into a High Lunge with the front knee over the heel and the back leg long behind you, supported on the ball of your foot. If you want more stability, step your feet sitting-bone-distance apart. Inhale through your nose and reach your arms either back behind you or up into the air, fingers wide. Exhale through your mouth as you stick out your tongue and say “Aaaaaaaaahhh,” as loudly as you can.  Really get into it, letting the sound be another way to say what you really need and want to express from your deeper creative center. Repeat 3-5 times or more. Then take Dog Pose or Child’s Pose for a few moments, and move to the other side.  

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Creating Conscious Media

We’ve been playing a game  all week. Maybe you’d like to play with us. If you were stranded on a deserted island-it’s a beautiful island, great weather, great food somehow, great books, just no other people-and you could only do one yoga pose for the entire month, what would it be? After much hand wringing and general hoopla, we’ve decided that Savasana is a freebie. You can do all the Savasana you want. And one other pose. Another thing. In this game, you’ll be completely healthy at the end of the month. Flexible, strong, peaceful, and beautiful. So the pose you pick is just about the happiness it’ll give you, not about, “oh, god, if I don’t do the shoulder openers, I’ll look like Hulk Hogan by Friday” (no offense to Hulk). Here’s what we’ve got so far: My sister picks Upward Dog, because it looks so beautiful. My lovely man says The Plow. He’s just gone back to it in class and it’s exciting to be able to do it for the first time in decades. My friend Paul chooses Triangle Pose. I think he’s crazy, but free choice is a part of the game. (He did ask if we were allowed to come out of the pose at all, or whether we have to hold the pose for an entire month. The answer, with rolling eyes, is yes, you can come out of the pose.) I will do Downward Dog. I love everything about it: the inversion, the use of my entire body, easily a month’s worth of interest. And if we play again next month, I’ll pick handstand, because it makes me feel like a goddess. And you? What pose? Why? Hoho! I can hardly wait to hear. Thanks to yoga for being so interesting, and so much fun, and thanks to you for the conversation. Kristin Shepherd is a chiropractor, actor, speaker, and workshop wonderwoman in North Bay, Ontario.  These games thrill her inordinately.  Join her on Facebook at Dr. Kristin Shepherd, on Twitter at kristinwonders, or at kristinshepherd.ca

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The Game

In the September issue, we published a letter written by the esteemed yoga teacher and Yoga Journal co-founder Judith Hanson Lasater, which expressed her disapproval of advertisements featuring naked women. It’s been a hot topic ever since, and it seems appropriate to offer a few thoughts. First, I greatly respect Judith and her concerns. Over the years, we’ve had conversations about the magazine, the business, the community. More than once, she has called me to share an opinion, in her trademark direct style, and we talked about her September letter before I published it. I appreciate her frankness. I interpreted Judith’s formal note about ads that she feels “exploit the sexuality of young women in order to sell products” to be a message both to the folks at Yoga Journal who make advertising decisions,  (I am responsible for editorial direction only, I have no authority over advertising)–and to the larger community, including the creators of the ads. Clearly Judith’s letter struck a chord, and I’ve read the opinions of many people who agree with her views. Others have written specifically in support of what they see as the artistic beauty of the ToeSox ads ,  in particular, which feature the talented yoga teacher and frequent Yoga Journal contributor Kathryn Budig demonstrating poses in the buff. The diversity of reader opinion isn’t surprising, given the diversity of the yoga community today and the highly subjective nature of the matter at hand. But somewhere in all the heated blog posts about whether nudity equals exploitation and about what Yoga Journal ’s advertising policies should be, I’ve seen a fair bit of frustration and misunderstanding about Yoga Journal’ s role in the community. Over the past 35 years, Yoga Journal has evolved from a nonprofit publication aimed at yoga teachers to a popular magazine read by more than 2 million Americans and supported by national advertising. Perhaps the biggest difference between the magazine Judith founded and the one I edit today is that while Yoga Journal continues to be a source of instruction and insight on yogic practices, it is now also a chronicle of the ever-evolving yoga scene–a scene that didn’t exist 35 years ago and one that some old-time practitioners would, quite frankly, find un-yogic. Yoga Journal doesn’t intend to be a textbook of ancient practices, nor an arbiter of yogic morality. It’s a magazine that introduces people to a world of ideas–sometimes profound, life-changing ideas that they might not otherwise be exposed to. It’s a messy time to be in the business of covering yoga. Some yoga publications that offered a purist’s view of the practice are no longer in print, while “workout yoga” is popular on the newsstand. Yoga Journal remains devoted to bringing a full spectrum of teachings to a wide audience, and it does so while walking the age-old line of art and commerce. Spiritual teachers often say that while monkhood requires practicing austerities, it is actually easier to live in a cave than to practice yoga while living in the world; it’s tough to maintain a quiet mind when deadlines loom, when the kids meltdown, when all kinds of distractions beg for your attention. Yoga Journal lives out in that world–tackling real-life issues of finances, politics (yes, politics in the world of yoga!), and the sometimes-clashing ideals of the yoga community. I’m proud that amid all the chaos, the magazine continues to focus on delivering wise teachings and practical tools for bringing the essence of yoga into our daily lives. We are grateful to have the support of the teaching community, including Judith and the many other dedicated teachers who share the depth of their knowledge through our pages, and the support of our advertisers, which enables us to continue offering world-class instruction, insight, and inspiration for practice. As always, we hope that the magazine we work so hard to bring to you, serves you well. –Kaitlin Quistgaard Editor in Chief , Yoga Journal

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Naked Truths: YJ’s Editor-in-Chief Responds to the Nudity Debate

Last week, my friend and manager, Ava, and I left Wanderlust and took a road trip from Lake Tahoe through Napa Valley and into San Francisco, where I was scheduled to teach a workshop.   Taking a trip like this was fun and freeing–something I hadn’t done since college. I’ve traveled, sure, but mostly on airplanes and highways. It’s been a long time since I’ve stopped to smell the roses, literally, or walked through vineyards, wandered without an agenda, and taken my time getting where I needed to go.   When I left more space around the journey itself, rather than seeing it as useless time between my starting place and my destination, a whole new world opened up. We turned off the highway and into local communities and had adventures I never would have had otherwise, like singing impromptu karaoke into a straw at a local pub or eating an incredible meal at Bouchon in Yountville. A few times we turned off the GPS and just tuned into where our hearts told us to go next. We were led unerringly toward something life-affirming and just right.     It was an experience similar to the one I aim to offer my students during yoga class. I’ve often asked them to pause and even play during the transitions between poses, those moments we often rush through on our way to the “goal” pose. The word “tapas” means “heat,” but it also symbolizes the space we make with the energy and awareness we bring to the present moment. When we release our grasp on achieving the goal and wake up to what’s going on every step of the way, we begin to see how fully we’re surrounded by exactly what we need to evolve, to be happy and fulfilled, and to love our lives.   What you do before you get into a pose dictates its quality once you arrive. It’s the same in your life: The millions of smaller actions you take will determine the strength–or shakiness–of the foundation underneath the more showy milestones of your life.   In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that if you’re not bringing a consistency of mindfulness, spaciousness, and quality action into your transitional periods, you may not reach your goals after all.   If you want to be a financial advisor, but you’re irresponsible with your own money, it’s unlikely that any clients will trust you with theirs. If you do reach your goal on a shaky foundation, it’s far more likely that your dreams will crumble around you, undermined from the very roots (hello, Bernie Madoff!).   Instead, what we yogis practice both on and away from the mat, is making sure that we pay attention to the entirety our lives, not just the parts; and doing so most of the time instead of just sporadically. It’s as simple as taking a deep breath and reminding ourselves that we’re here now. We stop time-traveling to the past or future when we learn that the only thing that will determine our future movement is what we do right now.   This inner road trip is the key to living out loud and enjoying your life holistically today. Not when you have the man, the cash, or have lost that last 10 pounds. Why wait? The power you have to self-generate satisfaction is waiting for you to see it, claim it, and act from it. When you stop, look around, and listen to your deepest wisdom in the space you’ve created, you will suddenly, sweetly realize:You are everything you need.   Here’s a transition that I’ve made into its own pose, to exemplify that every moment is pivotal, not just the flashy, more obvious ones. There’s a whole universe of strengthening and freedom to be found right here, on the journey within.   Core Pose: Parsvakonasana (Extended Side Angle Pose) with Core Circles Variation   When you go straight into Side Angle Pose from Warrior 2, the tendency can be to enter the asana with a over-curved lower back, front ribs jutting forward, and the back body constricted. To re-enter the pose with a more centered alignment and free the habitual hip, low back, upper back, and shoulder tension it can create, we need to exit it, or as I often say in class, back off to move forward.   First, come into the pose from Warrior 2 with your forearm on the front thigh and your other arm over your ear. Notice how your lower back and shoulders feel. Are you core-connected or are your shoulder blades, back muscles, and legs doing most of the work?   Begin to circle your top arm back behind you. Take it down toward the floor and, as you do, turn your torso toward the floor and draw your low belly away from your front thigh and upward, into your sternum. This will activate your core strength, bring length to the tailbone, support to the lower back, and also open the gateway of your front hip joint. You’re not pressing out the low back curve at all with this move, but supporting it from the front of the spine as well as from the back.   Continue to sweep your arm forward now and back up over your ear. Press your feet down strongly; maintain the stability, shoulder fluidity, and core awareness you cultivated during the transition; and enjoy new strength, freedom and areas of stretch releasing in your new, more intentional goal of a pose.                      

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The Road Within

Uh oh. Who would have guessed that 10 months into my yoga life, I’d lead a class? Well, a small class. Three of us and a dog named Emma. At a cottage. I may not know what I’m doing when it comes to yoga, but neither did they, and we all felt certain we’d come to no harm. So we gathered on a deck looking over Big Marten Lake on a gloriously blue Saturday morning. We started with a few Sun Salutations, followed by variations on Sun Salutations. We flowed gently from posture to posture, plank to Chattarunga to upward dog to downward dog. I gave them every tip I could remember (shoulder blades down, inner thighs rotating backward, rooting through hands and feet) and made up several extra. More than once, Jenni said, don’t you mean my left leg forward? And isn’t it the right foot pivoting this time? (I am far more dyslexic than I imagined.) We moved onto slower poses, a ridiculous rendition of yin yoga – ridiculous given that I have not once attended a yin class.  I watch my lovely man do his poses at home and thought they’d be fun to try with my friends. Class was a rousing success. Until day two. During our Sun Salutations, neither Sue nor Jenni can move gently from plank to chattarunga. Not even the first time. Sue says, I don’t remember doing this yesterday. We did, I tell her. We did exactly the same thing. “It didn’t hurt like this,” Jenni says. “Hurt like what?” I ask. “Like hell,” she says, “pointing to her chest and arms.  It hurts like absolute hell.” “It’ll get better,” I tell them, hoping it’s true. And through every Sun Salutation (and we only do five), they collapse like big bags of potatoes from plank to Chattarunga. Smack. Slam. Thud. Thwack. Bang. Crash. The new sounds of yoga. We laughed so hard I thought I’d blow a bhanda. Great lessons from chattathwack yoga: 1.  Yeah for the shoulder and arm strength that comes with practice!!!! 2.  I adore sharing yoga. My only goal in leading the class was for them to want to do it again the following day. They did. Sort of. 3.  Yeah for real teachers, who know right from left, how to start slowly, and how to let us laugh. Have you taught, those of you who aren’t teachers yet?  I’d love to hear about it. Thanks to yoga, for fun on vacation, and thanks to you for the conversation. Kristin Shepherd is a chiropractor, actor, speaker, and workshop wonderwoman in North Bay, Ontario.  Join her at kristinshepherd.ca or on Facebook at Dr. Kristin Shepherd.

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Teaching!

America’s red-headed sweet heart has been seduced by the spiritual lures of India. Julia Roberts told Elle that she is “definitely a practicing Hindi” after her time in India filming the upcoming Eat, Pray, Love . USA Today followed up on the cover interview with a story Sunday. According to a 2009 Associated Press story relying on The Times of India newspaper, Roberts’ children have been given Hindu names. It quoted a Hindu priest, Swami Dharam Dev, as saying : “I have named her twins Hazel and Phinnaeus as Laxmi and Ganesh, while Henry will be called Krishna Balram.” No word yet on whether or not Roberts’ practices yoga, since of course being Hindu does not require it. USA Today was also quick to distinguish the difference between practicing yoga and practicing Hindism, but couldn’t resist posting an image of Sarah Palin in Tree Pose as an argument for the “poses don’t have to be spiritual” side. (We couldn’t resist either.)   ” Yet, we have been doing Hindu-Lite for years, sampling of the flavor , images and style of a 6,000-year-old faith but with no actual theology involved. Anywhere you look you can find loose chatter about dharma (a way of living leading to spiritual advancement) and karma ( the “neutral, self-perpetuating law of the inner cosmos,” Hindu monk Sannyasin Arumugaswami, editor of Hinduism Today magazine, said in 2006) . Yoga Journal estimated at that time that nearly a third of folks who try the 5,000-year-old Hindu physical and meditative discipline, say they’re seeking ’spiritual development.’ ” Is yoga spiritual for you, or is it simply a good work out?

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Pretty Woman Converts to Hindu Woman

There are days – pushing my stroller up a steep hill, scooping dog poop while answering the phone, trying to meet writing deadlines while Lucien plays at my feet, managing outings and baths and meals and schedules, not to mention making time for my yoga practice-when I could almost forget. How hard it was getting here. It was hard for me to become a mother, excruciatingly so. (Now, in comparison, is the easy part.) Neil and I married when I was 30, and though it seemed prudent to wait to try and have a baby-for our careers to become more stable, to have more of an income, to settle down in one city -I wanted to get started right away.  Maybe deep down I knew. After six months of trying, I became pregnant. We lived in Los Angeles at the time and immediately I changed everything. My diet: Goodbye coffee, hello egg salad sandwiches. My asana practice: so long Mysore series, hello Iyengar. Even the way I thought of myself changed in the instant I saw that plus on the pregnancy stick. In a flash I went from struggling would-be writer to contented mom-to-be. That pregnancy was seven years ago. At eight-and-a-half weeks (that half week was as important to me then as Lucien’s “half” a year after his two years is to me now) I went to the doctor for my first ultrasound. In that fancy office in Beverly Hills I sat feeling out of place but confident in my impending motherhood as I flipped the pages of the magazines laid out in the waiting room. And then the exam. There was no heartbeat. What followed was an everyday nightmare that I know many of you reading this have been through-the blood work and waiting, the D & C, the endless and unexpected free fall of grief. It took a long time for me to heal. One thing that helped was working on my first book, an anthology I edited, About What Was Lost: 20 Writers on Miscarriage, Healing, and Hope . I wrote my story and collected others.  Hearing women’s stories, immersing myself in them, steeled me as I spent the next several years determined to become a mother, but not sure how or when or some days, if, I would. Yoga helped too. In class I felt cared for and comforted, and on good days I felt that everything would be all right. (On the bad days I stared in envy at the gorgeous pregnant women in class, on the really bad days I cried at home on my mat, and on the worst days I stayed in bed.) Now, all these years later, I have my beautiful boy.  As he sings to me and as we snuggle and make believe, and even when I get so exhausted from keeping up with him that I need to collapse in front of hours of reality television in a pop culture coma, I remember, and I feel for all the women (and men) out there struggling-whether with IVF cycles or adoption waiting lists or simply the monthly still-negative pregnancy tests. I’m sending love to all of you and prayers that soon you’ll be with the children you are meant to parent. And believe me, I know how lucky I am. Do you have a story to share? 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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Remembering

On Monday, in the space left behind by the thousands of yogis who attended Wanderlust, my friend and I decided to climb a mountain. (You can see it in the background in the picture below.) OK, it was more a civilized trail than something I’d need a rope and rock shoes to tackle. But let me tell you, it was pretty darn challenging. The high altitude makes it harder to do even simple things, like breathe, much less hike. I was a little daunted thinking about scaling a steep path for an hour, especially since I haven’t done any other exercise besides yoga for a decade, unless you count climbing the stairs to the 9th floor walkup I lived in for a year in Manhattan. Yoga prepared us both for the adventure of doing something new with our bodies, and though the air was thin, and my heart rate was about as high as the hill itself, I felt strong, capable, and, finally, grateful for all those long-held Warrior poses. When we reached the pinnacle, a pyramid-shaped outcropping of flaking shale, my friend had the idea to pick up a large piece and heave it over the side. It bounced and skipped until coming to rest among another pile of rocks farther down. I felt so inspired by this that I got up from my serene perch overlooking a mountain waterfall and stream and start throwing rocks too. It felt like every rock I tossed was a heaviness I was deciding to release, lightening my mental, physical, and emotional load. There is a parable I love, about a monk and his master stopping at the bank of a wide stream. There they encountered a man dressed in fine clothes. This man looked at the master and asked, “Will you carry me across? I don’t want to get my nice clothes wet.” The monk volunteered to take the man across, as his master was older, and, well, the master. But the master said, “No, no. He asked me. I’ll take him.” So the master put this perfectly strong, healthy guy on his back and struggled across the stream with him, getting his own clothing all wet so the man could stay dry. Once across, the man went his own way, without any word of thanks. The monk and master continued on, with the monk indignant. He mumbled under his breath and cycled back into a dark and stormy state every few minutes. Finally, after about two hours, the master said, “Brother, what’s bothering you?” The monk exploded: “I can’t believe he didn’t even thank you! I mean, you’re a master, and he was capable of getting himself across. The nerve of this guy! What a complete jerk!” The master looked at the monk, undisturbed, and said, “I put that man down on the other side of the river–and two hours later, you’re still carrying him.” We all tend to carry unnecessary baggage around with us. Whether it’s regret for what could have been, anger at a past experience, or even tension from a stressful job that builds in the shoulders or low back, it ends up as extra weight that prevents us from engaging with and enjoying the present moment. Sometimes we might feel that punishing ourselves for past actions or keeping them alive by dwelling on them over and over again will keep us from repeating the behavior. But this is a toxic attitude that will slow you down as surely as carrying someone across a stream. Instead,  just as you enter a challenging practice with the intention to shake up and dissolve areas of restriction in your body, use your yogic tools to shake up and dissolve those stories or habitual “truths” you tell yourself that diminish you instead of lighting you up. Through mindful practice, we realize that we can remember the lessons we’ve learned from our experiences, but drop the weight of living them over and over again in ways that erode our happiness. When, with arms overhead and with all my might, I threw the last rock, I did the following pose. This is a wonderful, instant way to release any negativity that’s following you around. Do it regularly, to ensure that you’re not gathering tension or destructive energies on any level, and watch your body, mind, and heart lighten and move with more freedom. Lion’s Pose Take a deep breath. Imagine it traveling from your lungs to your belly, and all the way down to your toes. Really gather up any inner negativity you can find. On the exhalation, release the breath up and out through your mouth as you stick your tongue way out and roar like a lion: “HAAAAAAH!” Repeat this 1-3 times, or until you start laughing. That’s a good sign: As you lift the energetic stone of whatever has been weighing you down, you’ll uncover the joy that is your right–and birthright–that’s within you at all times.      

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Lightening Your Load

This woman is 68. What’s her secret? Yoga, of course! One of the things I love about yoga is practicing with inspiring women who are older than me. It’s always the 50 or 60 year old in class who has the twenty minute headstand with variations.  After all, she’s been practicing for decades. At my recent yoga retreat with Marla Apt, I was surrounded by wise and graceful women in their 50s and 60s, women with children my age, and, in some cases, grandchildren. One of Marla’s students-a yoga teacher named Marsha with a lovely practice-is a great grandmother, 68 years old, beautiful and knowing and filled with light.  She teaches yoga to women living in prison (not that she’d ever mention this herself, she’s way too modest.) She’s calm, gracious, and ageless. Marsha is the kind of woman I want to grow up to be like. Patricia Walden, whom I studied with in Massachusetts before moving to Vancouver, is my all time favorite role model of an older and oh so much better yogi; she’s wiser–and more beautiful–than any woman I know in her 30’s. It’s women like these who remind me that getting older means learning more, going deeper– into my practice, into my self, becoming more of a woman, a mom, a yogi, a seeker, with each birthday.  This is only the beginning.   What scares you about the aging process?  What do you look forward to most?  Who are your role models?   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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Enlightened Grandmothers

Two historical events occurred this weekend on opposite coasts. Chelsea Clinton got married in New York, celebrating with  more than 300 guests. Meanwhile, a few thousand miles to the left, more than 8,000 yogis celebrated yoga, rock and roll and dance at the Wanderlust Festival at Squaw Valley near Lake Tahoe, California. I attended the latter.   My Wanderlust journey began with Annie Carpenter’s 8am class Thursday morning. Smiling volunteers welcomed us to the first class of the festival. Next up on the line-up was Shiva Rea with live DJ Bom Siva and the Mayapuris, who lead us into an ecstatic dance and yoga practice as an informal opening ritual to the festival. We raised the vibration to the level Shiva and co-founder Jeff Krasno (other co-founder Schuyler Grant) dreamed up over 2 years ago while lounging on the terrace of Shiva’s Malibu home. The celebration continued into the afternoon, where Shiva hosted a sold out river rafting party with live music. As we lazily drifted down river in the summer sun,  we soaked in Mayapuri’s kirtan and Steve Gold’s rhythm and blues melodies.   This uniquely epic experience raised the collective conscious vibration of the planet with it’s diverse line up of world renowned yoga teachers and musicians raising awareness of sacred activism including a Yoga Aid event that spilled off the yoga floor onto the hot tarmac; funds were raised for Seane Corn’s Yoga Off the Mat; Baron Baptiste and Paige Elenson’s Africa Project; Shiva Rea’s Global Mala Project; Brock Cahill’s Kurmalliance (Rescuing Turtles from the Gulf Coast Oil Spill). Moby’s Speakeasy talk, “May All Beings Be Free of Suffering: Why I Am a Vegan,” moderated by Kaitlin Quistgaard editor-in-chief of Yoga Journal , was also an event to remember.   Celebrity sightings included world-class sport climbing champion Chris Sharma and Nick Rosen from the Enlighten Up! documentary.  And “non-celebrity yoga celebrity,” John Friend made a surprise appearance on Saturday afternoon, days after The Yoga Mogul appeared in the New York Times , stepping off Beaver Theodosakis’ private Prana plane in time to participate in the Yoga Aid event taught by Seane Corn, Baron Baptiste and Shiva Rea. Ecstatic dance parties included (music headliner) Moby’s epic Friday night performance, a breakout dance session in front of the Natural High booth during Base Nectar’s Saturday night performance (which almost burst open the fences with record attendance), and literally climaxing (a t 8,200 feet) on Sunday afternoon at the pool at High Camp, the ultimate chill-out zone where relaxing yogis and families made way for DJ Dragonfly’s spinning extravaganza. What a weekend!   For more information, go to www.wanderlustfestival.com .    Twee Merrigan is senior teacher trainer of Prana Flow and a sacred activist traveling through America this August to raise funds for the Gulf Oil Spill Clean Up on her Butterfly Effect Tour. Wanderlust was a stop on the Tour to raise awareness and inspire sacred activism.

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Wanderlust Wows with Music, Dance and Yoga

Okay, what is it with triangle pose???? (Those of you who are experts need not read this one. Go back to practicing your one-armed handstands with your legs in full lotus. I adore you, I do. I worship your accomplishments. But today’s thoughts are not for you.) Triangle pose. Pretty basic. Do the triangle thing and reach forward to grab your first toe. For the entire 10 months of my gorgeous, intensive involvement in yoga, this is exactly what happens with my right leg. I reach down, gently grab the first toe of my right foot, and look up to the ceiling. I breathe slowly and evenly. I don’t care if Rob and Cristina (my teachers) count to 29 on this one. Happiness. Not so with my left leg. On my left side, I reach down, all the while thinking, I am so flexible, I am flexibility itself, I am flexibility incarnate and reincarnate. And my hand reaches mid-calf. Not an inch lower. Makes me crazy. I know, I know, patience, kindness, acceptance of what is. Even if what is is a daily reminder of my exaggerated imbalance. All I wish for is balance, I tell myself. So guess what happened this week? For no reason I can think of, my triangle pose has changed! But not the way you think it might. Not the way it happens in fairy tales and romantic comedy yoga videos. Now neither of my hands can reach my toe! I mean it. I just tried it again before sitting here to write. Both sides to mid-calf. Not an inch lower. My thoughts? Be careful what you wish for. I wanted balance. I got it. Is there a pose that drives you crazy? (Okay, if it’s the one-armed handstand with full lotus, you can play, too.) Thanks to the yoga poses that drive us crazy, and thanks to you for the conversation. Kristin Shepherd is a chiropractor, actor, speaker, and workshop wonderwoman in North Bay, Ontario.  Join her at kristinshepherd.ca or on Facebook at Dr. Kristin Shepherd.

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Poses That Make You Crazy

This summer in my house, nap time is yoga time. The best feeling in the world is listening to my “baby” sleep off his hard morning of play while I settle into my practice upstairs. Then there are the days when he skips his nap.  I go into Lucien’s room, change his diaper and offer him some water, and then it’s back in the crib to try and sleep. I head back upstairs to my yoga corner, feeling exhausted at the prospect of a long, hot afternoon with a tired toddler. I have a few minutes to practice before giving up on the nap completely. It’s one thing to practice yoga when he’s sleeping soundly, but quite another to practice when the monitor is all lit up and red. Here’s a quick sequence* for when you’re tired, and time is short.  It should take you about 30 minutes, long enough for your baby or toddler to have a chance to fall asleep, but short enough so that you can feel refreshed and like you fit in a decent practice–even if a nap is just not happening today. Supta Bahhda Konasana (Take a good five to ten minutes here.) Downward dog Sirsasana  (If headstand is a regular part of your practice–no need for stress today!) Chair Shoulder Stand Ardha Halasana with Chair  (My all time favorite nap-time pose.) Savasana  (Enjoy a long and luxurious rest once your child falls asleep.)    *Sequence inspired by one of my favorite asana books, The Woman’s Book of Yoga and Health by Linda Sparrowe and Patricia Walden    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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Five Poses to Beat the Nap-Time Blues

After moving into my new apartment, the first thing I did, after unpacking, of course, was to place a statue of Ganesh at the entryway. My friend, feng shui master Ariel Towne, says that besides a fountain, the other necessary item near your front door is the little elephant otherwise known as the Remover of Obstacles. When you don’t let negative, sticky energies in, they don’t have a chance to affect you. “Cutting them off at the pass” is a phrase that might apply to what Ganesh is doing there at the front door. Aside from that massive job, Ganesh is also the Lord of Thresholds. Threshold . What a beautiful word. It reminds me of watching wind ripple the wheat fields during my Midwestern childhood. Yet, the concept itself has different meanings, not only describing the doorway itself, but what the doorway represents: a starting point, the beginning of any new journey or transformation. Ganesh is not some magic statue, without which you would have no protection against resistance, doubt, and fear–three of the biggest obstacles of all. It’s the act of placing Ganesh that brings awareness to our own desire to remain free of anything that diminishes or limits our potential to fly. In that sense, he represents that aspect of ourselves that is ready to swing open the door to our next adventure–and ready to step out of our own way long enough to clear the path straight through it. Henry Ford said, “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.” You see, we have the power to either turn our experiences and truths into obstructions, weights tethered to any possible rise in self-esteem, greater awareness, and health; or to remove them.  Yogis have fabulous resistance-busting tools. We can get on the mat and practice, opening tight places and dissolving emotional and mental tension. We breathe, switch our thinking, learn to see more clearly and, by deciding to love ourselves a little more, we begin to widen the very doorway into our own hearts. By applying awareness to each situation we encounter, we open a threshold to our core, allowing our deepest wisdom to sweep through, and away, into the world in the form of our most courageous, conscious actions. In my classes, any time I want to clear the threshold, I ask my students to focus on hip opening. I call the hips “the Gateways,” because they can allow, or block, the energy moving from you foundation into your core. If the gateways are closed, the posture is incomplete and with it, the opportunity to gain the full benefits of the asana is lost. Try the following pose any time you feel a little closed yet feel ready to  make the space you need to cross the threshold into that next, most incredible state of being who you really are. Core Pose: Funky Lunge   This posture clears a common tight area–the side leg and outer hips–all the way from the foundation to your center. When you open this gateway, issues like sciatica may recede, since the piriformis muscle at the side of your pelvis often compresses it. As well, you’ll open the IT band, making this a wonderful way to free yourself from over-closure of the gateways of the hip muscles and joints and, quite literally, be able to walk through any threshold more freely. Come into Down Dog. Step your left foot to your right thumb. With this crossed foot placement, you’ll bring the right knee to the mat. Center your hips, and come onto palms or fingertips, on the mat or on blocks, so that your hands are under your shoulders. Begin to roll onto the pinky toe edge of your left foot. As you ground the foot down, and resist it back towards your hip, roll the outer left hip and upper thigh back and down so that it’s not hiking up toward your ribcage. Inhale, lift your lower belly and wave long through your spine. Exhale, and fold at the hip creases as you bend the elbows to your capacity. Play your edge of flexibility as you begin to straighten your front leg until you begin to feel sensation. Breathe and soften there before moving further into your stretch. If you want more of a challenge, try tucking the back toes under and lifting the back knee as in a Low Lunge. Your hands will walk back to remain under the shoulders for support. Breathe here for one minute, taking small spinal waves on the inhalation, and deepening your fold on the exhalation. Return to Dog Pose, and switch sides.    

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Clearing the Threshold

My mother and I were at the same family gathering on the weekend. Which is not a big deal if you come from someone else’s family, but my mom and I only see each other once a year or so. And that’s a huge improvement after two decades of down right difficult, then jaw-clenchingly tense, and now tentatively willing relationship. (There’s a mouthful.) She looks beautiful. One bionic hip, and two hearing aids (which she’d forgotten at home), but a soft, gentle face and a kind of high, croaky, older woman’s voice. Once planted on the couch, she stayed put. I brought lunch to her while she watched her kids mingle and her grandkids fling themselves around the room with my dog. She did yoga when I was a kid. That was my introduction to yoga, to meditation, to the whole idea of looking inward as a form of health care. It astounds me, writing this, when I consider how central this looking inward is to everything I believe now. It is the core of my work in health care, in theatre, in parenting, and in all relationships. My mother doesn’t do yoga any more.  She can’t get down to a floor and has no local chair yoga classes. More than that, she’s lost the oomph it would take to do yoga at home. When we talk about it, she says, never, never stop doing yoga. It was the best thing ever, she says. People make their own choices. I know this. And yet, if I had one wish today, it’d be that my mom could still do yoga. Or that somehow, I could do it for her, while holding her closer and closer to this croaky heart of mine, which, I hope, is growing more flexible over time. Is there anyone you’d love to hold during your practice? Thanks to yoga for looking inward, to my mom (love, love, love), and to you for the conversation.

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Holding my Mother

As yogis, we all struggle to keep our practice consistent. We get distracted by life and make excuses to skip one day, then the next, and pretty soon we find ourselves making a lasting indent into the couch–we are too defeated for that one down-ward dog that could turn it all around. It seems like perfectionists catch the worst of this cycle. We like to feel like we are “being good,” “making progress,” and “on track.” Self-proclaimed perfectionist and yogi blogger Daniela Velázquez at TBO.com says “Yoga helps me cope with much of that fretting – until I stop practicing. Then all of the anxiety creeps back and makes me want to crawl in bed instead of working it out on my mat.” And she’s not the only one who struggles with this all-or-nothing mantra in her yoga practice and exercise routine. “‘It makes it hard for people to stay motivated – they have to be perfect in their diet plan and/or exercise plan,’ behavioral psychologist Dean Anderson says. ‘When they inevitably aren’t, they start getting down on themselves. They figure they’re never going to do it,’ says Anderson, who writes for the weight-loss website SparkPeople.com under the pen name Coach Dean. ” Velázquez  says ” Lately, I have learned to let the problem remain what it is and nothing more. Eating a cookie or skipping class is simply that – not an excuse to send myself over the edge. That’s what I have always loved about yoga. Sure, I geek out when I do something I couldn’t before, like my first on-the-wall handstand a few weeks ago. But the emphasis for me has always been on the journey of the practice and the progress I have made to become a happier, more whole person. Once you’re able to do something new (like a handstand), there’s always a slightly more complicated pose to work on (a one-handed handstand). And with more than 1,000 poses in yoga’s repertoire, you won’t ever be able to master them all. And that’s OK. Because each time you practice, you gain a little more wisdom about yourself and the world. It’s about the process of changing, not about each individual event. Perfectionists focus on the outcome, and if they don’t get a perfect outcome their motivation collapses. ” Next time, start with reminding yourself that you are inherently full or whole–lacking in no way. Then press on to practice with willful intention and non-concern for results and see if it feels different. Erin Chalfant is a writer, yoga teacher and the Web Editor at Yoga Journal.

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Yoga for Perfectionists

My vegetable garden is officially off the charts. It’s all thanks to two people: My good friend Lise who inspired me last summer with her backyard garden, and my green-thumbed next door neighbor Ellen who taught me what to do–from getting my garden beds together, to planting, watering, weeding, and harvesting.  I’m hoping it’s not just beginner’s luck–and that Ellen will help me again next year–because Neil and I are getting seriously spoiled by eating out of our backyard. “The farm,” as we have taken to calling the plots, is ripe with peas, kale, broccoli, lettuce, beets, carrots and cucumbers and scallions and zucchini, with the very beginnings of tomatoes and corn peeping through.  The process has amazed me, reminding me both of motherhood (seeing those tiny seeds blossom into full grown plants) and yoga (with a little time and attention every day, and some   patience, you’ll start seeing results). How does your (yoga) garden grow? 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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In Season

Two interesting, and strikingly different articles caught my eye in Sunday’s New York Times . The first, a book review by Pankaj Mishra that somewhat negatively reviews the rise of yoga in the United States. Whether in the streets of Mysore or on Fifth Avenue, yoga cannot be disentangled from specific histories or specific cultural and economic practices. Of course, the more vulgar aspects of its inevitable commodification in the United States, like $1,000-a-night yoga cruises, ­ought to be deplored. Certainly, the civic or political virtue that results from limber, yoga-toned bodies is not yet measurable. And it would be nice if American followers of yoga, who increasingly define the future of this Indian discipline, would at least occasionally seek something like spiritual transcendence. And the second, a glowing interview with Anusara founder John Friend by Mimi Swartz . The first time I encountered John Friend was at a workshop at a Woodlands community college nearly 10 years ago. At the time I was practicing a stricter form of yoga, and Friend’s joke-cracking and mind-boggling acrobatics — he is famous for his handstands — were something of a revelation. Yoga could be . . . fun ? As Friend led us through the poses, he spoke in a soft voice, insisting that we contain divinity within ourselves and must discover and express our inner goodness to fulfill our obligation to better our world. How to do so was never expressly stated — except for practicing yoga, of course — but I left the workshop feeling better physically, mentally and emotionally. I didn’t know at the time that this was my introduction to what others call “the cult of John.” If Friend could be compared with anyone outside the yoga world — and I am not sure he would like this comparison — it would be Joel Osteen , the magnetic evangelical megachurch minister with the feel-good message and a book-and-television empire. Osteen’s God is loving and forgiving. Osteen doesn’t get hung up on dogma, and thus everybody is welcome. I, for one, am happy to see yoga being discussed in the mainstream media. Glad that it is a part of our culture and open to debate. It’s good to know that people are thinking about these things and that makes it more likely to reach a deeper stream in our society. What do you think? ps- John Friend (@anusarafriend) plans to post his response to the interview today!

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John Friend and Yoga in America

For a modality whose very title, yoga, means “unity,” it sure seems to be chock full of opposites. Our hatha yoga poses are made up of the “sun” (ha) and “moon” (tha). Shiva-Shakti, or ying-yang, symbolize the passive and active parts of our natures, and we’re in constant interplay between sthira (effort) and sukha (ease) on and off the mat. Anatomically, we mirror this duality. Did you know there are no muscles that cross the midline of our bodies? We have the spine in back and the connective strip of the Linea alba in front, which when, you think about it, means that we are really two distinct halves fused together at these junctions. Spiritually as well, we exist as polar aspects of energy, which make up our total prana, or life force. I’ll call these collective energies the shadow and the light. Sometimes (in the cases of love and joy) the energies feel lighter, and other times (like with anger and sorrow), much heavier. Still, any of these energies can be used as pure fodder, fuel that either generates actions that are aligned with us or that steer us sharply from our paths. Since, in another two-sided element of being, our thoughts and actions can either feel more positive (loving) or negative (hurtful), we might make the misstep of placing value judgments on our feelings, deciding that the lighter energies are “good” and that the shadows are “bad.” We want to feel happy and free, and because our dark side may have caused us and others suffering, embarrassment, shame and loss, it’s all too seductive to try and live only on the light side of ourselves. I think it’s unfortunate that being a student of yoga is sometimes understood to mean one must be only light and happy, all the time, and to never feel angry, insecure, or vengeful. In my opinion, this idealized state is not spiritual perfection but a delusion of grandeur masquerading as spiritual practice. Being as we’re human and divine, it’s a great day when we realize that we can be both, and have our yoga, too. Because it’s not an absence of shadow feelings that makes one enlightened. It’s knowing how to alchemize them into conscious, loving actions once they arise that matters. Unfortunately, many of us aren’t there yet. We’ve even decided that there is “good” karma and “bad” karma. But when you look at karma as a concept, it’s judgment-free. It simply means that this or that choice can be more constructive or more destructive to your ultimate goals. Add to this information the fact that, often, it’s not the shadows themselves that are dysfunctional. It’s the way we express them that causes problems. If you shy away from discomfort, in your yoga poses or in life (and if you do one, I can nearly guarantee you do the other), it’s likely that you haven’t practiced with that dark side as much as you need to in order to become strong and resilient enough to bear its intensity. In other words, if you haven’t done this work, you may be prone to reactivity, where some event, inner or outer, connects you to your shadow energy. Before you know it, you’ve thrown a glass or hurled hurtful words at a loved one. Or perhaps you react inwardly and act destructively toward yourself, as in blowing an important deadline because you’re anxious or shutting yourself down out of fear. Picking fights, being disrespectful, participating in family dramas, gossiping, or using drugs or alcohol to cope with discomfort are all ways we let the dark side predominate. We have confused the reactions to our shadows with the shadows themselves, when in fact they are just energies waiting to be harnessed. It’s time to look directly at these energies, without naming or blaming, and use our yogi powers to  channel even our blackest moments from the messiness of reaction into the clarity and empowerment of reflection. From there, we can move forward into actions born of wisdom, not wildness. One way we do this on the mat is, simply put, by no longer resisting the sensations we don’t like, but by embracing them, or at least, softening our resistance against them to allow them to co-exist with the ones you are happier to feel. Say you’re in a five-minute Pigeon Pose, and somewhere around the three-minute mark, your hips start grumbling, then maybe yelling out loud. You were enjoying your moment of Zen, and had the breath under control, but here comes the old familiar hips-on-fire feeling. To deal with it, you start breathing louder, thinking about the grocery list, pondering your fingernails, and turning your attention to anything but the discomfort. Yet, according to yogic wisdom, this might be a powerful place to explore. What if, next time you found yourself in a battle of wills with those inner demons, you–well–just surrendered? Soften and widen the breath. Go gentler into that shadowy night. What happens when you stop fighting and start listening to what your dark side has been trying to teach you all along? When you do this, the monsters inside lose their power to throw you off center, and you’ll regain your inherent wholeness. The promise of yoga is unity, and by opening your heart to all of who you are, you will finally, completely, and nearly effortlessly, come home. The goal yoga may be to become enlightened, or to keep the fires of awareness lit, but we cannot get there without recognizing, and in fact honoring, our darkness. Without developing the sweet embrace of understanding and mothering grace of compassion for all that we are, we will never become whole, but rather just play out our days, quite literally, half-lived. Here’s a variation on a common pose that includes a mudra, or sacred hand position. Get to know it in a way that will remind you, as it reminds me, that wholeness is waiting whenever we widen our idea of yoga to include all its forms. Core Pose: Seated Spinal Twist with Gyan (or Jnana) Mudra Gyan Mudra is the “Knowledge Seal,” a hand position that helps focus your mind, heart, and spirit in a certain way. Start by uniting the tips of the index fingers and thumbs to symbolize the meeting of the awareness that comes from embracing your lower and higher energies. According to the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna was in Gyan Mudra when he imparted the teachings to Arjuna, urging him to use his humanity to express his divinity. Come into your easy seat. Make Gyan Mudra with both hands. Inhale and lengthen your spine at center. Exhale and bring the right hand to the left knee or thigh, and weave your left arm behind your back. Depending on your flexibility, your left hand mudra might peek out around the side waist as you see mine doing here. Take a few breaths here, facing your left side and opening the ribcage. Think of embracing your shadow side, the one you might hide from sight. Illuminate it with your attention and focused breath. Then reverse the pose and reflect on your active, bright, confident side for a few full breaths.  When you’re done with both sides, sweep your arms out and up, and when they meet overhead, bring the palms together in prayer, then down to front of your chest. Bow your head to your hands, a symbol of bringing yourself–all of yourself–into union.            

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Shadows and Light

In a recent Anatomy of Yoga class with Leslie Kaminoff, we watched a video that I’ll never forget. And hopefully, neither will you. And, trust me, this all has a heck of a lot to do with your yoga practice! It features anatomist Gil Hedley explaining The Fuzz. You can watch it yourself, but be aware that it shows him working with a cadaver. Yet it’s such an important piece of knowledge that I’d like to define this incredible concept for you, and you can choose to view it or not and still take it forward into your daily life. Each night while we sleep, or any time we’re still for long periods, like sitting in a car on a long road trip, our body begins to build collagen fibers. They look a little like cotton candy, and are just as sticky, causing friction between what should be smoothly sliding muscle surfaces. The end result is the stiffness you might feel in the morning getting out of bed or standing up after watching a three-hour movie. Now, this is usually no big deal for those of us with a consistent movement practice. We feel creaky, we do yoga, we’re good. But if you don’t lubricate your joints and move your muscles to break up the fuzz regularly enough, it begins to knit together. Over time, the normal, subtle stiffness becomes limited movement, and even pain as the spider-webbed, bound body tries to move against resistance. Instead of confronting the fuzz, to avoid discomfort, many people simply move less. It becomes a vicious cycle that we often chock up to aging, but really is a cumulative, and mostly avoidable, buildup of fuzz. Now, that’s not to say that all physical slowdown is due to the fuzz, and if we simply stretch more, we will never feel the effects of age. But there is much more we can do to keep our bodies–and therefore our minds–as open, vital, and free as possible. This parallels the yoga teaching about samskaras , the mental and emotional patterns that make up our conditioning. Samskara is a neutral word, indicating simply the actions we take that lead to certain results, but our habits can lead to either constructive or destructive outcomes, depending on our goals. The yogi seeks to strengthen those positive habits that maintain the full range of spiritual motion, and, importantly, dissolve the ones that have become diminishing and threaten to hold us back from reaching our potential of living from love, light, and joy. It’s exciting to see science finding that the same lessons apply to our actual body as well. In fact, I see the two as interconnected, since continual mental and emotional stress, for example, leads almost unerringly to muscle tension, which is a direct physical manifestation of the samskara of anxiety or fear. This is the mind-body connection the yogis have known about for centuries, and though sometimes yoga philosophy can get pretty obtuse, much of it can be translated into the real world as simply as you want to make it. That’s nice to know when you’re looking for tools you can apply today, right this moment, that can help you release what doesn’t serve you, and keep, even amplify, the things that do. Yoga doesn’t have to be confusing. It’s the art of living in balance, and taking actions that fuel your happiness, whatever that means for you. From there, you’ll be inspired to offer some of that goodness to the world through your creative self-expression, and with a burning desire to help those who are still suffering. This is the road map the samskaras offer us: What kind of a life are you carving out through your choices? Is it shaping up as you’d like? If not, then start chipping away at another way of being until it more closely resembles your heart. The next time you’re on the mat, or doing a few Sun Salutes just out of bed, you are not only solidifying healthy habits, you’re creating the potential for new ones to take root in your life in so many ways. Here’s a great all-in-one pose for dissolving restrictive samskaras, and, with them, the fuzz. Do it in the morning just after you get out of bed, and you’ll greet your whole day with more resiliency, flexibility, and freedom from all sorts of fuzz. Core Pose: Low Lunge with Cat/Cow Variation Come into a Low Lunge position with your right foot forward. Your front knee is stacked over the heel, not out in front of it, to avoid knee pressure. The back knee stretches comfortably behind the hip, not directly under it. The front foot and back knee are hip-distance, or about two fists-width apart. Keep your hands on the floor, framing your front foot at first. Take a moment to back off the hips, since you don’t want to sink too far into this pose. This can cause you to overstretch the connective tissue. Instead, lift out of the pose a bit until you can ground the foot and knee, draw in the low belly, and bring your torso upright, hands onto the knee or thigh. You should now feel a stretch in the center of your muscles, not in the back hip crease and front sitting bone only. Your legs are also working to maintain the buoyancy of the pose. Inhale, carve your tailbone long, and arch your spine. Keep the back of your neck long, and lift the chest sky-high. As you do this move, pull your shoulders back and slide your shoulder blades closer. Exhale and round your back. Remember to keep the length in your lower back and roll more through the upper back and shoulder area. Gently lower your chin for a mindful neck stretch. This pose is meant to lift through the back of your heart and spread the shoulder blades wider apart than it is to press out your lower back curve. So although you will activate the low belly fully on your exhalation, lift it in and up towards the chest, rather than squeezing it back towards the spine only. Repeat the spinal motion with your breath for 5-10 rounds, then return to a Down Dog or Child’s Pose, and repeat on the left side.

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Fuzz Buster

The other day, my yoga teacher said something I keep thinking about. “In class,” Louie said, “we practice how to practice. But at home, we practice.” Of all things, this made me think of my date night with Neil this past weekend. On Friday night we went all out–hired a babysitter, made a reservation at a Japanese tapas place by the beach, dressed cute (in a summery dress and sandals for me and a striped button down and jeans for Neil). We had a great time – talking and eating and planning and dreaming – but the bill and the babysitter added up. Then on Saturday, we had a no fuss date night at home. We put Lucien to bed early and I set the table and gathered vegetables (lettuce, kale) from the garden while Neil made black bean veggie burgers and yam fries. We wore shorts and t-shirts and were sweaty from a day out and about in the summertime sun. For dessert, we ate raspberries from the garden. Guess which one was more fun? As important as it is to be out in the world – or in the yoga center – at home with the ones you love is where true practice begins. 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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Date Night

It’s my first week in a new town, having moved from NYC to Austin to focus on yoga, travel and all that it entails for me right now. It’s slower here, no doubt, with a local news story lamenting that the new city Metro system doesn’t have enough people riding it! I’ll soon be parking my grateful derriere on one of the new, cushioned seats (with actual airspace between bodies) on my way to a yoga class. I miss New York, but I’m interested to see what health and yogic possibilities lay ahead for me here. In this transitional period, where cardboard moving boxes vie for my attention along with daily responsibilities (as I write this blog, all my books sit next to me in U-Haul containers, awaiting their freedom), I can’t help but feel, well, empty. This is a specific kind of emptiness, not the windswept sensation after an emotional storm, or the primordial suspension of a deep meditation. It’s more like a mixture of mourning and excitement, so evenly matched that it generates the time-standing-still feeling you have while retaining the breath after an inhale, or letting the exhale slide into a silent moment of nothingness before inspiring again. And when I say, “inspiring,” I mean breathing in and getting back to the creation of my life’s work, my dharma.  This is the calm before the flood, when creative elements will sweep me forward. And I have to be ready to both direct the wave and ride it into places I can’t foresee. It is scary, yet wonderful. I wonder if this could be the Middle Path the Buddha spoke of, or the “field” between happiness and sorrow that Rumi wrote about so eloquently. I think of it as The Void, taken from the Runes, the ancient Viking stones etched with symbols used by those seeking clarity. Here’s one definition of The Void from the Book of Runes : The Unknowable represents the path of Karma–the sum total of your actions and their consequences, the lessons that are yours for this lifetime. And yet, this Rune teaches that the very debts of old karma shift and evolve as you shift and evolve. Nothing is predestined. What beckons is the creative power of the unknown. We all hit The Void at one time or another, sometimes multiple times a day. It’s that pause that seems hollow but that is actually pregnant with possibility, full of creative energy, or shakti, waiting for you to decide which action to take next to direct it into form. The Void itself is often what ignites fear: of the unknown, of letting go, of being alone, of moving to that next level of ourselves, and risking failure and public ridicule to do it. Many people never cross The Void, because of what seems an impenetrable closed door of “I can’t, I shouldn’t” or “I’m not enough” blocking the entrance to the bridge across.   Yet when we practice yoga with as much determination off the mat as we do on it, when we get present and focus on what really matters–living completely, passionately, and without regret–we take destiny back into our own hands, the doorway magically opens, and, Void or not … we leap. Here’s a pose that may help you understand how solid the Void actually is, as you begin to see that you’re always where you stand, and from there, you can channel this veritable ocean of energy towards your biggest, brightest goals. Core Pose: Ankle-to-Knee Chair(Eka Pada Galavasana Preparation) This pose leads to taking flight in the arm balance of Eka Pada Galavasana, but for our purposes, we’re going to start where we are. Running too fast into the Void can cause you to miss out on the information coming at you from the core, and from your environment, a conversation that needs your full attention. Come to the front of your mat, feet hip-distance apart. Bend both knees and generate as much lift from your lower belly as from your lower back. Keep your spine long as you ground into your left foot and lift your right knee mindfully into your chest. Don’t rush; rather, make every moment of this pose an opportunity to find balance again. Once you’re stable, cross your right ankle over your left knee. Roll the thigh outward so your right knee lowers, and sit down deeper. Bring your hands to the chest, palms together in anjali mudra, which celebrates your connection to the Divine, or universal energy. Offer your heart forward as the hips move back to anchor you in this new place of balance and freedom. Take 5-10 breaths here, then return to Chair Pose, and fold forward over bent or straight legs for a few moments before repeating the balance on the other side.      

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Filling the Void

Summer is busy. This week, my lovely man did a yoga session on a sheet of plywood covered by a raincoat. He said it was great. I have done handstands in my office, downward dogs on an enormous rock by the lake, and side planks at the public library while waiting for a meeting to begin. I sneak yoga while waiting for my car to be repaired. And I would do it in the park and I would do it in the dark and I would do it on a rock and I would do it on a dock Yesterday I hung in a forward bend at the grocery store while looking at cans of tuna on the bottom shelf. No one said a word. I was there for ages. Where will yoga show up next?  Where is your favorite place to sneak it in to your day? Thanks to yoga for being so delicious that we want to sneak it here and there, we want to sneak it everywhere, and thanks to you for the conversation. Kristin Shepherd is a chiropractor, actor, speaker, and workshop wonderwoman in North Bay, Ontario.  Join her at kristinshepherd.ca or on Facebook at Dr. Kristin Shepherd.

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Yoga Here and Yoga There

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Green Living Blog test

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Testing Food Blog

You know your child is a yogi in training when: 1. He knows what a neti pot is and can explain how to use it and why. 2. She sings along to Krisha Das and Wah! 3. Not only can he do cobbler’s pose, he calls the pose by its Sanskrit name and prefers if you do, too. 4. When he wears his Ganesh T-shirt, he wants to “sing the song about Ganesh.” 5. He is MUCH more excited about the Babar yoga book than Toy Story 3. 6. Favorite foods include: avocado, peaches, quinoa pasta, steel cut  oatmeal, kale, and hemp milk. 7. The stuffed animals in your house play yoga rather than war. 8. He drinks chamomile tea in a sippy cup. 9. She gets really, really happy when she hears Mama’s off to yoga class. 10. He — see photo above — does a chair back bend off his high chair in the morning just because. How do you know your child is a yogi? 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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Ten Ways You Know Your Child is a Yogi

  I’m writing this post from Fairburn Farm on Vancouver Island, a working farm and guest retreat where Neil and I have brought Lucien for a week-long summer holiday. The farm is a bucolic, heavenly spot just a ferry ride from our house in Vancouver. The views of forest and mountain and sky from the windows of the cottage we’re staying in are spectacular, but the real reason we’re here, for our third summer in a row, is the food. The guest operation is run by chef Mara Jernigan, sometimes called the Alice Waters of Vancouver Island. Meals here are a true farm-to-table experience. Breakfast is a two course affair starting with to-die-for homemade granola and berry compote, followed by omelets (with eggs and herbs from the farm, and cheese by local artisans) or frittatas or light-as-air pancakes. Dinner stretches out for hours, with each plate a celebration of local, fresh ingredients: sockeye salmon cakes with lentils and greens and green goddess dressing; rich risotto or homemade pasta or fresh from the brick oven pizza; strawberry tarts and (if it’s hot) refreshing sorbets. For lunch (which Mara doesn’t serve) we stop at a bakery in town where they mill their own grain, and bring the bread to the cheese shop next door for sandwiches that we take on a walk into a nearby park.   It’s an idyllic week, and I’m so glad I’m at a place in my life where I can enjoy it. It’s taken me a long time to get comfortable with food indulgences like this. As mentioned previously, I struggled with food issues, and my body image, for years.   When I got serious about yoga in my late twenties, I lost the weight I’d accumulated over the course of my unhappy childhood, and finally learned to eat and like healthy foods. My diet came to consist of brown rice, tofu, vegetables, black beans, and fruit–great stuff. But I soon came to be overly attached to healthy eating. If I was traveling and what I normally ate wasn’t available, I freaked out. If I gave in to temptation and ate a chocolate chip cookie, or a scoop of ice cream, or a slice or two of pizza–even if these were made lovingly with high-quality ingredients–I felt that I’d slipped, and worried that I’d backslide and return to a regularly scheduled program of unhealthy eating and ten to forty extra pounds.   This made travel-and even eating out at new places-hard. It was no fun when I showed up at Thanksgiving dinner or a Passover Seder or even a dinner party petrified of three quarters of the menu.  Or when I’d have a panic attack about “getting fat” on an otherwise romantic (and of course bread filled) trip to Paris with my husband.   As a new mom, I resolved to approach food differently. I didn’t want the scale, or my fears, to rule my life anymore–or our family vacations.  As I practiced more yoga, and studied yoga philosophy, I came to realize that my food fears weren’t in keeping with yoga after all.  The Yoga Sutras say moderation is key, as is non-attachment (in this case to the precise number on the scale.) Becoming nearly phobic about fattening food was embodying neither principle. Through a process of self-study, and the help of a good therapist, I changed. Now I eat healthy most of the time–and enjoy to the utmost the occasional treat.   What indulgences make your life a pleasure? What do you still struggle with when it comes to food and body image? And, how do you model a healthy relationship with food for your child/children? 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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Food Loving Yogi

I’m about to do something radical. Something I’ve never done  before. I’m about to pack my yoga mat, board a plane, and leave Lucien for five whole days while I go on a yoga retreat.  He’s two-and-a-half and we’ve never spent a night apart. Until a few months ago when we finished breastfeeding, going away without him wasn’t even an option. (I never managed to get the hang of pumping.) I can count on both hands the days we’ve been away from each other for more than seven or eight hours.  My husband Neil has been out of town a dozen times or more.  Not jetting off to a man spa or anything. But every month or two or three he gives a talk or has an academic conference or meeting to attend in Ann Arbor or Sweden or Atlanta.  Lucien and I hold down the fort here. Now it’s my turn. Thanks to my husband (and morning day-care plus a  babysitter) I’ll be studying for five days with one of my favorite  teachers, Marla Apt, at the Feathered Pipe Ranch in Montana. I’m elated–and scared, too.  Sure, Lucien and his dad are as close as can be, but will my baby be okay without his momma? As much as I want to go on the retreat, as eager as I am to study with Marla, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing. The day I signed up for the trip I practically had a panic attack and needed Neil and  two of my best friends to convince me to buy my ticket. The truth is, while I’m worried about leaving Lucien and how much we’ll miss one another, I know he’ll be fine, more than fine with his dad. They’ll have a great time. And I’m longing for the chance to rediscover my yoga practice-and myself-while on the retreat. I love being a mom and I love the pace of life with a young child, but  I need a break. What I’m most looking forward to is the stillness, the alone time, not having to run to catch a bus after Savasana. But I’m going to miss my boy like crazy. I’ll let you know how it goes… What was it like the first time you spent a night or two away from  your child or children? 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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Feathered Pipe Retreat

All this World-Cup-inspired team spirit reignites the debate about yoga as a sport. Bikram has been lobbying for a Yoga Olympics for ages. One need only watch the New York Regional Yoga Championship video from New York Times to conclude that yoga is VERY challenging and amazingly beautiful and fun to watch. There are of course pros and cons to having all this attention in the yoga world. Those opposed say yoga cannot be judged and that doing so misses the point entirely. Supporters say exposure inspires children to get involved at a young age.   What do you think about yoga as a sport?  And what about some of these crazy poses…is that even good for you? More advanced poses here: Extreme Yoga Poses Join the debate: Can that be Good for You?!

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World Cup Yoga?

What’s with the naked theme? I write a blog about loving home practice, and you, some of you, write in that you love naked yoga. I write a blog about favorite poses, and you write in about naked yoga. I write a blog about meditation or chanting or acting, for goodness sake, and some of you (is it the same people? The Naked Yoga Alliance? I don’t know!) write back that you love naked yoga. Billy Connolly, the marvelous Scottish comedian, writes that he loves an ordinary love life with his wife. A meat-and-potatoes kind of lover, he is.  He’s all about comfort. It takes some self-assuredness to admit that. I feel that way about yoga. I love yoga in my flannel pajama bottoms. I start with two t-shirts and peel one off as I warm up. Sometimes I start in socks. This naked thing? I don’t know. It’d be like grocery shopping while naked, or bowling while naked, neither of which is ever going to happen, so don’t feel you should write in about those. Besides, where I live, anyone in a canoe can see me unless I downward dog in the dark.   All right, all right! I’ll try it. I’ll try it in the dark (by the park, for a lark, with a shark. I’m going all Dr. Seuss in my nervousness.). I’ll let you know how it goes. Thanks for the conversation, I think. Kristin Shepherd lives in North Bay, Ontario. She is a chiropractor, workshop facilitator, actor, writer, and parent of two grown children and a perpetually infantile dog.  Check her out, fully clothed, at kristinshepherd.ca or on Facebook at Dr. Kristin Shepherd. 

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Why Naked Yoga?

by Kathryn Budig I was so excited when Elena Brower, Goddess of yoga, invited me to demo at the maha event–Yoga in Central Park–but once I added up my financial sum for taking off, my numbers were looking dangerously high. Dismayed, but happy to stay off of a plane and knowing all is as it should be, I decided to watch the live stream from the genius boys at Yogaglo .  Soon after, thanks to the my home-away-from-home (aka my Facebook page) , I saw that Flavorpill was hosting two simultaneous events. One in Miami and one in Los Angeles with Tara Stiles. I shot Ms. Stiles an email and was RSVPed for some yoga poolside at The Standard hotel–yes, welcome to LA! I began my day at 4:30am; disgruntled to find that my green tea canister was empty. I chugged two glasses of water and took out my angst in the form of a Facebook update. The Om-tastic New Yorker, Cyndi Lee, comically replied, “5:30am? — green tea? — this is when I realize I don’t live in LA. Good luck!” I chuckled to myself thinking of the contrasts between this day in NYC vs. LA. Green tea, albeit healthy, does sounds a bit wimpy next to the vibrato of a black cup of coffee.   Then I thought of the yoga events.   Ten Thousand yogis gathering in the vast and majestic Great Lawn of Central Park, and where is the Los Angeles equivalent? Clearly, amongst scantily clad poolside peeps at a posh West Hollywood hotel. Hey, you’ve got to accept a person or place for exactly who or what it is, and Los Angeles–you certainly are pretty. Everyone was so pretty, in fact, that I wondered if the hotel hired True Blood physique-worthy people to lounge next to their pool to make it look good. Let’s not forget, Tara Stiles –our teacher for the event–is a Ford model. Very apropos. That said, Tara is a good midwestern girl who now resides in New York City with her studio, Strala.  Any midwesterner is a friend of mine, and upon meeting Tara in person, I was very pleased to feel her instant geniune warmth, love and goofiness. A true down-to-earth girl. We strolled gracefully (okay, I lugged my Manduka) past the pool, took off our sunglasses and decided whether we wanted sun or shade.  The group of roughly 30 people placed their mats, applied sun block, and the practice began. Tara led us through a well-rounded hour class with sun salutes, lunges, gentle twists, standing poses and time for inversions, backbends and some good hip loving. The initially too-hot sun felt amazing as we opened our hearts to a refreshing rooftop breeze to balance out the heat.   The facade of this event was tres LA, but the heart of the event was pure yoga. There is nothing more powerful than a group of people uniting to breathe with intention, to soak up the sun and learn how to light up from within. The irony is that the New York version of the solstice celebration of light was rained out. One big OM and a round of salutations was all they squeezed in before the show was shut down due to lightening. My intital reaction was sympathy for how frustrating that must have been. Then I laughed. Here I was, comparing Angeles to New York all day long.   Green tea verses black coffee.  A hip West Hollywood pool verses the vast green of Central Park. Sunglasses verses reading glasses. US magazine verses The New Yorker. Sun verses rain. What have I learned? Balance. We are all connected. Rain or shine, we are all yogis unified, coming together to show the world that yoga has the power to heal and change the world. Anyone can do yoga–in the park, at a pool, or even from a computer at home. All it takes is the will and intention to do so, and let me just say–10,000 yogis–that’s a pretty sight. Kathryn Budig is a Los Angeles yoga teacher and writer. Kathryn is an arm balance rockstar who teaches challenging vinyasa flow classes at Yoga Works.

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SoCal Solstice Celebration

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

Lucien and I made a trip to the naturopath a couple of weeks ago. Being in a doctor’s office for two hours with a two year old was quite a challenge, but it was worth it. (At my urging, Neil went a few days later.) Within days we’d each changed our diet pretty dramatically (no dairy for Lucien, no sugar for Neil, a liquid iron supplement for me, and much more protein for all of us) and added a regimen of pro-biotics, protein smoothies, and the like to our run of the mill multi-vitamins. We felt better almost immediately. In addition to the dietary changes and supplements, the naturopath (Kristen Brown at the Crossroads Center in Vancouver) suggested that one of the reasons we kept getting sick, as I described a couple of weeks ago, might be that we were all doing too much. Neil needed more sleep, she said. And my system seemed depleted from a three year period that included an IVF cycle, a pregnancy and c section, and two plus years of breastfeeding–all while writing a book, teaching classes, and providing most of Lucien’s daytime childcare. Not to mention moving to a new country. (Although props to Canada for making it possible for us to afford to see the naturopath; the visits will be reimbursed by our health insurance at an incredible 80%.) Was my body trying to tell me something?  Have I been doing too much?  Have we all been? On the drive home, I thought of the David Sedaris essay “On the Kookaburra” where he discusses the idea of the four burners. Think of your life as being like a stove top, says one of the people he encounters on a trip to Australia, where each burner represents a key component: family, friends, health, and work. In order to be successful, the theory goes, you need to turn one of the burners off, and in order to be really successful, you can only have two burners on. Trying to do too much means you’ll suffer in all areas.   The word success is an interesting one. To the yogi, success can, of course, mean fulfillment and inner peace, as much as worldly accomplishment. Either way, I think there’s something to this theory and I’m having a hard time deciding which one–or two–of the burners I’m willing to turn off, even temporarily. Do we all need to readjust our stove tops? Do I? And how to go about making the choice of which burners to turn off, even for a time?  Or is it better–more yogic–to keep all the burners on a moderate flame?   Which burners do you have on high?  Which are you willing to shut off?  And does anyone know where I can get a seriously discounted Viking range with six burners, which would solve the problem completely? 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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The Four Burners

New York Yogis are truly the toughest, most dedicated yogis around. Thousands of mats covered the streets in Times Square and shut down the city center in order to salute the sun  and share a concrete-penetrating AUM! Check it out: Images courtesy of Lem Lattimer.

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Solstice Celebration!

In 2009, Father’s Day cost individual consumers an average of $90.89, while Mother’s Day spending was $123.89, according to a recent National Geographic article . Even though the wallets open less wide than for mother’s day, psychology lecturer Gilbert Cole says the smiles are likely genuine when millions of fathers across the U.S. open boxes, peel back tissue paper, and admire their new neckties–still somehow the most common gist for the holiday. Her research shows that even though dads get less attention on Father’s Day than moms do on Mother’s Day, fathers are more likely to be satisfied on their holiday. This letting go of expectation and contentment with what is presented makes Dad, even though he’s never set foot in a yoga studio, a yogi in my book.  Your dad may also embody the Brahmavihara’s , which Thich Nhat Han considers a blueprint for true love. After some brief reflection, it’s obvious that my dad has done yoga his entire life. Maitri , Loving Kindness My dad’s second grade teacher said that Larry had never met a stranger. He was instantly friends with whomever crossed his path. While my mother sometimes briefly bemoaned the additional guests, our dinner table was always shared with those in need of a friend. My father was that unwavering, loving friend for anyone he met.  Karuna, Compassion Every winter my father, without fail, would gather up our old (and sometimes favorite) blankets and drive them to shelters. I remember being dragged out of bed early on Earth Day to clean up the St. John’s River, missing out on a mall trip to accompany him to a soup kitchen–and on more than one occasion being late to school because my dad had stopped to save a (turtle, rabbit, squirrel) that was (in the middle of the road, sick or abandoned).   Mudita, Sympathetic Joy Whose father has not beamed with pride at their graduation, teared up at a wedding or gingerly framed their first finger painting? These life events make it easy to share in others’ joy, but what about the father who is proud even when you make the tough decision to drop out of college or take a chance and move across the country or even across the world? Putting his own preferences aside, he is able to share joy in that which brings me happiness, truly, honestly and selflessly. Vpeksha, Spaciousness, “Seeing the big picture” Whether I was going through a dramatic break-up or disappointed with my SAT score, Dad was always there to put it back in perspective. Dads are good at that.  Whether he takes his time to enjoy a great meal or simply enjoys being outdoors, in what ways has your father proven to be a yogi? Which of these sounds most like him and which of these can you work to embody in your life? Erin Chalfant is a writer, yoga teacher and the Web Editor at Yoga Journal. She would like to thank Sianna Sherman and the Kapi Shashi Kula for inspiring this reflection.

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Is your Dad a Yogi?

When I began practicing yoga, I studied at a beautiful, inspiring, and decidedly glamorous yoga center in downtown New York City. The students saluting the sun beside me were often dancers, actresses, and models-including some big name celebrities like Russell Simmons, Woody Harrelson, and Christy Turlington-all very nice, but I couldn’t help but be intimidated.   Celebrities aside, I used to compare myself to the glossy women in my classes. They were skinny; I wasn’t. They wore high heels, designer clothes, and carried expensive handbags; I wore Converse sneakers and thrift store dresses, and ported my stuff around in a $5 Strand Bookstore bag. More important to me, they had their poses down. Handstand? Headstand? Five wheels in a row? No problem. I was struggling to simply follow along. Now I look back with compassion on the 20-something me. I must have looked cute in my bargain finds. And so what if I didn’t have my asana practice down to a science! It’s called being a beginner, right? These days, I don’t compare myself to others very much in the yoga room, but I do have to stop myself from making comparisons when it comes to Lucien and other children his age. It’s a mind game, and no good for anyone to compare where each child is at when it comes to the particulars of developmental stages. Last year at this time, moms and nannies would come up to me in the playground looking really worried. “He’s not walking yet?” they’d exclaim, as an eighteen-month old Lucien crawled up the stairs and down the slide. And my mind would race with all the worries I had about my slow to walk, not yet toddling toddler.  Nowadays, when people on the playground hear him go through his musical repertoire-don’t get me started on how many songs this boy knows by heart-I get questions about his crazy verbal skills. No, I am not drilling him with flashcards, he just happens to love language and all things musical. Of course, secretly, I can’t help but feel something like pride when mothers and nannies are impressed by Lucien’s rendition of “This Land is Your Land” or “Three Little Birds” or “Seasons of Love” but then I realize that’s a false reality.  The minute I let myself buy into the praise, is the minute I have to also buy into the fears. Is Lucien “too” shy and bookish? How are his motor skills as compared to the other kids his age? Should he be racing down the sidewalk on his balance bike rather than slowly investigating it in the backyard? All of a sudden I’m back at my glamorous yoga center, beating myself up for not yet mastering those advanced poses, rather than embracing the beauty of that 20-something me.   One of my early teachers, this one in Cambridge, Massachusetts, liked to tell us to keep our eyes on our own mat, to not compare our practice to anyone else’s. Great yogic advice-and it works just as well on the playground, too. Next time someone on the playground makes a comment about Lucien-whether praise or a concerned worry-I’ll try and smile graciously, and then let the comment go and get back to some quality time with my boy.   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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Monkey Bar Mind

I can do a handstand! I’m 48 and I’ve never said that before. We learned in class the other day. Rob said to try it if you’re ready, and I thought, no way, that’s not going to happen for me.  Like playing in the NBA, like leaping from the Eiffel Tower and landing on two feet, like flying to Mars. That’s where handstands belonged for me. Then. We discuss. We prepare. We approach. We inhale one foot up, and exhale the other up.  Okay, I have to fling mine up.) First try, no go. Which is understandable because it’s about 75 miles from the floor to the wall when you’re upside down. Second try, same thing. Third try, same thing. Then Rob comes over to help. Just slightly, by showing my feet where the wall is. “Look at a point on the floor between your hands this time,” he says. And on my fifth try, I fly to Mars. I swear to God, that’s what it feels like. And yes, my ribs are half way across the room, and yes, I need to reach with my heels. I need to do about 300 things to improve my form, but I DID IT!!!!!! The NBA, the Eiffel Tower. A handstand. I read somewhere in Yoga Journal that a Handstand can change your life–they’re right! It has.  I feel invincible. Have you tried? Do you hope to? Is this old hat for you? Do you love it? Tell me, please. Thanks to handstand for changing my life, and thanks to you for the conversation. Kristin Shepherd lives in North Bay, Ontario.  She is a chiropractor, workshop facilitator, actor, writer, and parent of two grown children and a perpetually infantile dog.  Check her out at kristinshepherd.ca or on Facebook at Dr. Kristin Shepherd.

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I am Invincible

I used to think asana practice required a yoga mat, sweats-or maybe even “yoga clothes”-a quiet indoor space, and time. (Lots of it.) Lately, Lucien has been teaching me that none of these are necessary. Thanks to my two year old, I’m starting to realize-after more than ten years of consistent practice-that yoga can be practiced in spurts, a pose here and a pose there.  Yesterday we were in the backyard gathering vegetables from our garden for dinner. I noticed that both Lucien and I were in Malasana pose as we clipped and gathered the kale and spinach. Later that evening during Lucien’s bath, my husband Neil and I were amazed to see Lucien sitting in Virasana for twenty minutes straight while he played with his rubber duck and wooden boat.  This morning, when Neil and Lucien came to wake me up, Lucien put one hand on a laundry hamper temporarily stashed in the bedroom, and stretched the opposite side leg onto the bed, inadvertently coming into a beautiful Utthita Hasta Padangustasana. (He’s a natural.)  I’ve decided to take a lesson from Lucien and add a pose here or there into my daily activities-a shoulder stretch while I’m at my desk working, a triangle pose while hanging out with Lucien in the kitchen. The other day Lucien skipped his nap-a bummer for me since I’d been going all day. He wasn’t sleepy, but I needed a break. While Lucien played on the floor in the living room with his trains, I laid down next to him in a bare-bones Savasana.  It was just a minute or two or three, and I was in my jeans, but you know what? It was bliss. What poses do you mix into your day?  What has your child taught you about yoga lately? 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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Malasana in the Garden

I’ve been away from yoga class for almost two weeks. Granted, I’ve done lots of practice in hotels, other people’s basements, and on the deck of a cottage in beautiful morning sun, but jeepers, I miss class. This morning someone asked me if I have a dog. “Do you like yoga?” I replied. “No,” she said.  “What does that have to do with a dog?” “Nothing at all.  It’s just the only thing I can think of right now.” I have lots of these conversations when I’ve been away from class. I miss my teachers, who are kind and excellent at what they do, and funny while they’re at it. I miss the other students, most of whom are strangers to me, all of whom love what I love and are therefore friends of a kind. I miss the sound of people breathing in unison. I miss the gorgeous, quiet yoga music they play during Savasana. I miss that dopey feeling that comes from a fully relaxed body and mind. And I miss chanting om together at the end.   You forget how lovely all of this is until you’ve been away for a little while. What would you miss if you missed two weeks? Thanks to my home studio for being there tomorrow (I’m so excited!), and thanks to you for the conversation. Kristin Shepherd practices yoga, theatre, public speaking, writing, and chiropractic in North Bay, Ontario. Contact her at kristinshepherd.ca and at Dr. Kristin Shepherd on Facebook.

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Missing Class

Someone asked me recently, “What do you wish someone would have told you when you first started teaching that you had to learn the hard way?” To which I replied, “To ask for what I want.” Earlier in my career, I spent a lot of time waiting around.  I saw my contemporaries offering workshops at other studios, teaching at big yoga events, and writing for online publications. Meanwhile I quietly taught my classes and kept waiting for studios to contact me and for other opportunities to come knocking. You see, no one had told me that it was up to me to make my own way in the yoga world. During my classes I was fond of saying, “Life shows you the doorways to your dreams, but it’s up to you to reach out and open them.” I was continually coaching my students to take action, to go out there and mold the world to their soul’s calling, and not take no for an answer. Apparently I didn’t realize I had to apply the same advice to myself. One day, I was sitting at my computer reading an article by a fellow teacher on a major website with a mixture of pride in her accomplishment and frustration at my absence from the same arena. I distinctly remember thinking, “Why don’t they ask me? After all, I’m right here ready to go!” Then it struck me how ridiculous I sounded. How could anyone find me when I hadn’t let them know I was there? I wondered what would happen if I started building a road that might lead more people to my front door. I began by formulating story ideas and sending them to editors. I bought a video camera, figured it out, and filmed my own videos to post on YouTube. I set up workshops and trainings with studios around town, and if they couldn’t accommodate me, I held them at friend’s houses. If a roadblock to my plans appeared, I found a way under, over, or straight through. Or, I changed my tactics and let the resistance direct me towards something that was meant for me.  But through it all, I kept working, expressing, teaching, and most importantly, asking. In yoga, this ability to self-generate the courage and belief in oneself enough to act, even in the face of adversity, is an aspect of core strength. We might consider another aspect of brahmacharya (celibacy): to hug inward your life energy. I see this as the foundation of success: cultivating the spiritual stubbornness to take matters into your own hands, ask for what you want, and create the life you are meant to be living.   To me, this is why we practice. We’re not only toning the body, but making the mind and spirit resilient and strong enough to contain the intensity of our doubt, insecurity, and questioning as we put ourselves out into the world. Otherwise, we’ll let resistance–other people’s and our own–stop us every time. I’ve finally reached a point in my career where I get to teach the workshops I always wanted to and write a blog like this. And yet I know that these and other opportunities came from first asking for what I wanted and then seeking out the pathways for it to find me. When you participate in life as your own best advocate, even against all odds, you’ll not only cross many bridges from where you are now to where you want to be–you will have helped to build them.     Core Pose : Transition from Low Lunge to High Lunge   I could write an entire essay about this journey. It’s an incredible way to dissolve the habitual tension that builds along the spine and to hug into your stability and core center before expressing the final pose.   Yet too often I see students come up with imbalanced movement that over-arches the back and compresses the lumbar spine.   Follow this sequence as you move from your Low Lunge into any standing pose, and you’ll re-unite the front and inner body and experience more power and freedom in each moment.   Note: You can pause at each stage to feel your alignment, but eventually you want to do steps 2, 3 and 4 as one fluid, wavelike movement.   1) Begin in Low Lunge with your back heel stacked over the ball of the foot, the front foot forward directly under your bent knee, hips squared, and your fingertips on on either side of the forward foot. As you inhale, create space by lifting your hips and lower belly slightly and letting the breath travel like a wave along your spine.   2) As you exhale, ground strongly into your feet and let the downward press begin to engage your lower belly so your hands lift naturally. Notice how following your organic motion would not ask you to be in a backbend, but rather moving like a wave originating in the lower and middle areas of your pelvis. Remember: This motion should not be entirely in your lower back but shared with the lower abdominals. You’re not undoing the lumber curve–just supporting it from the front body as well.   3) Maintaining a strong core and lumbar curve, keep the wave going as you begin to draw the side waist, abdominals, and front of your spine in and up from root to crown.   Meanwhile, keep your chin down and shoulder blades wide as you wave towards High Lunge, stretching the upper back, neck, and shoulders along the way.   4) As you ground into the Earth and move up from your core, you’ll likely notice a corresponding lightness in the chest and shoulder areas. My arms lift like the final, victorious Crane Pose in Karate Kid , but yours might want to come out to the sides or just straight up. Let your body tell you how it wants to move from day to day.   5) Once you’ve come into High Lunge, notice the difference in your pose. Is it shared with the whole body or do you feel it only in the back? What else has transformed because you stayed in alignment from the ground up?   Stay here for 5-10 rounds of Ujjayi Pranayama (Victorious Breath), and then firm your belly as you lower your hands back down to the floor and switch legs.    

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Asking for It

One nice thing about being sick a couple of weeks ago was that I had time to finish a wonderful book, Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting , by Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn.  Normally I tend to avoid parenting books–when I have time to read I want to read “adult” material such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Yoga Journa l (of course), a novel, or a new smart and funny memoir like Meghan Daum’s Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House. Luckily, I found my way to Everyday Blessings.   Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn (the well known mindfulness meditation teacher) lovingly weave together their takes on parenting and spiritual practice, illuminating how much each can add to the other.  They describe parenthood as an 18-year spiritual retreat–complete with a live in meditation teacher.  (My teacher’s name? Lucien.)  In chapters about each stage of childhood–from birth to toddlers to teenagers–they offer concrete ways to bring consciousness and connectedness to parent-child relationships. Much of what I read in this beautiful book was in line with what Neil and I have naturally been doing with Lucien–making time for the precious in-between moments of daily life by dancing in the living room, singing songs and making music, drawing and creating, listening and hugging, taking walks in nature and around the neighborhood, reading the same story five times over, without complaint, surrendering to the rhythms of childhood in all sorts of ways.  Before reading Everyday Blessings , I’d done these things because I sensed they were good for Lucien, and because the moments just felt right. After reading, I realized that these moments of connection with my child are my spiritual practice. Time to go dance. 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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Everyday Blessings

Students often come up to me after my Core Strength Vinyasa Yoga workshops and tell me how surprised they were about what they learned. Many of them didn’t expect the kind of information they got during a class they walked into thinking was going to just target their abs for two hours. That’s because I teach that the core is more than just the abdominals. Abs are an integral part of yoga, or any movement form, to be sure. They help stabilize and mobilize most everything we do, on or off the mat. However, they are only one aspect of what gives us the power to be strong and resilient in our practices and in our lives. Whenever I teach core work, I always interplay the abdominal actions with their muscular counterparts, such as the erector muscles along the spine, which help keep the abs in check. I also discuss and work with the diaphragm to make sure we’re able to keep our core resilient enough to enjoy the freedom of the breath. Anatomy and yoga experts like Tom Myers, author of Anatomy Trains , and my mentor Leslie Kaminoff, author of Yoga Anatomy , tell us that the abdominals link up and communicate with other muscles in fluid lines that run from the feet to the head.  I love to see students’ faces light up when they find out they have a “core” body running close to the skeleton that they can access to amplify the effectiveness of any pose. But there’s more. In addition the holistic nature of the abs (for example, what you do with your rectus abdominis muscle affects the whole front line of your body) this root area contains so much latent energy waiting to be accessed. It also harbors our most personal fears, the very resistance that often blocks us from realizing our inner truth. Making a core connection might begin with working and releasing the more obvious outer body, but the yogi learns to sense the more subtle world within–whether this is the quietly powerful core myofascial line, the still space between the thoughts, the unwavering heart at center, or the soulful state of being aligned with who you really are.   All of this awareness leads us straight to one place: satya , or the practice of honesty. In my experience, being true to yourself comes from developing a consistent relationship with your inner nature of goodness, clarity, and peace. When you can tap into this part of you, an ocean of energy and wisdom opens. Once you find your way to the deep water inside, you can always return, even as you express what you’ve found out into your world. Your satya will always be there, offering a sometimes-surprising perspective that can truly rock your world from the core. CORE POSE : Eagle Curl Here’s one of my signature Core Poses to target your abs that also lets you practice being uber-honestly you. It’s hip and shoulder opener even as you work your rectus abdominis (the six-pack) and transversus abdominis (the girdle that wraps from sides to front of the torso) muscles.  The bound arms and legs means that you can’t rely on them as much for support, so the movement of this posture has to come almost entirely from the abs. Come onto your back. Wrap your left arm over your right at the elbow, and your right leg over your left leg at the knee, as in Garudasana (Eagle Pose). Both legs are lifted with your left knee stacked over the hip joint. Inhale with your shoulders and head on the floor. Exhale and firm your belly to curl your shoulders and head up, so just the tips of your shoulderblades remain on the floor. Don’t move your knees closer to your arms, but do try to touch your left elbow to them. Do 5-15 repetitions of this pose then lie flat on your back with legs long and arms overhead. Take a few belly-stretching breaths. Note: If this variation is too intense on your neck, place your fingertips into the back of your head and do the pose this way. Be mindful not to yank yourself into the pose with your arm strength, but use the abdominals to initiate the movement.      

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The Whole Core

For the rest of my life, when the subject of PopTarts comes up, I’ll either have to tell shifty-eyed lies or I’ll have to tell the truth. I’ll start with the truth right now. I’ve been away all week at a theatre festival.  This means hotel beds, hotel roommates, late nights, and crazy food–meat or soy balls covered in sweet sauces, served on toothpicks that really add up on your plate. More cheese and crackers than you’ve eaten in your life, and the kinds of sweet squares we all serve at weddings, funerals, board meetings–you know these things. Day One. I begin the week like an angel.  An hour of yoga at 5:30 am in the hotel gym.  I grab a corner of the room, squeeze myself between two treadmills and a wall-to-wall mirror, and do my best on a concrete floor covered in stained indoor-outdoor carpet.  It isn’t class, but it’s okay. Day Two. At 5:30 am, I do 45 minutes of yoga, which is pretty great given four hours of sleep and a really puffy face. (Is it the salt?  The meat/soyballs?)  It’s no fun staring at a bloated version of your own face in a mirror the size of Canada.  And all those people thumping on treadmills, jeez.  Not to mention CNN on the TV. Om. Day Three.   At 5:15 am, because my roommate is snoring and I can’t sleep anyway, I do 30 minutes of yoga in the hallway outside my room on the 10th floor of the hotel.  The carpet is thicker here, and I’m not up to the social thing with the weightlifters, the runners, and the mirror. My face is the puffiest yet.  I’ve been eating sauce balls at midnight for three days.  Why don’t I stop eating them?  I have no idea. This was a good morning of yoga.  I prepare for a wee Savasana at the end.  I lie down. Suddenly a man emerges–naked–from the room across the hall to retrieve his newspaper from the floor outside his door.   He yells.  I yell.  Then he screams: “I’m sorry!” and flees back into his room. I am too rattled for Savasana.    Day Four. I don’t do any yoga this morning. Instead, I sit in the hallway at 5am and read bad news from the newspaper outside my door.  I open and eat the first PopTart of my life.  (It was in a goodie bag we were given on arrival.  I laughed at the absurdity of PopTarts then.  I’m not laughing now.)  It is not my finest moment.  Not my finest day. Day Five.  At Home. Here’s the lesson for me: I’m human.  I do well on some days, and some days I forget everything I’ve learned about yoga, decent food, and kindness to myself. I can hardly wait for class tomorrow. What reminds you to get back to your practice? Thanks to PopTarts, naked men, and meat/soyballs, which help me understand, again, how beautiful yoga is. And thanks to you for the conversation.

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PopTart Yoga

When I began my yoga teaching career, I thought I had to be perfect. I felt the need to know as much as possible and be able to master every yoga pose. I wanted to be able to make Dharma Mittra’s calendar jealous. So I spent hours each day doing yoga, reading about yoga, and then doing more yoga. The end result? Not the perfect body or a ninja-like command of postures that would make Ana Forrest cry. Just chronic injuries and a constant feeling of self-doubt. “Am I good enough yet? No way!” seemed to be my mantra. Then one day, I was at a toy store shopping for my niece’s birthday. I turned a corner and saw a little girl trying to shove a Tonka truck into the garage of a Barbie house. (Just for reference, a Tonka truck is big, bulky, about the size of a shoebox. A Barbie garage is made for a tiny pink convertible.) This kid was starting to get more and more frustrated and upset because the truck wouldn’t go in. So she started to pound it wildly against the little plastic garage and cry. I realized that what she was doing was exactly how I was approaching my yoga practice. My teaching was, and is, geared toward teaching real people real yoga, and giving them the freedom to be right where they are, even as they take transformative actions. My classes are never about attainment, but about the joy of play, curiosity about what will best serve us in each moment, and, of course, a deeper core awareness of who we really are. I wasn’t practicing what I preached, and that discrepancy, in my mind, didn’t make me better than my students–it made me a hypocrite. How could I tell a room full of people to be themselves, to relax and go with the flow, if I wasn’t willing to do the same? I needed to cease my unattainable quest for perfection and allow myself to be as imperfect as I am. Not in a bad way, in an organic, honest way. So I stopped trying to shove my truck into a Barbie garage. I am no other teacher, woman, or person but myself. I shifted my style of practicing yoga to a kinder, gentler one. Now I don’t force, I play. I don’t aim for increasingly difficult variations, I enjoy backing off to go deeper inside. And, importantly for me, I offer my body room to breathe, days off, and a loving awareness of what it really needs. I’m not saying that we should all stop wanting to attain our goals, in yoga or elsewhere. But we should strive to enjoy the harmony that comes with aligning what you do with who you really are, not who you wish you were. My personal style is still vigorous, but now a softening has occurred within it. I built a Tonka garage–or acquired a Barbie car, as the case may be–and now my outer life fits its own inner dharma , or nature.   What can you do next to take actions that better represent who you really need and want to be? Here’s an asana that can help you study what that is and gain insight as you move forward. CORE POSE: Parivrtta Trikonasana (Revolved Triangle) variation This posture gives you an opportunity to stay centered in your core connection then decide what expression or action (aligned with your best interests or not) is right for you today. It’s really a mindfulness meditation disguised as a physical movement. But then, aren’t they all? From Down Dog, step your left foot forward and come into a Low Lunge. Your fingertips should be under your shoulders and your arms straight. Maintaining strong legs and a centered pelvis with navel pointing at the Earth, begin to unfurl your left arm toward the sky.  You can look up or down to stretch the neck. After a few breaths here, try grounding your front big toe mound into the mat as you wrap your left hip around behind you to move the leg straighter. Make this stretch a journey–don’t rush towards the goal of a completely straight leg. Meanwhile, keep the right hand under the shoulder instead of immediately crossing it to the outside of the left foot. This will provide you with more stability for your foundation, so you’re more likely to remain grounded and core-connected as you spin. Sense when the urge to express begins to throw you off center, and then turn the navel to the left. Keep your hips, back knee, and toes positioned as if still in lunge position. From there, play with revealing the heart exactly as your body allows.

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Striving for Imperfection

My absolute favorite color for summer is turquoise, so this week I thought I’d put together a cheerful outfit for you with my love of the blues in mind. I’m also still in bargain hunting mode, so this entire outfit is again just a little over $100.00. Is there a color you like to wear that cheers you up? What’s your absolute favorite color for summertime? the details: Straw Bag from H&M–$19.95 New Wave V-Neck Icon Tank by Marika from Target–$19.99 Striped Sports Bra from Forever 21–$6.80 Fitted Bootcut C9 pant by Champion from Target–$19.99 Gaiam Wisdom Yoga Mat Bag from Target–$19.99 Scarf from Forever 21–$7.80 Lotus and Koi Earrings from Forever 21–$3.80

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Wish I was Wearing: Thrifty Turquoise

I was at a meditation retreat last week. Do you know what they’re like? Grainy, leafy food in portions your pet fish couldn’t survive on, no talking, no reading, no car keys, no wallet, no calling home. It isn’t Club Med. Just meditating, dawn ’till after dusk. It can be lonely. But some fantastic things happen.    Here is one very cool thing.  Picture this: 5am, maybe.  (No watches.)  Still dark out, anyway. I come out of my room each morning, slowly and silently, and head toward the meditation hall, dressed in pajamas. As I walk down the hall, every third or fourth door opens, and another person in pajamas comes out, quietly closing a door behind her.  We look like something from a zombie movie, except that some of the zombies have mats under their arms. We walk in bare feet to the hall where we each pick a spot on the floor. We begin our practice. All you can hear is breathing and the soft thuds of feet jumping forward and back. It’s impromptu Mysore.  No one organized or announced it. It goes on for perhaps forty minutes, people drifting in and out of the hall.  All of this happens before we begin meditating for the day. And, holy mackerel, even though we don’t speak, don’t even look at each other for the most part, even though we’re about to begin another grueling day of seated meditation, I am deliriously happy. I don’t want to leave the impression that meditating is awful from start to finish. Other very cool things that happen on these retreats are an empty, quiet head and a sense of peace that will knock you over if you let it.  I love it. Days later I can still feel it. I feel a need to express some thanks to these zombie yogis. They were my family away from home.  We showed up for each other first thing in the morning on days when it mattered. So to these men and women I don’t know, and to the ones I do know but didn’t say a word to: thank you, thank you, thank you.You made meditating a little easier, and you made me fall in love with yoga all over again. Thanks to yoga zombies for making me fall in love with yoga, and thanks to you for the conversation.

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Yoga Zombies

Photo: Trying to be productive at the University of British Columbia library. I’m sitting in the library on campus with a thermometer in my mouth and a stack of tissues on my desk, feeling entirely unenlightened.   My husband Neil is out of town for work, and I’m sick–can hardly get out of bed sick–for the second time this month, and the sixth or seventh time (at least) since September.   Before having a baby, I’d heard from friends about the dreaded string of colds and flu that a little one can bring home from preschool or daycare.   But Neil and I thought that wouldn’t be us, not with our good eating habits, early to bed early-to-rise schedules, and healthy lifestyles.   Hah!   Lucien goes to a wonderful morning daycare program on campus four mornings a week where his teachers are not only loving and caring, but diligent about washing hands.   Yet no amount of hand washing or hand sanitizing has stopped Lucien from coming home with minor nose drips–which, when we adults get them, turn into raging fevers and coughs and congestion.   Neil had walking pneumonia earlier this year, and I had H1N1 back in the fall, and then the regular flu a couple months ago.   Even a run of the mill fever and sore throat like I have now makes my normal life seem all of a sudden unmanageable–especially with Neil away.   What’s a yogi to do?   I’ve tried vitamins, immune-system building asana sequences, but nothing seems to be enough to fend off the viruses.   What’s strange, too, is that I feel great in between illnesses. Then all of a sudden I feel the tell-tale scratchy throat, sneezes, and the shivers that come with fever.   Sleeping fitfully last night, it was all I could do to make breakfast, pack a lunch, and get Lucien ready for the drive to campus this morning.   Thank goodness our babysitter can come over this afternoon so I can sleep off my fever, b ut I’m determined to figure out how we can get and stay healthy–or at least healthier–from now on.   How do you stay healthy with young children in the house? Ideas and suggestions, please? 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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Sick of Being Sick

I’d love to thank a couple of Yoga Journal readers who commented on a blog I posted about morning practice. Both Ty and Kelly said things about wishing they could summon the discipline or the inspiration to do morning practice.  I found myself shouting back to them when I read their lovely comments.  Turns out they can’t hear me when I’m shouting. So I’ll say this in writing. First, there are experts to listen to.  So don’t listen to me unless it inspires you. I’m a yoga weenie.  So new I squeak. But here’s one weenie’s thought on the subject of building a home practice. I started my home practice in three minutes one night on my living room carpet. I did it because I found Friday tough.  I loved my Tuesday class but I was doing drive-bys on Fridays. Do you know about those? You drive to class and your car goes right by.  You drive by again and you end up at home, eating S&V chips and wishing you had some willpower. I was up to it on Tuesday but not at the end of the week. So I did two Sun Salutations one night. I liked it. It grew slowly, slowly from there. Three Sun Salutations. Four Sun Salutations and a quickie Warrior II. Five Sun Salutations, Warrior II, and Savasana. And so it went.   One of the huge reasons I’m so into yoga is that it is DELICIOUS. In my home practice, I follow delicious as it gets bigger and longer.  It’s like following a trail of chocolate brownies, but better. To Ty and Kelly, I hope this is helpful in some way.  If not, keep looking and you’ll find the answer that inspires you.  In the meantime: thanks to all who comment for your thoughts, and thanks to you for continuing the conversation.

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Following Delicious: Build Your Home Practice One Bite at a Time

Lucien is two and a half.  He loves: Mommy, Daddy, Salem (our dog), his music teacher, the ukulele, Cat Stevens, Bob Marley, the playground, the library, art class, the backyard, playing pretend with his stuffed animal bear, and, yes, yoga.   While he was decidedly not a fan of mommy-and-baby yoga class as an infant, and hasn’t really liked the couple of toddler yoga classes I’ve taken him to either, he does love to “do” yoga at home.   I know that technically young children aren’t supposed to–or at least, don’t need to–practice yoga, so I haven’t tried to teach him asana.  But just from living in a house where mommy and daddy love yoga, he’s picked it up. He’ll go into my yoga space and stand on a wooden block, arms outstretched.  Or, more often, he’ll sit in Baddha Konasana (Bound Angle Pose) and say “this pose is called cobbler’s pose.” He loves to stand at a wall and do tree pose, and somehow he knows instinctively to do both sides! When he’s upset, I often sing him the invocation to Patanjali and he sometimes asks for it:  “Mommy will sing the yoga song?”  Along with the Beatles and Dan Zanes, we listen to Wah! and Krishna Das, and a couple of times he’s picked up his ukulele and started singing his version of Hare Krishna.  He pulls my yoga books out from the bookcase and pages through them, looking at the photos and asking questions about the poses. “This pose is called?” he says. (It’s ridiculously cute.)  More important, when he cries or gets frustrated or overwhelmed, I ask him to take a breath with me.  We’ll count “one Mississippi, two Mississippi” when waiting for an overdue bus in the rain, or om together to try and calm down.   Believe me, there are plenty of times when Lucien sees me not listening to my own yogic advice.  I forget to breath, I get frustrated, I check my email rather than focusing in on the time we’re spending together.  But I hope the times he does see me “doing” yoga–remembering to be present, practicing asana, attempting to live consciously, will stay with him when he’s older.   Will Lucien end up being a yogi?  We’ll have to wait and see.  But for now, when Lucien, without prompting, sits down and pretends to meditate (closing his eyes “like Momma” for a few seconds), I am grateful to have these teachings in our lives.   How do you share yoga with your children? 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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Yogi in Training

This week I have an appointment with one of the biggest TV networks. I’m slightly excited but mostly just curious. I’m not sure what will happen, only that I’ll sit with a few producers who have never met me in order to explain, in 45 minutes or less, who I am and my idea for a show. Actually, according to Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink , I will have more like 2 to 4 seconds.   Gladwell’s research shows that people can tell in this short a time whether they like, trust, or are attracted to you, or if they feel a situation is right for them.  These judgments are made based on your appearance and the inner energy that people sense from you, before you’ve even said a word. Yogis have known this for a while. Only we call it prajna , or inner wisdom. Since I can only pick out an outfit that represents me (check, including my lucky nickel necklace), eat well and do my yoga so I’m healthy (check), and go in there prepared and with my best intentions in mind (check), my inner wisdom tells me to surrender the rest and enjoy the moment for what it is. Yet the thing is, this 4-second knowing isn’t always accurate. Sometimes people who dislike each other at first meeting end up becoming lifelong soulmates. Or you can make an assumption about someone and be totally off-base. (I once saw what I thought was a homeless couple in Los Angeles, and then realized it was Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt dressed in the grunge fashion of the day.) There’s a fine line between the instant awareness of truth that comes to us when we live close to our center and the snap judgments born of fear, ego, or confusion that often masquerade as intuition. In life, which can be loud, unpredictable, and filled to the brim with other people’s assumptions, opinions, and perspectives, it’s important for the yogi to meet the world from a place of inner quiet and the kind of understanding that wells up from somewhere deep inside. But to really trust that truth, instead of thinking or rationalizing it to death, you first have to be able to hear it. The yogic art of pratyahara , the fifth limb of  Patanjali’s eightfold path of ashtanga yoga, can help. Pratyahara is the action of drawing your attention back to the core of your being, where all voices are muted except for your innermost one. The life-changing thing I’ve learned through yoga is that it’s much easier to draw inward when you don’t try to resist the outer cacophony of the world at large or even the internal noise generated by your mental and emotional plat du jour . Instead, the yogi learns to exist in two places at once–engaging in relationship with outer stimuli and yet constantly checking in with her core wisdom.  I think of this as a kind of dual drishti –where your gaze and attention simultaneously remain on the world around you and the world within. And until you learn to hear that wisdom, seeking inner guidance will be more like asking a random stranger how to get somewhere rather than creating a road map for yourself–of yourself–that you can use anywhere and at anytime. The following technique can help you develop pratyahara and stay in communication with your inner navigator through all the adventures that lie ahead!   Core Meditation : Dual Drishti Meditation Come into Sukasana (Easy Pose). Root your sitting bones into the Earth and feel a corresponding lift of support through your lower belly and spine. Close your eyes and breathe slowly and evenly through your nose. Bring your awareness first to the sounds and sensations occurring outside of you, in the room and beyond the building. Then notice the sensations on your skin, the thoughts rolling through your mind, and whether your heart is calm or in emotional turmoil. Simply observe all these things as if you were people-watching from a sidewalk café, holding onto no one thing in particular for long. Whatever predominates in your focus, witness it, and then let it pass. Let your breath help you soften any urge to resist or engage any of these sounds or feelings. Even as your attention remains on this first aspect of your experience, bring it to the subtler peaceful space at your center. You can focus on the pit of the belly as a symbolic location for this core, but then let the calm, abiding energy become part of your whole being. As you remain conscious of whatever is going on externally, use its ebb and flow to provide context for what is unwavering deep inside of you. Can you train your attention to be present in these two places at once? When you do, you’ll begin to notice that as you hone your inner gaze, the outer one will soften and broaden, dissolving its power to limit your vision into judgment or reactivity. Breathe and be with this practice for 5 minutes or more.                  

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Learning to Listen–to Yourself

I used to meditate.  I’d sit up in bed with my dog Salem cuddled next to me, trying to watch–and then release–my thoughts for ten or twenty minutes each morning.  It wasn’t easy finding the discipline to sit. Every morning I struggled to get myself to meditate before making coffee, but meditation left me feeling clearer, less anxious and slightly less attached (in a good way) to what would happen to me that day. Then I had a baby. Photo: My dog Salem keeps me company while I meditate. While it took me six months to return to asana practice, it was two full years before I could even think about renewing my morning meditation practice.  Finally, a few months ago I read Dani Shapiro’s new spiritual memoir, Devotion .  Her descriptions of starting a meditation practice inspired me to want to sit again. To be honest, I was equally motivated by the exhaustion-induced headaches I was getting most afternoons, which I hoped meditating could help alleviate. I realized I was craving peace and quiet–two things not exactly found in abundance with a toddler running around–and with no spa vacation or silent retreat in my immediate future, mediation seemed a cheap and relatively doable option. Nowadays, I sit for twenty minutes in the morning – in Virasana (Hero’s Pose), perched on a wooden block in my yoga corner first thing after brushing my teeth.  Something about starting my day calmly changes everything else that comes afterward.  While meditation used to feel good, now those few minutes of quiet feel essential. Of course, meditating with a lively two year old in the house is a challenge.  Finding the time to meditate has meant getting up a little earlier, changing our morning routine, and bargaining with my husband Neil about what time he leaves for work. And there are times–when we’re sick, or when Neil travels for work–that meditating in the morning seems impossible. On those days, I try to make child care my meditation.  (Here I am reading my son a book, here I am changing a diaper, mindfully…) But now that I am once again meditating most mornings, my life truly has changed.  Well, my life hasn’t changed, but the way I feel about my life has: I’m calmer, happier, more free. I’m less exhausted by the evening, and I find myself making saner decisions all day long. If you would like to start or re-start your meditation practice, my advice is to start small: Try two minutes of quiet sitting a day.  (You can gradually add on from there, but the key thing is to just get started and get into the habit.)  If I don’t meditate first thing I never will, but this won’t work for everyone.  Maybe your two–or eventually twenty–minutes will be in the evening after you put your baby to sleep, or right after dropping your child off at preschool, or at your desk right before an important meeting. Don’t worry about technique.  Just find a comfortable seated posture and let your thoughts go.  Keep bringing yourself back to the present, to the feel of the chair or block or cushion beneath you, or perhaps remember your breath.  (I like to focus on the sounds outside my window: rain, birds, wind, even a car driving by.)  Allow yourself the freedom to take a break for a sip of water, or a stretch.  There are no rules.  On the best days, maybe just for a moment you will feel your consciousness lift. Are you a mom who mediates? How do you carve out the time?  How does it change the rest of your day? 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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Making Time to Meditate

It’s 7:30 in the morning, and my phone rings.  It’s my sister sounding like an undercover cop on surveillance: whispery voice, hand cupped over the phone, shifty eyes. “I really love yoga,” she says. “You have no idea how much I love yoga right now.” She’s a new yoga junkie. It happens. We arrive here from other sports, other pastimes, other loves, and we fall into yoga like matter into black holes. I’ll bet you’ve had these hushed conversations.  “What about running?” I asked a yoga friend when he first fell. “I dunno,” he said. “I don’t want to run as much. It doesn’t help my yoga.” This, from marathon runner to marathon runner. “I’m supposed to ride tomorrow, and all I want to do is go to yoga,” my sister continues. “I know,” I say. “I know the feeling.” “I can jump through to a seated position,” she says. “Learned that last night.”  “Oh yeah,” I say, knowingly. “That’s good.” “And I’m starting to get that thing about lifting my heart without sticking my front ribs out. You have no idea how good that is.” “Oh yeah?” I say. “Oh yeah,” she confirms. “And another thing: did I mention that my knees don’t hurt when I’m walking to work, now? Did I mention that?” Yeah, you did, but that’s okay. “You have no idea how good that is,” she persists. I don’t want to scare anybody, but this is the way you begin to talk to the people you love. You can go on running, cycling, and all the rest of it. No one’s going to stop you, but you might love this yoga thing more than you thought. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Thanks to yoga for the inspiration, and thanks to you for the conversation.

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Yoga Junkie

Celebrate the summer solstice by unrolling your mat in the world’s most serene, sun-drenched environment: Times Square. No, really. Join hundreds of fellow yogis on June 21 for Solstice in Times Square , a massive group yoga experience taking place at the intersection of Broadway and 7th Avenue between 46th and 47th–right in the heart of the square. The point, according to organizers, is to find tranquility and transcendence even in this, the world’s busiest, noisiest place. It’s true what they say: If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere! The event is free, but registration is required. Sessions begin at 7:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., and 3:30 p.m. Sign up fast–there’s a 6 p.m. class, too, but it already has a waiting list.

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Mind Over Madness

Are you a Kundalini chant lover? Think you might be? You can find out for sure if you sign up for this year’s Spirit Fest Kundalini Yoga & Music Festival, September 17 to 19 in High View, WV. The festival promises three days of “blissing out” to the best of Kundalini chant, and has the line-up to back up the claim. Snatam, Gurmukh, GuruGanesh Singh, Mirbai Ceiba, Nirinjan Kaur, Sada Sat Kaur, Sat Kartar, Gurunam Singh, and Satkirin Kaur Khalsa–Kundalini chant superstars, each and every one–are on the bill. You can expect lots of singing, sunrise Sadhana, group meditation, and exquisite vegetarian fare; you can hope to be thoroughly uplifted and transported by the experience. Why are we telling you about this now? So you can sign up early and save some money, of course. Since the event is happening at the Timber Ridge Camp a range of accommodations (and prices) is available–you can camp in a tent, sleep in a dorm, or reserve a private room with a private bath. Children are welcome (so plan accordingly). –Hillari Dowdle

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Sat Nam Sing-a-Long

Photo: On vacation with Lucien on Vancouver Island, a few months after moving to Vancouver, BC. As I posted last week, mommy-and-baby-yoga class at 6 weeks postpartum left me in tears. Instead of using asana to get back in shape, I did a lot of walking in the park. I also started going to an exercise class for new moms at a small local gym. Normally, the gym scene isn’t for me, but for some reason while my son Lucien protested the mommy-baby yoga class, he was perfectly happy to be plopped down on the mat with the other babies at the gym, listen to loud music, and watch his mommy sweat through a series of squats and lunges. So I went with it. (Lucky for me, the instructor was a yoga-loving dancer and she threw in the occasional dance or yoga pose.) When occasionally Lucien did cry, a very built man named Moe who worked the front desk would come and hold him while answering the phones. By the time Lucien was six months old, I’d lost most of the baby weight and regained feeling in my core. But I really, really missed my yoga practice. Meanwhile, we’d left New York, where we were living during my husband Neil’s academic sabbatical, and moved across coasts and countries to Vancouver, Canada where he’d taken a job as associate professor (with tenure!) at the University of British Columbia. UBC offered me a part-time teaching job in their creative writing department, too. On an earlier trip to Vancouver, with ten-week-old Lucien in tow, we’d fallen in love with the mountain views and fresh air and healthy lifestyle. But now that we’d landed there for good we started to worry. Had we made the right decision to leave the Northeast? Lonely and overwhelmed in a new city, with a new baby, I needed my yoga practice more than ever. And so, at six months post-partum, it was time for me to rejoin a regular weekly yoga class. Starting over with a different teacher was just one of the many adjustments I’d have to make to life in a new city. Fortunately, my new teacher, Louie Ettling, was just the person: caring, encouraging, and super knowledgeable to help me find my way back to my yoga practice. Louie welcomed me to her weekly two-hour level 2/3 Iyengar class, on the condition that I start my home practice up again, even if that meant just one pose a day. I was skeptical. Going to a Saturday afternoon class once a week was do-able; Neil could watch Lucien. A home practice was another thing. I didn’t know how I could fit even one pose a day into my life with a not-yet-sleeping-through-the-night infant, a house search to conduct, a new neighborhood to navigate, and a looming book deadline. Louie suggested Viparita Karani, (Legs-Up-the-Wall pose). That, I figured, was something I could do. Even if it meant holding my son on my lap while I stretched my legs up that wall, or doing the pose while watching television, I committed to one pose a day–slowly, with many ups and downs that I’ll write about later–I regained my practice. Are you a mom wanting to establish, or re-establish a home practice but feel totally overwhelmed by the prospect? Could you start by practicing just one pose a day? How about one pose a day for just one week? It could be Legs-Up-the-Wall pose, Headstand, a forward bend like Janu Sirsana ,(Head-to-the-Knee Pose) or even a particularly yummy version of Savasana (Corpse Pose). Don’t think about committing to an entire hour of practice–just think one restorative, rejuvenating pose.Please leave a comment and let me know how this changes your week. –Jessica Berger Gross 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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Making it to the Mat

Last week while on a trip to Japan with my husband, yoga teacher Jason Crandell, I got to witness the true meaning of yoga, or union: On a sunny Saturday morning, more than 700 yogis gathered together in a grassy park outside of the sleek Roppongi Hills mall in Tokyo to take part in the Yoga Aid Challenge. Now in its fifth year (and with events throughout the year in seven countries), the Tokyo Yoga Aid participants raised more than 1.2 million yen  for local charities. The reward for participating? Practicing together in the park while 12 well-known teachers led a two-hour class. As each teacher took 10 minutes to share their teachings with the crowd, I was struck by how beautifully diverse yoga is: Ms. Michiko Minegishi took to the stage with dramatic music and her inspiring students behind her, Duncan Wong got his groove on while sharing his Yogic Arts style, former San Francisco Bay Area resident and Anusara Yoga teacher Mark Shveima (he now resides in Kyoto) showed his hard-won skills by leading the crowd in Japanese. ”Lunge-en-a-pose-u!” said Shveima and the students obliged him with a High Lunge, arms extending skyward. American teachers (like my hubby) and Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa shared their portion of the practice via translators. Despite the teachers’ stylistic differences, the mixed class came together seamlessly. As the practice ended and all 700 of us put our arms around each other and sang with Gurmukh “We are the people, the people of love. Let us people, love today” I was not only feeling the love, I was feeling blessed to have experienced such a sense of union even though I was so far from home. The video I put together above shows just a few highlights from the day. –Andrea Ferretti

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It’s a Small World

The other night in class, a student came up and said, “I thought I was coming for a workout and I ended up getting life lessons, too!” Turns out he needed to hear what I was offering in order to understand the way out of a specific struggle he’s been dealing with. Like we say in yoga, when the student is ready… Before we begin our physical poses, I always gather the class for a Karma Talk. This is when I lay out my intentions for the practice and encourage students to set their inner dedication so they can align with it as they move on the mat. My talk that night was about how we all say we want good karma, but we might not realize that the outcome of any situation that is most beneficial to us is also one directly created by us, through the choices we make in each moment. In other words, we don’t just follow our dreams, we make them happen. What we do now, and more specifically, how we do it and from what intention, can either create harmony or discordance with who we really are. Have you ever heard an Om at the beginning of class that sounded like each person chose a different note on purpose, but by the end of class, it’s become united? This happens when we all pay attention not only to the outside but the inside as well; to know ourselves better in that place of sattva , or calm equilibrium. As a teacher, I see so many students straining towards the external look of a pose, going too fast, leaping at the wall in handstand, not breathing mindfully. When our confidence and life’s meaning rests only in the way we look and what others think of us, and our sense of security forever shifts with the things we have (money) or don’t have (money), we have lost sight of one crucial thing: Our core connection. Yogis might call this satya , one’s ultimate truth, or even atman , the soul within us. Other philosophies say it’s hara , a state of living from center, or simply, coming home to oneself. This isn’t accomplished by having one huge, enlightened experience in meditation and then being set for life.  You have to get your hands in the dirt now and do the work it takes to plant those seeds of action so they may come to fruition in their own, often in surprising ways. The beauty of yoga, or the practice of living out loud, is that you don’t have to worry about what kind of flower or tree your seeds will become. If you practice the three steps to transformation–make space, go inside, then take actions that best represent you–then the rest is coming just as it should. How freeing to know we can just spend our time cultivating the courage to dissolve old limiting blocks and stories, listening to the core connection we make with ourselves, and then trusting our inner wisdom enough to follow through with actions that we know are coming from our best self. So, what’s your next core action? Better yet, how will you undertake it with integrity, grace, and without placing the burden of needing to control the outcome on the featherlight power and magic inherent in pure doing for its own sake? Let us know! Core Pose : Siddhasana Side Stretch and Forward Fold Siddhasana pays homage to those who have transcended their external fixations and returned home to a state of calm awareness.  You can make space, listen in, and choose as wisely as a Siddha when you take time to practice from this intention. Come into Siddhasana (Adept’s Pose) with one foot in front of the other. Place your right palm onto the floor to your right, and with a long spine and lifted side waist, reach the left arm over your ear. Bend your right elbow and breathe new space into any constriction you feel around the lungs and chest. If your neck feels uncomfortable, turn your gaze to the floor or right ear to right shoulder and let the head gently drop for a sweet stretch. Take 5 or more breaths, and then switch sides.   After completing both sides, inhale and sit up tall. Exhale and fold forward with palms or forearms on the mat. Take at least one minute here, bringing breath into your back body and releasing past habits and beliefs that block you from accessing your inner wisdom and truth. Then listen to that subtle yet powerful voice within for your next direction.

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Creating Good Karma

I stare at my feet at the beginning of each class. We hang for a bit before we chant ohmm and get peaceful. It’s while we’re hanging that I look at them. I love my body. After ohmm, we spend a few minutes contemplating how we’re standing on our feet. Our teacher tells us to put our first toe down, then our fifth toe, and then try to lift the middle toes. I can’t do this. My middle toes head off toward the big toe–gripping the floor like drowning swimmers hanging to the side of a lifeboat for their lives.  So far, I am unable to convince them that we’re on dry land. Relax, I say to them. Ohmm, for God’s sake. I love my body. My right foot is in a brace. It’s a long story, but I’ll be in that brace for a while longer. It means I don’t hop anywhere on my mat. I shuffle. Underneath the brace my right lateral malleolus (the outside ankle bump) looks like Mr. Potato Head. I’ll paint eyes on it for Halloween. I love my body. The truth is that there are perhaps ten things about my feet that aren’t gorgeous and that don’t behave in the manner in which I’d prefer. And here’s the thing. I could easily say the same about my hips (What do you mean, open? Open my hips?), my arms (My elbows won’t turn that way unless I break them.), my hamstrings, which are shorter than short, even my face, which has completely relaxed about four times in my life. And on and on. Today, hanging over my feet, it occurred to me that love is a decision. Things are beautiful or not, loose or not, strong or not, potato-heady or not. So what. Love is a decision. I love my body. Thanks to yoga for helping me love me, and thanks to you for the conversation. –Kristin Shepherd

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I am a Beauty

New York yogi alert: If you like the idea of helping at-risk city kids get access to the practice, check out the Yoga at School program at the Integral Yoga Institute .  Yoga teacher Erin Wilson works with the kids at James Baldwin High School , an end-of-the-line transfer school for kids from all over the city–kids who’ve had it tough or been in trouble but still want a chance at a brighter future.  “For a lot of these students, violence is a way of life–they’ve been involved in gangs, they have friends and family in prison, they come from tough economic situations,” says Wilson.  “Yoga empowers them to exercise self-control. It teaches them compassion for themselves and for others. It shows them how to deal with the stress of being a teen and to live a life of peace.” See the concept in action Friday, May 7, at the Integral Yoga Institute (227 W. 13th Street; 212-929-0586). Join Wilson for a special Yoga class at 7:30 p.m., followed by a presentation from the student participants. There will be free vegetarian cuisine, music, and a silent auction to benefit the program. It’s a fundraiser–if you want to pay it forward, your donation will be most welcome. (There isn’t a suggested minimum, but Wilson says something in the neighborhood of $25 would be helpful.)  Who knows? Perhaps your participation will lead to a future of perfectly peaceful rides on the D train.

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Benefit the Future

I have a confession to make: I splurged big time on this Stewart + Brown dress a few weeks ago after seeing it on one of my favorite blogs.I wasn’t sure if it would be worth it and I thought I might end up sending it back, but it is the most comfortable dress I’ve ever owned. I was sold the moment I took it out of it’s package. Instead of a chemical smell you sometimes experience with new clothing, it smells like fresh cut wood. The fabric is amazing and the dress itself is one of those styles that’s pretty much flattering on everyone. Now If I could only splurge on the rest of this outfit to go with it. the details: Eva Smock Waits Dress, Stewart + Brown RGB nail polish in Haze (Contains no Formaldehyde, no Toluene) Poetry Mid Calf Boots, Qupid (Vegan) Ashley Watson Kestrel Purse, Beklina  (Made with recycled, reclaimed leather) Stella Sheer Eau de Toilette Spray, Stella McCartney

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Organic Outfit

Photo caption: New mommy kale, tofu and rice When I got pregnant, I’d been studying yoga for more than a decade. I vowed to have a yogic pregnancy and birth experience. I attended prenatal yoga class faithfully. At nine months pregnant I was doing headstands and chair shoulder stands. I imagined my labor would be like a very intense weekend yoga workshop–really hard, but something I’d get through with breathing and the proper motivation. Afterward I’d leave the hospital with my baby, feeling like myself again in no time, ready to practice yoga at home while my son napped.  Could I have been any more naive? Of course, plenty of women do have wonderful baby-in-the-bathtub births, but my labor lasted for more than 24 hours, included an antibiotic drip from the beginning, and it was so excruciatingly painful that I couldn’t say no to the epidural. At the last minute, I had to have an emergency c-section. Recovering in the hospital, my baby spent 48 hours in the NICU, resulting in major problems with my milk supply.  And one day after returning home with my son Lucien I had to be rushed to the ER because of massive swelling in my legs. When I finally got set up at home I couldn’t feel sensation in my midsection, and my postpartum doula had to practically stage an intervention to get me to stop taking Percocet.  For the first six weeks, every ounce of my energy went to nursing Lucien, recovering from the surgery, and trying to grab some sleep when I could. I didn’t unroll my yoga mat once–and to be honest, given how much pain I was in, and how insanely tired I was, I didn’t really see how I was going to anytime soon. Looking back on it now, the most important step I took during those first few weeks was totally re-conceiving my idea of a yoga practice. Although I’d studied yoga philosophy, asana had always been at the core of my practice. As a new mom, I came to think about practice more broadly, in terms of self-care. Since I was breastfeeding, the most yogic thing I could do for my baby and me was to take several minutes three times a day to eat a healthy meal.  If I couldn’t sleep for more than a couple hours at a time, at least I could get energy from good food.  On mornings when my doula came over, she’d prepare me a protein packed salad with a sliced hard-boiled egg and chick peas. In the evenings, my husband Neil often made me a bowl of sauteed kale, baked tofu, and brown rice.  It wasn’t the same as a downward dog, but it was a start. Are you a new mom hoping to rediscover your yoga practice?  Are you feeling guilty because you haven’t gotten back onto your mat or dusted off your meditation cushion?  Why not start simply, by asking your partner or best friend or mom to make you a special, healthy lunch or dinner? Take a few minutes to eat in peace and quiet, away from your baby.  Definitely don’t nurse while you’re eating! Savor the prana from the food on your plate, and relish the loving way it was prepared for you. Know that with this small step you’re on the (long) road to recovering your yoga practice. Share your favorite new yoga mom meals here!

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The Yoga in Tofu

Our star blogger Sadie Nardini has been blogging with Yoga Journal since February. As we add more bloggers to our Yoga Diary line-up we thought it was best to give Sadie her own blog home as well. You will still be able to find her posts on Yoga Diary but if you want all Sadie, all the time, you can tune into her new blog home of Core Values . To read more about Sadie check out her introduction .

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Introducing Sadie Nardini’s New Home

No question: The Gray Lady has gone ga-ga for yoga. Monday’s New York Times Sunday Styles section features an above-the-fold feature on the “yoga rock star” (not really) Greg Gumucio and his East Village studio, Yoga to the People , which offers classes on a donation-only basis.  These kinds of “dharma yoga” classes have long been an occasional offering at enlightened studios around the country–providing access to those who might not be able to attend class otherwise. The Times’ story, penned by Mary Billard, includes a running list of other New York studios that offer donation-based or reduced-cost yoga, including Strala Yoga , Yoga Vida , and Do Yoga and Pilates . But it overlooks Dharma Yoga Brooklyn , which opened in Park Slope in March.  Every class on that studio’s schedule is donation-based–even the mats and towels are available for whatever fee you care to offer, and a donation-based bookshop is in the works. Dharma Yoga co-founder Lily Cushman (her partner is Jeremy Frindel) has every confidence that donation-based yoga will continue to thrive in the outer boroughs, too–it may even shape the future of American yoga.  As is the case with Yoga to the People, higher class attendance means viable monetary yield even though some students may choose to donate nothing. “When people ask how we’ll make it, we just say we have faith–in ourselves and in our students,” says Cushman. “It’s so nice to spread the teachings and give back to the people.”  What do you think of donation-based yoga? Is dharma yoga available where you live? Is this the yoga wave of the future?

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Dharma Initiative

Finally, an event dedicated to playfully defying gravity. Got plans for Columbus Day? No? Then mark your calendar and consider attending the FIRST-EVER AcroYoga Festival , happening in Oakland , California , on October 8, 9, 10, and 11. The event will feature plenty of yoga, acrobatics, and Thai massage.   And, oh yes, there’s music, too: Jai Uttal, M.C. Yogi, and the Mayapuris will be on hand to rock the proverbial house. What we’re really looking forward to, though, is the nighttime “Bollywood Jam” carnival, to feature circus performers, henna tattoos, and music galore. Cotton candy or no cotton candy, count us in!  

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Playtime for Grownups

Forget yoga class, this is the perfect outfit for the entire weekend. I love that these pants are called the “Tool Around Pant” because I need to do a little more tooling around. It definitely sounds better than rushing around, which is what I do most of the time. I also need a new yoga mat, and the tree graphic on this one makes me happy. the details:  Rivera Bra Top, Athleta   Organic Cotton Tool Around Pant, Athleta  Sonata Sweater Cover-up, Athleta Tree of Life Yoga Mat, Gaiam  Om Yoga Bag, Asraistyle  Brass Stone and Leaf Bracelet, Asos Life is but a Dream photograph, Alicia Bock 

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Fabulous Fern

I’m back from Sedona after shooting my new DVDs, resting up from the wild ride that was last week. And when I say “wild,” I mean it. To be transplanted from the concrete jungle that is Manhattan–where the closest I get to flora are the bouquets sold in front of every deli, and my fauna sightings consist of dogs on leashes and the occasional subway rat–was quite the experience. When I arrived at the location, a plateau in Red Rock State Park overlooking a basin and surrounded by rust-red mountains, it took my breath away. I took a big chance and decided to film the whole thing using a live microphone instead of adding in the sound later from a studio recording. Alas, the wind, sun, and occasional rain didn’t care that we were shooting a yoga video. Viewers will hear and see it all, just as it naturally happened. The light shifts, the dust swirls, and at one point I felt like I was in the middle of a Harry Potter -esque duel of elements. At one point, I was blown right off the mat in a Warrior Two–something you might usually only see on a video outtake. I came to the location thinking everything would be peaceful, leaving us to our Zen creation. Once I’d been there for 5 minutes, however, I knew I’d have to shift my expectations and transform how I would approach the experience. Yoga teaches us that the inability to go with the flow, instead trying mold the outer environment to suit your inner needs, is the greatest cause of suffering. This week I want to return to the idea of aparigraha , or nongrasping, and show you how to use it to your benefit when situations arise that you don’t expect. There are two choices whenever you find yourself in a state of duhkha , or suffering, because something’s not going the way you’d hoped. You can hang onto your expectation in a state of stress and strain, or you can shrug your shoulders, turn towards the new information, and say, simply, How can I turn this to my advantage? The great thing about aparigraha is that if you’re holding on too tightly to one perspective, you’re just as capable of picking up another, more empowering one, and holding it instead. The transition from “this cannot be happening” to “this is my teaching” is a hard at first. But like anything, with practice, it gets easier. Just as every yoga pose that challenges you and feels uncomfortable is another call to learn to move from a state of resisting intensity to using it to serve your ultimate goals. For me, it all comes down to not needing to control everything and thinking I know what needs to happen for me to be content. Instead, when I stepped on that mountain and things started getting crazy, I didn’t. I looked around, took a deep breath, and thought, “Here we are. Now, what are we going to do with it?” I heard from the directors that the footage we shot looks incredible, and that the wind adds to the teaching instead of detracting from it. But I still made sure to mention at the beginning of the video that we were in for quite a ride, and used it as a way to show that I was practicing what I teach. Even if it hadn’t turned out so well, I would have embraced that, taken it inside, and turned it into a learning experience to help me become wiser, stronger, and more prepared for the next time. We can all do this, no matter how easy or challenging the teaching that shows up may be. Remain watchful, open, and resilient. And when the opportunity arises for you to alchemize a disappointment or fear into something wild and free, grab onto it with both hands. Core Pose: Poet’s Pose (also known as a variation of Half Moon Pose, or Ardha Chandrasana, variation) This pose presents a wonderful way to experience the ebbs and flows of balance while striving to remain inwardly centered even when you topple over from the strong winds of change. As you approach it, remember to keep your breathing even and your drishti , or gaze, on the ground beneath you. Stand toward the front of your mat, feet sitting-bone-distance apart. Bend your knees and place the fingertips of both hands a little wider than shoulder distance in front of you. On an exhalation, bring your left knee into your chest and activate your lower abdominals and natural low back curve in and up towards the ribs. Maintain a long tailbone and open heart as you begin to open your left hip to stack over the right. With your core engaged, begin to lengthen your left leg out behind you at hip height, and unfurl your chest and left arm to the sky. Keep looking down as you play with bending your right standing leg and lifting your right fingertips off the floor and into your chest. Contract your topside waist as you press firmly and evenly into the floor with the right foot. Straighten your standing leg in time. Hold for 3-5 breaths. Return to Standing Forward Bend and give a sweet exhale through the mouth, releasing any tension you were holding inside. Repeat on the other side. 
    

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Embrace the Unexpected

I’m in Sedona this week filming my next two DVDs. I’d heard that this area is ideal for spiritual quests and uniting with your source energy, which is why I wanted to shoot here.  In addition to completing the videos, I have a goal: To find my spirit animal. On my time off, I’ve kept my eye out for the symbol of my spirit in animal form, something that the indigenous North American cultures hold sacred. The first two days, all I saw were ants and flies. I began to wonder if it was possible to have a spirit insect instead. Then today, while I was out walking, two jet-black ravens suddenly appeared and stood in my path.  One was tearing apart someone’s old sandwich and the other stood silently looking at me. We studied each other for a long moment, and then the sandwich-free Raven flew away, gorgeous and free, and the other remained to finish its dinner. I was both disgusted and awed by these creatures, and though I’d been hoping for something cool like a wolf or a scorpion, I realized how perfect these spirit guides were for me. Ravens are believed to be keepers of wisdom and secrets, and one of their jobs is to help those they are linked with become better teachers. Plus, since my take on yoga is that it’s found everywhere, both in the ugliness and the beauty of life, these two ravens taught me to remember to not only seek my lessons in comfort and ease, but also in times of discomfort and even when I don’t make myself proud. Like anything, spirit guides may or may not be “real,” but anything that leads us into a deeper awareness of ourselves is a tradition I can get behind. In yoga, we say that self-recognition in seemingly external sources is another way to practice svadhyaya , or study of the sacred and of the Self. Whatever leads you to directly contemplate your highest inner nature and use your actions to create a lifestyle of integrity is sacred study. Your svadhyaya might be a rock song, a Pablo Neruda poem, the Yoga Sutra, or a quiet walk in the woods. My ravens are only me, introducing myself to who I really am. Today, I invite you to keep your eyes open for your animal spirit and your ears tuned for voices of wisdom that may come from any and all directions. Maybe you’ve already got one speaking to you or maybe your guide will meet you along your path in an unexpected way. When we walk with presence and an open ear, we’ll receive our teachings that much more easily. So, who’s whispering to you–from you–right now? Core Pose: Eka Pada Galavasana (also known as Flying Crow) It’s as close as I could get to the raven, and it’s a great pose for teaching svadhyaya in action: moving from Earth to sky using your deep core connection. At any step along the way, if you find yourself losing integrity, back off, check in, find the pose variation that brings you to your personal edge of transformation, and play there.  In time, you might go farther physically. But either way, you’ll be accessing your source of presence and wisdom right where you are. 1. Come into Utkatasana (Chair Pose) and cross one ankle over the opposite knee.  Bring your palms together at your chest. Stay evenly grounded on your standing foot and begin to hinge forward from the hips. If possible, place your elbows in front of your standing leg’s shin, lift your belly in and up to lengthen the spine, and breathe. 2.  Bend forward and plant your hands on the floor shoulder-distance apart. Spread your fingers wide and parallel your wrist creases to the front of the mat. Dig deep to hook your top foot snugly around the opposite arm, and press your knee into the same arm. Lean from your heart and gaze forward as you align your elbows over your wrists. Root down through your hands, press your arms into your shin, and lift through your belly as you raise the standing foot off the floor. 3.  When you can hover in step 2, float the heart forward and simultaneously lengthen the back leg for a full flying variation.

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The Animal Within

All the news over the last two weeks has been that exercise doesn’t work for weight loss. Really? Don’t tell that to Detroit resident Larry Sherman, who credits yoga for his incredible 365 pound weight loss. Rather than trying out for the Biggest Loser or signing himself up for gastric-bypass surgery, CNN reports ,Sherman checked out a class at the Yoga Shelter in West Bloomfield. There, he was moved by the connection he made with instructor Lisa Paskel–who, he says, was able to look past the fat man and see the beautiful internal soul within him. Feeling accepted–loved, even–Sherman kept on coming to class, and as he did, the weight began to drop away. Was it a simple matter of burn away fat? Of course not. Yoga works on levels that transcend the mechanical calories-in/calories-out model. As he practiced more, Sherman’s self image began to change–and as it did, so did his relationship with food. He began to make better choices, to feel encouraged by his increasing energy, to grow out of his emotional and psychological need for the fat suit. “I had to change my mind!” he says now. “It wasn’t about my body.” His transformation took about three and a half years–and he looks great. (See for yourself, and read more about Sherman’s story at yogafixes.com . ) Yoga works for weight loss. Believe it.

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Yoga Works for Weight Loss

This weekend, I’m leading a three-day Core Strength Immersion in New York City. After writing my post about respecting limitations while still seeking transformation, I decided to make a public statement, not only to the 60 students in the room, but all the future yogis who will watch the Immersion (it’s being filmed): Let your poses be imperfect. That’s right; I’ve hit a tipping point in my teaching where I am becoming much more interested in what a student can do to be more honestly themself in a pose, and I care much less how straight they can get their front leg in Triangle. For an instructor who doubles as an anatomy geek, it may seem unusual to hear me say this, yet nothing could be more my style. Symmetry, or perfection as we sometimes think of it (the “perfect” body, relationship, or handstand), is what you get in a office building, with its level surfaces and, straight lines. Balance, on the other hand, is what nature does, and it’s wild and free, yet comes to find its own equilibrium after all. Think of a river, which meanders here and there but ultimately reaches its source.   In your yoga poses, and your life–have you been remaining sensitive to your state of balance, or straining for symmetry? If it’s the latter, this may help give you perspective: There is not one thing in the human body that runs in a straight line. Our bones, blood, and breath all move in a spiral motion. Our nerves, spine, brain, joints, GItract? Not linear either. Yet so often, we strive to attain linear poses that our bodies are not made to reach. We want to be in alignment in a way that’s healthy and balanced, but it’s easy to let symmetry-seeking creep into the process. The end result can be a hardening of the outer body, layering on more and more  tension as we try to grip and force ourselves into pre-conceived geometry. Instead, there is a way of balancing this sthira (strength) with sukha (ease). A way to allow our spinning, waving, spiraling selves to soften enough to find the true edge, dissolve areas of tension, and still move forward into what is our unique optimal alignment. I speak from experience, because I used to be militant about doing every pose “right.” In my quest for the perfect body on and off the mat, I developed an eating disorder as well as a ton of yoga-related repetitive stress injuries. Along the way, I did reach my goal of handstand without the wall. What I did not attain, however, was any sort of happiness or joy. Therefore, in my opinion, I wasn’t practicing yoga at all, but dukha , or suffering. A focus on perfection will always circle back to the big D. Later in life and yoga, I got so sick (literally) of forcing myself into a box, that I began to seek out studios and teachers who advocated mindful, individual adaptation over form. I noticed that most of these teachers were over 40, many of them much older. Their physical asanas were very different than mine, yet the message is so freeing: Take this practice, poses, lessons and all, and make it yours, without apology or regret. Approaching 40 myself, I can tell you that a relaxation occurs after a certain amount of time struggling and failing to reach absolute symmetry. You see it in the attitudes of certain grandparents, and it shows up in the practices of longtime yogis.  The amazing thing is, once I let go of my quest for the unattainable, many of the poses, like the hovering jump-forward that I could never before master, became available to me. Yoga, ultimately is a path of personal transformation, not perfection. Reclaiming this aspect of your practice gets you into direct connection with your core, and asks that you express your truth to the world in the way that’s best for you. When we remember that our growth and spiritual awakening happens only to the extent we can get present, get close to our inner nature, and take actions from integrity–none of which have a thing to do with a false ideal of perfection–life becomes wildly, strangely, perfect after all. Core Pose: CAT/COW VARIATIONS Sometimes, I feel like anything not on the the mat is forbidden territory–or “hot lava,” as we called it in my childhood. Yet venturing outside the rectangle can be just what you need to find pockets of tension, and then move and breathe to release them. Come onto your hands and knees. Take a few arches and curls of the spine, then begin to move creatively as you listen to the cues of your body. Move your head, your arms, and even legs to serve your goals of equalizing support and freedom. Spend a few minutes in this pose, adventuring in your own way!

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A Better Balance

Photo by David Lauridsen for The New York Times Did you see the story about Demi Moore in Sunday’s New York Times Arts & Leisure section? It was a stylish, if perfunctory, update on her career. (She’s back! She’s better than ever! But now she’s playing the mother!) But what drew our eye was this aside, in which writer Jennifer Steinhauer explains a fallow period in Moore’s career, a time in which the actress disappeared from the Hollywood radar to focus solely on family: “It was not that she retired, as was widely reported, she was just resting, a career Savasana.” End of sentence. No long-winded explanation–or short-winded one, for that matter–was offered. This surely is a cultural turning point–we have reached such a level of yoga saturation that Savasana has become a common-usage term, in need of no definition, no parenthetical aside, no translation–even in a mass-market newspaper of record. Will the moment be memorialized by Ben Zimmer in an upcoming On Language column? We can only hope so!

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Corpse Bride

Last weekend at the Yoga Journal Conference was a whirlwind, and a whole lot of fun. Since I wasn’t teaching until Sunday, I had the opportunity to take some classes. I studied with Gary Kraftsow, Desirée Rumbaugh, Seane Corn, and Leslie Kaminoff. I was in the audience for Deepak Chopra’s evening talk, and I listened in for bits of talks from Matthew Sanford, Beryl Bender Birch, and Rodney Yee. I narrowly missed Julie Gudmestad and Bo Forbes, but I’m hot on their trails, too. Over the years, I’ve studied with just about every well-known yoga teacher there is, and many others. What strikes me is that although we share the same title–yoga instructor–we can be so different in just about every way: personality, poses, focus, knowledge, opinions, and communication style. Yet this weekend, the core message was the same from everyone: Find balance, live in balance, and take actions from balance. I heard it again and again, in every conceivable way. I was fortunate to have conversations with the people who put on the conference, and this parity was also part of their vision of creating a community offering where people could be equally exposed to the healing benefits of yoga, no matter what teacher they resonated with the most. It did my heart good to hear this. I’ve seen pockets of separation in the yoga world, stemming from a “my style, your style” mentality. It’s the reason why I specifically didn’t want to create a style of yoga, but rather a “take” on yoga that anyone could use, whether they’re an Ashtanga yogi or a Kundalini practitioner. The thing is, there are many doorways into your true nature, all that lead to your inner teacher in the lifelong process yogis know as svadhyaya , or self-study. If you can honor that the guru you seek is so often the Self, then you are less likely to dismiss teachers that don’t work for you or revere the ones who do. (You also won’t hang on to blame, anger, and resentment in relationships of any kind.) You can thank your teachers for the fact that, whether you choose to embrace their ideals or not, they have helped you remember who you are–and who you aren’t. In this way, they have all been instrumental to your growth and transformation. This view can bring more sukha , or ease and freedom in everything you do. Yoga can be frustrating, because the lessons from different teachers are sometimes contradictory, and there can seem to be no clear “right” way to do it. But that’s also the wonderful thing about this path. It’s yours alone.  The practice asks you to gather information and listen to your instructors, but then ultimately to turn inward and claim the personal style of yoga that you need at that moment, and to keep the channels of inner communication open for a lifetime. Yoga is a journey that always, and unerringly, leads back to you. That is both its greatest challenge and its most fabulous gift. Core Question: Are you able to thank your teachers; ones you liked, and ones, well, not so much, for helping you realize who you will and won’t be? Tell us about your experience! Core Pose: Utkatasana Twist (Chair Pose), variation This twist will help you turn inward as you remain grounded, centered and balanced–all good tools for your inner teacher practice. Stand with knees bent and feet and knees pressing together. Inhale your arms up, keeping your spine long. Spin your chest to the left as you place your right elbow onto your left knee. Roll your left shoulder back and engage your obliques to help balance the work of the arms with core strength. This twist has a twist: Look down instead of up for a sweet stretch of the neck and shoulder. Remain here for 5-10 breaths then move into a gentle forward fold. Return to Chair Pose and repeat on the other side.

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Thanking All Your Teachers

I was leading a Core Strength Vinyasa Yoga practice for a group of yoga teachers the other day, and one of them asked me afterwards why I prefer to cartwheel out of an overzealous handstand rather than drop over into a backbend. Poses that require lumbar movement are a real challenge for me, not because of a lack of flexibility or strength–my lumbar spine has hardly any curve. It’s a bone compression thing, one I won’t be able to change no matter how hard I try. And, believe me, I tried WAY too hard for years. I’m more than slightly competitive by nature, so naturally when I began my yoga practice, I coveted all the stately, arching poses I couldn’t do. From the first Sun Salutation, I rushed past Cobra in favor of Up Dog. To me, Bridge wasn’t a pose, just an impatient pit-stop on my express lane into Wheel. I held a death grip on my ideal pose: Forearm Stand Scorpion … and I wouldn’t let it go, until it became the straw that (literally) almost broke my back. One day, spine be damned, I forced myself past my healthy edge. The result was a herniated disc that pressed right into my sciatic nerve, and for 6 months, I was regressed to prenatal Cobra Pose. One day, while grumbling through the tiniest seed of low Bridge Pose while the rest of the class was in full Wheel, I realized something amazing: This backbend actually felt good!  It was well-supported and my heart was able to expand from the strong root underneath. My newfound awareness of how backing off had actually helped me find the equilibrium I’d sought, opened my eyes to the fact that grasping for external success at the expense of internal balance wasn’t just my tendency in the yoga pose, but also in my life. I looked around me and saw jealousy showing up everywhere. My inability to be confident in my own skin was causing all my relationships–and me–to suffer.   If my partner spoke to someone I thought was better looking than me, I would feel immensely insecure. I had a hard time feeling truly happy for my friend who got a sudden financial windfall because I didn’t have as much. Whether on or off the mat, I wanted more, to be better than everyone, to have nothing left to want or attain before I would be satisfied. Yogis call this parigraha , the yogic term for “grasping at externals,” or being unable to let go of the ego’s desires and access your own inherent satisfaction. It’s one of the biggest causes of dukha , or living in pain. As I progressed in my yoga studies, it became crystal clear that I was wasting a lot of energy looking outside of myself for my center. Getting conscious meant I had to surrender my grasp on the fantasy and step into the reality. I began to let go of my idea of what I “should” be able to do, and started owning who I was and be where I needed to be. The happy result of this practice of owning my truth is that I relaxed at a deep core level, and chronic jealousy disappeared from my life. I can honor my friends and students for their accomplishments, because I’m just as fully at work rocking who I am. When we practice aparigraha , or releasing the death grip on externals as our only source of happiness, we actually create another kind of hold–this time a powerful merging with our own core connection. We unite with our natural wellspring of self-created joy and can truly become a positive part of our community. My body may not backbend beyond a cranky full wheel, but it is made for poses that require core strength like handstand and arm balances. Since we teach what we know, I’ve made this strength into my style. I’m so glad I finally saw that who I was would serve me better than who I wasn’t. I encourage you to do the same, in any aspect of your life where you perceive something (or someone) outside of you as the thing that controls your confidence, empowerment, and peace. The power of yoga, or unity with one’s truth, is that coping and co-dependence dissolve in the light of your self-generated OK-ness. It’s an old cliché, but to do this, you have to decide to believe that you’re enough, just as you are–and then take actions that mirror that view.   In time, this shift from parigraha to aparigraha will become your new truth. Now, when I teach, I make sure to give multiple variations, and encourage the students to find and play their own unique edges. “No matter what your level or ability, your poses are all equally valuable as your personal vehicle of transformation,” I say. And I notice that if I don’t grasp at their practices, or enforce attainment of the more advanced poses, it tames the green-eyed monsters in the room to hear it. Do I still covet the effortless rainbow spines of my fellow yogis? Sometimes. But now I know it doesn’t define me. I listen to my body in any given moment, let my ego take a backseat, and say with an inner smile, “This is my pose … and I’m sticking to it.” Core Question: Where in your yoga practice have you been letting something external define your happiness? How about in your life? What will you do differently to practice aparigraha in these situations? Core Pose: Heart-opening Sukhasana variation into Crossed Boat. This is one of the poses I do to prepare for backbends. It gives all the chest-opening and upper back and core strength needed without diving too far, too fast into the lumbar curve. Come into Sukhasana (Easy Pose). Inhale and stretch the chest and arms up as the shoulders and tailbone lengthen down. Exhale, rock back onto the sitting bones, firm the lower abdominals, and bring fists to the outer hips for a core strength mudra I call Fists of Fire. If possible, lift your knees and/or crossed ankles off the floor. Whatever variation you choose, make sure it’s one where you can maintain the natural curve of your lumber spine. It must draw in as you lift the legs to counteract the movement of the front body. Repeat 5 times.

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No More Grasping

I’ll admit it: I’m an Ayurveda geek. I think you should be, too. Ayurveda is the healing wisdom of yoga, a profound technology for carrying the balance you’re achieving on the mat out into the rest of your life. And even if you never get into the super-detailed nitty gritty (it is a science after all), even the most cursory of explorations is likely to expand your self-knowledge, and may even lead to an AH-HA! Now’s a good time to delve into Ayurveda, especially if you live in the San Francisco Bay Area: The seventh annual meeting of the National Ayurvedic Medical Association (or NAMA) takes place in San Mateo this week. If you’re nearby, consider nabbing a day pass–there will be yoga (of course), meditation, panel discussions, seminars, and even shopping. And there will be the chance to hear from and hobnob with the greats of American Ayurveda: Robert Svoboda, David Frawley, Vasant Lad, Yogini Shambhavi, Mark Halpern, and David Simon, M.D., among others. Even if you can’t get to the physical space, taking a virtual tour of the conference schedule can give you a good feel for what Ayurveda is, and how it might be useful to you as you work to deepen your practice, heal your body, and expand your spiritual vistas. (At the very least, it will give you plenty of fodder for further Google exploration of the subject.) In many ways, this “science of life” is life–completely relevant to you whether you choose to use it or not. But then, an Ayurveda geek would say that.

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NAMArama

Whenever yoga makes it into the mainstream media, it tends to look like one of the following: 1. A daffy trend story, the main thrust of which is, “Gee, this yoga thing is really catching on!” 2. Overt mockery. Or 3. A prescription for an awesome workout! So we were surprised last week to see–on CNN Headline News–a beautiful little story about Sue Jones and the YogaHOPE foundation. Part of the channel’s “Breakthrough Women” series, the focus was on how Jones used yoga to overcome her own severe depression and suicidal thoughts–then founded a nonprofit organization aimed at extending a lifeline to other women grappling with mental health issue. Boston-based YogaHOPE brings yoga into drug and alcohol treatment centers, halfway houses, homeless shelters, and other places where “at risk” women tend to congregate. As Jones told CNN’s Robin Meade, “It was a desire of mine to teach yoga to women who I felt might be at a crisis point in their lives, and might be on the verge of making a very self-destructive or dangerous decision.” We know, of course, that practicing yoga leads to self transformation–but that’s news to women lost in the woods of addiction. Good news, a Jones says. Learn more about the program–including how to participate or donate–at YogaHOPE.org .

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There’s Always Hope

Yoga on wheels. No, not spinning. (So 2005!) Think rollerblades instead. The latest unnecessary but totally fun yoga-exercise mash-up, Mobile Yoga has inline skaters turning all their favorite asanas into balancing poses by performing them on wheels. Think of a floating Fierce Pose, a wind-whipped Warrior III, or a gliding Garudasana and you’ll get the picture. Founder Kris Fondran is an inline skating instructor with a masters in exercise science; she’s also a certified yoga instructor with some serious cred (trained in Satyananda Yoga, she received mantra diksha initiation from Paramahamsa Niranjanananda Saraswati in 2004). You can see the threads of her practice emerge in her instruction, which is as much about breathing and awareness building as it is about getting a great cardio workout. And though her Web site looks totally L.A.–she’s pictured posing against a background of blue skies, beaches, and palm trees–Fondran is based in Cleveland, Ohio. Silly or sublime? Strap on your skates and decide for yourself.

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On a Roll

When I meet people outside the context of a yoga workshop or training, and they hear that I’m starting to travel nationally to teach and receiving other major opportunities to share my message on a larger scale, they often have the same question: “Why you?”     I usually say something like, “I think that people are attracted to the process of finding, then living from, their center, all while getting a great whole body transformation.” And I do think that’s true. But it’s not the whole truth, and I’d like to share with you the part I usually leave out.   I think some of my success in the yoga world is happening not just because of my style, but also because of me. It’s difficult for me to say this, as I tend to keep myself out of the equation lest it seem like I’m tooting my own horn. After all, when I’m in front of a class, my words and inspirations seem to come not from me but through me, and I spend most of my classes just trying to keep up with my Inner Teacher’s voice. I always say my main job is as a translator of Spirit, not of Sadie.   But there’s more to it than that. A crucial aspect of expressing my universal energy and wisdom–and doing so in a way that my students resonate with–is to make them my own. My personal backstory, woven with its challenges and victories along with a guiding focus of accessing and expressing core strength in its many forms, helps me do that strongly.   I don’t know about you, but I find it much more interesting when a teacher, or anyone, shares their unique voice with me, based on their experiences, beliefs, and perspectives. These personal elements are what make each of us special. They also impact the way we filter yoga philosophies and poses and their meaning, which will differ depending on our worldview.   When I began teaching, I would sound like whoever was my favorite teacher at the time. I’d read the texts I thought I was supposed to, and I’d talk in the language I heard other teachers use. My own voice was so lost in the sauce that it took me years to find it and then claim it.   What I learned is that sharing who we are–our struggles, our fears, our stories personal growth–doesn’t diminish our yoga. It’s a magnifying glass we hold up to the expanse of pure consciousness. The realities of our lives focus the all-pervasive prana and make it something those around us can relate to and empathize with. This creates its own yoga, the union of likeminded individuals who understand and support one another as we seek a common way toward the light.   Furthermore, when we make the universal personal, we not only step into our dharma (the path of most life force) but into svadharma –our very own translation of universal energy that, like a snowflake, has no exact match. This is otherwise known as Being Real.   You’ll notice that those who are successful in their fields bring their own dynamic, clearly “them-ness” to the table. They use their intuition, inventiveness, and insights to create a message from their core.   And then they stand by their satya , or truth, no matter who agrees or disagrees or who comes or goes because of it.   I think it’s important that in our quest to find union with our universal nature, we should allow and, in fact, we should rock who we are as individuals, so we can give the world something unique. By sharing who I am–the self within the Self–in these pages, in the media, or in a classroom, I don’t expect my students or supporters to become clones of me. I want to show them how freeing it is to be unapologetically oneself, and therefore, encourage them to become even more of who they are … both wonderfully human and essentially divine in equal measure.   To me, that’s core strength at its finest.   Core Question: Have you ever chosen to be like someone else instead of being yourself? How? And how did you finally decide to take action and claim your own path?   Core Pose: Charlie’s Angel’s Pose   This is one of my signature poses and one that helps students strengthen their foundation and root down, two things that lead to a stronger core connection on all levels.   Come into Malasana with feet wide and turned out slightly in the direction of your knees. Lower your hips to squat as low as is comfortable, or rest your forearms on your thighs and begin in a higher stance.   Interlace your fingers, point your index fingers straight ahead in the “Charlie’s Angel’s” mudra, and draw your shoulder blades naturally onto your back.   Inhale while in the lowered position. Then, exhale, grounding your feet and lifting your hips a few inches while engaging the pelvic floor and lower belly both in and up. Inhale, lower a bit more. Exhale, engage, and lift a little higher. Do this 3 to 4 times.   Return to Malasana, release your hands and head towards the floor, and slowly rock from side to side. Repeat the entire sequence 1 to 3 times.

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Rocking your true core strength

I taught an eight hour Core Strength Immersion in Vancouver this weekend, and two day worth of workshops before that. Suffice it to say, becoming a student again and taking a yoga class this morning was a sweet relief. Today I get to relax and recharge before heading to The Yoga Conference in Toronto tomorrow. Then it’s 18 more hours of teaching in four days for good old Sadie. And I will rise to the challenge. But today: hot chocolate, yoga, lunch, a stroll by the water, and then whatever the heck I feel like for the rest of the day. Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do. But I give everything I have while I’m leading my intensives. So after that, I need to simply be . After a strong, sweaty Anusara class with my friend and fabulous instructor Christine Price Clark, she blessed me with a foot massage in Savasana. Tears came to my eyes–a total surprise to me, since I wasn’t emotional before that at all. I realized that I wasn’t sad, but rather, my cup of happiness had runneth over and begun to come out of my eyes. I was full. As I walked home from class, gingerly, as if to keep the cup from sloshing around and spilling my bliss, I thought of you, the community I adore. I wanted to remind you, as I was reminded by the humble gesture from my teacher, that the practice of ahimsa, or nonviolence, also applies directly to the relationship between you and your Self. If you don’t regularly pause along the cycle of giving to nourish yourself properly, it begins another cycle: one of fatigue, resentment and an existence characterized by just barely getting by, instead of living large from your inner reservoir of prana. Yes, ahimsa is a yama, which means that we’re encouraged to participate with the world around us in a loving way. But one thing we must not forget is that each of us is also part of the world to which we’re supposed to be offering! As a yogi, you can absolutely include yourself in the relationships you have to navigate every day and practice brightening. In addition to filling other people’s cups through respectful actions, it’s perfectly appropriate, and in fact crucial, that you take the time to regularly pour goodness into your own. If I was dating someone who said to me ,”Wow–you’re so fat! I can’t believe you’re eating more of that birthday cake. Make room for Queen Cellulite! I’d break up with them. However, on a more regular basis than I’d care to admit, that same old critical voice creeps in again, trying to tip my hand and dump my self-esteem down the drain. Often as yogis, we seek the light, striving to offer positivity towards those around us, but we neglect and hurt the longest-term partner we’ll ever have: ourselves. Today, look within yourself. How is your Core Connection? Is it a love match, or so dysfunctional you’d be perfect for the Jerry Springer Show? In this moment, I invite you to become your own soul mate again, and start acting, thinking, speaking and acting in ways that reflect your newfound love affair. Namaste, Sadie Core Question: Is your cup full or empty? Have hurtful inner voices and outer actions caused you to exist in a state of depletion? If so, what actions will you take to pour the energy, life and self-love back inside? Core Pose — Waterfall Pigeon: This pose lets you experience the fluid balance between giving out, and giving i n. From Down Dog, come into Pigeon with your right knee behind the right wrist, and foot forward somewhere between the left hip crease and left wrist where your knee is comfortable. Stretch your back leg out long behind you. Maintain the level sit bones and hips centered in space. Walk your hands back beside your hips as you ground the legs down for support. Inhale, move your spine, shoulders and head back and up as you offer your heart higher. Exhale, cascade your spine forward as you lower your forehead towards the earth. Support the low back with your low abdominals as you inhale and wave back up again. Repeat the flow 5-10 times, then rest in Low Pigeon with head on your hands or a block for one minute. Breathe and receive the new energy you’re unlocking! Move to Down Dog and repeat Waterfall and Low Pigeon on the left.

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The Loving Cup

On Saturday, Seane Corn came to teach at my home studio: YogaWorks in SoHo, NYC. I’ve taken one workshop with her before and really enjoyed it. Plus, we see each other around on the conference circuit. So, since she was right in my ‘hood, I decided to enroll in her weekend classes on vinyasa sequencing. When I arrived on my mat, multiple people, some of them my regular students, came up to me with baffled looks on their faces. “Why are you here?” someone said, as if I had nothing left to learn. My answer was the same as it always is at moments like this: “I know what I know. I want to find out what I don’t know yet!” And I learned a lot, or as Seane might say, I remembered more of what I already know in her daylong sessions. I’m proud to show my students that my role as a teacher doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped being a student. Knowledge is fluid and always evolving, just like I am, and my teaching will mature and shift as I do. I refuse to hide my process of studentship for fear that my students will think I’m less of a teacher. I’m confident in my abilities and my unique perspectives on yoga, so I rest in my truth, and let others think what they will. It reminded me to remind you that life gets so much easier when you stop seeking approval from those around you and instead focus on accessing your deepest truth, or satya. If you lose your center the moment someone else has an unfavorable opinion of you, you’ll become everything for everyone, but very little of yourself. When I began teaching yoga, I would change the way I taught based on every student’s critique. In one month, it led me to teach faster, teach slower, talk less, talk more, make it easier, make it harder, and on and on. It was maddening, and my truth was lost in the quest to please everyone. Nowadays, I come into a workshop, speak my truth (which is not the only truth), give them a million percent of what my spirit is directing me to offer, and then I go home. Most people love it, a few think it’s pretty good, and there’s almost always one who can’t stand me.   And you know what? That’s OK. It used to bother me for days if I got negative feedback from someone. But as I teach more, I see that will always be the case, no matter how I change my message. So I stick to my core. Finally, I’ve learned to go into any classroom with one intention: I’m not here to cater…I’m here to teach. In your life, you can spend all your time and energy shape shifting to accommodate everyone’s needs or you can focus on living from your center. This is the exact moment when taking it personally transforms into the practice of giving it personally… …and you need no one’s stamp of approval but your own to do that. Core Question: Have you ever over-compromised your truth to please those around you? What happened when you decided to be fully yourself? Core Pose : Crossed Navasana with Fists of Fire This is one of my signature Core Poses. It’s meant to draw you out of your head and down into your center. Come into a cross-legged position like Sukhasana (Easy Pose). Place one foot in front of the other. Inhale, roll forward as you reach up, and lift the hips a few inches off the mat. Exhale, roll onto your sitting bones, engage the navel and low back in and up as you lift knees and feet higher. Repeat 5 to 10 times, then end in a forward fold from Easy Pose.

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Living Your Truth

Everyone’s favorite supermodel, Brazilian beauty Gisele Bundchen, practices Anusara Yoga. She talks about how yoga kept her fit during her pregnancy in the April issue of Vogue. You can read part of the article here . In it, you’ll learn that her son Benjamin Rein Brady was delivered at home in a water birth, her new line of natural skincare Sejaa (“seja” means “to be” in Portugese) is launching today, and that

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Supermodel Gisele Bundchen loves life and yoga

According to Malcolm Gladwell (whose book “Outliers” I’m devouring right now), the people who are most successful in their fields, like Bill Gates, Canadian hockey stars, and top NYC lawyers, to name a few, all have one thing in common: They have each spent over 10,000 hours involved doing their craft. This isn’t the only indicator of what we in yoga would call “mastery,” but it’s a big one. Now, before I stumbled upon my first yoga class all those years ago, I was pretty close to reaching master status–in dysfunctional relationships. I’m certain I put in nearly 10,000 hours dealing with them, before yoga taught me to get clear about–and steer clear of–toxic partners. I spent the next 15 years quite differently, focusing most of my time and energy on comprehending what yoga meant to me, then clarifying how I could best share my Core Strength message with others. Whenever drama arose in my life, I used it to deepen my practice, not take me away from it. After reading the book, I calculated that I’ve spent about 32,000 hours practicing, translating and teaching yoga. I’m not seeking recognition, though that seems to be a byproduct of making myself accessible through mass media. To me, true success means that one has attained such a deep level of integration with what they’ve practiced that it becomes a part of them, and they can use it to more powerfully share their talents and voice with the world. But, just like the polarities of ha-tha or the sun and moon energies of yoga, developing a deep identification with an activity can become a negative samskara, (ingrained habitual actions). In other words, mastery can have a dark side. Those 10,000 hours can either help you attain your greatest goals–or hold you back from them. It all depends on what you’re practicing. Are you practicing health? Or misery? Today I invite you to notice where focusing the majority of your time, energy, and perspective and start a full-time job of mastering the thoughts, actions, and worldview that will serve you best. Core Question: What are you in the process of mastering? Anxiety? Negative thinking? Or maybe empowerment? Your life’s work? Crow Pose? Abundance thinking? Share your process, and inspire us by your example! Core Pose: Breath of Freedom Lunge — To throw off the weight of old, limiting habits and welcome in the new, come into a High Lunge. Inhale, reach your arms back, palms facing out. Exhale, curl your back and tailbone, tone your navel in, and embrace yourself for a job well done! Repeat 5 times or more, then switch sides.

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Mastery or Misery?

Gov. Robert F. McDonnell signed a

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Historic Legal Decision

I’m reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “Outliers” right now, and boy, does that guy ever know how to change a worldview. Each time I finish one of his books, my perception of life shifts. This time around the book reminded me that everything we come into contact with–whether it’s a relationship, a challenging situation, or even a yoga pose–gives us the opportunity to choose how we want to look at it, and how we’d like to use the energy of it (constructively or destructively) to meet our goals. Gladwell calls this the ability to “customize” our surroundings to meet our needs. In this paradigm, we never again have to be the victim of someone’s choices; instead we become the master of our own design. In order to make this leap, especially when an experience is dragging us down–a bad breakup, for example–we must remember one thing: truth is relative. I kept ‘truth” lowercase on purpose, because the little “t” signifies the things we think, do, and see. In yoga, we call Truth with a capital T “Satya.” Satya is our foundational nature, our birthright of light, love, and inner goodness. When we rest in Satya, we are already that which we seek to become. Our happiness begins to exist independent of external circumstances. Everyday issues lose their power to easily dim the brightness inside us. To access the big “T,” we must remember that we exist in a state of inherent equilibrium–our cells, our breath, our bones, and muscles are all naturally built to balance stability with mobility. For example, in our yoga poses we push past our point of equilibrium, then at some point the body is going to “go polar,” toward too much strength (which will create tension), or too much freedom (which can lead to injury). Life is like this, too. Go polar with how you view it (”I can’t attract money…I’m terrible at relationships…there’s too much competition…that will never work…you did this to me…”), and you’ll be stuck in the diminished worldview of the little “t.” Try to remember, as you look around from day to day, to widen your perspective. Do this by remembering that love and opportunity and capability do surround you, no matter how restricted the options may seem in the moment. They’re not. Practice broadening your view of the world and your place in it, by realizing that much of your truth is relative, or changeable, by you, at any time.   Then, change it to something that empowers you and suits you better. You’ll return to your original Satya-state, and polarity will dissolve back into the clarity and ultimate abundance of true center. And that rocks. Core Tip: Today, walk around as the rock star you really are, and see what a difference it makes! Let us know what happens, and how you’ve changed your truth to serve your goals. Inspire us! Core Pose: Breath of Freedom Lunge In your High Lunge, keep your tailbone and side waist long, reach your arms back, palms facing outward, and breathe. Sweep away old, limiting stories, and invite in all the truth that aligns with your greatest Truth. Be you fully for 5 to 10 breaths here.

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Remembering Truth

I’m going to go ahead and admit it: some days I really, really don’t want to teach. I know–I’m always supposed to be a bright, happy yogi who would rather chop off an arm that have to miss a yoga class, let alone miss the opportunity to make someone else’s day brighter through teaching–but, you know what, some days the natural light and love that brought me to yoga teaching in the first place just cannot find a way to shine through. On those days I grumble and complain and wish I didn’t have to teach and then drag my sorry little behind to the yoga studio. And then a funny thing happens. As my students start to walk in I find my mood lifting. I start to teach and I completely forget all of the reasons I really didn’t want to be there in the first place. And by the end, I almost always leave feeling lighter, happier and wondering why I don’t teach a whole lot more often. That, to me, is the power of teaching. Hopefully my students gain a thing or two from a class but I know that I always, always gain so much from them. Now all I have to do is remind myself of that each time I get the teaching grumps.

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For Those Times When You Just Don’t Want to Teach

If you can walk you can dance, if you can talk you can sing – Zimbabwean Proverb We have been here in Uganda for close to two weeks now and I am in utter bliss!  Throughout this entire trip, each time we make our way to our destination, we are greeted by profoundly joyful songs and dances.  The 20 women chosen to become staff at the Birthing Center created a welcome birthing tunnel of sorts and as each of us danced our way through the greeting lines we were sung to and strung with copious necklaces made of the paper beads that are such a strong part of the commerce and sustainability of this place.  Then as we gathered in the straw thatched round “community house” where community meetings are held and decisions made, we were treated to songs in Swahili and English with each woman introducing herself by singing her name and as the dancing began some of us were plucked out into the center to tie around our waist the fur covered bustle that is made to enhance our behind and shakes like a giant lions tail.  And we in turn sang back …a song we had sung together in yoga that morning…a reminder to be present to the gifts around us…”see through my eyes, sing through my voice, open my heart, to the beauty of the world.”  As we arrived in the Shanti Uganda village for a bonfire and feast under the stars, another procession by the women and children playing plastic water jugs for drums and smiling as they welcomed us into the dance.  Then I brought out my own drum, at first playing with the children as they gathered around and then finally gathering the whole village into a snakelike spiral dance that erupted into applause and celebration.  Later that evening, as I sat by the fire, I tried my own hand at the water container drum and sang with the 15 or so local children, improvising and exchanging nonverbal melody lines in the universal language of sound.  At the New Hope School, a more formal line of boys and girls comprised a chorus that sang a well rehearsed welcome song in English and that stuck in our heads for days “for our God is good and allowed you to come… we are happy to see you today!”  And finally at the Building Tomorrow site, the unforgettable sight of 150 children gathered to meet us and all taking turns at playing whatever rhythm I banged out on the drum right back to me – most with an amazing and natural sense of timing and rhythm.  That same number of kids following Seane and Nikki as they contorted their bodies into the funniest of yoga poses and remembered long sequences of dance moves as led by Victoria (who is now “reinspired” to bring dance to children).  Every day in so many ways, we were surrounded by this unselfconscious expression of the life force and joy of using our bodies and voices as instruments of beauty.  As a musician and teacher I have dedicated my life to helping others find their own voice and feel safe and empowered enough to give it form…and I come up against the fear, self consciousness and perfectionism that keeps all of that truth and beauty stifled and silent.  I have worked to release those critical voices inside of myself and to help others to truly appreciate the joy that comes from creating art in each moment.  I am not talking about the Art that we buy and sell and which must be packaged and sold to the over saturated ears of western culture but the sheer joy of allowing sound and movement to come through us.  The sheer sensuality and aliveness that lies at the heart of each of us…an innocent and childlike voice, a voice that can express the full range of our human experience without thought to how it sounds and with only a willingness toward how it feels.  This, in my opinion is our birthright and this is what brings us closer to our own divinity and this is how I wish to celebrate life in all its glorious complexity and this is what I love.  I will never forget sitting on the red earth of Africa, surrounded with laughing children as we sang song after song into the starry skies together.  More real, more alive and more truly grounded than ever before.  My hope is that every child (and every child inside every adult) can find their own song and know the freedom that can come from allowing that song to be sung – into the beauty of the world.  

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Freedom Song by Suzanne Sterling

Today was my last day with the kids at the Building Tomorrow school construction site. There was a mixture of work and hands on quality time with the children. We brought many activities to engage with them. There was drumming, jump roping, stickers, balloons, bubbles, coloring, singing and many hugs and pictures. It was overwhelming emotionally. I spent about an hour putting stickers on all of the kids and at one point “we are the world” came on the radio…I sang the words to them…”We are the world, we are the children, we are the ones who make a brighter day so let’s start giving. There’s a choice we’re making…we’re saving our own lives. It’s true we make a brighter day, just you and me”. Does everyone remember how it felt to watch that video when it came out? All different singers uniting for a beautiful cause. It was so inspiring, so full of love and life and hope. I just LIVED that video today. It was ME singing those words to these children in Africa. And it was absolutely surreal. This whole experience has been a gift from God. It has opened my eyes, my heart, and has deepened my willingness to connect with myself and others. Thank you to all of you who have participated in my journey. You have effected the lives of so, so many people on a level you will never fully know. God bless you all…

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We are the World by Jennifer Silvestri

“When we are dreaming alone it is only a dream. When we are dreaming with others, it is the beginning of reality.” Dom Helder Camara Only half of Uganda’s children finish primary school. Less than half of those children go on to secondary school, and less than half of those go on to university. I see those statistics and begin to feel hopeless. This week, I saw a rural village in Uganda come together to build a school and I felt nothing but hope. We arrived at the Building Tomorrow work site and were greeted by parents, grandparents, community leaders and, as always, plenty of children who instead of being in school, were showing up to build a school. There were songs, speeches, handshakes, and hugs. Then we all grabbed hoes and we got to work. We spent the next three days side by side in the scorching heat and in the pouring rain. We shared stories, sweat, songs, and laughter and, brick by brick, we built a school that will educate over 400 children each year. These children are not just statistics anymore. They have names and personalities; they have joyful hearts and eager minds…and now, they will have a school. I have never met a child in the U.S. who has built his or her own school. I have decorated my children’s classrooms back home, but I have yet to meet a parent there who has laid the foundation or dug the latrine. As I watched mothers with babies strapped to their backs swinging hoes and young giggling girls balancing bricks on their heads, I knew I was witnessing something more than just a construction site. This was a dream site. This community wasn’t there to build walls with us; they were there to build a dream. A dream that will grow day by day, brick by brick. A dream that will, hopefully, extend beyond those very walls and that small plot of land. A dream that could very well someday change the statistical landscape of Uganda. I feel honored to have lifted a hoe, laid a brick, and shared the dream. We are heading back to the Building Tomorrow work site today. My muscles, physical and emotional, are tired and sore. Like any muscle that has been overworked, my heart is beginning to show signs of fatigue. I wonder how far I can stretch it. I worry that my reach isn’t far enough. I want to hold this pose as long as I can, but I know there are other postures that are just as important. I have children at home who need me too. They have warm beds, clean clothes, plenty of food, and wonderful schools, but they need their mother as much as any of the children here. They are part of the reason I am here. I want them to have dreams, I want them to know they can make a difference, I want them to witness their world up close—even the parts of it that aren’t easy to look at. Our hearts can become weak and lazy if we don’t use them enough. I will keep stretching mine as far as I can while I am here with the children of Uganda. Then I will return home and wrap it around my own children. It takes a village to raise a child. African Proverb Today it took a village to raise a school. I was happy to be a small part of that village. We drove an hour out of Kampala to a rural community where the children either do not attend school or have to walk a great distance each day to do so. We were greeted by a group of perhaps 100 community members. We took turns making bricks, hauling bricks, and laying them down one by one. We worked side by side with children, parents, and grandparents. We watched a wall go up brick by brick, a wall that will one day be part of a school that will serve some 400 children. Today I felt like I was making a difference. I may be just one person, but I am part of a village, a world village.

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Building Tomorrow by Amanda Steurmer

There are hard facts of life here in Uganda. You can find depressing statistics about the incidence of rape, the HIV percentages or the challenge of educating girls.  All have so much effect on what it means to be a women here…but its really not so different at home in North America. Maybe that’s why it was so hard to write this because in all of the women we meet I see my mother and my sister and myself.   There are equally positive statistics to quote about the number of women in government in Uganda and the ways the government is trying to get more girls into post secondary schools and all of the work that the people we meet are doing.   I met with a journalist friend here who is writing about the gay community in Kampala and the proposed new bill. He is looking to write a story on a lesbian who has been raped. I think he was expecting me to be shocked to find out that that is what happens to ‘cure’ lesbianism here. But the rape story has been told over and over and over to us in so many ways that I wasn’t shocked. I just added it to the list of the how’s and the why’s it can be difficult to be a woman. And then we were at a birth. I lack the words to describe the power and the beauty of that experience. This 17 year old girl, who was alone with her sister, who is now a mother has quite a job in front of her.  That baby girl might have the odds against her but I have to be hopeful for her future.   Mothers, sisters, daughters, women get to be all of those. I will get to be all of those. At 32 years old, I did not arrive in Uganda a girl but I feel like I am leaving a woman. I had dinner at a womans house named Bubeera last night.  She lived in a 6′x8′ room with her 10 year old daughter. (her 3 sons hours away with their grandmother). We sat on the floor and ate by lantern light/cell phone flashlight.   She is HIV+.  She is alone and raising her child. She is very very lucky.   Bubeera was chosen out of 600 applicants to be part of Shanti Uganda’s  www.shantiuganda.org <http://www.shantiuganda.org>  income generating group.  They make jewellery out of paper beads which they also make.  This group brought 26 women together chosen for their dire circumstances (to qualify you have to be HIV+, widowed or raising children/grandchildren on your own) and they are taught how to make the jewellery, run a business, and manage money.  They have a self elected leader and full control over all of their profits.  The money they make is used to pay for their homes, send their children/grandchildren to school and to buy better more nutritious food.  Better food improves their health which makes it easier to deal with HIV. So, Bubeera is lucky.   Lucky that she now has some control of her life.  Lucky that she now has some choices.  Her daughter is lucky too…as now she has a chance at going to school. Pardon my over simplification but education is the key to poverty.   They say you educate a woman and you educate a village/nation.  I think you give a girl access to education and you give a girl access to choice.

Read more from the original source:
Women in Uganda by Davian Den Otter