September is National Yoga Month. National Yoga Month was started in 2008 by Johannes R. Fisslinger, with the support from Rachel Levine at the National Institute of Health. Held each September, it’s billed as “an awareness campaign to educate about the health benefits of yoga and to inspire a healthy lifestyle,” according to organizer Sora No. While the month is coming to a close, there are still a lot of free events, concerts, film screenings, Global Malas, and other cool things happening until the end of September. For the culmination of the month, on September 30th the organizers have put together the first annual Time for Yoga Global Community Practice: At 7 pm local time, yoga students are encouraged to practice yoga as an international observance.  “A one-hour yoga practice will be followed by savasana beginning at 8 pm, and a 15 minute meditation for universal peace and well-being at 8:15pm,” explains No. “By participating during your own local time, a wave of yoga will take place around the globe.” Visit the Yoga Month website for events and classes. 

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September 30: Time for Yoga

Over the weekend, Gawker posted this video of yogis demonstrating Acroyoga on a New York Subway. It looks like a good time. But the Gawker writer doesn’t think so. “We do not respect efforts to turn public transportation areas into bourgie personal gyms–or, for that matter, attempts to be ‘funny’ by making ‘jokes’ about the homeless. Way to reinforce a stereotype, you lithe shoeless wonders,” Gawker wrote. Ouch! The commentary might be a little harsh, but does the writer have a point? Is turning yoga into a public performance a pointless attempt to get attention? Or does it simply show a fun and lighthearted side of a serious practice?

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Gawker Calls Out "Yoga Morons" on NY Subway

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

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Sarana Miller

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

It doesn’t really matter where you practice, as long as you do. Right? Right. But having practiced yoga everywhere from a church basement to a plush studio to a mountaintop on the outskirts of Katmandu, there’s something to be said for creating a welcoming atmosphere for spiritual practice. The same goes for creating a nurturing and inspiring place for our children to hang out and play and sleep. When Neil and I had Lucien, we were temporarily living in a sublet in Brooklyn. Arranging Lucien’s “nursery” involved setting up a co-sleeper next to our bed. (He ended up sleeping in our bed those first six months, nestled between a yoga bolster on one side and mommy on the other.) Next, we moved to Vancouver and rented a furnished one-bedroom apartment. Neil set up Lucien’s crib in the walk-in closet of our bedroom, and I put some decals on the wall – an airplane, a pink moose. While I loved exploring new places (we were in New York for Neil’s academic leave from Harvard, and moved to Vancouver for his new job at the University of British Columbia), I couldn’t wait to settle down and make a proper nursery for Lucien. The truth was I was completely envious when I walked into my friends’ baby rooms in Boston and Los Angeles. Poor Lucien in his closet!  Of course, he didn’t care or know the difference. At that age he just wanted to be close to his mama and dada.   When Lucien was almost one, on Halloween, we moved into our house – a fixer upper that came filled with character, potential, and a never ending to do list. My first priority was Lucien’s room. We painted the walls with a non-toxic pale green and yellow paint, bought an  IKEA rocking chair   for his nursing corner, and got him some rolling see-through containers for his toys and books.  Since then, I’ve added and subtracted to the room. At  Collage Collage , where I take Lucien for art class, we picked up posters from local artists. Now that Lucien has weaned, the rocking chair is in the living room, and on our summer vacation on Vancouver Island I came across a super cheap stash of vintage children’s chairs, a handmade wooden table, and some old school books and toys that are now my favorite things in his room. Just as I feel at home and at peace in my upstairs yoga corner, Lucien seems content to hang out in his room for hours- playing, singing, reading books, and just generally chilling in his pajamas. Where in your house or apartment do you – and your children – feel most comfortable, most creative, and most inspired?  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 Room

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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!

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

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Be Here Now

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

The other day at the swimming pool I overheard a conversation that made my heart break. A dad, who seemed well intentioned enough, was trying–at all costs –to get his five-year old son into the water. Now, I understand where this father was coming from. As I wrote about in a recent post [link to swim camp post?], I’ve had my own challenges this summer getting Lucien comfortable with swimming pools.  I’ve tried everything from talking to him about his fears, using music and games, and, I have to admit, even the inducement of a trip to Whole Foods with promise of a wheat free muffin after a swim excursion. But this dad, after offering his own food related reward lost what little patience he had left, and told his son, “Just get in the water! Don’t be a baby!” Needless to say, it didn’t work. I saw something similar at bike camp last week. (Bike camp = three and almost three-year-olds practice on their tricycles or balance bikes for an hour a day for one week, taking lots of breaks for coloring and playing helmut hide-and-seek.) Lucien’s camp mate did not want to get on her bike. The first day she was with her nanny, an older woman who seemed nonplussed by the situation and let the girl be. The next day, Mommy came. And Mommy was bound and determined to have her daughter get on that pink tricycle and take it for a spin. She began with positive inducements (how proud Mommy would be) but quickly went downhill, so to speak, from there.  “If you don’t ride your bike,” she said, “Mommy is going to have to leave you here all by yourself.”  The bike camp counselor and I (she happened to be a young yogi and massage therapist) bit our tongues. I felt awful for both children and was reminded of a yoga class I took in a foreign city that shall remain nameless. Fresh off the plane on my first day in said city I hightailed it to a yoga center in the style I study. Instead of finding a home away from home and relief from tight shoulders post flight, I found an instructor who cajoled, prodded, intimidated, and even occasionally raised his voice at his students. I remember in particular one exercise at the rope wall where I couldn’t quite figure out how to arrange myself. (I’ve never been good at math or driving or spatial relations and my big yoga challenge is arranging my props!) This “teacher” made fun of me to the class–I was shamed, horrified, and though I should have left right then and there, I stayed for the two hour session, feeling worse and worse every minute. That evening, I came down with the flu. Enlightened Motherhood Lesson of the Day: Intimidation and name calling never ever ever work. Should I have said something to that father at the pool or the mother at the bike camp? Would there have been a gentle, yogic, way to offer alternatives to threats and name-calling?   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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Don’t Be a Baby: And Other Things Not to Say to Your Child (Or to Your Yoga Students)

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

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

Remember when Ogden took over at Yoga Journal ? So-Cal yogis with a light sense of humor still have time to  catch the internet sensation series, The Inappropriate Yoga Guy on the big screen tonight! Here’s the details: Tuesday, August 3rd at 5pm Laemmle Sunset 5  8000 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90046 Head over there tonight and check out the five short episodes from when Ogden visited Yoga Journal here .

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Inappropriate Yoga Guy Heads for the Big Screen!

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

We’ve all had days like Alexander’s in the children’s book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. In case you haven’t read it (you should) one thing after another happens from the moment he wakes up: from finding gum in his hair, missing out on the cereal box prize to fighting with his big brother, a trip to the dentist, and having a broken nightlight, Alexander wishes he could forget this mess and simply run off to Australia (me too!)–they don’t have bad days there. As adults, and as yogis, we hopefully have outgrown some of these limited belief systems–but somehow it seems like this “bad day” allowance issue still comes up. We wake up and know this day is going to be off, so it is written off as such. What does science, and yoga have to say about that? Steve Schwartz of LifeHacker checks it out: The brain’s facility to simplify, in most contexts, is very useful and beneficial. Our brains develop symbols, or abstract representations of complex ideas, that allow us to connect the represented ideas with other ideas, and to build upon them, without having to keep the full details of every complex idea at the forefront of our minds. In other words, simplification clears our minds, freeing our brains to draw additional connections and conclusions from complex ideas, data, and experiences. But what happens when we simplify experiences with the wrong symbolic conclusion? This is precisely what happens when we conclude that we are having a bad day. We blame our misfortune on factors outside of our own control, in order to avoid analyzing the real reasons things happened as they did (or perhaps even to eschew our own responsibility). Hence, it is easy for us to believe we’re having a bad day. The obvious downside is that once you accept the convenient conclusion that the entire day is for naught, it will actually cause the rest of your day to go horribly awry. Experiencing the world with negative expectations is like viewing reality through a muddy water glass. Your view will be distorted and you won’t like what you see. Schwartz offers a four-step program on how to not have a bad day any day, most of which sound pretty much like yoga to us. In summary: 1.Reflect on the negative feeling you have right now. (Presence) 2.Re-evaluate the situation or events that lead to this stress. (Perspective) 3. Remember that the outcome of the previous minute is not indicative of the outcome of the next minute. (Avoid Samskaras) 4. There is no number four…get on with your life already! (Yoga is now!) Next time you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, try being present and changing your expectation–just like we do in yoga–and see if you have a wonderful, awesome, not bad, very fantastic day. Because some days are still going to seem like that, even in Australia.

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Got a Bad Case of the Mondays?

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

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

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

My office was burgled (what a lovely sounding word! It sounds like water pouring over rocks in a cool stream) on Friday, while I was in a back room speaking with someone. For the first two hours afterward, I thought, oh, this is just like trying to find the toothpaste on my bathroom counter. That substantial amount of cash is here somewhere. I just can’t find it. When the reality of it sank in, my gut writhed for a few minutes. Until–and this is the yoga part –until I realized this is what is. It is exactly like my hamstrings. They are short. No whining about that helps. No gnashing of teeth, no “why did this happen to me”, no “I should have done this or that”. My hamstrings are short. The money is gone. Can’t do much about it. Except. Except that I can look at the situation gently, and positively, and with a lot of love for myself. I can soothe my gut by contemplating the good things that might come from this. I can dwell on how lucky I am to be safe, happy, and engaged in work that will never land me in jail where the food is bad and my yoga props might be confiscated. A sense of humor comes back to me. Which, strangely, helps me wish my burglar friend well. For him (it turns out I met him before, which is why I know he is a him), I wish peace, well being, a relaxed gut, and good life choices ahead. In fact, I’ll go all out and say I wish long hamstrings for him. Somehow I know my own flexibility on this point will help both of us. Here’s what yoga is teaching me: What is, is. I do better when I let go. Looking at everything with peace and love makes it all better. It turns a burglary into water pouring over rocks in a cool stream. How cool is that? Has yoga done this to you, too? Thanks to yoga for the alchemy in this, 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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Burgled!

Feeling a little burnt out on your yoga practice? How about a little inspiration for your practice from a few of the greats? Check out Krisnamacharya’s totally zen moving Sarvangasana (Shoulderstand)! And from Mr. Iyengar himself: Who, or what, inspires your practice?

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Old School Yoga

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

testing Green Living Blog

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Green Living Blog test

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

1.Do your hamstrings become close to the same length at any point? 2. Have you found clothes that contain your gut while doing Downward Dog? (Perhaps you don’t have a gut anymore.) 3. How long did it take you to get the bandha thing going? 4. (This is directly related to #3) Can you lift your bum and legs off the ground when doing Uttitha Padmasana? How long did it take you to learn that?  (Are your arms disproportionately long by any chance?) 5. Has anyone ever snapped a hip in two doing Pigeon Pose?   6. Do you like yourself more, now, than you did before starting yoga? (I do, for the most part. Something to do with the daily determination to be kind to myself, I suspect.) 7. Do you fantasize about teaching yoga? Classes at sunrise? In temples? In India? (If you currently teach yoga in temples in India, do you fantasize about teaching yoga at sunset in Machu Picchu?) I do. I have long, flowing hair and long, flowing hamstrings in these fantasies. 8. Does yoga elbow its way into all of your conversations? (For example, your dentist says you need to replace a crown. You say, that reminds me of forward bends in class today. Your dentist doesn’t understand.)  Most of the people in my life hope this wears off at some point.  9.  Do you still love it?  As much as you did when you were new? That last one is the one that matters to me most. I’d love to hear that it’s possible to love this for the rest of my life. Thanks to yoga for inspiring questions, and thanks to you for the conversation.

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Questions for Yogi Experts

I think yoga is a sport, just like the World Cup. Hear me out. Tuesday was one of those days. I love yoga, love my home practice, love class, but there are some days, some weeks, even, when it all goes off the rails.   This is one of those weeks. I’ve been in hotels two weekends in a row, I’ve seen my share of drive-through windows over those weekends, and my hotel practice has been less thorough than my home practice. I’ve been away so much that my dog rolls her eyes when I come home. The result is that my body and spirit are tired, chunky, and unsociable.   It took Olympian determination to get myself to yoga class on Tuesday. It was touch-and-go all morning. I kept thinking, “I can go home for a break, I can eat, I can read, I can get some work done, I can sit here and stare out the window for an hour.” Most of these options looked much more appealing than going to class. (It’s possible some of you never feel this way. I am determined to like you anyway.) By the grace of Whatever, I get changed, get in my car, and drive to the studio. I lie down, and almost immediately I could cry, I am so happy. Class starts. My left hamstrings have shrunk considerably over the weekend, somehow, I have NO balance, my thighs and rear end burst at the inadequate seams of my formerly roomy yoga pants, and still there is no place I’d rather be. This is where the World Cup comes in.   When we go to class on these days, I think our teachers should welcome us at the door with big, glossy medals. “Would you like a medal today?”  “Yes,” I’d say. “Bronze, silver or gold?” “Are you joking? Do you have any idea how far I’ve come today?The French fries and pizza I have overcome, the hotel coffee, the hours in the car, the dog’s face, and lethargy the size of an oil spill? Give me the gold, absolutely. I am the champion of the world today.” There are days when we should all have medals around our necks. Thanks to yoga for making me show up, and thanks to you for the conversation. Kristin Shepherd is a chiropractor, actor, writer, and workshop wonderwoman in North Bay, Ontario.  Join her at kristinshepherd.ca or on Facebook at Dr. KristinShepherd.

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Champion Yogis

Two fantastic things occurred over the last 24 hours. 1. We experienced an earthquake yesterday. Very exciting. It lasted 26 seconds. The dog growled for a few seconds, and the antennae on the TV shook for a full minute. In fact, the quake shook much of the province, which was wonderful, because it led to phone calls with my mother in Ottawa and my sister in Toronto. It’s the kind of thing everyone wants to talk about.  2. I tried naked yoga this morning. My goal was to last longer than 26 seconds. There is no doubt I was shaken more by the naked yoga than the quake. If you haven’t tried it, if your dad is British, say, and you’re uneasy in short sleeves, if you wear flannel clown pants to bed every night and peel your socks off during the middle of the night as you become unbearably hot–if you do all of that–well, we can talk. (If this isn’t you and you’re the type who goes naked to the movies, you have no idea what I’m talking about. In my next life I’ll be just like you.) The first 26 seconds are spent dismayed by the complex surface of my thighs, which look as though they have undergone several earthquakes of their own. Then I forget about them, perhaps because it is hotter this morning than it’s been all summer, and as humid as cottage cheese. My first forward bend makes me sweat. I make it to 40 minutes, naked. I put my clown pants back on for seated postures, to avoid rug burn, I say to myself. I conclude that this naked thing is no big deal. And then something unexpected happens. I move off the rug and onto the wood floor for Savasana. And, oh, oh, oh, the floor is as cool as ice cream on my poached back, so cool that I take my clown pants off again for the last couple of minutes. I press my low back into the floor and when I relax it makes a deep, suction-y, rumbling, farting sound that is the best thing I have EVER heard during my practice.  A soft, funny earthquake of my very own. I am CERTAIN you have things to teach me about your naked (or not) home practice. My ears are quaking. Thanks to earthquakes, to cool floors, and to you for the conversation. Join Kristin at kristinshepherd.ca or on Facebook at http://kristinshepherd.ca

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An Earth Moving Experience

As our nation turns to backyards, barbecues, burgers, bright colors and explosions in the sky, it seems appropriate to celebrate independence in a personal way as well. Perhaps with some yoga? Independence. Freedom. Liberation. Moksha. Most cultures take time to celebrate a form of letting go and feeling open and alive to possibility, and it seems the height of summer is the perfect time for this expression. Your pores are open and warmed by the sun, encouraging your body to release, the days are long and, in most places, the weather is inviting.  What do we, in this modern day, need to do to disentangle ourselves from our oppressors?  What are our oppressions anyway, and why do we feel tangled in the first place? Yoga can help answer all of the above. I woke up with Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” in my head: “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.” This will be my mantra in practice this weekend. Any obstacle I perceive has been placed there by me, and I can also choose to remove it. My morning yoga practice, of course, will be my revolution. Today I celebrate independence from the mind stuff, vritti .  I will not allow myself to be worried about the extra traffic caused on a Friday before a holiday weekend…or the longer lines at the grocery store, or the wait at the bank or how crowded it will be at the park and the beach. These things are fun and they are choices. I will enjoy my liberation with breath, movement, and maybe a little reggae. How will you liberate yourself this weekend? Check out the accidental yogist if you’re in SoCal and looking for studios that are celebrating their independence. Erin Chalfant is a writer, yoga teacher and the Web Editor at Yoga Journal.

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Independence Day

In the midst of wedding season, it seems like a good time to think about what we are committing to when we gaze longingly at our mat or wish we had more time for Namaskar-ing at sunset. In chapter five of the Bhagavad Gita : “The resolute in yoga surrender and gain perfect peace; the irresolute, attached to results, are bound by everything they do.” So, we’ve got to resolutely let go? Sounds tricky. Even if we can conceptualize this, how is it applied and how do we live this truth on and off the mat? Susan Piver at the Huffington Post seems to have hit it right on the yoga toes. Not sure if she does asana on a mat, but she certainly sounds like a yogi in this reflective blog written on her twelfth wedding anniversary. “It’s just now, 12 years later, that I’m finding out what, apparently, I said yes to. I said yes to the unfolding, impenetrable arc of uncertainty. I guess I thought that finding love was an endpoint, that some kind of search was over and I would find home. We would leap over the threshold together into whatever we imagined our ideal cottage to be. But really we stepped through a crazy looking glass. It seems that I committed to a lifetime of delight and sadness, inseparable from each other. Every time I look into my dear one’s eyes and feel how deeply we’re connected, the moment disappears before I can actually hold it–and I have to watch that happen. It’s excruciating. It’s much easier to do this with your thoughts when you’re meditating than with the feeling you get from his breath on your shoulder as you fall asleep. But now I get that I have to repeat this until the end of my life, and that somehow this is love’s road. I didn’t really understand that love does not arise, abide, or dissolve in connection with any particular feeling. It has almost nothing to do with feeling. (Nor does it seem to be a gesture, a commitment to stay, becoming best friends, or anything else I might have thought.) Love has become a container in which we live. Through time, riding mysterious waves of passion, aggression, and ignorance (and boredom), I think we began to live within love itself. At least I did. E ach time I have opened up, extended myself, accepted what was being offered to me, stepped beyond my comfort zone to embrace him, the structure has been reinforced. I no longer have any idea if I love my husband or not. I can’t imagine what the feelings I have for him could be called. I’ve even given up trying to love him. Our relationship is what gives us love, not the other way around. This is how it is. And if you’re looking for a crucible in which to heat compassion, this is a really good one. Someone once told me that compassion is the ability to hold love and pain together in the same moment. So at least we’re learning something, which is what I tell myself. When you find your true love, there is something inside that simply and inexplicably says hello to him. Yes to him. Of course to him. Certainly. Obviously it’s you. There is no choice. I do.” Are you ready to commit or re-commit to your practice?  What poses do you use to remind yourself to commit to surrender? I like Ardha Chandrasana for this balance. Whether you’re getting married this summer, attending a commitment ceremony or finaly ready to take the leap with yoga, this article on celebrating with meaning may help get you in the mood. Erin Chalfant is a writer, yoga teacher and the Web Editor at Yoga Journal.

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I do Yoga

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?

You’ve probably heard at least something about the record breaking three-day tennis math between the United States’ John Isner and France’s Nicolas Mahut, but you may not have heard about the interview with Isner where he clearly qualifies himself as a yogi–immersed in willful intention without concern for results. “Especially once the match got past, you know, 25-all, I wasn’t really thinking,” said Isner. “Hitting a serve and trying to hit a forehand winner is the only thing I was doing.” When it did conclude, Isner dropped down to the court, rolled on his back and kicked his legs in the air–sounds like Ananda Balasana (Happy Baby Pose) to us. And we aren’t the only ones feeling inspired by Isner’s presence; Matt Harvey has put out all call for people to tweet tennis inspired haikus to his account @wimbledonpoet. To watch highlights: ESPN Sports And to write a haiku about it: @wimbledonpoet

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John Isner: Yoga Champion

Yesterday I was a part of the world’s largest yoga class–10,000 yogis all neatly and peacefully arranged on the Great Lawn in Central Park. I was also fortunate enough to be behind the scenes for the two days leading up to the event, and I’d like to give you a peek inside! I was there to be included in a documentary about the day, as well as filming a scene for a TV show, and would be one of the lucky yogis practicing onstage along with my good friend and leader of the park’s practice, Elena Brower. I arrived Monday at the Flavorpill offices to pick up my practice outfit (hello, Addidas and corporate sponsorship!) and be prepped by Ava Taylor, my manager and founder of Yoga Artist’s Management Agency (YAMA). Sascha Lewis, Flavorpill co-founder, was the mastermind behind this event, just like the massive yoga class at the MoMa in January. The office was abuzz with last-minute organization, yogis streaming in an out to get their assistant outfits, and film crews coming to set up their Tuesday with us. I thought the stress of last-minute responsibilities would be crushing. But still, the mood was buoyant, and everyone had a smile on their faces, even and especially Sascha, who was taking a moment in the midst of the melee to make an avocado and almond butter smoothie. I can report that everyone held their centers even when no one was looking. On Tuesday, I got to the Carlyle Hotel, where the yogis who would be on stage, including Duncan Wong, Maya Feinnes, Angela Clark and more, were invited to have our hair and makeup done  (I think Duncan passed on that last offer). It was a moment of Zen in the shampoo chair, then back into the fun, as 20 amazing yoga instructors and personalities shared their perspectives and lives with one another.  We laughed, we learned, and most of all, we gave one another heartfelt support as we walk the path of teaching this healing practice to the world. Our smiles got even wider when we arrived at Central Park (after a full day already of meetings, filming and more organizing) to see the thousands of brightly-colored yogis flooding into the park. I saw so many people I knew from years past, it was like a karmic family reunion!   Dharma Mittra was gracious and wise as I interviewed him for the documentary, telling us that he wasn’t nervous to teach, because he doesn’t look out and see 10,000 people, but rather, one beautiful soul ready to receive his knowledge—and it’s easy to teach to one. Yes, there was a huge thunderstorm that coincided with our first, thunderous OM, and yes, Elena was only able to lead us through one partial Surya Namaskar, making it not only the largest yoga class on record, but perhaps the shortest too, but let me tell you something–it rocked nonetheless. As yogis, we’d been in alignment far before we ever stepped on those mats. I witnessed first hand how from the office to the hotel to the park, people were working together, seeing the good in any setback, and handling it all with grace. I was there as teachers from wildly different belief systems bowed to each other and respected their differences even as they found common ground. And thankfully, I was there as our community at large swept over the Great Lawn in a flood, covering what was a baseball field earlier in the day it with mats and bodies and hearts open and as excited to be there together. The storm couldn’t ruin our yoga–the day was the yoga, and all the days before. The postures were just extra credit. Here’s a pose we did yesterday that you might recognize. When you enter it, remember to let gratitude expand the heart, for all the opportunities, support, and love you do have all around you, and inside. Then after you practice, hold on to that aspect of you that is perfectly capable of being the change you wish to create in yourself, and in your world…whether it’s behind the scenes, or standing up there in the spotlight. Namaste! Core Pose: High Cobra   A teacher friend used to call this “Teenage Cobra” because it’s more grown up than Baby Cobra, but not quite as much as a full Urdhva Mukha Svanasana, or Upward-Facing Dog. From Plank Pose, you’ll lower yourself to the floor slowly, knees up or down. Make sure your elbows are directly over your wrists, and shoulders lifted. Your low belly and front thighs should pull towards the sky as you lower to provide more stability and less dropping out of the posture as you transition. Once there, do an alignment check. Your palms are by the low ribs, preserving the right angle of your arms. Let’s start from the ground up: firm your pointed feet into the earth, carve your tailbone toward the floor, and on an exhale, draw that lower belly in and up the spine as you press into the mat with your palms and begin to rise to your spine’s capacity. Think not of jutting the ribs forward to achieve the open-hearted look of this pose, but rather, as you ground the hands downward, wave upward along the front of your spine as it moves back into the body and up towards your crown. This will generate the movement from your pelvic core, a place of inner power and support that can sustain that open heart from a safe and healthy root. Once your chest opens, you should be ready for your inhale–let it flare your ribs wide in all directions. Roll your shoulders back naturally and take the shoulder blades down the back slightly to support your chest lifting like two helping hands behind the heart.   Your head slides back and up with a natural neck curve, completing the graceful curve of this asana without risking cervical (neck spine) compression. You’re free, open, and available for life in every moment. That’s the yogi way.  

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The Great Rain-out

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

Years ago, a friend named Tracy offered me an acting tip that has become part of every on-and-off-stage day of my life. It also affects my yoga. We were in a play called Good Night Desdemona. I had to travel through time each night by disappearing through an absurdly small garbage can into, well, into the past to meet both Desdemona and Juliet. I climbed towers, faught with swords, was nearly strangled by Desdemona, and iambic pentameter-ed my way through seven enormous monologues that would have humbled Hamlet. It was a monster of a challenge. On more than one night, I cursed myself for getting something wrong–missing lines, breaking my sword (tough to fight convincingly with a sword stump), not projecting my lines from under the pillow Desdemona used to suffocate me, etc. One night, Tracy (Desdemona) heard me whacking myself to smithereens at intermission. “No way,” she said. Gotta stop that. She said we can’t afford to criticize ourselves. It takes us out of our story, out of our best skills, and it ruins our relationship with other actors and our audience. It ruins our relationship with everything to come. Practice instant forgiveness, she says. It’s the best tool there is for an actor. Everything starts again now. This morning, in a seated forward bend, I thought, holy Toledo, my hamstrings are tight. Not enough yoga and too many butter tarts yesterday. (I don’t see the relationship between the two, now, but they felt completely connected this morning.) And right behind it, like a great actor on cue, I thought; instant forgiveness, honey. Everything starts again now. Which saved the show. Thanks to Tracy for the acting lesson, and thanks to you for the conversation. Kristin practices yoga, theatre, public speaking, writing, and chiropractic in North Bay, Ontario, at kristinshepherd.ca and at Dr. Kristin Shepherd on Facebook.

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Everything Starts Again Now

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

Hundreds of fellow yogis celebrated the Solstice in Times Square , and Yoga Journal was on the scene. Dana Flynn from Laughing Lotus and Alanna Kaivalya taught to hundreds of eager yogis in the heart of the city that never sleeps. If one can yoga here, one can yoga anywhere. Here’s a preview of some blissful yogis…stay tuned for more updates in the coming days. Did you go to this event? Share your thoughts below and post your images to our Facebook page.

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Solstice Yoga in Times Square

Last night in New York City, I met my manager and a few others for a business meeting and afterward we went to visit a friend whose band was playing in Tribeca. It was a French bistro and they were playing Latin music.   When we arrived, no one was dancing, a contrast to every other place in the city where they pack the dance floors. The music was good enough to make a meditating monk get up and boogie. Yet still, according to the band, it’s dead like this every week despite their efforts. So my girlfriends and I, yogis all, did what we had to do. We put our purses down and created a dance floor of our own. Within 10 minutes, 20 other people came out there with us–the same ones who supposedly never dance–filling the space, and having a great time. It stayed like this for the next 2 hours until a grateful and sweaty band was packing up to go. Where as the restaurant manager was telling them to keep it down earlier in the evening, he was clapping and supporting the party by the end. He was even up there with us at one point, shaking it like a Polaroid picture. One of the band members approached us afterward and said, “It’s so much better for us to have an energy exchange we can draw from. Thank you for being in such a state of perpetual celebration!” That beautiful phrase struck me, and I realized that in order to create fun, adventure and magic wherever we go, we can each cultivate our lives into becoming constant expressions of our vitality and gratitude. The yogi understands that their innermost state is one of perpetual celebration, and then sets about doing the work it takes to keep themselves readily available to that source of love and light. If we are always dancing on the inside, then why is it so incredibly challenging to access that feeling? After all, life doesn’t always provide us with a bistro and a great band. We are sometimes asked to seek our vibrant center in the midst of heartache, grief and the stress of uncertainty. How can we find the beat when there doesn’t seem to be music at all? We can look to the yoga asanas for a clue. Our teachers ask us to enter into intense situations–like holding Warrior Two for what seems like an eternity. Then we are directed to channel the big energy of those sensations into something that lights us up, and moves us towards sparking more transformation instead of less. We do this in part by learning to understand our satya , or truth, at its most distilled essence. A more superficial reaction might tell you that your burning quads are uncomfortable, and that could be true. But it’s not your ultimate Truth, which, upon reflection, might help you see that besides being uncomfortable, that Warrior Pose is also giving you the opportunity to be powerful. Yogis don’t run away from the fire of our existence. We walk straight through. And sometimes, if we lack outer support, like that night on the empty dance floor–we simply have to go first. I remind my students that they are more than exercisers. They are conduits, channeling the heat of their inherent life force, prana, toward their most passionate expressions of who they are. This results in a strong, supple body, a mind able to focus on what matters, stories that we re-write to be empowering, and engaging in one of the  foundational practices of yoga–dissolving resistance to our greatness wherever we find it. In this way, yogis face down any fear, any difficulty and endure the sensations of suffering until they find a way to use it to their advantage. Even if no one else is on the dance floor with you and you feel alone, your heart is breaking or people are disappointing your expectations, you can dive into that perpetual celebration inside, and even through your tears, bow to your next doorway to wisdom, integrity and living out loud. Say “thank you” first–then, get to dancing! Core Pose: Dancing Fan Pose This is a favorite variation on Fan Pose, one I use whenever I want to loosen up my legs, and access my creative source energy that can too often become constricted by tight hips. Come into Fan, feet parallel, and spaced wide enough apart so you can bring your palms to the floor or onto a block. Begin to bend one knee, and stretch into the inner thigh of the straighter leg even as you build heat in the bent one. Make sure to maintain healthy alignment with your knees always facing the same direction as your toes. You can get more wild and free with this movement, swaying from side to side as one leg bands, then the other, or try a longer hold if you’re loving the stretch. This will help you remove obstacles to your inherent sense of play, freedom and ability to dance  anywhere, any time. Do Dancing Fan for one minute or more.  

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Perpetual Celebration

I love yoga because of its solitary nature. An early morning coffee, my lovely man and dog still in bed, me shuffling to the living room in pajama pants and a t-shirt. Darkness in winter, green grass and blue lake in front of me in summer. This is good, good, good. The other side of this is that I often have elaborate get-togethers during my practice. This morning was like this. My daughter is in China. I miss her beautiful face. So, during Warrior II, I reach my fingertips forward and back and imagine my arms growing, circling the world until I can hold her face with both hands. In seated forward bends, I think of one of my best friends, Riesa, who lives on the other side of the country. She taught me some of my favorite forward bends ten years ago. I miss her voice today. My mom shows up when I’m trying to open my hips. I suspect we’d both love to be more flexible with each other. And at the end of my practice, when the time comes to offer the fruits of practice to someone who might benefit (we do this in class, sometimes), I send my love and thanks to Nancy, a theater friend who passed away recently. She was still here when I came back to yoga 8 or 9 months ago. I got into the habit of sending her strength and courage and just kept on after she passed away. My hope is she’s out there somewhere, happy to receive the love. Who knew home practice could be such a gathering place? It also makes me wonder who you’re with when you practice.  I’d love to hear. Thanks to yoga for uniting us all, 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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Union

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?

Last night I did something I never thought I’d do in a million years. I quit teaching. More specifically, I’ve stopped teaching my public classes during the week. This is a very big deal for me. I have been holding weekly classes at various studios for 15 years, and it’s so surreal that next week no classroom will await me. There are, however, a lot of other things on my plate and I’m going to now use the time between teaching workshops to focus on taking care of the details that maintain my career: writing, planning curriculum, creating new content, and making meetings. I’d also like to fit in a social life! I know that I’m lucky and blessed to be making this decision at all. Yet walking away from my classes was a real challenge for me. I adore my students, many of whom have been with me for years, and at any other time in my career, I would have been over the moon to have a room full of eager faces awaiting me each night. But it’s not doing anyone any favors when I’m gone for three weeks at a time. You just can’t cultivate consistent relationships that way. I find that the more I work toward my dreams, the reality of living my yoga gets more intense. The types of choices I must make have shifted that way too. It used to be that my options were more clear-cut, between something I wanted and something I didn’t. For example, I once had to pick whether I wanted to become a telemarketer for a tobacco company or teach yoga at a popular studio. Now, as I refine my options, it’s getting tougher to tell which road is best. Like this choice: Giving up my weekly classes in order to fully focus between travel engagements, or trying to do it all and reaping the benefits of every possible teaching opportunity. It’s often easier when the choices life presents to us are no-brainers, but how do we navigate the ones that are confusing? Yoga teaches us that there can be bhavana, or a healing quality, to the choices we make and actions we take. I say “can be” because we also have the power to choose the path of duhkha, or suffering. In my own experience, I see each fork in the road as an opportunity to do something that’s either constructive or destructive to my ultimate goals of creativity, health, love, and happiness. And, like anything in life, which direction your next step follows depends on a variety of factors. You must take into account your goals, core values, state of vitality, personal needs, other opportunities, and your current circumstances. A year ago, giving up my classes would have been ludicrous and potentially harmful to my goal of teaching only yoga. But now, the responsibility and energy they require is keeping me from giving my full attention to the other responsibilities I’ve taken on. When you keep moving towards bhavana, and walking the way of more life, more love, and more freedom, you’ll begin to see that even the most seemingly unclear choices suddenly come into sharper focus. Do you want the chocolate cake or the salad? The answer to both questions may be yes, each for good reasons. But which is going to invite in your highest, most integrity-filled and conscious self-expression? It depends. And which choice is right, right now, is entirely up to you. Core Pose: Root Release I teach this posture to help students access the healing energy at their source. You can do it between poses or any time you want to unlock and unleash the creative, nourishing, vital force that’s found in the pelvic area. Lie on your back. Bend your knees and cover your kneecaps with your palms. Press down strongly on your knees so the thighbones deepen into the hip joints. You want to ground through the leg bones, not pull the knees into your chest as you do in some other poses. Relax your legs and hips completely, and, maintaining the downward pressure on your knees, roll your legs in circles, shake them out, and dissolve any areas of tension you might have accumulated during your practice or your day. Enjoy the root release for one minute then move on to your next adventure.  

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Making the Tough Choices

My husband Neil–an exceptionally dedicated father, and an equally dedicated workaholic–goes to yoga class on Sunday mornings. This is a miracle ten years in the making. While Neil has always loved the feeling of stretching himself out in an asana class, finding the time in his busy schedule has been a struggle. The only time he attended class faithfully was years ago when I was teaching yoga in the evenings down the road from the college where he was a professor. For a long time after that, Neil would take a class here and there, or very occasionally practice at home, but he never managed to build in a regular practice. Neil, a sociologist, loves his work, and he works very hard. He also puts in a lot of time with Lucien. Unlike me, he never takes the occasional Saturday afternoon to meet a friend, go on a bike ride, or read in the hammock for an hour–on the weekends he’s either hanging out with the family, doing errands for us, or working. With little-to-no personal downtime, I knew how much yoga could help him. The physical benefits of asana practice would be a perfect antidote to his hours at the computer, and the peace of resting in Savasana at the end of class might be the only complete relaxation he’d have all week. But there’s no forcing someone into a yoga practice. Sure, Neil wanted to find time for yoga class, but he wanted to be with Lucien and me and work more. Much more. Every so often, though, I’d bring up the topic. “Wouldn’t you like to…?” I’d ask him, suggesting an evening level 1/2 class offered by my teacher.  But I didn’t push–not too hard, anyway. On his own, after some trial and error, Neil finally found a class that works for him. It’s a Sunday morning “men’s class” at my Iyengar center. At first we worried about losing our Sunday morning family time–the one morning of the week we all have together, since I often take Saturday mornings to catch up on my writing and on the laundry.  We needn’t have worried.  “Daddy doing yoga,” as Lucien calls it when Neil heads to class, has had an entirely positive effect on our family. And Neil doesn’t need to be convinced to go, either! While he hasn’t made it to class every Sunday morning (see my previous posts on how sick we’ve been!), he has gone most mornings since signing up. Lucien and I use the time to host a play date in the backyard, or just to be together. Neil comes home by noon–rejuvenated, rested, relaxed and ready for the week. 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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Daddy Does Yoga

Photo: Rows of lettuce and greens growing in our vegetable garden. Growing up, I struggled with my weight. I used food for comfort and companionship, taking bowls of potato chips and pistachio nuts to my room where I’d hide out from my unhappy home–eating, reading, and dreaming of my escape.  Throughout my teens and early twenties, I bounced between “good” periods of eating relatively well and exercising moderately and “bad” phases when I’d eat bagels and cream cheese for dinner, and then again for desert.  As you’d imagine, my weight went up and down–I was sometimes thin, often chubby, and occasionally undeniably overweight. When I was 29, I did some serious soul-searching, turned my life around, and lost the excess weight once and for all.   As I chronicle in my book (see below for info.), yoga and yoga philosophy helped me dig my way out of depression, and change my relationship with food.   I’m 38 now and, thankfully, food is no longer a struggle for me.  I eat when I’m hungry, favoring whole grains and lentils and vegetables and fruits, with the occasional splurge on pizza or a chocolate croissant.  The suburban girl who didn’t eat or know much about vegetables is now a gardening mom, growing carrots and kale and lettuce and spinach in the backyard.  Having struggled with food and body image issues, I’m committed to helping my son Lucien develop a healthy relationship to food.  That’s easier said than done. Lucien is a relatively adventurous eater, trying tortillas and pakoras when we’re out, chomping on cooked carrots and brown rice and beans and tofu slices at home.  A snack for Lucien is a brown rice cake and cheese, not a bag of chips or cookies.  So far, so good, right?  But life with Mommy is one thing, and then there’s the “real” world.  A child at morning daycare celebrates a birthday by bringing in cupcakes with enough sugar to make Lucien skip his afternoon nap; a friend comes over with a packaged and processed snack Lucien has never seen before, but desperately wants to try.  I don’t want him to be afraid of food, or think of certain foods as forbidden.  But at the same time I believe his diet is a crucial component of his physical and emotional health. Those whole grains and veggies and dairy and lentils are his daily vitamins–literally.   Things will get more complicated, I know, when he gets a little older.  He doesn’t yet know about McDonalds, hasn’t tried candy, or heard about soda.  My plan? To keep the fridge, pantry (and garden) stocked with healthy food, and show him how yummy it can be to eat like mommy and daddy.  I’ll keep you posted, and I’d love to hear how you’re coping with feeding your toddlers a yogic diet. 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 Eating for Toddlers

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

That’s the question I’m asking myself this week, in the quiet space between traveling to California last week and heading to the Midwest this week where I’m teaching Core Strength workshops. I’m blessed to have so many invitations, but it’s easy for me, in my exuberance about what I do, to over commit and give out too much. Then I end up depleted, with emails piling up and other projects lagging behind. Not to mention neglecting my own practice and nourishment. I must have had two hot chocolates a day in Los Angeles as I ran between meetings. It’s great for the soul, but not so much for the body. I’m realizing that there is a fine line between doing something you love, and doing too much of it. On Facebook, there’s an interesting conversation about how challenging it can be when you’re in love to hold your center and not lose yourself. It’s simple to slip into the habit of giving to and receiving from your partner, but not to and from yourself, which is a necessary component of core strength. When I teach yoga, I see students who strive for the next, best pose, but sometimes cross the line from strengthening into aggression, or from a healthy stretch into destabilization. Yoga only became mainstream a few years back, and now that we’ve transformed and become long, lean, and strong, how do we proceed? By doing and stretching more? All of this is the same lesson, actually. There has to be a time in yoga, in love, and in life when enough is enough. When our bodies are strong and our flexibility is in balance. When our hearts are full of love for someone else. And when we’ve broken through our resistance to live from our passion. But then what? Eastern philosophies like Buddhism teach us about the Middle Way, the road of balance. In yoga, we might call this alignment, the place between giving too much and keeping too much. Where we’re relaxed enough, powerful enough, and therefore, ultimately free. In my own practice, which on a good day lasts the other 22.5 hours that I’m not on a mat, I turn to the yogic principle of asteya , which means “nonstealing.” At first glance, it might seem to have little to do with what I’ve shared here, but its alternate meaning is “integrity.” Think of someone who embodies integrity to you. I bet they’re generous with their time and love, and they probably love what they do. In addition, they are uniquely themselves, treat themselves as they would their closest loved one, and don’t allow that inner attention to be drained outwards. Next time you’re in a yoga pose, notice the state of your energy. Are you stealing what you need from yourself by going too far? In relationships, can you maintain your own life, and also not drain too much attention from another person because it feels so good to have them love you? Are you so focused on creating your life’s work that you move out of integrity and stop nourishing your relationships with friends and family? By bringing awareness to the places where steya , or stealing, occurs, we can take actions that move us away from suffering, fatigue. and resentment, and re-tip the scales in favor of the integrity of true center. CORE POSE : Ardha Matsyendrasana  (Half Lord of the Fishes Pose) When I approach this pose, I think of the proverb: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Practice this asana any time you need a reminder to turn inside to empower yourself or to hold center even as you engage in all your many offerings of the heart. Come to sitting and cross your right foot to the outside of your left thigh. To begin the twist, ground your left elbow into the top of your right knee (not your thigh) to create length in your spine. From this place of spinal integrity, begin to revolve your heart center to your right. Let your gaze follow. Make sure that your hips and navel continue to face forward, and only express the pose as much as needed to stay centered in the foundation. Take 5-10 breaths here then release and repeat on the other side.      

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When is Enough Enough?

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

Spoiler alert: This post is for viewers who have already seen the series finale of LOST.  Did you see last night’s Lost finale ? Help me out here, fellow yogis. Having struggled (largely in vain) to follow all the abstruse clues and connections throughout the show’s six-year history, I was tempted–in the end–to draw a very simple conclusion. Here it is: The characters on the island were there to burn off their karma and get liberated–not just from the island, but from the wheel of incarnation altogether. Forget good and evil, black smoke and white smoke, polar bears and logoed sharks, the Dharma Initiative and the “others,” and all those other distractions. In the end, they were simple window dressing. The real story for these characters was–as it always is–internal. They were waking up, realizing interconnection, and learning that the self is eternal, transcending time and place and circumstance. (That dance we saw between the truth of “none of this matters” and “all of this matters”–pure Tantra.) By the time they gathered in that chapel at the end–did you get a glimpse of that groovy stained glass window with the Om symbol?–they were beyond the cycle of birth and death. (”There is no ‘now’ here,” Jack’s dead father, Christian explained.) They were not just drenched in the white light of the island’s heart, but rather completely enlightened. Do you agree? Have an alternative theory? Share your thoughts: What the heck WAS that all about; sounds like yoga to me, but what do you think?

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Finding Yoga in LOST Finale

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

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

I know what you’re thinking… harem pants, really? Really! I love them and I know you can pull them off.  I also adore this yoga mat bag-finally a bag large enough to fit my yoga mat, towel, and whatever else I need to pack in there. the details: Carry All Yoga Bag, Prana Seamless Carefree Cami, Be Present Harem Pant, Athleta Inspire Bracelet, Fossil Harmony Yoga Mat, Jade Yoga   eQua Yoga Towel, Manduka   Tree Garden Curtain, Urban Outfitters   –Ali Zeigler

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Wish I was Wearing: Tangerine Threads

On Mother’s Day, I spent the morning at a workshop about the breath and spine taught by my mentor, Leslie Kaminoff. I thought it a fitting tribute to the feminine energy to hear about removing obstacles to our foundational balance, which is a very yin (feminine) journey; not one of pushing or over-striving, but of gentleness, introspection, and nurturing.   This is something my Type A side resisted for years.   When I first began studying with Leslie at the Breathing Project in New York City, I wasn’t interested in a deeper practice of pranayama. I just wanted to know what was the optimal way to breathe in yoga. Ujjayi? No Ujjayi? From the belly? With the bandhas? Which bandhas? Through the nose, the mouth, belly or chest? And how?   Like a master instructor would, he spent the next few months handing my questions right back to me without answering them definitively.   In fact, he actively tried to get me to experience my own breath in all its different forms, and let it be my ultimate teacher.   It was maddening.   However, once I learned to quiet my mind and stop controlling my breath, and allowed it to speak to me instead of always the other way around, I had my answer: There is no one perfect way to breathe in yoga.   In fact, there are innumerable ways to approach the breath. We can stop and start it, hold or release it, and send it where we want it to go. We can also do nothing at all, and simply let ourselves breathe.   When yogis don’t really understand pranayama, we tend to default to doing one breath–usually Ujjayi– in all poses. But a one-breath-fits-all approach is lacking. Deciding which breathing method you need comes down to this: “What do I want from this moment, and how can the breath support me to achieve it?” So, before the breath, even, we cultivate an inner attention. Svadhaya , or a process of inner inquiry must occur. Otherwise, it’s solely a respiration practice, which gives benefits, but is not the all-levels union of yoga.   From there, we learn to either do something ( tapas ) or surrender to what is ( ishvara pranidhana ), and in making the conscious choice, reflected in the quality of the breath, we actually can create more inner freedom instead of less.   Leslie always speaks of yoga as a process by which we remove obstacles to our true nature, like Patanjali’s parable of the farmer who must only open a dam to let the water flow and nourish his fields. We can do this every time we seek out a tight muscle and stretch it, or shift a belief that doesn’t serve our higher purpose to one that does. And you know what? I never thought I’d say it, but the art of pranayama has become quite interesting to me.   Breathing has become one way I practice the deep soul relaxation and loving kindness inherent in ahimsa (nonharming)–in this case, not causing myself injury. My pranayama protects me from dumping more anxiety, more “go-go-go,” more needing to know, more, well… more onto my plate. It’s a moving meditation where I can soften, listen intently, and just be taught for a while instead of always needing to be the teacher.   I’m curious–what has your breath had to teach you lately?   Core Pose: Tadasana (or Tadasana Samasthithi) with Breath of Freedom   I pay homage to Leslie Kaminoff by sharing one of his techniques that provides another perspective on high chest breathing. We’re often told in yoga that breathing into the upper chest causes anxiety. This is not necessarily true. Breathing short, fast, and into a limited portion of the lungs? Maybe so. But accessing the upper lobes of the lungs can actually bring you more space and relaxation, as the muscles of the neck and shoulders release from the inside out.   Stand in Tadasana (Mountain Pose) with feet sitting bone-distance apart. Ground your feet and lift long through the crown of the head.   Arms can lift and lower gently with the breath or remain at your sides.   Imagine you have two nostrils at the center of your shoulders just behind the center of each collarbone, and if you pressed down, you could contact the top of your lungs.   As you inhale and exhale, let the air flow through these areas, filling the lungs at their highest point and releasing it again through the shoulders.   Notice how this naturally causes your lower abdominals to lift and support the spine. For contrast, try taking a big belly-expanding breath and push out your navel. You’ll likely experience a drop of spinal support and ability to breathe.   Maintain the first pranayama and enjoy for 1 minute. Then begin your practice with a more spacious chest and heart center.   

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Learning to Breathe

I go to two yoga classes a week, but I do my own practice at home every single day. I adore it, and I wouldn’t miss it for much. It’s still dark when I get out of bed, I shuffle to the kitchen and make a coffee (perhaps when I am a real yogi I’ll drink something healthier), drink half of it, set the timer on the microwave, and begin. The first three Sun Salutations feel a bit tight, a bit creaky. Even my mind is tight and creaky. I’m thinking about getting my hands positioned correctly, thinking about rotating my thighs inward and pulling that lower belly in (something I have no idea how to do, still). Heels closer to the floor, shoulder blades down, etc. You know all of this. Then something or someone–some larger part of me, perhaps–begins to well up. The rabid thinking slows down. Something warm and delicious takes its place. I begin to feel more generous with my positioning. I feel happy all of a sudden, and light. Some days, about ten Sun Salutations in, this thing takes over and I go crazy, like a whirling dervish. My breath pours in and squeezes out, I’m warm from the inside out, I am strong, I am beautiful, and I am huge, somehow. Unconstrained. You should see my Warrior II pose. I fill the living room. I fill the house. I love those days. This morning was one of those days. I’d set the timer for 70 minutes and was so enormous by the end of it that I didn’t hear it go off. Best Savasana ever. Does this ever happen to you?  Thanks to yoga for making us huge, and thanks to you for the conversation. –Kristin Shepherd

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Some Days We Are Enormous

Photo: My son Lucien in Pacific Spirit Regional Park, Vancouver, BC After my failed attempt at mommy and baby yoga, which I described in my last post, I didn’t know what to do. I mourned and missed my yoga practice, but didn’t have the energy to try a class again anytime soon, and I couldn’t imagine getting a home practice going, either. What I could do?  Walk.  While walking’s obviously not the same as asana, they both involve moving your body in a kind of meditative way.  Before getting pregnant I’d gone on retreats where we’d practiced walking meditation. So why not try meditative walking? Walking is something I could do with just Lucien and a pair of sneakers.  And maybe my dog Salem would stop gnawing at the rugs in our Brooklyn sublet if she came along. And so Lucien and Salem and I began taking daily three mile walks in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. The first time we went out I honestly didn’t know if I could finish the loop.  Sweat poured down my nursing bra.  The smallest incline felt like Mount Everest.  But I managed to finish. Each day the walk became easier, though I often had to stop and nurse on a freezing cold park bench in the middle of winter.  Some days Lucien cried during the walk. I’d sit with him, or walk and sing to him. Most days, thank goodness, he’d fall asleep.  I’d hold Salem’s leash in one hand, push the stroller with the other, and hold my phone to my ear (oops, not very meditative there) talking to my experienced-mom-of-three friend Katherine, or my just-about-to-have-her-baby friend Kristen. Some days I’d simply be. I may not have been on my mat, but during those sleep-deprived early months of nursing round the clock and learning how to care for a newborn, walking–alongside healthy eating–became my yoga. (By six months, I was ready to slowly start practicing asana again. In my next post, I’ll share that adventure and which poses helped to ease me back.) Lucien and Salem and I still walk together several times a week. Instead of taking nursing breaks, these days I have to stop and give Lucien his fair share of toddler run around time.  Here’s a photo from a walk we took the other day in Vancouver, where we live now. Where are your favorite places to walk 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).

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Hitting the Road

Watch the latest news video at video.foxnews.com Yoga and mysticism: Not the kind of thing you see much of on Fox News. But, lo! Andrew Harvey appeared on the “Fair & Balanced” network on May 7 to speak about his new book, Heart Yoga: The Sacred Marriage of Yoga and Mysticism . The great teacher –former professor of religious studies at Oxford, epic spiritual quester, multi-dimensional mystic, and founder of the Institute of Sacred Activism–kept his eyes closed during much of the segment. Maybe this was to maintain inward focus while sharing his vision of helping anyone who practices yoga “taste and feel the divine energies in their bodies.”  Or maybe this was to shut out the cluelessness of his host, religion correspondent Lauren Green, who fumbled with her headset,  and mmm-hmm, right, mmm-hmmed her way through Harvey’s explanation of the chakra system, and bumbled every reference to yoga life (”Most of us in the West are used to a yoga that just helps us to lose weight…is it Brikum? Beerkam?). One wonders what die-hard fans of Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove, Sarah Palin, and Mike Huckabee must have thought of Harvey’s explanation  that all of creation is “a shattering white diamond light that is actually manifesting the whole cosmos” and that the human body itself is “dancing light consciousness.”  Once can only hope that those who tuned into the clip by accident were touched–if only a little–by the profound teachings of a modern master. Tune in by design, and you surely will be. –Hillari Dowdle

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Light on Fox News

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

Photo: On the subway in Brooklyn, New York with a 6-week-old Lucien. As I posted the other day, practicing yoga was the furthest thing from my mind when I brought my son Lucien home from the hospital. By six weeks post-partum, though, I really started missing asana. The doctor who’d performed my c-section gave me the OK to exercise, so I gathered up my energy and my son’s overstuffed diaper bag and ventured out to our first mommy and baby yoga class. This was something I’d dreamt about for years. How fun to teach my baby yoga! Too bad Lucien didn’t see it that way.  He cried from the moment we entered the yoga center until we left an hour later. He pooped twice in the first 45 minutes–I spent half the class in the tiny Brooklyn-sized bathroom changing him–and the rest of the time he wailed while I tried to put him down on the mat long enough for me to get in a couple of poses.  I ended up leaving the class in tears and feeling like a complete failure. All the other moms and babies seemed to handle the class fine.  What was wrong with me?  With us?  I felt isolated. I felt like a freak. (And honestly, with twenty-five pounds to lose, I felt fat.)  Would I ever practice again? Would I ever feel like myself?  Would I ever get my favorite jeans back on? Have you tried Mommy and Baby classes?  How do you make it to your mat?

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We Flunked Mommy-Baby Yoga

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

Yesterday I taught in a state of emergency–literally. I’d traveled to Nashville for a weekend of Core Strength workshops at three local studios. My visit coincided with the worst flooding the city has ever seen and a subsequent call for a state of emergency. Unbeknownst to me or any of the students, at one point we were on our mats while a tornado touched down a mere six miles away! Driving to back to my hotel, I saw homes under water up to the rooftops. People have lost so much in such a short amount of time–photos, their favorite chair, mementos from childhood and from their children.  My host here in the city, yoga instructor Rommy Hussey, and I were talking about how hard a teaching that must be. It’s a letting go unlike any most of us will ever have to deal with–on a material level, at least. I invite you to take a moment to send lovingkindness to all the beings in Tennessee and everywhere, who are suffering right now. When I showed up to the studio this morning and a few dedicated yogis joined me, I realized that this really is our practice: to surrender to what is, to breathe, and to move forward, even in the worst of times. To me, this is the essence of Ishvara pranidhana , translated as “devotion to the Lord,” which was Patanjali’s call to soften through the pain, the destruction, the unwanted and the intense. When we drop resistance to reality, and cease the fight against what we don’t want, we are infinitely more able to receive what we do: the healing, the loving, and the broader perspective that brings us all home to center, regardless of the storms and winds of change that come and go outside. CORE POSE: Circling Camel (Ustrasana), variation This pose will help you make more room for breath as it opens your heart center, helping you embrace any situation as a learning experience and reminding you of the inner strength that resides at your core. Kneel at the front of your mat, toes flexed beneath you. Firm your lower belly in and up, and lengthen the tailbone. Bring your left hand onto your hip or left heel if you’re more back-bendy. Reach your right arm up, and inhale as you circle it back and down onto the right hip or heel for a shoulder stretch. Lift the left arm on your next inhalation, and circle it around on the exhalation. Repeat for 3 to 5 rounds, maintaining core support and the length of your spine. End in a full Camel Pose with both hands on the hips or heels, lifting your chest higher from the back of your heart.   For a good counter position, rest in Child’s Pose for 10 breaths, knees together, and wave your hips gently from side to side.

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Surrendering to What Is

Yesterday one of my students told me that another teacher called her out in class, saying, “You’re trying too hard.” This puzzled her. She didn’t think she was overdoing it, but then again, maybe the teacher saw something she didn’t. Perhaps she was running over herself and maybe she wasn’t, but it’s an interesting concept. When does striving toward a goal become stressful and when does it create transformation? This is why we say that to practice yoga is to walk the razor’s edge. There’s a fine line between too much sthira (effort) and too much suhka (ease), and the more we come to the mat, the more intimately we get to know it. The balance inherent within these two polarities, the “field,” as Rumi would say, where growth meets freedom, is known as santosha , or contentment, one of the niyamas of the yogic path. Niyama means observance, or something that you do that helps you line up with your inherent equilibrium. But this can mean saying No to something (straining to do a handstand when you’re not ready) as often as it asks you to say Yes. As yogis, we learn the art of knowing when to take action, and, importantly, when not to, in order to achieve a consistent state that is without aggravation or inertia; not moving too fast or lagging behind. So, how can we tell when we’re trying just hard enough in yoga, and in life? After all, neither our dreams nor our handstands are gonna just create themselves. As a teacher, the first thing I look at is your breath. It’s a pretty good gauge to let me know when you go off the rails.  If you can’t breathe slowly and deeply, or you sound more like Darth Vader than a smooth ocean wave, it’s time for Child’s Pose. I’m also checking out your alignment, specifically the foundation and core connection. If you’re in that same handstand, but your back is arching and your elbows are bent and wavering, then you’re not really in a handstand at all. You’re in a misaligned and compressive backbend that the wall is preventing from going into full (and injury-prone) expression. It’s not getting you where you want to go, which is to balance without the wall someday, with firm support from your arms and abdominals. What actually happens when we try too hard is that we simultaneously fall into the mire of inertia. We shoot ourselves in the proverbial foot because by overworking, we actually lock ourselves out of the possibility to access deeper muscles, deeper wisdom, and inner strength. We give ourselves over to ego, the anxious mind, the hyperactive body–anything external that we think can get us “there” faster. And instead of moving forward, we collapse. The first step in dissolving these non-santosha states is to be here–to pay full attention to how you feel. If you’re anxious, or numbed out, you might be trying too hard or not enough.   Once you notice the places in your life where you want control or that cause you to stress out, you can practice releasing a bit to allow the inner you to shine. This is why in class I often say you must back off in order to go farther. Then, when you’ve taken it down a notch, you can take it back up again, only this time, using the strength that serves you, in alignment, to express your most powerful center. This is when santosha arises organically. In the end, my student decided she wasn’t working too hard, but she did promise herself that she’d keep an eye out for when she was.  I’ve seen her take Child’s Pose more often, and I smile when she does, because I know she’s focused on playing the razor’s edge. And that’s the practice. CORE POSE: Core Handstand, what else? This asana is a microcosm for your practice of remaining in santosha. Remember, all the benefits–strong arms, open shoulders, core strength, courage, balance and detoxification–are available to you in every moment when you remain in alignment. Getting up to the wall is an added bonus–not something to rush into. Step 1: Stand a few feet from and facing a wall, and place your hands on the ground in front of you, fingers wide and shoulder-distance apart. Then bend one leg while the foot grounds firmly and directly under the sitting bone. Lift your other leg, maintaining level hips. Press out actively through the lifted heel. Step 2: Take small hops to help push the standing leg off the ground. At the same time, press down through your hands, lift your navel toward the sky, and begin to lengthen your top leg. You don’t want your low back to overarch here and tip the seat and legs behind you, as this will cause you to lose core strength and power.   To reconnect to the lower abdominals, bend the standing leg as it leaves the earth and draw your knee into your chest. Also, exhaling as you hop will firm your core muscles and prevent your spine from compressing or wavering as you lift. Step 3: Once you can hover in the knee-to-chest variation, keep all the stability you’ve created in the arms, torso and pelvis, and lengthen the bent bottom leg to meet the top one! Note: If at any time, your breath gets ragged, or your arms or spine begin to move out of alignment, you’ve crossed the razor’s edge, and it’s time to back off to re-find your balance.      

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Playing the Razor’s Edge

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

Kristin Shepherd is one of our newest bloggers. Join her as she takes on the challenges of yoga from the perspective of a newcomer in her new blog Beginner’s Mind : — I don’t know a hootkatassana from a pranayama. Yet. Although I have done bits of yoga over my lifetime, I only jumped in the deep end seven months ago, with regular classes and then my daily practice at home. What I do know is the deliciousness of yoga for a beginner (I can breathe! I can turn my neck in the car!), its frustrations (the clothes! the inflexibility!), and the way yoga becomes a part of everything else that happens during a day.  The way you drive your friends and family mad with yoga talk, the way half of them join yoga because of your ecstatic ranting. It feels as though i have come home after 48 years. I’ll bet some of you can identify.  I hope you’ll join me. — Kristin Shepherd is a chiropractor, a self-proclaimed theater freak and a yogi.  She’s a relative newcomer, and says she really, really knows how it feels to be 48, a bit tight, and a little wobbly. Kristin finds herself happiest, so far, in the back row of every yoga class.

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Introducing Kristin Shepherd

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

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

Yoga on the White House lawn? Yes! For the second year in a row, First Lady Michelle Obama turned the once prim and proper White House Easter Egg Roll (now in its 132 nd year) into a fitness party for kids, with dancing, hula-hooping, tennis, soccer, football–and yoga. Under the flowering trees of the stately White House gardens–downplayed as Mrs. Obama into “our back yard”–families from all over the country rocked their best Tree Poses on Monday.   I even talked the Cat in the Hat into giving it a try with me! In flouncy, floral print Easter dresses and tights, stiff trousers and ties, as well as jeans and shorts, eager Down Doggers lined up on their mats. And yes, all day, there were gentle choruses of “Om” drifting up from the White House Lawn! It was a pretty powerful moment–some 30,000 families, from all 50 states, got a chance to learn about yoga, with a presidential seal of approval. It seems evident that yoga is a perfect match for the First Lady’s Let’s Move! Initiative, which aims to curtail our childhood obesity epidemic by inspiring Americans to live healthy, active lives. Hats off to the organizers and the small crew of yoga teachers who came in from distant states (Ohio, Texas, California, New York, to name a few) to lead 10-minute mini-classes and even conduct “privates” for kids who wanted a taste of yoga as they passed by the White House “Yoga Garden.” I heard more than one parent try to lure their child off to other activities–Easter Egg Roll anyone?!–only to learn that Camel Pose was the priority of the moment. With endless entertainment options– President Obama reading Green Eggs and Ham; teen pop star Justin Beber, the cast of Glee, and Yo Gabba Gabba performing; famous chefs helping kids learn to cook–it’s a wonder anyone had time for yoga. But yoga they did!  

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Posing at the White House

(photo by Jon Ewing ) Salutations to the Washington Monument and 1,700 people enjoying the freedom of yoga. Rising up into Warrior I, my eyes took in the tip of the Washington Monument piercing a cloudy sky, and I offered my Sun Salutations to independence, freedom, and all that makes me proud to be American. After a couple of days in Washington DC brushing up on our national history at the American History Museum (seeing an Edison lightbulb, the flag that inspired “The Star Spangled Banner” and President Lincoln’s top hat), it’s hard not to feel a little patriotic. And after seeing the sea of yogis stretched across the National Mall on Saturday morning, it’s hard not to feel ecstatic about how our nation is embracing yoga. The event, organized by Lululemon Athletica as part of Washington’s National Cherry Blossom Festival, drew a great crowd–the unofficial count was 1,700 people. It was a site to behold! And so cool to be a part of this moment in history, when yoga is becoming as American as apple pie. In an hour-plus class led by Peggy Mulqueen , we breathed together through everything from Hanumanasana (Full Splits) to Bakasana (Crane Pose) to partner Navasana (Boat Pose). Onstage, local teachers, including Yoga Journal’s May cover model Faith Hunter , and a few guests like Ashtanga yoga teacher David Kyle treated the crowd to an impressive display of power and grace. Beneath giant American flags, and on top of a rainbow of sticky mats, there was a spirit of freedom–and a lot of free spirits!–in the air. 

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History in the Being

Time to do your home practice but not feeling it today? Pop in Yoga Revolution Volume One –a compilation CD that features songs from “yoga music” superstars like Donna DeLory, Krishna Das, Deva Premal and Miten, and Snatam Kaur as well as from genre benders like Sheryl Crow, Angelique Kidjo, Sarah McLachlan, and Peter Gabriel. The collection is uplifting and energizing–perfect for vinyasa flow. And since proceeds from the sale help provide access to yoga for underserved kids around the country, you can feel good about making an investment in this aural upgrade. BONUS : Fun to listen to off the mat, too, Yoga Revolution Volume One is the perfect tunage to see you through even the nastiest traffic snarl. Ponder the message behind Ziggy Marley’s “Love is My Religion” (it’s track 11), and you just might find yourself hitting the repeat button instead of the horn. (Buy it at amazon.com , for $14.99.) What’s your favorite yoga music?

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Lend an Ear

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 had every intention of writing my blog first thing this morning, after running out for a quick breakfast. Three hours later, I’m back at my computer after a super adventure I never could have predicted. I’m in Toronto, preparing to present at a yoga conference this weekend, but today I’m completely free. After a healing hot chocolate, I wandered the streets for a while. I stumbled across St. Andrew’s Church, a gorgeous structure that’s also home to the 48th Highlander’s Museum, Toronto’s first and only Canadian Highland Regiment. Yep, kilts and all. Lucky for me, it was open and I was greeted by a lifelong member of the regiment, W.O. Ron Denham, C.d. (Ret’d). Ron was pleased to show me around, and brought the uniforms, flags, and pieces of history alive with his profound knowledge and storytelling flair. I heard about his meeting with two queens, a king, his love of tartan, single-malt, his country, his heritage and his respect for Lieutenant General Arthur Currie, who bucked convention by refusing to grow a moustache, being less-than-stellar on horseback, and developing a reputation for expending ammunition before his men’s lives. He wasn’t popular with the other by-the-book officers, but he was a leader among his men, and went on to become the Commander of the Canadian Corps. Now, war and its aftermath makes me sad. But I couldn’t but feel reverence for the men and women who bravely went off to fight for something they believed in. I felt enveloped in the weighty cloak of their choices. My time at the museum brought up so many yogic themes and questions that I will offer up to my classes and students over time. What struck me most today was how life’s surprises are waiting for us around every corner, where we might not think to look. Today I invite you to make space for what you might not know. If you’re in your millionth Downward Dog, and you think you “get” this pose, the very next time you do it, you might be surprised with a revelation. One of the defining characteristics of a yogi is the willingness to let go of the preconceived plan or judgment and allow new experiences or perceptions come to you. Prana, or life energy, doesn’t like to be controlled. In fact, the secret of life and yoga is that life energy cannot be made to do anything. We can only remove obstacles like stress, tension, and clouded ways of seeing, thereby creating the space necessary for life force and insight to flood into us. And it will. As Robert Frost says in his poem The Road Not Taken: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I– I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” Sometimes, when we stop micro-managing every step, and instead allow prana-invoking moments of sweet surrender, we begin to nourish the sthira (spaciousness) side of our poses and ourselves. Only when we can release our grand illusion of control, step off our beaten paths, be still and ask,”What’s next?” will the most thought-provoking moments of inner inquiry appear, and rise to meet us. Core Question:  How will you make space for your next Super Adventure? What happened when you did? Core Pose: Five-Minute Yogi’s Choice During your next home practice, your teaching, or perhaps even right now in your chair, take five minutes for an unplanned pose or flow to arise from within. How does your body need to move? What is your breath teaching you? Instead of doing the pose from your mind, try being the pose more, listening to your inner cues, and letting your energy and breath dictate the movement. Even if it looks nothing like a classical yoga asana, go with the flow anyway. It’s your Super Adventure moment!

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My Super Adventure

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

I left Brooklyn and arrived in Vancouver yesterday, to teach a weekend Core Strength Immersion. In five days, I’ll fly to Toronto for the Yoga Conference. I’m not a fan of being away from home for long periods of time, but the smell of freshly cut grass (lawns! How quaint!), the view of the Vancouver mountains, the cherry blossoms,and the fireplace in my hotel room have almost made up for it. No matter where I travel, the students meeting me on the mat all have one thing in common: they’re trying to make a change. Whether it’s learning something new, improving their strength and flexibility, accessing more of their inherent centeredness or a combination of these, no one I’ve met shows up to a yoga intensive with a burning desire to stay exactly the same. After all–shift happens. We’re all in constant state of flux, from our cells and thoughts, to our outer environments and relationships. Your experience is as transient as a hobo on a country railcar. The question is–in what direction do you want that train to roll? If you allow life, and the external opinions, requests, and demands of others take you where it wants to go, you’ll spend a lifetime getting steamrolled from the outside. Enough of that, and your heart will feel as flat as a pancake. If you want to fill your mind, body and spirit with the goodness of inspiration and transformation, you’ve got to do one thing for certain: Get to work. Remember: intention without action is just a beautiful pipe dream. In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali offers clue about how to change things according to your intentions. It begins with ishvara pranidhana. This word literally means “love of God,” but like so many other concepts in the yoga teachings, it has alternate meanings. Ishvara pranidhana can also mean “to take your highest action.” Have you noticed that in any moment when you’re called to make a choice –Do I go to yoga class or skip it? Should I yell at my partner or take a time out? Should I take the job I hate for more money or the one I love for less?–there is usually one that will serve your highest good, and one that will, well…not so much? When you take action that helps you express who you most want to be in the present, it will keep you on the road toward goals you want to reach later. I’m certain of this, because it’s taken me from a dysfunctional practice and stressful life to inner strength and outer abundance. It will work for you too–but you have to work it. Yoga is not a spectator sport. It asks for your full and unflinching participation. It can be scary, constantly facing down the unknown, but if you can go there–whether by hugging your thighs more in that Crow Pose, taking a deep breath when you want to say something hurtful, or choosing the high road in a situation where your habits and fears conspire to make the low one an attractive option–all your hard work will absolutely pay off. In fact, the beauty of yoga is that it pays its dividends instantly, with a rush of prana, or empowerment, and the personal satisfaction of becoming more of yourself in the moments that you focus, intend…and try. This is the offer of Kriya Yoga, the yoga of action, and it’s something that we can practice both on and off our mats. After some ginger-green tea (instead of my old nemesis: coffee!), I’m off to teach this afternoon with a group of teachers, most of whom I’ve never met. I will take my own advice, and instead of holding back, I’ll fully share from my spirit, which is always a vulnerable process. I’ll let you know what happened in my next post! Namaste, Sadie Core Question: What actions can you take, this week, to start making your intentions a reality? What has held you back before this? Core Pose: Earth to Sky Triangle Here’s a pose I use to teach my students the power of conscious action as they build Trikonasana (Triangle Pose). It can help you access deeper core strength and maintain a safe stretching point by building the posture from the ground up: Step 1: Come into a Utthita Parsvakonasana (Side Angle Pose) and place your bottom fingertips beside the outer foot. (Beginners: Bring your forearm on your knee.) Draw your navel in and up towards your chest as you lengthen the tailbone. Now lift your free arm to the sky. Wrap your top arm around your back in a half bind, and press the hand into your back ribs or palm into the thigh. Roll your top shoulder open, then look down to stretch the neck and shoulder. Step 2: Keep everything you’ve created, but begin to move your front hip crease back and ground into the big toe mound to straighten your leg (Beginners: Place the bottom hand on the thigh, shin, or ankle). If you lose your core connection, bend the knee slightly and play the edge of integration and expression here. Step 3: Unfurl your top, bound arm into full Triangle Pose. Now you’ve removed the obstacles (tight shoulders, compressed hip joints, a stiff neck) to your pose, let the freedom of your energy move through your entire body with each breath.

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You Better Work!

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

It was a blissful 60 degrees in New York City this week. That may not sound like much to those of you from warmer places, but after the bitter cold of the past few weeks, it felt like summer around here. The emergence of lighter jackets and bare legs led my mind to the next natural progression: bikini season. My actual thought was, “Oh no! Bikini season’s almost here!” and then I laughed. Where did that reaction come from? First of all, I don’t wear a bikini, and second, if I was asked to, I could rock a two-piece with the best of them. That’s because I’ve been practicing yoga for 15 years, and it’s paid off in a physical way, as well as every other. I realized that our dharma, or life’s path, is a lot like bikini season, too. When we get on the yoga mat, we’re in training, preparing for the moments in life when we will be asked to step up, to reveal ourselves in some way, and to show our true self to the world. When those pivotal moments arrive in your life, will you be ready? Every yoga pose and each moment you feel challenged is an opportunity for you to step into your skin, become the most of yourself, and hold your center even in the midst of great intensity. When you can do this, your dharma–the things you are called to do, say, or be to fully express who you are–will become much more available to you. If you do the work, that is. Let’s say you’re a writer, but you never write your book. Then comes the day when you’re at a party and meet the head of Random House who wants to see your work, but you’ve got nothing to show on the outside for all your inner creativity. You’ve missed an exciting possibility, all because you hadn’t yourself dedicated to taking action. In the Yoga Sutras, the sage Patanjali asks us to commit to an ongoing spiritual practice, or abhyasa in Sanskrit. You can make your life into your abhyasa. You can learn from it, make it yours, and let it move you forward towards your life’s work. And by developing a consistent yoga routine and facing down Crow or Handstand each week, for example, we build the courage to step up. We dedicate ourselves to the work at hand with honesty and integrity, never knowing when we’ll be called into action. You know that saying, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears?” Well, get ready, in all the ways you can, and when your next teacher shows up–in the form of a wonderful relationship, a loved one’s illness, a new job, more (or less) money, and yes, even bikini season–you’ll have all the tools you need to rock it, too! Core Question : What can you do to commit more fully to your own dharma, or life’s work? Let us know how you plan to dedicate more time and energy to it! Core Pose: Crow Pose Preparation This pose will build the strength, balance, and bravery for Crow Pose, so when the teacher announces it in class, you’ll be ready to fly! Come into Malasana (Garland Pose), with your feet wide. Curl your torso inside the knees, and with bent elbows, plant your hands shoulder-distance apart. Lift your hips and knees higher, but bend your elbows lower and press your knees as high on the upper arms as you can. Lean forward until your chest floats out in front of the thumbs, and your gazing point makes a triangle with your hands. As you ground through your fingertips, hug your knees and elbows in, and lift strongly up through your core. Your feet should lighten off the floor. Next Step : Lift your heels towards the sitting bones and see how ready you already are for full Crow Pose !

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Rockin’ Your Abhyasa

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?

Actress Chloe Sevigny must really love yoga because she is talking it up all over the place! We aren’t sure what style she practices or where she places her mat. But this winner of a Golden Globe award for best supporting actress in a TV series graces the April cover of Elle UK and talks about her new three-times-a-week yoga practice, which makes her feel “strong” and “limber.” (She also credits yoga with boosting her libido.) In a recent interview with NPR , Sevigny talks about how yoga helps her with her scoliosis so she feels straightened out. Check it out: Our friends at YogaDork found some morsels of the interview here . Which celebrities have you noticed taking up the practice of yoga?

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Chloe Sevigny Loves Yoga

Gov. Robert F. McDonnell signed a

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Historic Legal Decision

California Pacific Medical Center is honoring one of our beloved yoga teachers. CPMC’s Institute for Health & Healing  has selected Matthew Sanford as the recipient of its Pioneer in Integrative Medicine Yoga Journal conference in Boston this April. Congrats, Matthew!

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Congrats to Matt!

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

Two yogis walk into a bar . . .  No, it’s not the beginning of a joke. It was my last Saturday night! I’d just finished two visiting workshops in Boston, and I was ravenously hungry. I’d meant to grab a power lunch between classes, but I was enjoying questions from the students so much that time slipped away. My friend and fantastic teacher Ame Wren invited me to join her for a post-class meal. Nestled into velvet chairs, with ivories tickling in the background, Ame and I began a conversation about yoga, teaching, life, love, and each other. It was rewarding, inspiring, and somehow made the already yummy food taste even better. As we spoke, I noticed two young women sitting at the table next to us. One was complaining to the other about the no-good man in her life. From what I could gather, the list of no-goodies went something like this: “He doesn’t love me. He disrespects me. He’s out all night. He lies to me. I’m miserable with him . . . but I love him. What am I going to do?” Then the other woman would say something in response, and the litany of complaints would begin all over again. This maddening audio loop went on for a good two hours. Luckily, I was able to draw in and focus on Ame, but every time I checked back with the ladies, it was the exact same story. No resolution, just more words. In yoga we say “repetition is magic,” but we must also learn the difference between a constructive action and a destructive one lies in the type of repetition we choose. A circular repetition means that you say you want change, yet you do the same thing over and over again, only to end up in the same place as when you began. An example of this is doing gentle yoga classes, yet expecting big gains in strength and endurance. A linear repetition means that, though you repeat certain behaviors, they are ones that move you forward toward an outcome. For example, holding your poses a little longer each week and then expecting more strength and endurance. Think of the difference in power and purpose between a bog and a river. It gets even better when within the quest for more linear repetition in your life, you can cultivate tapas and dedicate your energy towards something that serves you to reach the goals you set for yourself. Tapas, often understood as just plain “heat,” as in a vigorous asana practice, also translates as the “fires of transformation.” Linear habits partnered with tapas direct our energy towards those repetitive thoughts, words and actions which light our fire, inspire us to live with passion, and keep us shining bright from the inside out. After Ame and I left dinner, and I walked home in the brisk Boston night, I felt more invigorated and alive. I wondered, though, how the other women were feeling. If it was anything like I’d experienced after similar conversations, perhaps drained, and certainly not more vibrant. An old yogic saying goes, “Save your breath to cool your porridge.” I wished those girls had spoken about the guy for 10 minutes, and then spent the rest of their energy on enjoying the food, the night, and each other. After all, life is to be lived, and tapas–like a great meal–is to be lit into at any possible opportunity. Core Question: Where in your life could you move from circular to linear habits? What lights your fire? How can you bring more passion into your days? Core Posture: A great pose for stoking the fires of transformation: Core Plank: From Down Dog, split one leg into the air, and on the exhale, sweep the knee into your chest, and draw shoulders over wrists. As you press your hands into the earth, round your hips and back sky high to build arm and core strength. Repeat this move 3-5 times before stepping forward to your standing poses. If it’s too challenging, back it off by doing Core Plank on hands and knees.

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Going in Circles

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

Twenty hours ago I departed from the Entebbe Airport in Uganda and I’m still one flight away from home. As I  sit here in the  Newark airport Starbucks  I’m filled with a flood of emotions and memories:  the joy of being only hours away from seeing my family, the sadness of leaving so many behind, the smiles of the Shanti Uganda women in Kasana who danced and sang for us, the looks in the eyes of  the  HIV/Aids positive children at the New Hope orphanage when we said good bye to them, watching my fellow seva challengers work so hard in the mud and rain side by side with the men, women and children of the surrounding villages to help build a school through Building Tomorrow. Going to Uganda through The Off The Mat Into The World 2010 Seva Challenge was a little like doing a strong shot of Tequila. It was fast and furious, incredibly powerful and once it began there was no turning back. And like downing a strong shot, while I felt the initial jolt of the experience immediately, I have a feeling that my strongest responses are still to come. Not only am I certain that we made a difference in the lives of so many, but that I gained invaluable insight into myself: both where I shine and where I need to continue to work to break down the walls that keep me from truly stepping into my own power, my own truth. I look forward to the days, weeks, months, and perhaps even years that I will spend digesting these past 2 weeks. I know that the ripples of this experience will carry me to new and beautiful places filled with the deep waves of joy and inner peace that can only be felt through our continuous efforts to serve others and to serve the God that dwells within each one of us. If anyone out there reading this blogg is trying to decided wether or not to participate in next years 2011 Seva Challenge, I would like to put in a strong vote for, “Do It!”. The process of fund raising can be difficult at times but as Krishna teaches us in chapter 2 of the the Bhagavad Gita:  ”On this path of Yoga, no effort is wasted and there is no failure. Even a little effort towards spiritual awareness will protect you from the greatest fears” In other words, any amount money and awareness you raise will carry with it them karmic seeds of positive change both for the recipient of your efforts and for you. Take that first step. Make the commitment to try and see where the universe leads you.

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Departure by Sofi Dillof

This is my experience in a nutshell: The Ugandan culture is complex, confusing and contradictory.  Parts of it are endearing, warm and wonderful; others I can’t even begin to wrap my head around.   On this trip, the OTM Uganda Seva Challenge group traveled pretty extensively through the cities and countryside villages, and what grabbed me most is the resounding spirit of a resilient and strong Ugandan people.  I have witnessed extreme poverty, deadly pandemic disease, ungodly sanitation, as well as toxic air and water quality, yet wherever I went, I also noticed an underlying authentic joy, trust and a richness in community that I actually yearn for in my own community at home. That said, there is a very strange dynamic; a juxtaposition of customs and morals.  Some of what I’ve heard and observed that exemplifies this is below.     A local land owner and village community chairman (kind of like a Mayor) called Sam,  told our group about the incredible Central Ugandan customs and rituals to honor the dead.   Ugandans will often exhaust everything they have for funerals, even going without eating,  to honor their dead. There are days and days of sacred pomp and ceremony. As Sam explains the rituals, I am filled with a sense of awe.  I think: ‘Wow, in States its typically a 2 hour viewing, then a couple of songs, a prayer or two, a few kind words and done.” In contrast, I’m told that in Uganda there is stigma and dishonor in being widowed.  A widow is often chased off the land she rightfully inherits, and is forced to surrender everything after her husband dies. Another example. One of our amazing guides and guardians for this trip was an Ugandan man named Joseph.  He is the Country Director for Building Tomorrow, the international NGO  which builds schools for vulnerable children all over sub-Saharan Africa.   As our group was returning from an excursion one night, we noticed that for the most part local shopkeepers leave their goods outside rather than locking them up indoors.  Joseph explains that the goods left out won’t be stolen because there is a community agreement about stealing.  If the thief is caught, community members, not police, go after the perpetrators.  Men caught stealing are beaten, while a female thief is forced to walk down the street naked after community members rip the clothes off her back.  As he told me about the community agreement my first thought was:  “There is no way that anything left unguarded outside a store in LA or New York would be there the next morning, no way!” However, this is the same Uganda where it is common and customary for a woman to be a chased by a man and if she can outrun or outfight him, she wins her freedom, but, if he physically overcomes her, she is raped and forced to become his wife. One more.   The able-bodied men, woman and children of Gayaza Village sing and pray as they haul wheelbarrows, carry bricks on their heads, and build walls for their Building Tomorrow/OTM community school.  Again, I think: “In my town, this is done by a company that has little connection to the actual community. How incredibly cool would it be to have community members working on our local schools.” Yet, although up to 65% of people in communities like Gayaza Village have HIV, men, women and children known to have the disease are often humiliated, shunned and disgraced. Further still, this is the country that has introduced a law so punitive towards homosexuality that some human rights groups say that it would allow authorities to imprison and even kill homosexuals. Yes, this culture is complex, confusing and contradictory.  However, the more that I think about it, I recognize that there is a good probability that statement is true for all cultures. And then I re-member my yoga.  Yoga classes around the world often begin and end with the greeting Namaste’.  For me, namaste has become so much more than a nice word or greeting.  It is a way of being, a foundational way of life that invites me to find God in every moment, person, event or circumstance – even the complex, confusing and contradictory ones.    That’s what the mystics of old did and those of today do.   So that’s what I practice -  right here, right now – even though, I often can’t explain, don’t understand and many times don’t succeed.    However, in every cell of my being I know that in the words of one of my favorite teachers “everything happens exactly the way it is suppose to happen in order for our souls to transform.”  So I just keep doing what I know to do – practice.

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Complex, Confusing and Contradictory by Nikki Myers

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

“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

Today was a “rest day” for us to personally reflect on the happenings of the trip thus far and to prepare ourselves for our final three days of intense work.  We had a 2-hour long yoga practice in the morning, and Seane gave us a lot to think about.  In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, she brought into question how we’ve been showing up and expressing love in our own lives, before and during our experiences in Uganda.  How will we carry our new ideas of authentic love back to our everyday lives?  What do we need to accept about our past in order to truly let go and love bigger?  A lot of people had an emotional release.  It took me a while to get there, but eventually, with the help of the Beatles playing in the background, I did.  I realized that I’m still holding onto a lot of the sadness of 2009–the death of several loved ones.  The fear of death itself.  I’m always making acute adjustments in my perspective so that I can better handle this fear, but it keeps showing up again and again in the faces of the women and children I meet here in Uganda.  Despite their contagious joy, my sadness lingers. The women and children here do not latch onto their traumas and circumstances.  They are constantly releasing emotions through passionate song and dance.  Perhaps the men are so aggressive because they do not engage in these traditions.  Most Ugandan men are addicted to alcohol, drugs, sexual abuse or power.  They are acting out because, like most Americans, they are not moving the negative energy out of their bodies naturally.  I can certainly relate to their struggles, and am so grateful for the support systems in my life that encourage the release of tension in my heart and in my hips every day. I found out last night that I am the youngest woman on this trip.  I am the baby.  There are several life lessons that I have yet to experience, and I must remain patient with myself.  I cannot be so critical and hard on myself.  I must love myself and trust in my deepest truths to continue to love and serve others effectively.  I think this will be my mantra for the decade. Today, I sat and took the time to remember all of the great loves of my life.  My very first valentines–Mom, Dad, and Grammy.  The crushes, the necessary heartbreaks.  My beautiful companion, Christopher.  And especially, today, all of the 23 women here with me in Uganda, sharing an experience that will bind us together in love forever.  You are all my valentines and I thank Spirit for this incredible opportunity to serve.

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Valentines Day by Megan Ridge

“Souls don’t have races or sexes or religions. They are beyond artificial divisions.”  Beliefs separate, loving thoughts unite us.  Today started off with intrigue, curiosity, excitement and ended with joy, yet sorrow.  The orphanage was built first with a vision, then came the passion, then it took strength to reach out and New Hope School and Orphanage was born.  The man who started it was Godfrey in 1997.  He started New Hope on his own.  The kids are street kids – some have no mothers, some have no fathers, some have neither.  Most of the children are HIV+.  New Hope provides a safe environment to educate, learn and thrive.  In order to do so it takes visitors like us, OTM, to raise money and support these children so they have clean water, food, shelter, and education.  OTM has helped this year by creating a water filtration system, supplying mattresses, and school supplies.  Upon arrival we were greeted with song in our native language from the children that made my heart dance with joy:   It’s a long, long way from oh Canada to Uganda Passing over mountains and sandy rivers But our God is good who has allowed you to come We are happy to see you today   All day long we were engaged in activities with the children.  We played with frisbees, jump roped, read books, parachute games, and engaged in playful yoga postures.  Leaving the games on our way back to join others, one of the children grabbed my hand.  It made me realize how the children crave any sort of human contact, love, or affection of any kind. During the course of the day many pictures were taken of these beautiful children.  At one point I turned to show the children their picture through my camera lens.  They giggled with excitement at their own reflection.  I realized right then, how much we take for granted – some of these children might have never seen a reflection of themselves before.  We left a mural on their school wall so dreams and the magic will and can continue.  Leaving the school was hard for most of us. A feeling of sadness loomed when asked when will we return? The children of New Hope are thriving for love, support and just a hug. I hope I can go back and give each of them a hug.  I hope that other volunteers continue to build on this wonderful foundation.  It became apparent to me that a sponsorship program is needed at New Hope in order for these children to continue on this positive path of learning and growing, feeling safe and loved.  I am so humbled and honored to be part of these children’s lives.

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New Hope by Carrie Herscovici

We’ve spent the last few days in a small village outside the town of Kasana in the Lerrwero district. Here we were working with an organization called Shanti Uganda founded by a 27 year old women from Toronto named Natalie Angell. The Off The Mat Into The World Seva Challenge was able to to provide Shanti Uganda with $150,000 to build a new birthing center for a group of women who have HIV/Aids. We spent the past 3 days working at the site and it’s going to be amazing! Before this Shanti Uganda project, the options available to these women for how to birth their babies have been beyond dismal.  Not only do they have little or no access to education regarding the HIV/Aids and how to take care of themselves and their babies who will most likely also be born infected, but the don’t even have a clean and safe place to go to birth their babies. Needless to say, a  high percentage of these women and children are dying in the child birthing process. There are hospitals here but they are  very far away and these women would have to walk an incredible distance (sometimes even for days)  to get there.  Once there, the protocol for birthing babies is to basically strap the women down to cots with their feet tied up in stirrups and not allow them to move through out their labor and delivery. Why? For one thing, they have no way to keep the birthing area clean and sterile. All they can use is one piece of plastic under each woman. Because of this they have to make sure no blood or anything gets anywhere other than on that piece of plastic. Many of these women  end up having to have c-sections often times with no anesthesia and no sterile surgical equipment. It’s so scary for them and as a result most women will choose instead to give birth in their homes. Just in case you have a romantic idea of what a home birth in a rural area of Uganda might be like, let me tell you that most of these women are so poor that their homes are dirty and uncomfortable and the babies are being delivered in unsafe ways with little knowledgeable supervision.  Again, a high percentage of these women and babies are dying during the birthing process and many more after due to the HIV/Aids virus which they themselves might not even know that they have and even if they do, can’t get medication for themselves or have their babies  tested. Natalie’s vision for this new birthing center in holistic and completely sustainable. It will have a building for pre and post natal check ups, a room with beds for the women to stay in while laboring, a birthing room that will even have a birthing tub in it, a sterile room to hold all the birthing supplies (and our group brought enough donated supplies to keep it stocked for a long time!),  a recovery room for mommy and baby after birth (in hospitals they are forced to leave right away) and 6 fully trained mid wives on staff. The birthing center  will also have a community house where both Men and Women will be educated about the HIV/Aids virus and how to avoid spreading it. The community center will also be where women can learn various skills like beading and textiles so that they can start to generate income for their families. While it will take another year until completion, this project is already having strong effects on the Kasana community as it has provided employment to many son’s in the area who had no source of income before hand. We worked hard side by side with them mixing mud, and laying bricks.  Women too are involved, planning and starting an organic farm on the premises offering their input and letting Natalie, the founder of Shanti Uganda, know what their needs are and about their important birthing traditions. In this way, some of their methods can be gracefully combined with some of the more modern midwifery techniques that will be used. Though the sun beat down on us all day as we worked, it was a true labor of love. This birthing enter will change the lives of these women and their families for generations to come.

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Shanti Uganda by Sofi Dillof

A few weeks ago, the YJ staff got a special treat when MC Yogi and Amanda Giacomini stopped by our offices to teach our daily staff yoga class. We don’t usually practice with music here in the offices–mostly because our yoga room is also our conference room and isn’t really set up with a sound system–so I’m always grateful when we have a teacher come in with her own iPod docking station. Of course, we would expect no less from the infamous, self procraimed yoga “unrapper” . . . who came with a big, shiny boom box in tow. Sure, I was skeptical of the whole yoga hip-hop thing at first, but now, I’ll admit it. I’m a fan. So I was thrilled to see his newest video posted to Huffington Post today. “It’s about being generous with ourselves with our hearts, with our time and with our energy,” he writes. “It affirms the universal principle of attraction. What we give is what we get.” Where do I sign up? MC Yogi – Give Love (Giving4Living Mix) from MC Yogi on Vimeo . So, that’s my yoga video pick of the day. I’d love to see some of your favorites in the comments section below!

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Give Love!

Today our OTM group left our hotel at 7:30 to head to below the mouth of the Nile to go river rafting.  As we headed out on our two hour drive, there was plenty of talking before most people settled into their own space.  The towns market signs kept me entertained during our journey. “Tasty Smokies”,”Ultimate Secretarial Bureau”, “Not for Sale, You Do it At Your Own Risk!”, “Yo Choice Restaurant”, “Open Happiness” (Coca-Cola), “Paint the Price and We Paint Your Dreams”,and finally, “We Strip the Facts Bare”, (The Independent) When we arrived at Adrift White Water Rafting, everyone was in high spirits as we signed our lives away legally and heard the safety lessons.  We then divided into groups, “Wild” and “Mild”.  Within our group there were definitely strong feelings on which group each of us wanted to be in. We each got a life jacket, a helmet, and an oar and met our guides.  As we descended to the edge of the Nile, some individuals confidence level did the same. We were directed to get into the boat and Suzanne and I took the helm,water warriors. Once in our boat, Sudu gave us instructions on how to steer the boat and prepare for different types of rapids.  We would be experiencing Class 2, 3, and 5 rapids.  When our group of learned the boat could tip over us and we could be under it, some of our group’s fears began to rise.  As we headed to the rapids, we fought the fears by describing other areas in our life that gave us strength: Mountain biking, sky diving, and being Yoga instructors.  Vulnerability played within us and one another’s devotion won.  We began.  On the first class 5, two of our teammates flipped out and we retrieved them quickly.  We enjoyed the class 2 and 3 rapids and endured the class 5’s. While our boat of women tackled the Nile white waters, one thing we couldn’t tackle was the dam that was being built in the very area we were riding through. We were told a man from Italy is buiding the dam to “give water to the entire country of Uganda” which is hard for our group to believe.  We were also told the World Bank is behind it from a financing standpoint which also saddened us.  None of us can understand how a group of men can consciously decide to destroy one of the world’s greatest rivers and the communities that depend on it.  Not an easy part of our journey to process.

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The Nile River by Tracey Campbell