POW! (Pose of the Week)

This week's Pose: Tiptoe Pose - because it's nice to know you can always take it a step further!
I am not sure of the sanskrit name for this pose. Different sites list it differently: Pada Angushthasana. Samatvam. Prapadasana. All I know is that it's taking last week's pose (full lotus) one eencie, weencie step further, and this is how you progress in yoga. With each practice, you bring yourself one gradual step further, and eventually, you're flying in crow, or binding in Marichiasana (My eventual goal! Ha!)

So, Tiptoe pose it is for me today (and has been for a while). It lengthens your spine, really improves your balance, improves digestion and circulation, strengthens all those things that Lotus does, but steps it up a notch and relieves symptoms of sciatica! Whew! Just when I was losing hope there that this pose might not do enough...

Ever so slightly different from Lotus, this pose starts from Mountain Pose (tadasana). You balance on one leg - let's start on the Left today - and bring the right foot to rest in your left hip crease. This is a standing half-lotus. You were reading about half lotus on my blog 2 weeks ago, so this is old-hat. Big deal. But NOW, bend forward at the waist and touch the floor. Woah, nelly. That's a different sensation. You're still keeping that right foot in half lotus. Breathe a bit, it will get easier. NnOoWw, keeping your hands in contact with the floor, bend that supporting left leg, and come to sit/balance on the left heel. You will really feel this in your right hip, and as and when you're ready, you can balance by bringing your hands up to prayer. Tah-Dah! When you're ready to come out of the pose, you reverse all of your motions and repeat on the other side.

This pose is challenging, to say the least, and I am still working on it, after being introduced to it about 3 weeks ago at a Saturday practice. It's fun, though, and I like the fact that I'm nudging myself forward in my practice. Some days I can balance for a few seconds, other days, I can't balance at all...but that's the nature of the beast!

Today, remind yourself it's okay to take risks; even little ones can pay off!

Why do you do Yoga?

Queridos cincos pesos, we first met, reluctantly, in Mexico. Since then, you've grown on me. Now it's time for us to say "Adios". I'm headed back to work in a week and I have some pencil skirts I'd like to squeeze into (and not look like Joan from MadMen!)...

Weight loss? Toning? Improve flexibility? Calm? 5 dang minutes to yourself? An instructor (Diann) once asked rhetorically during class, "Why do we do yoga?" Cheekily, I replied, "So we can shave in the shower..." But really, why do YOU do yoga?

When you enter a yoga class for the first time, you go with some sort of purpose: Hey, you're going to check out this "Om" stuff; a physician recommended it as part of your physical therapy; your friend who does yoga looks amazing; you've been spying on the class through the window while you run on the treadmill, and everyone looks happier leaving an hour of yoga than you do leaving a 40 minute run...

The reasons are countless, and it doesn't matter why you "try" it the first time. What matters is your reason for coming back. What keeps you returning to the mat, again, and again, and for me this summer, again? (obviously, since those 5 pounds from my vacation are still hanging around, I'm not doing it for weight loss benefits! And since I still don't look like Gwyneth Paltrow, I'm not doing it for toning, either! Then again, I do have a healthy appetite which she doesn't seem to have...)

I attended a class last Tuesday morning - it was an 8:30 class, and while countless people wake far earlier than 8:30 to begin a practice, my joints weren't quite lubricated enough yet, and I was hoping for a little gentle flexing and stretching, building up to some movement, but nothing as intense as one of Diann's or Josh's classes. The instructor, whom I remember from last year, opened the practice with an almost diatribe on how she expected people to participate in her class. "Sitting one out" if you didn't like the pose wasn't going to cut it in her practice that morning. She expected everyone to try and take it as far as he/she could because that's the intent and spirit of yoga (she's right, but was this the time?) It was borderline lecture on yogic theory, and while she may have been trying to educate us on a subject she obviously loves and knows a great deal about, 8:30 in the morning at a gym is not the time or the place. This went on for the first 10 minutes of the class, and she ended by impressing upon us on the need to clean up after ourselves, should we have to leave class early to head out to work or pick up children from childcare. Really? We only get 1 hour, and you've spent the first 10 minutes lecturing us, so I don't think we'll be ducking out early. Then, almost as if to make up for lost time, she launched into a rapid fire practice that didn't have many poses, but some were quite challenging for the beginners who she felt were present in enough numbers that needed "enlightening" at the beginning of class.

My point in telling this story, other than to get a minor gripe off my chest, is that I have been practicing yoga for a long time, and this instructor is hardly going to scare me off with her style. Someone walking in off his/her treadmill, however, might not have the patience for the "mumbo jumbo". I will be back, again, and again, and again (in fact, I'll be on my mat later this morning...), because I have my own purpose in doing yoga. The truth is, it is therapeutic to me (my mind, my joints, my spirit), I am proud of and love the growth in my practice I have accomplished this summer, and now that I'm headed back to teaching in just a week, I have no idea how I'm going to keep attending classes so ardently!

Yes, in the back of my mind, I'm constantly reminding myself that with patience, I'll get that long, lean yoga body - but the fact that it has yet to materialize is proof that I'm on my bright yellow mat for a different reason entirely. Is it those fleeting moments to myself? Is it the chance for the world to stop and move more slowly by? Is it a chance for me to feel the edges of my skin? It doesn't matter, because it's all of these and more. With every new practice, another reason arises, and that's why I'll be back...

Namaste.

POW! (pose of the week)

Pose of the Week: Padmasana - because we're building the next level! For me, Lotus pose is one of those "definitive" yoga poses. It looks so serene, peaceful, inwardly connected. Despite all this "ease", Lotus is also a pose that takes many, many baby steps to get right - which is why I've taken the time to build up to it over the course of the last three weeks.

Padmasana has many physical benefits: Clearly, your hips are going to be opened when you're sitting with opposite ankles resting in your hip creases - but did you also know that it will actually lubricate your knee joints, possibly preventing arthritis and (for us women who are prone to it) osteoporosis?!? Sitting up tall will strengthen abdominal organs and promote good digestion. Mentally, this pose will focus your mind (making it an optimal pose for meditation), reduce stress, and bring about mental clarity.

Begin sitting in staff pose (L-shape, with legs out in front of you). If it helps, sit with your back against the wall the first few times to encourage your spine to lengthen upwards. Slowly draw your left heel up to your navel, and bring it to rest in the right hip crease. Draw the right heel up to your navel, and set it into the left hip crease. Rotate the hips and thighs and widen them out to the sides. Breathe easy and sit as long as you like. As Diann reminds us in class: Just when you feel you need to "jump out" of a pose, breath deeply into the pose, because that's when it's beginning to do it's work! Every so often, break your dominance, and find yourself into the pose in the opposite order (ie, do the right side first, then the left).

Please do not rush into the pose all at once. Build up to it gradually. Begin (as I did 3 weeks ago) by practicing Sage (siddhasana), then when that's comfortable, work your way up to a half-Lotus (ardha padmasana) before attempting full Lotus. With baby steps, gradually working your way into this pose, you'll find that even someone with the stiffest hips out there, with diligence and intention, can make his/her way into Lotus.

And just when you thought Lotus was "arrival"...tune in next week to see where we're going next with this work!

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

POW! (Pose of the Week)

POW! This week's Pose: Ardha Padmasana - because we're half way there!

August is half way over, can you believe it? The second half of summer always flies by much faster than the first half for us schoolteachers...

I think that Ardha must Sanskrit for "Half" (Half moon is Ardha Chandrasana, Half lotus is Ardha Padmasana - seems logical, right?). This week, I've chosen to build upon last week's pose, making a progression in the last few weeks of summer (Ardha August, anyone?). Last week, I shared Sage Pose with you, and you'll notice the biggest difference between Sage and Half-Lotus is the width of the knees. Half-Lotus positions the knees ever so slightly closer together, but in doing so, you'll open the hips quite a bit more. See the picture, above left, featuring Siddhartha, the ultimate Yoga Celebrity! Transition from one pose to the other, and you'll notice the difference I'm talking about.

Half Lotus is a super posture to take for meditation or to use for breath work, but it also has intrinsic benefits of its own: It will open hips, lubricate knee joints, tone the abdomen (when you sit up tall!), and magically, it actually is regarded to prevent arthritis and osteoporosis! So keep popping those Viactiv all the while taking this posture ;)

Begin with your legs out in front of you (from the side you'll look like a capital letter "L". Draw your right foot to your navel, rotating the leg outward, then gently place the top of your foot in the hip crease of your left leg. Sitting up tall, gently tuck your left leg under the right, and relax into the pose. Enjoy the benefits!

Until next week:

Be the change you wish to see in the world!

Diann ♥

I was in upward facing dog, I could feel the back of my deltoids actually burning, sweat was forming on my brow, and it was less than five minutes in, only the second pose of class! This is yoga with Diann, and so many of us love her for it! At long last, I can compose my first dedicated post to one of my "fave of all time" yoga instructors...

I've been practicing yoga all summer long, countless upward facing dogs have been performed, and not once have my muscles burned. I attend class with quite a few talented, challenging teachers...and they're all gifted, but not like Diann! So if a second-pose-up-dog is making my shoulders burn (totally in a good way, readers - I've blogged before about the need to not feel pain in yoga - this burn was warmth. I was arriving. I was building necessary warmth for the practice to come)...you must want to know what the first pose was.

Chaturanga! We held it for a loooooooooong time, too. Supported on blocks, of course, but the reason for this was for Diann to guide us into picture-perfect alignment. Then we visited the pose 3 more times within the practice (with and without blocks), to progress in the pose. Many of my "usual" instructors guide us and demonstrate perfect alignment and sometimes walk around and make subtle adjustments, but with Diann, she will talk you through the subtle adjustments until your muscles and bones are in the proper places, help you make those adjustments and not stop until she's satisfied that everyone is mastering the pose for their practice. Yes, there's luxury to do this in a small class, but I recall this about her guiding instruction when I was often a student in a 4o+ person class "way back when", when she taught at my gym, and of course, this is what got me "hooked".

So, Diann and the gym have parted ways - in fact, when it happened about a year ago, I just couldn't believe it! - and practicing with her now is a luxury in so many ways! She kicked my butt, and I don't think she'd mind me saying so, but I never leave class defeated. I feel I've grown, I've "tweaked" a pose or two, and I have an idea where my practice is going to take me next (if not physically, then definitely metaphorically). It's a great luxury to leave a practice this way. It's a great luxury to fit it into my weekend (practice is 70-75 minutes, and I don't always know if I have that long to practice or babysitting covered). It's a great luxury to be enriched by her vast knowledge of poses, yogic history, and wholistic philosophy. She's never preachy, but shares an outlook that makes you appreciate a lot of things you weren't even thinking about before. I've taken away a lot of how I feel about yoga from practicing with Diann - my love of the grace in each pose, my tendency to do a pose with intention, and the knowledge that this is a journey - just as I've "arrived" in one place I'm able to see where I'm going next!

Thanks, Diann, for a super practice today, and hopefully, I'll see you again before the next change of season ;) Familiar words to end a practice (or a blog entry):

Honoring the light above me, honoring the light below me, honoring the light on my right, honoring the light on my left, honoring the light within me, allows me to honor the light within each and every one of you.

POW! (Pose of the Week)

Pose of the Week: Siddhasana - because we're building on something here...

Siddhasana, or "Sage pose" is a nice little pose to work on once you've warmed up quite a bit in your practice. It will help focus the mind and reduce stress, but it's also going to open the hips and elongate the spine while toning the abdominals as you focus on proper breathing techniques.

I've been seeing quite a bit of Lotus pose lately (online, in Yoga Journal, in books), and it's definitely one of those decievingly advanced yoga poses that you have to work up to. Whenever you see a photograph of Lotus, the practitioner looks calm, and at peace, like he/she is totally relaxed in the moment. In fact, Lotus is a common pose that people take when meditating, the ultimate practice of looking inward towards the third eye and/or heart center.

But Lotus is a very challenging pose, and I think Sage pose is a good pose to practice in order to ready yourself for Lotus. Begin seated with extended legs and bring the sole of one foot to the inner thigh of the other leg. Gently bend your other leg, bringing that foot and ankle to rest on top of the opposite calf muscle. Let the legs and pelvis feel heavy as you breathe deeply into the belly. Relax here for as long as you like, before switching to repeat on the opposite side. With regular practice of the Sage pose, soon, you'll find yourself ready to try the half Lotus, and finally Full Lotus poses.

Namaste.

Updates...

Just a quick post today...

First, I felt I should give an update on my "Do Yoga Everyday for a Week" goal. I am a teacher, and during the school year, I don't have the time (a more dedicated yogi would say, "oh, you just don't make the time...") to practice as often as I like. I do squeeze in a class whenever I can, but once school is in session, classes at 9am during the week just aren't going to work, nor are evening classes at 7pm, which is precisely bedtime for my two littlest boys. Weekends are relegated to grocery shopping, cleaning, and laundry, plus kids' sports and other committments. It's hard to practice.

SOOOOO, I take full advantage of the summer and the more flexible schedule I have as a "sSAHM" (seasonal Stay At Home Mom), and practice as much as I can. At the start of the summer, I made a pledge to myself that I would take at least one week and try doing yoga every day, and I was finally able to accomplish this goal. So, why the insistence on every day? Well, I do read a lot of celebrity rag-mags, and everyone with a fab body always chalks it up to Yoga. Madonna, Gwyneth, Jennifer, you name the celeb, they name yoga.

My results? No, I don't look like a celebrity. It's going to take a lot more dedication than one week (and a LOT less M&Ms). But I feel happy, which is probably more than I can say for the aforementioned celebs! The accomplishment of meeting a goal, of course, gives you a bit of a "glow", but I do feel more limber, and I feel like it's almost part of a routine now...I just knew each day that I was going to find myself on a mat at some point during the day. After my dedicated week, I did take a 2 day break (Thursday and Friday) from yoga...but I still did some cardio at the gym. Today, I think I'll hop back on the mat and look forward to some more opportunities this week. Maybe by September I'll have that celeb bod...

Speaking of celebrity rag mags - in the latest issue of "Life and Style", who is pictured paddling down some river on an SUP (stand up paddleboard - see last week's post)? And speaking of SUPs, what was featured, front and center, in the New York Times Style Section this past Thursday? And where were the paddleboarders headed? To do Yoga on the beach. Sometimes the connections we can make are a-m-a-z-i-n-g.

As I mentioned last week, our SUP has been ordered, and as my final update today, it is due to arrive on Monday. Will I hop on and paddle on over to my SUP yoga class? You'll just have to check back and see ;)

Connect with your spirit on the mat. Soon. I promise it will feel good...

Tried and true vs. Mixing it up!

Well, it's Wednesday, and I was able to participate in quite a challenging class today! The instructor really mixed things up and had us all over the mat. We did traditional poses (down dog, plank, warrior, crocodile, chair - ugh, triangle, pyramid, etc), but not in the "traditional" order.

For example, we were in Mountain pose, and stepped far back into a high Warrior 1. Later on, we got into plank, lowered into crocodile, then pushed up again into plank before down dog - mixed up, for sure! The focus was definitely on balance, though, and the biggest "doozy" of all was lifting from Warrior 1 into a standing side twist on one (!) leg. I was proud of myself for mostly following along and doing my best.

This was quite a difference from Monday's class, which presented challenges of it's own. But the challenges on Monday were the same ones they were last Monday, and the Monday before that, because the instructor seems to follow a tried and true sequence that works for her. It's almost formulaic. We do a few sun salutations, some Warriors (1 and 2), Triangle, some half-moons, some Warrior 3, Tree, Camel, Gate, and Boat. If she's feeling sassy, she'll throw in a Bridge, Pigeon, or Crow, but that's pretty much the extent of the variation.

Now, each style of instruction has its benefits. I like the Monday class, because I know which poses are going to make an appearance, and sometimes I know the order they're coming. Sounds a bit boring, but it's better than a tape because she does get us into some challenging poses - poses I haven't quite nailed yet. Knowing that these poses are coming up in the practice gives me security in that I'll definitely get another chance to work on them, deepening my practice! To her credit, the instructor *does* vary the way she gets us into poses. Sometimes she brings us in from the bottom and others we come down from the top, and that variation is helpful. Maybe we have trouble in the pose from one direction, but we get a second chance in the other direction.

Wednesday's class is a Vinyasa class, and I love the way the instructor builds us up to the flow he's decided on for the day. I usually know the poses...but I rarely know the order he's going to use. "Mixing it up" has a lot of benefits for deepening my practice in another way. When I don't know what's coming, I am forced to listen intently; my focus is there, in the moment. I don't have time to worry about who is wobbling around, I don't have time to check the clock, there's really no time to think about anything else but the practice. I'm truly "in the zone".

So, let's weigh in on which style of instruction you prefer, and why!

No matter why you practice, practice to purify (purify the body through asana, purify the mind through focus and intention, purify the soul through meditation) - paraphrased from Patanjali

ps - I've done it! I've done at least 45 minutes of practice everyday for 7 days. This garners another post in the coming days...

POW! (pose of the week)

Pose of the week: Garudasana - because sometimes when you're all twisted up, you loosen something that lets you fly like an eagle! Or maybe I heard a Steve Miller band song on the radio today.

So, readers, I promised a good one this week, and Eagle is a great pose! It's going to build focus and develop willpower like any good yoga pose, but it's going to strengthen the lower body while it stretches the upper body. I'm talking about opening up your shoulders and back while working those feet, ankles, calves, and thighs.

You start in mountain posture and then shift your weight onto one leg (let's start with the left). You'll wrap your right leg up, over the left thigh and wrap your right lower leg around your left, hooking the right foot behind the left calf. Sound's crazy, right? I had a friend in high school who would sit comfortably like this all the time. Anyway, hooking the right foot behind the calf helps to hug your legs together for a strong, stable pillar. Now you can move on to your arms.

Once the legs are twisted around each other, hold the arms out in a T. Remembering that the right LEG is on top, you'll now entwine the arms together similarly with the opposite ARM on top. So you'll place the left upper arm over the right upper arm and wrap the lower arms, ending up with palms facing. Hold the touching palms right at your nose level, elbows shoulder height, and you've arrived!

Another thing I like about Garudasana is it's versatility. What I mean is that you can do this standing or lying on your back! I always seem to have an easier time doing this one on the floor. I know that the whole "balance" thing is taken out of the equation here, but I'm able to wrap my legs more completely here, and it feels like I'm working my abdominals a tad more when I'm on my back.

Oh, here's another example to help you out:

Just kidding! I don't recommend doing this variation first time out...although I must point out that she's wisely using the wall to support herself. Slacker.

PS - Thanks to a shout out on hubby's facebook yesterday, I think we may have picked up a bit of traffic over here on YATS. If you wouldn't mind posting a comment or feedback just to let me know you stopped by, I'd love it! In the meantime,

I want to fly like an eagle, to the sea. Fly like an eagle, let my spirit carry me...