Old Yeller

No, sillies, not the movie - my mat!  But the stories are similarly sad.  Is a yoga mat worth crying over?  I've had my yellow mat for 4 years - I bought it the spring after my second son arrived.  I love my yellow mat - we've been through many ardho muhka savasana together - so many that there are dark patches where my hands and feet go!  I learned how to do a proper chaturanga on my old yellow mat (I'm still working on perfecting it, Diann!).  No one else in class ever has a bright yellow mat like mine - I think the instructors and classmates got to recognize me ("oh, here comes that girl with the yellow mat - I hope she doesn't unroll that smelly old thing next to...oh darn!  She did.")  The horizontal white lines kept ME in line. Yes, friends - kept, for a divot right in the middle of where my hands go has widened a bit, getting worse over the course of the summer.  I've had to replace my old yellow mat.

This was a struggle - but one that I knew was coming.  When the divot first appeared, I immediately began searching online for stores that sold my yellow mat.  Nothing, but I had time.  Then the divot got a little larger.  I checked out places that made custom yoga mats - still none that offered "yellow" as a base color...and even then, you couldn't add stripes anyway.  The divot turned into a flap - I was in a panic.  I wasn't going to find my yellow mat anywhere.   I was going to start from square one.  I needed to do research.

I read reviews online.  I poured over ads in Yoga Journal.  I took note of which mats were used in yoga studios (a lot of them use Jade mats).  I tried to spy which mats were used by the instructors on my yoga DVDs (even in slow motion, my eyes couldn't see - but Shiva Rea uses Jade).  I asked people.  I read more reviews online. 

...AND, I settled on a Manduka eKO-lite.  check it out here Boy is this a thin mat.  It is very eco-friendly with it's complete biodegradability.  Low carbon footprint - it's made of natural tree rubber - and has a cool design.  It's smelly. 

I haven't had a new boyfriend in a long, long, looonnngg time, but I've got to imagine this is what it's like.  There's a mourning period as you get over the loss of your old one (mat or boyfriend).  You need to acclimate yourself to the new texture (mat.  well, maybe boyfriend, too)  You need to get used to the new smell until it becomes undecipherable to your nose (mat...and definitely boyfriend!).  At the end of the day, hopefully it's an improvement over what you've had, and hopefully it'll stick around for a while.

Yellow is associated with the Solar Plexus Chakra (it's called Manipura).  Its lotus has 10 petals, and is a Fire element (hey, like me!), associated with Power and Will, control, competence, and success.  Manduka does not make yellow mats (why not?!?  It's a great color!).  So, what color did I choose?  Denim - very close to Indigo, which is associated with the Third Eye Chakra (it's called Ajna).  Its lotus only had 2 petals, and is a Light element, associated with clear sight and insight.  I'll let you know how it goes...my only regret so far is that my mat is the same color as everyone else in class.  Hey, I guess we all are working on looking inward with clarity... 

Yes, I did cry at the end of Old Yeller.

Help your Dosha!

 Last time I posted, I talked about Doshas - and I thought I would follow up with a little more information about them.  The "Science" of Ayurveda follows a system that helps to maintain your health by using certain principles of nature to bring you into symmetry with your true self.  In order for Ayurveda to work, you'll need to know your "Dosha".  We all have some elements of each Dosha in our system, but tend to be more dominant with one Dosha.

KAPHA - comprised mainly of water and earth elements.  Tend to have a heavier frame, think and move more leisurely, and are stable.  When balanced, this Dosha creates sweetness, calmness, and loyalty.  When imbalanced, this Dosha causes weight gain, congestion, and resistance to change.  Let's keep this Dosha balanced with candles and oils containing notes of Rosemary, Frankincense, and Peppermint!


PITTA - comprised mainly of fire and water elements.  Tend to be muscular, smart, and determined.  When balanced, this Dosha creates warm, intelligent, good leaders.  When imbalanced, this Dosha causes us to be critical, irritable, and aggressive.  Let's keep this Dosha balanced with candles and oils containing notes of Lemon, Lavender, and Ylang-ylang.

VATA - comprised mainly of ether and air elements.  Tend to be thin, light, and quick in thoughts and actions.  When balanced, this Dosha brings creativity and enthusiasm.  When imbalanced, you may experience anxiety, insomnia, or irregular digestion.  Let's keep this Dosha balanced with Patchouli, Vetiver, and Basil.


Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape - Author unknown

Hey there, what's your Dosha?

So, my "Summer of Yoga - Part 2" is winding down...just as it wound down last August.  I've been diligent about practicing whenever I could, even planning the rest of my day around the yoga class schedule. 
On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, I was able to indulge in the morning classes that I am not usually able to take during the school year.  Fridays have been pretty much home practice, and now that I've figured out my Yoga app on the iPad, it's a little more organized (and I don't forget to hit postures on both sides!)
On Tuesdays, I have been doing an evening class with an instructor that I quite like, and I'm glad that I can potentially continue to practice with her throughout the Fall.  It's a good thing I like her approach, however, because for the past 3 weeks, she's been focusing her classes on the "Heart Chakra", and I haven't been enjoying them as much.  They've been extra challenging for me, and that's the last thing you want as the hustle and bustle of your day winds down in time for evening.  Nevertheless, the class is good, and I'm motivated to attend, even knowing that I might not enjoy it as much as the invigorating Wednesday morning sessions I get with Josh. 
I started questioning this feeling of discomfort with the "Heart-Opening practice"...I mean, what's wrong with me?  Who wouldn't want to open their heart, enhancing one's ability to Love, Understand, Empathize, and Forgive?  Kinda makes me seem a bit cold-hearted (excuse the pun) to feel uncomfortable with this practice...perhaps it's just what I need.
I did a little (like 3 minutes - it is Summer, afterall) more research into this Heart Chakra to find out where the root of my problems lie.  There are 7 Chakras, or power centers, in your body, and each is associated with a color and state of being.  The Sanskrit name for the Heart Chakra is Anahata, and it lies exactly in the center of the other 6 Chakras.  It is a 12 petaled Lotus flower, and associated with the color green.  It is the source of your soul/heart consciousness, hence it's focus on love, understanding, empathy, and forgiveness.  It is associated with the "Air Element" - ah, there's the rub. My dosha is Pitta - associated with the "Fire Element".  Maybe the Air is blowing out my flame!
So, what's your Dosha?  How does it affect the way you carry yourself and interact with the world?  Are you, like me, a Pitta?  Someone who is muscular, with a smart, determined character (does that describe me?  not really) If this dosha is balanced, a Pitta can be a good leader (how flattering!).  If unbalanced, a Pitta is critical, irritable, and aggressive (oh boy!  Sadly, my friends, that does sound a bit familiar).  Maybe you're a Kapha:  Methodical, calm, caring, patient, stocky, with an excellent memory.  Perhaps you're a Vata:  a light sleeper, thin, airy, tending towards anxiety, creative, and "busy". There's a simple "dosha quiz" you can take online, if you like: click here  When you get your (free) results, it will also explain what happens when your Dosha is balanced and not balanced...you can also find all sorts of products to help you re-balance things.
So, rather than be defeated with Tuesday evenings' Heart Opening, it's time to regroup, and refocus.  Instead of letting a heart-opening practice dampen my spirit, I should let the Air element be the wind in the bellows, let it fan the flames of my Fire element, and invigorate my practice!

Spiritual intelligence is a matter not of learning skills but of finding who you are at the soul level. -Deepak Chopra

Challenging poses!

tittibhasana
(are you kidding me with that name?)

It seems that everyone has a yoga posture that presents them with challenges.  It could be a simple pose that you visit every week or it could be something as challenging as the posture you see to the left.  What the heck is that gal doing?!?  It's a rather challenging advanced posture called "Firefly Pose", or Tittibhasana.  It was featured in this month's Yoga Journal along with a step-by-step on how to prepare yourself for entering what I think looks like a rather impressive pose.

This step-by-step approach is essential to mastering any tough postures!  Begin with babysteps, mastering your "foundation", and you can build your practice to include even the most challenging poses.  You can't start building a skyscraper without building a first floor.

For Firefly, it turns out that the "first step" is just a more intense forward lunge with the shoulder under the forward knee, instead of tucking the knee into your armpit.  For now, I think I can work on taking my lunge deeper and becoming familiar with the new feeling of having my shoulder under instead of over.  This is what yoga has always been about - shifting your comfort levels, testing your limits, and once you're comfortable, shift them again.  It's the only way to let your practice grow.

This is purely "the physical" - you can certainly apply this yogic philosophy of pushing the limits of your comfort levels with your mind and attitude.  Perhaps it will help you in a tough new relationship or one that has been troubling you for years.  Take baby steps with your postures, take baby steps with your relationships and be surprised at how much you can grow and feel better about your place in the world!

So, will it take me weeks or months to get that shoulder under the forward knee?  I'll have to start opening up my hips if I want to get there...

Mind, body, and spirit are all one; they cannot be separated.  To make progress in one, you must make progress in all.

ps - for those of you with an advanced practice, Kathryn Budig has a weekly blog where she posts "Yoga Challenge Poses" with step-by-step instructions to build your practice to include these extreme pretzel postures ;) Click here to read more!

Even Yogis need a vacation

Now, before you think this post is all about how I've not blogged in forever and a day (a blogging vacation), it's not.  Faithful readers (Hi Kerry, Hi Lauren!) know that summer is when I really take advantage of my time off as a school teacher to "get away" on my mat.  Once I'm on my mat and flying, it really does feel like a vacation...and the way my gently stretched arm and leg muscles feel after a good practice?  No amount of beach relaxation can compare to that kind of bliss!

The yoga classes that I frequent are on weekday mornings, and that's kinda hard to get to when you have a class full of 8th graders ready to get their "learn" on.  I love it when there's a break or a school holiday so I can make it to these 9am classes.  Summertime is 9 full weeks of morning availability for me (half the reason I send my kids to camp is so I can make it to these classes!).  When I do return to my regular practice each summer, it's fun to see old friends in my yoga class (hey there, Cathie!), and it's great when I make new ones (Penny!).  Alas, Summertime is also when everyone else outside the education industry decides to go on Vacation; Yoga teachers included.

So, what do you do when your yoga teacher goes on vacation?  Well, I guess it goes without saying that you pray that the class gets covered so that you can continue on with your practice!  Secondly, you approach your mat for that session with an open mind.  The Substitute yoga teacher does not know the rhythms of the class they are covering, and he/she will have his/her own style of instructions.  Be respectful of those variations, and know that at minimum you will deepen your practice, maximally you'll have a more well-rounded practice.  Changing it up can be good!  Doing a variation of a posture that you may have become too comfortable in is beneficial.  As my favorite yoga teacher of all time (Diann) used to say: "you never know when you're going to be called into battle, and you never know how long that battle is going to be, so always be ready in your warrior" (I, II, or III...and she would make us hold those poses for a looooooong time....)

It's important to be comfortable with your practice, but sometimes, with only one instructor, you can become too comfortable and your practice doesn't grow.  It becomes "stale", you may forget proper alignment, your muscles may not be ready to experience sometime new if you follow the same routine week after week.  Mixing it up is good...but keeping an open mind is the most important.

I had the experience of having 2 substitute teachers for 2 different regular classes this week.  This summer, I have been periodically taking an evening class, and this week, there was a sub.  This sub clearly had her own regular class at another time, and many of her "regulars" seemed to show up for this evening class.  I was optimistic because this is how I used to feel about Diann.  I would find out when she was practicing, and I'd make a concerted effort to practice with her when I could.  That's just how it is when you click and connect with an instructor.  You "get" them, they "get" the way you do asana, and things flow from there.  Anyway, my hopes were quickly dashed with this nighttime sub when she instructed us into a Warrior I posture, and then scolded those of us who didn't hold our back foot in what she considered to be the proper alignment.  From the get-go, I've always been instructed that the back foot should angle out slightly (about 45 degrees) with the back edge of the foot flat on the floor.  I've been practicing regularly for 4 years and I've always practiced Warrior with this foot placement.  This instructor insisted that we keep our rear foot facing forward.  She refused to continue on to her next posture until all of us in the class aligned ourselves as such.  I'm no fool...I moved my foot the way she told me to immediately, even though it didn't feel right - not in my foot, not in my hip, not at my calf or my knee. Needless to say, others in the class were a little slow on the uptake or thought she was kidding.  She kept insisting there were some of us using incorrect form, and she kept us there.  Uncomfortable, not relaxing, on edge, the tension could be cut with a knife.  HUH?  This isn't what a yoga practice is supposed to be!  One person actually walked out.  Me?  I pledged a sorority way back when, and I don't give up so easily.  I finished the practice, but begrudgingly, the whole while thinking that this just wasn't right.  Homie don't play that.

So, this morning, I walked into another practice with another sub.  Josh told us last week that he would not be in, but he assured us there would be a qualified sub.  There was...clearly a woman with a dance/ballet background; she was quite graceful.  Despite my misgivings after the evening class, I approached the teacher's instruction with an open mind.  She had a soothing voice, she knew her stuff, and I felt like "I can do this!".  But it was still a little weird.  For starters, she used a device on her head for which I have no better description than "Janet Jackson Control" - you guys with me?  She would give us an instruction and tell us what was coming next, but breathlessly make side comments to people in the class: "Don't use that mat.  Thank you.  Put that mat away and get a blue yoga mat, thank you"  She'd put us through a small sequence (ie Warrior I to Warrior III) and say "Thank you" like she was Elvis or something ("Thankyehverhmush").  She also was into this same strange, new alignment for Warrior I with the back foot facing forward instead of angled back.  I was beginning to think I had missed something about alignment in Yoga Journal last month. The end of the class was a little wishy-washy, where she let us do whatever we wanted without descrete guidance into Savasana.  We could do bridge, we could do plow, we could do modified pigeon, we could lay on our backs, we could to whatever made us comfortable.  I suppose this was an attempt to help us own our practice, but it came across as "I don't know how to wrap things up, so you go ahead", and most of us just floundered, lemmings that we are, without the direction.  She opened and closed practice with an "Om", and I swear I was the only one who joined in (and I am NOT an "Om-y" type of practitioner).  Then again, with the mic on, maybe the sounds of everyone else's Om was drowned out.  I left the class feeling stretched and relaxed, but a little confused.

So, readers, moral of the story:  keep an open mind.  ON the mat and OFF the mat.  Honor your instructor's practice.  If you take away at least something positive from a less-than-ideal practice, let it be this:  feel fortunate that your spirit led you to the mat, be grateful that your body had the strength to practice, and be thankful that your mind was willing to guide you.  Namaste.

The light in me sees the light in you and recognizes the source of this light to be the same.  We are all connected - Yogic philosophy