Heather - Day Six

Ashtang- aaaaaahhhh. =) This is the first time in awhile, where I felt like I had the energy to do the practice before I started. Even though I worked a full eight and half hours today before practicing, I felt revved up. I believe in part due to the consequences of practicing everyday, the energy is starting to build so that I actually DO have the vigor I want and so desperately need. Today was even a stressful day at work at many moments and I didn't feel completely beat up by the end - again, I think in large part thanks to daily practice. However, I didn't push it. I only did about 70 minutes of practice. I have a TON of packing to do tonight and tomorrow to get ready for my move on August 31st, but I am also leaving tomorrow for a hard-earned week's vacation to see my family tomorrow. So, I don't want to push it, I still have many, many activities calling out for energy and attention. One great word of advice that Anna Neuman, a fellow Ashtangi, gave me when I was still new to the practice and resistant to abstaining from practice during personal moon days and days of rest in general was that I had to consider whether this was a practice I wanted to do the rest of my life or if I wanted to do it just for a little while. If I was looking to make this part of my existence, then missing days for rest when needed was not merely OK, but it is part of the practice. So, as I work to not live from the perspective of my all or nothing tendency, I have to remember, that I don't have to do a full Mysore practice every day. I don't have to even do a dynamic practice every single day. What I have to do is learn to listen to my body and assess my time and priorities balance so that I can learn how not to tip the scales in favor of one thing while ignoring or sacrificing others. When I am honest I tend to do that. I think: "Oh, if I can't do a full 90 minute yoga practice, then I can't really do one at all, or if I can't sit for at least half an hour then it isn't worth the time to sit at all." I am a pro at doing that! But I am working to correct that. It doesn't serve me. It makes my life's goals one of two things: nearly impossible, or so all consuming that I have to hone my life to just one or two things and miss out on the richness of so many experiences that I am fortunate to have offered to me and be involved in. That's not to say if a person were to want a simple life that that is unacceptable or not a full life, but for me, life is like a wild growing field. There are so many different grasses, flowers, bugs, and animals that grow there, live there, or at least come to visit and I want to be there to observe, experience, and receive every single one with every bit of my passion, enthusiasm and attention!

Wishing you happinEss and metta from a little dot in the universe called Boston,
Heather

Heather - Day Five

Again, I found myself resisting a yoga practice today. The combination of the working so much of late, heat and a more recent habit of laziness had a big pull on my inclinations today. I intended to get up and take Lynne Begier's 9:30am class, but nixed that to lounge around with my boyfriend in the a.m. before teaching restorative. I knew I would have time to just do a good Ashstanga practice after working the desk and before leaving to go home. But by the end of my shift I felt tired. I decided to go home. When I got home I fought my instinct to make dinner and curl up with my book and set myself up with a dharma talk by Ajahn Brahm and a good, hour long Yin practice. Again, as before, I felt more awake and energized. I apparently made the right choice of practice. Yay me!!!

I actually listened to a talk with the title: self-discipline. I thought it was appropriate since I was so mentally resistant to pursuing the discipline I had set up for myself. Ajahn Brahm talked about how one should use positive self-reinforcement. For example, if you get up in the morning when your alarm goes off, reward yourself with an extra bit of breakfast or a pat on the back or something. He encourages this rather than what most of us do which is bemoan and mentally punish ourselves for hitting that snooze a couple of times rather than just getting up and sitting or making breakfast or reading the paper, etc, etc... He you are going to train yourself into the habits you want by rewarding them rather than just falling into the negativity inducing mental states that steal your energy and make developing good habits even harder.

So, I am eating chocolate chip cookies. While the yoga itself is a great reward, I decided that I am going to positively reward my choice to carry out my commitment to this 365 day challenge.

WishinG you happiness, metta, and cookies of your very own from a little dot in the universe called Boston,
Heather

Rob - Day 6: Meditation/Yin/Teddy Ruxpin!?

Ahhhh...sleep. Went to bed at 9pm woke up at 8:30am. What a beautiful thing. I feel like I took the appropriate measures to recover from my slightly excessive previous day because I feel quite alright today. I took further measures to balance my excess of yang with my practice today.

First I hit the cushion for almost a full hour of meditation - about 10 mins of metta followed by 45 mins of insight practice. It was quite lovely actually. I hadn't really noticed before today but my sits have been much shorter of late - only about 20 mins or so. I almost forgot how much more clear the mind becomes during longer sits. I think that I will need to try to set aside more time for at least a few longer sits per week. I used to get an hour with my group once a week but sadly my old Sangha has dissolved for reasons that I won't discuss on this blog. I guess the good news is starting in September none other than Heather and I will be starting a new meditation group at our yoga studio. Stay tuned for details!

I followed this by a little over an hour of self Yin. Here is the sequence I did:

Wide Kneed Child's Pose - 5 mins
Wide Kneed Child's Pose w/Twist - 4 mins/side
1/2 Saddle - 4 mins/side
Full Saddle - 5 mins
Child's/Laying On Stomach - 3 mins
1/2 Butterfly - 4 mins
Dragonfly Twist - 4 mins/side
Dragonfly - 5 mins
Twisted Root - 5 mins/side
Savasana - 10 mins

As you can see most of the focus was on front hips and hamstrings. Somehow this felt like just what I needed. I practiced in complete silence which was a nice change. Normally at home I put on some sort of ambient music. One funny side note - for no apparent reason the theme from Teddy Ruxpin got in my head while I was laying in Savasana. What the hell!?


But all told it was a lovely day. I'm feeling quite rested and ready to get back to a more vigorous practice tomorrow morning.

Namaste/Om Shanti to all the fly Yogis/Yoginis out in blog land!

Heather - Day Four : For Real!

Partially due to exhaustion and partially due to schedule-based necessity, I did a small restorative practice today: svasana, cat/cow, brief downdog, pigeon, child's pose, (yin-style) butterfly, svasana. I forget the immense energizing value of a restorative practice when you are tired. How could I when Josh Summers, my Yin teacher training teacher, said that an indication of your energy levels and the appropriate activity is determined when you are tired by how you feel after a yang or yin class: meaning if you are MORE tired after a yang class then you were truly tired, if you were MORE tired after a yin class then you had stagnated energy that needed to be moved around, like in a yang class. The reverse is also true. I wouldn't go so far as to say I am brimming with fresh energy, but I don't feel like I could just drop at any second. I will definitely sleep fantastically tonight!

As I write this, I am thinking about how all my posts to date have had some sort of reflective theme to them. To be honest, I am running dry tonight. Maybe it is just the exhaustion, or it is just not being in as reflective of a mood. The only thing I want to accomplish with this blog as I move through my days is honesty. I admit there was a part of me that tried to find a way to twist my activities on Thursday in such a way that could be argued as yoga, and I guess I did that while talking about being present with my day and current company. But in my heart, though I know yoga is only one-eighth asana, I knew that when I made this commitment I was committing to 365 days of asana. I have already committed my entire life to the practice of the whole of yoga - at least as much as I can manage in this lifetime!

Wishing you happinEss and metta from a little dot in the universe called Boston,
Heather

Rob - Day 5: So THAT'S why I'm doing this!

Somehow, without my even realizing it, I stayed up for 23 hours yesterday. I woke up at 4 for my job at the Yoga Studio and didn't get to bed until about 3. The reason I was up so late was because My Band had a show and I was out until the bar closed. By the time I got home I was still so wound up that I needed to stay up a little longer to cool down. Somehow this didn't seem to phase me too bad at the time, but today I am TIRED. I'm not even sure how I'm writing this right now. I anticipate a very early bedtime today to recalibrate the batteries a bit. How is it that my two loves in life have completely different schedules and largely different values!? I think I'll save deeper analysis of this for some later posts.

So despite my tired state I managed to make it to an awesome workshop at my studio on the Koshas, Sublte Body and Chakras with Barbara Benagh. She's one of the most experienced teachers in Boston (over 30 years!) and if I'm not mistaken her studio was one of the first in the city. Needless to say she knows her stuff. I went to her workshop last month which was Part 1 on the Subtle Body. It dealt mainly with prana and the vayus which admittedly I still have a lot to learn about.

The one today dove head first into the chakras. Without recounting the exact details of what was discussed I think I'll focus more on their implications for me. With this whole commitment thing going on and with the way our lives are in modern society it's way too easy to get wrapped up in the physical practice. Don't get me wrong, their are amazing physical benefits to yoga and meditation. But when it comes down to it Yoga as it's practiced today a modern invention and has little to do with the classical texts. I'm super glad I went to this workshop so early in my quest because I think it put me back on target. No matter what amazing physical changes happen to me over the next 360 days I need to remind myself that this is a journey of self discovery with powerful spiritual implications. Awesome.

Heather - Day Four: A Hiccup

I have done the unthinkable: I missed my yoga practice yesterday. I did not voluntarily skip it, however. I had an actual day off from all jobs yesterday, so I agreed to go to Connecticut with my boyfriend (George Woods of the band Birds in the Woods)for his gig. We thought we would be leaving around three or four. Then his booker got him a radio spot at the last minute and he told me Wednesday night that we would have to be in CT by noon. I thought OK, no problem, I will take my mat and practice in New Haven between the radio spot and the gig which wasn't until 9pm. Well, by the time I got to his place Wed. night, he had not received confirmation that he had the radio spot, so we weren't going to have to get up the morning and leave right away. I thought, "great, I will do a nice yin practice at his place, maybe he can join me..." Well just about the time we were waking up, he got a call saying that they wanted him to get to New Haven ASAP for the radio show. So, there was barely time to take a shower. I still planned on doing yoga somewhere, maybe in a park, or find a class or something. We got there after FOUR HOURS. It is a trip that normally takes about two, but there was a traffic jam and so there was a stretch of road about 12 miles long that took us two of those hours to cross. A runner could have run it faster! But I did not fear, I still had confidence that there would be time for yoga. When we got to the radio station, they made us wait almost 45 minutes before putting my boyfriend on. By this time, my head was starting to kill me and I was starving as I had not had the time to make breakfast before we had to get on the road. So we found some food and went to the park. I couldn't practice right away, I had eaten too much and my headache remained. We had about an hour before we needed to be at the venue for set up. Now I was starting to get nervous. We set up, and he asked me to man the merchandise table. Then he didn't play until 11pm....sigh....so, after a set and breakdown, we got on the road somewhere around 12:30. I still had a pretty bad headache. I walked into my apartment at 3:06. I was out by 3:15 and had to be working at my yoga studio by 9am. If I had known the day of events was going to include the radio spot, I could have planned the yoga accordingly, or at least left George to it while I went to the park and practiced, but it always seemed like there was going to be a little time until there just wasn't.

I am disappointed. There are a lot of shoulda, woulda, coulda's running through my mind today. But the truth is, life is just sometimes unpredictable and I always learn best by making mistakes. So rather than start over I am going to chalk it up to life and count Friday as Day Four. After all, meditation and yoga are practices, in large part, of learning the art of starting over in every moment and treating every moment as new with "don't know mind," right? So, maybe my yoga practice yesterday was to be present for my life as it played out. We come to our mats to streamline our lives for a little bit on a daily basis in order to cultivate and strengthen our ability to listen deeply to our own needs. But yoga doesn't exist in a vaccuum. Hopefully, what happens on the mat doesn't stay on the mat. So all the presence we learn on the mat is something we can take into our lives. The more deeply we can listen to ourselves and respond with compassion, the bigger our capacity becomes to listen deeply to others and respond to them with compassion. My yoga was to be present with my boyfriend. It was a beautiful warm day, full of fun and great music, and hope for his career, and I got to spend a WHOLE day with him. We are both so busy so we were very lucky to have that, and while part of me looked for any opportunity to practice, most of me was just able to be there, without regret, and with a heart full of gratitude to enjoy my life as it was in the moment.


WishIng you happiness and metta from a little dot in the universe called Boston,
Heather

PS. As a side note, I want to add one more change. My meditation teacher, whom I have been studying under for nearly two years now, has gently suggested to me at various times that I might want to try reading no dharma books or yoga books for a set amount of time. This, he explains, would give the chance to work with bare experience and not, as we both know is my tendency, use reading as a checkpoint to make sure I am "getting it right." As a read-a-holic, the very thought horrifies me. As someone who knows I am a read-a-holic, the idea intrigues me, so as an added challenge, I have decided that for this 365 days, I will practice asana everyday, but abstain from reading about it. I will continue to read other things, mostly for current issues sorts of information and - gasp! - for pleasure. So my idea to use "Meditations from the Mat" is officially nixed, though I invite and encourage anyone else to pick it up and use it for inspiration in their own practice whether you have taken up the cause of 365 days or some other commitment.

Rob - Day 4: NEW MOON - Simple Yin and Some Reflections

Now I've had many a debate with yogis of different styles about the importance of moon days. The skeptics argue that millions of "renegade" yogis from non-ashtanga styles practice on moon days without any ill effect. And I suppose to some extent they're right. I've yet to see an exploded head, broken limb or complete PranaQi meltdown from such behavior. But for ME at least, I definitely tend to feel really wonky when I practice on them. Also, given Mr. Jois's knowledge and the level of refinement of the Ashtanga system I'd tend to say that he's probably onto something...

But as per my commitment I did hit the mat today, although very lightly. I did about 30 mins of freestyle Yin at home to limber up a bit. Still, and I'm not sure if this was the moon or what, I was VERY restless and felt a bit off afterward. Certainly not my typical post-yin mellow vibe.

I think I'm already starting to notice the effects of the consistent practice. Whenever I practice regularly, especially with Ashtanga, I tend to have much more energy. This morning I woke up at 4 more or less ready to go, despite the fact that I felt like I slept much lighter than usual. The thing that I must be mindful of is that sometimes I have TOO much energy. It's like the Prana's all spinning around with nowhere to go. I'm sure that over the next year I'll get a feel for how to properly contain this and adjust my practice accordingly.

Tomorrow promises to be a VERY yogic today. I'm going to a teacher's workshop with Barbara Benagh about the subtle body and chakras. Exciting! I'll be sure to let you know all about it in my next post.

Still, I do have to say that it's tough to make it to the mat with wonderful articles on Huffington Post expounding the Top 10 Reasons NOT To Do Yoga! :)

Om Shanti Gangstas!

Heather - Day Three

Last night was a late night, so when my alarm went off at 5:30am for Mysore, I felt sick - literally. I knew I needed to stay in bed. So I got up around eight and got a ton of stuff done this morning online. I came into the yoga studio early just so I could do a yoga practice. I did a shortened Ashtanga practice - about an hour.

Let me just speak honestly here. After not having a daily Mysore practice for several months, it is HARD!!! Especially when I am a little tired, a little hungry and have a memory of how my Mysore practice USED to be! My shoulders were burning in the first few down dogs, my hamstrings and hips are relatively tight (relative to what I am used to). And my mind is not as focused. I heard many inner voices saying, "Ugh," "I don't wanna...," "This sucks," "You suck," "I hate this," and the sneakier, "Just do four suns instead of five this time," "Skip this pose this time, you'll do it next time," But I did not react to my thoughts. I listened and responded. I reminded myself that the later regret I would have would not be worth the temporary physical relief I would have not doing that fifth sun salutation. And I tried to listen, to really hear what those voices had to say. Instead of just ignoring them or pushing them deeper down inside me, I tried to reside alongside with them. If yoga and meditation has taught me anything in the last couple of years - it is definitely that I have no control over the thoughts and feelings coming in and out of my head and that if I push them away or hide from them they are more likely to come up in a bigger, louder way, and at a less convenient time than if I just say OK and allow them to say what they have to say.

And now, I am cooling off from my sweaty good time. I am working the front desk at my yoga studio and I feel more at peace knowing that I didn't win or lose a battle today, but I averted it altogether simply by acting on the knowledge that my thoughts don't have to define my actions.

Wishing you happIness and metta from a little dot in the universe called Boston,
Heather

Rob - Day 3: Mysore(? Heck yes I am!)

This morning was rough!

This blog is definitely the only reason that I actually made it this morning. Under regular circumstances I would have turned off my alarm and gone RIGHT back to sleep. I guess that means that the commitment is doing it's job though.

I really can't express how groggy I was this morning. I felt kinda like a zombie wandering around in search of brains. I hit the cushion for ten mins of "metta" practice. I think describing it as such is a bit of a misnomer though. It was more like:

"may I be safe. May I be happy. May I...ooooh I have to do blah blah later...oh yeah...metta...why am I doing metta? Why am I up? This is lame...FOCUS ROB...okaaaaaaay...May I be healthy..."

So by the end of the 10 mins I decided that attempting to do some vipassana would result in me sleeping sitting up and that would not be advisable. Instead I opted to try some walking in my living/dining room. I'd actually never done that at home, only on retreat. If you can imagine this only extended the Zombie like feelings as I crept slowly back and forth.

But yes, I wasn't going to stop there. I made it all the way to the studio for my morning Mysore practice. This is really the sorest and most tired I've felt on the mat in a LONG time. I guess it's just the karma for my shoddy few weeks catching up with me. My hamstrings were super sore and definitely tighter than yesterday. This is odd cause normally they progressively open more with each successive practice. I felt like I weighed a million pounds and each jumpback was quite an undertaking. By the end I copped out and stopped at Navasana. (My current practice stops at Supta Kurmasana)

I definitely fell asleep in Savasana. That's okay though. I think it gave all the PranaQi a chance to properly circulate cause as I'm writing this I feel like I've got my mojo back.

I'm pretty darn glad that tomorrow is a New Moon. As per the commitment I'll still practice, but as per Ashtanga tradition I'll hold of on vinyasa. I'm think maybe some lazy Yin/Restorative will suit me just right.

Check in tomorrow to find out exactly what happens!

Heather - Day Two

Today may have been the hardest day of all. I just DID not want to practice after working all day. Mostly because I found out that my license has been suspended for five years now unbeknownst to me due to a speeding ticket I don't even remember getting. It was a VERY expensive ticket! So after spending almost three hours trying to figure out what happened and get it all arranged, I was a little down and definitely in the mood to pacify myself with episodes of South Park or phone conversations with friends and family rather than practice even thirty minutes of yoga!

But I did it. My hamstrings and quads were begging me for attention - being a little sore from the day before and after all, I had made a commitment: I wasn't about to call it quits on the second day for goodness sake!

So I put on a short dharma talk by Ajahn Sucitto which was really more of a guided meditation centered in the breath and proceeded through about thirty minutes of yin yoga. Honestly? It was a relief. Physically, mentally, emotionally, I felt better, more at ease afterwards. I think I slept better as well, though I usually don't have problems with sleep anyway. I was glad I did it regardless of the trepidation and laziness I was feeling so strongly at the time. It is amazing, how, even when we know it to be true from past experience, we can forget how much better healthy habits make us feel. It is so seductive and easy to fall back on the little habits of mindless TV, a cigarette, or a hot fudge sundae we have or have had to lean on in the past for comfort or convenience when it seems like too much effort to address the true needs of our bodies, minds, and spirits.

WishinG you happiness and metta from a little dot in the universe called Boston,
Heather

Rob - Day 2: Mysore

I'm much better prepared for today's post so I should have more details/relevant information.

As I mentioned before, my practice has been a bit off. Needless to say waking up at 5 was a bit of a challenge, but somehow I managed to do it. In a groggy state I made it to my cushion for 10 mins of Metta and 20 mins of vipassana.

By the time I was ready to head out to the Shala I give in to my nagging hunger and eat a banana. Yes, technically against the rules but I could tell that my blood sugar would prefer it that way.

And yes, Ashtanga is not an easy practice to dive back into. It's not like it had been an exorbitantly long time. I think I had practiced something like 2-3 times in the past 3 weeks. But somehow that first day back felt like it had been much longer. My breath was really rough and uneven and my hamstrings were really tight. I suspect the food in my stomach was at least partly to blame for the rough breathing. But with a little perseverance I made it through and as is always the case I was glad I did. I even got some strong adjustments in Prasarita Padottanasana C and Urdhva Dhanurasana.

And so wraps up day two. I'm sure as I warm into this the posts will become more interesting. But for now I'll keep it simple.

Rob - Day 1: Yin

Truth be told my practice has been rather spotty for the past few weeks and I was looking forward to getting myself back on track as it were. I spent early Monday evening wandering the Boston garden in a quasi-meditative state, soaking up the late summer humid heat. It was great. By the time I got to class I was super mellow and ready for some juicy Yin-ness.

So I roll into the shala on this balmy Monday night for my typical Yin class thinking it would be just a regular night. Then while talking to the teacher - Ms. Heather Ash - she tells me that she is going to embark on 365 days of Yoga. Strangely, I had been contemplating just the same thing for some time but I had just needed the push to actually do it. And so, rather unassumingly, I begin my quest...

Class was good, nothing super miraculous to report. It always feels great to get back to the mat and yin is my favorite way to recalibrate. The long holds are just a great way to re-limber the body I guess. I'm especially keen on sphinx/seal. The deep backbends charge my batteries (kidney Qi anyone?).

So I'm really looking forward to this new journey. I can only imagine how far I will come. See you in a year!

Heather - Introduction and Day One

Hello Curiosity seekers, fellow yogis, friends, Romans, and countrymen (he-hem women too) alike!

I am Heather: An opera singer, yoga and meditation teacher, Starbucks barista, yoga studio supervisor, and avid reader (The Wheel of Time is rockin' my world!!!). While teaching Yin Yoga on Sunday night, I got an inspiration to begin this 365 day commitment to my own yoga practice. Two years ago I walked into a beautiful little yoga studio in the heart of Red Sox country and walked into the next chapter of my life. I took my first yoga class and was hooked. So within a month I started a daily Mysore practice, and enhanced it with splashes of Vinyasa, Forrest, Restorative, and a weekly Yin Yoga practice. I lost fifty three pounds, got healthier, happier, and more ability to create the life I had always wanted - still a work in progress of course! But, over the last few months, my work has changed, I was in an opera with a lot of late nights, took a meditation retreat that had me reeling, got a boyfriend who is NOT a morning person, and I started teaching three classes a week. So, now, my life needs a new form of balance and my yoga practice somehow became a near fatality in the fray. I picked up a book recently: "Meditations from the Mat" by Rolf Gates which has 365 reflections on yoga - by way of the yoga sutras of Patanjali and the eight limbs of yoga. I have chosen that as my daily inspirational reading along my journey. While teaching my Monday class after a truly delicious Vinyasa class with Nicoline Valkenberg, I was inspired to ask one of my sangha members and ex-co-workers to join me in my yoga endeavor. He was taking my class so, he was set to start right along with me. He said yes. AND, he and I will be sharing the blog spotlight - so to speak.
Now. What do I hope to accomplish with this practice and/or with this blog???? Good question. Everything and nothing. Yoga is union. I hope to reunite with my daily practice which has given me such a solid foundation of health and joy in the past. I hope to inspire others to join me even if it is only for a week or a month or 108 days or some other meaningful number. I hope to discover the truth of the selfless divine that unites every sentient being in the universe - even if only to touch it for just a moment. Am I nervous? Mmmmm, yeah, maybe a little. I hope I can live up to my own goals and ideals. Am I excited? Hell yeah!!!! I freakin' LOVE yoga dude! So, with that in mind, I am not going to set up the structure of how this blog will go right now. I want to see it evolve as Rob and I do.


WishiNg you happiness and metta from a little dot in the universe called Boston,
Heather


PS. Anything that makes this blog look cool is TOTALLY 100% Rob's doing. If I even THINK about doing something more than checking email and using iTunes on my computer I practically have an anxiety attack! It's true, just ask my boyfriend how I reacted to trying to get iChat set up on my computer with him talking me through it step by step. I almost started crying at one point, didn't I, George? =P

Rob - Preamble

Hello World!

I am Rob. Yogi, meditator, musician, vegan and spiritual explorer. My bio is actually quite similar to my counterpart Heather's. Yogi for 2 1/2 years, with a strong emphasis in Mysore style Ashtanga and Yin but with dabblings in the many other styles. I'm also a dedicated vipassana meditator and Buddhist with most of my exposure in the Theravadan school. So far my practice has helped me to overcome depression and anxiety, become more health conscious and just to become a better person in general. I am truly grateful for all that I have learned.

Like Heather I'm starting this blog to make a commitment that is something bigger than myself - to practice yoga in some form every day for a full year. This is not to become overly striving or obsessive. Rather, it is to explore the transformative process that will unfold by following a truly dedicated practice. I've had long streaks in practice before and the results have been amazing. But somehow or another I always fall of the train and lose all the momentum I've gained. It is my hope that having to answer to the online world will keep me accountable and will ensure my full investment in the process. Frankly I can't wait to see where it takes me!

So sit back and relax as we explore the deepest reaches of our practice.