Rob - Taking the practice home with you.

I don't know why, but for some reason I've always found doing a vigorous practice at home to be especially challenging. Even though I have a strong self practice via mysore, at home I don't push myself nearly as hard as when I'm in a warm room full of sweaty people doing the same thing. Home has generally been the perfect place for some yin, restorative and maybe some slow and/or abridged flows. Well, I think it's time to change this.

This morning I did a YogaWorks style flow with a focus on inversions. And I actually pushed myself pretty hard! The other cool thing is that "good" sequencing is becoming more second nature, so now I can basically make up the flow as I go and have it lead to an intended destination without having to plan it out ahead of time.

I did about an hour and a half practice today that included Pincha Mayurasana, Adho Mukha Vrksasana and Sirsasana as the peak. This is the first time outside of a public class that I've ventured into such extreme inversion territory...and it was freaking awesome! I had no trouble getting up into pincha and handstand and even played a bit with divorcing myself from the wall into full balance. I realized today that practicing these guys at home will be the only way that I'm gonna learn them. Frankly, most teachers don't get there in public classes and understandably so.

So, I'm not making any promises, but I think I'm gonna start trying to add 1-2 YogaWorks style home practices per week to my regime in order to work on more challenging poses. Also, I think this will give me a chance to discipline myself towards more diligent home practices. Stay tuned for updates.

Also...

Yesterday I got a box full of props from YogaAccesories.com. Awesome home practices here I come!!!

Rob - Maybe I'm just not much of a blogger, but that doesn't mean I'm not a great yogi!

So it seems like I kinda suck at this whole blogging thing. Which I guess is an improved perspective over I suck at the whole yoga thing. My apologies for the continually expanding gaps between entries. Before I seemed to feel like the two were completely intertwined and if I didn't blog I wasn't doing the practice very well. LIES!

After coming to the realization that practice every day was an unrealistic perspective it's like the whole thing took on a new momentum all together. And, perhaps ironically, now I'm much closer to practicing every day than when I was trying to make it a requirement. Curious... :\

The thing I've found most surprising in the first 6 months of this endeavor is how much my perspective on yoga has changed. At the get-go I was the steadfast Ashtangi looking for an epic, sweaty, full of jumbacks practice. And yes I balanced it with a consistent Yin practice, but honestly Yin is the most intense of the calm styles (if that makes any sense).

Lately I've found a loving place in my heart for a slower, more restorative sorta practice. I'll usually start with some Yin poses, but by the end it's all really chill. I think I would live in Viparita Karani if it were safe to do so. Haha!

What's most surprising to me is how beneficial just a half hour to an hour of simple poses, without any striving or intensity can really have a profound effect on my day. I sleep better and seem to reap most of the benefits of a stronger practice. I think that it's because of this new perspective that I'm falling back into a very consistent rhythm with yoga and meditation as well. (fear not Ashtanga/Vinyasa friends, I'm also still doing that practice.)

From the beginning the whole idea of this blog was a little too striving if you ask me. And if you know Heather and I maybe it wasn't a good idea to encourage our tendencies towards perfectionism. But even if I "failed" at the original goal I still feel like I've learned so much. This whole process is just as (if not more) transformative than I ever thought, even though it hasn't looked quite like what I imagined.

So most of you probably know it's the new year. The time when people love to make promises to themselves that they can't keep (kinda like this blog :p). This year I'm not doing that, at least not in the traditional sense. All I'm trying to do is the best I can and let the rest fall in place. No specific goals. No promises or commitments. Just do my practice and all will be coming.

Namaste friends!

Rob - My So Called Yoga Blog...

Hello Friends. Remember me? Yeah, it's me Rob - the guy who used to have a blog about yoga, meditation and the like.

It's been quite a while since last posted (almost 2 full months...AH!) and truth be told things have been kind of challenging. I really spread myself thin and forgot about important things like healthy eating and sleep - all while trying to do an overly zealous yoga practice and work three jobs! Well my body taught me a lesson on that one. Two illnesses later (including the beloved H1N1 or Swine Flu as it's affectionately known!) and after about a month of feeling quite like crap I think I'm ready to start treating myself right again!

So that's what's been going on with my body in general. On my spiritual front I've maintained an "adequate" yoga practice in the midst of all this, but it certainly hasn't been every day. Actually it's been pretty sparse. Maybe 2-3 times a week. Certainly not ideal.

I HAVE been quite consistent with my meditation, and that's where things got really interesting. So just a little background before I go a bit off the deep end, I've been reading a lot of Daniel Ingram lately. He's a REALLY hardcore Buddhist writer who talks really in depth about the stages of enlightenment and deep states of meditation. After reading his thoughts about the stages on insight (which BTW aren't his invention, they're based on the original Pali cannon of Theravada Buddhism) a lot of my mental process of late started to make more sense.

Without getting too esoteric, suffice it to say there was much Dukkha in my practice and life, which I think partially manifested in my two illnesses. Everyday tasks seemed almost impossible and I dreaded getting up to go to work. Even yoga seemed unenjoyable. I couldn't sit still for meditation. This finally culminated (after my 1st sickness) with the most intense body cramps in my neck and shoulders that appeared for no obvious reason. I could barely move. And amazingly, all of this is described perfectly in the stages of awakening. And I'll also add that all of this happened BEFORE I even read about it so it's not as if I was manifesting it after the fact. But after reading about this stage and his encouragement to keep just keep going, keep practicing, no matter how hard it is I was able to break on through and remember why I'm doing all this in the fist place. I recommitted to a serious sitting practice and have regained some sense of balance.

Well, with a little determination and evaluation of my lifestyle I think that I'm ready to move on. I've settled into a more calm part of the "Dark Night" (equanimity perhaps?) and am regaining my lust for life. I've rediscover the joys of healthy eating and remember how important it is to my yogic lifestyle! I still have a lot of work to do in my progress, but I think that with some patient determination I can learn to manage this phase and my practice, etc. without destroying my personal life and health.

More importantly to you guys I've also reevaluated how I want to use this blog. I still want to write about my process and commit to a year of solid and truly dedicated yoga practice. What I absolutely want to eliminate is the ideal of trying to practice each and every day and the counting of the number of days. I realized that my practice had gotten WAY too goal oriented and this is the exact opposite of Yoga! So from now on I will write several times a week in here, certainly about Yoga, but I really want to expand the scope a bit. I'm really tired of focusing on the physical "Oh my hamstrings were tight today." "Pose X was really easy". This is a: boring and b: kind of misses the point in my opinion.

Henceforth I'm going to use this blog as a general discussion on the whole of yogic life for me over the year. This will include talks on meditation, healthy eating (recipes, etc.!), philosophy and yes, even my asana practice. I think I'll have a lot more to talk about and this will keep things much more interesting. I'll be sure to keep it true to the original focus, but I think having a broader spectrum will encourage me to write more. I hope you agree!

It's great to be back guys. Much metta, etc. from me to you!

Heather - Days Forty-four thru Fifty-four

I feel like it has been an eon since I wrote here. But I looked back and my last entry wasn't even two weeks ago. That is still too long to go, but not as bad as I thought...considering....

I have just spent the last two weeks working sixty hours, barely seeing my home except to sleep on four of the seven days, trying to work on my relationship, and get at least six hours of sleep a night with varying degrees of success. I am frankly exhausted. I have been practicing - Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Yin, but not daily. In some ways I feel like a failure to this blog. But the truth is I took on this challenge in order to deepen my practice of yoga and develop a stronger understanding of my life and body and mind so that I could create a better balance of work, spiritual endeavor, and human relationships. Unfortunately, my first two months have been more about watching how out of balance my life really is - ironically. I obviously spend A LOT of time working. Sixty hours is way too much, but I have been working about 45 minimum for much too long and without a regular weekly day off - ever. The days I get off are the ones I take off to go somewhere or do other things like yoga workshops, visit family, etc. And much of the rest of my time is spent one of three ways:
1. With my boyfriend (yay!), but even he is so busy we have to schedule ahead to make a date - and it is a weekly commitment that we have set up together.
2. traveling between jobs, home, practice, the boyfriend's
3. sleeping.
I rarely see my friends anymore, I am not able to get in a daily practice because I am so exhausted so often, and I don't have ANY time to grocery shop or cook so that I can eat foods that fill me with energy and nourishment. I want to emphasize that I am not whining here. I am just coming to realize that my life is not going the exact direction I need and want it to. And before I was just trying to get through on a daily basis, making schedules that I was too exhausted to follow through on and not knowing exactly what to do to fix anything and feeling a little lost. But this past week has been some revelations for me. I had a meeting with the owner of my yoga studio where I teach and work and we came to the conclusion that working the desk may not be supporting my teaching and practicing. So I am going to step down in November, increase my hours at Starbucks, and practice more, teach more and have a real day off each week. I am nervous and excited. The money is good right now. But in my heart, it isn't worth the sacrifices I am having to make.

Another exciting endeavor is a workshop I am taking with Kate O'Donnell, my Ashtanga teacher. She has been working with and studying Ayurveda for quite some time and has graciously set up a fall and spring workshop series to offer guidance on all things yogic that aren't covered deeply in an asana class including an organized cleanse. It started this morning and we were set up with learning neti and nasya, toungue scraping, some simple hatha yoga, and nodi sodana. We discussed, lightly, doshas, and food. This week is the prep week of cutting out or at least down things like meat, dairy, caffeine, refined sugars and flours. The cleanse is the 9-day Kichiri cleanse. She is asking that we decide if we can do 9 days or make a decision in advance of how many days (4 being a minimum) that we can commit to. I look forward to this month and the journey within the journey I am taking. This month will not only be about cleansing the body, but about cleansing my life and clearing it of the obstacles that stand in the way of health and happiness. What a life!!!


So, as hard as this is for me to say, maybe the initial rules that I set for myself need to be thrown out. This is indeed 365 days of yoga, but not 365 days of asana. Maybe it will become 10 months of asana or 9 or six or two, but I can promise that I am putting yoga into practice everyday whether it is the added patience in a difficult personal encounter, a period of seated meditation, a yoga class or self-practice or some time for personal reflection and evaluation.

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

Rob - Day 37: Yin

Well, I actually woke up in plenty of time for Led Primary this morning. But something just wasn't right. I was tired, but not groggy tired. I could really feel it in my body that it was stretched thin. I've been busy busy busy and my body was telling me to chill out. This could only mean on thing - YIN!

I rolled out the mat at home for the first time in a little while for some AM Yin. I popped on a Dharma talk by Rodney Smith about mindfulness of the body and proceeded to practice for about an hour. Afterward I did a relatively short sit (About 20 mins) but dropped in really deep! My mind felt very calm and still.

I'm super glad I opted for Yin today. I can definitely tell that I've had an excess of Yang going on today and I needed to balance it out. I've been neglecting the calmer side of my practice quite a bit so I think I need to renew my efforts on that end.

Not too much to report otherwise other that I'm feeling really balanced and calm. I'm a little concerned about when I'm going to practice this weekend as I have a LOT going on. I guess that's an issue for another time though...

Rob - Rest Day: On Music And Life

So throughout this process I've yet to do any great deal of reflection on how this practice affects my outside life. I guess it's been enough of a change just delving so deep into my practice. Well yesterday, after my generally wonky practice, I got reminded just why I'm doing this. Well, at least one of the many reasons.

I haven't really mentioned much about it but at this point my life is focused into two main areas, yoga and music. Whenever I'm not busy doing yoga related activities there's a 90% chance I'm doing a music related activity. My day job is as Head of Publicity at a music promotions company. I own a small business that does recording/production and also sells recorded music and publishing. On top of that I play bass in a band and compose my own music. I play (in approximate order of proficiency) bass, drums, guitar, piano and voice. I also live in a house with five other musicians. So as you can see music is a HUGE part of my life.

But back to relating this to yoga. Since I first started practicing years ago I noticed the profound affect that my yoga had on my music. I noticed that my instrumental skills increased technically and that I would be suddenly infused with new ideas. I also found a direct parallel between the discipline of yoga practice and the discipline of practicing an instrument. In both cases the more you give the more you get back (to a point of course). To top this off, the confidence and ease that I've learned from yoga has all but eliminated my once immense stage anxiety. I used to tense up horribly on stage but now I let loose and have SO Much fun!

At first I wasn't really sure why all this, but after a few years I think I've gained some insights as to why. Music really is a form of meditation. Years before I became "spiritual" I can recall getting absorbed in my music, coming into incredible flow states. Time seemed to disappear as I connected with my instrument and just let the sounds come out. Since then, as I've learned the incredible focus of yoga and meditation my musical abilities have exploded. The flow state has become a regular occurrence.

So to come back to yesterday, a common passtime in my house is to have open jams in our basement. This is great because most of us play more than one instrument so it gives us a chance to switch it up and play different things. Last night I sat down on the piano (not my main instrument) and JUST PLAYED. Normally I'm a bit hesitant and uncertain, but yesterday my fingers just knew where to go. I made up great chord progressions and melody lines. Most importantly I just let it go. It was wonderful.

After some time my little brother (who lives with me) got tired of playing drums and stepped down. I enthusiastically took his place (drums are my favorite instrument to play). Now if ever there was an instrument that yoga is made to help it's drums. Since starting this project my skills on the drum kit have gotten infinitely better. It really makes sense if you think about it. Asana is all about isolating different parts of your body and making them do independent things in support of each other. Playing drums is just the same! As on the keys I just let it go on the drums. And it was wonderful!

Since starting this practice project I've noticed more and more times like these. Even if I'm not spending as much time practicing my music somehow my time spent practicing yoga compensates for it. It's a strange but incredible correlation.

To summarize and tie this all together, yoga will take whatever you're passionate about it life and help you realize it to its fullest potential. For me this is music. In India music is traditionally taught in the same Guru-Disciple paradigm as yoga is traditionally taught. When a student takes up an instrument it is a life's devotion and is immensely spiritual. Lately I've come to see the logic to this parallel and have been approaching my music, yoga and life as a spiritual devotion.

I think that I will continue to expound on this music parallel as the year goes on. It certainly seems relevant and is absolutely important to me.

Wishing you all happiness and good fortune!

Heather - Days Thirty-Seven thru Forty-Three

One LONG ladies holiday for me. I have to confess, I found it better on many of the days over the last week to not practice at all. This particular cycle was VERY rough, I worked a fifty-five hour week and was exhausted and in pain much of the time. My yoga was sleeping as much as possible, (please don't think this is a cop out, most of the time I am annoyed that my practice has to stop, but this time it NEEDED to). There were three days I did practice, however. I did a short yin practice one night, a longer restorative practice one day, and then the practice I would like to talk about was REALLY fun for me. It was on Sunday. One of the newer yogis in our studio, Tara, was dealing with the same issue I was and I was mentioning to her how I wanted to practice, but wasn't going to due to my predicament. She was curious, so I explained to her about energy flows and abstaining from over stressing the body or inversions. I told her I was going to practice, and I wanted to move, but that I was going to work on designing some sun salutations without the forward folds and down dogs. I invited her to join me, if she wished and she did. So we started off with some cool VERY restorative work: viparita karani (legs up the wall) is a particularly strongly recommended pose for those on their periods. We did some supported supta badha konasana with the bolster under the length of the spine, and then worked our way through some slow warming suns sans the inversions. Basically, in involves moving from utkatasana (chair pose) to high plank without the uttanasana (standing forward fold), moving through the vinyasa, and landing in child's pose rather than adho mukha svanasana. It is an unnecessary element, but if you want a little more warming, or just really like jumping around, then go for the jump backs and jumps ups - as long as you stay low. After a few modified A's, we added the virabadrasanas, etc. etc. Then we moved through a relatively brief lunge series, opening up the shoulders with binds, opening up the quads, etc, etc. We concluded with a long beautiful svasana with lots of props.

A couple of thoughts here: I chose, intentionally to avoid poses like twisted chair, or any twisting poses that forced the abdomen into the leg. I don't think there is anything necessarily wrong with doing this, but if you feel bloated, or crampy, as I did, you may find this to be unfavorable. But twisting away from the abdomen, such as putting the body in a lunge with the right leg foward, setting the right hand down on the inside of the bent leg and opening the body to the left side by reaching that left arm up to the ceiling.

Also, in order to honor that downward flow, avoid mula bandha. So, you can do ab work, if you can practice it without engaging mula bandha. If you don't know what I am talking about, there is a good chance you don't engage it anyway, so don't worry about it. =)

So....surrender. That is what the last week has been trying to teach me, I think. It is a strong reminder that women are blessed with that nature is not in our control, that our bodies rule us, no matter what we have the ability to do to it with our diet and exercise and other habits, our bodies get the final say. We can eat whatever we want, knowing we will get fat or thin, run as hard as we want knowing we will sweat and pant, snort coke knowing that we will deteriorate our nasal passages, but we can't choose how long that will take, and we can't make it stop. All we can do is learn our own bodies by listening and experimenting - though not so much with drugs, please. ;) Yoga is many things, and one of those things is the art of developing your ability to hear your wisdom - please notice I did not say develop your own wisdom. Your body already knows what it needs, wants, and doesn't need. In our society we get pulled into the dramas and spectacle of everything around us. We get caught up in the requests and desires of our loved ones, bosses, friends. We get lost in sense desires and grasping and aversion and it takes time and practice and devotion to go deep and listen beyond the chattering monkey mind.

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