Frankly I’m sick! I’m sick of posers, yoga posers. Sure you can be super skilled at asana but you can still be an ass the moment your off your mat! After the massive shift in Anusara, I’m convinced that for many people yoga is simply an act. After all yoga is a practice that helps you to live in this world in a skillful way and most importantly how to be truly happy. Mastering a yoga pose can certainly make your ego happy but is it making an impact on your unhealthy habits, or your negative small talk?
If you want more from the time you spend on your mat than this is what I believe the key is ~ your intention, your devotion, your dedication, your courage, your steadfastness, your compassion, your higher Self, your connection to others, your ability to see how you affect the world around you and your willingness to let go, surrender, un-yoga (attach) yourself.
Walking the yoga talk is a big deal. Once you awaken your sleepy consciousness you will start to see everything around you differently. Yoga when practiced skillfully makes your more sensitive, more psyshic if you will. You’ll notice when your words hurt someone immediately, or the vibration of a swear, how you feel if you eat like shit, lets be honest when you are a serious yogi you are aware of almost everything, to an annoyance I might add.
I’ve meet several people who are yoga teachers (some have taken a weekend course, geesh!) that smoke, cheat, lie, steal, eat animals, etc etc and I have to wonder what part of this ancient linage they are connecting to? We yoke (yoga) ourselves to what we think we can handle, sometimes the bare minimum, like a version that has very little resemblance to Ahimsa- non-violence! The very first step according to the great yoga masters, non-harming ourselves, other people or animals.
If you don’t want to give up your lifestyle than it’s easy enough to skip that first yama and maybe you will have more sucess at another one. The point is yoga is an incredible way of living but sacrifices need to made, you may have to let go of some of the things that you so desperately cling to. you may have to change your diet or the people you hang out with. Yoga takes a lot of effort! It take more effort than showing up for a class 3 times a week, it take a good, long hard look in the mirror at yourself and the person you see staring back at you.
Last weekend I spent 4 days climbing rocks at the Red River Gorge in Kentucky.
Getting out of the city and into nature for the day has a way of putting what’s important and what’s not into perspective. I’m not new to climbing, I’ve been hanging off rocks for over 20 years but every time I go climbing I have to face some form of fear to get to the bliss.
Climbing is certainly a high risk activity (thank you Outdoor Rec @ Lakehead University for teaching me that), but part of the risk can be controlled by having safe equipment, a solid climbing partner and double checking everything. The risks that are out of your control are well….. her…. Mother Nature!
When someone leads up the climb, they can stay calm and relaxed even when they are falling or stuck or on the other hand they can freak, get super angry, kick/punch the rock (so silly cuz it will always hurt you more), or simply give up and come down. It’s a powerful environment to bring out the worst or best in you.
One of the trippest parts of climbing for me is at the top of the climb, either clipping into the anchors at the top or cleaning off the gear at top and rapping down. Your usually up there all alone and a mistake up there can be bad, really bad. It does happen! So, ya, yoga…. of course. Breathing helps tremendously when you start loosing your shit up there. It’s one of the few things to calm you down, a calm partner helps too but getting out of the head game is such a yoga thing.
It’s a great way to watch how the mind can sabotage you at any moment. You can start off with confidence and then it’s eaten away by the fear/doubt/anger/ego monster. This is where putting things into perspective is beneficial. You can pause, breathe, look around at where you are, what you’re doing, what you’re freakin over, and then you move on. I’d say that’s yoga in action and it has absolutely nothing to do with downward dog pose.
This past weekend I witnessed the incredible beauty of the Strawberry Full moon! It lit up the campground with its milky bright light so much you didn’t even need a headlamp. Staring up the moon and stars always teaches me that what I think is so huge, so insane, so profound is really a tiny speak in my life experience. The passing clouds teach me that the light is there it just gets hidden sometimes but it’s never ever really gone.
Confession! I’ve recently gotten hooked on hooping. Yep, it didnt’ take long, well, the moment I was able to keep the hoop up then I was hooked. So after my yoga practice, I started just adding about 20 minutes of hooping in my living room and I can’t even begin to explain how happy it’s made me.
I’m thinking that it has a lot to do with my sadness/anger over what’s happened with Anusara yoga (the scandal and all that). For a while I was thinking that I might not even teach yoga anymore. I like to learn new skills, try new things, even if they are risky but especially if they have to do with physics and body movement.
I bought a hula hoop over a year ago and basically it kicked the shit out of me, leaving me bruised and angry that I couldn’t do much else then keep it on my waist. However, as I was told this past weekend in my Hoopdance teacher course, “the hoop chooses you!” Indeed it does!
Over the last two months of hooping almost everyday, I have noticed a big change in my body. I feel more connected to my legs and pelvis and I like the flow of the hoop moving around my body. Having fun has helped me move on from the yoga drama, that has truly been heartbreaking.
I recognized pretty quickly that sure it’s fun to hoop in the private and safety of my living room, of course my pug wants nothing to do with this piece of plastic whizzing by her napping spot on the couch, but it’s far better to hoop with others. So voila, I thought “why not me” and started to teach. I like to have some knowledge about the way to teach hooping since its way different then yoga and luckily I was able to attend Hoopnotica’s Hoopdance Level 1 training this past weekend in Stoney Creek.
Hooping is not just for kids friends. A study from A.C.E (American counsel on Exercise) “America’s leading authority on fitness and the largest nonprofit fitness certification, education and training organization in the world, today announced exclusive study findings that conclude hula hooping workouts offer substantial and positive results”
Further, “at the conclusion of the test, researchers found hooping burns an average of 210 calories during a 30-minute hooping workout (approximately 420 calories per hour), which is comparable to the exertion of boot camp-style classes, step aerobics and cardio kickboxing.” For a further look into this study check out the link, http://www.acefitness.org/certifiednewsarticle/1094/
This is something that anybody, male, female, any body shape can do and the success stories of people transforming their lives are coming in!!! If you are not attracted to a regular “workout” type class this is something you can try. I’m really looking forward to creating a hoop community that is based on fun, clear instructions and inspiration to explore movement and the body! I’ve created a page on facebook, called Pranahoops, and a site http://pranahoops@wordpress.com.
It’s hard to describe how my yoga has changed in the last few months with all the changes to my beloved Anusara but alas all things change so better to let go and let things flow than to cling with a death grip. Here is what I know now, I miss Anusara! I miss John! I miss his teachings! I miss the kula! I miss planing my next training adventure! I miss the certification process! There are things I don’t miss too but nothing worth mentioning at present.
During my practice this morning I noticed that I don’t feel like I have the same support backing me up anymore. Where did it go? Is is gone or has it just changed? To me it feels much more independent and unsure. I was struggling and I really had to go back into my heart to figure out what I was feeling. Easier not to do this work is what came to the surface, and as quickly as it came a deeper knowing that this is my dharma wiped it out.
For a long time my intention was fueled to be a thriving and interconnected being in the Anusara community and since everything has changed that part seems to have gone missing from my practice for now. I wanted to be certified for many reasons, a landmark I could be proud of in my life, an accomplishment, an accreditation, a recognition, for my ego, for my heart. Every single thing I have done in the last 7 years has been in deep devotion to this certification.
My deepest gratitude goes out to the teachers on the battleground, doing the difficult work of resolving conflict and trying to repair a massive rupture in what seemed so solid and in the exact same moment perhaps mending their own broken hearts. . I’m a runner, always have been and it’s my go-to default when conflicts arises. I choose to run, to find high ground so I can get a bird’s-eye view of the battlefield and only return when the bloodshed has stopped and I feel safe.
I don’t feel safe yet with Anusara and don’t know if that possibility is even real anymore. Instead I want to remember what Grace is! How she supports me, how she loves me, how she empowers me to step up and do the hard work, how to move beyond fear and how to respond to life in courageous ways. The definition from John, rattles around my head “Grace is the power of the universe that reveals your true nature.” Of course that’s what Grace is but it feels different now.
My first drop back in a while was filled with uncertainty, fear, aversion, and my breath was shallow and quick. Bam, I come crashing down onto my wrists, unlike the drop back I am capable of. The second one bam, even more fear, less breath. The third one I paused, took a deep breath and did it for the kula, from my heart, as a symbol of my connection to them and to my highest Self and I let myself fall back into Grace’s very sweet, strong and capable hands, I landed like a feather and tears came to my eyes.
My lesson this week is to allow myself to fall into Grace whenever I need to! Not easy when so many things block her power out and my fear of the unknown pushes her far away. From my heart I call her back into my life, into my practice, into my teaching, into my community so that I may serve in the best way that I can. When I forget about the power of Grace, I am forgetting who I really am and I never want to forget that but when I do and then I remember again, I am filled with peace, love and bliss.
We can’t do this on our own! I need to remind myself that I was never meant to do this all on my own. I need the support of my beloved, my friends, my family and my community to live my life in a valuable, authentic and powerful way. I am a warrior but I need my army!
May all beings everywhere feel the support of Grace always,
Confession! I’ve recently gotten hooked on hooping. Yep, it didnt’ take long, well, the moment I was able to keep the hoop up then I was hooked. So after my yoga practice, I started just adding about 20 minutes of hooping in my living room and I can’t even begin to explain how happy it’s made me.
I’m thinking that it has a lot to do with my sadness/anger over what’s happened with Anusara yoga (the scandal and all that). For a while I was thinking that I might not even teach yoga anymore. I like to learn new skills, try new things, even if they are risky but especially if they have to do with physics and body movement.
I bought a hula hoop over a year ago and basically it kicked the shit out of me, leaving me bruised and angry that I couldn’t do much else then keep it on my waist. However, as I was told this past weekend in my Hoopdance teacher course, “the hoop chooses you!” Indeed it does!
Over the last two months of hooping almost everyday, I have noticed a big change in my body. I feel more connected to my legs and pelvis and I like the flow of the hoop moving around my body. Having fun has helped me move on from the yoga drama, that has truly been heartbreaking.
I recognized pretty quickly that sure it’s fun to hoop in the private and safety of my living room, of course my pug wants nothing to do with this piece of plastic whizzing by her napping spot on the couch, but it’s far better to hoop with others. So voila, I thought “why not me” and started to teach. I like to have some knowledge about the way to teach hooping since its way different then yoga and luckily I was able to attend Hoopnotica’s Hoopdance Level 1 training this past weekend in Stoney Creek.
Hooping is not just for kids friends. A study from A.C.E (American counsel on Exercise) “America’s leading authority on fitness and the largest nonprofit fitness certification, education and training organization in the world, today announced exclusive study findings that conclude hula hooping workouts offer substantial and positive results”
Further, “at the conclusion of the test, researchers found hooping burns an average of 210 calories during a 30-minute hooping workout (approximately 420 calories per hour), which is comparable to the exertion of boot camp-style classes, step aerobics and cardio kickboxing.” For a further look into this study check out the link, http://www.acefitness.org/certifiednewsarticle/1094/
This is something that anybody, male, female, any body shape can do and the success stories of people transforming their lives are coming in!!! If you are not attracted to a regular “workout” type class this is something you can try. I’m really looking forward to creating a hoop community that is based on fun, clear instructions and inspiration to explore movement and the body! I’ve created a page on facebook, called Pranahoops, and a site http://pranahoops@wordpress.com.
Something I’ve noticed since starting yoga almost 10 years ago – it changes EVERYTHING!
Make no mistake your life would probably remain more simple if you did not awaken the “sleeping giant” of consciousness. Once your awake you can look forward to things like these; when you mess up, you’ll beat yourself up for days, you’re not everyone’s favorite yogi, ouch, not behaving in a yogic way, boo. Once you are awake, well…. you’re freakin AWAKE. It’s not a switch that you can shut off and go back to sleep. If you’ve been bit by the yoga bug it’s infectious and the infection of awareness spreads to every part of your life.
Nothing you do is without a heightened sense of awareness. Every hour you log on your mat increase your consciousness ten-fold. more so if you practice with your heart first. Pre yoga if you give someone the finger in your car you felt better and you’re proud of yourself for putting someone in their place, post yoga you recognize it’s your problem not their’s. You eat crappy food and you feel like shit, oppsy! You lie, it’s not the person you’re lying too because they might never find out, but you know! Yep yoga will touch every part, even they ones your want to hide from the world.
How does it all work really? How can time spend in downward dog create such a radial change in someone’s behaviour? I believe it to be mostly a mystery to the body but truth to one’s soul. You were born to expand! If you find yourself a serious yoga student you will thrive in the environments where the teacher pushes you to and beyond your comfort zone. The truth is once you go there, there’s no going back!
If you try to go back you will feel a sharp pain in your heart of disconnect, take that as a lovely little reminder that it’s pretty hard to go back to sleep and in fact your are not meant to! The kula will draw you back. The urge to merge will begin to get so loud you have no choice but to listen.
Once you add yoga, you are adding it to every single thing that you do during the day! You want to do laundry, add yoga. You want to go for a nice walk outside, add yoga. You want to cook a delicious meal, add yoga. You want to have awesome relationships with other people, add yoga. You want to be smarter, add yoga. You want to improve your memory, add yoga. You want to heal your body of illness and disease, add yoga. You want this world to be a better place, add yoga!
REAL YOGA! Hard core, shift your consciousness, blow your proverbial socks off because yogis go barefoot, I’m not talking about the kind where you make a comment after class like “that bitch took the shower in front of me” I’m talking about the straight into the heart of who you are YOGA!!!! This is where the magic of this incredible transformation occurs!
We don’t have much time to wait for people to wake up if they haven’t already. I’m not saying we should lose hope but align yourself with beings that have a high vibration of consciousness. Our planet’s hope lies in our ability to wake the “F” up!
Friday is a day of firsts for London! It’s the long-awaited (by some) Acro-Yoga Jam Session and idea ruminating for 3 years is now happening on Friday at the lovely LIVE360 on Ridout and York. Introduce yourself to another level of yoga practice. Basing, flying, spotting are all part of this fun style of yoga based on acrobatics, yoga and Thai Yoga massage.
Live music to make it that much sweeter!
Come clean and on an empty tummy.
Cost is $5 per person and we start at 7pm and run to 8:30.
Some of you may not have ever heard someone yelling this to you from below.
“Mindy put your right foot on that hold by your right shoulder!!!”
Yogini on the Rocks!
If you’re a climber than you may have heard it and other amazing ideas for body contortion to get up a route. I’ve been climbing since I was 15 years old, now 35 and although I don’t get to climb as much as I used to, which was everyday back then I’m a much stronger climber now then I was then.
For a 5 years I was so scared of falling I would downclimb a 12a instead of going for the next move. Fear had paralyzed me. Fear isn’t a bad thing but in climbing it needs to be managed to reach your full potential. I would climb and be so calm and strong and then the moment a crux move came my heart rate would accelerate and I would be overcome with the fear of the fall so much that I would back off.
Like yoga practice, I had to practice falling. When I first started to practice yoga poses really scared me, like handstands and arm balances. Early in I fell on my face out of crow pose and that fall hurt more than my face. Fear took over and I didn’t try it again for almost 8 months! What’s even more interesting is now crow pose is one of my favorites.
You can really overcome a lot of obstacles on your yoga mat.
Once I started to practice falling on lead I quickly overcame the fear and started to push myself again and it really felt great. I noticed that fear can creep back in if I don’t take a few falls so it’s really important that as the fear starts to grip me, I have to let myself surrender and literally ‘let go.’
I remember when I started to get into yoga I was trying to show some of my climbing friends a few stretches that would help. It wasn’t long after that I decided to become a yoga teacher so I actually knew what I was doing (well, sort of). Yoga has helped my climbing in physical and psychological ways. My concentration has improved as much as my hamstring flexibility. Staying connected to my breath in yoga and climbing helps to keep my heart rate down and my nervous system more calm. Climbing is exciting so my heart rate will jump but I can bring it back down much faster now with some deep yogic breaths.
Whenever I’m at a climbing gym or the crag I can’t help but notice people posture’s. It what I do for a living now. What I have noticed is that climbers tend to have a concave chest and a rounded back with both their shoulders and their head in the forward plane of the body. Having a strong back is obviously a must for climbing hard but imbalances between the front and back body will limit they body.
People with poor posture have a shorter life span.
When the head and shoulders are forward it puts pressure on the spinal discs but it also puts more pressure on the heart and lungs. Just by bringing the head and shoulders back your lungs can more fully inflate, more breath, more oxygen, more oxygen, better muscle performance. Less oxygen the muscles can prematurely sezz up. Breathe better, climb harder, live longer!
Practicing poses on my fingertips at first was excruciating! My fingers burned in every pose. My tendons and pulleys were overused and tight, not strong, tight! Big difference between tight and strong. Tight muscles are also weak, they tear easily then the body must use energy to heal. Strong muscles are ones that are strong AND flexible. After about six months of steady practice on my fingertips, even handstands, my fingers felt better than ever and I was able to crimp and hold slopers with more strength and ease. 10 Points for yoga!!
On the opposite end, we can talk about climbers feet (okay I barfed a little in my mouth just typing that, nasty) Like many climbers I wanted my shoes to be super tight. I remember back in the early nineties having to order my gear over the phone the guy at MEC in Toronto telling me to downsize my regular shoe size by at least 2 sizes, “the tighter the better” he said. I started with a pair of Boreal Ballets, I couldn’t get them to be tight if I tried because my foot was so narrow and skinny.
After years of climbing and wearing tight shoes my toes were in very bad shape. I was told that I was going to need surgery on my bunions at 22 years old! The corns on the tops of my toes were painful and since yoga is done in bare feet, I started to study my feet a lot more and felt sad about the abuse I had put them through over the years of tight climbing shoes. I don’t have a pic of my toes back then but I have one of them now.
My bunions are so much better, my corns are pretty much gone!
I can remember being on a route in Kentucky and after about 40 feet my toes were burning to the point I would have to rest and take my shoes off. Silly my shoes were so tight the were hurting my climbing not helping. I always have two pairs of shoes one for easier climbs and a pair that are a bit tighter for harder routes.
Yoga creates balance in the body, mind and heart.
As the warmer weather comes my itch to get out and climb is increasing. We
haven’t had a climbing gym in our city for a few years now and news has hit that one
is finally slated to open in 7 to 9 months, I can’t wait to put my practice into practice at the gym.
The bottom line is yoga will help you climb harder, hands down its the number one cross-training activity that will make a huge difference in how you climb.
At this point I am maintaing my Anusara Inspired status but I can’t say for certain that it will remain that way in the future. For now I wanted to be very clear in my decisions about my next steps forward on this journey. Through all of the insanity of the last few weeks something has become very clear to me. I NEED a yoga teacher!
I acknowledge the true guru is within in, I really do get that but I also admit that I could use some guidance on this path. What I recognized is that I can only go so far on my own before a trained set of eyes can take me to the next level. I am not satisfied to stay where I am! Sure, I can do most of the poses in Syllabus 2 and many from 3 but my body seeks to expand its limits.
Most postures I actually taught myself!
Even though I was mainly self-taught in yoga, it didn’t come without some injuries, some more serious and really freakin scary. First time I thought I was ready for a drop back, boom, hit my face on the floor. I know now that it was because I was lifting my arms up too fast and I was losing the connection to my legs. Skilled teachers, like John Friend and many others have very clear, instructions for doing these more challenging poses. I’ve been so blessed to have studied with the Anusara community.
I will still try poses that seem out of my reach on my own, I think there’s value in logging time on the mat just doing what I can but I can’t wait for my next workshop to learn more or take my body to that place of radical expansion that just feels so damn good!
Om Namah Shivaya Gurave ~ “The true teacher is within and without”
