My teachers always say this- to be like a blade of grass blowing in the wind. Ajusting your poses ever so slightly- not stiff and ridgid, in perfect post, but flexible, moving and being alive in each expression of the asanas.

Sunday’s Asthanga Class

First of all, the teacher of this class was the most graceful, strong, and flexible yogi I have ever met. It was amazing to watch him get into challenging poses that normally I don’t see teachers doing. It was kind of like he was a light at the end of a tunnel, and his burning showed me there are so many doors in yoga I don’t even yet know about, never mind opened.

I was decided then and there that I would attend all his classes from now on- and asked when he teaches. Sadly, he teaches on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, smack dab in the middle of Aidan’s baseball games and practices. There goes that. He does teach Sunday’s though, so that is something.

In class, he came and physically adjusted my poses a few times, and each time he did my body moved deeper into the pose, and I would be feeling the sensations of deepening and opening. I love yoga. It felt amazing.

Monday Baptiste Power Yoga

I love the teacher who teaches this class too. She’s great. Downward dog is funny, because you do it all the flipping time, a million times a class, yet you still manage to learn new ways of doing it. One teacher will correct me one way, another will correct me another. I enjoy being corrected in yoga class, so I just change my downward dog to whatever the teacher says. I think I know a million different ways to do this most basic pose by now.

Two good things about this class:

1) It happens during sunset, so the room takes on all these pretty hues.

2) The very end, during the meditation she said something like:

“Remember, this yoga practice, it is yours, and yours alone. You can call upon it whenever you like, Let the Yoga infiltrate your life and find homes in all aspects of your life”

She also said, “the more you practice the deeper you go” which made me smile because it’s true, and I am happy to keep practicing and deepening.

I think the reason I love yoga so much is just for that very reason. Because my practice is mine, and mind alone, and in those moments of adversity, challenge, meditation, breath, and sensation- I am totally alone, free, and filled with a deep knowing and appreciation.

Now just translate the focus and freedom to other areas…(Like being the calm mother who never loses her shit…That would be great if I could get that figured out)

Last week I went to a regular Moksha class (and didn’t get around to blogging it) We breathed through one nostril at a time, blocking the other one with our finger. I remembered the teacher saying something about one side activating the parasympathetic nervous system, and the other side calming the system. I did some googling about single nostril breathing and eventually found this article, which maybe explains it, but I don’t know because I haven’t even read it yet.

Also, I found this article which looks like a good article about different breathing techniques, but again, I don’t know because I haven’t read it yet either.

I keep doing this. I am so greedy with the acquiring the information. I did this all day at work too, acquired information for future educational workshops and instead getting ready the workshop I am running tomorrow and am on deadline for.

Seriously, I look for more articles, more information, more books before I have even finished the ones I already have.  Gah, I am making myself crazy.

So after wasting the day away at work in a most unproductive manner, I left early and went to the 4:00 “Silent Yoga” class. It was the first time I had been to a “Silent Yoga” class and I found it very useful. While I find teacher’s instructions useful during the classes normally (reminding me to place my body in postures properly, in correct alignment) I enjoyed the quiet of this class because it gave me time to get empty in my brain.

To think less.

I found myself correcting my own postures, without the guidance of the teacher- and that was good.

Last night I went to the 8pm Baptise Power Yoga class. It’s a vinyasa flow class created by Baron Baptise.

This class was fast paced. The room was boiling and with the fast movements I was dripping sweat like I never have before. This combination of heat and challenging postures creates an intensity so deep that it leaves little room for the mind to engage in anything earthly.

I am getting to a place in my practice where I no longer wince at repetitively doing Chaturanga Dandasana (a pose resembling a push up). I see the glistening beads of sweat on my arms and know they are getting stronger, firmer, more toned.

I enjoy watching the process of my body being carved out and sculpted. I wonder about vanity, and if I am in it. I wonder, where is the line between vanity, and honest self-appreciation and on which side am I sitting?

In my last post Ms. V commented that hot yoga sounded like hell to her. For me, doing hot yoga creates a shift in my environment that evokes a sacredness, a sanctuary from regular life. There is an immediacy I feel walking into the heated studio, like my spirit self has been aching to be there all day and finally we’ve arrived. A calm ascends over my mind and body almost instantly. In the 15 minutes of shavasana prior to class, I notice myself drinking in the heat as though absorbing the warmth of the room will melt away the chatter of living. And it does. I go into the state of timelessness, and when the teacher begins the class, I am surprised to find myself there, in it.

In the flow of the movements, there is this wet hotness is all-encompassing and enveloping. It swallows me right into the practice to a deep place, quickly. To some extent, I feel I am only just now after 27 years of life getting to know my body. I am fascinated by it’s strengths and perceived limitations.

In this place, I am annoyed when the teacher says things like, “Set aside your worries, things you have planned for tomorrow, what you may be doing when this class ends, etc”

I am not thinking of any of those things until she mentions them. I find it disruptive and that it detracts from my focus, pulling me out of the enjoyable meditative place I was in.

This will be part of my learning in these classes, to let certain instructions roll off me like teflon and not disrupt my states of calm.

This was the first class I had been to in a very long time where music was playing. I found it interesting how I did not hear the music at all during the nine vinyasas of Surya Namaskar yet I would notice it in resting or balancing postures.

The selective mind.

On Wednesday I skipped out of my Moksha Hot Yoga morning class to catch up on work stuff. The Moksha Hot Yoga is normally what I practice, but since I had to find a way to squeeze a class in somehow at different time the class I ended up going to was “Hatha Flow.”

The room was heated in this class as well, but it was slower, more calming, and I did considerably less sweating than usual. It was less strenuous, much easier, and felt a lot like a vacation. Rather than pushing myself in this class like I normally do, I just enjoyed it.

Sometimes I find I take out my aggression in my yoga practice. For example, not agreeing with colleagues in a meeting and feeling frustrated? On the mat that translates to:

“I will get myself into the splits/hanumanasana, damnit, and I will do it right now!”

I push my body precariously close to the edge forcing the biting sensation of the stretch to alleviate the emotions of frustration from the meeting. As if getting into the pose will make them agree with me or something. It’s absurd really. But it works for me, and my body and mind do gain from it.

Anyway, this Hatha class wasn’t like that. It was nice in a flowery I want to kiss and hug everyone in the world because we are all connected kind of way. There were less exercises that required great physical strength which is one reason I think it was so relaxing for me. It was egoless, this class. All stretch and calm.

What helped intensify that warm atmosphere was beginning the class with everyone first breathing together for 5 minutes, than collectively chanting “om.” I really wish more yoga teachers began classes in this way.

Another great thing this instructor did was end the class with Yoga Nidra. This brief guided meditation she did sounded very similar to the (very wonderful) Yoga Nidra CD I have been practicing with for a few years now.

I looked at my watch a few minutes before we began the relaxation, and then again when it was over and was completely bemused to discover that only 7 minutes had passed. What had felt like an eternity, or maybe more accurately what felt like utter timelessness to me, had actually only been 7 minutes.

The subjectivity of time.

At the very end the teacher closed the class in saying, “Thank you for sharing energy with me today, The divine spark in me honours the divine spark in you, Namaste”

I’ve noticed most of my teachers end classes with some variation of this sentiment. It ignites my curiosity, and has lead me to start working on a post gathering all the various interpretations of Namaste.

Because I think it is just beautiful.

Today at 8am the small heated yoga studio was filled with 45 eager bodies. This is by far, the busiest class I had ever attended at this studio. The teacher reminded us to be mindful of the people around us when doing movements and gave us some suggestions around modifying our poses so we don’t clock one another in a swan dive or something.

Then we started our rounds of prayanama breathing, following her words telling us to imagine like we are alone in the room, with just our breath.

In this breathing exercise we raise our clasped hands and straight arms up into the air focusing on one knuckle. She could sense something I suppose in the room because she asked us, “What’s the hurry?”

For me, the hurry was that I don’t yet have much of a capacity to store all the air of my deep inhales, and like a balloon that’s just been popped, I frantically blow it all out in an uncontrolled manner. To do this in long slow counts of eight just doesn’t work for me yet.

But that’s all part of the learning I suppose.

At least I know I’m not breathing in a deep controlled way. Having that awareness has got to lead to something.

Another thing that became clear to me was that I really don’t know what it means to do pranayama breathing. I understand the ujjai breathing. I am very grateful for my new understanding of it, because knowing and practicing that has changed yoga for me in massively beneficial ways. So when I am supposed to be pranayama breathing what does that mean?

The way I understand it is that all deep, mindful, and controlled breathing is pranayama breathing. SO my question then becomes of the many breathing techniques, which one is the standard one used during asanas?

Breathe through my nose quietly? I notice the rest of the class is breathing quietly. I don’t know.

Does pranayama breathing just mean focus on breathing through the belly instead of shallow chest breathing?

Lots and lots of learning ahead.

As part of my yoga teacher training I am asked to keep a yoga journal. This involves writing down my experiences and thoughts about every yoga class I attend while in training. I’m encouraged to seek out as many different studios and styles of yoga as possible, making notes all the way. From this, my own unique path with naturally be shaped. Taking pieces from one class, leaving sections from others.

It’s like life. It’s like blogging. It’s like anything.

I haven’t started this journaling recording process yet, and I am toying with the idea of starting a separate yoga journal blog. Maybe I won’t make it separate blog and I’ll just log some random thoughts here… I don’t know yet.

It’s funny because I am at this point in my life where I feel that I am finally opening up more and more to being fully who I am in an integrated way and not compartmentalizing my life into little boxes of work/school/spirit/advocacy/family. I am working to mesh these selves. I am doing this meshing of selves thing cautiously, being mindful of boundaries. All in all, this process is having a trans-formative effect on me. It is forcing me to be more brutally honest with myself and others in surprising ways that are both difficult, and rewarding.

I think of this concept of the internal locus of control, and how really we do have so much power to craft our own lives, and the environments we find ourselves in. This is moving me forward. This knowing and believing. This way of doing life differently.

So for today, I want to share a few notes I’ve placed in my mind of moments that were particularly impacting on me in recent yoga classes. I consider it a sort of precursor to the eventual “yoga journal” I will write (in what way this eventual “yoga journal” will manifest I still don’t know, but regardless, here we go…)

Yoga Thought One:

Recently in a hot yoga class, the teacher was really persistent on reminding the class to do the ujjayi breathing. He explained that most people in Toronto aren’t doing yoga because they aren’t breathing in this way; Instead, they are doing some sort of bizarre gymnastics. This made me giggle. But anyway, for the duration of the whole class there was this incredible humming sound from our breath- the room seemed to expand and contract and was synthesized with our audible rhythmic breathing and perspiring bodies. The teacher spoke above the sound of the humming breathing room. He told us that some people believe the vibratory sound of our collective ujjayi breath has ancestral resonance of weeping yogis of generations past.

I loved that.

During shavasana (a meditation pose where you lie like a corpse) at the end of that class, the teacher was reading a poem to us. I started to cry. Normally I would shove these tears away. Force them gone. Consider them evidence I was crazy. I’d start to think about Borat or something silly to shift my thought pattern. I am not doing that anymore. I do not need to fear emotions, and I am learning that with tears of deep intensity of emotion comes a depth of living a fully human experience that is significantly more wonderful than thoughts of Borat ever could be. (And Borat is damn funny.)

Tears streamed down my face it it was amazing and fabulous and cleansing. I left that yoga class like I was floating on clouds.

Yoga Thought Two:

Recently during a yoga class the teacher said, “How you are on the mat is how you are in life.” That sentences transformed my practice and me for several reasons. I am skilled on the mat. I tackle difficult poses. I work hard on the mat. Very hard. However, I can’t seem to practice yoga unless I am in a class, or in a group. I have very hard time practicing yoga alone or alongside with DVDs. In my life I’m the same way I think, consistently searching out wards for motivation and inspiration. Again, I think this is related to my struggle with the notion of an internal vs external locus of control.

Also, I am very patient with myself in yoga, a trait that I do not yet have mastery over in my life off the mat. This realization empowers me. If I can have patience on the mat, I can take that skill/strength and use it in other instances of my life. When I am practicing poses that require great patience now, like Natarajasana or Pincha Mayurasana, I notice how it feels. I notice the kindness I have for myself, and the patience I have for myself. I pay attention carefully to what it feels like. In doing this, I am cultivating a way to transport this patience to other aspects of my life, most specifically, to mothering my two boys.

Yoga Thought Three: Feel the echo.

Yoga Thought Four: Ask yourself, how easy could this be?

After two years of having my Wednesdays eaten up by taking this Psychosocial Rehabilitation course, I am finally free Free FREE! I finished my very last course yesterday!

I was totally prepared to stop being a student for awhile. I was imagining a life wherein I would have the luxury of not writing essays, not studying for anything, just knitting and relaxing, letting my mind drift off to wherever it might go- then today- I found something.

I swear, this is fate.

I’ve extensively looked into becoming a yoga teacher. Several times. It always always always was too expensive, too time-intensive, and the studios offering training were always too far away to accommodate my life. Just when I had given up on the possibility of becoming a Yoga teacher, I find this studio.

This studio, Satyaram is somewhat near my workplace, and is (comparatively) affordable and flexible. The Yoga Teacher Training they offer is certified with the Yoga Alliance, and I can use an Affiliate Yoga Instructor to sign off on my required 250 hours of physical yoga training. This is hugely a benefit because it means I can do my physical training right here at my own little yoga studio in Richmond Hill and do the theory based training with Satyaram. Today I had an hour long conversation with one of the theory professors, and was extremely impressed with her knowledge-base, and the manner in which she discussed the possibilities. She was thorough and careful to ensure I understood the commitment I must take to study, but also she was hopeful and encouraging, reminding me that I can do this at my own pace.

I can’t even believe this possibility is before me.

I feel like I just won the lottery.

Seriously, I’m so excited I can barely stand it.

Thank you Mother Earth, for the ground we stand on, the sunrises that start our days, and the beauty you graciously share.

May our minds never be so busy that we fail to honour you.

Strive to tread lightly on the earth today, and everyday.

The first seven years of my love affair with Yoga was sporadic and recreational at best. It is in the past three years that I began really practicing it spiritually, and with more commitment.

I feel a deep love and connection to the philosophy and language of Yoga. I find a sort of reverence to the ancient Sanskrit words. It fosters a humbling quiet in my mind.

In Kundalini Yoga philosophy there is a belief that we have seven spiraling energy wheels within our body’s called chakras. In Sanskrit, the fourth chakra, considered the love centre, is called Anahata Chakra. The meaning behind the word is “unstuck” or “unhurt.”

In the book True Balance, other words listed as being connected to the heart chakra are: Empathy, generosity, compassion, forgiveness, nurturing, understanding, listening, acceptance, tolerance, affection, kindness, patience, and laughter.

Inspired by Jamie, I’m going to read the words and correspondingly write what freely comes to mind to their left.

Empathy: work
Generosity: sharing
Compassion: warm
Forgiveness: freedom
Nurturing: feeding
Understanding: pace
Listening: active
Acceptance: peace
Tolerance: conflict
Affection: snuggles
Kindness: tokens
Patience: slow
Laughter: joy

I like taking the time to sit with these words. Contemplating each word somehow brings me a little closer to having all that positivity within myself.