Autumn Lotus Yoga

Top 5 things I wish I’d known a decade ago when just starting out in yoga… I expect this list to expand to at least 100 but here’s a start.

5)  You do not have to be flexible/strong/centered/hot in lycra to do yoga.  You do yoga in order to GET flexible/strong/centered and to love how you look in lycra regardless of what anyone else thinks (or at least to no longer give a flyin’ …. : )

4) There is a yoga style for everyone.  Personally, I groove on sweaty, intense, intelligent, hell-of-a-workout styles.  But there are mellow, or strict or repetitive or dancey or trancy or whatever possibilities.  31 Flavors has NOTHING on the yoga world for variety.

3) You do not have to put up with being bored, or abused, or pandered to or whatever else, unless you get off on that sort of thing. : )  I have a little rule now about not being too sure of a yoga teacher who doesn’t have a) a near-daily personal practice and b) a frakkin’ sense of humor!!  Yoga puts you in some weird & extreme situations; laughter is a must.

2) No one minds what variation of the pose you can or cannot do or even if you can do any of them at all. There will always be another edge, another fancy pose, another level.  Everyone was once a beginner, and no one ever stops learning.

1) Getting inside your own skin is the best gift of all.  What things actually FEEL like matters so much more than what they look like.  Dive in, breathe, explore what lights up!!

Woke up ungodly, unecessarily early with 3 Doors Down “It’s Not My Time”  running through my head.   Usually the random song has  been The White Tie Affair’s “Candle” or Jace Everett’s “Do Bad Things To You” (theme from  True Blood – TOO good) so at least that was a change.

But.  There. Will. Be. Naps. Later.

Traditionally in yoga,  early morning is considered the most auspicious time to practice.   But I hypothesize the pre-dawn propaganda was born because the temp in India goes way up way fast.  A pleasant practice there is possible many months only before 7 am.

 Back in the day-job days, I was forced onto the mat daily at 4:30 am and yowza! that was just rough. Injuries and crankiness and espresso shots, oh my!!  Now, it’s a nice, civilized 8/9 am start and 85/90 degree room.  Early enough not to eat, (breakfast + inversions = tummyache) but late enough for appropriate chai consumption & room prep.

So, got the heater and humidifier turned on in the yoga room and the menu features a Forrest MP3 on Neck, Hips, Shoulders, 2.5 hrs.  Since the masseuse yesterday macerated giant golf balls of tension growing in all three areas, seems a good choice for today!

Students ask great questions that I cherish & bet a bunch will come up in this blog.  Was reminded of one today since it’s an issue that comes up pretty frequently both as practitioner and teacher.

The innocent query usually goes like this:  “If I practice X amount, will I achieve Y goal in Z amount of time?”

Danger, beloved yogi, danger!  

The only true answer is:  if you practice, something will happen in some unknowable amount of time. 

Yoga will abso-frickin-lutely change your hamstrings, your abs, your life — but the changes won’t necessarily be the ones you expect and most certainly not on the timeline you fixate on.   Damn it. : )

That said, one can fascinate (or obsess, depending on your point of view : ) upon a pose, or a theme or whatever and see transformation.  But only if it’s a commitment to the process, not trying to force an outcome cuz that will inevitably cause injury at some level — physical usually first, then mental/spiritual as one berates one’s “failings” as a yogi. 

Best goal we can have is just to show up day after day and see what’s there waiting on the mat. 

As a Type-A, and on behalf of Type-A yogis everywhere, my apologies. : )

I have a singular talent for acquiring degrees/certifications/letters after my name without ever actually truly absorbing anything.  Rather, I drive through the minimum requirements, get the piece of paper, and move onto the next hollow ”learning” experience.  Did this through multiple academic degrees, as well as my certifications in Pilates, Spinning and Yoga.

At a certain level, that’s okay.  I think of my initial certifications like Bachelor’s level work: widely distributed knowledge base, less depth.  Then in April 2008 I went into the initial Forrest Yoga month-long intensive teacher training.  In my case, it was retraining as I had already a 200-hr cert in Ashtanga/Vinyasa style.  Doing that was an experience like no other and will one day get some posts of its own.  It was like a Master’s level degree and earned me another 200-hr yoga accreditation.

The month-long intensive does not a full Forrest teacher make, however. There’s more readin’, writin’ & volunteerin’ to be done.  I came home and powered through the reading with minimal attention and completed all of it within three weeks.  Then I began procrastinating on the rest.  Couldn’t figure out why.

Only a month or two ago did it make sense — I was on the verge of just repeating the same old pattern of getting the piece of paper without really going deep into the subject.  And I cared waaaaay too much about this subject to do that again. 

The Project was born.  Starting 15 May, I committed to an exclusively Forrest practice and to the greatest extent possible, Forrest teaching.  (Recognizing that there are Vinyasa Flows to be taught and I teach them joyfully and with as great a Forrest flavor as possible.)  I’ll be doing the official mentoring program this year, and have mapped out all the workshops and extra trainings I can fit in — and in the Boston area, there are A LOT. 

I’m very curious to see where the Project will lead over the next year/18 months.  This, then, is my PhD level work, finally.

Today’s practice… not quite so blissfully talented as yesterday — while the poses were less complicated, the backbending stuff gets into lots of sticky areas of spine and thighs for me (which means I need to do it more!) and, really, that is just one marathon-long mutha of a workshop. : )

Monday am rolls up and my schedule is:  3 1/4 hr Forrest Heal Your Back MP3 and a 2 pm deep tissue massage.  Oh, and clean the house since we expect some friends to be camping on the couch starting tomorrow night.  Sure, I’d be cleaning the house sooner or later this week, but a little added incentive influences the timing!

It’s a pretty decadent way to live, on one level.  With the move coming, and my “project” (more on that soon), I’m not teaching/working much.  My beloved & hugely supportive husband is the foundation for this — but when I left the suit-wearing workaday world, I was willing to do whatever it took to get this life on my own.  I’d saved and planned and prepared to sacrifice;  getting married was an unexpected gift.  

Alot of the people I know who get deeply into yoga do so not because they are mellow/spiritual/peaceful or crunchy/earthy/whatever but  in order to heal some or all of the following: body, mind, spirit, emotions, thoughts, ability to just exist in the world.   

It’s like some of us need to learn how to survive ourselves.   I didn’t get into this because I was sane, but because I was batshit crazy. : )   For me, being able to  practice at any level, or  be touched in a massage, or have houseguests, without huge dramas of misery and self-mutilation are products of the healing from yoga.  

That makes for a good Monday, even if I do need to clean the bathroom later. : )

So today’s practice felt wonderful — I was talented, bendy, content, motivated.   It was quite a shock. : )  This is certainly not a daily occurence though I have a daily practice, trust me!!

Many days my brain says “you expect me to do what?!?!” and my body is slow to warm, or grumpy, or tight, or whatever.  Somedays, like, ahem, yesterday, I am mentally bitchy through about 60% plus of my time on the mat.

But I still practice. The useless stories the brain spins are ignored; my body knows it will feel better and sometimes the days I want to practice least are the days I actually learn the most.

I was not by any means born especially flexible or coordinated.   For years in any given random sample of mammals I’d have been classified ”least likely to become a yoga teacher.”   But I was born exceptionally stubborn (ask anyone : ) and it turns out that persistence is a hell of a lot more important in the long run.   Phew!

To do today:

- Start blog to provide an uncensored, New Age nonsense-free record of a Forrest yogini/yoga teacher who loves the sweat, breathe, discover, celebrate, heal, unearth, dig-out-the-shit-&-turn-it-to-fertilizer aspects of a daily practice

- Get out of bed by noon & actually practice.  Was out last night at a terrific Battle Pinot wine-tasting party (more on the wine/yogini issue later).  Husband & I actually were up until 5 MINUTES PAST MIDNIGHT — positively unheard of — and are now glued to the mattress with kitties & books & laptops.

-  On yoga schedule: 3 hr Celebrate Your Practice Forrest MP3.  Yummy, my favorite!

- Plot move to Cambridge, MA from Washington, DC.  T-18 and counting…