Autumn Lotus Yoga

I do believe the storm broke today.

Quite literally as well as metaphorically.  It was pouring from late last night up until mid-afternoon.  BH (Beloved Husband : ) discovered this when a wet cat jumped into bed at some ungodly time.  He investigated & discovered we’d left the skylight was open.   Ooops.  Bless his sweet heart, BH mopped up both cat & kitchen without waking me. 

Which might have been nigh impossible without a marching band anyway.  Stress storm swelled & broke &  I slept almost the entire day, distributing time pretty evenly between couch & bed.  The cats kept me company & approved highly; it was obvious they were thinking “FINALLY, she recognizes the important teachings we offer daily!” : )

Now the sun is out, I revived enough to do a short (hourish) practice of simple breathwork, abs, bridge, dolphin, sun salutes, headstands, lying twists.  We’re planning an easy, early dinner out in our eclectically cute new neighborhood.

They say of Boston, “If you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute, it’ll change.”  Same with our internal weather.  Rest, rain, recovery, renewal, all in their own time.

Thank effin heavens, cuz otherwise my head might have exploded. : )

(Comcast was a day late, but I am f-ing THRILLED to be back online & will be catching up on folks in the next day or so.  YAY!)

So, the remake of The Italian Job (ya know, the one with Donald Sutherland, Marky Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron…) is a personal guilty pleasure.  Not just as an homage to the estimable Mini Cooper, but because of a classic breakdown of the useless pleasantry:  ”I’m fine.”  Spelled out, it means Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional.

The move has been F.I.N.E.; I’m doin’ F.I.N.E. : )  

Yeah, it’s been stress central for ten days. Oh. My. God. 

To say I can be a bit highstrung would be a ridiculous understatement.   To throw a few more cliches at it, my fight-or-flight mechanism is on a hairtrigger.  I’ve been wired, tired, and practically jumping out of my own skin.  Cortisol and adrenaline on full power.  Beloved Husband calls this my “Atomic Squirrel” mode.

What’s weird is that this is how I used to live, seriously, every single day.  But since back in the day I DID actually jump out of my own skin & dissociated entirely, these days it all seems much harder because I’m sticking around and actually experiencing the stress. 

This particular healing from yoga practice seems a bit of a Pyhrric victory (look it up : ) (and if you didn’t have to, welcome to my kinda geekdom : ).

Buddhism reminds us that there is never any solid ground & the only “comfort zone” possible is the present moment.  Still, I’m searching for some solidity, familiarity, a sense of self-efficacy, control, something… these will come as I learn my new surroundings.  The fact remains: truly, really, my only solid ground is a mat & some heavy breathing.  

I don’t practice every morning because I’m a disciplined person, but because I Can’t Function Otherwise For the Rest of the Day.  Especially when the world has turned upside down.   This morning was an hour of self-practice, then a T trip to a 6:15 am Forrest class at Hopeful New Home Studio which ROCKED.  Do the math — I woke up randomly at 3ish am to fit all that in.  Atomic Squirrel, yes?

Which reminds me of  something Pema Chodron (waycool Western Buddhist nun) says that echoes the Italian Job’s F.I.N.E.   She reminds us that it’s still okay to be crazy, after all these years.   Though I’m aiming for semi-sane tomorrow.  Or maybe the day after.  I’ll let ya know. : )

But I hope to soon!!  Have hopefully found a new yoga home in Boston but will save details on that for another few days; don’t wanna jinx it. : ) 

We have successfully arrived in Cambridge and are in chaos — boxes dominate the apartment, finding out where the grocery store is, and when trash day is, and which way is up is keeping me busy!!  We get internet at home on Wednesday morning (THANK HEAVENS!!!!!!!!) and will be able to post daily again then.

As documented in these posts, for the past few months I’ve been workin’ a home practice.  I also love (& teach!) classes; just didn’t take them for a while.  There was a gap period of months in DC where I couldn’t find the right class with the right teacher at the right times.

Generally, for the practitioner there are pros & cons for home and class yoga practice…

Classes

Pros: just get yourself there & further motivation will usually be provided for you; huge benefits from the energy and support of a community; teacher provides supervision of form

Cons: don’t always fit your schedule or are available in local area; tough to find good personal fit with a teacher sometimes

Home practice:

Pros: happens on your schedule; adaptable to your needs of the moment; can use resources like DVDs, MP3s etc to take class from the best teachers in the world (helllooo, Forrest Intensive CDs & workshop MP3s : )

Cons: gotta show up on mat & keep going while maintaining balance in your practice; can end up slacking off & only doing the things you like, not the things you need & get in bad habits; miss out on community

Long term practitioners that I know end up balancing their changing needs during different periods of their yoga life.  Sometimes we do strictly one or the other, sometimes a mixture of both.  Just so long as there’s practice!!

I’ve really enjoyed the home practice, but would like to have a community and someone to give me some good adjustments — god, I miss those.  Keep your fingers crossed for me that the studio I love proves a good fit, pretty please, K?  Back by Wed if I can’t sneak away from the Box Monsters to Starbucks again sooner. : )

That bit of my blog headline is a favorite Forrest yoga community phrase, emblazoned on tank tops & even the occasional tattoo.  One can (and I do : ) take it as a bit of a tongue-in-cheek, devil-may-care slogan… I mean, it’s not exactly an either/or choice, really; both seem pretty inevitable. : )

But for me, it sums up the rock v. hard place quandary when we hit crossroads where it is no shit a matter of life and death:  find new behaviors/a different way to live, or self-destruct.

It also expresses the opposite-yet-equal truth that even though change is the only constant in life, sometimes we work very hard to push it away, stay stagnant &  as a result shrivel up & die inside.

When given the opportunity to choose between “evolve or die,” evolving sounds like the better way to go. : ) 

I bring this up because today marks for me another extraordinary ordinary day of evolution, revolution, and a bit of convolution.  Point is: I’m departing for Cambridge momentarily!  Catch ya on the other side, when I’m a Beantown Baby!!!

Oh, I hurt. Nothing feels in the right place. Not from doing yoga.  Quite the contrary – missed a day of practice yesterday and it’s like wearing someone else’s bones today.

It’s an excuse but yesterday I bought into my BS that other things had to be done over yoga. Yeah, it happens to us all. The apartment was completely filled w/boxes and then movers and cleaning followed by an exhausted collapse into sleeping bags on the floor.  I hate sleeping on the floor.  The occasional nap in savasana, sure (joking! well, a little , but longer than that just plain sucks.   Tossin’, turnin’, bitchin’ … very charming all around. 

Today there was driving.  I split the drive from DC to Cambridge in half and am now posting from a lovely hotel near Scranton, PA.  Beloved Husband, being a rockin’ man who happily sleeps on the floor & drives long distances easily, is taking the cats and heading straight there.  We expect our sh*t to arrive tomorrow – Wow!  It’s felt like this move took FOREVER to happen and now we will be settled in this weekend!  Pictures asap!!

Ok, back to Yoga Geekiness… will post more on the Forrest specific training experience, but first, have lots of opinions on teacher training programs in general.  First off, Caveat Emptor (Buyer Beware) is critical. See, going in, you gotta:

1)       Choose between an extended style  (like the Yoga Reserves, 1 weekend a month, 2 weeks a year) or an intensive month-plus yoga splurge.  I’ve done & like both.  First, did an extended Ashtanga TT at Union Yoga in Edinburgh, Scotland (yeah, my life is tough, I was living in Europe at the time!) and then, of course, the life-changing Forrest month intensive.  The former is easier for day job/family commitments and the latter is a great opportunity to step outside quotidian obligations & really go yoga-crazy. Woo hoo!

2)       There are tradition-based programs (reading the Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras/Hatha Yoga Pradipika/Bhagavad Gita, learning Sanskrit) and more modern styles that won’t necessarily have these on the reading list… done both again, and it’s important to know the classical texts but ya can (& should!) read these on your own & then think about ‘em alot…  There are so many modern books out there which speak to the process of teaching and also yoga psychology/physiology/philosophy that are not classical texts and its good to be “forced” to broaden.

3)     Please please please for the sake of you & your students, look for a program that includes serious study of anatomy, adjustments, and actual training in pedagogy – that is, how to be a teacher.  Some teacher training programs are obsessed with the Sutras but then don’t have people actually teach until the last few sessions.  Forrest training has you up in front of a small group on Day One.  (BTW, the initial exercise is to teach a sequence WITHOUT TALKING.  Seriously. In mime.  Scary, but an incredibly effective way to learn to use your body to communicate. After that, talking in front of a group seems relatively easy.

4)       Practice the chosen style before showing up.  Seems obvious, but saw in both my TT programs folks who hadn’t actually ever done the style of yoga they were training to teach.   Steeeeeeeep learning curve!!

5)       Know the instructor.  If it’s not your regular teacher, maybe one of the “big name” folks, take some workshops to see if you resonate with their personality.   There are folks running TT programs who are abusive & manipulative – ICK, no matter how pretty their asana.  The good ones teach naturally every second just by being who they are.

6)       Be prepared to be challenged & budget your time, energy, snacks etc.  If you don’t already do yoga from early am to late in the evening, ya sure will.  :) 

Ok, gonna rest, do a small practice (breath work, abs, bridge, dolphin, sun salutes, some head or handstands and twists), respond to sweet & lovely comments, then collapse again. : )  Full practice tomorrow am before hittin’ the road for the final leg to our new home!!

Beloved Husband & I are well into move-to-Cambridge chaos – losing internet & unable to post again til Thurs night!  Tragedy!!  : ) Will keep practicing & post a whole teacher training program rant  once I have access to cyber-civilization again.  

On that note, tho’, I wish wish wish I had kept a better journal during the Forrest TT back in April 2008.  Honestly, I was too physically/emotionally/mentally wrung out to do more than practice, bathe, eat, sleep & do it again. 

But I did send out a family & friends email worth sharing cuz it does give a pretty good flavor of what I felt at the time. 

To quote:

“The adventures continue… I’m 22 days into a month long yoga intensive in Chicago. The schedule is indeed intense — 6-9 am meditation and yoga; 11:30-5:30 teacher training and a second (sometimes even a third) class. I go to sleep at about 8 pm each night and the ban on alcohol all month is completely unnecessary.  The ban on coffee however lasted 2.5 weeks for me and now I am back on the espresso and consider it fully justified.

Training with Ana Forrest has been likened to joining the Navy SEALs, though I don’t think they have to talk about their feelings nearly as much.  A friend thinks it sounds more like ROTC training — which may be about right, since at least three people cry like girls every day.  : )

How to describe Ana?  She looks like a Native American wise woman with the physical dexterity in her fifties that 12-year-old Romanian gymnasts dream of having.  She was an alcoholic, bulimic, epileptic, born crippled and fixed these problems through smarts and strength.  She walks her talk every second and has enormous street cred for healing. 

And, if she’d joined the military she would have been one of the best general officers I’ve ever seen.  She’s a born leader: compelling, direct, kind, challenging her troops to step past their edge without breaking them down, humorous, able to talk about big picture and fine detail in a single breath.  I have loved and hated her in quick succession and sometimes simultaneously.  Frequently because, damn it, she’s usually right.

What’s new after three weeks? 

-          Doing neti is now like brushing my teeth.  For the uninitiated, this is a saline nasal lavage.  I really didn’t want this to work as advertised, but darn it, you really can breathe better doing this regularly.  Highly recommend it for allergy sufferers.

-          Checking out the world upside down has become such a cool trip.  My forearms now have calluses on them from elbow balances and I’m working on Scorpion, which is like a back bend while balancing on your forearms and also working towards full lotus in Handstand. 

-          Still not fully convinced on the yoga doctrine that we house emotions in specific areas.  Case in point, when I get a deep adjustment I do want to whimper and cry.  This is not because I’ve suddenly accessed emotional turmoil (that’s usually right up there on the surface, thanks : ) but because it kinda hurts!!  However, our habitual postures and mannerisms to leave significant marks on our geometry so stop slouching when you sit at the damn computer!! : )

-          I can’t say this has been exactly fun, but it has been intense and useful.  Hope you are also having a hell of a spring — drop a line, please, when you can.  In a few days we move into an anatomy lecture workshop and I am insanely excited about the prospect of getting to sit in a chair.  Woo hoo, chairs! 

Namaste — the sacred in me does a shout out to the sacred in you!”

PS:  For even more Forrest experience entertainment, check out my friend’s fab post on her virgin…er, first : ) workshop last weekend, at http://schmetterlingyoga.blogspot.com/

As usual, I’m behind in my reading but check this out from the NY Times, 10 July.

“Yoga Faces Regulation and Firmly Pushes Back”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/nyregion/11yoga.html?em

Seems some states are using the Yoga Alliance registry for teacher training accredited schools to try & implement formal, state-based regulation.  So far no luck, but if it suceeds somewhere, sure would shake up the yoga world…  check out the comments made below the article for a pretty full spectrum of opinions on the issue.