Autumn Lotus Yoga

Last night was a hoot — got to assist Happy Buddha’s (www.yogadowntowntampa.com) & Yoga Tampa Bay’s (www.yogatampabay.com) program of free yoga in Curtis Hixon park.  This is what the space looks like in the sunlight:

What we had was a bunch of very game, intrepid & cool yogis/yoginis doing their yoga thang under the overhang as a torrential Florida downpour complete with thunder & lightning surrounded us.

It was actually really awesome. 

As one yogini mentioned to me after, plenty of studios have to pay money for a sound system & CDs of rain/nature sounds while we get it for free!  And the electricity in the air produces more than lightning… it flowed through the group; I could feel the storm in the skin of the yogis I assisted.  Not just because we were kinda soaked sometimes.

If/when I get some photos of the actual event (when assisting, waaay too busy for pix , I’ll post ‘em!  

Today, I assist Yogani/Exalted Warrior foundation.  That is an amazing program (www.exaltedwarrior.com) which I will post on tomorrow.

And remember, free yoga in the park, Sundays at 6pm, Rain Or Shine!!

So many good events in the past week.  Didn’t get to sleep enough for about four days, but I caught up last night (and there might have been a wee tiny nap this afternoon too .  Took a loooong savasana after my own home practice today to just feel & let it soak in.

To return briefly to the Forrest Yoga Mentorship, Final weekend, Second day (as promised)… the big things that rounded out the weekend for me were the assisting clinic, our shared practice & the talking circle. 

Assisting clinics are fabulous things when the assists are good.  And Forrest assists are tasty good indeed.  It’s great to get to run the assist on each other, swapping back & forth, & get honest, informed feedback on what worked & what didn’t.  I used to find these clinics kinda dreadful because I feared so much touching someone else & being touched myself.  If Forrest has done nothing else for me (& it’s done ALOT else), it has helped me work through that fear.  Learning to touch in a healthy, safe, healing way & to receive that kind of touch yourself is a HUGE thing.

The shared practice was awesome & hard because we taught each other.   We teachers are very ornery students sometimes.   On the other hand, it was a gift to each other & other teachers are also very great to teach because they know better than anyone all the little challenges involved.

And the talking circle… talking circles are sacred ceremonies.  Each person holds the talking stick & speaks in turn.   The content of what anyone says is held in confidence, but I will give you the questions that guided the closing circle.

1) What are you grateful for?

2) What did you learn?

3) What will you take away from this experience?

Good guides for letting it soak in.

Well, it’s pretty funny.  I was waiting til after an afternoon assisting workshop to write, then completely forgot!   And after commenting on writing everyday so recently too.   I blame the excitement of going out for a fabulous dinner right after the workshop, then sitting down to watch the Travel Channel & zonking out on the couch.

Yesterday worked out to be a great day, though there was a little slogging cuz of a random 4 am wake up (repeated today for some reason — what is UP with that??).   Did an early yoga class, then took Beloved Husband’s spin class.  (Yep, he was teaching!  Very fab.) 

The aforementioned workshop was taught by Lynne at Back Bay from 2-5 & it was AWESOME. 

It was open to 200 hr certified teachers from any style & focused on “feel good” assists rather than corrective, alignment based adjustments.  That means assists that help a student get space in the pose.  Lynne set up an opening circle where we each gave our name, main style of teaching & favorite yoga pose.  She then took us through a few suns.  To cover assists, someone goes into the pose, Lynne would demo the assists then we’d pair up & practice on each other.  Alot of the assists were Forresty, but Lynne has a diverse background & some were new to me.  

Rather than try to describe assists (which is tough in words if you haven’t seen them before), instead here’s a few of the concepts she emphasized in each of the poses we looked at:

Child’s pose — press sacrum back & down; don’t push chest down because it compresses cervical spine if head on floor

Down dog — lengthen sacrum up & away

Seated — lengthen back, align head

Seated twist — never crank the twist; lengthen & lift

Lunging twist — it’s never about the shoulders, rather lift up ribcage & revolve

Handstands — leverage always best at hips

Backbend — create space between sacrum & ribs; make sure to press sacrum back before any movement down & ribs UP

Basic jist is to make more room rather than compression & never force anyone anywhere. 

Okay, caught up!

We must be living in an alternate reality.  Because it looks like I will be assisting Ana at her Forrest Yoga workshop, 12-14 Feb, at Three Rivers Yoga in Coraopolis, PA.  (It’s by Pittsburgh.)

See:

http://www.threeriversyoga.com 

and

http://www.threeriversyoga.com/eventDetail.aspx?eventId=150

That is of course contingent on avoiding disaster, which I am very adept at conjuring up, mostly in my own head.   But I am beyond thrilled to get this opportunity.  It’s been a goal of mine for a long time, and I didn’t expect to get a chance for another 5 years, minimum.  Please chant, cross fingers, make wishes that this works out!

In other good news, a dear friend from my teacher training came in last night for the intensives this week & is staying with me.  We went up to the local sweatlodge this morning for 2-plus hours & had a blast sliding around.  Found it quite amusing that she & I both paced our suns a little slower than the class & almost exactly the same tempo.  It’s good to have a fellow modifier of the same breed on the mat beside you!

Oh, and we both observed the teacher had one wicked strong repeat word (“draw” in some form showed up in EVERY SENTENCE, no kidding) and two weaker ones (towards and deep).  Without those repeats, it would have been a textbook good class.  With them, I wanted to start a drinking game.

Finishing up prep for the week.  Bought almost the entire supply of juicebox-style coconut waters from the local fab grocery store.  Was too excited to sleep much last night & hoping today’s fatigue and zzzz’s debt will ensure good sleep tonight!  Adventures await…

Gather round the campfire, dear yogis, I have a horror story to tell. 

First, this is not my story.  It is the story of a friend who gave me permission to share it.  It does not involve a teacher I know — CERTAINLY no one at Back Bay nor in Boston at all.  Beyond that, I won’t give identifying details. 

Let’s call my gorgeous, fabulous friend Jean.  Jean regularly attends yoga class at a small studio & is getting quite strong & skilled.  She starts doing Down Dog On the Wall (that L-shaped thing with feet on wall & hands on floor) in preparation for Handstands.  When the day comes to try out handstands, her teacher picks her to demo the move because Jean is gorgeous, fabulous, strong & capable.

Never having done a handstand before, Jean is directed by the teacher to demo in the center of the room.  She kicks up bravely, spotted by the teacher from the side of her legs.  But Jean’s arms buckle a little & next thing she knows, she’s crashing down on the top of her head.

Her teacher’s first words: “I thought you were strong enough.”

At first, Jean thinks it’s nothing.  A little neck tweak.  Then the burning along her arms starts & the neck pain gets worse.  After a week of self-treatment, she goes to a doctor. 

Jean has badly squished disks in her neck.  Multiple months of pain later, she has surgery to fuse several of the vertabra.  While mobility will return in time, recovery from surgery takes more months of pain & has left lasting scars.  One on her neck that resembles a tracheotomy & an even bigger one on her sense of trust, love of yoga & belief in her own capabilities.

I want to take this teacher out behind the woodshed.

Jean blames herself.  Jean was NOT to blame.

I can’t believe this teacher had someone brand new to handstand kick up in the center & used a jackass spot intended to steady experienced students.  The teacher could easily & safely:

a) had Jean kick up at the wall with an intelligent spot.  The smart spot has the teacher’s butt on wall, hands on student’s hips, bent knees near shoulders to prevent just such outcomes.

and b) if the teacher really wanted to have her kick up in the center (I’d trust Ana to do this anytime, eg, though she’d still have a new handstander at the wall), spot her in such a way that you can prevent buckling & falling.  It’s easy enough to do – by having the teacher’s knees bent, first off,  if the student’s arms buckle when you’re doing a sensible spot – holding the center of gravity, at the hips, not just guiding the legs!! — then having the teacher simply straighten their legs will lift the student clear of the head.

What makes me sad, rather than mad as hell, is that my friend blames herself.  The student blames herself for the mistake of the teacher.

What makes me mad as hell again (even madder as heller, really , is that the first words out of this teacher’s mouth blamed the student & made her feel bad about herself & that she was at fault.  And she wasn’t at fault.

Just one of a bunch of illustrations out there of abuse of the student/teacher dynamic.  I do believe that teachers have good intentions most of the time, but some eff up HARD.  This particular example outrages me.   Feel free to share any egregious ones you know!

And, btw, this isn’t something that is solved by having some state governing body oversee yoga teachers.  Nor by eliminating physical assists in class.  It’s the responsibility of teachers to do their job properly & when they eff up, to take responsibility for it, make amends & NOT BLAME THE STUDENT.

Okay.  Off the soapbox. 

Practice  today will mirror Tuesday.  Nicoline’s Flow class, then Kate Greer’s nooner.  Somehow the rest of the day got quite busy also.  December….

Well, due to a variety of reasons, my turn as an assistant at Back Bay looks to be complete.  I mourned last night and today am focusing on moving on;  resetting my schedule a bit and working on setting up a volunteer gig.  Hopefully there will be more on that soon!

Also taking the time now to give some general guidelines for how a Forrest class gets put together.  These are pretty top-level, basic things & I hope to give a more nuanced discussion later since I get toset the groundwork today.

Generally speaking, a Forrest class runs like this:

1) Centering/theme/intention/grounding

2)  Pranayama

3) Warm up pose or two, like a side bend, gentle twist, neck stretch, hip or shoulder opener

4) More warming/strengthening stuff.  For example,  a Dolphin/Dog variation follwed by Abs, then Bridge.   Or maybe Abs, then Bridge (to stretch abs out & lengthen low back as well as backbend prep) followed by Dolphin/Dogs.

5) Maybe more Ab work in the form of standing Uddiyana/Agni Sara/Nauli.  Maybe it’s wall time.  

6)  Moving into the “Hot Zone.”  Can start with Classical Suns.  Or go into B Series with 2-3 Standing pose variations put in.  Or a Standing Serie (5-15 standing poses done in a row on each side; no vinyasas)

7)  Perhaps wall work if not already done.  Can put wall work in lots of places.  Personally, I love it after the first warm up stuff or after doing Suns, before the meat of the Hot Zone cuz folks aren’t too tired yet.  But if the Apex pose is at the wall, it would go after everyone is nice and hot.

8 ) Apex pose.  The class ideally has been working up to this all along, warming up, getting technique & alignment set.  Depending on the class, this might be something as simple as a pigeon variation or deeper backbend, ranging on up to Scorpion or some other funky arm balance or perhaps a lotus entanglement.

9) Warm down.  Depending on the apex pose, warming down might include more abs (great for warming down!  really!), even standing poses in a simpler series (also great! really!), that wall work, or it could be more “traditional” warm downs like slow hip openers, forward bends, shoulderstand & variations, twists etc.

10) Savasana, then seated closing.  Yummmm.

That’s the jist/outline of a Forrest practice.  It gets more complicated, of course, and has lots of variations but that’s a start! 

Today’s practice has me off to Back Bay for Nicoline’s morning class & hopefully Kate’s nooner as well.   Got a good feeling about it.