Autumn Lotus Yoga

Long weekend on the way!! I am unreasonably excited about this (no day job , because Beloved Husband has a short day today & Monday off!!

So I’m going to indulge in some pleasurable fluff, responding to the Q’s Suburban Yogini posted. Please continue to pass these around & let me know if you’re taking advantage of the chance to grease the blogpost-creation process with a little light solipsism.

1) What is your favourite time of day?
Whenever I am all warmed up & sweaty & having fun. On the yoga mat, of course.

2) Where and when did you meet the love of your life?
He was supposed to be my boss. Yeah. Didn’t quite work out that way. (Long after he had transferred to another division, btw!)

3) What three words would your friends outside the blogging world use to describe you?
Bouncy. Funny. Thinker.

4) What country would you like to visit and why?
Pretty much all of them. Maybe Qatar is really high on the list right now. My reasons are secret.

5) What is your favourite dish to cook?
Improvisational baking is my favorite. Playing with food chemistry is fun & tasty!

6) Salt or sweet?
Have to quote Suburban Yogini on this one; “Sweet. Especially in its proper form of cake.”

7) What are your must have make-up or beauty items?
Definitely undereye concealer & mascara & lip gloss. The first two so that I have visible eyes. The latter because I’m addicted to it.

8)What are your favourite flowers?
Any ones that Beloved Husband gives me. There is a bunch down in the kitchen right now!!

9) What do you think are your worst vices, honestly?
Anything that I do to stop feeling something or to check out/disassociate. The “how” changes, but the purpose is pretty consistent.

10) At what time of your life were you happiest and why?
Definitely now. I love my little family, my work, my home.

Off to Yogani for double class!! Yay!!

I looked forward to leading yesterday’s Exalted Warrior class at the Tampa VA very very much.

But I also cried in the car on the way there, as I worked my way up Bayshore with Hillsborough Bay on my right & palm trees on the left.  I am by no means a crier.  I cry less frequently than I need to, to be honest, because tears just don’t show up easily for me.  And I don’t cry for sadness. 

I cry when I am witness to great courage. 

There is a lot to say about adaptive yoga, and I am by no means the expert.  Still learning learning learning on a steep curve.  But I wanted to give some thoughts as a bare beginnings to what I hope will be a continuing theme of the blog.  Tomorrow I’ll give the actual sequence to keep this from being an exceedingly long post!

I think of adaptive yoga as an extension of the modifications necessary for any yoga class.  Working with the men (mostly men) & women of the Exalted Warrior program these past few weeks has drawn strongly on my experience working Forrest yoga for beginners; the tweaky; the tight; older yogis; the peeps from my volunteer work in Boston & DC who were in transitional living programs, or senior hospital-like rehab centers. 

Like any class, it’s all about who walks in.  Teach the people in front of you.  Draw on what you know about using props & getting students engaged & breathing.  The rest will follow. 

In the case of the Exalted Warrior programme, the students will have served in the military, or be caregivers to those who have served.  Some of the students are quite young, some are from previous generations of warriors.  Some have issues that show on the outside, some have issues that show only on the inside. 

When thinking through the class I might teach, depending on who was there, I did need to specifically think of variations for significant paralysis (paraplegic), amputations & limited use of limbs. 

Mostly, when I think of planning a class, any class, I am reminded of David Swenson’s repeated exhortation to a teacher training class I was in: “How can I share this yoga?”  With anyone & everyone. This is a yoga for all.  How can I share it?

More tomorrow…

A month ago, I knew pretty much no one in Tampa.  

Today, went to the am Zumba class & was greeted like Norm in Cheers.  Ran an errand afterwards at CVS & bumped into a neighbor & also had a nice chat with the regular clerk there.  Took noon yoga at Yogani & half a dozen friendly faces said hi, frequently with hugs included.  Got home & talked to my next door neighbor for 15 minutes before getting into the door.

The world is a much friendlier place than even I ever thought.  Lots of open arms & open hearts.  I am blessed.

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.

Of the three questions from the weekend that I gave yesterday, I figured I’d answer one in this blog. The first one is the foundation. What I honor about myself determines how I treat myself, the choices I make each moment, the way I walk in the world. During the times I despised myself, almost needless to say, I didn’t make the best choices. What do I honor about myself now?

Here’s pretty much exactly what I scrawled down in 2 minutes during the workshop. It is all true.

I honor my “brightness, hair, smile, kittymamaness, ability to get up on days I don’t want to. The ability to learn, to learn to relax, to cycle & organically work my process, to show up for myself. That I could grow out of some very dark places, using whatever means necessary to survive & then learning to use better means. I honor that I can change, heal, try & then learn to try less.”

What do you honor about yourself?

No, really, no shit, right now — make the list, carry it with you, you are worth taking two minutes to celebrate.

What do you honor about yourself?

Okay, last two of the Forrest Yoga Mentorship Program conference call questions from this past weekend.

4) Are you making a conscious choice to feed your heart in your life and while you teach?

Best thing I do to feed my heart is to take the time each day to practice.  Beloved Husband can tell on those days I have given my mat time low or no priority.  Like, during the moving in process… he pointed out quite firmly that, for everyone’s sake, I really needed to get my a$$ back onto the mat.

Best thing I can do to feed my heart when I teach is to breathe.  I’ve taught without breathing & it is just awful.  Get lightheaded, can’t focus, feel panicked & stage fright-y & it is just Bad Bad Bad for everyone.

5) Sometimes, having a connection to your heart just isn’t in the cards for the day.  Do you criticize and batter yourself then?

Yeah, that’s a tricky one too.  Somedays, that whole being connected to feeling & heart & frankly being in my own skin is damn hard or impossible.  it’s funny how we can end up being horrid to ourselves over not being in feeling, which is a sure-fire way to stay out of it, because who wants to live with that kind of crap? 

As Heidi reminded us, best thing to do then is teach from where you are.  Live from where you are.   That can in fact become the theme of your practice or class — working with anxiety, or pain, or numbness.  Being disconnected is a part of human experience & part of one’s process. 

Off to a day out in the Florida sunshine!!  Yeah, it’s tough to be me…

Continuing on — I think these are really worthwhile questions to put out there, to ask & answer & try & be honest about.  So,  questions 2 & 3….

2) When you are teaching (or practicing) what does it mean/how does it feel to connect to your heart?

As Heidi reminded us, teaching from the heart means being authentic, present, compassionate with yourself & your students, & in feeling.  Adding a caveat from me – It doesn’t mean being a pushover, being drippy & sappy all the time or faking squishy niceness on days it isn’t there.  It’s talking to students from where I am.  Putting my hand on my heart & breathing into that can really help, as can  consciously breathing in whatever I feel & speaking from that truth.

3) Are you taking on responsibilities in your life or your teaching that create shielding in your heart?

I’ve heard Ana speak on this a number of times.  If you/one/I am trying to take responsibility for someone else’s happiness, it just doesn’t  work.  It builds shields & resentment.  No one can do someone else’s work for them.  And if I’m taking on too much, as Heidi also said, I just feel overwhelmed & teaching (even practicing!) starts to feel like a chore.  Drawing appropriate boundaries with the people & tasks in life actually frees the heart.

Last two tomorrow!