Autumn Lotus Yoga

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!

As promised, here’s a few thoughts on the first question from yesterday.

1) How does yoga feed your connection to your heart?

For me, from a Forrest perspective, yoga literally connects me to my heart by helping me feel stretches across the chest, between the ribs, at the sternum.  And by feeling chest muscles turn on in poses like Dolphin or chatauranga.  And also by getting my pulse going & heart pounding.

Also, yoga slows me down, giving me time to feel if I’m breathing or not, to feel the lifting & opening of the area in front/side/back of my heart with each breath.    It makes me aware of when I’m closing down the heart by rolling my shoulders forward & slouching.

On the next layer in, yoga gets me feeling & noticing when I’m checking out emotionally.  When I can’t physically, literally get my breath into my heart, or it feels like there is a knot at my breastbone, or I can’t feel love for something as simple as my pets… that’s a sign I’m not connected to my heart & need to get the heck back on my mat, or take a deeper breath.

I’m thinkin’ next question tomorrow…

This past weekend, Heidi hosted a FY MP conference call.  She asked some very good thinking/feeling questions.  I’d like to pass on the Q’s first, then some of my thoughts on A’s tomorrow.

1) How does yoga feed your connection to your heart?

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

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

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

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

Breathe on that for a little while.

Popped down to New Haven to take & teach a class at Fresh Yoga under the lovely eyes of Forrest Yoga mentor Heidi Sormaz.

Two distinct bits of feedback stand out for me.

1) Forrest Yoga focuses on opening & supporting the joints.  When teaching it, prioritize giving cues that help with that very significant aspect of the practice.

2) In cueing, each pose has elements of strength & softening that need to be reflected in the voice.  So the teacher starts working the voice at a level of detail that is quite amazing.  “Push down through the feet” is said in a tone that is different from “release the neck.”

Sequence is below.  I taught a hip/neck/shoulders Level One class — ahhhhhh.

—-

Theme: working with contentment

Pranayama: Nadhi Shodhana

Shoulder shrugs in Baddha Konasana

Forward bend in BK

Abs with a roll

Frog lifting through

Rest in BK

Bridge

Dolphin Prelude

Dolphin

Down Dog to Warrior II, Warrior II with Shrugs, Triangle

Other side

Down Dog to High Lunge, Easy Twisting Lunge, Twisting Lunge

Other side

Frog belly down (over roll option)

Neck Release

Supine Twist

Savasana

Not Dungeons & Dragons, though there’s nuthin wrong with that.

Dizziness & Downloads.

Very separate topics, but two short bits I wanted to share before getting on the road again  (this weekend, Burlington, VT!).

Dizziness is one side effect I have from the medications I’m on. 

(See

http://autumnlotusyoga.omblogger.com/2010/02/07/medication-update/ 

and http://autumnlotusyoga.omblogger.com/2010/01/14/outing-myself/)

The meds are amazing in many many ways.  Predominantly, they quiet down the noise in my noggin so I can think & breathe & feel sooo much better. 

There are two side effects, both of which I’m totally cool with cuz they’re worth it.  The first is drowsiness when I take the big dosage at night.  Drowsiness at night is awesome.  I’m a big fan.  The other is some dizziness throughout the day. 

The interesting thing about the dizziness is this: it’s actually improved my balancing poses.  Unh hunh.  Weird, yes? 

When I first noticed how dizzy I was, it was like “ok, gotta go with this cuz the benefits are worth it, but I guess I just won’t be able to balance anymore.”  But what actually happened is twofold:

First, I got really interested & curious about experiencing balancing poses because it was kinda cool to be all wobbly & trippy & have the spins.  

Second, getting interested in being dizzy made me comfortable with it.  When I wobble in a standing balance now, I just let things wobble & stay balanced rather than fall over. When I go into an inversion, I actually EXPECT the world to spin & so it’s okay & feels safe.

There’s a deep life lesson in there that  I will leave to you to figger out.

(This is from the Vassar weekend recently — ever spin round & round & round & round & round & then lie down?  Yeah, that’s what it’s like.

The other nugget is downloads! 

Got a very nice comment

(http://autumnlotusyoga.omblogger.com/2010/05/13/certification/comment-page-1/#comment-416)

 in yesterday’s post, pointing us towards 20% discounted Forrest Yoga video offerings at the Yoga Vibe site (www.yogavibes.com).    Here they are:

http://www.yogavibes.com/store/recently-added/product/full-class-forrest-yoga-ease-your-way-into-backbends-ana-forrest/

The other place that is AWESOME for Forrest Yoga audio downloads is Alive Yoga (www.aliveyoga.com). 

If you go via the Forrest Yoga website, you can also get a 20% discount (www.forrestyoga.com).  Both Ana and Heidi have MP3 workshops here:

https://www.aliveyoga.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Session_ID=9db2bfda0ce0eeda025b4651c2bbadbc&LNG=en-US&Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=anaforrest

http://www.aliveyoga.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=FreshYoga

That’s it for today!  Catch ya’ll post-weekend romp!  Have a great one!!

I’ve spent much of today compiling my final package to send in for full Forrest certification

It’s a complicated thing.  Completing the Forrest Yoga Foundation Teacher Training means you get to be a 200 hr Registered Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance.

But you’re not a fully certified Forrest teacher yet.  You’re an associate.  Nothing wrong with that, but I’ve had the paperwork just waiting on me for almost two years to finish the whole thing up!

See, I completed 90% of the requirements for full certification in a mad dash immersion within six weeks of coming home from my April 08 training. 

But I couldn’t pull the trigger.  Now, with 3/4 of the Mentorship Program year done, and a bunch of my internal crap processed, I’m ready.

After my Forrest accreditation is complete, that means I can submit for 500 hr RYT status with Yoga Alliance.  Which is a nice thing.

The certification requirements make up a whopping big package of paper.  For the curious, here are the requirements, as shown on the Forrest website.

http://www.forrestyoga.com/page.cfm?name=certification

Steps to Obtain a Forrest Yoga Teaching Certification
•Completion of the Teacher Training Course – Foundation, including the Forrest Yoga Business Workshop and Functional Anatomy for Yoga

•100% attendance at daily meditations, yoga intensives, afternoon instruction, Business course, Functional Anatomy for Yoga.

•Participate in co-teaching the Introduction to Forrest Yoga Workshop (any missed classes will jeopardize your certification).

•15 hours of unsupervised community service teaching.

•20 hours of anatomy instruction (as of 2010 Ellen Heed’s Functional Anatomy for Yoga will be included in the Foundation course, and the anatomy required for certification).

•Attend 40 additional yoga classes (10 of which should include typed critiques).

•Submit a flyer advertising your yoga class and you as a yoga instructor.

•Begin teaching ongoing classes (public or private) within 6 months of Teacher Training course completion and submit proof of your paid teaching.

•Develop a class plan for an injured student or an injury you have been working on. Take the class yourself and provide written feedback about whether it addressed the issue.

•Read the Forrest Yoga Teacher Training Manual and all items on the supplementary reading list. There are writing assignments to be done in relationship to these readings. Reading list is sent to enrolled trainees.

(FYI — My writing assignments on the training manual are about 30 pages long, and my notes on the 30-some book reading list are about 40 pages worth.    The postage is going to be quite a lot!!)

Why do we resist when we try to do something nice for ourselves?  When we try to change, or heal, or take a class or a walk or do our practice or eat a salad, when we know it’s the best possible thing? 

Heidi articulated a fascinating line of reasoning on that conundrum this weekend, and I’ve condensed it below. 

Fact: We say to ourselves horrid things we’d never say to others. 

Fact: If/when someone does in fact say something horrid to us, we internally put up a block, a hardening, resistance born from anger and pain. 

Logic: We say horrid things to ourselves. We harden against those who say horrid things to us.  Therefore we block, and resist ourselves. 

Even when we’re trying to change & do something wonderful, there’s a feeling of — “Why should I trust the neighborhood bully???”

It takes time to change that.  To stop, first off, being horrid to yourself.  And then to ease off the years of built-up self distrust & slowly release the resistance.