Class 2

So, the ladies took a poll Thursday night and decided that they would like to start at 08:00 instead of 07:00 this morning.  I was sure that would mean there would be a number of people show up this morning, not so!  This morning we had SegoLilly & MO (my wife and daughter from last week), JF, TG and CA.  JF had her daughter, SF, who is still an infant.  I guess she had some shots yesterday and so was very unhappy which meant the two of them left shortly after we started.  About the same time Piglet came in . . . next week's review of asteya and not stealing time will be an interesting one.  When 08:00 rolled around CA, MO and I were the only ones in the room.  The LDS culture has a bad habit of showing up 1 to 5 minutes late and considering that to be on time and being there 5 minutes early to be unfashionably early.  My Granddad always said that you should be at least 15 minutes early to everything and if his family was not ready to leave in time to be 15 minutes early, he would just leave them behind!

Despite the lack of continuity between the two classes, I am optimistic about the future.  We've decided on an alternating schedule, 07:30 one week and 19:30 the next.  One of the ladies also said that she would be bringing her oldest son and husband—when he's in town.  I also talked to a couple of the youth leaders that were there to help clean the church and at least one of them is interested in getting back into a regular practice once her arm—she broke her elbow not too long ago—has its strength back.  I know she wants to get back into a regular practice as soon as she can so I'm researching variations that will allow her to practice without overstraining in poses like adho mukha svanasana.  If you have any insight that might help in my search, I would love to hear from you!  Please drop me a comment or two!

One thing I quickly discovered today is that 1 hour is a very very short period of time.  I had planned to go through a much larger number of poses today but we managed to review only a few new ones over last week.  This is definitely going to take a good deal more planning each week.  Of course, it's not so much about doing something new as about exposing them to a broad range of poses so that they can find those they enjoy and then build upon them.  Of coure, the first trick will be to get regular attendance and the second will be to encourage regular—at least once a week—home practice.  It should be interesting.

Note to self, LE's daughter wants information on certifiying as an instructor.

Namasté

Sacred Spaces

It seems somehow appropriate that this topic is on a Sunday.  As you may recall, I built a portable practice floor for myself.  I recently had one reader, Amy, mention that she was planning to build a floor herself and she asked about what kind of hinge I used for the floor.  She left a comment saying that she was heading out to pickup a piano hinge yesterday.  Very exciting!

As I mentioned two years ago in the entry titled Pressing Onward, I have come to feel that it is very important to have a dedicated space for your practice.  Of course, many of us cannot simply set aside a space for our practice, this is where mats and similar props can help define such a space, even if it is temporary.  I use a portable floor that I made to help with this.

There is another aspect to this:  The sacred nature of such spaces.  Now when people talk sacred spaces and yoga, they often think of Hinduism or Buddhism and rightly so.  That being the case, why on earth would I, a devoted Christian talk about such places?  Our bodies are, as the New Testament clearly teaches, temples.  They are temples daily housing our own spirits and we are the spirit children of God the Father.  The Holy Ghost also can dwell in each of use and so our bodies are again temples of God.  Keeping those thoughts in mind, it is clear that wherever we are should be a sacred space just by our own presence.

Namasté

A Little Addition

I received a very interesting email yesterday.  It said in part, I thought you might be interested in our new Yoga book . . . .  It is a great guide for new students of yoga.  Now, I am quite the skeptic and so I figured that this was just another piece of SPAM.  Taking a closer look, I realized that this was actually an invitation to read a yoga book online.  I made some inquiries about it and received a reply from Robert Maran, president of maranGraphics.  It turns out that maranGraphics is publishing their Maran Illustrated Yoga book online using Issuu and they were aksing me to review it.  I've been taking time, here and there, since yesterday to read through it.

My initial reaction is that reading the book online leaves me wanting but that's always the case when I don't actually have the book in hand, call me a tradionalist but I love holding a book!  Of course, I also own a large library of books in electronic format.  There is no denying the convenience of reading a book on my laptop when I have a spare moment.  The only reason that I want a copy to hold is that this book is good.  It begins by briefly covering the history of Yoga and some of the various yogic schools—hatha, bhakti, karma, jnana, mantra, tantra, raja—and then focuses on hatha yoga before going on to cover other basics such as props, finding a teacher and a large number of other topics.  Sounds like a great book?  It is and that's just the first chapter!  I'll finish reading through it this weekend and post a full review on Monday.

One other thing to note, in his reply to some of my questions Mr. Maran said, Our current plan is to have this version of book freely available for anyone that wants to view it online.  The hope is, in part, that people reading it online will experience a desire to have the book in hard, sound familiar?  I know when I read something that is high quality online, I almost feel obligated to buy a hardcopy just to show my appreciation for reading free online.  That alone impressed me greatly about maranGraphics.  Then I read something that left me speechless:  If we can benefit those who cannot afford a physical book then that is a bonus.  Bravo maranGraphics, bravo!

So, why the title A Little Addition and where is the link to this online book?  The little addition is the suggested reading menu on the left.  The link will show up with the review on Monday.  If I find it to be an exceptional work then I'll add it to the Suggested Reading list.  Either way, I want to review the book completely before placing a link.  I have little doubt that the rest of the book will be as good as the first chapter but I want to be absolutely sure.  I know that I'm no great sage nor am I a man of great renown but my integrity is sacred to me and I won't risk tarnishing it by jumping to any conclusions after reading only the first 36 pages of a 323 page book.

Namasté

A Great Mentor

At first glance, tonight's class was a dismal failure.  SegoLilly and MO were the only ones that came to class.  The only reason I suggested an evening class was so more people could actually attend.  Clearly that backfired.  Honestly, teaching an evening class really fouls up the rest of the day which is why I suggested the 7 AM class in the first place.  I still want to make this class accessible so I'm leaning toward teaching both a 7 and 8 AM class.  The class itself, the pace and the like, went exactly as I had planned it.

As to the title of the entry, I am not the great mentor but rather disappointment is in this case.  It would, quite honestly, be easy to simply decide to drop the classes all together but I shall continue teaching through the end of April.  If, at that time, I'm still having issues with not having people attend then I'll just drop the class.  The disappointment has helped me to evaluate why I am teaching and why I'm actually disappointed.

Well, I've a great deal more to write about the Great Mentors, hardship and heartache, but I'm exhausted and so I'm heading to bed.

Namasté

More on Mentors

Life is full of learning if we simply look to find it.  I was exceptionally disappointed Saturday due to the exceptionally poor attendance at Saturday's session.  Immediately self-doubt crept into my mind, What if the reason the ONLY repeat people were my wife and daughter was because they were only there to give me moral support?  My first instinct was to just bag it all and go home.  As MO and I continued breathing, I heard the outer doors open and SO walked in just a moment later.  We continued with the session, making some modifications to the asanas we were doing.  As we continued, I decided that I had made a commitment to lead these practice sessions and, in the spirit of satya I would follow through with what I said I would do even if no one else ever came.  With that resolve I decided that, as people didn't show up, I would simply set the schedule to be what I wanted it to be and as the previous entry shows, I was leaning toward just Saturday mornings at 7 and 8 AM.  During and after church yesterday, I had four separate people come up to me and ask how many came to the session Saturday.  When I told them, they each expressed sorrow at the situation along with why they had not been there.  One was ill, another had prior committments and another mentioned thinking it was supposed to have been in the morning.  Now I am planning to continue with both the two morning sessions and the alternating evening session.

Emotions, especially strong ones, are great teachers if we will let them.  Negative emotion is the herald of a great lesson to be learned and positive emotion is the fruit of a great lesson learned.  I was angry and embarrassed that no one besides my family came.  That anger changed to a resolve to complete what I had started and then as I learned why people had missed the session, that resolve became a need to make even more sessions available.  With that determination to try and give more rather than be angry and stop the sessions altogether came a peace and comfort stronger than any anger I had felt on Saturday.

With that, if you are in the Pleasant Grove, Utah, vicinity and are interested in these practice sessions, please review the session schedule under the Practice Sessions menu.

Namasté

Resist the Dark Side

What is the Dark Side?  It is the urge to hold that pose a little longer, bend a little deeper, twist a little further.  Resist that urge.  Wait, isn't that what we're striving to achieve?  In all honesty, no we are not trying to achieve the perfect pose, we are trying to unite body and mind and if, along the way, we perfect a pose, wonderful, and if not, wonderful!  Before each practice session I remind everyone, Ahimsa, no violence, is the first tenet of Yoga.  Begin by not hurting yourself in practice today.  I would think I would remember that.  The second thing I always say is, Never pull into a bent, always push!  You cannot hurt a muscle by pushing it but you'll tear a muscle in a heartbeat if you pull it!  I would think I would remember that too.  Apparently not.  I was in paschimottanasana and had my feet firmly in hand and the stretch felt wonderful.  I had noticed earlier in the session that I was much deeper into uttanasana than I had been in a very long time which is why I wanted to add paschimottanasana to my practice.  I wanted to feel the difference between these poses.  I began pulling slightly with my arms, just as I do in uttanasana but I made a number of major mistakes.  The first was to assume that uttanasana and paschimottanasana were simply the same pose in different positions.  By making that assumption, I completely missed the fact that one is a standing forward bend and the other a seated forward bend.  It should have been obvious, one I did while standing and the other I did while sitting but for whatever reason, that didn't sink into my thick skull.  In uttanasana as I gently bend my elbows out, I automatically push with the backs of my legs and the movement of my muscles runs up my legs and over my back to my shoulders.  The pull with my elbows is merely to hold me in place.  In paschimottanasana, there was no movement from my legs and so my back was doing all the work and it felt absolutely marvelous!  It stopped feeling marvelous the moment that my lower back muscles couldn't take the pull any longer and let go.  Quickly I rolled to my side and into savasana.  Thankfully, it is only a sprain and not a tear and already is beginning to relax and feel better.  I'm thinking that by the weekend or the middle of next week at the very latest all the soreness will be completely gone.  Honestly, I have to resist the desire to go into uttanasana right now.  I just have this crazy urge to see if I can do it. 

Resist the Dark Side

Namasté

All Trees Fall

What happened the first time you tried vrksasana?  I'll bet you fell out of the pose didn't you?  That's great!  All trees fall eventually.  Did you, however, stop practicing vrksasana?  Failure is a great teacher and it is no different in Yoga.  In fact, I would say that there is no such thing as failure when one is truly practicing Yoga; rather, there are only different levels of success.  Even my failing to listen to my body yesterday might well be a success depending upon what I do with that.  I've already found that counter poses to paschimottanasana such as purvottanasana help to gently stretch those muscles and allow them to relax.  If you've ever had a back strain, you know that the muscle spasms and attendent fear of falling are the worst parts about it.  Purvottanasana helps calm those spams and allows me to actually sit at my desk for more than five minutes.  Unfortunately, sitting at my desk or driving to work, for that matter, hammers my back.  The muscles tighten and making standing up a literal pain in the butt.

While I wait for some software to arrive, I am slowly working on my review of Maran Illustrated Yoga.  The review should be online sometime this afternoon or evening.  Just a quick preview:  This is a great book!  It does a marvelous job of describing a wide range of poses that are very accessible to the beginning yogi and it goes much further than any book I've read in describing how to modify those poses both to make them even more accessible to those of us with stiff joints and muscles.  It also gives modifications for those of us who are ready to take these beginning postures one step further.  Just remember to learn from my mistake of yesterday and go into every pose gently!

Namasté

Book Review: Maran Illustrated Yoga

I'll be honest, when an email from Brooke Maran hit my mailbox last Thursday to tell me about "our new Yoga book that we have made available online," I was quite sure that it was SPAM but I quickly realized that the link really did go to an online book and that I had been asked to review it.  All of this was quite a surprise to me, I've never been asked to review anything before.  So, I wrote back asking a few questions about the book.  Imagine my surprise when Robert Maran, the president of maranGraphics replied to my questions.  I just want to highlight two things he wrote me:

Our current plan is to have this version of book freely available for anyone that wants to view it online.  We see this as an excellent opportunity to expose our books to the widest possible audience.

. . . .

If a reader enjoys our online book our hope is that they may also enjoy our physical book.  If we can benefit those who cannot afford a physical book then that is a bonus.

Robert Maran,
maranGraphics

Words fail me at this point.  Bravo maranGraphics, bravo!

The Review
Maran Illustrated Yoga

Let me begin by saying that this is a great book!  Amazon currently lists it at $16.49 and that seems a steal for such a great reference!  Like many books on Yoga, Illustrated Yoga focuses heavily on asanas (postures/poses) devoting twelve of its fifteen chapters to them.  Each pose is rated on a scale of 1 to 5—5 being the highest—for difficulty and a series of pictures and detailed instructions show how to come into and out of each pose.  Every pose also has tips and modifications associated with it, these help address common problems and also provide more challenging variations for those already comfortable with these basic postures.  The chapters on poses cover warm-up poses, seated poses, seated forward bends, chair poses, standing poses, standing balance poses, standing forward bends, table poses, back bends, inversions, reclined poses, and relaxation and restorative poses.  Even if the book contained only those twelve chapters, I would recommend that you add it to your home Yoga Library.  It is not, however, just twelve chapters on asanas.

The first chapter gives a solid overview of what Yoga is without dwelling heavily on the philosophy behind it.  It reviews the benefits of Yoga for all ages, finding a Yoga class, creating a good practice environment at home and—my favorite—tips for a great yoga practice.  I always try to remember that meditation and relaxation should occur throughout ones practice and not just at set times.  The tips section echoes that somewhat with this statement:  Consider each pose as a journey that consists of three parts:  coming into the pose, holding the pose and coming out of the pose.

The second chapter briefly covers pranayama under the heading Yoga and Breathing.  Although this chapter uses the same detailed directions as the pose chapters do, it only covers abdominal breathing and three part breath.  I would have loved to see more forms of pranayama covered.  The final chapter covers a number of short sequences, such as Surya Namaskara, and a range of full practice sequences as well as giving good information on designing your own practice sequence.  I have read many Yoga books and most of them have some form of practice sequence but Illustrated Yoga does it right.  As I mentioned, the last chapter has seven full practice sequences and that includes one based solely on chair poses, that is something I've never seen and shows just how concerned maranGraphics is about making Yoga accessible to everyone.

Although I think highly of this book, there are a few things I would have done a little diferently had I the chance:  I would have liked to see a wider variety in the models.  Ideally I would have liked to see a young male, older male and older female model alongside Ms. Clarke.  The first chapter does a good job of this and I would have loved to see that carried throughout the book.  As I mentioned earlier, more information on pranayama would have been beneficial and also more than just the brief mention of meditation.  These criticisms are, however, quite minor and I do not hesitate in the least when I say that this is a book well worth reading.

Finally, this is not a book to sit down and read then put on your shelf.  This is book is one to have by your side as you practice, the pages dog-eared and worn from use.  Take the time to read through the book online and then skip that next fast food lunch and buy yourself a copy!

Namasté

Move Slowly

Moving slowly from pose to pose can prove to be a challenge on a number of fronts.  How long do you hold each pose?  Five seconds?  Ten?  Twenty or even thirty?  Before I took my trip through the Dark Side, I was holding my poses for about 20 seconds each.  Now, I am just grateful that I can move at all.  My afternoon practice is much different than it was earlier this week.  Instead of slowing my practice through holding poses, I move very slowly from pose to pose.  Of course, as my range of motion is quite limited still, the range of poses I use is also quite limited.  Thankfully, I just happened to read a book that had a full chair yoga practice!  I am happy to say that I am seeing marked improvement each day.  Yesterday sitting for any length of time left me extremely stiff and I was taking nearly a full minute or more to stand after sitting for more than about 10 minutes.  Today, I can stand with barely a twinge although it still takes me a minute or two of walking to loosen up to where there are no muscle spasms.  I'm not sure what condition I'll be in come Saturday so I'm thinking I'll be doing much more talking and very few postures during the sessions.

One very good thing about this whole back strain is that I have a great chance to revisit that aphorism that is often attributed to Buddha:  You begin where you are.

Namasté

Be Still

When was the last time that you heard silence?  As I thought about this yesterday, I stopped to listen.  No one else was in the house but me and the dogs and they were both asleep, surely I would be able to hear silence.  I heard the gurgling of the fish tank, the water was too low.  I filled the tank and the gurgling stopped but now I could hear the low hum of the pump and the refrigerator upstairs.  I listen even now in my empty office and hear the whir of cooling fans and the drone of the HVAC system.  Be still and know that I am God._{(Psalms 46:10, Doc & Cov 101:16)}  Such a simple command and yet, are we so surrounded by sound, by noise, that we have forgotten how to be still?  It is in stillness that we hear God and if there is no stillness, there is no hearing.  It is in stillness that we find our connection with the world around us, without stillness there is no connection.  It is in stillness that we find strength and resolve, without it we are weak and directionless.

Even as the world echoes around me, I find a profound silence in my practice.  I find a deep resevoir of still waters.  As I listen to this silence and float in the stillness, I am fill with life and a slow, firey strength.  As I follow my breath, I become soft and fluid.  Many might see softness as a sign of weakness but when I stood up to troubles and faced them head on, they would shatter against my resolve leaving me to clean up the pieces.  Now, I still face troubles head on but I accept them, welcome them and so they pass through me intact and when I turn to see their path, they are gone and have left nothing behind.  Find your strength.  Be Still.

Namasté

Weighty Matters

If you fail the Awareness Test as most people do, then it's also possible that you missed the addition to the calendar on the right.  The calendar now tracks my current weight in pounds as well.  I've been doing this on my board at work and having moderate success at maintaining my general progress toward dropping to 165.  My current weight is 184 and that is down from 193 in January.  No, I'm not terribly over-weight but my family has a rampant history of diabetes and premature heart disease has also shown its ugly head.  The easiest thing I can do to lower my risk in both areas is to shed a few pounds, not to mention that this little bulbous belly of mine gets in the way of uttanasana and every other forward bend.

I have also added some red markers to the calendar.  After writing about being still yesterday, I began thinking about what I could do to increase the stillness in my life.  The days marked in red are days I focus on pratyahara, dharana and dhyana.  You can hover your mouse over those days to find out why those are dhyana and pratyahara days.

Namasté

Pratyahara

Pratyahara, what is it?  What does it mean?  Pratyahara is learning to disengage from the environment around us and from the noise within us.  The original concept was that as we sense an object be it through sight, sound, taste, smell, touch or even just thinking about an object; that as we do this we create a connection, a tendril or tentacle of attachment between ourselves and the object.  Pratyahara is the act of controlling those tendrils and of withdrawing them.  In other words, pratyahara is metaphysical form of keeping our hands to ourselves.

It is easy to not see or taste things but what about hearing, smelling and touching?  How can one stop touching the earth or the chair or one's clothing?  How can one stop hearing the sound of birds or the laughter of children or the sound of one's own breath and heartbeat?  How does one not smell dinner cooking, the flowers on the table or the scent of one's clothing?  Even more difficult yet, how does one stop thinking about all the many things that must be done before the day ends?

I find it easiest to sit comfortably and focus on my breath long enough for 24 inhalations.  This slows my body and mind down and then I begin detaching myself from my senses.  I do not stop hearing nor touching but the sensation of sitting fades and the sounds around me flow through me.  It is the same with my thoughts, like a monkey it darts here and there thinking about what I had for breakfast or what the weather will be.  The moment I notice that I am thinking on something, I acknowledge it and let it go.  If it is a good thought, something I want to remember or accomplish, then I say That is a good thought, and let it drift off to find some corner of my mind where it can live.  If the thought is unpleasant or one I do not wish to keep, then I say That is also a thought but it is not mine.  Sometimes these thoughts also drift away and find a place to live in my mind but most often they simply drift away and are forgotten.

Another way to look at pratyahara:  Our minds are full of thoughts that are constantly in motion.  Some of those thoughts are about the apple I am eating, others are about my mother's eye surgery and still others are about the days and weeks ahead of me.  These thoughts and many others float around like the little dust motes one can see in a ray of sunshine.  If one blows through these motes, they dance through the air very fast but left undisturbed, the motes drift slowly, almost lazily through the air.  As one stops paying attention to the thoughts and senses floating through one's mind, these thoughts, these dust motes of the mind, slow and a gentle stillness settles over everything.

Today is a meditation day, take the time to let the dust in your mind settle.

Namasté

Dharana

Having learned to withdraw one's senses, to allow the dust in one's minds to settle, it is time to practice dharana.  In pratyahara one becomes entirely passive, allowing thoughts and feelings to simply pass through without becoming attached to these sensations; rather, one acknowledges them and allows them to leave.  The goal is not to block out sensations and thought but, rather, to not initiate them in the first place.  This allows one to achieve a stillness and single-mindedness.  Such single-mindedness is needed to practice dharana.  In dharana, one focuses all one's thoughts and senses upon a single object.  This may be a mantra or the breath or a visual object or a thought.  The intent is to focus soley upon whatever object has been chosen to the exclusion of all other thoughts and senses.

Namasté