The Everything Yoga Blog

Yoga No-Nos

2009-11-06T16:10:55-05:00

What a week it's been in the world of yoga. First, a yoga student sues a Boulder, CO yoga studio owner over an unwanted adjustment during yoga class. Then the financially-strapped state of Missouri taxes yoga. Hmmmm...I'm thinking Patanjali would be shaking his head (or is that hood) over these two happenings, reminding us of ahimsa and asteya. My comments on these two events -- always ask first then proceed with caution and is it really necessary or is greed driving the bus?

The other recent what the h@#$ item in the news regarding yoga lately is one near and dear to my heart (WARNING: the yoga blogger in residence is about to jump on her soapbox) -- yoga as a competitive sport. Check out this poll (and feel free to vote) about making yoga an Olympic sport and the accompanying video. Personally, I find the video disturbing. Call me a yoga purist/elitist/whatever but I don't like to hear the following phrases ass0ciated with yoga: "suck it," "judging asanas," "vicious yogi and yoginis," "maximum flexibility and balance."

If you've been reading my blog you know how I feel about yoga as sport (I don't). At the risk of repeating myself, I'll say this -- in regards to asana, it's about the function NOT the form. Yet, competitions like the one depicted in the video focus on "the full expression" of the pose. Perhaps these folks need to re-read Patanjali's sutras. I don't believe that Patanjali discusses yoga practitioners desiring a high number on a scale of 1-10 regarding "beauty, balance, strength, and flexibility" in a pose. Or perhaps it's just a ticked-off yoga practitioner like me who is reading the wrong translation of the sutras. Pardon me.

What is it that all of this nasty yoga news have in common? EGO. The teacher who thinks that he/she knows a student's physical limitations and adjusts according to what he/she thinks the pose should look like, a bureaucrat who thinks that he/she can line the coffers by taxing something that shouldn't be taxed, a movement that cares about a yoga practitioner's outer state than his/her inner state. Last time I checked, yoga wasn't about injuries, money, or a gold medal. If I thought that it was, I wouldn't have started practicing nor would I have continued my practice for well over a decade.

Okay, end of rant. Whew -- I feel better.

After all of that bad news, I like to focus on the good. The good news is that you don't have to get caught up in all of this nonsense -- you can simply practice yoga. You can practice imperfectly, without worrying that some judge is grading you on your form in Virabhadrasana. You can practice as yoga was meant to be practiced -- with sthira and sukha. You can practice knowing that yoga is more about changing the quality of your mind and releasing the knots from your body and mind and less about your yoga wardrobe, the depth of your back arch in Wheel, which "guru" you've studied with, and whether or not you're practicing in a hip studio with the latest big name grunting on the mat next to yours. Yoga is more than all of this. And someday it just might save the world -- or at the very least, your little corner of it.

See, it's not all bad news.

Namaste!

Blowing a Little Angry Wind

2009-11-02T20:26:15-05:00

A few days ago, I got rip roaring angry. I felt like one of those cartoon characters that I used to watch every Saturday morning when I was a kid -- the pressure cooker inside of me got hotter and hotter until it finally blew, resulting in steam coming out of my ears.

The holistic model of yoga (think Koshas) can be understood clearly when experiencing anger (the emotional body) -- your physical body changes (your muscles tense, your face gets red), your breath body changes (your breathing gets choppier, shorter, and more rapid), your mind changes (your thoughts become negative), and your personality changes (you become more aggressive). Change one of these bodies and all the others are affected.

One of my favorite ways for dealing with anger is working with the breath body -- I make a conscious effort to change my breathing. I lengthen my exhales, sometimes retaining my exhale. Often times I'll work with anger in a non-yoga fashion -- I'll dump the emotional charge by journaling. Sometimes I'll even deal with it in a Buddhist way -- I'll send Metta to the subject of my anger.

How you deal with it isn't the most critical thing here -- it's THAT you deal with it. Unresolved or tamped down anger can cause vata prakopa. What, you ask, is vata prakopa? It literally translates as "angry wind" and can found in many Ayurvedic texts. The concept of vata prakopa is simple -- anything we do that agitates the breath causes us suffering. Often, this suffering results in illness (everything from flatulence to infertility to irritable bowel syndrome).

Think about it -- unexpressed anger lodges itself in the body causes muscles to tighten and breath restriction. Over time, this stress (both emotional and physical) causes disease. It's the ultimate stress-related illness. Feeling/expressing/diffusing the anger enables the prana to flow more freely. When it moves freely throughout the system, we are healthy, we feel better.

How can we affect the flow of prana? Two ways:

Breath -- pranayama or conscious breathing
Attention -- mudra or bandhas

The other day, I went with the first way and then I went off the yoga grid by dumping my emotional charge in a journal. The result -- I calmed down quickly and I easily put the situation behind me. No angry wind here!

If you'd like to read a bit more on this topic, click here for an interesting article from the Ayurveda standpoint.

If you're a fan of dealing with emotions by working with your hips during asana, click here for some excellent hip opening advice (complete with video) from fellow yogi Eoin Finn.

A word to all of you wise yogis out there -- don't get your wind angry!

Namaste!

Quieting the Mind and Soothing the Soul

2009-10-29T22:53:21-04:00

It's estimated that 19 million Americans are affected by stress and anxiety. Ouch -- that adds up to a lot of stressed out, anxious people. That's a lot of road rage, reactive behavior, broken relationships, overindulging in "medicinal" substances, and a lot of dis-ease.

The American Psychological Association and The American Institute of Stress offer up these troubling stress statistics:

Stress levels are deeply affected by work in 62% of Americans.
Money is thought to contribute significantly to the stress experienced by 73% of Americans.
66% of Americans would seriously welcome help in dealing with stress in their lives.
About 70% of workers are unhappy in their current employment due to work-related stress.

And then there's yoga -- it stands there as a beacon of hope much like the Statue of Liberty ("bring me your stressed out, unhappy, anxious, monkey-minds..."). Stress is one of the top complaints of my clients and one of the main motivators that drives them to seek out yoga. Yet, stress oftentimes leads to a perceived (or real) lack of time, which translates into an irregular yoga practice.

So, what's a stressed-out person to do if he/she doesn't have time to practice yoga? I've been known to give my clients 10-15 minute practices, which helps those tight on time. I like to recommend bite-sized yoga breaks to those who can't deal with the idea of fitting an hour of yoga a day into the daily schedule.

One of my favorite things do do outside of yoga to de-stress and recharge is walking in nature. My hiking in the local nature preserves are, for me, the equivalent of taking happy pills. Often my "nature high" will last all day after a morning walk.

Soooo, what to do if you don't have a yoga teacher who offers short practices or you can't get into the woods for a walk? Have no fear, Yoga Nidra and Living Temples are here.

Yoga Nidra -- or yogic sleep -- is a guided experience that puts a person in a conscious deep sleep from which the person emerges refreshed and relaxed, yet energized. It's classified as a meditation as well as a relaxation practice. Sometimes yoga teachers will do a guided Yoga Nidra at the end of class.

Recently, a new type of yoga nidra entered the market -- Yoga Nidra from Hypnosis Downloads. At first I was a bit skeptical about this -- after all, Yoga Nidra isn't about auto suggestion. Yet, after reading the promotional material for the Yoga Nidra download, I had to agree that wording in Yoga Nidra is important. I gave it a try and was impressed. Yes, the language did feel different than what I'm used to, but different in a good way. If you're looking for a 20-minute (approximately) solution to stress, I highly recommend Yoga Nidra from Hypnosis Download. You can download it for under $15, and they offer an excellent money-back guarantee if you're not satisfied.

Recently a study was released that makes a case for Yoga Nidra (which is done lying down) -- Researchers at Texas A & M University found that the mere act of lying down can reduce anger. Researchers have known that mood can be altered by mimicking the facial and body movements of certain emotions (slumped shoulders can evoke sad, morose feelings, smiling induces an uplifted mood), but a new study recently published in the journal Psychological Science finds that when study participants who were in a supine position were insulted they did not show brain patterns associated with anger as compared to those participants who were seated when insulted.

If you'd rather relax using beautiful landscapes but you don't have the time or ability to get out in nature on a daily basis, the folks over at ThirdPlanet Productions have created the Living Temples -- Sacred Land DVD. This breath-taking DVD (which you can also download online) offers beautiful scenes based on decades of scientific studies conducted by major research institutions which all say basically the same thing: Connecting with nature - even just viewing nature in a painting or in film is one of the most healthy things we can do.

The first DVD is just the initial release in a series, all of which are geared to quiet the mind, stir the soul, and change the way you see the world. I must admit that the images do all that and more. The visuals are stunning and viewing them gave me the same sort of "nature high" I get from my hikes. If you're ready to experience your own "nature high" and transport your self into a world of beauty, I highly recommend Living Temples -- Sacred Land.

My final piece of advice for the stressed out? BREATHE! That's right -- deep, slow, even breathing. Inhale for a count of 4 and exhale for a count of 6. This will definitely help in a pinch.

Namaste!

A Musing on Group Think

2009-10-24T21:04:46-04:00

Years ago I was taking a workshop with an excellent teacher who spoke about "group think" in the yoga world. He'd teach us a pose and invariably, someone would say "That's not how I learned it." He'd smile and encourage us to examine whether our thoughts were a result of group think. The truth is, at the time, his teachings were quite different than what my yoga practice consisted of. Yet rather than dismiss his teachings or go along with yoga group think, I kept an open mind and thoroughly enjoyed this new view of yoga.

This past week I've been sick with a cold. A plain, simple, garden-variety cold. Yet I can't tell you how many people chimed in with "Do you think it's Swine Flu?!?!!" (said in a tone of concern and horror) The honest answer to that was/is -- NO, I don't think about Swine Flu. I know that it's all the rage in the media right now but I don't blindly follow along with the media. My first reaction was, "hmmmm...guess I got run down and am getting a cold." Swine Flu didn't even enter my mind. But this idea of group think and the power of group think certainly did.

Just as with Swine Flu, much of yoga's perception is built on what we see/hear in the media. You'd think that group think in terms of yoga only happens with folks that don't practice. For instance, when I tell folks what I do for a living, I often get the following:

Oh, I can't practice yoga -- you have to be flexible to do that and I'm not flexible at all.
I need to de-stress but I don't have time for a 90-minute yoga class. I know that you need to spend at least that much time practicing a day and I don't have that kind of time.
I've seen yoga magazines on the newsstand and I just don't have the "yoga body." That's why I don't practice.

The list goes on and on.

Of course there's a list for yoga practitioners too. There's a group think about how yoga should be practiced, how long a practice should be, the importance of asana, and so on and so forth. You can choose to agree or disagree with yoga group think. What I think is most important is reevaluation. After you've been practicing a while, check in with yourself by asking -- "Why do I practice yoga this way? Where did my thoughts about my yoga practice come from? Is it time to change?"

I've been thinking about my practice quite a bit this week. Interestingly enough, my practice this past week looks completely different than the group think that I had about yoga 10 years ago. Ten years from now my practice and views on yoga may be totally different than they are today. That's the beauty of change. And that, my friends, is why challenging the group think every now and again can be a very cool thing.

Tonight I'm resting up and sipping my favorite tea (a bath and a good book are also in my future). For all of you tea lovers out there, check out this excellent podcast from Buddhist Geeks -- Buddha in a Cup of Tea. Not only will you learn some interesting facts about tea, but you'll also hear more about the simple joy of sipping a cup of hot tea. Mmmmmmmm. Perhaps you might even want to sip and consider how group think is affecting your yoga practice and your life? Just a suggestion...

Namaste!

Yoga and Your PC Muscle

2009-10-19T15:23:39-04:00

The PC muscle is the poor stepchild in yoga class -- way behind the abdominals, psoas, quads, trapezius, biceps and triceps. Of course there is Mulha Bandha, which puts the yoga practitioner's attention in the PC zone. Being that PC muscle strength contributes to everything from enhanced sexual experience to improved bladder control to enhanced feelings of well being, it deserves attention. That said, this post is an homage to the PC muscle and how we can work it in -- and outside of -- our yoga practices.

Muladhara Chakra

Mention the PC muscle in yoga circles and folks look towards the subtle anatomy and chakra system, or more specifically, Muladhara Chakra. Here is an excellent yoga practice to stimulate the Muladhara Chakra.

Mulha Bandha

Mention of the Muladhara Chakra leads to discussion of Mulha Bandha. This root lock is practiced in every yoga class or in none of the yoga classes you attend, depending on the style of yoga you're practicing. If you're unfamiliar with Mulha Bandha, click here for more information and an excellent 10-minute video teaching a Mulha Bandha pranayama practice. You can also find another Moola Bandha breathing exercise here.

Kundalini Yoga's Sat Kriya

One of the most fundamental -- and powerful -- exercises in Kundalini yoga is Sat Kriya. Click here for a detailed description of the kriya. For those of you who would rather follow along to a video, click here for 6-minute video that walks you through Sat Krya.

Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About PC Muscle Strengthening

My favorite source for everything you've ever wanted to know about the PC muscle and how to build PC strength is someone outside of the yoga world -- Mary O'Dwyer, author of Hold it Sister. You can get a taste of Mary, who is a pelvic floor physiotherapist with over 30 years experience, on her ever informative YouTube channel. You'll find pelvic floor exercises that you can do safely to build strength and train your pelvic floor muscles.

It's Not Just for Women...

And for you men out there reading this post thinking this is "girl stuff," you should know that PC muscle building isn't just for the ladies. Guys can benefit from PC muscle training too. Check out this article written specifically for men.

The next time you're in yoga class and your mind is on the myriad of muscles in your body, don't forget to give a little love to your PC muscle. As the t-shirt says -- always Moola Bandha!

Namaste!