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Six Days a Week...

I must say that I feel my practice has already progressed. I don’t, however, know if it strictly a change in my intention, or physical development as well. Intention is such a catch phrase in much of the yoga literature that I have read. “Be in the moment” “Focus on the now”. Well yeah, I sure do feel in the moment when my thighs are burning in Virabatrasana A and B. Figuring out how to “stay in the moment” and continuously focus on breath, bandas, and alignment is where the difficulty lies. I do feel, however, that the commitment that I have made has certainly made me more aware of my intention. I come to the mat with much more presence in the current moment rather than dwelling on what I haven’t been able to do in the past and what I’ll likely not be able to do today. I also seem to be more aware of subtleties during my practice. I am improving on my ability of self-observation and the ability to translate that into adjusting my postures. Rotating this and extending that is starting to make much more sense to me. If I could just remember to breathe! It is fairly exciting to report that last night I was able to lift up off the floor (briefly) for this first time in Utplutih. And what do you know, it must not have been a fluke as I was able to do it today as well. I am starting to celebrate each of these small victories.
I have received many words of encouragement over the past week and remain touched that so many people support me on this journey. The community that has grown at City Yoga is full of many caring, encouraging and supportive people. Knowing that I have a silent cheering section beside me during my practice keeps me motivated on those early, early mornings. Many of those people have also said the same thing to me, “Don’t be surprised if you get more out of this experience than you expect”. I already feel that I have and I can’t wait to see what more is in store for me. I look forward to sharing my experience with all of you and returning the favor of support.

Six Days a Week...

Trepidation. That’s what I felt when I began to contemplate the journey of 6 days a week of practice. Could I do it? And at what cost to my family? Will this affect my boys? Will it take time away from them? Immediately, thoughts of guilt set in. It’s amazing how good I am at feeling guilty since I became a mother. At the end of this internal argument I came up with the following…Yoga has taught me patience, self respect, and strength (physical and emotional). If those characteristics can make me a better mother, providing a strong example to my boys, a committed practice was worth a shot. My hope is that with a dedicated practice I will continue my journey not only in developing strength and flexibility in the asanas, but more importantly continue to celebrate my spirit, encouraging self love and self respect.

In order to commit to this challenge, I had enlist the support of my husband, kids and friends. I knew I couldn’t do it alone and I am pleased to say all have stepped up and provided me with support. Attempting to schedule practices in my week has already been difficult. My good intentions have been interrupted by LIFE. I have, however, made it to the mat 5 days this week. In addition to 2 led classes I have introduced 2 EARLY morning practices and one home practice.

How do I feel? Tired. But invigorated at the same time. I am also proud of myself. I have successfully completed my first week without taking time away from my family and without feeling (much) guilt for what I sometime perceive as selfishness. I think that is going to take a while for me to get over.

Early morning practices are different than the afternoons. I takes me longer to warm up and I find that my hamstrings and hips take longer to open up. This morning I attempted to stand up from urdhva dhanurasana and it just wasn’t going to happen. I initially felt frustration and some anger. “Why the heck is this hard today?” but then I forced myself to step back and appreciate that fact that I had made it to the mat. Be happy with that! Practicing by myself has also forced me to be self motivating and accepting to the fact I may not always have an energized practice.

One week down, many, many, many to go. Goals for this journey….lifting up and jumping back without using blocks, binding in supta kurmasana, generally improving my strength. More importantly I want to live yoga. Not only asana but incorporating the philosophy of yoga into my life. Lofty? Yes. Attainable? Hopefully.

Lindsay will be posting her practice journal over the next four months. She has been practicing at City Yoga since the early days in the Steamplant, works and has two little children. When she expressed some frustration to me about her progress in her practice which was pretty consistently 3-4 days a week, I suggested that she try for a period of time to practice six days a week, taking off moon days and the first three days of her menstrual cycle. She was up for the idea and started right at the beginning of May. Not a small task to bring add on to an already busy life, she has to fit practice some mornings, and some evening but she is making it work! Lindsay, thank you for sharing this with all of us.

The Opening Mantra...

We posted the article written by San Francisco Ashtanga teacher John Berlinsky last June and a lot of people really liked it so we are posting it again. Now you can also hear David Garrigues doing the opening mantra.


Ashtanga practice is traditionally begun with the recitation of the mantra. What we call the Ashtanga Mantra is really two shlokas from different sources. The first is a verse from the "Yoga Taravalli" by Sri Shankaracharya and the second verse is from a longer prayer to Patanjali.

The Ashtanga mantra has been translated a number of times with various interpretations of the individual words. Instead of looking at the mantra as a literal translation of the Sanskrit, I see the mantra as an invocation and living part of our yoga practice.

Read more...

Watch this video...

and the band Five for Fighting will donate $.40 to Autism Speaks. Also in the video they talk about early intervention and alterative therapies - one of which happens to be yoga. For more information about yoga for children with autism contact Amy at Spokane Youth Yoga.

I could never do that...

We've all done this: watched someone effortlessly perform an amazing, seemingly impossible asana, and thought to ourselves any number of judgemental, self-degrading, negative thoughts along the lines of: "I'll never be able to do that, I've been doing this so much longer than him and why can he do that and I can't, I suck, why am I even trying to do this, ____(insert your favorite judgemental thought)_____." Or maybe you take the self limiting tack of "why would I ever want to do that to myself!"

It is a natural function of being human; we have this brain that is capable of many layers of thought. We can be editing, monitoring and judging what we are doing, and then editing, monitoring and judging what we are thinking about what we are doing and so on and so on. Of course we all know by now that the goal of yoga is to some how take respite from this "ability". Patanjali's yoga sutras focus on the aim of learning to control the wanderings of the mind; yogas citta-vritt-nirodhah. Learning to somehow for a moment see past the veil or maya of the conditioning of our lives - so that we can see things as they are, be present.

So here we are getting on our mat either at home in our living rooms, or coming to a class. We look around and compare ourselves to the people around us and we begin to have these thoughts (see above), so we question the value of practice, we look for a new teacher, a new studio, a new thing, but inevitably, eventually those same thoughts come back. Before we know it five years later we're in the same confused place, as Richard Freeman says with a lot of shallow wells all around us.

Consider this: Practicing with total attention within the body is advanced yoga, no matter how easy the posture: practicing with your attention scattered is the practice of a beginner, no matter how difficult the posture. (David Coulter, The Anatomy of Hatha Yoga) Let yourself be inspired by the people joining you on their mats and then go back inside, listen to your breath, do your best and try to learn from what you are feeling. Keep coming back to your mat, dig a deeper well, the effortless beauty of asana will sneak up on you one day when you least expect it.

Enlighten Up!

Looks like an interesting film.