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.

A little about Karen....

Where are you from originally?
I'm originally from Colville, WA.
What brought you to your first yoga class?What was your experience?
My initial yoga experience is a little different as I didn't attend my first class until after I'd been practicing regularly on my own for over a year. After some reading, somehow a light bulb kind of went on in my head one day that said yoga was the thing that was missing in my life. I bought a couple of books and starting going through the practices in the books. One of those books was Beryl Bender Birch's "Power Yoga". From my first practice on, my back pain from an old auto accident injury was significantly improved. I went on to teach myself the entire primary series from Birch's book before I ever set foot in a yoga studio. When I finally decided to find a teacher I was hooked on Ashtanga and at that time there was no one teaching Ashtanga in Spokane. I started attending Alison Rubin's Iyengar classes at Harmony Yoga to make sure I was learning the alignment properly to avoid creating potential imbalances or injuries. My experience of taking that first "public" yoga class was that it felt strange to take something that had been very private and personal for me and start doing it in a room full of people. I found that there was wonderful energy, support, and learning to be had in a group class setting.

Do you participate in any other kind of consistent physical exercise?
I love any kind of activity that gets me out in the woods. I hike (and sometimes trail run) consistently all year. More intermittently, depending on the season, weather, etc., I like to get out and mountain bike, kayak and rock climb.

What are you reading right now?
In addition to the latest Yoga Journal, right now I just started an old book from the mid-seventies that I came across called "Indian Thought".

Do you have a hobby or interest that you have that we don't know about?
I think everyone knows that my husband and I love to travel, but we also love 40's style swing dancing. And when I have a snippet of spare time I'm hooked on Sudoku puzzles.
Karen has been teaching at City Yoga since we opened in 2003. Though she works full time as a school psychologist she also maintains a daily ashtanga practice and teaches every other Thursday night at 5:40pm and regularly subs.

Time to Spring into Home Composting...

Spokane Master Composters will host their Spring Compost Fair at the John A. Finch Arboretum on Saturday, April 26th from 11AM – 2 PM. Just in time for spring yard clean-up, participants will learn how to turn yard and garden debris into valuable soil amendments and reduce garbage disposal costs. The Fair is being held in conjunction with the Arboretum's Arbor Day festivities.

A variety of hands-on demonstrations will be highlighted --- including a "hot" compost pile and worm bin. Participants will learn about the materials to use in composting, how to build and turn a compost pile and how to choose the appropriate bin. Participants must arrive by 1:30 PM to complete all of the activities by the 2 PM closing time.

This event is free and open to the public. Spokane County attendees (with identification verifying residency), can receive a free compost bin (one per household) after completing the various activities.

The John A. Finch Arboretum is located at the intersection of Sunset Highway and "F" Street. For more information, call the Recycling Hotline at 625-6800 or visit http://www.solidwaste.org

Philosophy Study Group Tuesday 4/22 at 7pm

In our series on meditation, two additional meditation techniques.

7:00pm - 8:15pm - counts as one class.

This weekend - thank you David and all!

Restorative Yoga this Weekend

This Sunday night at 5:15pm - please pre-register, maximum is 16 unless you can bring your own chair! Hope to see you there at the end of the beautiful day we are suppossed to have!

More from Charleston...

Here is another picture - this is Jennifer, my dear friend from Charlottesvile. She hosts Tim there once a year and David as well. And that is Tim - below is a link to an article that Tim wrote - good reading.

http://ashtangayogacenter.com/alchemy.html

Hello from Charleston!

I almost don't want to post these pictures as Dan told me that there was still snow on the ground there! I hope you enjoy them - we've had a really nice trip, I'll be writing about more of the details later. I found an ashtanga studio "the practice space" to practice at and may have re-ignited the yoga bug for my mom and her two sisters. Tim Miller was here last weekend so I spent some time with him, he did a mysore class, a led primary series class, and what he calls "improvisation" which is a lot like what I do on saturday mornings, he also did a lot of talk, most of which I had to miss, except for the sutra discussion, which is always good. As some of you know, Tim was one of the first westerners to practice with Guruji, and has been teaching this method for nearly 30 years in Encinitas, CA at The Ashtanga Yoga Center. My good friend Jennifer Elliott from Charlottesville, VA drove the eight hours to Charleston to see me and Tim which was really amazing of her. We have one more day, and then leave tomorrow night. I'll see you all this weekend!