Thursday, December 30, 2010

Yoga Friday December 31st!

My family and I are back from our Northern Cal excursion.  I am subbing the 10:30 AM class December 31st at Yoga Madre.  Come see me!  It's beginning level, but we can always crank it up if need be.  No yoga at the Center or Yoga Madre on Saturday, New Year's day, of course. 

I wish you all a wonderful and happy New Year.  Resolutions and the like to be the next post--stay tuned.  Namaste and see you in class.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Not Subbing Tomorrow!

Turns out that my daughter Sofia is running a temperature so I will not be teaching the 10:30 class at Yoga Madre tomorrow.  Sonya will sub for the sub!  Go see her and enjoy the class.  Namaste and hopefully see you Saturday in class.

Yoga and the Ego

Hmmm the ego is an interesting concept to ponder.  Typically in yoga, we ask that students leave their egos at the door when they enter the asana room.  This exercise in functioning without ones ego may indeed be the most challenging aspects of yoga.  Since we literally cannot remove our ego from our body and deposit it at the threshold of said asana room, how then are we supposed to NOT heed its sometimes deafening call in our ears?  Exactly the challenge, my friends.

So why leave it at the proverbial door to begin with, you might ask?  Well it's our ego that drives us in life and may drive us to compete, covet, attach and thus eventually set unproductive goals for ourselves.  These goals can be falsely driven by the external world to which the ego is easily drawn.  In yoga class, this may mean forcing ones body into poses beyond its own ability in an effort to compete with your fellow students.  Or it may mean trying that 5th handstand even though you've done 45 minutes of demanding asana already and child's pose beckons.  An injury can easily occur in both the aforementioned situations.  Admittedly, I speak from experience as I have willingly listened to my ego on more than a million occasions, competing either with others in class or just my own darned self.  Let me tell you, a hamstring takes a good year to heal okay! 

So yeah leave it at the door.  Easier said than done especially in our American culture of doing everything first, faster, bigger and better.  We may indeed run our professional and personal lives on these red, white and blue tenants of Americana.  As result, bringing a little Eastern philosophy into our Western style of living can be difficult.

Okay, BUT what of tapas?  You may have heard teachers encourage you to practice with tapas.  Tapas is the philosophical concept from the Yoga Sutras commonly thought of as discipline.  So a student striving to get into scorpion pose may be practicing with tapas or she/he may be listening to the ego.  We often equate difficult and challenging things with being disciplined and therefore as tapas.  This is where the confusion between the ego and tapas surface.  As Judith Lasater says, "the ego is drawn to battle with difficulty: Mastering a certain pose can bring pride and an egoistic attachment to being an advanced yoga student."  She says a better way to think of tapas is to equate it with consistency. 

To bring tapas into your practice without mistaking it for the ego, set your intention to maybe practice or meditate daily, attend a class 3 times a week or read about yoga philosophy at bed time.  Consistency in your practice of yoga is what tapas means.  The fancy poses on the cover of Yoga Journal are beautiful but may not be what you need to experience yoga and connect with you true self.  A subtle distinction, all of this.  So give it a try, leave the ego at the door and hit the mat more often without judging your practice or overdoing it.  Namaste and see you in class.

Subbing Friday

I am subbing at Yoga Madre this Friday, December 17th 10:30 class, beginning level.  Come see me and namaste.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Eat, Drink, Do Yoga!

We are knee deep in the holiday season.  Once Thanksgiving has hit, time seems to accelerate and before you know it, Christmas and the new year are upon us.  Whether you celebrate any of the Judeo-Christian holidays or not, they and their accompanying activities are nearly unavoidable during this time of year.  We can get caught up and bogged down in the preparations, gift buying and partying going of it all.

For some, it's a wonderful and magical time.  My dear friend Phil starts playing Christmas music really early, October maybe.  His partner, Mike had to lobby for pushing that out at least until Thanksgiving for his own sanity.    For others though, maybe you and me, the holidays can be overwhelming, tiresome and bring up unpleasant memories of holidays gone by.  To help us all enjoy this crazy busy time of the year, don't forget to practice your yoga!   Yoga can help keep us present and centered, reminding always who we are and connecting us to our authentic selves.  The disconnect from our true selves is probably the most common culprit for our holiday malaise.    We can feel pressured to spend too much, over schedule ourselves and end up resenting everyone and everything about December.  Okay maybe I'm sharing more about myself than you, but you get the idea.

By slowing down, practicing yoga at home or in class, you can take the time to center yourself.  For those 90 minutes (or even 5, 10 or 15 minutes!), connect with your breath, your body and shut out all the external noise of the holiday season.  Shut out the societal prescriptions of what you should be doing in December and how your holidays should be celebrated.  By doing this, you can remain true to yourself and therefore celebrate in a way that works for you and reflects who you are. 

If this time of year does not align with your spiritual beliefs, use your yoga to help you to make your own rituals.  Through pranayama (breath work) and asana (poses), explore how your own spirituality can factor into the holiday season whether through being grateful for the abundance in your life, by practicing seva or karma yoga by giving back to others or by spending time with family and loved ones.   Or go old school and create a winter solstice fest.  Basically, make the holidays your own!  Namaste and see you in class.