A good start

I'm starting to feel like I just might get this yoga thing. Relax, breathe, let go. People have asked me how I feel about getting to the end of my teacher training, but I feel like the real work is just beginning! I have been practice teaching different people - my guinea pigs I call them and it's been going really well. I feel much more confident than I thought I would. Like, wow, all that stuff we've been doing for 8 or 9 months has really sunk in. I'm starting to realized things about my practice on my own, just little things, but things are clicking in there. Then in mysore I've gotten a lot of instruction to allow the breathing in my ribcage open and lengthen my spine.
Most importantly I feel that I am living the practice off of my mat. I feel love spreading not just for my fellow yogis, but for everyone I come across. I am doing so much reading about yoga and Buddhism and just feeling the connections and the interconnectedness. I am loving a quote from Thicht Naht Hahn's book Buddha Mind, Buddha Body that says "You are always with yourself. And you always have the capacity for happiness."

Open your heart, Open your mind

Thursday I had the queen of bad days, not the worst day in the world, but a pretty stressful day. On top of that I was supposed to wait until the last minute to see if my friend was coming over for her Ashtanga lesson. I don't really do well with waiting until the last minute types of deals. So I called her and left two messages and said that I felt that I needed to take the time to do my own practice and I really felt the need to be in Donna's class. Whenever I feel stressed and anxious I always want to go to Donna's class - like it is a safe haven, no matter how challenging it can be. We ended up doing a lot of backbends and doing partner drop backs and when I left I had the feeling that it was exactly what I had needed - to open up my heart and to let go all of the stress and tension of the day.
Friday was a late afternoon hot and sweaty Ashtanga class. I practiced next to Amanda. We practiced at a good pace and the flow was excellent. The flow was excellent and the heat made me feel very flexible and loose. Tom qued us at the beginning to relax our shoulders and neck and he only had to correct me once. It was a good practice.
Saturday I came to the studio and observed Tom's and Donna's vinyasa classes. After Tom's class I chatted with a couple of the students. One who had been injured I told her that she was looking good as she came back. Another student who maybe struggles with her yogic "identity" I told her that she had a beautiful practice and that I could tell that she was present in all of her poses and I told her that she might want to think about taking the teacher training. She beamed when I told her this and I was glad that I had taken the time to give her some encouragement. I snuck into Donna's class a little late and watched a bunch of my peers both from teacher training and Ashtanga. They started working into my favorite pose which I think is called Golukasana. When Donna asked if anyone had ever come into it from headstand no one had, so she asked if I would demonstrate even though I wasn't warmed up. So I went up to her mat and she talked me through it and I did an adequate job. Then I was observing and Rita asked if I would help her. She got tired and another girl asked if I would help her. At one point I ended up demonstrating a headstand on the hardwood floor, which I had seen other teachers do. It was so fun.
After class I ran into Donna behind the studio and she asked me how I had managed how to become so relaxed and happy and easy going and I said I really didn't know. I attributed it to working with Bhuddism and practicing and just trying to do the work. I'm looking forward to whatever the future holds.

Living in the Moment

This past Sunday I had a very difficult practice. I was so excited to get to class and then when I got there it was as it something inside me had hardened and I couldn't let go no matter how hard I tried or how hard I tried not to try. It was extremely frustrating. It wasn't that my poses weren't in good alignment, but they were all "hard." My perfectionism just holding on tight and not letting go. Somehow I attributed it either to the flow class where we worked so much on alignment the day before, or to the fact that I had woken up that morning with a migraine. Headaches tend to bring out my most extreme traits, one of which is not being a relaxed and groovy person, in general - I try.
Monday I had intended on going to a late primary series, but I fell asleep and it was impossible for Tim to wake me up. I have been on Keppra for my headaches and neuralgia and I have severe fatigue and sometimes depression associated with it. Since I had gotten so much extra sleep I was able to get up and go to mysore practice the next morning. I had plenty of energy and had a great practice. I had forgotten how much I loved getting up and practicing first thing in the morning. I don't have the day's "baggage" rumbling around in my head, making me hard inside.
Wednesday I went to my favorite led class. I feel that I am back on the right path. I still struggled with some internal issues regarding being judgemental toward another student. I definitely struggled to put that one down. Especially since he was making me a little uncomfortable by constantly staring at me through the whole class. Let it go, breathe, drishti. Live in the moment of the breath and the pose. Live in the moment of compassion that you feel for yourself, for those around you and for those who need it most.

Let it Flow

I am sooooo terrible about getting up on Saturday mornings. I can get up almost any time any other day, but Saturday is like my sacred day of sleep. I was supposed to go to TGs class to observe which I really needed since I don't feel very confident about sequencing in a vinyasa class. And I always enjoy observing that class as well and sometimes helping out. But, I honestly overslept, like turned the alarm clock off, next time I woke up class would have been starting. Well at least I got up in time to go to the class that I was supposed to go take. It's the one vinyasa flow class that I take during the week and I take it because it is taught by the director of our teacher training program.
Today when I walked in I guess I was a little grouchy - probably left overs from my migraine yesterday. The studio was freezing and one of the older students had positioned herself right by an open window. We always have this same struggle on Saturday mornings over the temperature because there is quite a difference in age range and abilities in the students that chose to come to the class. Well, I just quietly went to the other side of the room because we sort of have a tacit agreement that one side can be windows open and one side can be windows shut. It takes all of my patience and non-judgementalness to let go of this issue because I really want it warm in the room and feel like everyone would be better off if the room was warm. And I've gotten so upset that I've left class because I felt the room was to cold for me to practice, but I realized that was only hurting me.
It's so different going from an Ashtanga class to a vinyasa flow class, especially by this teacher. She works very slowly and deliberately and deeply. I don't know if it was the temperature of the room or the pace of the class, but I couldn't really get any good tapas going. We started out with very slow sun salutations and then I think we went directly to the wall to work on handstands in different variations. So again, while my arms were quite tired I didn't have that movement with the breath that creates the tapas that burns away the impurities in the body. I think that must be the difference between between this slow, yet deep and difficult vinyasa and a primary series class.

One step forward, one step back

Last night my friend Min came over so that I could help guide her through the Primary Series. Since I am going through teacher training I was ecstatic at the chance to practice on someone who already had some knowledge of yoga, and even of the Primary Series. She just doesn't remember the exact sequencing. I discovered, as did she, that she has a lovely practice and that she needs to build some overall strength. I did some gentle corrections and tried to work with her on her chaturanga which was her weakest pose, understandably. I found that I have a "voice" as a teacher that is a little stern, but very playful. As she started to get tired we stopped doing as many of the vinyasas and started just looking at the poses, but we made it through them all, except for setu bhandasana, since I knew she had neck problems -- we just did bridge pose. And like my other favorite teachers I insisted that she try to lift between every pose, even though she couldn't get off the ground -- she will someday, and that's the only way. Even though it was just the two of us we ended with three Oms. It felt like the right thing to do. And while she was in savasana I gave her blessings and tried to create a nice calm space where she could relax and I could almost feel when she finally went inward.

Then this morning I woke up with the worlds worst migraine. I'd been doing really well this week and was soooo happy. And I was so happy after my first "teaching" experience. Min was glowing when she left and kept coming back to give me hugs. It was the last thing I expected. So I guess I have to give myself rest, permission to rest which is hard for me. I just finished reading Pema Chodren's When Things Fall Apart. I started reading it partly because I developed this condition which is a cranial neuralgia where it feels as though someone is shooting me behind the ear with a cattle prod every once in a while and I never know when it's coming. It just called to me, but I didn't read it until the doctors overmedicated me with painkillers and my yoga teacher stepped in and told me what I already knew which was that I needed to get off of all those painkillers. So I came up with the plan with the doctors that kept me out of the hospital and came off of a lot of painkillers in two weeks. I started reading Pema then, because at that point I really did feel like things were falling apart. Even though according to the doctors I wasn't mentally or emotionally addicted to the pills, I definitely depended on them to keep the pain away. When I started reading Pema I realized I don't need to fear the pain or run away from it. It just is and I can be with it and breathe. Most of the time. Her lesson is mostly that we shouldn't try to get ground beneath our feet because it's just an illusion and it will just disappear anyway. A hard lesson for me to learn.

First Post

Well, here it is, my first blog. Do I have nothing better to do than to share my thoughts with semi-random strangers? Well, I would like to share my thoughts on yoga with the Ashtanga community. My struggles, the lessons that I've learned and the wonderful experiences that I've had while coming to my mat day after day like so many others to share in this transformative practice. Every day going deeper, every day feeling that this is where I belong even though I have placed so many obstacles for myself along the way. Having been a marathon runner who never once did even the most cursory of stretching, I came to my first yoga class with hamstrings of steel. Shortly thereafter I had an actual steel rod rammed into my tibia due to a non-union stress fracture from running those marathons (and probably not stretching.) And after my first yoga class I was in love, even though I was tight and shook in every pose because I pushed sooooo hard (that's what you do when you run!) So I pushed and pushed until finally some brave teacher finally told me that wasn't the way to do yoga. And I began to learn.