blog: the boundless perspective

slow lane

In a previous post I suggested a couple of after-swim poses, which I did again yesterday, and which felt great again.

Yesterday, after an all-night bender with the daughter, I was exhausted and honestly interested in splashing around in the pool instead of trying to keep up in the Medium Lane. (That organization, by the way, seems to keep people sane in an East Coast Pool. Otherwise, Grandpa with the snorkel isn’t in the way of Type-A-even-in-water-Guy lapping everybody in .5 seconds).

So it was Grandpa and me. He, with the snorkel and flippers, and me, with the bags under my eyes and a kickboard. This Pitta woman has a hard time slowing it down, and later, in yoga class as my teacher instructed this pose and this pose and this pose, I was, again, in the slow lane.

I am slowing down, of course, because I just had baby, and the first of the problems in a postpartum body is a weak core. Add bouncing baby 10+ hours a day, and you’ve got a tight neck and shoulders, and often, low back pain.

These physical issues, though, sound like a lot of America. So it occurred to me yesterday, as I observed the others — from pool to yoga classroom — speeding past me and creating shapes beyond me, that there are advantages to slowing down and looking around.

Slowing down gives you the opportunity to create a reality with (probably, but not always) more intention, and in the asana (pose) context, it gives you the chance to observe more deeply what what’s really happening in your body. To be sure, John Schumacher was instructing poses deliberately and slowly, and most of the class had few problems manifesting his information. But what worked for me in class, especially, was watching the others make these shapes based on his instructions, and to imagine that information ultimately making its way into my body.

I will find these shapes soon by taking it slowly. You will, too.

why to stay on the ground during your period

Often, female students ask why they shouldn’t invert during their period, i.e., why they can’t do headstand, handstand and shoulderstand.

The flow leaving the body during this time of the month is in part expelled by the body, in part pulled by gravity. To turn that process upside down is to interfere with nature.

The subtler reason not to turn upside down is that menstruation is a time to turn inside. Ever since I read this book, I’ve believed that women best serve their bodies by slowing down during the first few days of their period, and by staying internally focused during the week of expulsion. This means: sleeping more, drinking caffeine and alcohol less or not at all; drinking more water; sitting home on the couch instead of going out (dancing, for example); eating comfort foods; etc. We benefit by listening to the inner body, which is hard at work getting rid of toxins and experiencing loss–a typically welcome loss, to be sure.

I should have known I was not suited for Wall Street when I started advocating then to my friends about taking a rest during this time. They thought I was crazy. My suggestion was–and still is– that women all be given one day off a month, to work from home, call in sick, cancel travel and meetings, and generally truncate anything that would involve external focus and effort. I believe sincerely that women would have fewer PMS symptoms, have easier menstrual flow, conceive babies more easily, and eventually understand their bodies so well that menopause would not be the “terror” that it is believed by many to be.

So. We can start in yoga class by being honest about our cycle, observe the temptation to do what “everyone” else is doing (remembering, of course, that all asanas, especially and including all the inversions, were designed by and for men), alert the teacher to the fact of our menstruation, and rest in one of these three poses. There are loads of others, but these in particular enhance flow, settle the mind, and allow us to examine more deeply the all powerful abdominal breath.

If you have questions, ask them here or come to my classes and ask.

poses after swimming!

So today instead of doing yoga I went swimming at one of Washington, DC’s lovely indoor swimming pools. Like all parents, I try to make the best of the limited time I have for myself. After finishing, I did these poses to balance the shape I created for my body in mainly freestyle. I felt great, and more long and lithe than I normally do after swimming.

If you swim regularly, try these for a couple of minutes afterward and see if it makes a difference. Notice that the shapes are very basic equal-and-opposite stretches after creating the shape of freestyle in the pool.

The first pose is a forward fold with hands on the starting block, because why not.

It’s about more than the toothbrush

Asana means pose or posture — another translation is “steady seat.” We mess around in class with these shapes mainly because we want to stay healthy and fit, and elastic and strong, for as long as possible.

The point of asana is not to perfect the poses — that’s impossible anyway, because all bodies are situated just a little differently and will not look the same on “completion” of the shape.

The point is to move more energy through the body, more precisely and with longer-lasting effects. So you can do asana anywhere, really, when you are typing, walking or getting up in the morning. Any movement evolves into asana when you become aware of the movement, when you are so deeply engrossed that you can watch your body both relax and form into the movement (reaching for the toothbrush) instead of thinking of something else (I’m hungry) as it happens.

To be sure, yoga class is a good way to start. As teachers, our job is to guide you into heightened awareness of yourself, and the body you have that takes up space. From there, you can become as aware as you want, anywhere, in such a way that you start to release patterns of tension (e.g., thinking, “Omg, I have a lot to do today” as you scrub you body with soap in the shower) and open to a new state of relaxed alertness. It’s pretty sweet when you “arrive” at that place.

a trainee’s thoughts on meditation, pt. 1

The Advanced Teacher Trainees and I have been talking a lot about what meditation is over the past couple of months, and I’m sharing on this site their recent writings on the matter. AM writes:

I have heard people explain that the mind is like a lake and that the fluctuations of the mind are the ripples that flutter across the surface, implying that a level of awareness and stillness of the mind will bring the lake into such peace and calm that the surface of the lake is flat and tranquil so it appears to be a mirror.

In thinking about meditation and asana, I’ve come to realize that the lake metaphor described above, for me, is an over simplification of fluctuations of the mind.  This metaphor implies that that the water and the land underneath the surface of the water are still.  But realistically, the earth (as are our physical bodies) is always moving and changing.  For the earth, which is the foundation of the lake, to come into stillness means it must come into relative harmony with the forces of nature.  To bring this from a lake metaphor to the context of yogic practice in today’s reality, I believe that the fluctuations of the mind of the average person come from a more fundamental, internal source.  Much as natural disasters such as tsunami are caused by movement deep within the earth and whose source are miles away from the resulting waves, so are the originating sources that cause fluctuations of the mind.  For many of us, the quest to seek a still mind is as much about bringing awareness to, observing, and working to bring harmony to these fundamental imbalances.  In relation to the physical body, the connection is clear, as tightness and imbalance may be more readily identifiable.

Meditation is an ancient practice that, like asana, has different histories, schools of thought and techniques.  I searched “types of meditation” on the internet and found meditation through virtually any means:  dance, sex, martial arts, chanting, breathing, walking, stillness, concentration, and prayer, to name a few.  As the types of meditation vary, so do the definitions.  The Princeton Dictionary describes meditation as continuous and profound contemplation or musing on a subject or series of subjects of a deep or abstruse nature.  I’ve often heard people say they meditate “on” something.  I find this interesting, as when I sit in meditation, I do not have a particular subject matter or concept in mind.  In my experience, meditating “on” a specific concept increases my mind’s restlessness.  However, in Satchidananda’s commentary of the Yoga Sutras, he also translates “The practice of concentration on a single subject [of the use of one technique] is the best way to prevent the obstacles and their accompaniments.”  In regards to what that subject may be, Satchidananda comments “Anything can take you to your goal, because you are not concentrating on the object for the sake of the object but for the sake of your goal.”

Wikipedia states that meditation as oftentimes part of a religious tradition.  Meditation is yet another aspect of yoga that may seem to many as religion.  Much like religious prayer, meditation is surrounded by ritual – the posture, the state of mind, the mudras that may resemble hands together in prayer, the incense or candles, the chanting, etc.

While some see meditation as related to religion, others categorize it quite differently.  Many websites online consider meditation as a medical treatment that falls under the holistic or alternative therapies umbrella.

And finally, Krishnamurti defies all of these definitions with his description of meditation.  “Man, in order to escape his conflicts, has invented many forms of meditation. These have been based on desire, will, and the urge for achievement, and imply conflict and a struggle to arrive. This conscious, deliberate striving is always within the limits of a conditioned mind, and in this there is no freedom. All effort to meditate is the denial of meditation. Meditation is the ending of thought. It is only then that there is a different dimension which is beyond time… When you learn about yourself, watch yourself, watch the way you walk, how you eat, what you say, the gossip, the hate, the jealousy - if you are aware of all that in yourself, without any choice, that is part of meditation.”

practice is the goal

Last week I was working with a new client. She’s 52, and she’s been practicing yoga for a long time. It shows in her attention to the detail of the poses, and, as important, in her ability to find meditation and stillness in her daily life.

As we discussed what it takes to revive a stalled yoga practice, she said, you know, I need this work with you to get restarted for 2010, but I’m so grateful that I actually do know how to quiet my mind. She went on to say:

I wasn’t sure I ever believed that you could just turn your mind off, but then, after practicing for these years, I’ve figured out that, yes, you can. It just takes practice.

She stated this fact so simply, without any drama, discomfort or complaint. She said it better than any teacher I’ve ever had, in fact: You can still your mind without any real issue — you just have to keep at it. It isn’t a drive-through experience, and it cannot happen while you are moving, unless you have figured out how to meditate while you are actually still, sitting, for a little while. Then you can be anywhere — walking, in conversation or relationship with someone, in a fast-paced vinyasa class — and you can observe whatever is happening at that moment and be still in your heart with it.

Yoga teaches that the heart is the true mind. I believe that my client was talking about being at peace when she talked about “turning off” her mind. This was a powerful teaching for me, and I am grateful to share it here.

I wish you a still and peaceful 2010, filled with practice and gratitude.

why-i-can’t-asana

I hear students in class often talk about how they “can’t do” an asana. It just occurred to me that if the student has a goal for improving her practice through doing more complicated poses, the question is not “why can’t I do that?” It’s rather “where can’t I do that?”

Your whole reality will change if you start looking at your body as an instrument that you play in class, versus a thing that holds you tethered to the physical, mental, and emotional patterns you know. This small step — of detaching just enough from the body to see its behavior more objectively — represents a quantum leap in healing the body, mind, and spirit through yoga.

Where the stories live

Last night, at Tara Brach’s Insight Meditation group, we meditated and then listened to Tara talk about hearing the stories that we tell ourselves, over and over — the stories about our lives that feel “normal,” but that keep us unhappy and restricted. She pointed out early on in her talk that when the mind is constricted, so is the body. This means that we tighten ourselves when experiencing (thinking) stress, and we escape or fight the stress by developing coping strategies that eventually settle in as constriction and repression in the body. This happens from childhood. We can only unearth these repressions if we sit with ourselves and create space for awareness to enter the body.

Tara concluded her talk by emphasizing how essential it is to catch ourselves in a story — “I’m so depressed,” “I’m weak when it comes to…,” “I never meet the right guy…,” — and feel where that story lives in the body. Where do we feel constricted or held back?

In the context of a yoga class, the question can often be answered simply. Forget the story! It’s my hamstrings! My upper back! My abdomen!

And yet, combining the physical learning we do in a yoga class with mindful meditation is powerful. Whereas Tara suggested that we listen to our bodies when we catch ourselves telling a “typical” story about ourselves, we can also feel what’s in the body first — and then notice our thoughts.

So in  yoga, you can say, OMG I’m in savasana (corpse pose) or trikonasana (triangle pose) or this friggin’ backbend and can’t relax my shoulders! What kinds of thoughts are you having right then? What are they about, and do they sound familiar? From there, sit in meditation — later that night at the end of class or after class, or the next morning before work — and observe the shoulders. And then notice the thoughts again. And then go back to yoga class in a few days and see what turns up.

This is the work of opening to consciousness. It comes in from every angle, whether you want it to or not. It comes flooding in when you give it more than one door.

ooh i’m so tired!

This is one of the things I hear during the Fall a lot. More so than Winter, even though during those colder months there is less light to go around.

This makes me think of yoga. I can say without a doubt that at 37, I feel younger and more alive than I did at 23 — then I was busy working on Wall Street, running to the gym, and then running home to go out, or to go home and hang out in front of the TV. I felt exhausted all the time, and even training for a marathon didn’t seem to help.

Over time, I’ve learned that my body needs certain shapes, and certain relaxation tools, to keep it running smoothly, energetically, and happily. These shapes and relaxation tools come directly from yoga: They have aligned my skeleton, muscles, and nervous system (i.e., how I think and feel) in such a way that I conserve energy when it feels good and makes sense, and I expend it when it feels good and makes sense.

Running a small business at 9 months pregnant, I still work as many hours as I ever clocked at JPMorgan or Merrill Lynch, but the difference is that my skeleton and nervous system aren’t working as hard to hold me up, move me from place to place, and let go as they settle me down to sleep at night. Even 40 lbs heavier than I was in January, the only thing bothering me occasionally are my knees, and that’s because they are still adjusting to the weight they are temporarily bearing from above.

During the Fall, when it becomes obvious that your body is going into hibernation, it’s a very good idea to stick with a yoga practice in order to observe how your body is holding you up. Learn how to conserve energy, learn how it moves through your body — be interested in where you are efficient and where you aren’t, and explore your body from there. These are essential “wellness” tools for any body wanting to feel more alive, and less encumbered.

from a new teacher trainee, on the discussion of dharma

and i think a better translation of dharma than “duty” is “groove.”  not groove as in “rut,” but groove like on an LP: you’re the needle.  you move along the groove, music happens.  don’t travel in the groove, and you’re either just bouncing along the edge, around and around, or (if you’d been previously traveling along the groove for a while) making a horrific screech.  it’s binary, too: you can’t half-assedly follow the groove.  once you start on the track, you’re either in it making music or making a horrible noise.  and eventually you spiral into the center of the record.