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    Amy Ippoliti’s 30-Day Yoga Challenge

    ByElizabeth

    Anusara yogini and teacher extraordinaire, Amy Ippoliti, started a “30-Day Yoga Challenge,” which she updates monthly, for students and friends who are her Facebook friends.  For the past several months, the challenge has been to work towards some very challenging poses (how appropriate for a challenge).  This month Amy invited students to practice without air conditioning, or for hot yoga practitioners, without extra heat.  Granted, she is based in Boulder, Colorado, where it is not 101F today, but she speaks my mind.  Whenever people have asked me what I think about hot yoga, I have answered that it serves some people very well, but I always find myself asking the question, whence is the heat coming and will it enhance my yoga to change the room temperature if I need to burn fossil fuels to practice?

    Why is practicing without a technologically altered environment a yoga challenge?  Have you ever found that if conditions aren’t right, you think you cannot do your practice?  If we are truly practicing with commitment, then what we want to do is to find the practice that will fit the environment (including not just the outer environment, but the state of our mind and physical well-being) on any given day, even if it means that the practice will not meet our expectation of what our practice should be.

    When we practice steadily and listen to the teachings, one of the things yoga teaches us is how to be more sensitive to our environment and to what we put into our minds and bodies.  A friend complained of being terribly sleepy the other day.  I said it was the heat; look at your pets; don’t you notice that they are sleeping more in the heat?  What practicing in accordance with the ambient temperature means (or eating or sleeping or dressing or engaging in leisure activity) learning better how to align with the energies around us, including being sensitive to how we would optimally practice in the heat.  As yogis, I believe that what we want, ever more deeply and more profoundly, is to live aligned with nature and our own being in it so that we can find better recognize the fullness and the light of being whatever challenges arise.

    I’m doing a modified version of Amy’s challenge here in DC this week:  at the William Penn House, I’ll take whatever air conditioning is on (which, for those of you who are wondering, can be pretty nice and cool since it is the ground floor).  At the house practice, I’ll keep the house at the same 80-82F I typically keep the house when it is over 90F outside; I won’t lower it because I am practicing, but we won’t be having it over 90F.  At Willow Street, I’ll go with the flow.

  • I Don’t Get It Either

    ByElizabeth

    My friend Reya blogs that she doesn’t get it–why people don’t get massages on a more regular basis.  Assuming one has enough money for the basic necessities of food and shelter, as Reya points out, I don’t get it either.  When I tell people that I have been getting massages at least twice a month for the last decade, I get all sorts of reactions, lack of money and time being high on the list.  I have had people, including those who claim to otherwise like touching and being touched, tell me that they don’t like getting massages.

    What’s not to like about getting a massage from a qualified professional?  I think it can be for any number of reasons.  Sometimes it is about a deep-seated discomfort with pleasure (and especially the pleasure associated with touch), which is unfortunately all too common in this society (despite the preoccupation with sex).  Discomfort with the idea of massage also can be about control.

    On the surface, getting a massage is all about being passive, about surrendering physically–albeit in a very benign way.   Allowing oneself to be in the role of pure recipient, though, is different than being passive or surrendering control.  The person receiving the massage, though not actually doing the touching, is the person in charge (So too, in yoga.  The person being assisted in a yoga pose  or receiving a therapeutic adjustment is in charge, not the person assisting or making the adjustment; it takes knowing how to be a recipient, though, to know how to offer the assist or adjustment).

    Even the most sensitive and compatible of massage therapists will need to be advised how you are doing on any particular day, whether any areas are feeling particularly sensitive, whether you feel the need for healing or energetic shifting in a particular area of your body.  It takes a deep sensitivity  and listening to the body and the energy field to know not just whether a massage feels good, but what could make it better.  For example, because I tend to bruise easily, deep tissue massage generally is not the right type of massage for me.  There are times, however, that something really deep needs to be rearranged and deep tissue, or even myofascial release, is the only thing that is going to be able to get at what is knotted or tangled or needs to be released.  Sometimes, just about any touch would feel invasive, and then I seek out reiki or other treatment that is more in the energetic than the physical field.

    I firmly believe that getting regular massages has truly enhanced my understanding of the physical and energetic body and has made me a far better yoga teacher–especially for students seeking therapeutic guidance from yoga.  As well as being a pleasure, receiving a massage is an opportunity to get to know the anatomy and connections of the body at the most sensitive of levels–if one is willing to and does pay attention.  And without deeply knowing one’s own body and its relationship to the outside world, including touch, how could one really be sensitive to what might be going on in another’s body?

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    A Key to a Steady Home Practice (Letting Go of Preconceived Notions)

    ByElizabeth

    One of the things most likely to keep us from having a steady home practice (whether asana or meditation or both) is being unable to live up to our own expectations or preconceived notions of what is a proper or good home practice.  If we think that we need to do a certain amount for an established length of time or that we have to feel fit enough to do a particular range or poses than inevitably we will be challenged in practicing regularly in a busy life.

    It is good to have a set time and place for our practice and to try and practice for a length of time that will foster the growth and balance in ourselves that we seek from our practice.  To stay steady, though, we have to be flexible with our expectations.  When we are sick or injured or exhausted, it will be appropriate to do restoratives or a gentle practice rather than a more vigorous one, even if we are accustomed to doing more advanced asana.  If we are pressed for time, even if we like to spend 45 minutes to an hour in the morning, perhaps we will do 25 minutes.  If we usually meditate in a special place in the house, but we have to leave for the airport at 6am, we can find a quiet moment to breathe for three minutes before we leave the house and then meditate on the plane.

    This morning, for example, I knew that the only opportunity to have a walk would be early morning because the electricians are coming for more work towards installing the solar panels.  Having a walk on days I am working at home is critical for my ability to sit at my desk and concentrate.  Instead of doing my usual 45-60 minutes of practice, which gives me time for some asana and pranayama before sitting for meditation followed by savasana, I chose to sit for 25 minutes and then go for a walk.  I will practice more this evening when I am off work.

    Once we give ourselves permission to be flexible about how much to practice and what, then it will be easier to stick to practicing.  I think it is far more important to practice several times a week than to have a practice that is thorough and “by the book” but is only done sporadically.  What are your challenges in developing a steady practice?  If you have a steady practice, what has helped you stick to it?  Have your expectations about what a practice should be interfered with your practicing?

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