Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice

Discussion of physical aspects of yoga (on and off the mat)

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    “Relaxing Into Optimal Alignment” This Saturday, February 26th (Web version of E-Newsletter)

    ByElizabeth

    Dear Friends ,

    What could be better with the topsy turvy weather and the pace of our town these days than to spend a delicious afternoon relaxing into optimal alignment?

    This month’s workshop theme will explore the second line of the Anusara invocation:  satcitananda murtaye.–roughly meaning being, consciousness, and bliss embodied.  We will spend two extraordinary hours inviting ourselves to go into each pose fully present and aware to the possibility of bringing ourselves into complete bliss by aligning through the Anusara principles.

    Or you could just think it is relaxing and lovely, while listening to great music, to lie in a series of supported poses that realign the physical body to help release tension and invite a sense of ease.  The thing about restoratives is that they offer much on many levels.

    If you sometimes think that restoratives are not for you because your mind has a tendency to race, please come join us, ask a question about what to do when the mind races, either privately before, or with the whole group when I ask for questions.  I have offerings from my teachers and my own experience that have proven for me to be incredibly helpful, and I love to pass them on.

    Cannot come this Saturday, please mark your calendars for March 19th (Yoga for Gardeners to Benefit the Washington Youth Garden) and March 26th for the final workshop in the “Relaxing into Optimal Alignment” series.

    Hope to see you soon.

    Peace and light,

    Elizabeth

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    It’s a Fine Line Between a Grimace and a Smile (and satcitananda murtaye)

    ByElizabeth

    The New York Times just published a blog entry on the perils of faking happiness.   The first problem with the article was that I could not get to the study to see if I agreed that the actual premise was that “faking a smile” was what led to a deterioration in mood or feeling unduly pressured by a need to do so regardless of what was going on inside was the problem.  The second is the definitional problem of what it means to “fake” a smile.  I think it not unlikely that contorting the face into a fake smile (i.e., grimacing) because one feels one has to do so does not improve mood when one is in physical or emotional pain.  According to the little cover blog, though, those that made an attempt to smile from the inside by thinking a positive though–even though it was a conscious effort– did experience an improvement in their mood.

    Any good method actor will tell you that to make an outer expression believable, one has to cultivate inner thoughts to go with it (though that is still “acting”).  Having been taught by my mother by age six in preparation for my first school play performance, that to act I should try to “be an apple” a la Stanislovski, I disagree that intentionally putting a smile on your face cannot help improve your mood. It’s all in how you fake it ’til you make it.  I have long advocated to my yoga students, based on my personal experience with the practice of smiling whether I think I mean it or not, to try smiling on the outside improve mood.  Even leaving aside the inner experience, just walk down the street with an open posture and a smile on your face and see how people respond, though I caution to do this at your peril in New York.  When you smile at people and be polite, they generally respond in kind.  You are then much more likely to feel good than if you are scowling and rude and people respond back in kind.

    What on earth (or in heaven’s name) does faking a smile until you feel one have to do with satcitananda, you may find yourself asking yourself at this point.  The second line of the Anusara invocation is “satcitananda murtaye.” Murtaye, from the same verbal root as murti or statue, here is usually translated as saying that Siva (from the first line) embodies the characteristics of satcitananda, being (what I like to call is-ness), absolute consciousness, and bliss.

    Another way of looking at this phrase, though, is that when we open to the possibility of discovering our siva nature, which is the reason we practice yoga, and when we use the principles of alignment to help do so, then we discover how to be, if even for a moment, simply present, fully conscious, and blissful with the consciousness of the ultimacy of being.  In a word, when we soften and look within, using the knowledge and experience of our teachers and our practices, a smile of recognition lights us up.  If we start out having a bad day, feeling stressed or anxious or in pain, or just plain grumpy from reading the news, we just have to practice with more depth and sincerity to find the smile and not beat ourselves up if we are struggling to find the smile despite our desire and the intensity of our practice.

    Is that faking a smile or being the smile?  Does trying to smile when we are feeling blue really make us more unhappy?  I think it is all in how we do it.

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    “You Who Choose to Lead Must Follow,” Argentinian Tango, and the Dance of Shiva and Shakti

    ByElizabeth

    On Friday night, Professor Douglas Brooks offered a satsang that was hosted by District Kula. One of the attendees, who said that she did no yoga, but taught Argentinian tango, wanted to know about what she had heard of yoga talking about the dance of masculine and feminine because that’s what tango is all about.

    Douglas gave a quick overview of the idea of the tattvas as a foundation for an answer to the tango dancer’s question. As part of this background, he discussed the numerological aspect of the tattvas, saying that Shiva and Shakti relate like this:  one is two becomes three becomes five. The two must separate, and the space between them makes three and teaches us the one.  Because of the spaces between, we do not have one to two to four, but two (one because inseparable) to three to five.  We know the one only when we know two, and the one is therefore part of three.   (“Lovely dance of numbers; that makes perfect sense,” I thought, having a happy geekfest in my own mind.  “I’ll enjoy pondering how that might be an explanation for there being five top tattvas and not six or four and wondering whether I had even begun finding an understanding, even though what Douglas was talking about is something I have been contemplating for years in various ways and contexts.)

    Douglas then led into a description of the inseparable, inextricably intertwined nature of Shiva and Shakti.  “It is like that in tango,” the dancer interjected at multiple points.  “The better the leader, the more he is listening to the follower, thus allowing the follower to be the leader.”  Each time Douglas refined his response, the dancer offered something else about her experience with tango.  “Right, when they are dancing well, the man takes on some of the characteristics of the feminine, and the woman that of the man.  The difference between them starts to dissolve into the dance itself.”  Her eyes lit up, and she bubbled up with speech, in her excitement at finding in the tantric philosophy what appeared to be an explanation of what she experiences in the tango.

    The tango dancer and the yoga texts assign specific roles and attributes to the masculine and the feminine, and we tend to fall into that tradition when we discuss the tantric philosophy.  As much as the traditional tantrika or tango dancer might say that the masculine and feminine (when embodied) take on/have characteristics of each other, they have assigned masculine/feminine roles to play, and they are still stuck in a paradigm that keeps real humans in assigned roles.  These assigned roles impact how male and female are permitted to act in society, regardless of any recognition that who is actually, rather than technically, in charge may be in flux on different levels.

    The paradigm of tango dancing kept Friday night’s discussion within the context of typical and rigid roles for male and female, but I do not think that is a required way for us to think of how to bring the tantric yoga philosophy into our lives.  When we think of the tattvas as abstract principles, we do not have to privilege in our lives or own thinking the traditional divide between male and female roles as the basis for understanding the play of opposites (though to be true to the text in its historical context we do).

    I believe that the dance of shiva and shakti is as much about the dance between the universal and multiplicitous individuality as it is about the specific play between masculine and feminine in assigned roles.  The one is two.  The two (one) separates into three; when the two separate we discover the one (two), and after that the three becomes five.  I remember a friend saying in our college days, “There are three of us in it:  there is me, there is my loved one, and then there is our relationship.”  To be in the world and relate fully, the tattvas (and dances with partners of either sex) teach us that two are inseparable by being in relationship.  By recognizing the appearance of separation, the dance of Shiva and Shakti tattvas shows us the relationship — the oneness.  Thus, all consciousness is one, but two, and then three, and yet still one.

    How this informs me, other than enjoyable thoughts in my head, is that when we try to be spaciously and openly aware in all of our relationships of this elemental play of individual identity, separability, and indivisible unity, we see the other in ourselves and ourselves in the other.   This helps much to inspire friendliness, understanding, and compassion.  It also helps bring understanding of the leader when we are following, which it makes it easier to follow with discrimination, but without judgment.  When it is our turn to lead, it helps us know that for those who might choose to or be required to follow us for some particular project, that to lead well we must listen to the followers.  As the the Grateful Dead taught me decades ago, “you who choose to lead must follow.”

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    Experimenting with Social Media

    ByElizabeth

    This morning I decided it was time to have a public “Rose Garden Yoga” page on Facebook, in addition to the page under my name.

    Before I even figured out whether I had done it correctly, a couple of friends had hit the “like” button. I still do not know when and where it appeared so that would happen. After browsing around, I did figure out how to “share” with my friends that I had created the page and that brought in a few more. I have also added a widget to the welcome page of the blog/website, so people can “like” “Rose Garden Yoga.” (Please do).

    Did I need to do this? Absolutely not. Do I find knowing my way around these mediums of expression useful? Yes, because they have become so important to how we communicate with each other across generations, the planet, and various social divides. Do I mind that getting it just right or perfectly current takes more time and skill than I have from just experimenting? Not really. When I want to do more, I spend the time to learn or hire someone to help. It is also sort of fun to just mess around and experiment and discover whether I can figure it out just by trusting that if I try enough different things and don’t get frustrated by not getting it “right” right away, I will end up either with something that serves well enough or will decide it is not that important and let go.

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    Warming Up on a Windy Wintry Day (and Warm Organic Ginger Oil Massage Treatment)

    ByElizabeth

    If it had not been for the half off coupon from Green Deals, I might not have gone to Wellbeing Massage in Dupont Circle for an ayurvedically inspired warm organic ginger oil massage after work today.  But I am certainly glad I succumbed to the lure of the coupon.

    It was absolutely perfect on this windy, bitter day in mid-winter to surrender, in a perfectly heated and softly lit room, to having warm oil poured onto my eyebrow center (ajna door) and having it massaged into my scalp, face, and neck and then poured on and slathered all over.  With the quantity of oil used, it is more a treatment than a massage, and and such, an admirable supplement (and never a replacement) for my regular massages with long time Capitol Hill massage therapist and friend Patrick McClintock of House of Hands.  For the first time in weeks, my skin feels completely hydrated, and though my house was set at 59F when I got home two hours after the treatment, I still feel warm.

    If you decide you want to get one of these treatments to chase away winter cold and dryness, please mention my name (shameless solicitation; if five of you go, I get a free treatment).  And if you are looking for a fantastic therapeutic massage from a wonderful person and experienced therapist, give Patrick a call.  And if five of you go to get a massage with him and mention my name, maybe he and I can work out a deal donating a portion of the proceeds to D-CLAW‘s next charity of choice (that’s DC Ladies Arm Wrestling for Charity) (more on D-CLAW in a future post).

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    My Own Personal Cloud (and the Malas)

    ByElizabeth

    Last night another storm front passed us by with only a trace of rain, leaving us deeper in drought.  The wind picked up, the temperature dropped, and the clouds scattered, leaving the sky scrubbed bright blue and the air fresh.  Though this morning on my walk to work there was hardly a cloud in the sky, a rather menacing gray cloud hovered directly over the building where I work.  Observing this odd cloud led me to ponder about how I often feel that I have my own personal cloud–everyone else has purpose in their lives and is worthy of love, but not me (this is a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea).

    The reality is that all of us get such feelings to a greater or lesser degree some of the time.  It can be a helpful step in clearing away feelings of unworthiness to remember that it is part of the human condition.  The tantric yogis say that there are three cloaks or malas (anava mala, mayiya mala, and karma mala) that result from the manifestation of diversity from the pure universal out of its own play.  The sense of unworthiness we sometimes feel (anava mala) comes from forgetting that we are spirit, and anava mala– in whatever form it appears to manifest–is just because of the loneliness of not remembering our true self.  When we experience or create conflict or unhappiness out of the illusion (maya) that separateness and distinction are the only state of all that is real then we are in thrall to mayiya mala.  When we think we are completely in charge and responsible for everything we do and how it impacts the world, that is karma mala at work.

    We practice to pierce through the clouding of our individual consciousness by the malas.  By inviting ourselves to open to the luminous space of consciousness and to surrender to the very fullness of our being, we reduce the impact of the malas on how we conduct our lives.  Our practice helps us to remember our worthiness so that we can be happier and freer and do our work and engage in our relationships with more love and light.  It helps us remember the light in each being so we are naturally drawn to respond with more compassion and friendliness to everything on the planet.  The grace of dissolving  kriya mala is that when it is not obscuring our vision, we can engage fully on our path, but still accept that we are ultimately not in charge and do not know what the universe truly has in store.

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    Should I Be In Alignment or Should I Relax Completely? (and Namah Shivayah)

    ByElizabeth

    For the first few years I was teaching, one season a year, I would have as my overall session theme the Anusara invocation (for the words written out, click on “invocation” in the menu bar above).  In so doing, I invited myself and others to contemplate at the heart level the meaning of each word, of why we were making the invocation, of how the invocation might inform not only our practice, but how we bring our practice off the mat and into our daily lives.  Each time I chant the invocation–and it has been hundreds of times now over the years I have been studying, practicing, and teaching Anusara yoga–I seek to invoke into my practice the deepest qualities of the heart that it represents.

    Over the winter break, when I was preparing for this session, the invocation called to me.  I decided it was time to make it as a specific offering again.  Last week and this week, including in the restorative workshop offered at Willow Street Yoga last Saturday, I have been exploring namah shivayah from the first line.  Namah–which has the same verbal origins at the English word “name”–means to bow, to honor, to name.  It forms the basis of the greeting namaste–with the light in me, I bow to the light in you.  Sivayah here is our siva nature.  It is variously the light within, auspiciousness, spirit, divine nature, elemental goodness.

    When I was practicing in preparation for teaching the week’s classes and the restorative workshop and contemplating (practicing bhavana on) namah shivayah, I thought about a question I often get when I teach restoratives:  “should I be maintaining the alignment principles or should I be relaxing completely?”  When I get the question phrased this way, I look the student straight in the eye and respond, “yes.”  I get a quizzical look; how could the answer be “yes” to an “either or” question?  The answer is “yes” because in each pose, we are seeking to embody the fullest expression of namah shivayah. Taking the time to make sure to be in alignment when setting up for a pose, moving into a pose, reaching the pinnacle of a pose, and then moving out of or dissolving a pose, is out of loving respect for your body and the energy that courses through your body.  We seek to be fully in alignment in all stages of each pose, not only to minimize the likelihood of being in pain or getting or aggravating an injury and to increase the likelihood of healing any existing injuries and expanding our capacity to feel free in our bodies, but also out of a profound respect and honor for the self, the teachings, and the practice.

    Sometimes people think that focusing on getting the alignment just right is fussy or rigid and the antithesis of relaxation.  In the case of restoratives especially, everyone coming to the practice wants to be at peace and feel free of effort.  In the hunger to get to a place of relaxation, some hurry into the pose without honoring the alignment.  Oftentimes, it is the hurry to relax and the loss of attention to the details of alignment (of both the mind-body and the props) that leads to pain or discomfort in a pose that is meant to be held for a long time, as are restoratives.  When a student tells me that they are in pain in a particular posture, I invite the student to back off, set up the pose again, and far more often than not, all discomfort disappears, and the student is able to move into a blissful place.  The student then experiences for herself how much the alignment enables the surrender to the exquisite opening to siva and the blissful attributes of siva (satcitananda).

    One of the reasons I find restoratives to be such a powerful practice is because they require such focused attention on alignment to enable full relaxation.  As such, they are a great way to understand the need for the perfect and simultaneous balance of effort (tapas) and surrender (ishvara pranadhana).  So the answer is “yes;” the answer is “nama shivayah.”  In everything we do, in every aspect of our practice on and off the mat, we want to be consciously in alignment.  We want to use all the knowledge that has been imparted by our teachers and experienced in our own practice as a way of honoring and naming and helping to enable an unceasing, simultaneous, and full surrender to our own siva nature.

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    February News–Bring on the Light (Web Version of E-Newsletter)

    ByElizabeth

    Dear Friends,

    Brrr.  It’s cold out there.  And if it is seeming colder than usual, you are right.  There have only been five winters on record with fewer days above 50F in Washington, DC.  Perhaps, like me, you have noticed that you are feeling just a tad sensitive or edgy or maybe a little blue.  I recognize the symptoms; in my distant past, a therapist suggested that I might have “seasonal affective disorder.”  My prescription for myself when winter has me feeling down?  Do more yoga, keeping a focused intention on cultivating the light of inner awareness.

    The form of meditation I practice is intended to allow the practitioner to rest in the light of inner awareness.  One of the aspects of the Anusara principle of “opening to grace” for me is to open to the light in myself and others.  On a more physical level, backbends will open up your heart and make room for the light; core work will warm you up by stoking the agni, the inner fire; forward bends will help you go deep inside to find your own light.  There is a light-filled practice for every day of the week, every time of day, and every mood you are in.

    Avoid the temptation to huddle inside, eating too many carbs and hiding away.  When the sidewalks are passable, bundle up and take a long walk.  When you come back inside, do a good therapeutic and restorative practice–it’s as good as hot chocolate (and no one said you couldn’t have the hot chocolate, too).  Invite friends over for a potluck.  Cook bean soups.  Have hot cereal for breakfast and perhaps for dinner.  Balance the warm food with the freshest of fresh food by growing sprouts on the kitchen counter.

    Want to light up your yoga fire, sun, inner light with company?  Join me and your friends and neighbors at William Penn House classes on Tuesdays at 6:30.  Need a little R&R or found you have tweaked something shoveling or walking on the ice and snow?  Drop ins are always welcome at the gentle and therapeutics class at Willow Street, Takoma Park, Saturdays at noon.  Give yourself something to look forward to by signing up in advance for the second “Relaxing Into Optimal Alignment with Anusara Restoratives” workshop at Willow Street on Saturday, February 26th.

    And plan for Spring with “Yoga for Gardeners,” the weekend of the Spring Equinox–yes, it is only weeks away.  As has been my practice in previous years, my profits will go to support the Youth Garden at the National Arboretum.

    Looking forward to sharing, expanding, and delighting in the light with you soon.
    Peace and light,

    Elizabeth

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    Thinking About Restoratives! (Web Version of E-Mailing)

    ByElizabeth

    Dear Friends,

    Not long after the slush from last night melted in the early afternoon rain, the precipitation falling had started turning into the dreaded wintry mix.  Thunder clapped and the sky was dark, and I have been mighty grateful all day that I was able to work from my warm home.  It is all snow now — quite beautiful.  It is inevitable that I will be out shoveling early tomorrow morning, though whether it will be three or four inches or 8-10 remains to be seen.  It will be heavy underneath.  This is a wet snow.  I will be following my own advice on yoga alignment for snow shoveling (that appeared in December 2010’s edition of Yoga Journal).

    It is on nights like this that I find myself planning a good restorative practice.  What could be better after a dark storm and some heavy duty shoveling to surrender to the blissful support of blankets and bolsters, find the sweetness of your breath, shift into optimal alignment, and find a space of deep relaxation.  If this sounds like a dream come true or you want to know what is all the fuss about restoratives, you are in luck.  This coming Saturday, is the first of the winter session series of restorative workshops with me at Willow Street Yoga:

    Relaxing into Optimal Alignment with Anusara Restoratives, Saturdays, January 29, February 26, and March 26, 2:30-4:30p, Willow Street Yoga Center, Takoma Park, $30 each (All 3 Saturdays = $75)
    After a little gentle stretching and self-massage to bring awareness to the breath and body, we will enjoy the exquisite application of Anusara’s® Universal Principles of Alignment to restful and supported restorative postures to release old patterns and invite in the new to find greater ease of body and mind.  A great workshop and practice for all levels; sign up for the full three-class series and save $15!

    Be safe, stay warm, enjoy being snowed in for now if you can, practice gratitude for being able to be snowed in, and delight in dreaming about how wonderful it will be to go on a mini-in town treat of a retreat with two hours of restorative yoga.  Hope to see you.

    Peace and light,

    Elizabeth