Roxtar Yoga

sweatin’ with wade March 28, 2009

I am writing this from the MINDBODY booth at Yoga Journal Grand Geneva in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.  After a successful Business of Yoga part of the conference where I taught about Online Marketing I am now holding down the MINDBODY fort in the Yoga Marketplace with other yoga related vendors (soy chai latte in hand).  I have been blessed to attend quite a few of these conferences and although the travel aspect gets me down sometimes, I am always thankful once I’m here. I have included some photos of my Yoga Journal friends, Be Present & Autumn Tenyl Designs.

This morning I took a class with Wade Imre Morissette called Dynamic Sweat Vinyasa.  The class was described as “a vigorous flow based on intelligent sequencing principles.”  It was a small class, only 20 people, and I definitely sweated and enjoyed myself.  He based his class on the Arch Progression Model as taught by Desikachar, Krishnamacharya, and Mount Madonna Yoga Center.

My intention for the class was to stay connected to my breath, to remember the goal of vinyasa yoga is connecting each breath with movement and not just moving and challenging the body. One of the biggest challenges for me is to keep breathing during a challenging class.  I get out of breath like I’m jogging and power through like I’m at the gym with a personal trainer.  At the end of a class where I lose my breath I feel exhausted rather than energized.  The goal is to feel grounded and alert, not to need a nap!  I really enjoyed his class and the Arch Progression Model of teaching a vinyasa class and it was very similar to the Wave Shiva teaches.  Both models go through warming up the body, connecting to the breath, practicing warm up poses to get you ready for the apex pose, doing the apex pose, and gradually taking the class down to the floor for Savasana.

There was a yogi next to me who was breathing like they were in labor!  It was distracting at some moments, but it actually made me better focus on my own practice and breath.  As I said, I have been there before: huffing and puffing and not even noticing what I’m doing to my body or breath.  I hope that I shared the space well for my fellow yogi.  Many of us come to the yoga mat for different reasons, often it’s the physical benefits we seek.  And we usually feel better physically after a class, no matter how we breathe or how deep we can stretch, and we feel even better the more yoga we do.  Eventually we start to feel mental benefits though and maybe even later this leads us to be interested in the spiritual aspect.  I can’t forget the small beginnings because that’s what makes the end so sweet.  It almost made me appreciate my practice and yoga more to be reminded what it’s like at the beginning and to feel the rewards I’ve been able to reap.

Funny Story!  The first day of the conference we were finishing setting up the booth, doing the final touches, putting containers away, and chatting with our neighbors. While chatting with my neighbor I noticed her eyes get big as she was looking at something behind me.  She couldn’t speak exactly, but her and two others who were facing us were making this “ahhhhh” face.  All of the sudden the booth crashed on my back and I look to my left to see our enormous, expensive MAC falling face first to the floor!  It was very slow motion as my colleague happened to be right there and barely caught the beast before it very scarily smacked into the floor. Apparently this crash was caused by our neighbors from behind, Lululemon.  A rogue box escaped their grasp and must have hit our booth from behind in the perfect spot to cause an avalanche.  I can’t believe they fit the amount of retail in their tiny booth, it’s no wonder the box jumped for it’s life.

what would shiva do? March 24, 2009

As I sit in LAX sick with yet another cold I am feeling a little less patient than usual. I wondered to myself, what would shiva do? What would she do if she was sick, stuck in an airport? I imagine her with her puffy white coat and her son starting a dance party. I imagine many options, but writing this on my blackberry has made my thumb hurt and exhausted me. More later.

a girl from south detroit March 10, 2009

Today I was given an article, Requiem for Detroit, from Rolling Stone Magazine.  It asks, “Does the decline of the auto industry mean the end of Detroit?”  It made me feel sad for the city I grew up in that I still love like a loyal little puppy dog; sad for the people who are struggling to survive there, sad for cities like this all over the world and the people they’ve left in their wakes.  I wonder what we can do to prevent such decay and despair in our urban centers.  Can we do anything at all?  Should we?  Will Silicon Valley have it’s day of decay?  Are we really so disposable; our cities, cars, houses, old people?

In the article the author admitted “I don’t really feel sadness or rage or much of anything.  It just feels normal.  For people my age and younger growing up in the Detroit area meant growing up with a constant reminder that the best ended long ago.  Our parents could mourn what it used to be and tell us stories about the wonderful downtown department stores and the heyday of muscle cars and Motown.  Bur for us, those stories are pure fable.”

The lack of the author’s connection to his home town, his apathy, made me think he sounds like a spoiled little brat. I may not know what it was like when my grandma took the bus downtown with her mother to spend a day shopping at Hudson’s, but I feel her when she talks about it. I’ve heard about Motown. Listen to those songs, how can you not feel something? Rosa Parks? Every old person has stories about the hey days, but what kind of people are we when we can’t relate to their stories in some way? It’s amazing to me that 90% of my immediate family was born and raised within a few square miles of Detroit, right near the original houses my ancestors lived in after they arrived from Germany. That kind of history creates culture and soul, no matter what happens to the factories, landscapes, and jaded youth who get more and more violent and pissed off. We had Bobolo Island. I feel comfortable in those streets, driving by deserted Fort Wayne on the way to Canada. I have my memories too and never felt like the best had ended long ago. I actually feel blessed to have grown up there and experienced a youth that wasn’t so freaking sterile that I can’t think outside of myself.

I want to know where the conversation is asking how we can prevent such decay and despair in our urban centers. Are we really this disposable? Because we are letting cities of people die a long, slow, depressing death and not giving too much of a crap to stop it. Maybe it’s industrialized societies turn?

tight hips anonymous March 6, 2009

Are you part of THA, Tight Hips Anonymous? Do your hips clench up when you site cross legged? Do you ride your bike or run and feel how tight this makes your hips? Or maybe you just love the way your body feels after finding some release in the hips. I find my whole body just feels better after doing hip openers, I feel better sitting, walking, singing, living. I swear I feel a bit lighter. I am starting a library of yoga resources. Check out my favorite hip openers here. I also found this great article by yoga journal with more on the hips, a.k.a. the mother joint of the body.  I also posted this sequence using yoga journal’s sequence builder.  Feedback is appreciated, let me know if any of this stuff matters to you or is useless or what

acceptance March 3, 2009

Have you ever been in a yoga class and been frustrated at how little you could do? I frequently have students get angry and frustrated with themselves when they can’t “get” a yoga pose, it doesn’t feel good in their bodies, they feel frustrated and angry that they can’t do what “everyone else” can do. You may have also felt this off the mat, at work, in school, or in other life situations.

Today we tried to do the splits (a.k.a. monkey pose or hanumanasana) and the reaction from the class ranged from excitement, awkwardness, to complete frustration. I gently reminded the class to accept themselves where they are today, to love their bodies just as they are, but I sense that this is the bigger challenge in yoga and life than most people realize.

It has been my experience that only when I truly let go, almost forget about how bad I suck at something, yet keep showing up every day over and over and over again, do I ever find any kind of peace. It’s not just showing up either, you have to keep the genuine desire to improve and do so at your own pace, however slow that might need to be. You have to find real enjoyment in the process. True love of the homework, nitty gritty, leg shaking wonder that it day to day life. I wonder why it has become human nature to be so judgmental of ourselves, so critical, so unloving?

Until we find that acceptance, life will continually play it’s game and give us more that we aren’t good at, more tearful, scary situations, continually frustrating us until we learn that we are the ones who make the situations frustrating.

patricia sullivan workshop

Last weekend I attended a workshop with Patricia Sullivan at Smiling Dog Yoga.  If you are a beginner or seasoned yogi, I highly recommend doing a weekend workshop if one comes up in your area.  It’s like a mini vacation without having to travel.  After a stressful couple weeks at work I really needed some down time and taking yoga is better than my typical alternative of watching tv all weekend.

I could tell she had spent a lot of time training & practicing Iyengar yoga, which is very focused on alignment using props.  Vinyasa yoga usually uses minimal props and matches each movement with a breath.  The slower pace, focus on alignment, and support of the props felt like a good change of pace.  It is good to remember to do things which we aren’t exactly drawn to, that take us outside of our box of life.  Even in yoga, I end up in my ass kicking, Vinyasa box time and time again.  I was thankful for the chance to be nice to myself.  I’m not really good at that sometimes.

I really enjoyed the mantra we sang each day, and I hope to post it here for future reference.  I also really enjoyed doing shoulder stand on a chair.  I’ve been in a bit of an inversion rut lately.  Inversions are great yoga poses, taking your hips above your heart, getting your blood flowing the opposite way of gravity, moving your lymphatic fluid, regulating your endocrine system, getting your metabolism flowing and so much more.  I like to teach an all encompasing class that challenges and stretches the whole body, head to toes, bones to skin.  When it comes time for the inversion though, I feel like there are so few accessible choices. Viparitta Karani (Legs up the wall) doesn’t feel like enough to me.  In Shoulderstand and Headstand it is so easy to hurt your neck.  Handstand is a little too challenging for most yogis.  I have been trying to teach Shoulderstand with support, but it is a challenging pose for me and my sore neck and I appreciated the relaxing feeling the chair brought to a difficult pose.