Roxy Yoga

yoga thoughts from venice beach February 12, 2009

Today while attending day 7 of Shiva Rea’s yoga teacher training in Venice Beach, CA my brain was officially fried! I couldn’t go to sleep last night, something about eating and sleeping and learning and yoga made the rebel in me come out and say, “I can stay up and watch tv just like everyone else!” Let me respond to the rebel in me with a big giant, old school, NOT. “Tis not true my little red headed hard working yogini”, my body and mind said to me today. We had to do our practice this morning on our own, at our own pace. We chose from a couple Vinyasa classes that we had learned this week that are completely new and foreign to me. New and foreign in the sense that I’m not always sure what comes next and I don’t have a teacher there to guide me. I just kind of brain farted and was standing there at one point gazing into nowhere land while all the people around me are getting their yoga on just fine.

We had a 4 hour class this afternoon doing hands on assists with a partner and it was ridiculous how much the whole class, including the teacher were just fried. Words weren’t flowing as smoothly. None of us could hold the yoga poses anymore. Luckily the schedule had us ending today at 5:30pm. I am sitting in Coffee Bean in Venice Beach pondering my training thus far. I don’t feel like being stuck in traffic for the time being.

One great thing about this type of training is the people you meet and the random conversations you can have. Something about the total removal from your day to day life allows you to be very transparent and open to those you meet. After explaining my current life story I find it crazy how much of life is really just timing. When people ask about my job my answer is right place, right time. I started my first yoga teacher training in Boise in 2007 because of lucky timing (and cost and lack of application requirements). My friends and great loves…timing. It’s a combination of timing and making some big choices and going all in blind and not ever really knowing what will come of your choice. Being ok if your choice sucks.

Many of the people here have taken a big chance becoming a yoga teacher. It’s one of those jobs that is really difficult to make a living doing, yet has the potential to make the world a better, healthier place. Shiva said it’s a very brave choice. It’s invigorating being around people who are brave enough to make difficult, life changing decisions like the people here. Yoga has absolutely changed my life for the better and I think people need more of it than they know. I wonder about the things our society places value on and the things it doesn’t. I wonder how you can change those things. Hmmm. The answer to most of the people here is that they don’t care about society placing a value on these things, they do it anyway. I love them for that although something about that answer doesn’t sit well with me.

In yoga I have found my creative, artistic side. I didn’t even know I had one. This training has really shown me that. I have also found that I LOVE SHIVA REA! I am not kidding either. I am head over heels for that woman. She is one of the most amazing women that I have ever met. If you are looking for someone who is completely at home in their own body and being, who radiates the potential that every person on this planet has, I urge you to connect with her in some way; dvd, books, classes, music, anything.

I hope that you, my reader friends, find the courage to make the choices that matter. Once the energy and mojo in your life is flowing in the right direction, even if it’s uncertain, blind, and seemingly difficult for a while, abundance of everything you ever need will most definitely follow.

xoxxxooo

agape service February 11, 2009

Today we had a lunar practice that rocked my socks.  A lunar practice is a little less active in some sense, but still challenging, strengthening, opening, still gets that pranic life force pulsing through your veins. My hips were thankful. I look forward to taking this back to my classes.

It was finally California gorgeous during practice teaching at the grassy knoll ashram.  We learned how to make adjustments to students in downward facing dog, ardho mukha svasana, one of the poses you do a billion times in Vinyasa Yoga.  You cannot be afraid of a little touchy touchy if you are going to do a yoga training, let me tell you.

I got a pedicure today and the guy massaged my poor Vinyasa toes and sore arches.  After 6 days of rolling over my tosies they are a little sore, red, and scraped up.  It felt so goooood.

Then on to a service at Agape, a multi denominational church in LA.  Too much lord, god, and hallelujah for me.  The singing was amazing though and the message of the sermon was good, to get off your asses and be the beautiful being you are meant to be. It was a great place for people of any denomination to unite. I’m not sure I have a single religious group I would agree with and the references to typical Christianity terms of spirituality bothered me at times. Here is their mission statement:

The Agape International Spiritual Center is a global community dedicated to recognizing, honoring and nurturing the dignity and uniqueness of all peoples. Through devoted practice of universal spiritual principles embodied in the New Thought-Ancient Wisdom teachings, we are agents of transformation.

I am loving the training so far but and I am already trying to think about how to incorporate all this new stuff in my classes in SLO.  I don’t want to forget any of it!  I know it’s unrealistic to have super duper expectations about what I can bring back and teach in a competent, healthful, enjoyable way, without freaking my students out or getting them lost.  Hmmm.  Yogi dreaming on such a winters day.  Namaste for now

yogitis and tree man February 9, 2009

Yesterday was the first day I practiced teaching some of the new Vinyasa flow’s I’ve been learning at training so far (day 3 of 10). We had to teach only by saying the following for each asana:

1. Breathe (inhale/exhale)
2. Action Verb (reach/lift/open…)
3. Body Part (your hands/legs/feet/arms…)
4. Where (direction/to the sky/floor/to your heart)

Trying to teach without saying the pose name was challenging, but it made me think outside of my typical teaching box which felt good.

Later in the day I was walking down the street engrossed in conversation with another yogi and this tree suddenly moved and stepped in front of us!   The tree looked at us and said “the tree has moved.”  The tree turned out to be a man on stilts dressed just like a tree, with bark, crazy branches coming out of his head, face paint, and who knows what else.  He made my heart jump through my chest and my friend screamed and we just laughed.  I thought, this is totally part of my Venice Beach Experience. I snapped a photo of him fixing his branches while looking in some windows. I wish I had a better photo, this does not do him justice. Later in the week he was hanging out in my hotel and I was so excited! If I lived in Venice Beach, I would be friends with Tree Man. I send him positive yogi mojo for making me look up instead of fiddling with my blackberry.

We also went around the whole room and did introductions today and spoke of what inspires us in yoga.  It was really inspirational and amazing what people decided to share.  My reason?  I get to love complete strangers all the time!  Yes, I think that’s the shit.  There are more reasons for me of course, but that one popped into my head.  Other thought provoking questions?  What changed and made me want to start teaching it?  What do I dedicate my teaching to?

Today teacher training yogitis set in, day 4. It feels something like this. We had an epic arm balancing class first thing this morning and I felt like falling asleep right afterward but had many more hours of yoga ahead of me.  I felt a little grumpy.  I felt like I couldn’t quite comprehend what she was trying to teach me today.  It’s like you hit some kind of capacity or something.  I powered through it though.  My eyeballs are burning right now and I’m falling asleep as I type, but a little push is good and a-ok by me.

Arm balances have always been difficult asanas for me and we did 9 of them this morning! This is an example of Crow Pose, Bhakasana, from Yoga Journal. Arm Balances require a crazy strong core and the ability to suck in your lower belly and keep it locked. I don’t quite have this down yet. My buddha belly is happy to stick out and announce itself to the world. Love me with more cheesy goodness it says!  Arm balances also require flexible hips and I really don’t have much flexibility in my hips yet either.  I need to start teaching these much more than I do.

I have more I could say and ellaborate on, but yogitis is telling me to go to sleep.

sparty on like monkeys February 8, 2009

This morning we started our training by participating in a Vinyasa class that was taught by Shiva that was also open to the public. It was crazy packed with people! I noticed the capacity of the studio was 147 people and we must have been close. Her style and formula of teaching Vinyasa Yoga is so amazing. After every class rather than sighing this exacerbated sigh of relief like most students, I just think to myself, “Holy freaking shit. I don’t know what just happened, but I feel blissful right now.”

We had a short lunch break and I grabbed a salad, edamame, and fruit to enjoy on the beach. It’s cloudy, but there was no rain thank god and the sun felt great on my skin while I enjoyed some alone time.

Our afternoon session was philosophy by Dr. Paul Muller Ortega. One would think that sitting on a hardwood floor for 3 hours and listening to the history of yoga to be icky or boring, but it was really a great lecture. He started out mentioning that he taught at Michigan State University, my Alma Mater (sparty on!). I felt like this was just a little cosmic spark in my direction sending me some love. He shared his story of being sent to college to become a functioning member of society. He used to walk up to his professors, look them in the eye, and ask the question of life, why are we here, what’s the point. He was mostly unsatisfied by the answers until he met a man who practiced meditation one day. He thought, “This guy has something. I don’t know what it is, but I want to know what he knows.” We are all on our yogic journey because of our hunger and instinct for knowledge. To get the most from this life. Let us not waste our time counting down the days until death. All of the historic yogic texts attempt to answer the question of how to live life and the meaning of death.

This made me think of some people from my past. I have known men who hunger for this knowledge, who are cynical about the fact that many people live life doing what they were told, or doing what everyone else is doing for no real, concrete, personal, inspirational reasons. They say, “I never thought I’d live this long” and their life situations inevitably mirror that assumption. I feel sad that most of these people who’ve crossed my path stopped there. Or so it seemed. It reminds me that we can never really stop questioning, learning, living, experiencing.

Yoga has always reinvented itself at each generational change. Otherwise all you have is some dead artifact in a museum. The sacrificial process of yoga is letting go of the part of yoga that doesn’t really serve you. The point is to let through something better. There has to be living, creative aliveness to it. We don’t ignore the past, but embrace it, turn it into our own interpretation and embodiment. We have this habit in the U.S. to take things from many different cultures without acknowledging where they come from, why they are there.

I love this teacher training process! I love Shiva Rea and this space she’s created and the people who are part of it! It is truly inspiring, creative, nurturing, everything a learning process should be. I can’t help but compare it to my experience at bootcamp teacher training last year. Before we even got into practice teaching she spent time to remind us the purpose of it. We have to learn how to be one hundred percent honest and remember that we are helping each other grow as friends (mitra) on the path of yoga. We have to try to remove the lemon factor, the nerves that practice teaching with your peers brings.

Finally, we finished the night chanting like monkeys for 2 hours. No, I’m not kidding. Cee. Di. Bo. Di. Cee. Di. Bo. Di. It was called Primal Yoga and Monkey Chant and was with Parradox Pollack and Shiva. Awaken your inner monkey, your primal primate wild, playful and instinctual monkey self. Monkey Chant is a style of interlocking vocal percussion and singing which explores the root language of trance and integration with ones own innate nature based upon the Baliness Ritual form of Kecak. It was interesting and fun overall. I had a problem sitting cross legged for 2 hours on hardwood floors without a pad after all the yoga. My bony ankles and tight hips were not happy. I have also met someone from Michigan or Michigan State every day while I’ve been here. It makes me smile.

it all began with the big blue bus February 6, 2009

For some strange reason I decided to take public transportation to my first day of yoga teacher training. It’s not like there would have been a traffic problem at 6am. I got up at 5am, walked to this dark corner and watched a few buses drive past me as I ran back and forth across the street wondering what side to catch the bus on. I finally get one to stop and ask the driver, “Does this bus go to Venice Beach?”
“Naw, I don’t know what bus does. Try the Big Blue Bus. Ask that lady over there.”
The lady ‘over there’ who happened to be waiting at the stop at the absurdly early hour told me I have to go to UCLA to catch the big blue bus, a few blocks away. I get to a bus stop and wait and wait and wait in the rain with no umbrella, sneakers, and a hooded sweatshirt. I met some very friendly UCLA students and one even shared her umbrella with me. I was 20 minutes late my first day! Doh!

As soon as I walked in and heard Shiva talking, I knew I was in the right place. She was so excited and comedic first thing in the morning. Much more so than her usual banter that I experience at Yoga Journal. It was a breath of fresh air to walk into on a rainy, not-so-perfect morning. Then she secured herself as my favorite teacher ever when she got us into a dance party right away. At 8am!

I appreciated that her tank top kept shifting with the yoga practice, almost showing a little too much busty goodness (just like mine typically does) and she kept having to adjust herself. She laughed about it with the class.

She made a point of mentioning that this was not to be a bootcamp experience. Not to diminish people who offer than kind of class. I was so grateful to hear that, more so than I thought I would be. It made me realize just how much I was not looking for the same bootcamp experience I had last year.

THE RAIN! I still didn’t have my rain gear and it was pouring on my way home. It was just silly.

We had theory and practice today, and will have more tomorrow. Her training manual is quite extensive and I’ve been reading a lot in my down time, which they give us a good amount of. She is really concerned about making us better teachers rather than just having us practice something so much our bodies know it. She takes the time to show us the typical beginner’s things we all do. I feel like this will be a much different experience than bootcamp was.

It’s Actually Good To Power Through June 27, 2008

One of the biggest lessons yoga has taught me is how necessary it is to power through those tough moments. I was pretty sick last night, had a miserable night, couldn’t sleep, physically not well, and I thought, “No way can I teach yoga like this. I don’t want to give my students a terrible class. I feel like shit. I’ve had no sleep. I can’t eat. bla bla bla.” Then I realized that if I didn’t teach, who would? My classes might be small so far, but I don’t want to deny anyone yoga who wants it or needs it. How many people live their days not taking care of themselves at all and never find the time to take a class or spend even 5 minutes on themselves? So I showed up to teach despite how shitty I felt. My friend was there to take class with me. A newer student who has just returned to yoga after having a baby. Other smiling faces. Before I knew it, I was flowing along with them and for the whole class I forgot about how shitty I felt. Once again yoga pulled me out of a funk, moved my body and energy in ways I desperately needed even though I didn’t know it.

It also happened at yoga teacher training. After 6 hours of practice the first day I could barely move the second day, I was so weak, tired, emotionally drained, felt like crying half the time. I had never felt so sore from exercise in my life (maybe when I was 14 and tried to run track, I remember that hurt). I just showed up for day two even though every part of me didn’t want to and after 5 minutes on the mat I forgot (well, mostly) how sore I was and just let go.

I wonder how often we feel a little under the weather or there’s some other tiny, uncomfortable reason deterring us from something we really should and could do. How many times do we not go to a yoga class, work, not show up for something, not finish what we start, meet our goals, not take care of ourselves or do something that we know we really want to do?

Later, I’m still laying on my couch feeling pretty miserable, but I am glad I showed up to teach. I am glad my friends and fellow yogis showed up for me, shared their energy with me, and got me out of my head and misery. I would do well to remember this for future reference.