Roxtar Yoga

funky wild thang January 7, 2010

Have you ever done funky wild thing in yoga class? Maybe on the dance floor? What’s that you wonder? Why it’s Parsva Vasisthasana! It’s what you’ve been missing in your life and yoga practice, I swear! I can’t really find an English translation of this pose so I am calling it funky wild thing. I will try to include a photo of it later, this photo is the traditional “Non-Shivafied” version, but the funky wild thing version is so much sweeter. This week I decided to bust out of my yoga teacher rut and taught and practiced a sequence which featured this pose from Shiva Rea’s Fluid Power DVD. My yoga teacher toolbox has some good sequences, but sometimes we all have to be pushed outside of our routines to experience something new. I love most styles of yoga, but Vinyasa yoga still has me by the heart strings. Each time I get on the mat and start flowing, the world around me drops, I smile, breathe, and enjoy feeling my muscles and body move in a way it should be (or so it feels at least). After the standard holiday excesses I am happy to find my way back to yoga this week. I think most people enjoy practicing yoga in a classroom format, but I really enjoy Shiva Rea’s DVDs and I highly recommend Fluid Power for anyone who is looking for a way to get into practicing at home or for new, fun, flowy vinyasa sequences.  When writing this I also noticed she has a new DVD out, Daily Energy.  I will be sure to check it out soon and let you know how it is.

This week I have meditated and practiced yoga asana every morning, eaten vegan, and ridden my bike every day. It’s been a great week. No matter how far I find myself from my nourishing routines at times, they always feel really good to come back to. It makes me wonder why I insist on veering so far off track, yet I know that is just the way it is and hopefully it is getting better with time. If you haven’t meditated, practiced yoga at home, eaten tons of fruits and veggies, or enjoyed some fresh air lately, I urge you to do so. These practices make me sparkle in so many ways.

I have a healthy little competition going with my man friend to see who can lose the most percentage of body weight within the next month or two (we haven’t decided how long this competition will last yet). It has been really fun! I am typically not a very competitive person, but I am enjoying this. It’s been interesting to notice peoples reactions to our competition. It often seems like many of the women I tell this to immediately internalize it and think it implies something about their own health or weight. “But you don’t need to lose weight!” I hear often. We decided to do this because we had both gained a little weight recently and although we are technically still a healthy weight by the books, we felt unhealthy and were heavier than we have been for most of our recent adult lives. A little pro activity now to prevent dramatic changes needed later in life. I plan on living until I’m 100 years old (at which point I’ll probably laugh at this blog) and I don’t want to do so miserably riddled with every degenerative disease in the book. I want to be vital, smiling, and kicking asana. I have learned that we can’t exactly question each other and our intentions and motivations when it comes to healthy living, but at least we can get a little inspiration from each other, if we want it. Compare not my friends.

I have no idea how old Dharma Mittra is, but wow.

it’s all in the head July 8, 2009

I love epic yoga days!  I started today on the right foot by practicing Ashtanga yoga at 6:30am. Since I started teaching yoga last year I have been trying to find a balance between teaching and keeping up with my own personal practice.  Of course I jumped right in over my head almost immediately after teaching my first classes.  By year end I was teaching 5 days a week, working full time, and had totally exhausted myself.  I felt like my classes were stagnant and really, how could I give to my students what I couldn’t give to myself?  (I think mothers or parents everywhere can relate to that setiment.)  So this year I cut my teaching schedule back a bit and have been trying to practice at least 1 day a week with one of the amazing teachers I am blessed to have in my community on top of any other teaching or practicing at home. Always searching for the ever elusive balance.  Be it between teaching and practicing yoga, being social or spending time alone, giving and receiving love, working hard or playing harder.

I am currently participating in a beginning Ashtanga yoga workshop at Yoga Centre here in San Luis Obispo, CA.  Ashtanga yoga is a system of yoga transmitted to the modern world by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois who only recently passed away. This method of yoga is what Vinyasa yoga originated from and involves synchronizing the breath with a progressive series of yoga postures—a process producing intense internal heat and a profuse, purifying sweat that detoxifies muscles and organs. The result is improved circulation, a light and strong body, and a calm mind.  It is a set sequence of postures and while practicing you focus on your breath and also focus your vision on a fixed point in each pose.  It is a great sequence to practice and I am thoroughly enjoying the class.  Although I do meditate every morning, I have never been able to wake up super early to get my asana practice in.  I really enjoyed it today though and maybe this class will convince me to get out of my cozy bed earlier.  I mean really, what would be so bad about it?  So I wake up earlier, which would make me sleepy earlier… What difference does it make in my evenings?  Not much.  The last few hours of my day are pretty relaxed anyway.  Here’s to hoping.

It felt amazing to get the stiffness of sleep out with my dependable lover and friend, my yoga mat.  I found my mind was clearer and the class I taught today was better for it.  A lot of people chatted with me after class today telling me how much they loved the class, the timing of it, and the postures I chose to do.  I felt so warmed up that my demonstration of the poses was better and I felt like I could walk around more and pay more attention to the students.  And more importantly, just be my own goofy self while talking a bunch of people through some yoga poses.

I taught a pretty full class today with a wide range of yogis with different levels of experience, from young to old, beginners to experienced practitioners.  It’s pretty awesome when someone comes to try yoga for the first time.  It was nice to see some yogis take less advanced versions of the poses I was teaching.  It is funny how we all do the most advanced version we can get ourselves into, even if our form flies out the door and we start breathing like we’re running from monsters.  Even if this is the first time we’ve set foot in a yoga class.  The beginner’s I get to teach are truly amazing though.  I remember how odd it is to move your body into these funny shapes known as yoga poses if you’ve never done it before.  The first time you get into warrior your legs are like…”um no, we don’t do that. wtf”.  I am totally inspired by every beginner I get to teach.  It is so brave and challenging and just showing up and trying for the entire class is such an accomplishment.  I am going to try to make a point to compliment and congratulate the beginner’s in my classes more often.  But I also want to remind myself and beginners everywhere that we have to remember to not listen to the negative nancy in our heads and stop the madness of comparing ourselves to other people in yoga class or elsewhere in life where it’s irrelevant.  We will probably never know the history of our neighbor and how they got where they are.  We have to be patient with our own paths and journeys. If you can just show up every day and meet the challenges head first, today on the yoga mat, tomorrow at work, this weekend at home…well that makes us all roxtar’s in our own regard. It’s all about keeping ourselves open to what is being offered to us in each present moment and truly embracing it, be it a yoga pose, a correction or adjustment in class, painful advice, challenges, opportunities for change, growth, renewal.  Just because someone next to you has a stronger practice, doesn’t mean you didn’t “do well” in class. Hey. Guess what?  There will always be someone stronger, smarter, whatever.  Did you enjoy it?  Do you feel like you challenged yourself in a healthy way?  I think that’s all that really matters.

slo yogafest May 16, 2009

Today I’m teaching a hip opener class at the SLO Yogafest.  I thought I would document what I do here in case someone needs a reminder later.  Yummy hip openers indeed.  Hip openers are some of the most challenging stretches you can do because the hips aren’t stretched in any of our day to day activities.  Yet, they are the most rewarding by releasing low back pain, knee discomfort, sciatica, and improving blood flow to the lumbar spine, intestines, and reproductive organs.  The hips are also the emotional storehouse of the body.  They house a good portion of your tension and stress and as you start releasing the pelvis and softening that tissue the rest of your body effortlessly shifts into natural alignment.  It’s amazing how opening the hips will help resolve old aches and pains everywhere else in your body, from your neck, back, to your knees and ankles.  If you need details on any of these poses check out this Tight Hip Anonymous sequence.  It links to detailed photos and descriptions of each pose.

Childs pose with knees wide
Downward facing dog
Rag doll
Chair to 1 legged chair with hands to floor
Other side
Take it to the floor
1/2 pigeon
1/2 pigeon with back leg pulsation
Double pigeon
One legged forward stretch
One legged forward stretch with side opener
Wide legged forward fold
Other side
If time and mojo is right, do wide legged forward fold second time with friend
Paschimotanasana forward fold
Frog?

Oh, I almost forgot to include notes from Amy Swanson’s class on Funamentals of Vinyasa Yoga.  I loved it.

• Vinyasa actually means breath, although we refer to the middle sequence in Sun Salutations the “high push up, low push up, upward facing dog, downward facing dog” as a connecting Vinyasa.  The Connecting Vinyasa is like wiping the slate clean, giving your body a fresh start for moving forward to the next postures.
• Halfway lift should be onto fingertips if in uttasana you can align your fingertips with your toes.  Otherwise your hands should be on your shins.  You should also have  a bit of a back bend in your halfway lift to help the shoulder blades get into place and set up your chaturanga correctly.
• Balls of feet.  You should be on the balls of your feet when you step back into high pushup not just on your toes.
• Quads. They should be engaged, lifted, and strong in high push up, with the inner thighs spinning inward and up.
• Shoulder Blades.  Should be moving down your back toward your buttocks as they were in halfway lift.
• Tops of Shoulders should not drop as you lower.  You should only go so low that your biceps are parallel with the ground and your elbows at right angles and pause.  You have to make a conscious effort not to let the top of the shoulders drop even if you can keep the rest of your arms in alignment.
• Your hands should be gripping the mat and pulling you forward.

back to reality February 21, 2009

As Eminem would say, back to reality, oh there goes gravity. Back to work. Back to teaching yoga. Back to my messy apartment. I taught a few yoga classes this week and tried to incorporate some of what I learned at Shiva Teacher Training without changing my teaching style and format too much. I don’t want to be lost or lose my students trying to teach them something I only half ass know. I forgot how there is a whole process for me after I learn something I want to teach in yoga. I have to bring it home and practice it on my mat alone quite a bit and also practice teaching a friend before I take it to class. I tried to incorporate more flow into my classes, which are Vinyasa style. I incorporated more pulsations while holding poses, more body vinyasas moving the limbs while in poses, and rhythmic vinyasas, going back and forth between two poses, all connected with breath. I think it went pretty well. I feel like I need to find more words for the philosophical aspect of yoga. I know all the queue’s for alignment, but once people are in poses I feel like I want to say more about the true essence of yoga but I’m not sure exactly what to say. I am not looking to say anything super spiritual, but some of the yumminess that people don’t really think about but are feeling in their bodies. I am going to bring the nerd in me out and make some index cards to study and bring to class with my favorite yoga tidbits to share. I also love teaching to my yoga mix! It’s so much better to do yoga with good tunes. It has some rock n’ roll (uh duh, i am teaching roxtar yoga) and some great yogi tunes from Shiva’s mix cd Yoga Rhythms. I highly recommend her music compilations. You can purchase most of them on amazon or google them to find other online stores selling them.