As a desk-dwelling, laptop-loving, cycling extraordinaire I have found my hips to be about as tight as the next person. So many of our forward moving and seated activities can wreak havoc on the body and tighten the hip flexors in particular. Even if you don’t know exactly where these muscles are, I bet you know if yours are tight. Otherwise you might be sitting in the splits right now reading this wonderful blog.

Imagine keeping your elbow bent all day, every day, you eventually lose any flexibility you might have once had. “With the best intentions, yoga students sometimes create a muscle imbalance between the hamstrings and the hip flexors that contributes to an anterior (forward) pelvic tilt. Most yoga practitioners work long and hard to improve their hamstring flexibility but spend much less time stretching their hip flexors.” says Yoga Journal. This can lead to back pain. Tight hips. Feeling jealous of your neighbor with flexy hips in yoga class. No one wants that.

Here are a couple articles from Yoga Journal I liked on the subject, Get Hip and Get Hip to Your Flexors.

I will be teaching a Get Hip about Your Flexors vinyasa style class tomorrow. It’s a great little sequence. Just do it.

Get Hip About Your Flexors Roxy-Style

The first five days of my recent teacher training focused on Fluid Power Vinyasa Yoga. Fluid Power is considered wave motion within yoga. “Wave motion is the underlying movement of all creation – an understanding shared by Quantum Physics and the ancient wisdom of yoga which discovered thousands of years ago the pulsating quantum wave known as spanda or spanda shakti. Fluid Power practices explore the wave movement that is the reality of our fluid, quantum body for your circulation, longevity, creative renewal and amphibious longings.” Our bodies are 70% water right? As is the earth.

This was by far my favorite yoga training to date. I just love the yoga sequences we focused on, they are challenging, creative, and fun. Check out the Fluid Power DVD by Shiva Rea if you’re interested. Below are some of my thoughts, rants, and brain dumps from the immersion. Continue reading at your own risk.

My thoughts after this Fluid Power Wave…Don’t combine “work” with a yoga training or vacation. I made the mistake of trying this and my heart just wasn’t in it. Be honest, let work and your normal life know what to expect, and tie up your loose ends so you can enjoy the freedom. I loved morning yoga practice so much! Leading up to this training I practiced at least 10 minutes a day for a month, but something about doing it first thing in the morning felt even better than practicing a little every day. Since returning from yoga camp I have been trying to keep it alive. I’ve been hitting the hay by 10ish and getting up at 6ish to give myself time to meditate and practice before work. I really love it so far and have full intention of making this a more permanent part of my routine. The hardest part is going to bed by 10pm, but I swear if you do, it’s totally worth it, you wake up feeling good and get to enjoy time to yourself before giving your energy to the world. I have been telling my friends that I’m sleeping like a grandma now so they fully understand why I can’t be social after 9pm. Ok, so maybe on the weekends I give myself a little more freedom to sleep in.

My “pre-training-training” really helped me prepare appropriately for this experience. For 30 days I practiced yoga every day for 10 minutes and tried to practice for an hour every other day. The seven days leading up to the training I tried to take a class from another teacher or at a studio every day. Oh and kick my ass they did. I felt pretty tired at moments, but overall so much better than I had ever felt at a yoga training. It’s pretty amazing what healthfulness we are capable of if we just shut up and do it already.

We got the daily schedule for the 10 days, and it didn’t look too bad.

7-9am Opening Session
9-10:45am Shiva Public Class, aka “the real estate battle”
12:15-4pm Theory & Practice
4-6pm Teaching Lab
7:30-9:15pm Quantum Movie Night/Special Events

Most days had this rough schedule, we had one evening completely off. The evening activities and theory discussed varied each day. We usually practiced yoga during the 7am session, which I loved. As we got started at 7am that first day someone’s cell phone started ringing. It was totally loud and disruptive like only cell phone’s can be. Shiva said, “We all know our cell phone baby. It’s ok if it’s yours. Go ahead and get it. No really it’s ok, go ahead.” She compared hearing the ring on your cell phone to hearing your baby cry in a grocery store. We all know when it’s our baby.

Shiva then went on to explain how this training was not about pretenses, everyone has a moment where they need to take care of business, just try not to let that get into the way of our reason for being at the training. Don’t let it be an excuse to be lazy. What?!?!? An educational and shared study space where the rules are slightly flexible? Lightness when life happens? You mean I don’t have to be deprived of sleep, reality, sanity, food to participate in this? Where did I get the idea that something doesn’t count if it doesn’t cause pain? She really created and offered a space for a healthy challenge and learning. I always think the words, but to live them is another thing. She called it energy management. I’m not saying I don’t like a challenge or that my yoga practice or classes need to be wimpy. I just don’t want to be walking around causing myself more pain in the long term, through injuries, unconsciousness, lack of integrity and wholeness.

Some Shiva-isms I loved…”Pinch me if I ever get that corny…Movement isn’t just fun, it’s consciousness.”

Dedications, feelings, thoughts about the ten days at the beginning. I dedicated my training to my old self, Detroit, my family, my grandmas, my past and future students.

I really enjoyed practice teaching. She reminded us to keep in tune with our own sacred call, rhythm, breathe. Next, just say where the body part needs to go in space. “Inhale arms to the sky.” Finally, adding assists if appropriate. She mentioned that we can only measure brain activity when keeping still, wouldn’t it be amazing to see it while we do yoga? Hmmmm something to ponder. Another thing to ponder…Children being canaries in the coal mine, obesity, discontent, suicide?

During practice teaching you teach a small sequence of postures you may or may not know to a fellow trainee. I love that it brings me face to face with what I don’t know so quickly. Instead of making small mistakes while teaching a live class, you make them all right away when on the spot like this, and get the feedback immediately. Love it.

Shiva Brain Dump Tidbits…
Inhale offer hands forward
Exhale hands open to sides w/ om
How does your body respond to gravity
How can you get extension within that realm
Straight arms but not rigid
From flexibility to stability
Suhaja bhujangasana = dynamic plank…it has a name!
The battle for yoga mat real estate in LA
Serve tea to any kind of stress in your body
Gather the energy to move to the other side of your mat
Table top to dandasana, i likey
Unless you got a note from your mamma, you can do this pose
Now how low can you go, but how deep can you get
Inversion time is self-practice time
Breathe is birth
I want to read more about krama yoga sequencing
Breathe and sound are identical energetically
One inhale is like the 12 hours of night time
I really enjoyed chanting
Change should always happen for a reason. It gives the cells hope. The body holds fear, we want to ease it.
Try and find the difference between compression and opening. Sinking and lifting.
Kamakaze chaturangas
Iyengar’s Brilliant Prop World

Brain dump from Chris Tompkins lectures on (tantra) yoga.
We’re ok with trees dying, waves receding, but we’re uncomfortable with our own contraction
Be careful not to blame your life situations on a feeling you have or are creating
Whenever we find ourselves in a situation thinking “this should not be happening” you should try working with whatever is there. Can’t want to feel “contracted” or “expanded”.
Feeling love for someone is your own love that is being awakened. Beautiful triggers perhaps. Maybe for one wave: day, month, year, lifetime.
I found it interesting that only half the class felt enormous expansion (joy, happiness) after an unexpected contraction (suffering, pain). Hmm. (Like feeling like you learned or grew from the unexpected loss of a loved one).
Tantra believes we should have a better relationship with the Chitta Vrittis (mind chatter) rather than the idea of having “no-mind”.
Spanda is mantra. It means pulsation, but actually refers to the point between a contraction and expansion, inhale and exhale. This is the point of awakening.
Knots come from holding on to our life situations.
The mind is like a child. Sometimes you have to ignore it.
When you get “high” don’t make the mistake of giving the object credit. Or else everyone would get high when with that person who made you high, in that situation, it’s within you.

I taught a completely new vinyasa yoga sequence to my classes this week after a revitalizing training immersion with Shiva last week. The classes I taught had some typical Roxy-style components, but I mostly went off the reservation and shook things up. I taught the class in a mandala, which means in a “circle”. We went from facing the front of the mat and switching legs, what Shiva calls “churn style”, to facing the side, and the back of the mat. Notice in the photo from my immersion our mats are in a circle as well as the practice taking us in a circle. It was definitely new, to me as well as my students, so the flow wasn’t quite as smooth as my typical class. The first time I taught it, without even noticing I went right into teaching Surya Namaskar A, which has been one of the backbones of my classes for the last 2 years. It’s so ingrained in my body and psyche that I just went right to it. I had to remind myself, “Hey. You’re trying to change things up here, girlie!” Have you ever done that when trying to learn something knew, just went right back to what you know because it’s there? I realized that not only do I have to practice, I have to practice a lot to really get it. I also just have to teach it a bit before I really get the class flowing and make it have that spark and connection that makes a yoga class truly awesome. I don’t think that means the classes suck either, many people said they enjoyed the classes. And what is the hurry anyway?

It was interesting where I found resistance to the unknown. I found it in myself when I just defaulted to the past, what was easy, what was familiar. It was hard for me to really hold the space at times when I noticed some of my students giving me the “yoga stink eye.” You know, when you can clearly tell someone is NOT ENJOYING your class or their practice, they refuse to take it easy, take their knees down, take the “easier” options, for whatever reason, and the look on their face, their body language, everything about them shows it. For the most part it’s just the life of doing something new and challenging and as a teacher I am mostly ok with it. Sometimes I notice myself responding or adjusting the class without meaning to. I have to be ok with people not liking me while I’m making them sweat their asses off. It’s part of the job.

Some of my student friends resisted it with the yoga stink eye, some over-thought about it and confused themselves, but overall I would say it was a good time indeed. I think next week I will spend a little more time in the postures the first time through and make it clearer what good alignment is in each posture. Thank you my yogi friends for letting me take you on a roller coaster ride.

I am going to try to start documenting what I teach on a weekly basis. If you really like what I teach, or are looking for some (home practice) inspiration, look no further. This is my first week so bear with me if you don’t like the way I wrote it up. If you have questions, feedback, suggestions, let me know. I also made a few sequence templates similar to the ones Shiva uses for sharing sequences during her trainings

A Mandala Namaskar Prep Sequence

The following two templates are saved as web pages so you should easily be able to print them and get a blank template to use to write up future sequences for practicing or teaching.
A Printable Sequence Template (w/ 2 waves, 1 page)
A Printable Sequence Templace (w/ 3 waves, 2 pages)

Once you open the following Google doc, you can go to File > Upload to upload it to your own Google docs to edit, or File > Download As so you can save it in another electronic format you can work with.
An Editable Sequence Template

Today while teaching yoga I taught a Mandala Namaskar series from Shiva Rea’s Fluid Power DVD and it was super fun! Well, at least I thought so. I got all sweaty, red in the face, and my sinuses started draining all over the place just teaching it. Just imagine what the students felt like. Oye. I thought, “I better not adjust people, they probably think I have snot on my hands from blowing my nose so much.” I asked the class “yay or nay” to the sequence and I got at least one nay. I just smiled and said, “Sorry, I’m the boss, deal with it.” Haha. Maybe I wasn’t that blunt.

It did get me thinking. I have often felt that way in yoga class, when I first started road biking, when I’m trying to figure out some obscure technology. That feeling of not exactly liking where you find yourself. It reminds me of road biking in Boise when I almost threw up once when trying to climb monstrous hills. It makes me smile to be able to experience this with my yogi friends on the mat. You may not like where I take you, but that’s life. Sometimes we don’t like where we end up. Sometimes we don’t need it, don’t want to be there, try to avoid it, or don’t understand it, but there we are none the less. These are my favorite parts of yoga, the life lessons that are buried in the difficult moments. If you continue to feel that uncomfortable in the situation, you can change it, but usually I find I get over it. I find something to enjoy. I breathe.

My Yoga Challenge is rocking along. I’m on day 11. Yesterday, I practiced like 10 minutes, but I also rode my bike, worked, and cooked dinner for friends. It’s not that hard to practice every day, if you stop putting crazy pressure on yourself to make every practice an epic one. Sometimes life just doesn’t have room for it. I’m really enjoying the process of learning before my training. Sometimes I just need to give myself deadlines to help me focus. I’ve got the two books that are suggested reading for my teacher training, they are intimidating me from my shelves right now, The Subtle Body by Cyndi Dale and Chakras by Harish Johari. I have been sick for a week and have had a mild sinus headache for about 3-4 days. I am not one of those people who go to the doctor for a cold, unless it lasts longer than 2 weeks. I feel like it’s best to let my body heal itself on it’s own time frame. I’m planning on going to Circuit Training tomorrow at work and I’m sure it will be one of those moments where I won’t like it, won’t feel like I need it, and will try to avoid working hard during it. I know I’ll be glad I did it though. It will help me be strong for Sheevs in a few weeks!

Life is marching along. May we all do something we are uncomfortable with on a regular basis. It’s good for us. Kind of like eating broccoli when you’re a kid.

My favorite pose of the day: Forward Fold. These are some of it’s benefits.  Do it.

Sun Salute A x3
Sun Salute B x3
Dancing Warrior 1 (insert 3 rounds of warrior 1 into salutation)
Dancing Warrior 4 (insert 3 rounds of warrior 1, 2, reverse, extended side, warrior 2 into salutation)
Ha Kriya (standing in a yoga squat doing an arm movement for a while)
Standing Pose Sequence (interesting combo that I can’t quite wrap my head around yet)
Backbending x2
Handstand
Shoulder Openers
Supine Poses

I am going to try to practice and memorize the Fluid Power DVD and also read the manual from my first training. I have already begun to realize that the best yoga happens each day and week that I work, teach, and practice on a continual basis. Trainings and intensives are great, but If I can’t figure out how to bring it home and get it to really sink in and share it, it’s all kind of pointless. I enjoyed my training with Shiva last year, but I’ve noticed that I have a hard time remembering it all and teaching from it. I get so busy it’s hard to take the time to learn anything new. I guess this is the case with life, it’s all about the tiny changes and dedication you can have each day to growth. It’s about the present moment. Cheers to 30 days of yoga.

I have added a cool feature so you can subscribe to receive my posts via e-mail and I finally joined twitter too. You can be so connected to me you’ll get sick of me!

Today I taught a pretty standard vinyasa class, but focused a bit more on balancing postures including two sets of eagle, standing bow, and tree. It felt good to clear the mind and laugh a little while wobbling all over the place. Balance poses demand breath and focused gaze. The breath brings you to the here and now and concentrated gaze steadies and centers you, streamlining your attention to a single beam of energy. This added dimension makes every balancing pose a true mediation in motion. Balance poses also tone your lower body. They balance the left and right sides of the brain, and restore and stabilize your equilibrium. Go ahead, pose like a dancer, tree, or eagle, just for a few moments of balance love.

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.

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.

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.