“The practices you will experience are based upon the primary characteristics of the fluid body that benefit your health and well being. The first characteristic of our fluid body is that our bodies are physiologically rhythmic, vibrating and pulsating with the constant tide of or breath, heartbeat, and brainwaves as a few examples. You will experience a rhythmic and energetic approach to vinyasa flow yoga where the breath initiates and inspires all movement. In particular, we explore a three part vinyasa technique I developed based on the teachings of Krishnamacharya that express this wave through the pulsation of breath to enhance the state of flow and the instinctual alignment of your inner and outer body. I call this “thawing out poses” which are often rigidly held so that you can access your strength and flexibility with grace.”

I couldn’t have said it better. My homework today is to think about the following: my state of the union, how I’m doing; to contemplate the fluidity in nature and in life like the waves of the ocean; to contemplate the blockages to fluidity, like a dam in a river, or a caged bird maybe.

After practicing Namaskar 1008 with Shiva this morning I was so humbled by my attempt to capture it on video! If this is remotely interesting you should buy the Fluid Power DVD and do it properly. Or even better, come to a Fluid Power training down the road. I’ll share it with you again as it’s what I’ll be practicing all weekend long!

When it came to the fitness benefits yoga can or can’t provide, yoga teacher John Schumacher had heard it all. A student of B. K. S. Iyengar for 20 years and founder of the Unity Woods studios in the Washington, D.C. area, Schumacher was convinced yoga provides a complete fitness regime. But many people, even some of his own students, disagreed. Yoga might be good for flexibility or relaxation, they’d say, but to be truly fit, you had to combine it with an activity like running or weight lifting.

Schumacher just didn’t buy it.

He knew three decades of yoga practice—and only yoga practice—had kept him fit. He didn’t need to power walk. He didn’t need to lift weights. His fitness formula consisted of daily asanas (poses) and pranayama (breathwork). That’s all he needed.

Four years ago at age 52, Schumacher decided to prove his point. He signed up for physiological testing at a lab in Gaithersburg, Maryland. As he expected, Schumacher tested near the top of his age group for a variety of fitness tests, including maximum heart and exercise recovery rates. His doctor told him that he was in excellent physical condition and estimated that Schumacher had less than a one percent chance of suffering a cardiac event. “I’ve always maintained that yoga provides more than adequate cardiovascular benefits,” says Schumacher. “Now I have the evidence that regular yoga practice at a certain level of intensity will provide you with what you need.”

Evidence of yoga’s ability to bolster fitness, however, goes well beyond Schumacher’s personal experience. Yoga Journal’s testing of three yogis also yielded impressive results. Even physiologists who don’t do yoga now agree that the practice provides benefits well beyond flexibility and relaxation. Recent research—though preliminary—shows that yoga may also improve strength, aerobic capacity, and lung function. If you practice yoga, you already knew that. But if, like Schumacher, you’ve been told by friends, family, doctors, or even other yoga students that you need to add some power walking for your heart or strength training for your muscles, here’s evidence that yoga is all you need for a fit mind and body.

Read the whole article on YogaJournal.com

“I don’t even remember leaving the bar,” one guy said to his cell phone as I approached the jail this morning. Another guy was pretty sure he was arrested for a DUI the night before, but not 100% sure. They made me giggle as I waited to be admitted as a guest to teach yoga. Then on the other side of the security door my giggles faded away as I saw how crowded they were. All the drunk tanks and holding cells were full of three people sleeping on mats on the floor huddled with blankets. One of the tanks was smeared with what must have been vomit. That was a first.

This is how it goes teaching at a jail. You’re up, you’re down, it’s fun, it’s traumatizing, it’s sad, it’s just another yoga class, all at the same time. I noticed today that the stress of the environment didn’t bother me as much as usual. Maybe because I’ve been taking better care of myself than usual? Maybe because I’m more comfortable now that I’ve done it a few times and know to expect the unexpected? When a girl went to the bathroom in the middle of class and her flush drowned out my voice I just smiled and waited until I could be heard again. That wasn’t a first. There is an outdoor toilet in the mesh covered courtyard where we hold yoga classes. I kept my shoes and socks on today while I taught, instead of freezing my toes on the concrete and I invited them to keep their socks on as well.

Today we did some standing poses, push ups, squats, and scrumptious floor poses. They like to chit chat more than I’m used to doing in a regular yoga class. They want to ask random health questions, how to eat, where they can do yoga on the outside. They want to explain how long they’re in for. One explained she was in for a 10 day detox from drugs and she was a mamma. I’m so humbled by the experience of sharing yoga with these women every time. How difficult it must be to be in jail and keep your head on straight. One girl said they hadn’t been outside in 4 days! No matter what brought them to the jail, we can empathize with the difficulties they face. Even if they brought them on.

I can see in each one of them a bit of myself, my best friends, my neighbors. I feel a little guilty for being thankful that the wrong turns I’ve taken in life didn’t lead me to jail. They were never really that bad in hindsight. I actually took a bunch of photos of the jail program room and courtyard on my cell phone but totally got caught and was so embarassed! What was I thinking! The bloggerati in me just wanted to share I guess. I will leave you with the photo of me getting caught. Haha!

It’s amazing how great reaching your own goals can be.  Even if the goal feels cheesy and unimportant.  In a way it can feel more rewarding than earning a college degree as you do it without anyone forcing you, charging you money, or whispering in your ear about how important it is or worthless you’ll be without it.   I’ll have to write a post on goal setting another day.  My 4th semi-annual spring cleansing process is officially complete and I feel all the benefits I usually feel including a few lost pounds, clearer skin, less attachment to what I eat, decreased appetite, increased commitment to my health, yoga, loved ones, and sanity. It’s so strange how quickly you stop desiring the foods you once coveted. It’s so much easier to be committed to healthier eating after a cleansing process like I just went through. It’s like I don’t know what I’m missing even though I do. My new mission is to continue eating wheat, dairy, and alcohol free for another month. Well, I’m thinking one day off per week. Although I almost want to just go whole hog. I also want to try one new ayurveda recipe per week for the next month (from Yoga Body, Eat Taste Heal or Ayurveda Cooking for Westerners). The recipes always look too boring or long usually, but I doubt I feel that now.

I don’t typically go on a binge right after a cleanse, I’ve felt the pain of doing that before, but I do go back to my normal way of eating pretty quickly. Which is pretty much this: “eat whatever when social or stressed” which is like 70% of the time. This time I’m thinking of extending this transition a little longer and possibly change my normal way of eating just a smidge. I am in LOVE with ayurveda, yoga’s sister science of health and nutrition for the body, I can’t wait to take a course in it so I can offer it through Smiling Dog Yoga!

If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about with all this cleanse talk, see my other posts Clean Your Internal House Part 1, Part 2, and the Manifesto of a Clean Freak for the whole shabang.

Another winter gone and another spring time under way. I just plucked some errant roses from my yard for my kitchen table. May we all channel the renewing energy of spring and use it to propel us into an even sweeter, more focused summer and beyond. One where we enjoy our good times and balance them with nourishing ourselves rather than burning ourselves out.  At least that’s my mission.

• It is great to have someone around you who supports your cleansing goals. Except when he makes grilled cheese all weekend.  My yogi friend Marissa and Angela joined me this time, and having their subtle presence behind the scene’s has been sweet.
• I have not felt as good as I have in the past during this process. I have been having knee pain, fighting a cold, other little things. I don’t think it has anything to do with the cleanse, but it’s a bummer.  Bad timing. I guess it’s a good thing, it’s forcing me to take it easy which I often don’t do. Seating yoga poses are so nourishing right now.
• I’m really enjoying the simplicity of eating a mono food diet. At first the plain food feels impossible, I don’t want to eat it, and I hardly do. I wonder how I’m going to make it for 7 days eating just beans, rice, and veggies. But I just do it without too much obsession. I imagine how many other people in the world don’t have a choice of what they get to eat each day. After day 1, it’s a little easier.  By day 3, I actually start enjoying it.  The mind is a tricky beast, isn’t it? Today I noticed cauliflower tasted almost like butter. Butternut squash was so sweet.
• I really enjoy the fact that I create little waste during the cleanse.  I buy my beans and rice in bulk and bring my containers to bring them home in.  My veggie scraps go to compost.  I’m wondering if I could make veggie broth out of them and take it even further. Everything just feels so simplified when I’m not able to be distracted by food.
• It’s amazing to notice how symbiotic the relationship with food is.  When I’m busy, tired, bored, I don’t really spend sufficient time or energy on the food I eat.  On preparing it or eating it. This sometimes crappy food makes me more easily stressed, tired, and throws my yogi wagon around.  This leads me to crave more crappy food.  I feel crappier.  And the cycle continues.  Until you take a step back and deal with one day of crappy feelings and your monster mind. Then all the sudden you wake up lighter, refreshed, and renewed reminded that it’s all connected, and sacrifice is ok sometimes.

I guess that’s it.  Details on what I do to clean my internal house each spring and fall are in my previous post, Clean Your Internal House Part 1. Just a few more days. I’m excited to try and cook from some of my ayurveda cookbooks. Their recipes normally seem too bland too me but after this I think it’ll taste just fine.

This is the first of five posts on a recent yoga teacher training with Shiva Rea which left me renewed in my love of yoga, myself, and Ayurveda.

I survived my first day at Renewal and the Inner Fire – A Yoga and Ayurveda Teacher Training for the Spring Season at Exhale in Venice Beach, CA with Shiva Rea. As I showed up for our first session at 6:30am a little bit of reality sunk in. “If Shiva is calling it an Advanced Teacher Training, I might be in trouble”, I thought. Her level 1 classes regularly knock me on my ass so I wondered what I was thinking signing up.

This morning’s practice was what she called a Vira Prana Flow and was a simple vinyasa practice that included Pincha Mayurasana, Sirsasana, and some Khalari sequencing that wasn’t accessible to my former office dweller hips. I’ve been sharing bits and pieces with my classes (thumb hooks with fan hands, lasya side bend, and handstand, handstand, forearm stand!). It was a great practice, but I could feel how bone tired I was. We were asked to share our current challenges in our lives and I immediately thought of my new baby, still in it’s infant stage, Smiling Dog Yoga. I don’t regret taking on the leadership role at Smiling Dog Yoga, but I was bone tired from it this day. I started working on the transition about 10 months ago, and before that my grandma had passed away. I have been running in overdrive for about a year. Nevermind the fact that my last full time job was stressful too. So when we started sharing the challenges we are facing I almost started crying just thinking of it all. And that struck me as something to take notice of. I have a tendency to not cry and just deal, so it was relieving to allow myself to feel overwhelmed. It helped me to notice that I was not alone by any means: stressed mammas, people going through dramatic career, relationship, and life changes, and even a few other studio owners with much worse issues than I’ve got going on.

Anyone who knows me or has read this blog knows that I highly recommend taking time to yourself to reflect and renew. I don’t know why I temporarily forgot this fact. I realized that I’m afraid of my new job a bit and it’s totally normal to have a little fear. I’m afraid I won’t be able to pay myself and therefore support my basic needs. Owning a yoga studio is bringing me face to face with my fears surrounding money and work. I was also noticing this day how interesting it is that I don’t have a problem teaching and supporting people on a large scale but I can’t do so for my immediate family. It’s hard for me to ask for support or to take it where offered. It is hard for me to do what I need to do to feel truly supported.

I was pooped after day 1, but in a good way. The kind of yoga induced exhaustion that sends you to bed feeling like bliss. I made a commitment to myself after my first day of training to start saying NO more often. We’ll see how it goes.

General Guidelines

1. Throughout the whole cleansing process take ayurvedic herbs which help support the cleansing process.  Take 2 Blood Cleanse 2x/day and 1 Liver Repair 3x/day with meals.  You can get all at lifespa.com, banyanbotanicals.com, or with a local ayurveda practitioner.
2. Eat 3 meals/day to get the body into fat burning, detox mode.  No snacks.  If you need a snack the first few days, eat an apple.
3. Drink as much warm water as you can each day.
4. Do yoga at least 10-15 minutes per day. It really helps get the toxins out and get rid of icky feelings.  I prefer an hour per day and plenty of yin and restorative yoga but I love my yoga.
5. Take epsom salt baths. They’re relaxing and draw the toxins out of the body through the skin.  I’m sporadic with this.
6. Massage skin with skin oil before or after shower. Ideally use ayurvedic massage oils.  I love the oils from diamondwayayruveda.com (they’re local to SLO and we sell them at SDY).  I’m sporadic with this.
7. Choose a two week period where you can take it easy and won’t be in overwhelming social mode.  This is really important as you might bite someone’s arm off at a party or social gathering.  The best times of year to cleanse are spring and fall.  I usually do it the end of March and the end of October each year.  I’ll be going from March 24-April 8 this spring.
8. About 2 weeks before your first official cleanse day buy everything “not fresh” you’ll need.  See shopping list below.
9. One-two days before your first official cleanse day, plan your meals for the entire cleanse, buy good, healthy, farmers market food, cook it, and have it prepared so it’s easy once you begin.  I usually make a big stew, buy a bunch of avocados and rice cakes, apples, apple juice, and roast some beets.  I usually have to shop again for veggies and the post-cleanse halfway through the main cleanse phase.  See my favorite vegetarian meals post, many of these are perfect for this cleanse or can be easily modified.
10. I recommend not eating out during cleanse.  Even if you eat cleanse friendly foods I’ve noticed it slows my digestion and I don’t feel as good.  That being said, sometimes it’s unavoidable and I think it’s important to be nice to oneself when embarking on something like this.  I ate out the first few times I cleansed at Thai restaurants and Natural Cafe and now I don’t.
11. To continue on that note, I’ll say it again, be nice to yourself.  This is a healing process.  If something isn’t working, then you can change it.  I try to set an intention and write down why I’m doing a cleanse before I embark and keep a journal throughout.  When I feel crappy, which you will at least one day in this type of process, I look at my intention and goals, and am reminded that this is something I want to do.  I can often make minor adjustments that help me feel better without going off the cleanse completely or making myself worse.  Having a friend or supportive person to talk to about this process is crucial.  My boyfriend saved me from jumping off the cleanse wagon and eating a cheesecake at a Halloween party last year.  I was so thankful.

Day 1-4: Pre-Cleanse Phase “This Isn’t So Bad”

1. Kiss and say goodbye to cheese for a while.
2. Eat rice, beans, soup, salad, seeds, fruit, whole grains, oats, quinoa. No crap: processed foods, crackers, fried food, sugar, white flour, minimal fats/oils, caffeine, dairy.  I traditionally go vegan but if you need more protein stick to lowfat versions of chicken or turkey.
3. Eat 1-2 raw beets/day, shredded into a salad is good.
4. Eat as many apples as you can.
5. Drink a glass of organic, fresh apple juice with each meal.
6. Drink 1-2 cups green juice/smoothie each day. Odwalla works, fresh/homemade is better.

Days 5-11: The Main Cleanse “Why Am I Doing This Again?”

1. Add 1 trikatu or cool digest with each meal (more ayurvedic herbs). Cool digest if you tend to get heartburn. Trikatu otherwise.
2. Eat non-fat khichadi w/seasonal veggies for each meal.
3. (Optional Crazy Stuff Part 1): You can drink increasing amounts of warm ghee in soy/almond milk each morning. It’s called internal oleation and it helps loosen impurities and get them out.  This is probably the worst part of this cleanse.  If you feel nauseous with a certain dosage go back to the previous dosage and stay there throughout.  Take it as soon as you wake up.  Day 5 – 2tsp; Day 6 – 4 tsp; Day 7 – 4 tsp; Day 8 – 6 tsp; Day 9 – 8 tsp; Day 10 – 8 tsp;  Day 11 – 10 tsp.  If you’re unsure of this part comment here for support or work with an ayurvedic practitioner please!
4. (Optional Crazy Stuff Part 2): Take 6-9 tsp of castor oil in the evening of day 11 after a light, early dinner.  It’s easier to take with grapefruit or orange juice and you can suck an orange after drinking it.  This will evacuate your intestines of all the toxins that have been loosened up.  It’s not fun, but many health experts agree that a lot of our disease stems from our digestion.  Again,  if you’re unsure of this part comment here for support or work with an ayurvedic practitioner please!

Days 12-14: Post-Cleanse “Thank God I Survived”

1. You will be so excited to eat something different!  I once spent three hours cooking all this great, vegan food, and couldn’t eat it because my appetite had shrunken so much.  Rice cakes and avocado are my favorite cleanse friendly treats during the Pre and Post Cleanse Phases.
2. Same as the Pre-Cleanse Phase except don’t worry about the beets, apples, juice, or green juice unless you like them.
3. Drink lemon water with meals.
4. Take cool digest or trikatu with each of three meals according to the following: Day 12 – 2/meal; Day 13 – 3/meal; Day 14 – 4/meal.

Days 15-21
Continue taking 2 trikatu or cool digests with meals.  I admit I get kind of sporadic with the herbs here.

Days 22-30
Continue with seasonal eating and try to stick to wheat, dairy, and sugar free.

Shopping List

1. Herbs & Oils (online) – Cool Digest/Trikatu, Liver Repair, Blood Cleanse, Ayurvedic massage oil, Castor Oil (optional).  You can get all at lifespa.com, banyanbotanicals.com, or with a local ayurveda practitioner.
2. Food (SLO Co-op) – Split Mung Beans, White Basmati Rice, Spices, Epsom Salts, Ghee, Soy Milk
3. Veggies (Fresh) – In season veggies, avocados, stuff for pre/post cleanse stew/salads

This is pretty much it.  If you’d like to learn more about why this all works, I’d recommend the reference materials mentioned above from John Doulliard:  The 3 Season Diet, A Yoga Body Diet, and www.lifespa.com.  I keep a journal throughout my cleanse and try to keep track of what is working and what isn’t so that next time it’s easier.  It really helps.  I also try to cleanse the mind during this process with journaling and meditation.  If you are seriously considering doing this or another cleanse for the first time, I’d be happy to support you through comments on this blog post, and I would recommend starting with a shorter version of this (maybe 3-4 days total).  I also recommend checking out lifespa.com for a supported short and longer cleanses.  These are what I started with and only after doing them supported with Dr. Douillard online am I now comfortable enough to do them on my own.

Happy Spring Cleaning!

Today I’ve got breakups and endings on the mind. This week I’m dealing with an ending and loss at the studio and it’s so much like a typical breakup it’s surprising. Some things I’ve learned through the years…

They’re difficult. There is no way around that. One person usually has to be the one to call it, be the bad guy, give up the flat screen TV in the ensuing divorce and splitting up of “things”. Feelings of attack and hurt run amuck. I wonder makes a breakup so easily activate the “pain body”? The term “pain body” comes from Eckhart Tolle the author of The Power of Now and A New Earth, two of my favorite spiritual books of all time. He supposes the pain body is the negative part of us that causes us to say things we don’t mean, react in ways we don’t believe in, almost like an ego response, if you will. Isn’t that what comes up with breakups?

When endings are happening you feel a pit in your stomach, you sometimes want to lash out, and afterwards you feel fatigued and easily upset. Breakups are like relationship chemo therapy. They kill lots of good along with the bad. You have to throw up afterwards and smoke a big joint just to survive it. Or maybe just watch the entire series of Sex in the City or Veronica Mars with unlimited queso dip. It’s like smoking a television joint.

Rather than wallowing in the coulda, shoulda, woulda I opt to think about the big picture this time, the results, the down the road. I am lucky, I realized years ago that every breakup/death/loss I went through always led me to something better down the road. EVERY TIME. Even if it’s so hard to understand what that good is in the moment of the breakup. I believe the light at the end of the tunnel can be there for anyone committed to the yogi path, committed to continual growth, evolution, and learning (see SDY’s Core Values for more of what I’m committed to). And even while you feel the gut feeling, feel attacked, overwhelmed, upset, resentful, you can take a breath and step back and remember this fact. I try to send love and positive mojo whenever I feel upset about any part of it all. It’s so easy to focus on the “why” and “it’s not fair” and “life’s not fair”. But as my dad often said, “who said life is fair?”.

I look back on some of my breakups and I can always find something to be grateful for. Grateful that someone else made the choice that I didn’t have the heart to make. Grateful that I had the strength to be honest with myself about what works in my life and what doesn’t. Grateful for each amazing moment with each person. I guess it’s normal to feel attached to the good and lash out at the world a bit when you think it will be no longer. We are only human.

So back to the studio. I am committed to creating and maintaining Smiling Dog as an amazing yoga space and community for those who need it, want it, for those it feels right to. As I learn how to become a business owner and leader in my little yoga community I am humbled and taught so much each day. I know that serving Smiling Dog is exactly what I should be doing right now. And I guess that’s the bottom line. I ain’t goin’ nowhere. (That was Detroit-Rouge-Roxy talking to you).

Back to Vernoica Mars

It’s my first one. Ever.  Please don’t judge me.  I’m going too fast.  I look at the camera too much.  My head is cut off half the time.  My tank top could have been a little more modest.  BUT.  It is the start of something sweet, I hope.

Yoga on, friends.  Yoga on.  Cheers to utilizing technology to share more yoga!