Old Moon Yoga

I have heard is said that one can come to like any piece of music if you hear it often enough. The very essence of music is repetition. It’s the familiarity that allows us to feel we understand it and can participate even if that participation is simply to listen. The Beatles “Number nine” certainly challenged this idea for me, an attempt to free music of all its parameters perhaps?

We learn by repetition, things rarely stick first time. Like me trying to remember new student’s names for exampleJ  you have to be my class about 3 months before I remember your name and it gets embarrassing for me having to ask every week. There must be another secret to remembering names. My daughter Anna used flash card to repeat questions and answers over and over.  “Welcome to class. Can you just write your name on this small white card please. Oh and I am going to need a photo for the back too”.

Why then do I find myself resisting the idea of classes with a fixed schedule and order for poses? Students like the familiarity.  They know what to expect.  I know when I started practicing it was good to go to classes where I knew the format. The Ashtanga Vinyasa primary series was my Monday night staple. Recently I have had the opportunity to sub for some classes based on a form called “Rocket”. The idea is the same with a defined set of poses in a prescribed order.

More recently my yoga taste has become much more free form. The Hatha yoga class on the Saturday morning is never the same. Don’t we go because it’s different? I think I do. John delivers the class from the heart not from the text book.  The classes I teach are never planned ahead of time.

Teaching Rocket I find myself going “Off-Piste”, throwing in an additional pose because it just feels right. Over 1000 yoga poses why not share some? Closer inspection reveals that my regular classes are not as different as I would like to believe.  Slow start, warm up, lots of standing series, poses on the mat and a guided meditation. A class format following a “bell curve” what could be more standard than that. The contents under the curve change though not that much really. It does not matter if it’s a beginner, intermediate or advanced class my format is always the same. How disappointing, and refreshing all at once. People like repetition. They like to know what’s coming, they also like little surprises.

So should the well orchestrated class be like a piece of music? The repetition is the anchor that keeps us grounded, comfortable, like a familiar melody, the variations are the spice that makes the piece interesting.  Smaller melodies introduced early on come back and reappear through out the class. A side stretch but from a different perspective perhaps, or a familiar shape now cast in a new light as we are sitting not standing or something as simple as a mudra returning in a different pose.

What music is your favorite class then? (Yikes I sound like a facebook app)  Perhaps the more rigidly structured classes are like pieces from Bach, precise with rules and form well known and understood.  Personally I like the romantic period where strict adherence to tempo and rules was replaced by the flexibility to express oneself with the notes. I will take Chopin or Debussy over Bach any day.

Classes are like all kinds of musicians and musical scores. Consider Shastri’s Friday night class. So many sun salutation you eventually loose yourself in a moving meditation. The sun salutations change but only very subtly over time, in the style of Philip Glass perhaps.

I’d  like to think my classes align with the Sonata. The Sonata with its three parts a starting melody, a change of key and tempo and finally a return to a familiar but different place.

Just as in music our appreciation and taste changes over time. Some of us like a wide variety of music, other prefer a smaller subset.  So it is with Yoga classes I think. We pick our classes by the tunes that resonate with us right now the composers we like. As we grow our tastes develop, mature and change allowing us to appreciate different “composers” with different messages to deliver. How hard then to sub a class with bringing an unfamiliar tune to an expectant audience. Eventually we get to appreciate all messages perhaps.

Any one ready for a “Number Nine” class?

“It’s a journey” I heard that comment so many times when I started Yoga. Coming from a background which was relatively sport based I always had a hard time with this. A very good friend of mine used to quote “second place is the first looser”. So what’s this journey thing all about? Sounds a little spiritual perhaps, not sure that’s me, may be I will just enjoy the stretch and see what happens.

As we all know Yoga has been around for over 5000 years. Nothing has really changed in all that time. The things discovered through experimentation and meditation have stood the test of time unlike anything else. Scientific justifications are being discovered all the time for the more esoteric Yoga practices. More recently new “styles” have come along, a new ribbon around the mighty rock. I view these with mixed feelings. Their commercial success for the “inventors” seems counter to the whole yogic philosophy. But this is juxtaposed with the fact that it introduces whole new groups of people to the wonders of Yoga.

It’s the stability, the lack of change that provides the solid base to build a practice on. But if nothing changes in 5000 years, does a blog every week make any sense at all?

My week started subbing a morning class. Early morning classes are funny. Five minutes before the start the studio is empty. Two minutes before the start, the first students arrive. Zero hour, as if by magic, everyone is on their mat ready to go. I adjust the music and step back into the studio. Across the room beaming at me is my very good friend and fellow teacher training graduate. What an honor and compliment to have her get up early to come to my class. It turned out she had planned to change her Yoga schedule and practice mornings now, I just happened to be subbing that first morning.

Tuesday morning I had coffee with one of my students, a chance to meet the person behind the smile on the mat, to peel away a couple of the layers of a large onion. How wonderful to discover that the practice of Yoga can affect and change lives in such positive and sometimes unexpected ways.

Over time, as we teach, the room of faces slowly transforms from people to friends, then good friends.

It’s Tuesday lunch time, I get a call from my friend, mentor and genius yoga teacher. “Are you sitting down?” He asks before he delivers the bombshell. This incredibly highly respected and much loved Yoga teacher will no longer be teaching at one of the areas major Yoga studios. I feel his pain. Good friends on the mat that become “family” over years of teaching, suddenly gone. The news gets worse; he will no longer be part of the teacher training program. For those of us that studied under him I know it is impossible to imagine the program without him. There are some great teachers on the program of course, I loved them all, but for those of us who studied that particular segment under John the memory will last forever.

Tuesday evening I was honored to sub John’s class at Devi. I must have done something right because the following day he offered me the chance to teach my own class there. Something I have been dreaming of for sometime.

Secretly I think it may have been the foot massage I gave to a fellow mentee of John’s that tipped the balance So the next evening I treated her to “the neck thing” too I had not seen this particular Yogi for some time, her Yoga recently curtailed by an injured wrist. So impressive to see her journey continuing after this recent set back.

Devi yoga is very professional outfit and quick of the mark, they want my bio and picture for the web site immediately. Luckily, just a couple of weeks ago, my daughter Libby took some pictures of me; I send a “flickr” link to a web page with over 400 pictures. Every pose I can think of is there. Lourdes will be sure to pick a strong masculine arm balance or something………. Goddess pose (utkata konasana). Is she trying to tell me something Ah well everything happens for a reason, I guess I will have to wait to discover what this one is.

400 pictures and I am posing as a Goddess!!

It’s Thursday, time for my class at the YMCA, I have been teaching my yoga “family” there since January. “You will all be in handstand (Adho Mukha Vrksasana ) by Christmas.” I joke. That has been my challenge, threat, goal for the class. This evening everyone gets into handstand and two even manage feathered peacock (Pincha Mayurasana). We are well on our way in this journey; it just feels so good looking around the room, all the feet waving at me, of course we will be in handstand by the end of the year. I have no doubt.

What a rambling blog this week. All sorts of things I needed to write down. More of a diary entry really. So this is the point where I am supposed to pull all the ramblings together. The threads are obvious I hope. We are all on a journey, or rather separate journeys. Our individual journeys are punctuated by events we cannot control or understand. At points along the path we touch and affect each others journey. The butterfly effect. The one constant we all share. Yoga.

5000 years of Yoga is the bedrock. For this Yogi it was one week of continuous change and no doubt the butterfly effect going forward as we journey on.

Final thought: “Friends do let friends do Yoga”

“How close to the edge are you?”  “Get back you are too close.” “People fall over all the time it says on this sign!”  7000ft up and close to the edge, I know let’s try Peacock (mayurasana), a challenging arm balance. Yikes! ego alert.  Can I blame it on the spectacle of the Grand Canyon? It is pretty inspiring. Is this what “practicing Yoga off the mat” means? :)    

Ego overload

Yoga in the shelter of your own home or at your local studio is, of course, amazing on mind and body, but taking it outside can be both inspiring and dangerous.  The idea of a Yoga practice in the open air, under the light of the moon, can seem very romantic. Yoga on the sun drenched beaches of Hawaii always looks amazing in those Yoga video our well meaning friends give us for Christmas. I like the concept but what is the reality.  

Old Moon Yoga

Imagine the problems involved in creating my website image. Several hours posing in front of the moon trying to get the silhouette just right while my daughter, Libby, messes with F-stop and shutter speed, not to mention color lenses and lighting. After and an hour or so holding dancing warrior I start to glisten. It’s past dusk now, out come the mosquitoes. Making a “bee line”? for the nearest food source.  “Dad  keep still, I have to have the shutter speed really slow to pick up enough light from the moon”. A small bat lands on my outstretched arm. Apparently there is plenty of me to go around.

Back to the studio quick, thank goodness for Photoshop.

Moving closer to home – how about Yoga in the garden. The patio is hard and the concrete bumpy. Little stones under mat are somehow perfectly positioned to jab into my knees. A trail of ants starts to make their way across my mat.  “let’s move to the lawn”.  I come from the UK.  The grass there is weak and feeble and very short. The British like to manicure their lawns flat and smooth to pool table perfection. My grass here is cut by the gardeners and more closely resembles shag pile carpet on steroids.  The mat won’t stay flat. It floats on a 3 inch bed of rubber nails. A first down dog reveals this is just not going to work. It’s like trying to balance on a flying carpet.  “We will have to get some Astroturf in and put that on top of the concrete” my wife helpfully suggests. I am not the biggest romantic but somehow the magic of outdoors is lost for me with Astroturf.

Around the corner we have a deck area surrounded by trees.  It’s flat, mostly, once a few leaves are brushed away, and slightly springy. Night is starting to fall, but the mosquitoes are kept at bay by the neighbors “Ultra bug zapper mark II”.  The evening is perfect, warm air, gentle breeze, soft music, and doubles yoga on the deck.  I am starting to understand outdoor yoga. We practice in silence (apart from the soft music, chirping of the crickets and the occasional vaporizing of errant mosquitoes). My moves reflected by my wife as we practice together.  No words are necessary.

It’s beautiful, after savasana we roll up our mats and go inside. Now I understand the attraction of Yoga outdoors.  Do it in the safety of your own backyard and nothing can go wrong.

The following morning I have an early class that I am teaching at a local studio.  As I uncoil my mat I realize there is something wrong just can’t place it. I fold forwards and take my first down dog.  My left hand sticks to the mat. I kneel down to inspect and my right knee sticks too.  Tree sap from under my mat has been rolled up and is now on the top too. Am I slowly being glued to my mat? It’s a whole new definition for sticky mat. It’s more like a fly paper, the more I struggle the worse it gets.   Note to self , “better not do dead bug pose this session”.  The students start to pile in (well ok 3 of them)  I smile and try to act cool. 

We get through the class. Most of the session is performed with hands in prayer position. No adjustments, no feet/neck rubs for my students at the end. Namaste “ah finally a pose I can demonstrate”. As we pack up to leave I realize the bottom of the mat is also sticking, to the studio floor. Tree sap is everywhere.  Oh boy now the next class is coming in…….

Yoga outdoors? no thanks..

Just shoot your legs back

There was a cry from the second row, I looked back to see a knee that’d clearly seen some serious surgery being hugged and soothed. “Just shoot your legs back…” That was the instruction. I had heard  it 100 times before.

The class is teetering in Baddha Konasana (Crow). Some are solid and looking for more; others just glad they finally got the second foot of the ground. “Looking good. Now just shoot your legs back to Chaturanga”.

Laughter and groans: “You have to be kidding…” “There’s no space…” “I only just got my feet off the ground.”

One lady to my right “shoots her legs back” heavily stubbing her left toe into the mat after it has travelled about 15 inches of its 4 foot journey.

One lady to my right shoots her legs back heavily, stubbing her left toe into the mat about 15 inches into its four foot journey.

 Another Yogi shoots his legs high in the air. His toes slam into the mat while his whole body continues its journey south and pauses in a brief upward dog before he recovers to plank. Mmm…good job. The command was not “gracefully” shoot your legs back.

What is going wrong? I had better survey some teachers and find out.

“It’s all about core strength…You see, you have to have the core strength to pull the knees in tight to the chest before you fling them back.” Solution: more core work, more forearms, plank, and other crowd pleasers. 

Next:

“It’s all about shoulder strength…You have to be able to support you weight so you can fly the legs back”. Solution: more shoulder work, down dog, handstand, crow, dolphin, Yikes! another crowd pleaser. 

Next:

“Confidence, that’s what is needed. You just need the confidence that you can do it.” Let’s examine this one: I am wobbling back and forth in crow, my left foot is occasionally touching the mat as I try to stabilize myself. I am getting tired, it feels like I have been holding crow forever. The last time I shot my legs back I took three layers of skin off my foot and lost a toenail. No worries! I will just shoot those legs back but with confidence this time :)  

Next:

“You have to focus on the breath, a deep breath in before you exhale and explode the legs backwards.” Oh please!!

Next:

I have run out of teachers to ask. I guess I don’t know that many people. Maybe I should stop blogging and get out more:)

 So here is my theory:

It’s all about counter balance, well simple physics, really. Even with all of the above, you still won’t shoot your legs back gracefully. As you hold crow your feet are about four inches off of the ground. However, as soon as you start to shoot those legs backwards, gravity takes over. The farther back they go, the more this happens. Someone else can do the math but you only have a split second to get those feet back if they are teetering inches above the mat.  If you don’t believe me, try holding crow with your legs sticking straight out behind you. :) 

Solution: before you “just shoot your legs back,” tip forwards slightly and bring your weight forward over your hands. Now you have room to shoot those legs back.

So there you have it problem solved. No more stubbed toes or twisted knees. No more cries of pain or crash landings.

Of course in order to do this you will need

• Core strength
• Shoulder strength
• Confidence (that you are not going to face plant)
• and a deep breath 

Can’t wait that long? ….. just shoot your legs back.

In my enthusiasm to share Yoga with my classes it is easy to forget that part of the joy of the class is the space between the poses. Teaching a “2-3” class one day and a beginner class the next one has to be careful to adjust. What is the real difference between a “2-3” class and a beginner class? The pace of the class perhaps; the length of time spent on one side before switching; party poses?  In the end they both work towards the same goal I believe, that mind release, the calm feeling that comes after the physical exertion.

 My beginner’s class was 40 minutes in, we had finished the warm up and were half way through practicing warrior III using the wall for support. 

 “Do you think these walls used to be red?” a student asks.

 “Um err …” yikes this is not the kind of question I am expecting. Ask me  “Are my hips supposed to be level”,  “Is my back supposed to be flat”,  “Where should my head be” ……. but “what color were the walls?”, where did that come from?

 A slight digression is needed here. I am almost completely color blind. I have no idea what color the walls are right now let alone previously. My only real clue is that this particular studio at Nandi Yoga  is called the “blue room”. When you are color blind you tend to pick up on these subtle clues

A numeric world some of us can only imagine

 Another student comes to the rescue, “shades of red perhaps?”. A long discussion follows about the color and it relative merits. I am mystified and somewhat in awe, it’s a world I can only imagine a world I cannot reach.

 My friend and original inquisitor has a passion for design and decoration. She shares her world through her blog “Simplified Bee”.  The blog posts give people a view into a different world, a world I appreciate is there but can only imagine. The question about the wall colors is not so strange perhaps given this context.

The real message of course was, “we need a rest”.

A pause, a pause between poses to contemplate another world.

Wait a minute that is the whole essence of Yoga. It’s not about the asana, it’s the pause in between the poses that is Yoga.  One cannot throw out pose after pose and call it Yoga, that’s Yazzersize.

But there is a complication here the “advanced” class the 2-3 class don’t they want more asana, fast, harder.  I am now reminded of a moment in a recent advanced class I was teaching. After a long sequence on one side we are part the way through the other side and I joke “who can remember what comes next?”.  “Child’s pose” is the immediate reply.

The real message –  “enough of this asana it’s time to pause for some Yoga”.

John Berg my mentor and good friend knows the power of the pause. He puts it to such great affect in his classes with mini savasans sprinkled between series poses. He tried to teach me it too but I have to thank my beginner’s class for allowing me to really get it.

I think understand now it’s not the asanas that make a great class, it’s the pauses in between the poses. The opportunity to glimpse into another world, one we may never really understand. The calm and relaxed feeling, that comes with each step towards the world of “Samadhi”.

Ok  you can stop reading now but before you move on   -  pause.