Traffic. Furloughs. Kids. Spouse. Politics. Stress. Stress. Stress. I can’t handle it! I gotta get away! I can’t take it! Where’s my Yoga class? Ahhhh, mat. After class, chat. Then back to… Traffic. Corpse pose and Om long forgotten, snf serenity has been tossed out the SUV window. Did anything change me in class? Or am I still yelling at the person who cut me off? Yoga Perspective My friend Jamie, a world- traveling Yoga teacher, recently moved back to the mountains and opened her own studio. She and I discussed the differences in mentality between city Yogis and mountain Yogis. She observed…
People flock to studios and gyms to practice spiritual gymnastics, yet yoga ultimately has little to do with exercise. That’s a western adaptation. And of course it’s popular because westerners like to be in shape, which is not news to most Indians. Not about exercise? Yoga is about concentration, separation, isolation and not union. It's not about joining the mind-body, but about transcending the mind-body problem. The yoga text that’s most widely read in the west is the Yoga Surtras of Patañjali. The most quoted sutra in this text is the second sutra, which says that “yoga is the …
My yoga journey has evolved plenty over the years. I first craved the “spiritual” aspect because I was still searching for the missing link in my life, and chanty yoga classes resonated with my Catholic upbringing. They reminded me of my favorite part of church - the music! And I really dug the regimented practice where there were 12 postures and a rest. It was organized and fit right into my weird OCD lifestyle. Prop Me Up! Then I hit the yoga streets of California and was confused. I met a bunch who were really into props - blocks, blankets and straps. I especially dug how the teacher would…
Years ago at massage school we were taught that our problems manifest in physical form. If my vision was poor then there was obviosly something in my life I didn't want to see, and if I had a sore throat I apparently wasn't speaking my mind about something. Any doctor with any sense would say that's a load of bull. Many massage therapists lose street cred in the medical community because massage schools teach that stuff. But psychology is a tricky subject. And the mind is easily as mysterious as the body. An Ephipany of the Heart Anyone with a yoga practice can likely relate to having a weird…
Sometimes Facebook is awesome, but other times I'm deluged with mindless chatter and need to escape. Facebook doesn’t reach out of my phone, grab my wrist and prevent me from writing papers or reading articles for school, but temptation is only a click away. I feel good in the short-term indulging in my friends’ check-ins and photo albums, but it’s no substitute for old-school phone calls and coffee house chats. And sometimes I end up feeling outright empty. Or confused by input overload. So, what to do? Go outside. Forest Dweller Old-school yogis didn’t have Facebook, but they absolutely …
Practically every morning for over 12 years I unroll my yoga mat and do sun salutations. Stand at the front of my mat and exhale. Inhale arms overhead. Exhale forward bend. Striking a Pose Here’s where I’ve varied it over the years: On my next inhale Śivananda has me step back with my right foot. Vinyāsa and aṣṭāṅga have me look forward. Sometimes the very next exhale means downward dog. Sometimes there’s a cobra on an inhale. Sometimes an upward-facing dog. Sometimes there are some warriors in there. Sometimes not. Everyone eventually has me back at the front of my mat and everyone wants me …
I’ve been to plenty of yoga classes where the teacher wants me to focus on one thing: breath. Ha! My mind is like a big, drooling, untrained pitbull. In order to get my mind to stop chewing on the fence, furniture, shoes, and yes, underwear – don’t judge me - I need more than one chew toy. Or I’ll get easily distracted. And go back to chewing on everything I’m not supposed to chew on. These days I’ve adopted two new chew toys. Yum. Look! Over There! The really cool Sanskrit word for “gaze”, “point of view” or “mind’s eye” is dṛṣṭi (pronounced “DRISH-tee”). Often when I’m in a yoga class, …
I get emails, phone calls and Tweets constantly from people who want to begin a yoga practice because they want to lose weight. Maybe they see my silly, skinny ass and think that because I practice yoga that’s how I maintain my weight. Well, not exactly. Some of it is because I've never had children. It's also because I hike and paddleboard. But there are also yoga reasons. Ha! What Yoga Isn’t Aerobic. What a crock... unless you do laps around your yoga mat, and even then, you’ll probably just look really silly. There are plenty of yoga classes out there – particularly vinyasa classes – that …
Years ago, my first "guru” told me there are three parts to a physical yoga practice: strength, balance and flexibility. These three things are reflected not only in my mind, but also in my daily life. As a result, one or more can get out of whack very easily because mind, body and life affect each other. Balance... My favorite balance pose is headstand because it’s easy. Seriously. Once I figured out that headstand had more to do with presence of mind than anything else headstand was my cake pose. It’s easy because both the surface area that’s on the floor and my center of gravity are better…
Lately I can’t step outside without my entire body instantly becoming covered in sweat. Sure, it's a nice detox, but I’m sticking to everything from my car seat to mosquito feet. Ack! The problem with unbearable East Coast heat is that it tends to make me cranky and sluggish, and I'm tired of being in a near-constant state of heat-induced exhaustion. What can be done? I can't move to a cooler climate, and must face reality. That's why this week's column is on using yoga to combat an unavoidable summer swelter. Feed My Melon There are foods and drinks that act as heaters and coolants for my …
Sometimes people suck and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes I suck and sometimes I don’t. Meditation, yoga and the Dao help me focus on the ebb and flow of suck. And they help me see the similarities in the non-suck. Yin-Yang Yoga There are a few explanations out there for the word “yoga”. The root word is “yuj” which means “joined”, “yoked” or “harnessed”. The common metaphor used to explain this involves oxen. They work best when yoked together by a harness. The two oxen represent the mind and body. The harness is the higher self or the part of the mind that doesn’t run amok. The symbol for …
Five weeks into my India trip one of my friends met me in New Delhi. I was stoked, because lots of people told me they wanted to meet me, but he’s the only one who did. See, he's a doer. “Lots of people want to come to India,” he said, which to me means that they merely like the idea... In theory. But when it comes down to putting “want” or “should” into action, people often fall short of their own expectations. Duped By The Dreams Long before I discovered yoga I was a big dreamer. I’d sit at my desk in my cubicle for hours – intermittently of course – daydreaming about things I wanted to do…
I began my yoga practice just before I met my ex-husband. The two events are likely related since I hadn't been known for being a relationship girl. Yoga probably helped that. It made me nicer and more attentive to other people's feelings. It also had me take a good, hard look at myself and turn my life in another direction. My ex-husband is in the Navy special forces, which means he deploys and he's been deploying regularly since 9/11. His first deployment took him away for longer than we both expected and also longer than our marriage could withstand. Before he went away I'd had my post-9/…
When I was a software programmer my vacations consisted of maiming my hearing with ridiculously loud music and damaging the rest of me with everything unhealthy I could find to shove in my pie hole. Back then I needed to get away from my life, and vacation was a weird form of reward for all the work I’d done in the office. I didn’t realize until this past weekend that my vacation attitude has changed dramatically. Grab the Remote! My awesome acupuncture friend Sarah and I took a weekend kayaking trip last summer on Smith Island. We stayed on a tiny island called Tylerton that’s so remote we …
Lorton's Suzie Carmack was easy to spot. She was the yogi with the fiery red hair eating healthy Indian food in the Johnson Center at George Mason University. She's currently getting her doctorate in health communication, and as the owner of Lorton's "Centered Being" yoga practice, it wasn't long before she spilled her yoga beans to me. Suzie, who began teaching from her own home studio in Lorton, teaches weekly at the Lorton Town Center. Crossfit Liberation sponsors her teaching and allows Suzie to bring yoga to Lorton at 7:00 a.m. on Wednesdays and 9:30 a.m. on Thursdays. "I've been drawing…
I just came back from Niagara Falls and saw yoga everywhere. I didn’t see a single mat or attend a single class, but water means yoga to me. As long as I remember it’s been like this: I can’t stay out of the water. I don’t care if it’s salty or fresh, although I prefer salty. I even like baths. Crave them. Anything to be in the water. A shower won’t do. I must be immersed. By some accident of birth I was born inland, but that didn’t stop me from moving to the beach as soon as I could. Surfing? For Girls? The first time I got on a surfboard was some time in the mid 90s. It never occurred to me…
When I was a teenager I was utterly obsessed with my individual parts. If my hair wasn’t curly enough I'd perm it... Because that looks natural. My eyes didn’t show up enough = pounds of eye shadow. Eyes now black holes. My waist wasn’t small enough = oversized belt around my hips over a baggy shirt. Weird solution. My eyebrows: one was transformed into two. Leg hair: first shaving (teens), then waxing (20s-30s), then – finally in my mid 30s – lasered! And I still have to wax! Exhausting! Give It A Breast, Will Ya? On Friday, I walked into my tailor with an armful of work for her. She was …
Remember that scene in the film "What Women Want" when Mel Gibson’s character is “gifted” with the ability to hear women’s thoughts? He’s stumbling around a park when the cacophony of a mob of jogging women sends him into a mental tailspin? The film has a weird ending if you ask me. Basically, it says that women want the sneaky jerk that screws them over, but only if he apologizes. But the film was popular and memorable because being inside a woman’s head is like being caught in a maelstrom of crazy. It’s loud. It’s constant. And debris is flying around everywhere. My awesome writer-yogi …
Until around two years ago I thought I was supposed to be a mother. It’s been haunting me my entire life. After all, I was baptized Catholic and we Catholic girls are supposed to breed more Catholics. That’s our job. And all these years I’d unconsciously thought that I wsan't complete unless I had children, that I’m not really a woman - I’m a loser. The Grass Is Greener Right Here A few years ago, I’d recently moved back to the DC area. I was actively dating (ew) and in pursuit of a baby daddy. My girlfriends were entirely supportive and thoroughly entertained by my match.com tribulations. I …
The world can be a judgmental place that sucks for just about everyone. In high school – one of the most judgmental places ever - Madonna made the judgment palatable. She gave me permission to smoke, wear half-shirts and fishnets, and do alluring things with my tongue. Over a ten year period I developed a strut when I walked and threw men away like Kleenex. Madonna had a weird relationship with the whole Catholic thing and I completely and utterly identified with it. I followed her every trend well into my 20s. Shortly after she went public with her new yoga habit I was all over it. The Yogi’…
