Book 1, Sutra 30: Disease, dullness, doubt, carelessness, laziness, sensuality, false perception, failure to reach firm ground and slipping from the ground gained – these distractions of the mind-stuff are the obstacles.

I’ve been thinking about obstacles. New York is full of them. About a month ago I went to the kirtan at Sonic and one of the song we did was a chant to Ganesha. One of the cantors talked about Ganesha as the remover of obstacles, or the one who carefully places obstacles in our way when we need them. I didn’t understand this later explanation and it’s been nagging at the back of my mind.

In Book 1, Sutra 30, Patanjali talks about the nature of obstacles, and their residence in the mind. Despite that I consider my biggest obstacles to live outside of my own body, Patanjali reminds me that the true obstacles are within, in the mind. Linking this to Book 1, Sutra 4, I realized that the most effective way to remove obstacles, internal or external, is to change my mind about them.

I thought some more about the cantor’s description of Ganesha. The Prana has a sense of humor and a sense of deep compassion. There are obstacles within me that I have been turning away from for too long. I deal with them by avoiding them. So Ganesha, in his wisdom, forces me to deal with my obstacles by placing other obstacles in my way that I must respond to, ones that I cannot turn away from. And in dealing with those obstacles, I am being forced to deal with the bigger obstacles within.

I need to slow down, to learn how to make and stick to boundaries, to find my edge and live there – mentally and physically – so he handed me a yoga practice so intense that I have a sore bum and the need for far more sleep than usual. I have no choice but to slow down and consider what it is that I’m really trying to do with this life. For too long, I’ve been so worried that if I slow down, I’ll miss out. I’ll lose an opportunity or a lucky break.

Since I was a child, I have struggled with insomnia. My mind and my body literally couldn’t calm down and go to sleep. Now almost 2/3 of the way through this yoga teacher training, I am sleeping better than I ever have in my life. For 18 minutes a day, I think about these two Sutras. I think about changing my mind, and I wait. And the opportunities, better than ever, are showing up. I don’t need to keep looking around for a better life. The one I have is amazing; now’s the time to slow down and appreciate every moment.

“As a man adorns worn-out clothes and acquires new ones, so when the body is worn out a new one is acquired by the Self, who lives within.” ~ 2:22

On Labor Day weekend in 2009, my apartment building caught fire. I was almost trapped inside and only by following my intuition was I able to get out in time. Almost all of my belongings were lost to extensive smoke damage. September 5, 2009 was a kind of death date for me; a date when stripped of almost all my material possessions, I realized that none of it mattered at all. I stood outside in a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, holding nothing but my keys, watching my apartment building burn. Looking back, I think of that day as a day when I stepped out of my old, worn-out Self, and into a new frame. I still don’t know what the art inside this new frame will look like just yet. I’m a work-in-progress.

Verse 2:22 in the Bhagavad Gita, one of the texts I had to read for my yoga teacher training, resonated with me, as does that image of Shiva, the Destroyer, dancing in a ring of fire. Sometimes we get in the way of our own personal development. We get bogged down with belongings, material and emotional. We need not stand on a burning platform, literally nor figuratively, to recognize that change is needed. Yoga can be the practice that helps us recognize our truth, our purpose, our dharma.

Verse 3:19 speaks directly to the danger that surfaces when we get lost in the demands of our society, demands that others put upon us that do not align with our own personal truths. “The awakened sages call a person wise when all his undertakings are free from anxiety about results; all his selfish desires have been consumed in the fire of knowledge. The wise…have abandoned all external supports.” After my fire and after studying these simple words laid down in the Bhagavad Gita, I’ve come to believe that being “resulted-oriented” and “goal-driven” cause us to miss so much of life. To be shooting for the result while remaining blind to every step leading to that result denies us the beauty of practicing the yama asteya, nonstealing. Yes, where we’re going is important, and it is equally, if not more important, to be mindful of how we’re getting there. If we miss the journey, we deny ourselves the wonder of discovery.

Bearing this sentiment in mind, I read the Bhagavad Gita as if it were a map, laying out a method of living whose goal is boundless freedom. And from that freedom all good things come – kindness toward others because we no longer see them as competitors but partners; justice because we recognize in realizing our own freedom that all people everywhere have the right to be free; peace because all we’re really fighting for is our own self-discovery which doesn’t involve any type of harm to another.

Several years ago, I read a book called Women Who Run with the Wolves. Although the actual words and anecdotes are different, the message is the same as the one delivered to us by the Bhagavad Gita around the question “How do we acquire freedom and mastery of the mind?” The answer: “crawl through the window of a dream.” The window may be small. Undoubtedly, we will have to leave things behind in order to continue our journey through it. We may wonder why on earth we have to struggle so much, why we should even try at all when the big room full of our belongings is really just fine.

That window will not be ignored. It will continue to stare at us until we take up the challenge of crossing over. Through that tiny little frame, lies samadhi, enlightenment. The only thing stopping us from getting there is our courage, our own belief in our abilities to make the journey at all. Arjuna struggled with this same quest, just as we struggle with it. We’re all in this together, across the globe, across the centuries. The struggle does not change; we have to change. The only way forward is through.

As part of my yoga teacher training, we attend Kirtans, a lovely, free-form mash-up of music, call and response, and chanting. I’d never been to one before, and to be honest had never even heard of them. Now I wish I had known about them years ago!

There is an aspect of spirituality to a Kirtan, though the beauty of the spirituality is that it can be entwined with any other religious beliefs (or non-religious beliefs as the case may be.) Our voices and the music blended together, often in rounds, to the point that I could no longer distinguish my own voice from the collective. By the end of the two hours we were all in sync.

As I glanced around the room during the different chants, I could see people in many different emotional states. Some were swaying with their palms open to the sky, completely in the flow of the rhythm. Others were teary-eyed. And still others were just trying to keep up with the sanskrit. I was struck by all of the emotion in those chants, and I was amazed with how we could all come together with such spontaneity and make something so beautiful right there on the spot.

I left the Kirtan humming, thinking of the lessons of Hanuman and Shiva and Ganesha. Thinking about the unifying power of music. Most of all, I felt grateful, so so grateful, to receive and provide joy in equal amounts.

Sonic Yoga will be holding Kirtans at their studio every 3rd Sunday of the month. http://www.sonicyoga.com

My brain is growing exponentially. I’ve been practicing yoga, mostly at home, for 11 years. I read about it, write about it, talk about it, practice it almost daily, and yet this teacher training is growing my practice and consciousness by leaps and bounds, and we’re only two weeks in to a 12 week program. Today Will Duprey, one of my teachers, taught us to fly by grounding us.

For almost 90 minutes we practiced a vigorous standing practice. We came into Utkatasana (chair pose) and held, and held, and held. We followed that up with Utthita Parsvakonasana (extended side angle), Trikonasana (triangle), and Anjaneyasana (low lunge). And repeat, and repeat, and repeat. I thought we were just tiring out our bodies to prepare for final relaxation.

After grounding us, Will asked us to lightly assist one another to fly into hand stand. My body seized up. “I can’t do hand stand,” I thought. Even assisted I’ve never done hand stand. My arms just aren’t strong enough. I’m not coordinated enough to do hand stand. The fictions we tell ourselves.

There was no end to the panicky voice in the back of my mind, but I had no choice. I had to at least assist my classmate to help her get into hand stand. Watching her fly with ease (she’d never been able to do hand stand either) I gave it a whirl, and I found that my arms actually aren’t weak. I am coordinated enough, and I can fly. Truth is indeed stranger, and more powerful, than fiction.

I love to be in over my head. I love the feeling of constant learning, the challenge of gaining knowledge in a world where just around every bend there is more to discover. So of course I would join a program where I am in over my head. It’s where I am most at home, and most alive.

With this realization, my body began to relax and my mind followed. You see, there is never an end to learning yoga. We will never know it all – it’s a 6,000 year science / art / practice. And even if God willing I live to a very ripe old age, there will always be more to learn. I’ll never be perfect in my practice, nor in my teaching. My only job is to show up on that mat and do the best work I can, while also inspiring those around me to do their best, too. In yoga, we are all always enough. On the mat, we give what we have and receive what comes to us. And come to think of it, that’s a nice way to live in the world, too.

Yoga is a level setter. If we feel stressed, it calms us down. If we feel scattered, it brings us focus. If we are tired, it energizes us. If we are wound up, it will relax our mind and body. It is the universal ying to our yang, whatever our yang may be. And with that characteristic, we discover one of its greatest teachings: we must be flexible, we must go with whatever the universe throws out way, our strength and endurance know no boundaries. Ideas that all of us, Olympic athletes included, must keep in mind as we move through our lives. Let the games begin!

For the past few weeks, I’ve been working on clearing my mind more often during the day. The natural tendency for a busy mind is to work ever-harder to crack a problem or find an innovative solution. The yogic belief is that a clear, unburdened, relaxed mind is actually a more creative, efficient problem solver. And now that belief has a boost from hardcore science.

In September, David Rock wrote about the precious gift of a rested mind. When rested, the mind is able to make associations and connections between seemingly disparate pieces of information that a busy mind cannot discern. A break from our work, particularly if that break involves an activity that has nothing to do with the problem we are trying to solve, can be extraordinarily beneficial. A busy mind will run in a closed circuit, making it difficult to develop a break out idea or solution. A rested mind that gets off-track for a bit gives us a better shot at finding the “aha!” we’re looking for.

This same logic holds true for the need to physically rest the mind more than most of us do. Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post is waging a public sleep challenge over at Huffingtonpost.com. (You can view her latest progress report here.) For the New Year, her resolution is to sleep 8 hours per night.

In the New Year, my goal is to be in my bed, lights out, for a minimum of 7 hours. So far, I’ve been able to hold myself to that. If something I wanted to have done before midnight isn’t done, it just has to wait for tomorrow. I also let myself wake up slowly, giving myself a full 30 minutes to just enjoy the feeling of being fully refreshed in my warm, cozy bed. This little trick has allowed me to feel much more aware as I head out the door and into the world.

For freelance writers with a computer-focused day job, it can be tough to break away from the screen. Yet, I find that I need, and even crave, that time away. My eyes need the rest and my writing is of a much higher quality after a break. Practicing yoga is a perfect way to “get away” from it all as a daily ritual. When I step onto my yoga mat, I force myself to let go of any thoughts about work, writing, relationships, and my person to-do list. I just focus on my breath and body; everything else has to wait. That mat is like an oasis for me, a respite from the busy world where I live most of my waking hours.

This idea of an oasis on my yoga mat got me even more excited about my yoga training. For 200 hours over the course of 3 months, my mind will be at rest; it will stop running in circles and I will focus only on my own body and the principles of living a yogic life. Come May, when the training concludes, I expect to wake up feeling more rested and at ease than I ever have in my life. What a gift!

On February 27th I will begin my 200-hour teacher training program at Sonic Yoga in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City. In 2004, I took a 30-hour teacher training over the course of a weekend. That course gave me a small taste of what it’s like to provide the gift of yoga to others. It is an exhilarating experience. With that training, I was able to teach a weekly class for two year to my stressed out classmates while I was in business school. Now, I’m ready to provide this gift to a wider audience. I am particularly interested in sharing yoga with people who are undergoing treatment for illnesses like cancer, diabetes, and post-traumatic stress syndrome.

With the new year I began prepping for the teacher training. I’m sleeping 7 hours per night (consistently 12:00am to 7:00am), practicing yoga every day for at least 30 minutes, and altering my diet by eliminating junk food, artificial sugar, and excess salt, and drinking more water. Small simple changes, though I can already feel the difference in my body. I’m more limber; I breath deeper; I’m happier and less stressed.

In addition to preparing my body, I’m also preparing my mind. I started reading the following books very slowly so I could begin to process their lessons: The Bhagavad Gita, The Yoga Sutra by Patanjali, Prayers: A Communication with Our Creator, The Four Noble Truths, and Anatomy of Hatha Yoga. I have subscribed to Yoga Journal for many years and am now fully-realizing what an incredible resource it is. It’s very clear to me that this training will be as much an exercise for my mind and spirit as it will be for my body.

Erica has given me the incredible opportunity to share the process of my teacher training here on Yogoer.com. I will share my process with you from beginning to end with great honesty, my triumphs and my low points. I am sure there will be many of both. I look forward to the journey.

Namaste.

I knew that Sun Salutations were a good place to start; they supposedly contain every essential alignment, and since students are forced to do them all the time in classes, they would be valuable topics to cover.

I was also thinking about the specific audience: Internet Week participants, i.e. people who sit in Computer Pose 40 hours a week. So I thought some wrist, shoulder, neck, and back movements might be good: Table Top, Locust, Rabbit, Seated Crescent, Spinal Twist, Bow. Also some stretches for the hip flexors, which sit in 90º forward bends all day: Lunges, Hero, Camel.

And I was chewing on something Leslie said last week: “the PRINCIPLE of Chaturanga is learning to hold the body all in one piece.” (Quote is approximate.) It was so interesting to think about a single lesson we can learn in each pose. And then I thought, well, this is a good thing to work on in ALL poses: finding the unity and integration of the body. On a practical level, it teaches us to avoid injury by using our whole body to lift boxes, get out of bed, stand on our heads, etc. On a mental/emotional level, it reduces the hierarchical war of head, heart, gut, and hips; we want them ALL to be happy and acknowledged. And it’s a good metaphor for the Internet: bringing vast and varied communities together in one piece. It’s kind of the whole point of yoga: union, coming together.

Finally, I was feeling like challenging Down Dog. Ever since my shoulder injury, I have been realizing how complex this pose actually is. There are a thousand ways you can arrange the shoulders in this pose, and a thousand points of emphasis. It’s a subtle balancing act of how much to widen the shoulders (or not), externally rotate the upper arms, internally rotate the forearms, straighten the arms (or not), send the sitbones or the tail to the sky, lengthen the spine or relax the neck… and that’s not even getting into the unique upper body strength one must build. (Practicing Half Down Dog standing at the wall is a great start, but still we need something to fill the vinyasa.) So, all I needed was another relevant aside from Leslie (“Down Dog, for all its ubiquity, is not really a beginner’s pose…”) to have the validation I needed to try something new. (Leslie, here’s a prime cut of someone taking your ideas and bastardizing them straight into yoga class ;) Child’s Pose is the usual substitution, but I didn’t want to lose the upper body strengthening entirely, so I played around with Dolphin, the forearm stand version of Down Dog, where I could focus on the shoulders and upper arms more clearly. So this is a full-fledged Vinyasa class with absolutely no Down Dogs.

And then I took some of my favorite poses and glued everything together in an order that flowed. Here it is. It went well enough that I got a round of applause at the end of the class :) :) :) For those of you that attended the class, I hope you enjoyed it and find a way to make it your own!

The Principle of Chaturanga: Being One Piece
a beginners’ workshop for Internet Week

Seated

Breath Scan — your own MRI, if you notice any pain or unusual sensation, that’s your focus for today (listening, not “fixing”)… otherwise focus on being all in one piece

Standing

Leading the Witness — lead with head, heart, lower back, hips to bend forward and come up; notice the difference

Mountain — find relaxation downward, balance upward

Arm Spirals — inhale and rotate palms out, exhale and rotate palms in… keep expanding motion until arms, spine and head are included (thanks to Leslie for this one too)

Raised Arms — circle up and down from Mountain a few times

Prayer — bring the hands together, down the center line of the body

Sun Salutations (inhale/exhale each movement)

Raised Arms

Forward Bend — hands through center, lead with the heart to come down

Low Lunge — first foot back

Plank — find the body all in one piece! heels to head

Knees Down — find one line from the knees to the crown, elbows stay by sides

All Down — drop heart in front of fingers, forehead down (eventually Plank > Knees Down > All Down is all on one exhale, we did a few rounds to get to this)

Baby Cobra — find arch in UPPER back, shoulders relax, navel stays in

Child’s Pose — lift navel and hips back to rest on heels, reboot

Dolphin — elbows stay down, tuck toes, straighten spine more than legs

Table Top — knees down, straighten arms

Low Lunge — first foot forward

Forward Bend — second foot forward and relax

Repeat other side, repeat the whole cycle a few times

Standing Parallel

High Lunge — from Low Lunge, drop back knee, inhale arms up, maybe lift back knee

Revolved Lunge — twist across front thigh, feel spiral in UPPER back

Airplane — drop hands, maybe forearms to floor inside front foot… drop back knee if desired

Splits Prep — “runner’s stretch”, flex front foot and sent hips back to sit on heel

Standing Split — point front foot, walk hands forward onto blocks, torso rests on front leg til back leg is light and lifts up

Forward Bend — release top leg down, relax everything to ground

Repeat other side

Arm Balance

Crow — find one line from middle finger to elbow to shoulder… lift from center to find balance

Standing Rotated

Extended Side Angle — from Low Lunge, turn back heel down at 45º… maybe take same hand to hip and rotate hips to side wall… maybe take front elbow to knee and lift torso… maybe take top arm to sky, find one line from front foot to top fingers

Warrior II — lift torso to vertical, arms stretch front and back (move from ESA to WII a few times)

Extended Side Angle II — top arm reaches to top corner of room, find one line from back foot to top fingers

Side Plank — top arm drops inside front foot, back foot rotates 180º to rest on ouside edge, front foot moves to middle of mat for support, other arm reaches up to sky… find one line through core

Repeat other side

Standing Short + Balancing

Triangle — from Low Lunge, turn back heel down at 45º… maybe take same hand to hip and rotate hips to side wall… take front hand to block in front of calf… hop back foot in to make equilateral triangle with legs… work to straighten front leg

Forward Angle — take top hand down to another block, square hips forward, extend heart to horizon

Revolved Triangle — keep second hand down on block, lift first hand up to sky and feel rotation in upper back

Warrior III — both hands to blocks, move them 12″ in front of front foot and lift back leg and torso PARALLEL with ground, find strength in back body from heel to head

Half Moon — take the hand of the leg that is lifted, place on hip, rotate hips to side wall, feel change in hips

Warrior III — rotate hips back to parallel, feel the difference

Knee Hug — stay on one leg, bend back knee into chest and stand up

Tree — place sole of lifted foot onto inside of leg, find equanimity up and down

Shake out legs and repeat other side

Back Bending

Standing Backbend — from Mountain, place hands on hips and lift collarbones to lengthen front of body

Camel — kneel, tuck toes, find same lift and length from collarbones, maybe grab one heel then other

Hero — from kneeling, bring knees to touch, feet wide… sit on block between feet, maybe floor, maybe lean back

Plank — lower down through Chaturanga! to count of five, to floor

Locust — point toes, interlace fingers behind back, lift upper back off floor

Bow — bend knees, maybe clasp ankles and stretch legs to open shoulders (I forgot to include this one in class)

Child’s Pose — draw navel in to come back

Forward Bending

Rabbit — from Rock, clasp heels and roll head down to floor, forehead touching knees… stretch hips to sky

Dangling — sit up, cross one ankle over other, plant fingertips by thighs, lift pelvic floor and navel up

Staff — bring legs straight out in front, sit on front of sitbones, press palms next to hips, lift heart and flex feet

Seated Forward Bend — same energy as Staff, inching heart (not head) towards toes

Wide-Legged Seated Forward Bend — legs very comfortably wide, feel pelvis tip forward over femurs, keep feet perpendicular to floor

Seated Crescent — bring feet about 3′ apart, turn towards one side, plant palm behind hips, lift hips, swing top arm to back of room and arch whole body up (repeat other side)

Hip Opening

Cobbler — bring soles of feet together, yogi toe lock on toes, tip pelvis forward to send heart down, relax head

Seated Spinal Twist — bring first foot across other thigh to floor, find both sitbones grounded, find straight spine, twist across leg, plant back palm behind hips so elbow can help straighten lower back

Pigeon — keep top leg at 90º, swing bottom leg around to back of room, prop hips, flex front foot, fold forward

Ankle to Knee — roll up, swing back leg around, flex both feet, rest top ankle to bottom knee, tip pelvis forward

Repeat other side

Closing

Half Bridge — from sitting, draw knees to chest, find parallel / slightly turned in feet hip width apart, roll spine down… lift heart to arch up, chest towards chin, interlace fingers under back and roll shoulders out… maybe grab ankles or rest hips in heels of hands

Neck Stretch — roll down, extend legs, interlance hands behind head, look at toes, turn head right to left

Corpse — relaxing each and every part of body, as if you’re a pool of water melting, a paraplegic with no ability to move at all, feeling breath like ripples on ocean, sink down to cool still waters beneath

Fetal Pose — from Corpse, wiggle fingers and toes, stretch arms above head, roll onto right side and scan body again

Seated Meditation — comfortable cross-legged position on block, feeling sensation of breath across nostrils, imagining you’re transparent, breathing in and out through every pore… as if we’re all water droplets in the same big cloud in the air

Repeat every day :)

• Yoga Union hosted a friendly meeting last week with the state education department, who softened their position somewhat. YogaCityNYC attended, and continues to report on the situation.
• The New York Daily News posted a great editorial about the state’s Kafkaesque enforcement of its outdated laws — claiming to have consumer protection in mind even though “Department spokesman Tom Dunn acknowledged… that it has never in its history received a complaint about subpar yoga training.” It’s all about the licensing fees, people.
• Jo Brill updated her resource page with many new links and tips.
• Om Factory is hosting an informational meeting on Tuesday, June 2nd, at 2pm. Alison West is organizing. Please email yogaunionnyc at gmail dot com if you plan to attend, or would like more info.
• And Leslie Kaminoff said “I told you so” — be sure to read his long but worthwhile thread on the original discussions on certification versus licensing. Thoughtful arguments at the beginning, many wise teachers chiming in at the end.

The yoga community is healthy and self-regulating, with a safe certification system already in place, and that this foolish licensing will put many small businesses into the graveyard! Yoga is a vast, ancient system of personal development that does not conform to a bureaucratic standardization of requirements. It can be anything from spirituality to athletics, and there’s no way to quantify what makes a “good” teacher. It’s different for every student. Yoga is an art form of self expression, and teacher trainings are just passing this on.

And for those that find politics deadly dull, here’s a picture of a fawn and a bobcat snuggling.

La la la la