Book 1, Sutra 4: At other times [the Self appears to] assume the forms of the mental modifications.

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.

Stay Grounded

Yoga teachers often use the word grounded. It’s a verb (to ground through the feet) and an adjective (a grounded feeling). But what does that really mean? It’s a yoga cliche, a phrase that’s used so often it’s lost some of its punch. And most of us didn’t know the definition to begin with.

Read the whole thing on The Huffington Post

“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.

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April Martucci

I love lunchtime classes, even though I never make it to them. Short and sweet/sweaty, they remind me that it’s possible to fit a great practice into sixty minutes. (It’s the leaving work part that I can’t seem to manage.)

April Martucci, director of the Mind Body Studio at the swanky Reebok Sports Club, finally got me to a lunch class yesterday. I really liked her website, and her yoga style is called “The Fire Dragon Method” — how could I resist?

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Yoga teacher training is opening up my eyes to a whole new world.

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!

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“If you make a rule [or tell yourself a story], be prepared to stand by it with conviction. Also be prepared to change it at any moment.” ~ Will Duprey

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. Read more

Tanya Namad

I was tempted to skip yoga today. Forty mile an hour winds kept me from crossing Third Avenue; my umbrella simply wasn’t going to make it to York. But, literally one minute after I’d given up, the cross-town bus arrived like a knight in screechy armor. I made it to class just a few minutes late.

Tanya Namad, a recent graduate of Atmananda Yoga, invited me up to her vinyasa class at New York Yoga. I did my first teacher training at Atmananda (albeit with different faculty), so I just hoped I wouldn’t be too adrift in memory bliss.

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Lots of events in the air, it must be spring. Here’s one from Pure:

Come expand your nutritional knowledge at Pure Yoga’s Upper East Side location on Tuesday, March 16th. In celebration of National Nutrition Month, Pure welcomes area experts on healthy eating, drinking and living – including a private chef, juicing demos with recipes and samples, organic chocolates, beauty supplements and more!

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There’s an event worth attention this Saturday. Ashtanga Yoga New York is holding a benefit for Odanadi, an organization in Mysore, India, that fights human trafficking (forced prostitution and modern-day slavery) and helps rehabilitate its victims with education, housing, and yoga.

YOGA STOPS TRAFFICK is a one-day global yoga event to raise awareness about human trafficking in India. On March 13th, 2010, Yogis around the world will roll out their mats for a mass sun salutation, to take a stand against trafficking and show their support to its millions of victims.

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Oh no no no

It turns out that yoga in the back of the office is the best idea ever! We’re going to keep it up through March.

The focus is “desk job decompression:” yoga poses to counteract all those ruinous hours at our laptops. We usually do 15 minutes of simple stretches to wake up the wrists, ankles and spine, then about 45 minutes of standing poses, and a guided relaxation at the end.

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