Mia Baer

Last night I was invited uptown for a little restorative yoga. I’ve returned to my strong vinyasa classes lately, so I was happy to head for a Sunday night slow-down.

New York Yoga is a well-established studio with two locations: a heated studio on 85th and Lex, and the main studio at 86th and York. The York space is beautiful: simple wood floors and stone columns anchor the two small classrooms, while a winding hallway leads back to spacious locker rooms. Drop-in classes are a top-of-the-line $23, plus $2 mat rental, but the comfort of the space made me feel like it was worth every penny.

As I waited in the hallway for the classroom to open up, I leafed through Judith Lasater’s restorative yoga bible: “Relax and Renew: Restful Yoga for Stressful Times.” One of the preeminent teachers of restorative yoga, Lasater turned to the style after a family member died. She lost the desire for her standard yoga practice, and decided to practice restorative poses for a year, in response to her grief. They helped her accept and recover from her pain and fatigue, and inspired her to teach the style for which she is now well-known. Putting the body in a comfortable position and focusing on the breath triggers the relaxation response (slower/lower heart rate, metabolism, breathing, blood pressure, and brain waves) in as little as five minutes. It’s “active relaxation” because the mind is gently focused, and the body is carefully stimulated as well as relaxed.

Mia Baer, the instructor of the evening, studied with Lasater (as well as Alan Finger and Seane Corn). She teaches both vinyasa and restorative yoga. This restorative class was highly recommended by the staff at the studio, and indeed had a good turnout (about 15 students) for a beautiful spring evening. Mia (pronounced MY-a) was friendly, articulate, and just radiant with good health. She got us quickly arranged against the walls around the room, prepared with our piles of props. A bit of Alternate Nostril Breathing slowed and balanced our minds, and then we moved to the restorative poses.

Starting off in Reclined Cobbler (Supta Baddha Konasana), we lay back on bolsters, blankets and blocks. Eye pillows (or just a tshirt as blindfold) were recommended, but I hadn’t brought anything into the studio with me. For ten, maybe fifteen minutes we lay listening to music — and the tension in our hips. Mia did a delicate massage of lavender oil around our necks and temples, bringing another sense into relaxation. To keep the mind focused, she suggested slowly counting up to four and back down; indeed, this helped check my daydreaming. The stretching sensations were moderate but steady, and at the end of the pose I was surprised how much my knees had opened out. I was also happy to spend a chunk of time in a pose recommended for my shoulders (the bolster beneath the back lets the shoulders relax outward, counteracting the Chaturanga tension yogis tend to build up).

Next, it was time to “stop, drop and roll” into Legs Up the Wall (Viparita Karani). A slight variation added a little backbend to this gentle inversion: placing the bolster a few inches from the wall let the tailbone arch downward. My lower back was very happy. We also rested the hands on blocks, out to the side, which let my carpal-tunnelled arm feel nice and comfortable. This pose is great for swollen feet or varicose veins; circulation trickles down the legs and back to the heart.

After that was Savasana! (I still can’t get used to just three or four poses in a 75-minute class. It flew by.) We lay two blankets down the length of the mat, providing a full-body cushion, and added a bolster under the knees. A beautiful direction to focus on the feeling “halfway between falling and floating” sent me deep into relaxation, and when we finally pulled the knees into the chest I felt quiet and calm. We released the knees to one side, and then the other, gently twisting the spine, and then slowly brought ourselves up to close.

The simplicity of the class was refreshing: each pose was just a few sentences of instruction, a gentle adjustment (or not), and then the whir of the AC clicking on to clear the air. We were left in peace and quiet for at least five minutes each pose. Eventually my mind started to absorb it. I could only wish for better soundproofing, as the teacher next door and students in the hall were a constant drone in my ear. But Mia led us ably past the distractions of late students and exiting classes, and I left with a big dopey grin. I don’t know which glands / muscles / organs are stimulated, squeezed, stretched, or comforted by these poses, but the practice of relaxation was golden.

Last week I took two great classes at a cute little studio in Williamsburg, Namaste. They have been around for a year or two now, and I’ve been meaning to go by; classes are by donation and I’ve heard good reviews. Finally, the return of my shoulder pain overrode my normal vinyasa class, considered a jog instead, but finally opted for something new. Qigong!

Erin

Erin, the qigong teacher, has studied it for eight or nine years, and did her teacher training with a senior teacher who’s since moved back to Japan and named Erin as her East Coast heir. She gave me a great overview of its principles. (I knew it was something like tai chi… slow movements focused on moving or storing energy… but didn’t know what actions to expect. She said they’re similar; tai chi is supposedly a bit more active.) Qigong is the basis of all martial arts. You’re gathering energy from the four cardinal directions (north, south, east, west), each of which relate to an organ, and a secondary organ, and the elements (earth, water, fire, metal). For example, when we face south, our kidneys face north, which brings water to the kidneys. Studying qigong, you’ll learn these relationships in more detail, but for my first class she suggested just following the movements — they’re healthy even if you don’t know what you’re doing.

We started with a short meditation, and then a nice self-massage of our arms, legs, hands, feet, and head. Brisk strokes down the outsides of our legs/arms, and up the insides, cleared any energy blockages. Thumps across our muscles and joints did the same.

We began the exercises in a wide-legged stance, dropping the hips back as if a primordial tail were our third leg of support. We circled the hips in figure eights, bringing focus to the primary energy center three fingers-width below our navels: the Dan Tien. Throughout class we returned to this spot in name and with gesture, letting its energy flow down to the perineum, run up the spinal cord, and split across the arms, or condensing energy into the belly with a movement of the palms.

We practiced two main exercises, with ten or twenty movements each: soft steps to the side, arcing arms, tucked tailbones, flexed fingers, fixed eyes. I felt clear and graceful, as if I were walking on clouds. Gazing into my palm, I felt it tingle, and smiled as I turned it back to my belly.

By the end of class, the headache I’d walked in with had GONE. My shoulder was feeling much softer, too. It was a very satisfying meditation in movement.

Debbie

That same week I went to Restorative Yoga with Debbie, the owner of Namaste Williamsburg. (Leaflin’s post on restorative yoga fired me up, if you can be fired up for restorative yoga.) I’d just received an intense email from an ex-boyfriend (note: DON’T OPEN THOSE) and thought maybe I could process it better laying on my back. With two bolsters. And a block. And two blankets. And an eye pillow.

(Restorative yoga makes me feel like Steve Martin in The Jerk: “I don’t need any of this. I don’t need this stuff… Just this ashtray. And this paddle game… the ashtray and the paddle game and that’s all I need. And this remote control… The ashtray, the paddle game, and the remote control, and that’s all I need. And these matches…”)

We started in a seated meditation, butts on blankets against the wall. Pressing our lower backs into the wall gave a supported, elevating feeling to the spine and breath. (No one can sneak up on you with your back against the wall, and the ribs have concrete support from which to expand.) Debbie calmly led us deeper into our bodily sensations; her voice could launch a thousand audio books.

Our first pose was supported Half Bridge, with a blanket under our head and back, and a block under our sacrum. She encouraged us to use the first or second height of the block; the third is too intense when holding the pose for ten minutes. We rested in the pose, focusing on the breath, letting the blood reverse its downward flow through the torso. The eye pillow really helped to calm the mind, which follows any dancing — or resting — movements of the eyes.

We held two other long poses in the 90-minute class. Legs Up The Wall was great for my achy feet, pounding from the miles of city pavement I’d walked that day, and soothing for my lower back. Reclined Butterfly, our hip opener, added a bit of intensity and vulnerability. Relaxing into those feelings was challenging but ultimately rewarding. By the time we hit Corpse, I had melted into the floor. This was meditation on stillness.

I don’t know if I “processed” any of my confused emotions that class, but it was definitely therapeutic to relax as they flickered across my mind. A cup of tea and a nice chat with Debbie afterward sealed the session with bliss.

The studio also offers several Hatha classes, tending towards the classical style I think. They’re great for beginners — full of alignment instructions and patience. The studio has a cute, friendly spirit, and I look forward to more meditations there.

I have recently taken my first 2 restorative yoga workshops, and I may be premature in saying this, but I think I might be hooked.

It shocks me to say this! I have never had any interest in restorative yoga. Then again, there was a time I didn’t have an interest in any yoga at all. And one of the many lessons I’ve learned from my practice is that the practices I have an aversion to initially often become the ones most important to me. So I’m open to and excited about this shift.

Why have I had an aversion to restorative practice? Well, one of the main reasons is that I’ve always had an aversion to using lots of props, which restorative yoga definitely requires. I’ve just never felt comfortable dealing with all that STUFF – lugging it around, setting it up, etc.  That’s one of the reasons I have loved yoga so…..because all I really need to practice is my body. I love the simplicity of that, being able to practice anytime, anywhere. It’s not so much an aversion to seeking support in a pose, but preferring to find that support in the form of trees, playground equipment, the scarf I’m wearing, etc. This attitude has given me a lot of freedom and spontanaeity in my practice which I cherish and have tried to protect.

Part of my aversion to props is in rebellion against what I see as the rampant consumerism and commercialism that has found its way into the world of yoga. I have been thoroughly disgusted trying to read an article in Yoga Journal only to find advertisements (and sometimes really bad ones) on EVERY SINGLE PAGE, and dismayed at times walking into a yoga studio seeking peace and relief from the street only to find a boutique full of accessories and the familiar feeling of desire welling up….that if only I had this or that item, my practice would be so much better. Yes, I have built a fortress of stubbornness  about “accessorizing” my yoga practice, to protect this sacred space in my life from the corrosive effects of the greed I know I’m susceptible to.

I’d like to just mention here, with regards to the many yoga boutiques opening up all over…..they are not evil, I know, but let it be known also that there ARE other options. One of my prime influences is the amazing teacher I did my 1st teacher training with back in 1999, Diane Wilson of Portland, OR. The only thing for sale in her studio is the highest quality yoga instruction, enhanced with homespun props like lots of knee-socks looped together for straps, basketballs, hoola-hoops and any number of fun objects that find their way into her space. She remains my greatest inspiration for this and other reasons.

Well, if I get down to the heart of the matter I can see that both my aversion to props and the consumerist aspect of yoga stem from the same place: ah, that ol’ devil, ego! As the sage Bob Marley says, “Every need got an ego to feed” – in the case of comsumerist yogis, the need for products proclaiming “I am a Yogi”; in my case, the need to define myself as a particular kind of yogi that doesn’t need props. Well – I’m ready to acknowledge that perhaps I’ve been silly and neurotic about that, and that I’m ready to break with my ego on this point.

Speaking of ego, that is another reason restorative yoga has perhaps not held much allure for me. Quite frankly, restorative yoga doesn’t do much to entertain the ego. And quite frankly, the healing that happens in yoga practice often begins at that level. For me it did. When I discovered yoga at the age of 20, I had been struggling throughout my teenage years with a coctail of depression, low self-esteem, negative body image and food-addiction. Yoga helped me to learn to love my body based not on what it looked like but on what it could do! How marvelously it could function, the beautiful poses it could perform! So, in the beginning my practice was definitely geared towards learning fancy and exotic poses, and this was healing to me on many levels. My body became healthier, my self-esteem increased, and old energetic knots came undone. I re-learned the feeling I had as a child, of feeling at home and happy in my skin, and that I deserve this feeling; that it is my birthright. What a precious gift.

As we know, yoga is a gift that keeps on giving, and an authentic practice will keep on evolving. In the Body-Mind Centering training I’m doing, we are required to take some restorative classes. And thus my world was gently rocked.

I took 2 classes.  The 1st consisted of all floor poses, “easy” stuff accessable to pretty much anyone. The 2nd was more advanced, using chairs and more complicated set-ups to get into inversions and backbends. In both, we used the head-wrap, which is kind of a gauzy ace-bandage thing wrapped around the eyes and head.  This closes off the eyes and gives a nice gentle pressure to the skull which supports pratyahara. I love this – though apparently it makes some folks crazy. Then we proceeded into a series of reclining and semi-recling poses using all the props – bolsters, blocks, straps, etc. The poses mostly lasted 10-15 minutes each. Some of them were effortlessy yummy.  Some started out feeling awful (like the 10- minute down-dog with hands on a chair) but then became blissful (as I finally let the top lobes of my lungs open up!) And many of them were physically uncomfortable and frustrating throughout, even more frustrating because they seemed like they were supposed to be “easy”. Part of it is the “princess and the pea” syndrome – every little wrinkle in the folded blanket can be disruptive to the nervous system. And part of it is just the nature of the beast. It made me see I don’t mind working hard but I want to see obvious results, like a handstand, dammit! But I proceeded as an act of faith, and the rewards came. At the end of each class, I had the feeling of being in some sort of clear, bright, yet cocoon-like space. It wasn’t the endorphinated rush of a vinyasa practice. I could feel the delicacy of cerebro-spinal fluid moving . And I liked it. If you’ll forgive me a drug analogy….a friend and I joked that if kundalini yoga is like doing a line of cocaine, then restorative yoga is like taking an opiate. I suspect somewhere there is a scientific expanation to support this…

Beyond the feeling directly after class, I noticed that my body felt different in my regular practice. I was more in touch with deeper openings; my breath felt freer. This is valuable. I don’t know if I will ever let go of my more vigorous practices. They still feed me. But its true that my body and mind are evolving in the process of age…the gift that comes along with stiff knees and the like is a deeper and more subtle awareness.  Being able to go further than ever into practice, more safely and precisely. The vigorous practice becomes sustained less by muscle-power and grit and more by that subtle awareness. Restorative yoga can support this growth.