gopoweryoga

vinyasa yoga, mindfully.

Category Archives: philosophy


by 20 Comments

A Reply to Maya Georg: Not just “Tits and Ass” in those clothes…

Let me preface this entire article by saying this: I am a feminist. A Sheila Jeffreys, Caitlin Moran, Simone de Beauvoir type feminist. I believe in gender equality. I believe in sexual freedom. My heart breaks for the women all over the world who live in fear, poverty, abuse, terror, and inequality. I am against the pornography industry and the trafficking of women and men and the selling of sex for exploition.

Credit: Jay Morrison on Flickr, under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

That being said, if you’ve been on Yoganonymous lately (no, I’ve never heard of the site either…this was a facebook find for me) you may have seen a new article with a catchy title, “Tits & Ass in a Mala: Yoga in the Media”. Of course I clicked on it right away, ready to raise my fists and nod in agreement alongside a fellow feminist, dismayed by the mass-media takeover of scantily clad women as the face the American yoga industry. Sadly, I was more than disappointed.

Yes, every other page in Yoga Journal is of a thin, attractive woman in highly flattering, if not revealing yoga clothes. It’s kind of crappy, yes. Can’t they find better ways to make money? I bet putting Jon Stewart in some lululemon would make for a pretty lucrative ad campaign. But no, of course they can’t. We’ve been selling sexualized images of women and labeling it as “good marketing” since print media was invented!

But let us pause for a moment and consider some of the points in Maya Georg’s article and why they undermine actual feminist thought:

1) “Years ago, as a new teacher I remember thinking “I’ll make it as a yoga teacher with my clothes on!” “

  • My problem with this: Okay, Maya. Go ahead! I applaud you! However, nearly every single picture on her facebook, and her teaching website,  feature her clad in nothing but a sports bra and skin tight yoga pants doing incredibly challenging asanas that show off her tits and ass. And who cares!? I wear lululemon wunderunders too… I just don’t try and pretend that I hate them while I teach in them. Women should be free to wear whatever they please. Just because a woman doesn’t show up to your class wearing a brown paper bag doesn’t mean she “could not be taken seriously or have anything other than [her] appearance to offer. In my eyes, they lost all credibility, and were merely reduced to their parts.” (another Maya quote)

2) “Wearing next to nothing and pouting in pigeon pose to shill the latest yoga accessory is exploitation.”

  • My problem with this: see above. Maya, wearing next to nothing, in hanumanasana, dhanurasana… Just because she wasn’t paid to do it as a part of an advertising campaign makes it kosher? She actually replied to one of the people who left a comment on her blog that because she’s not white and not “pouting” while doing it, nor trying to sell something, that means she is exempt from this discussion. Hmm….

3) “The feminist perspective on this should be one of abhorrence.”

  • My problem with this: feminists hating on other feminists. Are you trying to tell me that you’re more “feminist” than the rest of us if you write blog entries hating on women everywhere because of the fact that they are white and wear mala beads while dressed in tight clothes doing yoga? You just hated on a LOT of women in this country. Who CARES? Let them wear mala beads. The fact is that much of what we call yoga in this country is SO far from a tradition or a lineage anyway. And who are you to tell people WHY they should be going to yoga, or what they should be seeking from the practice? Do I wish that people who came to my classes weren’t there for a “sweaty workout”? Yes. Do I wish they were all interested in learning how to sit, how to slow down, how to become aware of the basic subtleties that govern our bodies? Yes. I wish I could convince the world that yoga shouldn’t be just another form of our American fitness obsession. But the thing is, you can’t tell people they can’t do yoga unless they believe in the same system you do. And you can’t say that the people out there practicing asana and meditation and pranayama are worthless if they don’t study ways to awaken their kundalini and fire up their internal shakti and praying to Lakshmi?  That’s like saying you aren’t allowed to enjoy any of the benefits of electricity unless you understand all of Newton’s laws of physics.  You cannot force someone to get the same things from the practice that you’ve gotten. 

4). “Let us celebrate our minds, our capacity for love, and our strength as women! Because our strength does not lie between our legs, it lies within our hearts.”

  • My problem with this: In this one sentence, you assume that anyone who practices yoga dressed in the clothing you’ve described in this article finds their strength “between her legs”. Shame on you. 

5). The photograph you used:

  • You can imagine how shocked I was to recognize the picture of the woman she uses in her article – it’s a friend of mine that I did my teacher training with in California. Yes, I can recognize it even though it’s been conveniently cropped.  She is an intelligent woman, and a fantastic yoga instructor, and in no way does she attempt to sell her sexuality by posing in a tank top and jeans. 
  • **Update: Since publishing this article, and contacting my friend, Denise, whose photo was used on the original article  by Maya Georg, the Yoganonymous site administrator has since taken her photo down and replaced it with a new one.**

I don’t normally write articles like this, but this one just rubbed me the wrong way. This is why there are people out there, WOMEN included who are scared to identify themselves as feminists! Because of the hateful, condescending, holier than thou people out there who market their ideas as “feminist”. Feminism means respecting ALL women, and believing that women deserve equal treatment in society. It doesn’t mean bashing some while glorifying others.


by 2 Comments

When all you need to do is do nothing…

I’m writing today out of a sudden realization that I intended to update my website over the Thanksgiving holiday, and, well, didn’t. Those that know me as a friend know that I am always busy: I pack my days with as many rehearsals and meetings as possible around my classes to try and fit everything in and get things done on time. I usually manage all of it well, but this has truly been the most stressful semester I can remember. I’ve been in fifth gear for months, with no slowing down in sight. Those of you who know me as a yoga instructor might be reading this in a bit of disbelief. It sounds contrary, doesn’t it, to teach the art of slowing down when I in my own life am going a mile a minute?

Well, nobody is perfect, and I certainly don’t claim to be…

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with a student of mine after my morning yoga class. She has been suffering from a foot injury for a while now, and experiences various levels of pain both during yoga and in daily life. After class she mentioned that she just started acupuncture, which has given the most relief she’s felt in weeks. But this morning, however, the pain was back. I said to her, “You know, you really might just need to give it a rest. I mean, total rest. Do nothing. Stop going to the gym, even stop coming to asana classes for a while”

I could see how the thought immediately saddened her. She told me that she had taken four months off of training entirely, and that she’s being careful and modifying all her exercises. She told me, “I can’t just do nothing, this is what I love”. I thought I understood what she meant, but still held on to my conviction that she needed to rest the foot and really let it heal. I thought to myself, “it’s a simple solution.”

Over the years my yoga practice has taught me that slowing down is important; that transitions and the spaces in between are equally as valuable, if not more valuable than end-results. It has taught me that pain is our body’s greatest method of communication, and not something to be ignored. It has taught me that pushing past our perceived “edge” yields no results (except broken egos and hamstring injuries). It has taught me that it is okay not to overcome a challenge, but we absolutely must try. It has taught me that silence, is in fact, golden.

And now, my student and her foot injury have taught me how hard it is to “do nothing” – to live day by day not doing the thing we love the most. For her, it’s CrossFit, for me, it’s singing.

Thursday, December 20th, was my last day of the semester. I had my last voice lesson in the morning, followed by my Italian final exam. I woke up with a scratchy throat, but shrugged it off: I really didn’t want to cancel my voice lesson. I showed up to sing, but my teacher could tell that I sounded a little off- “muted,” she said. I didn’t have the strength in my sound that I had even a few days before during our full run-through of the opera. I thought to myself, “I better not be getting sick…”

Well, over the course of that day, I lost my voice completely. I mean 100% gone. When I woke up on Friday, I couldn’t even find the strength to whisper. A few people at school had laryngitis those past few weeks, and I knew that’s what I was getting. I’ve never had laryngitis, and I’ve never lost my voice before. I haven’t even had so much as a cold since last October.

The days went on, and I still couldn’t speak. Finally, on Christmas Eve, I decided to see a doctor to make sure it wasn’t an infection. “It’s just laryngitis,” he said. JUST laryngitis? I’m an opera singer and I can’t sing! Or speak! He put me on a round of steroids and cough syrup with codeine. That should do it.

Image

It’s been 10 days now, and I just got my speaking voice back on Friday. I still can’t sing. Nothing even comes out when I try to hum above middle C (new career as a bass, anybody?) The opera opens in 30 days, and I can’t even hum. I’m trying to be optimistic, really, I am…  But yesterday I finally broke down. I just started crying out of nowhere. Never have I wanted to sing so badly in my entire life.

And then today, after getting off the phone with my boyfriend, I realized, I am my student now. That look in her eyes when I told her to stop coming to yoga, to stop going to CrossFit; that look of disbelief and sadness, now I know. Our passion is what sustains us each and every day. When you find something you love, and you put your whole being into developing that passion, it feels impossible to do anything else.

I thought I understood the value of rest, of doing nothing. I mean, I embrace savasana as the greatest of all yoga poses! But I admit that doing nothing in this moment has been the hardest challenge I’ve faced all semester. Thousands of hours of yoga practice have prepared me for this: to accept my situation without attachment, to let go, to observe, to take this opportunity for self study. But it still is hard.

So what do you do? When all you need to do and are supposed  to do is nothing? You find other ways to do what you love:

In the past few days I have been listening to Joyce DiDonato‘s new albums Diva, Divo and Drama Queens (a Christmas gift from Steve) non-stop. I’ve been basking in her warm, coloratura glory and marveling at her Baroque ornaments.  I’ve spent all morning studying the score of a work I’m programming on my recital, listening to metronome markings, conducting myself, and silently mouthing the words to tricky sections. I’ve been copying the stage directions of the opera into my shiny, new photocopied score. It feels like I haven’t been practicing, but I have.

Practice doesn’t always come from doing…both in Yoga, and in life.


by 1 Comment

Francois Raoult and “The Sound of Music – Nada Yoga”

I feel honored to have been able to conduct this interview with one of my current teachers, Francois Raoult, the director of Open Sky Yoga Center in Rochester, New York. On March 22nd, 2012 from 6:15 – 8:15 pm, Francois will host the first in a series of three events of guest speakers and performers, called “The Sound of Music – Nada Yoga”. (For more information and to download a PDF registration form, click here). Here Francois discusses what exactly nada yoga is, and how it relates to our physical and spiritual practice.

C: We are approaching the the first event in your series, “The Sound of Music – Nada Yoga” on March 22nd. How would you describe Nada Yoga to the student or musician who is new to this concept?

F: Nada yoga is deep listening to all sounds–the inner sounds of our bodies, breath, heart, etc.; sounds of the environment; mental sounds; sounds of the Universe; and of course what we call music. It is a practice of meditation, being the sound of life itself, yoking to the nature and essence of each sound.

Francois Raoult, Director - Open Sky Yoga Center

C: Can you describe your first experience with Nada Yoga for us? How you discovered the practice and when you really began to make it a part of your life?

F: Listening to great concerts as a teenager–Yehudi Menuhin, Jean Guillou, Heinz Holliger. The sounds of nature. Vibrations of the lower organ pipes in cathedrals. Chanting mantra in Nepal. Playing music at the top of mountains. Recreating wave sounds with a synthesizer. Taping skipping stones on frozen lakes. Listening to “Stimmung” and “Aus den sieben Tagen” by Stockhausen all night. John Cage’s “Musicircus” in Paris. Sonny Rollins in Mumbai. Great Nada Yogis of India, like Pandit Jasraj, where you cry, dissolve, and prana is moved deeply during the singing of ragas. Experiences of synesthesia…sculpting the silence….I have to stop here….

C: What do you hope to develop within the Rochester community by making Nada Yoga a part of what you teach at Open Sky?

F: A deeper interest in appreciating the introverted side of yoga practice. Humming/chanting. Deep listening to all sacred music. Yoga is a state of consciousness. It is not tied up to postures or anything in particular. It is a way of receiving/perceiving–inter-being as Thich Nhat Hanh would say–with the world.

C: How accessible is learning the practices of Nada Yoga to those who wouldn’t call themselves musicians, or “musically inclined”? Is this an awareness that everyone can learn to access?

F: Yes, anybody can have an innocent way of receiving the sounds. Actually, non-musicians may do better, as they are not tempted to label/name/analyze. Erasing all tapes of previous belief systems is a prerequisite, so the less data/vrttis to erase the better. Most yoga students don’t know where the music is. They are delighted to be exposed to exciting stuff beyond Krishna Das, yoga pop with a groove and relaxing New Age junk.

C: Last weekend you began your 2012 Essential Teacher Training at Open Sky. How large a part of the curriculum will Nada yoga play for this year’s students? Do you believe this is something every teacher should be starting to explore?

F: In the teacher training not much, as we learn to See primarily; to read the body in asana as sacred architecture. We look at compensation patterns to minimize pathology and regain our humanness in posture and breath. The Pranayama Teacher Training (Aug. 31 – Sep. 3, 2012) following the essential one will begin to dive into sound, coming up next september for already certified teachers.

C: The first event features a guest speaker, Dr. Ellen Koskoff, Professor of Ethnomusicology at the Eastman School of Music. Do you hope to have a continuing relationship with the Eastman School? What other collaborations would you like to see in the future?

Dr. Ellen Koskoff, PhD

F: Yes, the world of yoga and the world of music are both so ethnocentric. I hope more teachers will come out of academia and share their passion, research, and their views on sound and music. Ellen Koskoff has done great work by hosting that show on the radio–simple, concise, but showing that there are so many “classical” musics, not just “ours”! It is an honor to have her opening the series…

C: You yourself earned a Master’s Degree in Ethnomusicology: how did your studies in music shape the way you approached teaching yoga?

F: Well, my master’s degree took me deep into the Himalayas to record Tibetan rituals in remote monasteries. It just happens those places are not far from where early yogis were meditating, like Mount Kailash. Also, the curiosity and desire to know where everything comes from is part of a spiritual quest…is there a Source (or Sources) from which we are still drinking?! It may also be that practicing music or an art is yoga. So the connection is obvious, personal practice and discovery being number one, not being addicted to taking classes. Teaching gives the signs.

C: Your second lecture, “To Drone or Not To Drone” will explore deep listening from Gregorian Chant all the way to Steve Reich. How do you introduce chant in your regular classes to students who have never done it before, or feel self conscious about making sounds as part of a group?

F: Well, it is a leap of faith. Just chanting open vowels, simple mantras like om, non-denominational humming, etc. Then in deep relaxation we listen to a wide range of compositions. Nothing pushy or extreme. Nothing systematic either… Most students enjoy the group resonance, the sympathetic resonance, the potential overtones, the energy of joined voices without the need to be a singer. Everybody has a voice and a need to come out!

C: Do you see this lecture series evolving to a regular “class” that is offered at Open Sky? Is weekly nada yoga in the future?

F: I hope so. A few times a year. Maybe also live performances with the audience in sitting and lying down yogic meditation….no casual listening! I am bringing David Darling here for a “Music for People” seminar in 2013, so non-musicians can improvise in a group. It’s a little bit like Bobby McFerrin (out of reach) but he already went to the Eastman voice department. That is one direction…. open the sky of yoga to all frequencies!! If life was a movie, could you be acutely aware of the soundtrack? Differences between what we call art or music and life vanish eventually. It’s the same between labor and play, sacred and profane. It’s all good! I hope this series of lectures/concerts will be a good beginning.

**Open Sky Yoga Center is Located at 5 Arnold Park, Rochester, New York 14607 (Behind the Zen Center)**


by 1 Comment

National Yoga Month

September is National Yoga Month! 1,600 studios across the United States have joined together to participate in this amazing observance, offering a week of free classes to new students.  National Yoga Month was created by the Department of Health and Human Services in order to raise awareness about the physical and mental benefits of a regular yoga practice. From their website:

This grassroots awareness campaign inspires both youths and adults to take responsibility for their well-being by focusing on prevention and healthy lifestyle choices. (1)

The key word in this statement is prevention: our current health system is predominantly focused on post-symptomatic treatment and the curing of illness after it has already struck, as opposed to advocating preventive measures to avoid illness in the first place. But this is slowly changing. A 2003 report released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, entitled “Prevention Makes Common Cents” highlighted the out-of-control health care costs in the United States and the dangers of living an unhealthy lifestyle. Heart disease alone cost our country over $300 billion that year.  Our health care system also emphasizes the role of genetics in determining the fate of our health so much so that some people believe there is little they can do if a disease is already present in their family. I have friends that have said to me in response to a comment that they should wear sunscreen outdoors: “Everyone in my family has skin cancer anyway, there’s no point, I’m going to get it.”  Hmm…

Obviously there are many genetic disorders and diseases that exist, and I am not advocating that yoga can prevent or cure such disorders, however it has been proven that heart disease and cancers, though they may carry genetic pre-disposition, are almost entirely preventable. (For further information, read T. Collin Cambell’s fascinating book The China Study, which highlights over 25 years of cancer research and supports findings that our diet is directly linked to the development of many types of cancers.)

So, why the case for yoga as one of the best “preventive” activities you can do in your life?

We know that yoga tones the muscular system, strengthens the skeletal system, increases bone density (hugely important for women), stimulates the lymphatic system and the endocrine system, oxygenates the blood and improves circulation, aids in regulating the digestive system, balances the nervous system, lowers blood pressure, eliminates toxins through sweating, increases mobility in the spine, increases flexibility, signals the brain to release serotonin (and has been proven to aid in treating depression), increases awareness and mental concentration, balances the body’s hormone production, the list goes on and and on and on and on…

I think one could make a very good case that people who regularly practice yoga tend to lead an overall healthier lifestyle than those who don’t. It’s a ripple effect: you start to notice so many positive results associated with the practice that it begins to trickle down into all other aspects of your life. I don’t have numbers or statistics to prove this, but I don’t need to: I see the benefits on the faces of my students every time I teach a class. I can hear it in the way their breath changes the second they cross their legs and close their eyes. I can feel it in my own body every time I unroll my own mat, and forget about what I have to do that day and find true quiet. And I can see it in all the phenomenal grassroots yoga organizations that exist out there, The Africa Yoga Project, Off the Mat and Into the World, The Prison Yoga Project, Yoga to the People, again, the list goes on and on…

On September 30th at 7pm, National Yoga Month is sponsoring a Global Community Yoga Practice. Find a participating studio, start your own event, or just get on your mat in your own home and join in on the practice!

What else are you doing to celebrate National Yoga Month? I’d love to hear about it!

~Namaste~


by 1 Comment

Yoga Instructor Spotlight: Phillip Askew

I feel so blessed to publish this amazing interview with NYC-based yoga instructor, Phillip Askew. My experience with Phillip is recent, but it has already been profound. I first discovered him last year when a fellow yoga teacher from LA shared his youtube videos with me on facebook. When I first saw his “Variations on Surya Namaskara”, I was blown away. I had never seen something so aesthetically beautiful before: he was taking movement to a whole new level, to a form that went far beyond  yoga and dance to a true marriage of bodies in a subtle and flowing display of breath and union. I knew I had to meet this teacher, but didn’t know how.

When I found out that he taught weekly classes at Pure Yoga in New York City, I took a chance and contacted Phillip through facebook, hoping that he might reply and be willing to meet me. Just a few weeks later I was in his Monday night vinyasa class (which was amazing) on the upper west side. In speaking with Phillip after the class about his recent travels to Europe, I knew that I wanted to interview him for this website. He had just come back from teaching at Rasa Yoga Rive Gauche, the studio that I went to while I was living in Paris for a year and a half, so I felt an immediate connection. I would like to extend a huge thank you to Phillip for providing such insightful and inspiring responses to these questions, and I think that any yogi can gain some important lessons from what Phillip’s teachings. Namaste!

Caroline: How did you first get introduced to yoga?

Phillip:  I was 18 years old & working at a children’s theater when I was first introduced to yoga. My mother & I started taking classes there with a kid who had only taken a few yoga classes himself, & was by no means a certified teacher. He would bring books, & we’d all look through the books and try poses. The most important thing I learned from him was how to breath in the Ujjayi style. The poses felt so good to me, & were so deeply therapeutic, that I wanted to practice them every day. So, I bought my own books and started a home practice. 2 years later, I was practicing 2+ hours a day, 6 days a week, when I came upon a book filled with radical wisdom that rang true for me, & postures that I could hardly even attempt on my own, written by teachers working out of downtown Manhattan- where I was living at the time. So, I got over my shyness, came out to my first Vinyasa class, & I’ve been hooked ever since.

C: You’ve made some very beautiful films of your practice: where do you find your inspiration and what is the process that you go through initially to create such films?

P:  I am very much inspired by Dharma Mittra, who 40 years ago created a poster of 1008 asanas that today you can find in almost any yoga studio around the world. Then, there is, of course, the great teacher of the last century, BKS Iyengar, who became famous initially for his amazing public demonstrations. These teachers, by sharing their practices with the world, have inspired so, so many.

Artistically, I’m inspired by artists who play outside the box, revisionists who mix & match conventions from overlapping genres, & play against expectation. To me, that’s what Vinyasa is all about.

My creative process? I shoot first & edit later. I know that sounds simple- but most people trip themselves up editing before it’s time to. I start with a vision, but I don’t force anything. I shoot what happens. I don’t direct my subjects, I direct the shoot around them.

C: How did you get involved in partner yoga work? How is a partner yoga practice different for you than your own individual practice, and what kind of advice would you have for somebody who is interested in learning?

P:  I was fresh out of teacher training when I met Simon Park by way of Twee Merrigan. Simon, at that time, had been teaching for over 10 years, sharing his practice, & serving the world open through it. Simon taught me how to give & receive yoga through partnering, & I quickly incorporated his methodology into my own work. I came to consider my private lessons opportunities for me to practice partnering with others. When you come to it from that place, instead of from a place of, “This is such a drag, I’d rather be doing my own practice,”- when you are, instead, doing your own practice, just on other people- it changes everything. & it’s very attractive. So, that affords you a lot of opportunity, to work, to practice, & to serve.

The most important aspect of partnering is connecting. If you’re interested in learning, that’s gotta be your focus. The connection is everything.

C: What do you find to be the most uplifting and inspiring aspects of being a yoga instructor?

P:  Doing good in the world. You can’t beat that. There are a lot of different kinds of jobs out there, but not everyone can say that they’re doing good in the world.

Then there’s the community. The love that’s out there for yoga teachers is endlessly sustaining, inspiring & uplifting.

C: How has your own yoga practice shaped your life?

P: Practice brings me back to my Self. Back to what is. Back to the simple & beautiful moment, exactly how it appears NOW. I am healthier, happier, clearer & more powerful as a result; in mind, body & spirit. & therefore, I am more effective in realization.

C: Where is the most interesting place you’ve ever practiced?

P: I used to live on the top floor of an 18-story building on Lexington Ave in Manhattan. My roommates & I had a rooftop patio with a lip at the edge that was wide enough to sit on, ease-fully and comfortably- physically, but psychologically challenging. I remember sitting on that lip with one of my teachers, Jason Nemer, when he says to me, “That’s it. I have to do it.” & he presses up from seated into a full-tilt handstand. I was horrified!! Every piece of me wanted to lunge after him, to stop him. But, of course I knew that that may cause him to fall, or we both. & so, just sitting there, still, became a meaningful exercise in self-restraint, patience & allowing. He, of course, didn’t waiver or fluctuate one iota, eventually floating his way back down to sit, grinning.

C: Who has been your most influential teacher?

P: This, for me, is an unanswerable question. In any given moment my teacher appears to me in myriad forms. For each phase of my life, one teacher rings the dominant chord; but amidst over- & under-tones of teachers past & future. At the moment, Thomas Jones is blowing my mind with The Paradox Process.

C: What is your favorite asana and why?

P: Sukhasana. Because it’s easy. With your spine erect, your mind is alert. But, your body is comfortable & quiet. So, you can sit almost indefinitely. & meditate on the edge of infinity.

C: How do you balance having a personal practice alongside being a teacher who is in high demand and travels internationally to give workshops and classes?

P: This was more difficult for me in my earlier years as a teacher, when I was trying to follow “the rules”- like never practicing with your students. These days, I’m creating opportunity for practice in everything I do. Practice is so integrated into my waking life, I’m always practicing. & so, I sometimes practice asana vinyasa in my own classes, public & private. & my students love when I do! I practice every time I shoot video- really practice. The practice takes on more importance than the shoot. If I wake up in the night, I get up & meditate into the morning. I cook, I make love, I serve others.

C: What does the word yoga mean to you?

P: Yoga is total harmonic union. It is a dissolution of the false boundaries between your self & your world. Almost everyone experiences it at least once in their life, whether they practice yoga or not. Many people experience it on a regular basis. Yoga as a tradition is a system of techniques designed to induce this resonant state.


by 3 Comments

Inspiration from Bryan Kest

This past week I had the privilege of taking two different master classes with world-renowned power yoga instructor, Bryan Kest. I have considered Bryan to be one of my greatest influences since the first time I did one of his workshops at Saraswati’s Yoga Joint in Norwalk, CT back in 2006.  His approach to the philosophy behind what we are doing on our mats, and the intensity with which he fills his classes is both mentally and physically challenging, and leaves you filled with motivation and inspiration at the end, along with a myriad of other emotions you never expected to surface.

The first class was given by Newport Power Yoga in Newport, RI on July 20th. This was a truly special occasion for me since it also happened to be my birthday! I was lucky enough to spend the day in Newport with my boyfriend, enjoying the beach and riding bikes with friends before heading off to the Hotel Viking where the class was being held. The format of this first masterclass was half lecture, half asana practice. Now, whenever I try and describe Bryan Kest to people who haven’t taken his classes before, it seems like the only thing I can say is “he’s gonna blow your mind,” or, “he’s a trip.” And boy did he live up to the description. Bryan Kest’s lecture truly blew my mind and I have been spending the past days since replaying his words of wisdom over and over again in my head, asking myself how I can incorporate his message into my own teaching, how I can change my language to better serve my students, or how I can adapt my own asana practice to be a more beneficial, healthful one.

Bryan’s message is simple, really: “People bring their shit to yoga, and turn yoga into shit”. That might sound confusing at first, but what he’s getting at is that we come to our mats with our brains filled with some of the most toxic poisons that exist: judgments, defensiveness, reactive responses, competitiveness etc.. All of these things turn our asana practice into something it was never meant to be: a competition with ourselves and with everyone else in the room. Bryan’s philosophy aims to get back to the core of yoga: the fact that the system of asanas was only created in order to keep the body healthy and supple enough to sit in meditation for longer periods of time. It is in meditation that the true yoga is experienced: strength and flexibility are merely the byproducts of a consistent asana practice, but not the goals.

A Bryan Kest lecture is a unique experience: how many times have you heard your yoga instructor drop the F-bomb in class, or let out a belch so loud you questioned his age? But that’s exactly the point, says Kest. He’s simply giving you chance after chance NOT to judge him, to not write off this swearing, burping yoga teacher from Detroit as just another dumb guy. And he’s right: he catches you leaning towards your bad habits of judging yourself and others, of comparing your body or your practice to the one on the mat next to you, and calls you out on it! For Bryan, the whole point of yoga is to simply touch all the parts of the body, to give them love and attention, to circulate the blood flow to every corner of the body in order to keep it healthy, to quiet down the mind enough to get rid of the incessant chatter that we are constantly replaying over and over again like a broken record, to eliminate stress (which he, and the new Lululemon bags cite is the cause of 99% of all illness) so that we can have a more positive experience off the mat.

Bryan’s philosophy fits perfectly in line with the one my teacher, Ganga White, gave us all during our teacher training: let go of the idea that you have to get anywhere at all: you are perfect exactly where you are! And if you feel like you need to push beyond your boundaries, you are missing the whole point of your asana practice. There is no physical goal: for Bryan, “every asana is stupid”. He talks about there being “no intelligent reason on earth to stick your head between your legs,” and he’s right! He doesn’t want you to give 100%, on the contrary, he’d rather ask for 50 and know that you’re taking care of yourself. But naturally the question arrises, “then why the hell are you about to teach one of the most challenging and intense asana classes I’ve ever taken in my life?” Bryan gets this a lot, and his answer is perhaps his greatest teaching:

Can you think of a safer, better environment in which to practice challenging yourself than on your yoga mat? How are you going to react in a safe and calm manner to all of life’s challenges, if you never practice being challenged in a safe place where you are surrounded by support? If everything was easy, you’d never tap into that place that makes you uncomfortable enough to let go of your habits and force you to react in a different way.

Ultimately, Bryan’s teaching is this: yoga is simply about strengthening the qualities of the mind that are beneficial to each of us and to others, while reducing the qualities of the mind that are limiting and harmful to us and to others.

So after his lecture we began to practice asana. I can honestly say that I have never in my life sweat more during a class while never doing one “advanced pose.”  Everything that Bryan did was a basic movement, something “so easy your grandma could do it.” But the focus and intensity that he asked of all of us added so much energy and heat to the practice. I’ve never shaken so much, rested so frequently in child’s pose, and breathed so deeply for an entire class. You can’t help but keep your focus because Bryan is constantly reminding you as he walks all over the room to keep your eyes on your own mat, to exit the pose early, to fill your lungs entirely with air, to listen to the sound of your breath and to listen to the signals from your body telling you if what you are doing is okay or not. He doesn’t demonstrate a single thing, and he doesn’t need to. He is so easy to follow, his instructions carry you like a wave throughout your practice, making you laugh your ass off along the way. (If his rhyming and swearing doesn’t do it, I don’t know what will!)

At the end of a sweaty hour and a half of asana, all of which he calls “warm-up exercises” the real yoga begins: sitting meditation. He asked us all to sit comfortably and to let go of the ujjayi breathing, to just focus on what was happening in the body. And then it happened: the tears started to flow as he asked us to meditate on gratitude: perhaps the most powerful meditation anyone could ever do. There was no stopping it; one by one you could hear people start to cry as he asked us to think about our mothers and our fathers and our teachers and the trees and our friends and our yoga mats and… it was a domino effect of gratitude that filled me up with more joy and light than I have ever felt in a practice.

I imagine this is not a unique experience in a Bryan Kest class: it’s who he is. His ability to touch his students in a way that most never get to experience in a yoga class is inspiring. He challenges your mind in a way that leaves you thinking about it for days thereafter, and he challenges your body in a way that makes you glad you rested in child’s pose as often as you did.

His second workshop was held this past Saturday, July 23rd, at Kaia Yoga in Westport, CT. Many students were lucky enough to take his whole “Power Yoga Weekend” being held at the studio. I returned for his morning asana class with my yoga teacher, Lauren Lanham, my boyfriend, and my dear friend Laura Jacques (who owns the Flower of Life Yoga studio in Coventry, CT, and gave me my first teaching opportunity.)  I was so grateful to share my practice with such beautiful people, and for the opportunity to take Bryan’s class twice in one week!

If you are interested in Bryan Kest’s Power Yoga, please visit his website for more information on his teaching style, philosophy, workshops and retreats, and on-demand videos and classes.


by 1 Comment

Yoga Instructor Spotlight: Lauren Lanham

photo by Stephen Mahier

Lauren Lanham RYT, has been studying and practicing yoga for the past 16 years. Certified by the White Lotus Foundation in 1996, her teaching style draws upon influences from both the Iyengar and Ashtanga schools of yoga.

My journey with Lauren first began in 2004 while I was working at the front desk at Yoga for Everybody in Fairfield, Connecticut. At that time she was teaching a Power Yoga class every Wednesday night, the only one offered at the studio at that time. After a few months of regular classes I had finally gathered the courage to try power yoga, though I had no idea what to expect. What I discovered was some the most inspiring and influential teachings of my entire practice. Lauren has been my instructor for the past seven years, and through her I have experienced countless hours of profound, challenging, and fascinating practice on my mat. Today, Lauren has graciously accepted to be the first yoga instructor interviewed on this website!

Caroline: How long have you been practicing yoga and how did you initially get started?

Lauren: 16 years ago. I was a personal trainer at a swanky gym in New York City that offered yoga classes. The teacher was an ex-dancer with whom I bonded immediately. She introduced me to her yoga teacher, and the rest is history.

C: How has yoga been a catalyst for change in your life?

L: Practicing yoga allows me to get into my whole body and out of my head, which in turn creates a much more grounded place from where to make decisions.

C: Who has been your most influential teacher?

L: Genny Kapuler, an Iyengar teacher in New York City (for more information, visit Genny’s website)

C: What is your favorite asana? Why?

L: Hm, that is a toss-up between headstand and shoulderstand. Both are deeply profound yet so different. The holistic benefits I experience from both of these long-hold asanas have deep effects on my body, mind, and spirit. No poses impact me as fully as when I hold a headstand or shoulderstand for a minimum of five minutes. These two poses are strengthening, meditative, requiring of deep breath work, focus, concentration, and surrender. They are like mini 8-limbed yoga experiences in a single pose!

C: What do you enjoy most about being a teacher?

L: Sharing my love of yoga and giving my students a safe environment for exploration.

C: If you could give one word of advice to a new yoga student, what would it be?

L: How about four words: courage, compassion, patience, and practice.

I’d like to take a moment to thank Lauren so much for giving this interview to gopoweryoga.com. If you are interested in taking Lauren’s amazing classes, please visit Yoga for Everybody’s website for more information. She currently teaches Friday afternoons at 4:30pm!


by Leave a comment

Developing your own practice

Developing a home practice can be a daunting thing for many beginning yoga students. There is always the fear of “not doing something right,” or maybe it’s fear of getting hurt, or just a plain lack of motivation. Maybe you think you don’t have the right space at home to unfold your mat and practice in solitude, or maybe something is keeping you from creating it. For whatever reason, it often takes people longer than it should to start developing their own yoga practice outside of classes with a teacher.

For me, it probably took a good three or four years of going to daily yoga classes (which I had the luxury of doing thanks to working at my local yoga studio) until I actually started doing yoga on my own at home. This may be a familiar story for many of you, and there really isn’t a good reason to justify the delay!!

Any  person, regardless of their “level” or experience in hatha yoga practices, can begin to practice at home after only a few classes led by a teacher.  The most important thing in actually getting on your mat at home, is making the space and the time for it, which is probably the biggest thing holding most of us back.

You might think that you need a special yoga room if you want to have the same experience at home that you do in the studio, but this really isn’t the case. If you can play a little tetris with your living room furniture (especially if you have a hardwood floor), you might find that you can create a nice square of space to lay your mat down on and start moving.

Even someone who has only been doing yoga for a few months can benefit from just sitting and breathing at home. Take ten minutes out of your day to sit on your mat or a block, close your eyes, and practice ujjayi breathing. Lengthen the inhalations and exhalations, slowing down the rate of respiration. This is a practice beneficial to everyone.

Take your least favorite, most challenging asanas, and work on them at home, in the privacy of your own space where your nerves or worry about what others may think won’t get in the way. The beauty of practicing on your own is that you become your own teacher, and that is where you learn the most in your journey through yoga. Going to class is a wonderful experience: the opportunity to learn something new from your teacher, or try a new pose and have physical assists and adjustments is invaluable. So too, however, is your home practice. You will discover things about the way you move in your asanas that you may not have noticed in the context of a class, and you might be able to let go and achieve something you might not have thought possible.

So for those of you not already practicing at home, why not make it a goal to create a space for your mat, be it in the living room with all the chairs and couches pushed to one side, in your bedroom, the basement, or better yet, outside! Go through your weekly schedule and find a realistic time that you could practice, and make it a habit. Home practice takes dedication, and has to become a habit in order for it to stick. We can all find reasons to not practice, but ask yourself, does what you had planned instead benefit your day or your life as much as your yoga? We have so many technological distractions that keep us from our practice nowadays: count how many minutes you spend on the internet per day, and see if you can’t cut out 30 of them for your home practice.

Let it be something you enjoy, and something you look forward to. Ask your teacher for suggestions or advice on how to get started, and get ready to explore yourself!

~Ooooom shanti~


by Leave a comment

On the mat, off the mat.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of “on-the-mat, off-the-mat” (perhaps because I was recently chided for acting very “off” the mat): meaning, what we learn about ourselves and practice on our yoga mats while in class should start to transfer into our daily lives, and how we behave and react off the mat. I’ve been realizing that this is where most of us need to do the bulk of our “work”, myself included. Nobody is perfect, but we all can benefit from observing our own behavior and making conscious and intentional changes.

Let’s play a little game called “Never Have I Ever”. For those of you who haven’t been to a teenage sleepover, it goes like this: you put a finger down if you’re guilty of any of the following statements, and once all 5 fingers are down, well, let’s just say you’re not taking the lead here:

1) I’ve come to class huffing and puffing, totally out of breath, because I practically just ran over a small child in order to beat someone to a parking space outside the yoga studio.

2) I body-slammed into three people running up the hill and didn’t even bother to say excuse me, but instead swore under my breath at the innocent passerby’s as I picked up the speed so I wouldn’t walk in late to my favorite vinyasa class, only to burst in the door just as the teacher was blissfully chanting “om”.

3) I’ve sped like a crazed demon on the highway, enough to get my license revoked if pulled over, in order to make sure I was the first person to the 9:30am-once-a-month-super-crazy-advanced-three-hour-long-workshop held at a posh studio in New York City.

4) I’ve yelled at my toddler to stop nagging me and go find something else to do so I could do my Rodney Yee Power Vinyasa DVD in peace, promising to look at his special drawings that he made JUST for me, later.

5) I’ve forced and pushed my way into every single pose offered during class, because the person on the mat next to me looked perfect in all of them, and I didn’t want to look like I couldn’t “handle” the class (even though my back was screaming at me and my hamstrings were about to snap in half and give up entirely).

…okay, so maybe not all of these situations DIRECTLY apply to you, but, I’m sure that ALL of us have at least one little pinky finger bent shamefully down. I know I do (not the toddler one, but the huffing and puffing for sure)…

The point is, if we come into a yoga class with all this negative energy, we are going to transfer some of that into our practice on the mat. And then, even if we think we feel better after the class, we will unavoidably walk away with some of that energy still lingering in our bodies, and more importantly, in our spirits.

So, if we let our yoga practice become more “off-the-mat” focused , by remembering the tools we use as we do asanas, and how to apply them to our daily lives, we’ll notice a shift in our behaviors when we find ourselves in stressful or high-pressure situations. If we can all start by remembering the sheer power of the breath to calm and relax our bodies and emotions, to release tension and move energy, and the power of setting an intention for each and every one of our actions and choices, then we will all make huge strides in our practice off the mat.

Nobody gets it right every time, that is called sainthood. But we can all strive to do it better the next time around. That’s the beauty of life, we get second chances. The universe is CONSTANTLY giving us opportunities to get it right the next time – we don’t have to fall into the same patterns over and over again. We can choose to make changes in our lives, and in the way we act and react, and we can use the tools we learn in yoga class on our mats to get us there.

Here’s to practicing! Cheers!

Namaste


by Leave a comment

Every pose is not for every body

This week I found myself talking a lot about back bending in yoga with some friends of mine, which sent me into thinking about how the asanas vary in their forms, depending on the body that is doing them and the anatomy of that body. My own backbends tend to be very deep because of the flexibility of my lumbar spine, and the openness in my shoulders. For others, however, backbends often pose problems – either in terms of pain in the sacrum or locking up in the shoulders. This reminded me of a phrase that many people in the yoga world like to use: “yoga is for everybody,” and I’ve been thinking a lot about how that really isn’t true. Sure, the practice of yoga is for everybody, and can be adapted to anyone and everyone to meet their individual needs, but to think that everybody one day will be able to do a specific pose with enough practice, is both unrealistic, and honestly, dangerous.

I’ve had a lot of people ask me, “how long will it take for me to be able to do that pose?” And the answer is honestly, I don’t know, and you may never. Every body is created differently, and there are no two bodies that are built exactly the same way, even if they may look similar on the outside. The underlying structures of our bones determine so much of our range of motion and flexibility – it is not simply a matter of practicing until our muscles get loose or strong enough. Someone with more turned out hip bones for example, may never do a full hanumanasana (split), which requires an intense amount of inward rotation in the hip joint, or someone with very small wrist bones and a fragile radiocarpal joint may never feel at ease doing many arm balancing postures, which put intense pressure on the wrist.

This absolutely does not mean, however, that one should not have goals of becoming stronger or becoming more flexible, or even aiming to build up to a certain pose that may not be attainable in this moment (though I caution against making the absolute goal all about the pose, ah, it can seem so complex, can it not?!). All this means is knowing your body, and knowing what feels good and what doesn’t, and what is a reasonable edge to play with. The important thing is to adapt your yoga practice to fuyour body, and to understand this fundamental concept that every pose is not for every body.

This leads me to my second topic:

Just because your body can do a pose, it does not mean that it is beneficial.

This is a concept that has taken me a long time to learn, but am grateful that I learned it early. Had I not started yoga at suchWh a young age, and learned this lesson at 32 instead of 22, I could very well be facing some serious injury. In keeping with the topic of backbends, like I said, my lower back is extremely flexible, and throughout the years I have been seriously using that flexibility as a way to cheat into poses that actually require more strength and flexibility from the thoracic spine (middle spine) and not the lumbar. In turn I have been seriously crunching my first few vertebrae and discs in order to move into my “deepest” version of a pose. While this all felt wonderful when I was 16, it doesn’t feel so great at 22 anymore (please don’t yell at me if you are older than 22 – I’m being serious, I’m starting to feel a difference in my poses as I… ahem.. age).

During my training at White Lotus I studied anatomy and injury prevention, and was made aware of the dangers of constantly putting such intense pressure on these small and fragile little discs in between the vertebrae, and discovered that my lower back had actually developed into a “hinge”. We had a visiting physical therapist who used me as an example of someone who is actually weak in the lower back, but just sinks into her flexibility. By putting a strap over my lower spine, and asking me to come into a backbend pose without “hinging” at the lower spine, I was stunned into an extremely humble baby cobra pose, much lower to the ground than I normally practice, and yet far more muscularly challenging than I had ever experienced. Once I stopped relying on the hinge in my back, and actually asked all the muscles that connect to my lower vertebrae to do the work of the pose, I was barely lifting my chest 3 inches off the ground! And, what’s more, is that this action of immobilizing my lower back actually forced me to build my pose from the thoracic spine like I am supposed to, and open my chest and heart to create the backbend, not sink into my lumbar.

To test your backbends in bhujangasana (cobra pose), I highly recommend this practice, which everyone can do, provided they have no injuries that would prevent them from laying flat on the floor facing down:

1. Start face down on your stomach on the mat. Draw your palms back by your shoulders, directly underneath, elbows squeezing in, shoulderblades moving onto the back of the body.

2. Press the tops of your feet into the mat, engage the thighs by lifting the kneecaps, and feel your thigh muscles and legs rotating in towards each other.

3. Pressing into the palms, come into a baby cobra position, lifting your chest just a few inches off of the ground, gazing directly in front of you, tucking the chin in slightly to elongate the back of the neck.

4. Lift your palms two inches off the mat. See if this causes your whole torso and chest to lower back down towards the floor. If it does, you are up too high in your cobra pose and relying too much on the bend in your lower back or the strength of your arms, and not enough on the openness in your middle back and chest.

If you are able to maintain the same cobra with your palms up off the mat as you were with them down pressing into the floor, you are truly working the pose! You will feel your lower back muscles strengthen as you continue to practice the pose in this way, and you will definitely see the benefits in your alignment as you make the shift from doing a cobra to an upward facing dog during your sun salutations.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,258 other followers