10 habits to avoid

I feel very fortunate to work at The Yoga Center in Utah. Wednesday 5:40-7 and Thursday 12-1. The center is owned by Anusara-Inspired teacher Leslie Salmon who is currently going through the certification process. Leslie encourages and helps her teachers to continue to study and grow. She has a lovely library that we can “check out” books from. It is so nice to have support as a student and teacher of yoga…

Anyways on Thursday I arrived early so I could do some light asana before teaching my class and instead I found myself browsing in the library. I came across: Textbook of Ayurveda, Fundamental Principles by Vasarly Lad M.A.Sc. I have been very interested in Ayurveda for the past 3+ yeas. I have taken many workshops from Arun Deva, Shiva, Andrejs Gailis…As I flipped through the textbook I came across a list “10 habits to avoid”. Seeing them all in a list was really interesting, I have heard of most of them before yet I definitely have a habit of doing many of these. This list motivated me to put more effort in creating balance in my life style. I wrote the list down and thought I would share it here.

1. Overeating
2. Eating without real hunger
3. Emotional eating
4. Drinking fruit juice or excess water or no water during a meal
5. Drinking chilled water at anytime (this one is super hard for me I love ice water but I also know the cold water puts out our digestive fire)
6. Eating when constipated or emotionally disturbed
7. Eating before 7am or after early evening
8. Eating too much heavy food or too little light food
9. Snaking on anything except fruit between meals (I hadn’t heard this one before)
10. Eating in compatible food combinations such as fruit with a meal
Very interesting.

I am so excited john friend is coming to The Shop in Park City Utah on Monday to teach immersion 3 which I will be volunteering and hopefully observing and then I am taking his intermediate/advanced workshop next weekend.

Other fun yoga happenings:

• Jen Hechti s teaching The Practice tonight at The Yoga Center 5:40-7:40 by donation
• Jen Hecht and Matt Newman are teaching The Practice tomorrow at Snowbird Cliff Spa 1-3 (could be off on the time) 20$ includes spa and pool.

Have a lovely day.

Highlights from my diary

(recently moved into a new apartment with no internet yet, so blog posts might be less frequent till I get connected)

I just got back from The Uncle Uncanny’s Music Festival. It was a wonderful experience full of shri (beauty) and Lila (play). I danced to music, made new friends, played/ got stung by a bee, taught yoga, hula hooped, reiki, swam in a river, smelled the earth, smelled flowers, watched the sky….
Once I returned home to my new apartment I arranged my books on my bookshelf and came across my journal from a few months back, that I had temporarily packed. I looked through some of my entries and thought I would briefly share (these are just highlights from some of the topics I have been studying, if one interests you leave a comment and I would love to elaborate more fully.)

1. Yoga Sutras 2:3 discusses the 5 Kleshas (pains/blockages to spirit)
a. Avidya: ignorance (a =not, vidya=truth) associated with tamas
Asmita: “I-ness” “ego” a false sense of self. The person you think you are is not the person others think you to be. Makes it hard to learn from karma.
Raga: attachment. It’s not nessisarily your physical possession of something it is that things possession of you. Attachment of the mind (I find this kleshas fascinating, it is very interesting to observe)
Dvesa: repulsion, fear of the new/unusual/different (closed minded, judgmental)
Abhinivesah: fear of loss, clinging to one’s life

Thinking of maya reminds me of the freedom we have in our life. I heard Douglas Brooks say (roughly) its great we have freedom! The problem is everyone else has freedom too. This freedom allows us to fully enjoy life and choose our perspectives. We can choose to be negative; we can choose to pick at everything, point out and notice the bad. We can choose to see the darkest side of every situation. I think most people choose these perspectives because it is easy, it is easy to notice the bad. We also are free to choose another perspective. We can choose to be positive, we can choose to see the goodness in life we can even choose to see that everything in its essence is imbedded with goodness, everything is intrinsically good. We can choose to look at the brightest side of every situation.
Question: How can we use the kleshas to see the beauty and goodness in life?

2. The 3 A’s of Anusara yoga and Karma, Jnana, Bhakti...

a. I have been re reading the Bhagavad Gita and reading other translations (which is always fascinating to look at someone else’s perspectives). I think Krishna’s main teachings in The Gita are the Three Ways to “God”. Krishna tells Arjuna that you can connect with the heart and with God through Karma (action), Jnana (knowledge), and Bhakti (devotion). What I love to much about Anusara yoga is that it offers an invitation not to pick one of these ways to know and connect more fully with your heart, but Anusara yoga is an invitation to practice all three of these ways at once, we call these the 3 A’s of Anusara yoga. The three A’s and how they relate to the three forms of yoga:
• Attitude (the Will to be, know and to do)= Bhakti
Alignment (knowing the Will) = Jnana
Action (manifesting the Will) = Karma

3. The Highest purpse of Anusara Yoga
a. CHIT: Self-Knowledge to know oneself
b. SHIVA: Awakening, recognition, remembrance, self-realization, enlightenment
c. ANANDA: Creative expression, to enjoy the freedom of being
d. SHAKTI: Make beauty, serve the increased joy of the whole, exulting in the Goodness, celebration, flowing with the heart

4. Pranayama is formed by two Sanskrit words. Prana= Life force energy, Yama= The control of. Pranayama is really cool because when we use and control our breath we can conrol our life force energy.

a. These are five main movements of Prana:
• Prana: rising in-drawing energy, from foundation and extending up
• Apana: downward rooting energy, rooting into foundation
• Samana: contracts to the core, hugging into the midline
• Udana: Rises and moved outward, extending out from midlife, organic energy

b. These five movements of Prana underlie every movement we see around us. Everything is an extension of Prana…The way we move, a tree grows, a car moves, the planets swirl, our heart beats… Prana this vital life force energy is marvelous because it is the fabric of everything. It is like the oneness we can merge and experience our self with. Through the experience and control of our breath we can begin to experience our pranic body. This experience opens us up to something bigger. First principle.

c. “All that exists in the three heavens rests in the control of Prana. As a mother her children, oh Prana, protect us and give us splendor and wisdom” Prashna Upanishad 2.13

Adho Mukha Vrksasana (handstand) CELEBRATION

Adho Mukha Vrksasana (AMK, Handstand) is a fun and exhilarating pose! However, it can seem daunting and not worth trying…not true. I encourage you to play with this fun pose. Honor where you are in your practice and where you are on your journey toward this fun inverted pose. When we honor where we are on our path, we are putting our self in the current of the now, into the present moment. When we are in the moment we can acknowledge and celebrate each and every small step along the way as we progress toward handstand. On the other hand when we view handstand as a goal, of it only being a “success” if we are balancing on both hands in the middle of the room, we step out of the flow of the now, we get frustrated and we miss our opportunity of celebrating the little steps of progression on our journey.


When we celebrate we are filled with a sense of joy and delight. One of the three key features of Anusara yoga is the non-dual Shiva-Shakti tantra philosophy. The basic premise of this philosophy is that life is inherently good! We acknowledge that there is one big energy (Param Shiva) which is the highest and most subtle of all the tattvas (levels of existence). This energy this higher teacher is what we are invoking when we chant the Anusara invocation at the beginning of class. In the invocation we say this highest teacher is the essence of peace and bliss. So when we experience and celebrate bliss in our practice we are aligning with this highest teacher. We are aligning with the bigger energy that we are all a part of.

Some tricks and tips for working on AMK:
Kicking into handstand:

When you kick into hand stand you want to be leading with the belly of the hamstring, and which ever leg is swinging you want to keep it completely straight and emphasis inner spiral.

When you are kicking into handstand the bottom leg that is bending is pushing down into the floor to help get your bum above your wrists or to the wall.

How to put on the brakes on while in mid air?

Push finger pads strongly into the mat
Lift head (skull loop)
Flex feet

SO HAVE FUN. PRACTICE HANDSTAND. CELEBRATE!

I practice handstand every day even if it is just for a few mins of kicking, and every day I find something to celebrate in my journey upside down.

muscularity and Flexibility...stability and freedom

On Wednesday night I went to a bouldering rock climbing completion that was put on after the outdoor retailer show. It was great I watched the women’s and men’s bouldering finals. It was insane to see these incredible and beautiful climbers. As I was driving to the completion I was very interested in seeing their level of flexibility since I assumed they were likely to be very muscular. Watching I could see there were a few climbers who were very muscular and stable. They could hold on to those tiny holds, but the holds were very spread out and some of these strong climbers didn’t have the flexibility/freedom to make the reach with their arms or legs. I also watched climbers who were very bendy and flexible they could through their leg up but didn’t have enough strength to make the move. However the majority of the climbers had this fantastic balance of strength/stability with flexibility/freedom. These climbers were a delight to watch. I could clearly see that the climbers who were balanced in stability and flexibility had the opportunity for the most freedom (they had many more options available to them for solving the problem), they also expressed the most shri (beauty) and they moved with grace. It was a magnificent experience.
In our practice on the mat we want to develop stability, strength and physical integration (muscular energy) but we want to balance that with expansion, flexibility and freedom (organic energy). Watching the climbing completion reminded me of the importance of balancing out our self when we practice on the mat so we don’t get so muscular and so stabile that we are unable to express our freedom, but at the same time we don’t want to get so loose and flexible that we are no longer safe and supported.

This was the focus of my class this morning at Flow Yoga. We worked on creating strength and flexibility in the shoulders and in the hamstrings. I reminded the students that finding this balance is very personal. We all bring something unique to our mat…our self! For example, I am very flexible and I have been working for over a year to bring more stability and strength into my poses. When I do a forward for like paschimothanasana (seated forward bend) I could just lay and rest on my legs but if I do that all my freedom and shakti escapes my body so I need to contain it by bringing more strength (muscular energy) into the pose, by scoping my tail (outer spiral) bone and rounding my back. On the other hand my husband is more muscular so he wants to focus on extending our and lengthening (organic energy) he wants to emphasis sticking the sit bones toward the back of the room (inner spiral) and the heart toward the front of the room.

The class was really fun. The students were rocking it with great studentship, dedication, and even some laughter.

Restorative Yoga Class

Tonight was great because I had an opportunity to teach a restorative yoga class called “relax and release” at Flow Yoga SLC. I have taken this class a few time and I have subbed this class a few years ago and the class reminded me very much of a gentle yoga class. My new understanding of Anusara especially my knowledge about therapeutics made me really excited to sub this class. I am an avid reader of Maria Cristina’s blog and she often writes about her restorative classes. In her classes from what I can tell she offers as many as I would say 5 poses and as few as 3 in a 90 minute class. The reason for this is using multiple props to help hold the body with the universal principles of alignment and then allowing the body to completely surrender onto the floor, props, chairs… for a duration of 5-15 mins. I didn’t want to totally shook the class with only 4 poses so we did move a little in the beginning. It was really great experience I overheard students saying I feel so restored yeah. I did notice as the students we holding some of these supported poses past 2 mins they started to twitch.


So that’s what we did:
Tadasana ½ moon stretch, AMS
anjaneyasana twist
Moving bridge
Supta pigeon
Supported bound sputa baddha konasana (bolster, blocks, blanket)
Legs up wall (bolster,strap)
(I wanted to do a long supported twist but didn’t have time)
Shavasana (bolster)

how are you feeling? How can we move toward the sattvic spot

I took Matt Newman’s Anusara-Inspired class last night which was the first class he taught (I believe) since he got back from Wanderlust. He was on fire and the class was full of great presence, pulsation, clarity, passion and some laughter. One thing I especially loved was how he started the class. He had us come to our mats close our eyes and noticed how we feel. He even said (in my ruff translation) that this isn’t the same as when someone asks you how you are doing, and you respond automatically saying good or okay. He asked us to really notice how we are feeling with compassionate non-judgmental awareness. This was a great way to start class, giving us an opportunity to not only tap into the heart but to listen to the authenticity that is there. Thanks Matt, I will be borrowing this approach. Our awareness is so awesome because it is like a huge bowl and can hold whatever we put in it be it anger, jealousy, greed, self pity, love, excitement. When Matt or a teacher encourages us to put into our awareness whatever we may be feeling we can be comforted knowing that our awareness can hold it, and our attention can help shift it, expand it, and learn from it.


It is important to check in and notice how we feel, because if we don’t know how we feel/or where we are we can’t get to how we want to feel/where we want to be going. I like to use this metaphor of being in a canoe or a raft (I did just get back from a rafting trip). We are all in our little individual boats in the middle of this vast ocean called life and we are trying to get to this specific spot. I call this spot the sattvic spot. Sattva is one of the three gunas (qualities of nature) that is a state of harmony, beauty, vitality, ease, joy and intelligence…We are all trying to get our boats toward this place, toward this experience. In our boat we have some paddles. We have the freedom to choose to move our boat toward or away from this sattvic spot. Sometimes we get closer toward this spot passively; it’s the currents and the winds that with a sense of ease move us closer with little effort on our part. It just seems like good things keep happening. Sometimes it is really hard and requires a lot of effort, dedication and we have to row our ass off to move more toward sattvic. Same goes for moving away from this sattvic experience. We can move away passively and sometimes we even pick up our paddles and we put effort into rowing away from this harmonious experience/spot.

In this ocean there are also waves that rock our boat. Patanjali says in his second sutra of The Yoga Sutras "Yoga chitta vrtti nirodah" the traditional dual translates is "Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind." I like to look at this sutra with the non-daul, life affirming point tantric point of view. No matter what we are doing in our boat, what direction we are going, we are going to experience some waves (vrtti). I purpose that instead of trying to stop them, can we instead lean how can we ride these waves? How can we use these waves as an opportunity to move closer toward the heart, toward this sattvic spot/experience? I think one of the ways to do this is by authentically listening to our heart and noticing where we are. This applies on and off your mat. On our mat, ask your self, is taking full expression of ardha chandrasana helping me experience more radiance or will having my hand on my hip allow me to access and express my inner beauty more fully?

How can we allow every breath, every adjustment as a way to align with our heart more fully so we may paddle ourself and ride the currents of grace toward this sattvic spot in the ocean we are floating on 

Theme: listen to your heart and your breath and use what comes up as a map to help you enjoy a more sattvic experience.

Sequence idea:
AMS, UTT, tadasana
Surya A 5x
High runner lunge
Parsvakonasana
Ardha chandrasana, vira 2, ostrich
Vasisthasana
Prasarita padottanasana
Scandasana

Virrasana (hands on head skull loop, organic extension)
Sirsasana
Childs
Pinca mayurasana

Anjaneyasana + quad stretch
Pigeon + quad stretch + mermaid
Matsyendrasana/ Setu Bandha
Double pigeon
Upavist konasana
Parvrta upavista konasana
Baddha konasana
Shavasana

Sacrum

I just got back from floating down The Cataract Canyon on a raft. This trip was great for many reasons. One reason was from sitting in a raft for multiple hours a day and noticing my posture, the posture of others, and the complaints about low back pain. This was a wonderful reminder of how important the sacrum. When the sacrum is balanced in rotation and is going in and up it is a beautiful thing.

The sacrum bone is located at the base of the spine and its job is to transfer the weight from the upper body to the lower body. The way we hold the sacrum in our daily life and in our asana practice is very important and can help us maintain optimum health or can act as a source of lower back pain and discomfort. The sacrum, located at the base of the spine, is formed from five fused vertebrae’s and looks like a downward-facing triangle which is interesting because the symbol of a downward facing triangle represents the unmanifested coming into manifestation. Because of where this symbol is located it is very fascinating and interesting. The flat part of the triangle that represents the direction of the unmanifested is facing upward. If you look at the subtle body energy and the chakras you see that the higher you get up the spine the more transcendental the energy gets. At the crown of our head is where we find the svadhistana, 7th chakra. This is the most mysterious and transcendental chakra and is where Shiva is said to reside. If we follow the downward point of the triangle down we find the muladhara chakra. This 1st chakra that rests at the base of the spine is the most gross, most earth, most manifested energy and is where the coiled serpent (kundalini shakti) lays waiting. (Just an interesting side note: We can see this symbol in the heart of the Anusara logo.) When the sacrum meets the pelvic bone it forms a joint called the sacro-iliac (SI) joint. Most people suffer from low back, SI joint pain, and this is normally caused and can be prevented by the positioning of the sacrum.

There are two main normally misalignments that many people habitually make in their everyday lives. There are also little ways to correct the misalignment:

1. It is very normal to collapse onto one leg while standing. For example, if you were talking to someone and you straightened and put most of your weight on your right leg and stuck your right hip out to the right with a little bend and barely any weight on your left leg. This will cause the right side of your sacrum to push back (because you are collapsing on that hip), this backward pressure and rotation on your right SI joint to go out and get stuck. When I say get stuck I mean your sacrum will be “stuck” is this rotation and will keep the sacrum turned at an awkward angle.

a. How to identify which way your pelvis is rotated: lie on your back, with your knees bent in and your feet on the floor. Gently flatten your lower back to the floor. Keep your feet on the floor and slowly bring your knee to the right, and then a few inches to the left. Feel for a knobby place (the PSIS, Posterior Superior Iliac Spine) around the back of your pelvis. The side where the knob feels the most dominant is the side to which your pelvis is rotated.

b. You can also identify this misalignment with the help of a friend. Turn around so your back is facing your friend and lift up the back of your shirt. Have your friend notice the two indents at the top of the sacrum (you might need to feel around for these). Have your friend put their finger on each one of these indents notice how they are positioned. Then lift up one knee hip level and then do the same with your other leg. Have your friend notice what finger moves the most as you left up your knees.

i. You can help correct this misalignment with the first universal principle of Anusara yoga which is open to grace. When we talk about the first principle we are also talking about the inner body. If your pelvis is rotated away from optimal blue print so if your inner body. To correct this turn your inner body away from the side that you pelvis is rotated, and this may feel very imbalance it is actual balanced and neutral. Having the misalignment in the sacrum has re programmed your body to what “neutral” is however the body is wrong and this new "neutral" is continuing to move the body farther and farther out of alignment. By turning your inner body way from collapse you can “re program” the body so the sacrum is facing straight ahead. Whenever we talk about principles it is important to remember that we are always practicing a combination of the 5 so even though I am emphasizing the open to grace in this situation you still want to do everything else as well. For example if you don’t work muscle energy, engaging the muscles then you can’t maintain the position of the inner body.

2. It is also very common to round you low back causing the sacrum to go out and down. When the sacrum is positioned like this you are causing too much compression on one side of the vertebrae and too much extension on the other. We want the sacrum to be going in and up because this puts a natural inward curve in your back which helps align the whole spine.

a. You can create the sacrum going in and up using the Anusara universal principles of alignment. Inner spiral the thighs, take the inner thighs toward the back of the room or if you are sitting down toward the back of your chair. This should cause a trench like curve in your low back and cause your sit bones to widen. This is great now we want to get the core working to help support the spine so create outer spiral by scooping the tail bone under so the curve inst quite as intense and so you can feel the low belly lift. And way-la! Sacrum in and up. You can reach your hand to your low back/sacrum and you should feel the downward facing triangler-ish bone going in and up to the base of the spine.

I like to imagine my pelvis as a bowl filled with water. And as we have talked about above the positioning of the sacrum has a huge impact on how that bowl is held. If your pelvis is rotated toward one side your bowl will be tilted and the water will spill out to that side. If your sacrum goes out and down, your bowl will be tilted backwards and the water will still out toward your heels. If your sacrum is not rotated and your sacrum is going in and up your bowl will be neutral and your water will be contained. In your daily life and in every asana pose we are working, using the universal principles of alignment, to make sure our bowl/pelvis/sacrum is neutral.

Some asanas categories to work with finding balance in the sacrum:

Asymmetrical Poses where one leg is forward and one is back (lunges, parsvakonasana, parsvottanasana, virabhadrasana, Trikonasana…): in all of these standing poses you want to create that neutral pelvic bowl. Do this by balancing out the outer spiral (scooping the sit bone) of the front leg and inner spiral on the back leg. It’s an asymmetrical pose, so the sacrum will need to tip in and up faster on the back leg side, while it will need to go down and in faster on the front leg side. You can take your hand to your low back and feel the sacrum to make sure it is going in and up, you should have an even lodorsail curve in your back. If the curve is really big lengthen your tailbone toward the earth so the low belly engages.

Sitting poses and forward bends (sukasana, uttanasana, janusirsasana, upavista konasana): for all forward bends, the top of the sacrum must draw in and up before moving past 90 degrees in the pelvis. This is a crucial alignment for the health of the lower back.

Symmetrical poses where the feet are in one line (Ustrasana, tadasana, utkatasana): as a symmetrical pose, this is a really great way to realign the sacrum/pelvis. Use your inner body to balance the rotation of the pelvis. Inner spiral the thighs and emphasize this on the side that the sacrum is rotated toward. Then apply outer spiral and emphasize this action a little more on the side that the sacrum is rotated away from. So to continue our example from above, you would inner and widen your right sit bone out a little more, and you would scoop your left sit bone under a little more.

Prep for shavasana: bend your knees and put your feet on the floor knees over ankles and isometrically draw your heels back toward your sit bones which will create a lodotic curve in your back. Keep the curve as you straighten one leg at a time toward shavasana

Resources:
Yoga nerds notes by Zhenja
Yoga as Therapy, By Doug Keller):
The Anatomy coloring book, by Wynn Kapit and Lawrence M. ELson
static.howstuffworks.com/.../sacrum-picture.jpg