I am interesting...thats what I was told today

Today I taught a yoga hour at the yoga center. I love that the yoga center offers this yoga hour. It is so affordable. Even at studios that offer pay what you can, I never would pay only four dollars so I love that this class is only four dollars. Recently more than ever I hear that the price of yoga classes is stopping people from starting or continuing their practice. This four dollar yoga hour allows everyone the opportunity to practice yoga without feeling guilty for spending too much money.


Today in class there was a man who was new to me. He was older and he started to talk about how much he loved inversions because he heard that it turns the off switch to the brain. I told him that inversions are also cardiovascular. They actually strengthen the hard and tone the heart because the heart has to pump hard to get the blood all the way up to the feet. Inversions also bath the brain in blood while oxygenating it.

We then had are asana practice which was really fun. It was a very big range of students and I felt like my teaching style slightly changed to get on to the students level. I am a very passionate and fiery teacher and I feel like that comes out a lot when I teach. Today I felt much more grounded and calmer teacher and I think it was well received by the students. Of course I still was light hearted as I taught and we shared some good laughs.

At the end of the class as the students were rolling up their mats this man announced that he had a riddle. He said “what is the difference between Kim (me) and a rubber band?”…..”Nothing” he said. I replied with a big smile…”a heart, hair, toes….I can think of lots of differences between me and a rubber band”. After he put his props away he came up to me and looked into my eyes and thanked me for learning all that I have learned and for taking the time and putting effort into sharing it with the students and him. As he said these words I felt my inner body get brighter and my heart open more fully. What wonderful words to hear as a teacher and a student passionate about yoga. Then a few minutes later as he was leaving he looked at me again with those genuine eyes, and he said “you are very very interesting”. I paused not knowing what to say and then replied “err I’d rather be interesting then boring”. He continued to look at me began to shake his head and said “very very very interesting” walked down the stairs I hollered ‘have a beautiful day” and he was gone.

What an interesting experience.

The Loops

One of the refinements we use in Anusara yoga has to do with loops. The loops are a series of specific, interconnected trajectories of energy in our bodies starting with the feel and going all the way up to the skull. I like to think of them as bike gears that intersect and move in opposing directions from one another.

The seven pairs of Loops are:

Ankle
starts at the base of the shinbone just above the ankle. It moves down the back of the heel,forward along the bottom of the foot, then back up through the center of the arch to the front of shin base.

Shin
starts at the base of the shinbone just above the ankle. It moves up the back of the calf muscle to the top of the shins just below the knee, forward through the top of the shin, then down the front of the shin back to the base of the shin.

Thigh
starts at the top of thighbone in the core of the pelvis (pelvic Focal Point). It moves down the back of the leg to the top of the calf muscle, forward through the top of the shin, and then up the front of the leg through the lower abdomen back to the Focal Point.

Pelvic
starts in the core of the abdomen in line with the middle of the lumbar and a place just below the navel. It moves down from the middle of the lumbar to the middle of the buttocks in line the bottom of the sacrum, forward through the floor of the pelvis (pelvic Focal Point) to the top of the pubic bone, then up the lower abdomen to just below the navel. The Pelvic Loop has the same direction of rotation as the Thigh Loop. However, they have opposite effects on the alignment of the body. The Thigh Loop moves the top of the thighs backward, while the Pelvic Loop moves the top of the thighs forward.

Kidney
starts in the core of the abdomen in line with the middle of the lumbar and a place just below the navel. It moves up the back from just below the kidneys to the bottom of the shoulder blades, forward through the top of the diaphragm (heart Focal Point) to the base of the sternum, then down the solar plexus to just below the navel.

Shoulder
starts at the center of the upper palate (skull Focal Point). It moves down the back of the neck and the upper back to the bottom of the shoulder blades, forward through the bottom of the heart and the top of the diaphragm, then up the chest and throat from the base of the sternum to the upper palate.

Skull
starts at the center of 7. the upper palate (skull Focal Point). It moves back and up along the back of the skull, forward over the top of the head, then down the face back to the upper palate. The Loops interconnect with each other and so influence each other as they are independently activated. For instance, as you Outer Spiral the legs the Pelvic Loop is activated, which in turn will help to increase the Kidney Loop.

As we get older our body through bad alignment starts to go against the loops. Coroners used to identify the age of a dead person by looking at these loops and the more they were out of alignment the older they are. After learning about these loops it is very interesting to people watch. I am a student and one of my professors has the loops way out of balance I want to go to go align he all class.

Reference:
Anusara Teacher Training Manual
Anusara Master Immersion
Awesome loop photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sharonfrost/26593683/

Focus on shoulder loop and inversions

The main theme of the class was chit ananda. The reason we or at least I practice is to learn more about myself. In this learning about myself I see what my strengths are and what my weaknesses are. I see where I need to make a shift in my life with regard to my habits, behaviors, people and situations. These shifts allow me to align more fully with the flow of life and as a result I experience more happiness and bliss.


Shoulder loop
We tend to roll our shoulders either forward and down or forward and up. Try this. You’ll notice your heart sinks away as the shoulder blades disconnect from the back of the heart. Keeping this position take your hands to your trapezius and feel them...Do they feel hard? Engaged? Yes they probably do. When we hold our shoulderes in this position we are actually cultivating more stress, pain, and tension in our neck, head, and life. When we hold our shoulders like this we also strengthen our trapezius which I also call the “disconnect from heart muscle” because the traps pull the tips of the shoulder blades away from the neck.

This is the chit part of chit ananda. We learn about our self “oh yeah. I do hold my shoulders in this position a lot and that explains why my neck always hurts and I have pounding headaches”

Then we apply the knowledge. Now lengthen the side body, draw the shoulder blades up to your ears take the head of the arm bones straight back and slide the tips of the shoulder blades toward the heart. The tips of the shoulder blades actually assist in curling the heart more open. Do this and feel your trapezius muscles again. Wow! They aren’t engaging, the neck feels long and lengthened. How cool. When we do this we are working and strengthening the rhomboid muscles which I also call the “connect to the heart muscle”.

This is where the ananda comes in. Ananda is bliss. SO from learning how to align the physical body in a way that doesn’t cultivate pain leads to us being happier...CHIT ANANDA!

We did lots of fun little exercises that helped the students feel this plugging into the heart and using the rhomboid muscles we also did this in contrast of unplugging so the students could feel and compare the difference. I really enjoy being able to teach a skill with a few simple steps in multiple poses like tadasana, uttanasana, plank, chaturanga, AMS, AMK... I saw the light bulb go on in many of the student’s heads.

Inversions
Inversions are any position where the heart is over the head. Really common inversions that are in just about every asana class include Down Dog and Standing Forward Bend. More advanced inversions include handstand, forearm balance, headstand, and some backbends. I really enjoy inversions because they allow me to find another perspective and another vantage point. When I feel stuck in my life, or have a problem, or just need more clarity I find holding some of these inversions for a longer period of time to be very beneficial. After inversions I feel more clear, grounded and more ready to respond appropriately to the situation that life hands me at any given moment.

The Practicum with Arun Deva

Yesterday I went to a wonderful workshop that Arun Deva was leading at The Shiva Center. The workshop was called The Practicum: Exercises in Identifying Doshic Imbalances in Asana & Pranayama with emphasis on Marma Points. I absolutely love attending Arun’s workshops he has so much wisdom and experience and he is so good and humble when sharing it with others.

Highlights and notes: The focus of this workshop was on the doshas and how the constitutions express them self through our asana practice. We also focused on identifying doshic imbalances and ways asana and pranayama can cultivate a more sattvic experience. Lastly we worked with marma points (phenomenal!) to help adjust students.

Vata

• Movement, composed of air and space 
• Typically better at backbends at revealing
• Restless, anxious, typically hyper flexible or hyper tight
• Tends to have weak joints and crackling joints
• Cold, dry, light, mobile, ruff, subtle, clear
• Pranayama: typically better at exhaling, should focus on improving inhalation
• Pranayama: nadi shodhana
• asana practice should be: warming, held poses, balancing poses
• How to teach a vata: vata receives the most through touch. As a teacher continue to lie you hand gently on them throughout the class to help them ground and slow down.  
• What would pacify Vata is Sweet, Sour & Salty

Pitta

•   Arun shared as story from his teacher saying, if you are married to a pitta and you get the pitta angry, if you get angry you won’t win, no one can get angrier than a pitta. But pitta doesn’t know what to do with sweet, so instead give your pitta partner a hug. (I love that). Never walk away from a pitta because they won’t like that (so true)
•  Transformation, good at engaging bhanda (women need to be carefull for menstal problems), acess fire in there system
•  Typically better at forward folds at concealing
•  Focused and determined, thinks they are always right, pushes themselves really hard (maybe to point of injury), likes showing off being the star of the class, very driven.
• Pranayama: kapalbhati pranayama
• Pranayama: typically better at inhaling, should focus on improving exhalation 
• Asana practice: needs to be constantly coming back to the idea of not trying or pushing oneself to hard.
•  How to teach a pitta: be sweet and compliment them and then offer a suggestion. Example “Bonnie what a wonderful virabhadrasana, try rooting the back femur bone back a little bit more”. Another way of teaching pitta is challenge them. Example “I bet bonnie can’t maintain the foundation of the hands throughout class”.  

Kapha

• Stability
• Loss joints have joint flexibility and mobility in every direction, can exhibit beautiful postures and maintain them (padmasana).
• Carries weight in shoulders and belly (makes handstands easier (luck kaphas :))
• Inertia, problem with motivation for practice, being lazy in practice and in poses, can become addicted to certain poses that allows for laziness (balasana/child’s...), they might not have a good time in class, appear bored.
• pranayama: bhastrika pranayama
• How to teach a kapha: be a drill sergeant, they need the encouragement. Motivate them. Make them sweat.

Arun talked about the yoga sutras mentioning that only 3 of all ~195 aphorisms. The yoga sutras tell us that our asanas should be effortless, stable and the breath should be long smooth and slow throughout the whole practice. You can see how these qualities come from a harmonious cultivation of all three constitutions (vata=movement, pita=transformation, kapha=stability)

Marma points= energy points in the body that you can touch and the student will find the alignment just by these energetic touch. It is like an energetic invitation to align so you may celebrate the pose more fully.

We got the opportunity to partner up and I got to work with the beautiful and talented Stephanie Engelbrecht. Some of the marma points we used were:

• The back of the heart which helped elongate the spine
• The crown of the head which help lengthen the spine and neck
• The front of the thighs which helped root the femur bones back
• The inner thigh and outer shin which helped create stability in the lower legs and expansion up into the pelvic bowl (shins in thighs out)
• The fronts of the shoulders which was amazing at helping establish shoulder loop
• The tops of the traps which helped lengthen the neck removing addition stress and tension in the traps
• The point between the big toe and the forth toe knuckle of the foot that helped ground
• The inner and outer ankle bone that helped ground student
• The front of the knee which helped set femur bone into pelvis
• The front of the hip which helped stack the hips and root the femur bone out

The tops of the sitting bones toward the lumbar spine which helped lift sacrum in and up

I am sure they were many more and they all have names that I didn’t get a chance to write them down. But it was amazing to see how just these simple touches helped the student make these amazing alignment adjustments. So beautiful!

I have been talking a lot to people lately about how yoga is passed down from teacher to students. And the students gather around the teacher around the guru to learn and gain this knowledge. I am grateful for this opportunity I had to gather around Arun and take in his wisdom and advice.

Om Shanti!

The Practice…my plan

I was planning on leading the practice at the yoga center tonight; however my voice was still absent and my head felt like it was full of mucus so I had to find a sub. I was very disappointed because in my day of silence (see previous post) I had so many sequence ideas and theme ideas pouring into my mind. Although I didn’t end up leading the practice I thought I would share my plane:
Theme: dhyana, part of the eight fold path. Being able to concentrate on something with very focused awareness and at the very same time being able to observe everything else. We will work with the step by steps of the practice taking things one step at the time (this is observing everthing the whole of our practice, every practice that has happened overtime that has lead us to this moment) we will also focus on the bindu. The bindu is a Sanskrit word for hitting the point or the mark.

I really love leading practices because “the practice” is an opportunity to play with friends and work into some really fun challenging poses.

I wanted to focus on playing with/on our hands. We will do lots of hand/arm balances. In order to do arm balances it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of practice. You can’t just do these arm balances one day. IT takes steady practice over time. I have multiple “peak poses” in the sequence. I view a peak pose as a pose that is super challenging and requires a lot of prep poses to get into. All these peak poses have a wonderful build up to them for the body, mind, and spirit ready. Fun Fun Fun. This step by step and practice over time is the big view of dhyana it is taking multiple things into consideration. The poses we will be working with aren’t easy they take time, and practice. At the same time if we are going to be playing on our hands we need to be VERY VERY careful and diligent with alignment. When we weight bare on bones with good alignment it is very beneficial and actually strengthens the bones. However if we weight bare on bones with bad alignment it causes des-stress to the bones. And when this happens on the hands/ at the foundation it travels up the body. So if we are in alignment with our hands it strengthens the wrights, forearms, elbow, biceps, triceps, and shoulders. When we weight bare on our hands out of alignment we harm our writs, elbow, shoulders….

One point of this laser focus, of hitting the bindu is going to be on the foundation of the hands, really making sure that all four corners of the hands are planted (mound under the index finger, inner heal of the hand, mound under pink finger, outer heel of hand, and then clawing the earth with the finger tips). (I find in my own practice I struggle the most with the mound under the index finger, I need to use focused attention so that mound stays grounded). It is especially important to have good foundation of the hands when we are doing multiple, multiple, multiple, hand balances.

(I always like to take what we do on the matt and apply to life off the mat. I think that is what makes yoga so wonderful is that it is more than an activity but that it touches every aspect of our life. Normally when I teach a class I have a theme like the one I have above and a brief idea of the connection but the full connection comes live as I teach (so mind that this isn’t fully developed). I wanted to take about how our life is made up of multiple steps and of the big picture. There are steps in our life that we have to do, like shower, brush our teeth, go to school/work, be compassionate to one another…But we can at the same time within doing all these things we have to do, there is still the bindu. There is a mark that we are trying to hit, a goal, something we are working for. The ability to take in our daily life, living up to our responsibilities, yet still working toward the mark the point the bindu. That’s the idea.)

The sequence (idea):

Personal warm up (10 mins)
Invocation 3X
Tadasana (I wanted to talk about hand foundation with a cool carpel tunnel experiment to have students understand the importance of good foundation)
Surya A 7X
DD, plank (focus..Kidney loop), push up 5x (don’t forget about hand foundation)
Childs -> table->foundation of hands (wrist crease parallel, 4 corners, outer shoulder to center of wrist…)
Uttanasana-> ardha uttanasana 3X
high runner lunge, hands to knee, kidney loop, reach
½ hanumanasa
AMS->wild dog (keep foundation of hands)
Parsvakonasana
Ardha chandrasana->vira 2
AMS practice jumping
• Straight legs (imagine your sequencing a piece of paper, perhaps it says “your awesome”, keep squeezing feet (hugging midline) as you hop keep legs straight remember shoulder loop)
• Continue squencing feet this time hop shoulder over wrist and suck knees into your belly a few time
• Repeat step above but hover in handstand with knees pulled into belly
Move to wall
• Hand stand (AMV) at wall, hands about 2 inches away from wall
• Once up push back of head against wall (skull loop) and push bum against wall. Then open legs wide and lower feet down to about hip level and then back up. Repeat several times
• A step further is to lower the feet wide and as close to the ground as possible and then back up. You have to really work kidney loop, pulling the waist line back for this.
• Forearm balance (use wall if needed)
Hero pose. Pause. Root femur bones. Close eyes and breathe. “listen to your breath, attune to your breath. Feel that your breath is important. Feel that this practice, what you are doing on the matt is important. You came here, you showed up. THIS IS IMPORTANT)
• Head stand with forearms down hands clasped with toe touches. Legs together (imagine squeezing paper between feet keep legs straight…lower toes touch…lift)
Childs..Pernam
Tadasana
Tree
Tree while balancing on block
Utthita pada B
Utthita pada B on block (move groins back, inner spiral)
AMS (Down Dog)
Side plank
Side plank with extended leg
Low lunge with forearms on ground -> high runners lunge, shoulder under thigh, hug mid line, straighten arms
High runners lunge->arm under thigh->extend leg->high runner lunge->Parsvakonasana bound->bound ardha chandrasana ->bird of paradise
Uttanasana->titibasana prep->variation between malansana and vistvamitrasana
Bujipidasana->titibasana
Wide leg standing forward fold-> optional tripod headstand with wide leg toes touches
Malasana wrist stretches
Forearm crow
Crow
Pigeon
Ashtavakrasna
……..
Wide leg seated forward fold, side stretch, and forward fold
……

I hadn’t finished formulating the sequence when I realized I was too sick to teach. However I really wanted to share. I am not one to teach a class or theme twice it loses its energy and I out so much though and was so excited by the sequence idea and theme that I didn’t want to lose it completely so I thought I would share

Day of Silence & the 3 A’s of Anusara

I have had a sore throat and a runny nose for the past few days and it all culminated today. I can’t talk. I can move my mouth but no sound came out. Last night I was getting a little anger about this. I wanted to talk, I knew I had class to teach and I didn’t want my sore throat to prevent me from being able to teach my class. I then paused and realized that having a soar throat and not being able to talk was the reality of my situation. I was actively misaligning with the situation which was not resulting in the attitude that I wanted. So as I paused I acknowledged that I couldn’t talk, that my throat really hurt and I decided to accept it. I found a sub (thank you Merissa and Obet) and instead when to Divas coffee shop and did some homework. If you haven’t been to Divas it is a beautiful coffee, tea, and café with a beautiful green house full of trees and a gentle fountain. It is a very peaceful place to work in silence. After enjoying some tea and finishing up some assignments I made a few phone calls and as I talked (or tried to at least) I relized it was the first time I had spoken. I then went back to the house looked over some books I have been reading, started thinking of my plan for leading the practice tomorrow night at the yoga center.

I am thinking about talking about how the practice takes time, its multiple steps and consistent practice that leads us into the ability to do some fun poses. I also want to talk about how yoga the practice of yoga allows us to know our self more fully. Sometimes as we discover more about are self the experience is pleasant and enjoyable and sometimes we rub up onto uncomfortable parts of our self. Through the practice we are given the possibility to know are self more. Each pose and each breath and each step we take in the practice is an opportunity to know our self more, to express our self more, to celebrate our self. I also want to talk about how the practice is important, how what we do on the mat and what it does internally for us is important. These are all just thoughts and hopefully by tomorrow night they will come together and come out of my mouth in a nice theme which will be linked through the whole class.

Anyways…Tyler and I then went to the front to go bouldering which was super fun I was able to do some problems that I couldn’t before. All of this was in silence. Tyler and I exchanged glances and high fives. The silence of the day was wonderful. In the beginning of the day I felt like I had all these things I wanted to say and was frustrated that I couldn’t communicate them. But as I continued to align with the soar throat it became a gift. The ability to not talk was a great opportunity for me to reflect of some life ideas I have been pondering as well as enjoy the silence of myself.

It was a really nice day of silence and reflection where I got lots of stuff (homework, reading, thinking, climbing, meditating, dog walking…) done. It continues to amaze me that when we align with the reality or the situation we are presented with and act accordingly it helps cultivate the attitude of love, compassion, and bliss. When we align it feels like the universe is working with us instead of fighting against us. “Align with your heart”.
I am hoping to have my voice back by tomorrow night to lead the practice at the yoga center 540-740 :)

Authentic Self Yoga LLC...1 year

YIPPIE...DIPPIE!!

I just paid my renewal fee for my business Authentic Self Yoga. Pretty exciting, 1 year. :) I am looking forward to this coming year I am planning on working alot toward anusara affiliated status as well as taking multiple courses through Douglas Brooks new online courses at srividyalaya.

I also went tele skiing today, and took a class from Matt Newman!