sunday morning practice with John Friend Q&A's (mercury in retrograd, anger, supreme) + asana notes

I woke up Sunday morning feeling so great. Like I wrote in a previous post I completely loved saterday afternoons topic during practice about samskaras, so I woke up reved for more. John again started the morning session with questions, here are a few with some of the main points we discussed.


Q: mercury in retrograde, how do we work with it?
A: In any situation find how to utilize it for your advantage! If you look at the word retrograde it stars with “re” as in “review” or “re-evaluate”. We can use this time when mercury is in retrograde to our advantage by pausing. Pause and go back and look at your stuff. John said when mercury is in retrograde he goes and reads all the emails that were skipped and went unread. When we try to go forward during this time we find our self stuck.
Q: how to deal with other peoples anger
A: In Shiva-shakti tantra there are skillful ways to interact with any kind of energy
We can deal with anger negatively in 3 ways:
1. We put our self down. We feel guilty.
2. We meet fire with fire. We get angry.
3. We get scared and run away

We can also deal with anger positively in 3 ways:
1. We settle and our patient
2. We are generous and loving
3. We help them skillfully address their anger
Q: Shiva Shakti tantra and the 6 attributes of the divine.
A: (I know these attributes and have been talking about them regularly in my classes. I think these six attributes are amazing and we often forget that they exsit with in us!) John said these can be good responses to who is God? What is God? That was really cool and allowed me to connect to these attributes in a different way.
1. Ananda, blissful, joy of radiance
2. Chit, aware, alive, awake, self knowing
3. Svatantrya, ultimate freedom, not bound by anything
4. Spanda, has a pulsation
5. Purnatva, lacking nothing, completely full and perfect
6. Sri, the highest form of goodness, sacred

We can summarize these 6 attribute with chit ananda. Which is also why we practice yoga…To know more and to be happy. I find myself thinking about chit ananda all the time. I recently started going back to school studying therapeutic recreation and am feeling really busy. What I love about school is that the more I learn (about anything) the more I learn about myself. All this learning helps me be happy because I am learning who I really am. Learning more helps me look at my junk, my stuff. This self examination, chit (knowledge) helps me to get rid of habits and stuff that isn’t help lift me up and keep doing the things that do. When we look at our stuff we see where we make mistaks. And we all make mistakes I know I do. We make mistakes because we loss the connection to the highest because we loss the connection to the clear, bright, rocking delight. But once we are aware (chit) we can make changes. (read my previous post about Ma Durga and how Durga can help cleanse us of these cycles and a mantra to help)

In the morning practice “we held space for rocking shifts in our self and everyone around us”

Asana notes:
• Bakasana: get low, flat back at fist then round your back puff into your kidneys. Pelvis should be in line with heart
• In the transition in vinyasas keep the finger pads rooted. Finger tips never come up that is a sign of being lazy on our path
• AMS-> chaturanga arms with knee bet over arm
• Sputa virasana-> push up with arms in ½ urdhva-> come up to camel (head last)
• Urdhva danurasana one hand to front of femur bone, bend the elbow on the floor lightly touch head then push back up
• In urdhva danurasana hands are positioned slightly out

My teaching:
tomorrow/wednesday 540-7 at the yoga center
thruday 12-1 only 4$ at the yoga center
 
I have cut back my teachign schedual so much. It is weird not taeching more and at more locations. I will be starting a private weekly session with waterford highschool faculty. i did this last year and it was such a wonderful experience. When we started everyone was telling me I am not good, I am a begginer, will this be easy... By the end they were rocking cant and asking questions like. Can you tell a differnce in our attitude we are all getting along better as faculty and the with the students. cant wait to continue our work. I am also hoping to sub alot and do privates or group privates. The cut back was to help me focus on school and my own practice.
 
Happy evening
cheers

saturdy afternoon practice (my favorite) with JF at the shop my notes and thoughts

Saturday Afternoon with John Friend at The Shop in PC, UT:
(This was my favorite of the workshops. I love hearing about myths and using these amazing stories as inspiration for practice. I loved talking about samskaras these cycles in us and how we can use our practice on and off the mat to transform these cycles. Turning ash to gold. Just being with John makes me want to work harder, throw more of my tendencies into the fire so I may rise and shine brighter and so I may help others do the same)

Ma Durga (divine mother)
• Myth: There was a buffalo demon who meditated on Shiva. Shiva is very easily pleased and he likes it when you meditate on him. Shiva asked the demon what he wanted, and the demon asked for immortality. Shiva said I can’t give you immortality but I make it so no God or Goddess can harm you. Soon the buffalo demon started to take advantage of this and he was killing and terrorizing people. The gods and goddess got together and they created a new god, Durga. Each of her weapons was gifted to her by various gods: Rudra's trident, Vishnu's discus, Indra's thunderbolt, Brahma's kamandalu, Kuber's Ratnahar, Lakshmi gave a pretty face…Ma Durga went out to find the demon and once the demon saw her he fell in love with her and said “run away with me and lets terrorize the world together” Durga cut off his head.
• Durga helps wake us up to a higher state of consciousness.
• She is goodness in a fierce form, she cleans you of all samskaras.
• She rides on a tiger which represents the shakti that we are riding.
• Durga is connected to Shiva, she is a transformer.
Samskaras: Sam= complete or joined together, kara= action, causing or doing. Samskaras are mental and emotional patterns of things/habits/addictions that hold you back through which we cycle over and over again during our lives.
Samskaras (3 basic categories)
1. Sadness: we don’t see our self as full. We see our self as imperfect (depression, low self esteem, self destruction)
2. Anger/hatred: we see patterns. We notice and create separation, that person has dark skin I don’t like that, that person is tall I like that…This separation creates hatred and anger.
3. Fear: we are afraid of loss, loss of friends, and loss of our life. We think we need to control everything around us (money, time, people)

Durga is a form of Grace that clears away this film on our heart because she slays these lies/cycles inside of us

Ways to invocate Durga:
• Visualization
• Mantra bija sound: Dum
o Mantra: om dum durgahyei namaha

May I shine the light of awareness on these cycles within myself. May I look at my habits and my tendencies. John said that some of these habits may be deep seated but they CAN BE TRANSFORMED.
“I want to be a better person” “I want to change my habits”

When you are faced with your habit and you say NO. Friction happens which creates tapas (fire/heat). This heat can help transform our bad habits. Turning ash to gold.

• Yajna: sacrificing what is blocking your heart.
o That is blocking you from your greatness. You create a lot of heat for Yajna when you hold a pose. Much more then you would if you just repeated it a lot.
• It is in our tendency to react. We need to reprogram our self so we don’t react instead we choose how to
respond!

Pranayama:
• Nadi Shodhana (alternate nostril breathing):a way to cleanse and see clearly. Close off the air to the left nostril (with the ring and pinky finger of the right hand) exhale and inhale through the right nostril and repeat.
• Sahita: inhalation/retention/exhalation in increments of 4. 4:16:8
o During retention the fire grows; don’t grip onto the holding instead practice 1st principle, inner body bright. This will build prana inside, like building light. “Feel yourself with light that is transformative”

Refrences:
John Friend
http://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/1318

my notes and thoughts from saturday morning int/adv. with John Friend

Here are some of my notes and thoughts from the inter/adv. workshop with John Friend at The Shop in Park City (I am very greatful to Leslie S. who recommened me transcribing my notes so I dont end up with another notebook of messy handwritting)
John Started the class by asking for questions...
Someone asked the question:
“How would you teach abdominals without interrupting the apana vayu (downward moving energy)?"

John responded by saying that most people (especially in the west) consider the core to be the rectus abdominis “six pack”. But really the core is the vertical channel that runs through the core of our body. It is from this subtle vertical channel that our physical body is building upon. This subtle body can be thought of as an etheric double. The core of our body, this energetic channel isn’t just vertical and straight has spanda (pulsation of prana).

We talked about how we don’t have anything in our body that is perfectly straight. Everything has a curve like our spine. Our spine can hold tons of weight if you use good alignment which holds the natural curvature of the spine for example in sirsasana. But if you were to straighten out the spine and then make it weight bearing that would be very unsuccessful. So cool. When John was talking about this I was thinking about how straight is similar to perfect. If you have a curve and you want to make it straight, you want it to move in a way toward perfection. However, john was pointing out that perfection isn’t straight. I feel like in my life I strive for perfection but this reminded me that perfect is never straight we become not perfect but more fully our self when we align with our uniqueness, our curves and the curvature of our spine.

Back to the original question. Most people (especially in the west) think of the core as the rectus abdominis, so they really work that area which makes the front of the belly tight. This tightness will pull the tailbone under. But people also tuck there tailbone under so their booty doesn’t look as bad. When you tuck the tail bone under like this you make your back flat which hurts the ligaments between the discs which can make you more prone to disc problems. Fun Fact: L5 SI is the most commonly injured dist for this reason. This tucked action and flattening of the back causes prevents the energy to go down and ground toward the earth (apana vayu). This disturbs the downward flow of energy and causes energetic and physical constipation, agitates the nervous system, feeling unsure, unconnected, anxious, nervous, ungrounded…

(I was so immpressed that this question guided the whole asana practice. We worked strongly on open to grace and inner spiral and outer spiral so we could feel the grounding quality and the flow of apana vayu while created dimond strength of the core)

“when we line up with life the beauty happiness”

We then talked about where the soul is located body?
How some philosophers say it is in the head, but when you take that view the head becomes superior and everything bellow the head becomes inferior (reminds me of how a lot of people think and act)
John said the soul is located in our pelvic area and that in fact the word sacrum comes from the word sacred. John didn’t say this but I think it is very interesting that the sacrum (5 fused vertebra) resemble a downward facing triangle, a symbol that shows from the divine to the embodied.

We are:

Divinely manifested

Embodiment of the supreme

Breath Awareness:
Focus of the floor of the pelvis. As you inhale notice what happens do you feel an expansion or do you feel a contraction? As you exhale notice what happens, do you feel an expansion or do you feel a contraction?

If the energy is moving “correctly” the inhalation should case the pelvis to expand and the exhalation should cause the pelvis to contract.

The Radiance Sutras...Effort/Stability and Ease/Freedom

I have reading Lorin Roches lovely book: The Radiance Sutra also called Vijnana Bhairava Tantra. This name loosely translates to mean “the terror and joy of realizing oneness with the Soul”. Each sutra is a way of looking and feeling into the essences of simple life activities. Lorin put it beautifully when he said “meditation is diving into your entire sensorium so fearlessly that you go beyond it into the core of your being and rest there. This is yoga of delight, awe, and wonder”.

These sutras all remind me of sutra 2:46 from Patanjali’s book “sthira sukam asanam”. This sutra is about how we should live our life and practice with a dynamic balance between effort (sthira) and ease (sukam). These two words remind me of something we talk about and practice in Anusara all the time. Stability (effort) and freedom (ease). As I read Lorin’s book every sutra is showing us a way of enjoying and experiencing an activity in our life so fully that we can merge with the divine. In order to do this we have to have disciple, effort and stability. We have to focus our mind so we may pick up on all the sensations so fully that we feel the dance and pulsation of life. However if we get to rigid, too hard, focused too deeply we will get stressed, we will tense up and we will miss this blissful experience. In order to prevent getting overly focused we need to be relaxed, and at ease so we may experience this gift of embodied freedom. However, if relaxed too much we wouldn’t have the containment we would miss the sensations and the invitation of experiencing the delight of life.

(I had so much fun teaching today. I didn’t stress too much about planning. I have 5 people come to a new class I am starting 12-1 at the yoga center only 4$! The students were of all different abilities and each one loved it. I think they all grasped this idea of needing stability, discipline and effort so they may soften, and experience freedom)
Theme: effort/stability/muscular energy and ease/freedom/organic energy
Childs “in childs notice the dynamic balance between effort and freedom. If you don’t use any disciple in your will spin off and if you use to much effort the pose inst enjoyable”
Tadasana-> 1/2 moon stretch
Variation of Sun with Lunge with 1/2 moon stretch 2x
Parsvakonasana
Trikonasana
Navasana -> rev. table
Handstand work:
L at wall, L at wall leg extended, L at wall with pumping, kicking up to wall, kicking up to wall but not hitting wall (the students honored where they were in the pose, many of them made it to a high level then they thought. It took effort on me to end the hand stand session because the students were loving it so much and smiling, so we went longer but not to long because I didn’t want them to get hurt because they were to tiered and were pushing to hard)
Forearm balance
Twist
Happy baby->compass
Forward folds
Savasana
We also focused a lot on being aware of our breath and taking the invitation the breath offers. The first activity offered in the sutras is a focus on the breath. The breath is an activity that we are doing constantly. We normally don’t have the stability to focus on the breath, and the softness to enjoy it. But when we focus intimately and softly we can experience the freedom it offers.

The very first sutra offers us this invitation to the breath:

“Beloved, your question requires the answers that come
Through direct living experience.
The way of experience begins with a breath
Such as the breath you are breathing now.
Awakening into luminous reality
May dawn in the momentary throb
Between any two breaths.
The breath flows in and just as it turns
To flow out, there is a flash of pure joy –
Life is renewed.
Awaken into that.
As the breath is released and flows out,
There is a pulse as it turns to flow in.
In that turn, you are empty.
Enter that emptiness as the source of all life”

Panchamukha Anjani 5 faces of Hanuman + mantra

Vishnu takes form as Panchamukha Anjani (Anjaneya means “son of Anjana”), the 5 faced hanuman.

Let’s look at each face, together these faces make up the story of Panchmukha Anjani.

1. VARAHA: The boar, the wild pig. Varaha represents our primal organic veracity. He is the plower, digging away looking deeply into the lower parts of our being. He is looking for the delight that is buried in our gut (muladhara chakra). Varaha is the consciousness digging out itself. He is the organic earth element belonging to the muladhara chakra and deals with the role in evacuative, procreative, and digestive energy.
a. Bija: HRIM (the earth bija) means the entire manifest world, all the essential Goddess energy that moves.

2. GARUDA: The soaring vulture, the Himalayan griffin. He resides below the solar plexus and above the diaphragm. He belongs to the water of the belly (svadhistasna chakra). He lives on the naga (snakes) of the ponds, he soars above the lake effortlessly and he comes down pulling the naga out of the lake. (That is what Himalayan griffins do; they steal snakes out of the water). Garuda is the soaring consciousness that reaches into the water of the belly and pulls the naga (snake)/kundalini up. Just like the downward symbol in the Anusara logo, Garuda inverts, heading down into being and becomes the water of the belly. Garuda is the eternal energy of life that must be transmuted in the water of the belly. Whatever enters your belly (food, air…) eventually comes back up into our consciousness (just like the griffin soaring down to pull and bring it back up).
a. Bjia: HAIM (Mixes AIM (water) with HA (earth))

3. NARASIMHA: The man-lion. Residing in the fiery solar plexus (the manipura chakra). He is the fire in the center above the belly and below the heart. There is a myth about a demon that was granted the ability (by tapas) not to be killed by human or animal, in the day or in the night, in land or in the sky. Vishnu then takes the form as Narasimha a man and a lion (neither human nor animal), he destroys the demon at twilight (not day or night) and emerges out of a pillar (not from land or sky). Narasimha represents ambiguity. The power to transmute and address the necessary, and this strength comes from our core (the manipura).
a. Bija: KLIM

4. HANUMAN: The loyal monkey. Located in the heart (the anahata chakra) all the way to the pallet of the mouth (vishudu chakra). He is the upward moving, ascending energy the heart that powerfully brings the energy of the heart and expresses it through the mouth.
a. Bija: SAUHA (the heart Bija is the most complex bija. It opens the heart and lets in the recognition that the divine has always dwelt in your heart. The heart emerges out of the pallet in the form of mantra.)

5. HAYAGRIVA: The horse. The horse represents the power of consciousness to wonder. It is very similar to the ancient Vedic sacrifice called “The Horse Sacrifice”. In this sacrifice the king releases a horse and wherever the horse wonders over a course of one year becomes the domain of the king… Wherever consciousness wonders is our domain. “Not all who wonder are lost” wondering becomes your sovereign territory. Hayagriva represents the wholeness of being. Hayagriva resides in the head (angii chakra) and is the descending energy of the mind. The wondering of consciousness traverses down and comes out as words.
a. Bija: OM

Panchamuka’s full mantra: OM HAIM HRIM PANCHAMUKA ANJANI KLIM NAMAH

I think it is interesting that the bijas aren’t in order from ascending to descending. This is because in Anjani traditions don’t believe that kundalini is a dormant energy waiting to be awaken to move in a singular direction drawing up from the bottom to the top. Instead they believe that kundalini is already awake and is moving in an ever woven circuitry. These traditions believe that we are NOT in a process of waking up kundalini instead we ARE in a process of participating in kundalini’s dance. Like hanumans tail the kundalini twists and turns however it needs to offer its self in the most optimal experience of the Self.
Resources:
Douglas Brooks (especially hanuman lecture)
http://www.hindujagruti.org/

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