living your yoga

"To practice is to pay attention to your whole life: your thoughts, your bodily sensations, and your speech and other actions. As you do you will discover that nothing is separate from anything else. Thoughts are the sensations of the mind just as sensations are the thoughts of the body. Each moment of your life is a moment of potential practice." Judith Lasater, Living Your Yoga


Recently I have been learning about elbows. I have tendonitis in my right elbow. So poses that I normally do, that I have loved and practiced for at least 15 years, are out, at least temporarily. And I am again reminded that yoga is not about the poses. The poses are maps. I need some different maps right now I guess. No Plank pose, no Chaturanga Dandasana, no Upward Facing Dog .

SIGH...

So the other night, I did a practice around poses I do not like that I could still do. It was very interesting and felt good. One pose was pigeon pose.

Walking is one of my favorite yoga practices that I can still do right now. Of course some days as I walk my mind wanders to my surroundings. That of course is the practice, to train your mind to focus over and over again.

I know I need my walking practice when I am starting to feel overwhelmed and like I have more things to do than I can possibly do. Sometimes, I suppose this becomes less a practice to invoke a meditative mind than an opportunity to step away from what I am doing. Just getting out of a thinking mode, getting my blood flowing, heart pumping and muscles moving, magic arises as an insight into a problem, or a realization of what I need to do next. I like simple magic, I guess. It's really magical when I am fed up with my children and feel unable to deal with whatever is going on with them. Walking probably makes me a better parent.

So the yoga part of all of this, for me, is that there are lots of ways to get out of our habitual mind and habitual patterns of thinking and to move into spaces where we are completely present to our lives and in a sense of equanimity with it all. Like Judith Lasater says, "every moment is a moment of potential practice."

HAPPY DAYS

Alex and Rebecca wishing their Grandpa a Happy Birthday and their Grandma a Happy Mother's Day.

knitting as meditation

I am a SLOW knitter. So when I read some of my favorite blogs, like Claudia's I think, "What the heck am I doing?" I have to remind myself it is about the process.

Although I have had a yoga practice for a while, I have always struggled with the meditation part of it. There is always something that I should be doing whether it's cleaning or working out a problem. In the yoga tradition I study, meditation arises from one-pointedness. That is, meditation arises from the practice of focusing on one thing, one object.

Once I got into knitting it occurred to me that I could not knit and think about anything else. Otherwise I would lose the pattern. I don't think I'll ever be the type to knit in front of the tv (which I don't watch any ways). For me, knitting is a process thing, and as I lose myself in the process I gain that practice of one -pointedness. It is an opportunity to SIT STILL and focus my mind. Okay, my hands do move, but that becomes a kind of rhythm.

So, I have no pictures of recently completed items to show. And I am definitely working on the yogic ideal of non-attachment, especially given the envy I feel when I look at all the projects knitting bloggers seem to complete in a week... I am participating in the KAL for Sivia Harding's Diamond Fantasy scarf. I am loving the lace. AND SOCKS. I love knitting socks and I am knitting a pair with Koigu KPPM for a Christmas present. Yes, I need to work that far ahead.

For me, my biggest knitting achievement was creating a corner to practice yoga and knit. (See photo above.) It's simple, but it's space in my room that's relatively uncluttered. That in itself is an accomplishment!! I put a batiked cloth on the bookshelf to cover some of the books. Since I have an issue with excessive curving my upper back, I wanted to sit on a meditation cushion to help remind me how to sit. Otherwise, I find myself sitting on my sofa drawing my shoulders forward as I knit. YUCK. And the space includes a wall so I can practice my favorite restorative pose; Legs Up the Wall.

On Yoga

"We use the practice of Yoga, not to correct or punish ourselves for who we are not, but to see who we actually are." -Donna Farhi

I've been practicing Yoga for 20 years now and teaching it for 12. While I am glad that it has become so popular, it helps with the bills, there is this little part of me that is awaiting this wave to pass, as everything does.

Yoga has become a marketing tool and in that way does the practice of Yoga little good. Marketing is meant to sell you something, to let you know that you are not okay as you are and that this thing, whatever it is, will help make you better. It is the antithesis of Yoga.

When I talk to people who are not familiar with Yoga I feel like I have to first explain what Yoga is not. It is not about being skinny and hyperflexible- like all the advertising would have us believe. It is not about being able to put you feet behind you head. It is not sitting in lotus pose and levitating. It is not about leaving your family and job to sit on a mountainside somewhere for the rest of your life (As appealing as that may sound some days).

All of those things might be a part of someone's yoga practice, but they are not in and of themselves Yoga. Yoga is about bringing balance, strength and flexibility to your life. It is about living a life where you feel more focused, energized and at peace. Where you rely not so much on what others around you tell you you should do or look like; you rely on your own inner wisdom.

Here's another notion that seems radical in this country: Yoga isn't really even about poses. And...You don't have to be flexible to practice Yoga! What we practice in this country, mostly, is Hatha Yoga. Hatha Yoga means understanding Yoga through the body. Yogis believe that the body is an extension of the mind. So we practice postures that work on strength, flexibility and balance so that we can have this in our minds. And with our minds we make decisions in our life from a place of strength, balance and flexibility. The changes to our physical body are secondary (wonderful as they are) and the measure of your practice is not how flexible, strong and balanced you are on the mat, but how flexible, strong and balanced you are in your life off the mat.