Yoga

Snuck between the barefoot slaps in studio hallways and crouched beside the shedding rental mats, looped through the ashy whispers of forbidden pre-class conversation is a sneaky goblin of narcissistic posturing. What we say about our practice says more about our intentions than our product. And what we intend has been hijacked by this pandemic goblin, revealing a dearth of genuine yoga-ing. If your yoga-speak sounds like this, your practice is no longer your own: “I’ve been doing yoga for two weeks and now I can finally do one-legged-hovercraft-splits.” How quickly you mastered your headstand/crow/non-existent-circus-poses does not define your worth as a human nor a yogi. If you started practicing because you’d really like to eventually touch your toes for fun, that’s one thing. If you continually push yourself to figure out how engaging your muscles will help you move around in space in new ways, that’s another thing. But racing to get upside-down the fastest is not a thing. I’ve been doing yoga for twenty years and there are poses, transitions and adjustments I haven’t figured out yet. It’s part of what keeps me coming back. “I sweat so much in that class I had to wash my lulus four times. It was such a hard class.” Your sweat-to-difficulty ratio is not always aligned. These are separate concepts that occasionally crash together in a slippery epiphany. Sometimes making your body move makes you sweat. Sometimes a practice space is just hot. When I taught heated classes I had students who thought every droplet that fell to the floor was another calorie burned. They would ask me to turn the heat up and up until every face was red and every smell was a gym sock on fire. This is not how to succeed in difficult things. You have to do the difficult work first, not place obstacles in the way of ordinary work. “OMG, you have to have a Turbo-Pro Spider-Sense Self-Cleaning Mat. Otherwise you’re not really living.” I have a Jade mat. I have a lululemon mat. I have a Gaiam mat. I usually use rental mats because I don’t like carrying a bunch of stuff around all day. For a year I did yoga in my apartment on the floor with no mat at all. I haven’t gotten any weird diseases or broken any bones because of any of these choices. Which mat is the best mat? The one you use the most. “I’m so mad I missed class yesterday because I wanted to go every day this week.” Why? Did your body want to move that much? Because that is the only acceptable answer. Otherwise your brain is forcing your body to adhere to some notion of what legitimate yoga looks like. The outward expression of what your yoga looks like has to start with inwardly how it feels to do it. Does your body want to move around again? Start there. How many classes you took this week should reflect that. Nothing is worse than getting to class and realizing all you really wanted was a nap. “I just love back-to-back classes. I took two yesterday and I’m going for three today.” No. Just, no. The case against back-to-back classes looks like this: If you worked hard enough to satisfy your body’s movement cravings, you wouldn’t want another class. I say this because I’ve done it. The back-to-backs, the double workouts, the million classes a week. And then I moved to Boston and I slept for a week straight because I had spent a year moving my body more than it wanted to move. When we lose sight of what the physical body wants to do, our practice is no longer our own. It belongs to that sneaky goblin hidden in plain sight of your mat. Listen for it in the studio, splashed between drops of sweat and tucked into folds of spandex. Drag it out by its preening ego. And shut it up.

Plastic surgery is, sometimes, helpful. Sometimes, it’s practical. But often, it reflects a profound, and sad, dis-ease with ourselves. Maitri is an alternative, and it’s harder work: we all know folks who are charming, gorgeous…but not because they’re conventionally beautiful. Because of the joy and truth they manifest, from the inside, out. In relephant news: [...]

The controversy over conservative Christian parents objection to yoga in Encinitas, CA public elementary schools, which I first covered last October, ended up in court this week. Experts testified on the nature of religion and the secularization of yoga in the first three days of the trial without resolution before it was decided to put the case on hiatus for a few weeks. As before, the Ashtangi bloggers at the Confluence Countdown are doing a great job covering the nuances....Read Full Post

Your chance to meditate with Guru Dev Singh this weekend!

Memorial Day is almost here, and that means camping, grilling, and backyard parties. While classic barbecue sides like potato salad and macaroni and cheese are big favorites, they don’t always work for those following a vegan diet. If you’re planning a barbecue this holiday, here are 8 side dishes that will have vegan friends coming back for seconds: Spicy Chipolte Hummus: Ingredients >>2 (15.5 ounce) cans garbanzo beans, drained >>1/2 cup water >>1/4 cup tahini (sesame-seed paste) >>1/4 cup fresh lemon juice >>2 tablespoons olive oil >>1 canned chipotle pepper in adobo sauce >>2 cloves garlic >>1 1/2 teaspoons cumin >>1 (7 ounce) jar roasted red bell peppers, drained >>6 oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained >>1/2 cup chopped cilantro >>1/2 teaspoon salt >>ground black pepper to taste Directions Place the garbanzo beans, water, tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, chipotle pepper, garlic, and cumin in the bowl of a food processor; blend until smooth. Add the red peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, cilantro, salt, and pepper. Pulse the mixture until the ingredients are coarsely chopped into the hummus base. Transfer to a serving bowl, cover, and chill until ready to serve. Quinoa Tabbouleh Ingredients >>1/2 cup quinoa >>2 tablespoons lemon juice >>1 bunch flat leaf parsley >>3 green onions (scallions), finely sliced >>1/2 cup almonds Directions Bring a medium saucepan of salted water to the boil. Cook quinoa for 9 minutes or until cooked to your liking. Drain. Meanwhile for the dressing, combine lemon juice with 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil. Season. Finely chop the parsley stalks and coarsley chop the leaves. Toss together the cooked quinoa, dressing, parsley, green onions and almonds. Season with a little extra pepper. Roasted Garlic Artichoke Spread Ingredients: >>28 oz artichoke hearts, drained, rinsed, and water lightly squeezed out >>10-11 cloves garlic, roughly chopped >>3 tbsp fresh oregano, chopped or 1 1/2-2 tsp dried >>1/4-1/3 c olive oil >>1 tbsp lemon juice >>1/2 tsp sea salt >>freshly ground black pepper Directions: Preheat oven to 400. Chop artichokes into small chunks and pieces. In a baking dish, combine artichokes with remaining ingredients  and mix well until combined. Cover with aluminum  foil and bake for 45-50 minutes, stirring once or twice, until garlic is softened. Remove from oven and let cool a little before serving.  Season to taste with additional salt and pepper if desired, and a squeeze of lemon. Sweet Potato Fries Ingredients: >>aluminum foil for pan >>2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled >>2 tablespoons olive oil >>1 tablespoon brown sugar >>salt and pepper to taste Directions: Preheat oven to 450 F. Half the sweet potatoes lengthwise. Place on flat slide and slice 5-6 spears (thick and long strips) of sweet potato. Place them on the aluminum foil and toss with olive oil and sugar. Spread them in one layer. It is important that they have space around them and aren’t piled up on each other. Bake for 15 minutes and turn with tongs or a spatula. Bake for another 5 to 10 minutes, until lightly browned. Add salt and pepper. Serve hot, room temperature, or cold. Spring Salad Ingredients: >>1/3 c cooked buckwheat groats (not Kasha) >>75 g firm tofu (or protein of choice) >>1 carrot, sliced >>1 tomato, sliced >>3/4 c cucumber slices >>1/3 c fennel sliced >>50 g avocado, sliced and cubed >>1 c butter lettuce (or lettuce of choice) >>1 olive, sliced Directions: Cook buckwheat (I cooked 1/3 c raw buckwheat groats with 2 c water). Bring to a boil, and simmer for 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 F. Cube tofu and mix with 1/2 tsp olive oil. I also added 1 tsp curry but you can totally omit that if you don’t like it. Place in oven and bake for 20 minutes. Now wash, peel and chop/slice your vegetables and place in a bowl. This took me 20 minutes so my buckwheat and tofu was done just as I finished up the slicing. Drain buckwheat and measure 1/3 c cooked and add to bowl. Chop the tofu to smal

Hey! So did you catch the excerpt of ‘Teaching People, Not Poses’ by Jay Fields? Or were you too busy practicing? Ah hahaha. Trick question. If you’d read the post you’d think that was funny! Maybe. Or maybe we don’t know what you’d find funny, we’re not in your brain. [...]The post YD Giveaway: ‘Teaching People, Not Poses’ by Jay Fields appeared first on YogaDork.

My 13th physiotherapy session today, hopefully not unlucky! She has at last received some notes from the Consultant about my rehab and what she is allowed to do and how soon she can do it . She tests my range of motion each week, but any improvement she can see is infinitessamly small to be invisible from where I’m seeing it. After she showed me my new movements, which are tiny but soon become very uncomfortable we moved on to passive therapy, I lay there and she tortures me! Some of her treatment is very gentle, before she then moved on to starting to slowly move my arm outwards for the first time, shit that hurt and luckily she soon stopped, hopefully next week will be better and less painful. But like in practice it’s a case of finding that edge without crossing the line. As well as what therapy should happen the “Protocol” also has notes about how long rehabilitation should take, which only goes to show how far I still have to go, these notes include *”Most patients can tolerate occasional work at shoulder level 4-6 months after surgery”. Nope to yet I can’t! *”Return to heavy lifting or overhead use may require 6-12 months”. handstands at Christmas then, maybe!

It’s almost Return of the Jedi‘s 30th birthday (May 25!) which means we’re all old and Yoda is really old. Just kidding, we’ve got the Force on our side, should we choose to accept it, or something. (Different movie franchise?) As the third film in the original Star Wars trilogy [...]The post George Lucas on Star Wars: The Force is ‘Like Yoga’, Yoda ‘Like a Guru’ appeared first on YogaDork.

Soap operas, TV shows and the media would have us believe that there is  a cadre of people out there waiting to foil all our ideas and accomplishments. However, the reality is that most people sabotage themselves. What makes this sort of sabotage so heinous is that most of the time, we are not even aware that we are doing it. Once the pain body has taken you over, you want more pain. You become a victim or a perpetrator. You want to inflict pain, or you want to suffer pain, or both. There isn't really much difference between the two. You are not conscious of this, of course, and will vehemently claim that you do not want pain. But look closely and you will find that your thinking and behavior are designed to keep the pain going, for yourself and others. If you were truly conscious of it, the pattern would dissolve, for to want  more pain is insanity, and nobody is consciously insane-Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now. A few years back, I was watching Dr. Phil on the Oprah Winfrey and there was a guest on the show that was constantly late. Dr. Phil asked her a very powerful question, "What about that is working for you?"  Of course she said that it wasn't working for her but Dr. Phil said that is not true. Something has to be working for you or you wouldn't  do it. He was right. She could set this clock a little earlier. She could lay her clothes and supplies out the night before. But why not?    When we look at situations like this from the outside or when we are not in an emotional state, it is very obvious that we are defeating ourselves. However, most sabotage happens when we are so caught up in our emotions and lives that we cannot see it happening.  When in the midst of self sabotaging behavior, it is always some one else's fault or the situation that caused it. In the previous example of being late, It wasn't the fact that the clock was not set early enough to allow for events like traffic, weather, and bad hair days, that made the person late;the actual events themselves is where the blame was laid. This is true for all chronic self saboteurs. The blame is always placed on things outside of them.   In other words, you would rather be in pain-be the pain body-than take a leap into the unknown and risk losing the familiar unhappy self.-Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now The Hallmarks of a Self Saboteur. Check Yourself Before you Wreck Yourself! Boredom- When I was a child, and I would tell my mom that I was bored, she would always say, "I don't remember the last time I was bored.". Then she would list all the chores and errands she had to run. For her, being bored was a luxury. She wished that she had "extra time" to spend being bored.  However, for a self defeatest, boredom is not acceptable.  When you feel that there always has to be something going on in your life for you to be happy, than you are a strong candidate for self sabotage. When the mind is uncomfortable with the feeling of being bored, it starts to seek out excitement. Things in your life that never used to bother you all of a sudden become very important.  You start to obsess over things and an overwhelming urge to fix stuff starts to happen. The overwhelming need to take action blurs any ability to be rational and actions are not well thought out. When all the holes start to put a wrench in your plans, you blame it on everything outside of yourself. To be happy, we have to be learn how to find joy with just being with ourselves. It is always someone else's fault-self saboteurs have a really hard time taking responsibility for their own actions. It is always some else's fault. Though we don't have full control of everything that happens, we always have at least partial control. There is a great scene in the movie, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", where the director shows all the events  that resulted in an injury that ended o

RT @saferyoga: We love this app from Anatomy in Motion! Are there others you're using for yoga that we should add?