Today, Music is My Yoga

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Maybelle Carter

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My music teacher in elementary school was a big, buxom woman with dark eyes and even darker hair that she kept piled in curls on the top of her head.  She’d go from classroom to classroom, tapping out rhythm, encouraging us to sing, rallying the boys in the back of the room.  I loved her.  I especially loved her on the days that she brought the instruments – a cardboard box full of triangles, tambourines and wooden sticks.  But the best instrument of all was the one that came in the odd-shaped box.  The Autoharp.  I always volunteered to play the Autoharp, and Mrs. Soldridge always chose me.  Maybe it was unfair to the other few who could manage to keep time, but I didn’t care.  I wanted that instrument.  I wanted it bad.  It was heavy and wonderful and all you had to do to make a sound like angels calling was press a button and strum the felt plectrum across the strings.  And there were so many strings they were impossible to count.

By the time I was in high school though, I’d forgotten all about Mrs. Soldridge and her Autoharp.  I was too busy failing in my attempts to play the opening of Stairway to Heaven on my guitar.  The Autoharp was old-fashioned and silly and so were all those traditional folk songs I loved as a kid.

Flash forward more decades than I’d like to count and enter Evo Bluestein.  Evo brings traditional folk music and dance to schools across the country.  His ability to charm even an introvert like me into believing she’s musical is legendary.  I could take a few pages to sing Evo’s praises but it would be easier for you to just click here.  On Saturday Evo offered an Autoharp Workshop at Gryphon Music in Palo Alto.  With my friend Sarah’s encouragement, I signed up.

The workshop began at 1:00 when I pulled a 21-bar Evoharp (Evo’s custom built version of the Autoharp) from its case.  By 1:15 Sarah and I were playing our first song.  Knowing he had two (cough) extraordinarily talented students in front of him he decided on a more accelerated course.   By 2:00 he and Sarah – a music teacher with a classically trained voice and her own 14-bar Evoharp – were playing exquisite melodies while I attempted to keep a steady rhythm (pick strum pick strum pick strum…).  Our voices rang out in three-part harmony.  By 2:30 Evo was introducing me to more complicated strumming patterns and by 2:45 my left arm was ready to fall off.

He ended the workshop by playing a Bessie Smith blues number.  It was unbelievable.

Music transforms you.  It alters the beat of your heart and the way blood spills through your veins.  I walked into that workshop a bit blue and more than a little nervous.  I left two hours later knowing there had been change on a cellular level.

Today music was my Yoga and every cell of my body was filled with joy.

I loved every single minute of that time spent with my friend, with Evo and with music.  I’m no Mother Maybelle, but damn that was fun!

Half Moons and Flying Dragons

I remember the evening twenty-five years ago when our teacher led us into Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon Pose).  I had been attending Karl’s class for just a few weeks and it was my first Half Moon.  It wasn’t pretty. I distinctly remember thinking that night would be my last night at Yoga.  My standing leg was shaking, my extended leg’s hip was screaming and my brain was telling me “This is nuts. You can’t do this.  Just go home.”

But I didn’t go home.

To this day Ardha Chandrasana ranks as one of my favorite poses.  Several classes after that first attempt, when I smoothly transitioned into the pose from Triangle and felt the strength in my balancing leg and the openness in my hip, I was free.  I felt like a soaring bird.

And when I introduce Half Moon to a new class for the first time, teaching in the same studio where I was taught, I always stand in the spot where I attempted the pose for the first time and tell the class “Things change.”

These days I’m adding modifications to my Half Moon.  Sometimes, with limited success, I bring my fingers up from the floor to rest the hand on my heart chakra.  More often I’ll take the ankle of my extended leg and pull myself into something I’m certain has a proper name but I call Sideways Bow.

We grow.  We learn.  We fall down. We try again.  We grow.

It took a lot of prying to open my mind to a new way of thinking about Yoga.  My practice was firmly rooted in Iyengar.  There was no other way.

But things change.

While I will probably never, ever understand how I can further my Yoga practice while listening to rock music (please, someone, explain this trend to me), a few years ago I was encouraged to explore the possibility of a fluid, non-alignment based practice.

Enter Flying Dragon. Wait a minute, wasn’t that a Bruce Lee movie?

The truth is, I can be a little bit…ahem…rigid in my thinking.  I like having a place for everything and everything in its place.  Just like an Iyengar practice. I’m not saying Iyengar theory is rigid, only that it might appeal to someone with rigid thinking.

When Suzee Grilley introduced the Flying Dragon sequence to us on a summer morning at teacher training my brain was telling me, “You can’t do this.  This isn’t Yoga.  Give Up.  You’re too out of shape.”  My brain even said this, “You’re too old.”

Several mornings later and I was flying my dragon with joy.

Flying Dragon is the cure for my rigid thinking.  I can feel my soul open to the universe when I practice Flying Dragon.  It lifts my spirit.  It is a balm for the type of depression that feels heavy and leaden.

Different approaches to Yoga fill different needs. Right now I need less formal alignment and more fluid movement.

And for the past few weeks I’ve had this idea in my head that I can’t shake.  There’s a local park not far from my home, and I see myself there, teaching Flying Dragon to anyone who wants to learn.  When I mentioned this to a friend he suggested I was ‘giddy’.  I probably am.  But the thought of a Flying Dragon Flash Mob puts a big smile on my face.

So that’s what I’m going to do.  If you’d like to free your rigid mind – or just feel like flying your dragon – join me for a morning of Flying Dragon (with a few Golden Seeds thrown in for a nice warm up) this Saturday at 11:00 in the park on Homer Street in Palo Alto.

Update:  Four hours after I posted Half Moons and Flying Dragons the August (August?  Seriously?) issue of Yoga Journal arrived.  My “Sideways Bow” variation of Half Moon has a name:  Ardha Chandra Chapasana.  Whew.  Now I can sleep tonight.

Let the Dust Clouds Settle

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Me. In my favorite chair. Sitting still.

Flummoxed.  I’m flummoxed.

Even though the weather in the Bay Area has most of us convinced it is still March, the truth is we’re six months into 2011.   Hard to believe, isn’t it?  I’d love to say that so far it’s been an exciting, productive one hundred and eighty days (give or take) but the truth is so far this year has been about introspection and healing.  At least for me. And, for now, there is very little I want to share about that.  Except maybe to say something we can always count on is change.  Nothing ever stays the same.

Instead I’ll tell you that I emptied my change bucket on Memorial Day and discovered that throwing the days collection of quarters, nickels and dimes into an old water bottle could yield – after sixteen months – three hundred and twenty dollars. Coin Star took a small chunk of that, of course, but I still had enough for two sessions of therapy and a few groceries.

And I’ll tell you about how I arrived for a hair cut at my favorite corner salon and ran out of it thirty minutes later looking not unlike an East German gymnast circa 1964.  Attempts at home to re-style the odd and uneven razor cut with any gel, mousse and wax left in the back of my closet since 1992 failed.

Fortunately, when I returned to the salon today they happily re-cut my hair for free.  Crises averted.  I thought I was going to have pull out my acid washed mom jeans and Sally Jesse Raphael glasses.

And that’s pretty much it.

I’ve not even checked in with eHarmony for new matches or OKCupid to count the arrows in my quiver.

Instead, I’ve begun to consider the benefits of sitting still.  We spend so much of our lives chasing dreams and goals, stirring up dust, racing towards something that at times is impossible to identify.  I think I’d like to find out what happens if I let a little tranquility roll over me.  What will I see if I let the dust settle?  Maybe I’ll find out everything I wanted was right next to me all along.  I was just moving too fast to notice.

The Great Online Dating Experiment of 2011 – Part I

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Somehow I just don't quite see the two of us working out...

If eHarmony is the alleged online dating equivalent to shopping at Neiman Marcus, then OKCupid is Ross Dress for Less – you have to do a bit of digging before you find a potential gem.

I’m about ten days into the Great Online Dating Experiment of 2011 and I have to tell you – it’s not going so well.  Let me rephrase that:  it’s going slower than I expected.  After three days of inappropriate matches from the folks at eHarmony – who seem  under the impression that I would be interested in seventy-year-old men whose dream vacation is a Donny and Marie Concert in Branson, Missouri – I signed up with OKCupid.  I mean no offense to older men, Donny or Marie (whose lips are looking fabulous these days, by the way) or the fine folks in Branson.  But seriously eHarmony – that’s what your big ol’ computer surmised from my profile?  That I was looking for a road trip to the heartland in a kitted out Winnebago?

I exaggerate, of course, and to be honest it’s probably not eHarmony’s fault.  I’m sure the computer did its best with the information I provided.  Here I am, with (according to a friend) a “facility for writing” and I can’t string three words together that describe my wondrousness.  My profile is flatter than a stale matzoh cracker.

Wouldn’t we be better able to rally to the cause of love if profile writing was a group project? I’ve been thinking that it’s not an altogether bad idea for friends to form Profile Writing Groups.  Imagine…a few good friends, a little wine, a couple of laptops and a few hours later one great online profile.  Now that’s my idea of fun.

Of course, meeting a total stranger for coffee might be fun, too.  And, believe it or not, despite painting myself a tepid beige, it looks like that’s what I might be doing this weekend.  My palms are sweating at the very thought.  But it’s good to know that I attract more than sweet, Winnebago owning retirees with a hankerin’ for a road trip.

The Healing Power of Yoga. Any Yoga.

I taught my first Yin Basics Workshop yesterday at the California Yoga Center, my home studio.  One hour of theory followed by an hour of practice.  Nine beautiful yogis joined me.

Teaching a workshop requires a different skill set to teaching a class.  I felt challenged by the task of explaining the theory and practice of Yin in sixty minutes and then further challenged by the questions raised by students coupled with my self-doubt.

It was a great afternoon.

And yet, this morning I’m convinced that despite the training I’ve completed, the workshops I’ve attended and the books I’ve read I really know nothing about Yoga.  After thirty years of practice, my knowledge only scratches the surface of everything there is to know about how Yoga affects the body on a spiritual and cellular level.

It was a wake-up call.

Meanwhile, labels are beginning to irk me.  I’m beginning to get the feeling that we’re all making it up as we go along.

During our workshop the question that is always asked was asked yet again:  What is the difference between Yin Yoga and Restorative Yoga?  I tried to answer by explaining my experience with the restorative class I attended two weeks ago (read about it here).  The student asking the question – who is a yogi for whom I have great admiration – replied:  “That wasn’t restorative.  In my restorative classes we do eight to ten poses in an hour and hold them like we’re holding them today.”

And yet, at the end of my Restorative Yoga experience two weeks ago, I felt restored.  So who’s to say it wasn’t restorative yoga?  And maybe what she’s calling Restorative is really Yin?  And does it really, really matter?

The truth is I want to feel restored at the end of any yoga practice.  I want to feel connected.  Grounded.  Free of doubt and fear.  I want to feel my blood moving and warm, living muscle tissue.  I want to experience an ease of movement in my body, my spirit and my soul – as though I’ve come home to something I longed for.

That’s how yoga heals.

Soul Mates, Online Dating and Therapy

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Milano, Italy

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I did it.  Something I’ve refused to do for years.  On-line dating, eHarmony style.

Oh, and I also began therapy.  But more about that later.

I don’t know when or where or even if I’ll meet my soul mate.  Yes, I believe in soul mates.  I believe there is someone looking for me and when we meet the connection might not be instant but it will be profound and the love we fall into – despite our flaws, our disagreements, the challenges we face in life – will be unfailing.  I believe that.

And for years I believed love and connection was out of my reach.  That somehow I didn’t deserve it.  Besides, I had plenty of platonic love and connection with my yoga students.  Weren’t my cravings for romantic love selfish?

As friends know, I’ve always hoped I’d meet someone – anyone – at the salad bar of whole foods as our tongs tangle over the romaine.  When I mentioned this recently on Facebook, a friend replied, “I think meeting someone at the salad bar is a toss up!”

He’s right.  If I want love and connection – if I want to find the soul mate that at this very moment is looking for me – then I have to increase my chances of finding him.

It’s been forty-eight hours and the potential matches are rolling in.  All eight of them.  One of them is someone I’ve known for years.  How weird is that?  I archived his profile immediately (eHarmony’s lovely euphemism for ‘delete’).  But now I’m asking myself, is online dating for the birds, or does eHarmony know something I don’t?

Now…about that therapy…..

An Old Dog Learns a New Trick

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I may have mentioned once or twice that in Chinese Astrology I am a Yellow Dog.  Not only am I prone to drooling in my sleep but I can also catch a Frisbee between my teeth, forgive instantaneously and love unconditionally.  I am also fiercely loyal.  Loyalty is, at times, a curse.  It makes it difficult for me to try new things without feeling as though I’m being unfaithful.

But on Sunday I overcame those feelings and attended my first ever Restorative Yoga Class.  I was on a quest. I needed calm.  I wanted my mind to clear and my nervous system to unwind.   I didn’t need to break a sweat.  I didn’t need to feel the burn.  I didn’t need my heart pumping within 85% of its maximum rate.

I considered a Yin session at home, but I’ve been making an effort to get out more.  And so that’s how I found myself at my local JCC at 5:15 on a sunny afternoon.

Chihiro is a lovely teacher.  Confident and quiet, she demonstrated all three poses we completed in the hour-long class.  Yes, that’s right.  THREE poses:  the first was a supported chest opener, the second took our legs up the wall and the third was supported relaxation.  As my body melted into the work, Chihiro observed, corrected and comforted students with a whisper.

In my Yin class on Monday, I mentioned the Restorative class.  Several students wanted to know the difference between to two styles of yoga.

Here it is:

The Difference Between Restorative Yoga and Yin Yoga

Restorative Yoga uses props to create support and reduce stress on the body. 

Yin purposely places stress on the connective tissue.

Yin requires that the practitioner open to discomfort rather than requiring comfort in order to open.

It was important for me to allow my inner Yellow Dog to run off leash.  Chihiro’s restorative class offered the support I needed and I learned a valuable lesson.  Even though my yoga loves are Yin and Iyengar, there are times when other schools of yoga are better able to heal my body, mind and spirit.

Lists, Love and Epiphanies

An list from a few years ago...I'm exhausted looking at it.

There’s nothing like a Wednesday morning epiphany to get my juices flowing.  I’m still obsessed with the advantage and disadvantages of keeping detailed lists and goals and objectives.  The merits of having a game plan.  (I’m also wondering how we determine what is instinct and what is illusion but that’s for another post).

Yesterday I walked Rose the Labradoodle without my ever-present iPod and discovered that not having my brain bombarded with Green Day, downloads of Michael Krasny (I have a huge crush on his voice) and the occasional Miles Davis opened my brain up to the possibility of – yeegads – random, spontaneous, creative thought.  Who knew?  Unplugging the external cacophony gives us a chance to listen to what’s going on deep inside.

And here’s what I came up with on Rose’s walk yesterday:  Most writers create a story arc – an outline of who their characters are, where they’re going and how they’re going to get there.  A beginning, middle and an end.  The story arc is roughly hewn list that chronicles the events that move the plot forward, the set backs the protagonist may endure, and the big payoff – why the heroine began the journey in the first place.

But a story arc is simply a road map.  It’s malleable.  It’s possible to turn left and venture down an unmarked avenue.

Cue big flash of insight.

When I think of my life as a series of lists, goals and objectives I set myself up for failure and disappointment.  The list is too long, the goals are too high. All I can see in my mind’s eye is that white piece of paper and one bulleted 10-point Helvetica command after another. My self-esteem is fragile enough already.  Why would I do that to myself?

But – if I create a story arc for my life then I acknowledge that there has to be room for uncertainty, moments when I decide to turn left instead of right, unexpected opportunity.  It doesn’t eliminate a game plan – I still want everything I want with all my heart and I know that I have to work for it.  But in my mind’s eye I can see my arc play out like a stunningly framed Ang Lee movie.

So, good-bye dry, boring lists.  Hello, The Story of Mimm.

Take a moment.  If you’re a chronic list maker like me, how does it feel to release those rote set of goals for a moment and instead see your life as an amazing story?

More About Lists, Love and Open Hearts

My Inner Mimm wants to be a slob.  A female Oscar Madison minus the cigar.   Fortunately, living in a studio apartment prevents me from embracing her.  There has to be a sense of order when you live in a small space and although my lack of domestic skills occasionally run amok (as I’m the only dish washer, I’ve been known to wait until I’ve run out of clean bowls before I take care of the dirty ones), by and large I have ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’.

Lists are a guide to putting everything in its place – including, perhaps, our feelings and emotions.  I created a list a few days ago, wrote about it here, then worried that it might corral my recently opened heart safely back into the archival box it had sheltered in for the past five years.  I guess, too, a list tethers us in the present.  There’s still enough slack on the line to look at the past or float into the future, but the list will always gently tug us back to the here and now.

Maybe that’s part of the reason opening ourselves to the possibility of love and connection is so frightening. It’s too easy to abandon the here and now.  We abandon what we believed was certain (our list) to share the care and feeding of our heart and emotions with someone else.  We acknowledge our vulnerability.

It feels a bit like dropping into Wheel or Upward Bow Pose.  We arch back, unable to see our destination and yet we still reach.  We trust.  We know that our hands will find the floor, and that we won’t be hurt.  Midway through, however, there’s a moment of doubt – Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea? But just when we consider letting go of the pose – losing the faith that brought us this far – our hands blindly reach one more inch.  Our back bends deeper than we thought it could – we’re capable of more than we ever believed – and our heart opens wide.

Lists, Love and Equilibrium

At last, the dust seems to be settling.  How do I know?  I made a list.  This seems like a silly indicator that equilibrium is coming home to roost.  But I am the self-proclaimed Mother of All List Makers. My last impressive list was created in the middle of January from the Embarcadero Hyatt when, disillusioned by the Yoga Journal Conference, I hid out in my hotel room for the weekend and pretended I was on a writer’s retreat. Before that I had my list of New Year’s Resolutions.  And before that it was Fifty Things to Accomplish in My Fiftieth Year (that one began three years ago – I’m still working on it).

Lists are about control.  They make me feel safe.  If I have my list I know where I am supposed to be.  I know where I am going.  Nothing can hurt me or distract me or pull me from my path.  I have my list.  Here’s my list for today:

Monday 11 April

  • 6:00 Rise: Shower, eat, feed Rose & Bella, walk Rose, meditate, post blog
  • 9:00:  Tom in Sunnyvale; d/o new clothes and stuff at home
  • Leave car at Sarah’s (walk)
  • Credit Union
  • 11:00:  FMG
  • Lunch
  • 1:00:  Avenidas
  • Sarah’s:  Rest, write, walk Rose; flowers for Bobbie & Harkins
  • 7:30:  Yin
  • TO DO:  contact Ann re. workshop; follow through on lost paycheck, poop scoop,  look at Abby’s letters from week 4, check submissions, think about query letter for cadaver workshop, drop off envelopes at CYC

It’s very routine.  Nothing exciting.  And it continues to Sunday, when I leave for San Francisco and my weeklong cadaver intensive with Gil Hedley.  The most exciting moment is when I break from my Wednesday evening tradition (staying at home) in order to leave the house for a home cooked dinner with Bettie, Richard and Dena.

This week’s list reminds me of an incident that happened about eight years ago.  I was going though another difficult time and decided I needed to talk with someone.  At my first meeting with a therapist, I brought The Ultimate List. I was so proud.  It proved I really wasn’t troubled.  It proved I had my act together.  The list was eight pages of 10-point single-spaced Helvetica and covered the next five years of my life.  I can still see the astonishment behind the therapist’s attempt to remain neutral. She looked at me and asked,

“Why do you feel you need a list?”

Wasn’t it obvious?

I didn’t remain in therapy for very long – eight years ago there were too many doors I was unwilling to open and the ability to bore cyberspace with musings on some wacky thing called a ‘blog’ was merely a twinkle in some geek’s eye.

We all experience periods of difficulty (even yoga teachers).  The goal, I suppose, is to remain functional while processing the events in our lives that have knocked us off-center.  Lists keep me functional.

The danger is that they can shut us down.  Put us in a box. Lists can create a life so ordered and precise that there is no room for an open heart.  For love and joy.  For connection.

I want love and connection.  But for now, what I need is the safety of my list.

My yoga practice this week will nurture the equilibrium I’m returning to.  There will be plenty of balance poses – including my favorite, Garudasana – and strong standing sequences.  I feel I need the grounding precision of an alignment-based practice this week.  I also need to comfort my heart, and for that I’ll turn to the organic fluidity of Yin.

When you step on your mat this week, take a moment to check in with your emotional state.  If you’re leaning too far to one side, how can your practice help bring you back to center?