Day Om…Land of Medicine Buddha

Do you remember that Superbowl commercial from 1984?  The one with the sledgehammer?  I feel a bit like that.

It turns out that somewhere along our yoga journey we became stuck on alignment.  How it happened doesn’t really matter.

For the past twenty years I’ve been turning my right foot out ninety degrees and turning my left foot in thirty for every triangle.  And so has each one of my students.   I believed the same alignment worked for everyone.  And I appreciated having rules to follow.  It felt good to know that if my feet were in set in one direction and my hands in another I was ‘doing it right’.  It didn’t hurt my average proportioned body – why would it hurt anyone else?

Besides, it’s nice putting poses into compartments: this is what Triangle looks like.  This is Half Moon.  Warrior goes like this.  And if our poses weren’t identical it wasn’t because we were breaking the Laws of Alignment – it was because we had a tight hip or a tense hamstring.  As soon as those muscles loosened up we’d be just fine.  Because we’re all the same.  Just like in that Superbowl commercial.

Well guess what?  Paul and Suzee Grilley have taken a sledgehammer to everything I thought I knew about yoga.

Here’s the thing:  It turns out we’re not all the same.

Sure, differences on the outside are easy to note:  hair color, eye color, body weight – they’re different on everyone.  But we forgot to consider the inside.  The closest most of us come to looking at bones are the plastic skeletons in high school biology class.  But those familiar plastic femurs drop off an assembly line, one after another. We don’t.  As the saying goes, “When God made you he broke the mold.” We’re one of kind.  Literally.

If you don’t believe me, look at this: bone photos

These past two weeks – which are coming to an end far too soon – have made me reconsider everything I thought I knew about yoga, about movement, about teaching.

I have loved my time here but I’m looking forward to coming home and being with all my students.  I’m looking forward to our transition – a slow unwinding – a letting go of the rules.  You won’t believe how liberating it feels.

Day Six – Land of Medicine Buddha. No – Make that ‘Home Sweet Home’

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We have today off. My roommate invited me to drive down the coast with her but I’m a homebody.  After Friday’s last ‘Namaste’ I made my way ‘over the hill’ and came home.  Being home grounds me.  I can confirm the apartment is still here, my houseplants are still alive and the upstairs neighbors are still loud. The bottom line?  There’s a week of laundry to do and a DVR locked, loaded and ready for viewing.

So I’m here in my little studio processing the last six days and anticipating the next seven.  What I’m really trying to say is this:

Teacher training has been a colossal mind-bender (and you can feel free to replace ‘bender’ with slightly saltier language).

  • One moment I’m certain I’m a good yoga teacher – my teaching philosophy runs parallel to Paul and Suzee’s.
  • In the next moment I’m a failure because I’ve never seriously considered introducing yogic philosophy to my classes.
  • Before I arrived my yogic path was an Iyengar path – I believed his system of alignment meant my students were safe.
  • Now I’m asking myself, ‘how do I tell my students I’ve been wrong for the past sixteen years?’.
  • I convince myself that I can teach a hybrid of Iyengar and Yin (I call it I-YIN-Gar!).
  • But then I see that beautiful photo of Iyengar and his curiously long eyebrows in the studio where I teach.  He looks at me.  His brows are knit together in disapproval.

It’s a delicate balancing act, integrating two disparate schools of thought.

If you asked me, “What are you enjoying the most about teacher training?” I think the answer would change moment by moment.  But I have to admit I believe the most meaningful part of the day is the thirty-minute morning meditation.  I believe that continuing the practice when I return to “real life” will go a long way toward discovering where this new yoga path will lead.

Day Five and Counting at LMB

We learned a Yang sequence yesterday that I can’t wait to teach and this morning explored deepening stretches for the hip and lower back.  With twenty minutes to spare Paul said,  “Ok, do whatever you want.”  I couldn’t help it – I slipped in about ten minutes of Iyengar. Integrating Yin with Iyengar continues to be challenging but I don’t believe it is impossible.  During my Iyengar practice I was able to assimilate a little of Suzee’s Yang Flow with my favorite “slow flow” (triangle, half-moon, warrior one and back to standing forward bend) and if felt incredible.

I don’t believe it’s right of me to completely abandon the Iyengar way, even as I embrace Yin.  Just like everything, there is a balance.  It’s important to know what works about Iyengar (the props and the pace) and what doesn’t (the insistence on exact alignment).  And it’s important to know what works in Yin (the targeting of the fascia) and what doesn’t (the lack of precise answers that can frustrate a beginner).  I believe that in my teaching and in my practice, the two might gently learn to accommodate one another.

It’s a good day.  I can’t wait to return and share what I’m learning.

Land of Medicine Buddha – Day 2

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Day 2 August 16th

After a light meal of soup and salad we met for the first time as a group last night in the Pine Room. After introductions, Suzee and Paul distributed a hand out and the director of LMB gave a brief talk about the trails, our accommodations, and how to fend off mountain lions.

My roommate is Kristen Butero.  She and her husband Bob own a yoga studio in Devon, Pennsylvania:  www.yogalifeinstitute.com.  They publish a monthly magazine called Yoga Living.  Bob Butero’s written a book The Pure Heart of Yoga. It’s a guide to help us apply yogic philosophy to everyday living.

Kristen has a great depth of yoga knowledge and I’m grateful to have her as a roommate.

For instance, she was a great help last night.  For the past two decades my yoga experience has been Iyengar influenced.  The yoga I am here to study – yin yoga – is the anti-thesis of Iyengar.  I’m not being asked to unlearn everything I’ve been taught, but to be open to the possibility that there is another way.  Even so, I’m finding the task difficult.  It’s not that I considered Mr. Iyengar’s method perfect.  But it has been close to perfect for me.  Maybe that’s because I like everything to have a place, and I want everything in its place.  A foot here, an arm there, look this way, breath that way. That would be easy if we were all the same.  But we’re not.  We’re not the same physically nor are we the same energetically.

I took on board all this information yesterday.  It’s basically contrary to everything I’ve been taught and – I’ll admit it – I got a little rattled.  Here’s how Kristen talked me down from the ledge last night:  In her opinion, over the last several thousand years, as the sages moved their bodies and the asanas were evolving into the yoga poses we know today, yogi’s were seeking the position where they felt their energy move without inhibition.  The position where their energy – their prana – flowed freely.

And that’s why my nice, neat little yoga wall is coming apart one brick at a time.  And if I’m honest, it hurts, but I like it.  I’m confused but I’ll be all right.  Right now I’m fairly confident I’ll still be a yoga teacher when this is all over.  Fingers crossed.

But seriously, in a group of students, why should we strive to make poses seem identical?  Why should they remain static?  What I learned from Paul and Suzee today is that poses are organic.  They can shift.  They have a functional aspect that we often sacrifice for the aesthetic (read that again – go on – read it – it’s a big deal, and I learned it today).  Furthermore, everyone in the room experiences the pose differently.  Not only does every person in the room experience the pose differently, but I believe we experience the pose differently each time we practice.  It is not be the same experience.

A bit about our schedule.  The day begins at 7:00 with thirty minutes of meditation followed by breakfast.  We meet for two hours of yoga at 9:00 and then a one-hour lecture.  Following lunch we have a further three hours of lecture, theory and practice.  Practice is when we work in groups and analyze structural differences, work on modifying poses for different situations and study anatomy.

And if you’re wondering, the vegetarian food is great.  I was hoping to leave a few pounds lighter.  If they keep serving thick lentil soup with warm bread and butter I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Day 1 – Land of Medicine Buddha

Day 1 August 15th

I arrived at Land of Medicine Buddha two hours early but still able to register and move into my room.  Since then I’ve been writing and waiting for my roommate to arrive.  There are people here from around the world.  I wasn’t expecting that.  A woman traveled from Hong Kong, there are several from Europe and Canada and many from across the United States.  Californians are in the minority.

All the worry that filled my head before leaving Palo Alto did not materialize.  I did not crash and burn on Highway 17 and I did not become lost.  Everyone else brought as much luggage as me.  And everyone is very, very friendly.

Land of Medicine Buddha is tucked away off of Prescott Road outside of Soquel.  It feels remote and yet Soquel itself is only ten minutes away.  There are several main buildings clustered together – rustic dormitories, a reception area and shop, meditation rooms and a dining hall.  It’s like camping for Buddhists.

I met Paul and Suzee right away.  Actually – I walked right past them, failing to recognize the follically challenged Paul with a hat on.  They’re lovely and welcoming and Paul’s peculiar laugh rings out across the camp.

After unpacking and swearing to Suzee that I did not – under any circumstances – want to know where I could find a wireless connection I brought out my notebooks and wrote the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper.

But the beautiful day worked its magic.  It’s warm and sunny.  The sky is sparkling blue and from my perch I looked up through the leaves of a plum tree made ruby red by the filtering sun.

And then Chloe, the welcoming cat, made her appearance and I knew everything would be all right.

Fasten Your Seat Belt…

I want to say, before anything else, that maybe I’m wrong.  That perhaps my time in high school and again in college spent as a Bible-thumping, tongue-speaking Charismatic has made me a bit wary of preachers.  My mission as a Yoga teacher is to teach you what I know and what I’m learning.  My mission is to keep you safe and injury free as you grow in your Yoga practice.  My mission is to encourage you and my hope is that you discover that there is more to Yoga than the physical.  When we practice with peace, with non-violence towards our body, free of an agenda and expectations, a connection takes place between the body and the spirit. It’s not up to me to point it out to you.  You must find it.  Sometimes it takes no time at all – we feel the connection with our very first triangle.  But for many of us our fear of doing it ‘wrong’ holds us back.  There is no ‘wrong’.  There is tightness, joint restriction, agitation, fear…but there is no wrong.   Sometimes to grow, we need to step back, to take a lighter approach.  Sometimes to grow, we need to dig deeper.

Yoga is a blessing in my life. But its ever-increasing commercialization has, at times, made me feel insecure as a teacher and as a student. Can I still practice Yoga if I don’t have the right clothes?  The right mat?  Am I skinny enough?  Can I put my foot behind my heads?  Why, after twenty-five years of Yoga practice does Crow still elude me? Dare I confess that, on occasion, I’m a sucker for a crisp slice of bacon?

So – in the spirit of healthy skepticism, fasten your seat belt, we’re in for a bumpy rant.

I want to like John Friend and Anusara Yoga.  I really do.  I love the alignment-based technique, the sense of humor and joy.  The highlight of the 2008 San Francisco Yoga Journal Conference (besides discovering Three-Minute Eggs) was my Anusara session with Désirée Rumbaugh.

But then I read this quote from Friend’s interview in the September issue of Yoga Journal:  “When I was four years old, Kennedy got shot… I was sick.  My mother fed me whiskey and honey and put me in front of the TV.  So I was in an altered state of consciousness when my shows were preempted by the Dallas tragedy.  Watching the funeral caused me deep questioning about the meaning of life.  Why would we be created to have it all taken away?”

John Friend and I are the same age.  I asked questions that week, too.  Questions like, “Mommy, why are the boots in the saddle stuck in backwards?” I’m pretty certain I didn’t question my existence. Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24th but, other than that, death had nothing to do with me. November 24th, 1963 was my 5th birthday.  I was afraid the celebrations might be cancelled.

Maybe as a child John Friend was calibrated to a higher universal frequency than me.  Maybe he tapped into something I didn’t notice because I was too busy thinking about my mom’s pineapple upside down cake and not stepping on the kitchen cockroaches that occasionally made daring daytime raids.

The truth is, as much as I want to believe, I’m very, very skeptical that John Friend questioned the meaning of life at age four.

But I like being a skeptic.  I think it’s healthy.  And, these days, there’s a place for skepticism in Yoga.

So I’m putting the Commercial Yoga World on notice.  Unless I see you walk on water I’m not going to follow you like a puppy.  But I’ll believe you’re a human, just like me, who has honed a skill through hard work and dedicated practice.  I’ll believe you have a gift for teaching.  But I won’t allow the masses to convince me you’re the Next Great Yogic Hope.

And please don’t put a copyright on poses that are thousands of years old.  Don’t try to convince me your sequencing belongs to you and you alone,  or that practicing the sequence in a super-heated room is healthy.  It might be, for you, but not for me.  I tried it.  I even enjoyed the spiritual benefit. And yet, each time I began a hot yoga practice the result, for me, was illness or injury.

So please, if hot yoga makes you feel jubilant  please don’t proselytize that your Yoga is the only way. I’m happy you found the Yoga that fits your body, mind and spirit.  Now pardon me while I go find mine.

If you are a human, just like me, don’t try to convince me that with your system I can become a Level I Yoga teacher in a weekend workshop.   It’s impossible.

And if I mention my Iyengar background to you, don’t smirk. Yes, it has happened. Don’t look at me as if I need de-programming.  My Iyengar background keeps my students safe.  Will you break a sweat in my class?  Perhaps during Surya Namaskar.  Maybe not.  Do we care?  Is Yoga a hard-core cardiovascular exercise?  On the other hand, will you learn how to modify each pose to suit where your body is that day?  Will you be in a quiet and safe environment?  Will you be mindful of the body and the breath?  Yes.

Finally, if you design, manufacture or sell Yoga equipment or clothing, I want you to know that I choose to no longer be manipulated by your advertising.  Tell me what your product is, how it works and why I might want to have it.  But be honest about it.  Don’t make me feel less of a Yogi because I haven’t purchased the latest mat, the trendy clothes, the coolest block.  Seriously.  Do you think Patanjali had a foam block?

Yoga in America is in a strange place.  It’s being diluted and pushed and pulled and turned into something I don’t believe it was ever meant to be. It’s becoming overpriced, over-marketed and elitist. The question new students usually ask, “Am I flexible enough to practice Yoga?” seems to be slowly changing to “Am I pretty enough/handsome enough/ sexy enough to practice Yoga?”  I hope I’m not the only one who finds that sad.

Can You Go Home Again?

When I began to consider self-care – what it meant and how I could care for myself more without caring for others less – I really believed it was just a matter of reduced screen time, more quiet time and a few walks around the block.  I believed it was that easy.

As it happens, self-care manifests differently depending on who you are and where you are in your life.  Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that we deserve to be cared for just as much as anyone else.  That’s a big one for me, believing I deserve it.  Believing I’m worthy of care.

Thomas Wolff wrote: “You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood … back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame … back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time — back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.”

And yet, if I want to connect the dots of my rambling life, if I want to heal and move forward, then I must take a huge step back and look at the past I abandoned so many years ago. I’ve booked my ticket, hotel and rental car and in September I’m going home for the first time in twenty-eight years.

This won’t be easy but I’m going to embrace every good, bad, ugly and thrilling moment.

Fortunately, before I go East I’m headed to the Land of Medicine Buddha on the Pacific coast in Soquel, California.  I’ll be attending Paul Grilley’s Yin Yoga Workshop.  Fourteen days of meditation, yoga, instruction and vegetarian food with no internet access.

I’ve wanted to attend Grilley’s teacher training since 2008 but each year I managed to talk myself out of it.  I’m glad that I’ve finally overcome (or at least set aside) the fear and insecurity I had about attending.

I suppose you’re wondering about the fear and insecurity. Let’s not go there.  I’ll just say my fears walk a fine line between the rational and irrational.

On a final, practical note:  if you attend my classes either at California Yoga Center in Palo Alto or at Avenidas, you can find details on who is subbing for me while I’m gone and important dates regarding the summer and fall quarters by clicking on the Classes page.

Self-Care

I have friends who are great at putting themselves first.  In a good way.  Some friends simply know when to say ‘no’.  Others have the means to make twice yearly trips to their favorite spa.  Still others begin their day with reflection and meditation – before turning on NPR, before checking the emails, before putting on the kettle.

I do not fall into any of those categories.  I’m terrible at saying ‘no’, my last massage was at least a year ago, and the first thing I do when the alarm sounds is open my MacBook to check for important emails that arrived in the night.

For shame.  And me being a yoga teacher and all that.  You’d think I’d know better.

The closest I come to self-care are visits to my acupuncturist Dea Burmeister.  But they only happen once every six weeks or so.

The last time I saw Dea, I was in her office not as a client, but as a practitioner.  She wanted some bodywork on her lunch break.  While we were preparing she mentioned that she’d gotten out of bed early that morning.  I asked why.

“If I don’t get up early enough to fit in my meditation and my walk, I’m no good to anyone else.”

And that’s the thing, isn’t it.  Nurturing self-care isn’t just about making ourselves feel good.  It’s about helping us to love ourselves so that we may love others.  And apparently this self-care business isn’t something that just happens.  You actually have to work at it.

What is Self Care?

Self-care is taking time for us.  Taking time that’s different than ‘down time’ in front of the television or computer.  It’s offering ourselves time to reflect and to center.  Self-care gives us permission to return to our still point – permission to find balance in a chaotic life.

For Dea, self-care includes meditative walks in the morning.  But we all have our own way of giving ourselves the care we deserve.

I’ve had two blessing in the past ten days.  First I was asked to dog and cat sit for a family who receive one television channel.  One. And it’s a bad one.  So I’ve not seen Keith Olberman or Rachel Maddow (my favorite source for news) since last week.  There’s been no Jon Stewart to make me laugh in the face of tragedy. In fact, I’ve not seen any news at all.  I’ve caught the Yahoo! headlines, but that’s it.

Reducing the amount of time we spend absorbing bad news is good self-care.  It doesn’t lessen our awareness of what’s happening around us, but it breaks our addiction to it. I feel different without the constant bombardment of what is – lets admit it – bad news.  I haven’t been this ‘chilled out’ since ‘chill out’ was the cool thing to say.

The other blessing happened a week ago.  I was enjoying a margarita with friends in their garden.  The subject came around to music, and ten minutes later I was holding a sixty-year-old Martin guitar while the owner said to me, “Why don’t you borrow it?”

My parents had a country band when I was growing up.  I began on a baritone ukulele but eventually graduated to a 12-string Guild.  I sold my guitar five years ago, telling myself I had no time for music.

Silly me. It turns out, for me, nurturing my musical side is very good self-care.

What do you do for self-care?  Do you meditate?  Do you row a kayak?  Do you need a hot tub and a massage or will curling up in front of a fire with a good book bring the balance back?

My goal over the next few weeks is to make time for my self-care – to block out a few hours in my schedule each week.  It won’t be easy.  The most difficult challenge for me will be saying ‘no’.

I just have to remind myself, it’s one step at a time, but forward.