Hangover

We’ve all been there at one point in time or another.  Waking up and peeling your eyelids open and wondering at what point during the previous night did you eat a cat.  The light hurts, your stomach spins, and you pray to whatever you believe in that, if you could just hold onto the bed long enough to keep the world from spinning, you’ll never ever have another night like the one before. Until you do.

We often think of hangovers just in terms of alcohol consumption, but the reality is that we more often that not have hangovers that have nothing at all to do with booze.  We have mental hangovers, emotional hangovers, anxiety hangovers, trauma hangovers.  Those hangovers, believe me, are just as much of a bitch as the happy juice kind, maybe even more so because alka seltzer, a nap, and a greasy cheeseburger don’t do a damn thing to help them.

They say “hair of the dog” is what will cure you when you’ve had too much booze.  You know, the whole concept of “what got you in will get you out.”  Not so with the other kinds of hangovers.  While we might do things that feel or sound good or appropriate at the time, eventually the moment of reckoning comes and all we’re left with is doubt, guilt, shame, anger, anxiety, fear, or any combination of those.  In those circumstances, doing what got you there most certainly will NOT get you out, it will only get you in deeper.  It can be a horrible cycle of trying to explain things and that only makes things worse.  Kind of like when someone doesn’t understand what you’re saying, it does no good to clear up the situation by simply repeating yourself over and over again or, my personal favorite, saying the same things LOUDER.

For years, I have taught “hangover yoga” the day after traditional days of celebration: New Year’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, St. Patrick’s Day, Homecoming, Halloween, etc.  Those classes were centered around asana that would cleanse the body of toxins, lots of twists, pranayama, forward folds, gentle inversions.  About 6 weeks ago, I realized that we all need to detox from our emotional and mental hangovers as well.  We need to learn to stop beating ourselves up over and over again.  We need to let go of the shame or anger we feel for ourselves or for others.  We need to let go of the poison.  We need, in other words, to get the toxic shit out of us so that we can forgive and move on.  I can’t speak for anyone else, but forgiving myself is the hardest thing in the world to do.  I often do things in the heat of the moment that cause me to feel shame or regret the next day or next week or next whatever.  It sucks.  It REALLY sucks and I have long moments of absolutely hating myself for it, but you know what?  We all do that.  We all do that because we are human.

Oddly, it’s not the original act that hurts us the most, it’s the squirrel cage circular thinking that does the most damage. There is a basic tenet of yoga called Ahimsa which essential means Do No Harm.  Listen, like I said, we’re human.  We’re going to fuck up.  The sooner we accept that, the better we’ll all be.  BUT here’s the thing, we don’t have to keep harming ourselves over our fuck ups.  We don’t have to make the situation worse on ourselves by reliving our mistakes over and over again.  We don’t need to keep beating ourselves up.  If we keep ourselves filled with shame, there is no room for acceptance.  And if there is no room for acceptance, there is no room for love.  We have to learn to let it go.  We might never ever be able to remedy what we have done.  Somethings just can’t be fixed, sadly, but we can keep the experience from hurting more than it already does.  Sadly, there is no AA for emotional / mental hangovers.  They are going to happen.  We have no choice over that matter.  What we DO have control over, however, is how we deal with them.  Feel the pain.  Feel the shame.  Feel the embarrassment or anger or anxiety or whatever it is, because if you don’t feel it, it will come back to haunt you.  Feel it, and then step away.  Ahimsa – don’t pour salt on the wound. Salt is for margaritas.

Are You Talking to Me? Obviously Not.

 

I have debated writing about this for several days.  I have tried to gradually move this blog back into more of a yoga / mindfulness blog and less of a grief processing blog, but as I stated in my first Brian post, I just can’t separate the two.  Ultimately, this is a blog about my life and how I see it and what I learn from it.  Lotta strands in old Duder’s head. – and they are all tangled together.

While I wouldn’t say that this past week has been the hardest of my life (not by a long shot,) I can with certainty say that it was a fucking nightmare created entirely from the twisted minds of other people.  Yes, I know, I should be able to stop this post and my squirrel cage thinking with that sentence.  NOT MY DOING.  The end.  Easier said than done. While I have espoused for years the mantra of “what other people think of me is none of my business,” and I believe it, the fact of the matter is that when people take actions based upon their erroneous beliefs, the results can be devastating.

While my kids and I came out smelling like roses, there were about 36 hours of complete and utter terror in my house last week.  No one needs that in their lives, but it was especially traumatizing to us since we are all still trying to recover from the trauma of Brian’s death.  I won’t get into the specifics about it because to lend power to the events would be to lend  power to the instigators, but the details don’t matter so much to the lesson.  I will say this – one of the most painful parts of the whole thing is knowing that this egregious assault on character and lifestyle came from people who could have and most certainly should have spoken to me first, rather than making asinine, unfounded assumptions and acting out of misconstrued truths.

At any given point, the instigators of this horrible week could have spoken to me about their concerns, asked questions, voiced their opinions (not that their opinion would have swayed me one iota,) and asked for clarity and / or more information.  These people chose not to do that.  They chose instead to gossip amongst each other, gathering hearsay data and mixing it with their own judgements, and jump to ghastly inaccurate conclusions.  The result?  My children and I were hurt and traumatized and have taken the actions necessary to prevent ourselves from further injury.  The result for them?  They don’t get to be a part of our lives.  Honestly, I think we got the better end of the deal.  When someone shows you who they truly are, believe them.

Satya and Ahimsa.  Speak the truth and do no harm.  We need to talk to one another instead of talking about one another.  In this situation, everyone hurts.  Had there been open and honest communication, we could have all been saved some pain.  Sadly, the other parties involved chose to hide behind other people and sneak around like thieves in the night to fulfill their agenda.  I won’t lie – there were days when I wanted to lash out and retaliate against these people for the agony they caused and the fearful distrust they have created in me and my children.  I’m human.  I wanted them to hurt as badly as they hurt me, I wanted them to feel the slap of betrayal as clearly as we have.  I wanted them to suffer, but (gratefully) I have learned to give things time and space so that I can act instead of react.  As I write this, my feelings at this moment are those of pity for them (and, admittedly, righteous indignation,)  but also pride in myself and my children, in our ability to see through the fog, in our ability to stop playing the dreaded “Telephone Game” of our youth and go straight to the source, and in our ability to make the choices that are best for us and the lives we want to lead.

Talk to each other.  Speak the truth.  Do no harm.

It’s really that easy.

The Power of White

When I was a kid in school, I was in special classes for “gifted” kids.  I always have hated that term.  Aren’t we all gifted?  Anyway, in these courses, I was given the opportunity to do incredible things.  I wrote two “books” before I was in Jr High School, attended court cases, took trips to botanical gardens, got out of regular classes to do hands on learning, and was able to meet some wonderful professionals.  When I was in 7th grade, I had an experienced that changed my life.  At the time, I had no idea how powerful it would be (who knows these things when they are 13?) but I have never forgotten it.  One spring Saturday, my “gifted” group and the similar groups from other schools piled into the auditorium and listened to an author speak about the writing process.  He spoke at length and answered questions and, honestly, I don’t remember very much except the one thing that has guided my life: “You must conquer the power of white.”

Before you go getting all steamed in your bloomers, this has nothing to do with race or color or anything other than writing.  You have to remember, I’m older than dirt.  When this event happened, people didn’t write on computers.  Most folks wrote on a word processor or even, gasp, on paper with a pencil or pen!  What the author was talking about was the terror, the complete and total block that comes when you sit down in front of a white sheet of paper and suddenly cannot think of a single word to write.  The whiteness, the purity, the blank sheet is too overwhelming and everything that you might think about writing starts to seem wildly inane and insignificant, so you sit there drooling on yourself like an idiot and get nothing done.  The white has won.

His suggestion? Get the paper dirty.  Scribble on it.  Spill something on it.  Smudge it.  Do anything – ANYTHING – to destroy the power of white.  When it’s not so blank, things start to happen.  It’s the same as waking up in the morning to a blanket of pure white thick fresh fallen snow.  You want to go out and play in it (okay, I never do, but I hear that most people want to,) and yet you don’t want to ruin the perfectness of it.  A perfectly frosted cake.  A pristinely made bed. A perfectly wonderful life, a perfectly profound grief.  They all can become all you see and the fear of changing it, even a tiny bit, is horrifying.  Adding humanity to it, adding life to it, adding (or subtracting)  ANYTHING to it risks fucking it up irreparably.

It’s been quite awhile since I have written and I couldn’t find out why I was struggling to get words onto the page.  I stated something along those lines on my FB status and got some insightful responses.  The one that struck me most profoundly, however, came in the form of a private message from a friend who suggested that maybe I am not sure what to write about now, how much of my own life to include in the story, is because I have been so very bold and open with my grief and my process and, now that it is taking on a different color, I’m feeling the need to protect it.  My life now has it’s own power of white.

Last time I wrote, I mentioned that I am now in a relationship with a wonderful man.  The feedback from that has been interesting, to say the least.  Most people who say anything at all to me about it are INCREDIBLY supportive and excited.  Many of my friends and family members have met him and it’s clear to them that this is a good thing.  It’s very clear to us that this is a good thing.  That said, there are several people out there (quite likely more than I know,) who are not so thrilled with this turn of events, who feel that it is disrespectful of Brian or of our marriage or whatever.  I realize that, for a long time, I was more terrified of what other people would say or think than how I would feel.  That, my dears, is utter bullshit.   Their feelings are their story.  My feelings are mine.  I’m the one who gets to scribble on my page so I can overcome the fear of writing a new story.  I took a breath, took a chance, and scribbled like mad and, guess what?  My story has a new plot, a wonderful, exciting, sincere, honest, compassionate plot that doesn’t dismiss my story with Brian, but has added onto it.  My story is still being written.  Had I not taken the chance, had I not scribbled, I’d still be dying daily while sitting on my couch.  I did that for months and months and months.  Brian wouldn’t have wanted that.  My kids didn’t want that.  *I* didn’t want that, but it was happening.  I messed up that perfectly blank sheet of grief and somehow, a story of life started to unfold.  I stopped dying on the couch and started, slowly, to live again.

I have been picking up additional yoga classes as the other teachers at Yoga Sol are vacationing.  Getting back into a more active teaching role has helped me scribble on my yoga page as well.  After Brian died, everything I did was colored by my loss.  It is absolutely impossible to avoid that.  Fortunately, it worked well for me and it made my teaching more … profound?  Intense? Real?  I don’t know what to call it, but for a long time it was even more of an extension of me as it has always been.  As I began to heal (and I’ll be healing for the rest of my life,) however, it started to feel like I was stuck.  Again, the power of white was blocking me.  I was too comfortable with the blanket of grief teaching and it became all I could see, even though it didn’t fit anymore.  One day, I did something I hadn’t done since Brian died: I ended the class with the singing bowl and a chant.  I scribbled on my class and, oh how the story started to pour out!  I have been doing yoga for more than half of my life and I have taken just about every kind of class you can imagine, but it was suddenly like I was a beginner again.  Beginner’s mind, yo.  Everything was new and wonderful and exciting and vibrant.  The grief hadn’t gone away, but suddenly there was the opportunity for much more than grief!  I think the same thing applies to all yoga students.  It might not be grief they are experiencing, it might just be complacency, or even incredible bliss, but if nothing ever changes, nothing ever changes.  I have had the pleasure of having new students in my class recently.  Yesterday, a lovely yogini arrived to my Flying Friday class and confessed that she had attempted to come the week prior, but got scared before she walked in and left without taking the class.  White white white white white.  Yesterday, she stayed, she took the class, scribbled al over her mat, and started to bloom into a million colors.

We can get blinded and paralyzed by extreme joy, extreme grief, extreme pain, extreme ambivalence.  It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks – it’s their story they are writing, not yours.  Only you can write your story, but you have to write it.  You have to take a chance, mess up the page, conquer the power of white, and get it out there. You never know how wonderful it will be unless you start letting it pour out onto your own page. Let it have colors.  Let it have adventure.  Let it have flavor and texture. Let it have music (I’m fond of the mandolin.) Let it be bold or timid, but let it be.  Don’t hide behind the power of white, get out there and start scribbling and be amazed at your own brilliance!

Oh Dear Maude, She Cooks!!!

 

Alright, children, I know you’re shocked, but it’s true.  I cook.  Not only do I cook, I cook WELL.  Yep.  I know my way around a kitchen and occasionally miracles occur.  Hey, what can I say, even a blind dog can get a bone now and then.

I recently wrote about changing my diet drastically from an all pasta all the time diet to a completely grain free diet.  I have been adhering without fail to being grain free for 5 weeks now.  I feel great!  While I still occasionally have bouts of insomnia, and when they occur they are horrible, I am sleeping about 90% of the time.  That was my main reason for changing the way I eat – I wanted to sleep!  As the days passed, however, I started to notice that it wasn’t just my sleep that was fucked up.  Nope, I suddenly realized that my joints felt different.  I noticed that I could breathe easier.  My skin felt different.  Lots going on, Jack.

To that end, I have spent more time than I expected trying new recipes.  I found books, websites, blogs, talked to friends,  put on my mad scientist hat, and hit the kitchen.  Some things – most things – have been amazing.  Other things … not so much.   Regardless, it’s been fun and I am not hungry.  Win all around.

Due to request, I will be sharing some of the recipes I’m using here.  You will be able to find them under the “Diet” Category if you do a search.  There are a few things I need to say upfront right now:

1. I am not a food writer.  To that end, I’m also not a food photographer.  You won’t find a bunch of awesome photos to go along with these recipes.  Usually I’m using my camera (iPhone) to blast inappropriate music from my Bose docking station while I cook, so there aren’t pictures.  Occasionally I might get a little snapshot taken before we eat it all up, but don’t count on it.  Consider it the yoga of cooking: it doesn’t matter what it looks like – the only thing that matters is how it feels.
2. It’s not very often that I have recipes that are 100% my own.  That said, it’s even more rare that I use a recipe exactly as written without making my own modifications.  I take a little from column a, a little from column b, throw it all out in the mud for an Outsiders style rumble, and see what comes out.  Don’t throw me the side eye – I swear everyone on Food Network is exactly the same way.  Here’s my promise: when I can reference a source that has strongly influenced my recipe, I PROMISE I will give credit where credit is due and link to the original.  Elvis knows I have had more than my fair share of folks stealing my words and ideas.
3. This shouldn’t surprise you, but, um, I’m not a stickler for rules.  Or measurements.  I’m very much an “eyeball it” kind of cook.  Of course, there are some recipes that require exacts, but others are totally a matter of taste.  If recipes require exacts, I’ll do my best to make that known.  They will mostly be baking recipes.  Be aware, however, that for most everything else, you’ll get “a little this, some of that, a handful or so of this, however much you have left in the jar of that.”  Look, I don’t have your taste buds.  I don’t know what you like!  Do what makes you happy, okay?
4. I am NOT vegan or vegetarian.  I’m sure that there are ways to make all of these recipes vegetarian or vegan (if they aren’t already,) but I don’t know how to make the conversion with 100% success.

Soooo…. here we go!  Belly up, grab a fork, and dig in!

 

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, chef, nor a dietician.  I don’t know if grain free is the right thing for you or not.  I also don’t claim to say what I cook is necessarily healthy – Mama does like her cheese.  Nothing I write about food nor recipes I post have any claim to any health benefits nor are endorsed by any specific diet.  It’s food, y’all.  Cook it, eat it, be happy. 

The Yoga of Living and Dying: When Goodbye Really Means Hello

I’m in kind of a strange place.  I’m feeling extremely sad and scared, but at the same time I’m feeling delighted, excited, and alive. It’s difficult to feel so many contradictory feelings at once.  This damn yoga – it makes me actually feel my feelings and that’s not alway easy.  In fact, some days it’s really fucking hard.

Someone I love is very sick.  She has been sick for a long time.  For years, she wasn’t exactly sure what was going on and life was a strung out lesson in the agony of the unknown.  Now she has a diagnosis and a treatment plan, but no cure.  Certain aspects are improving, others aren’t changing, and some, sadly, are worsening.  It doesn’t look good… to my eyes.  If you ask her, though, she’ll tell you that things look amazing! She’ll tell you that she was so much sicker a year ago than she is now. She’ll tell you that she’s going to be just fine.  She’ll tell you that she’s happy.  She’ll tell you not to worry.  She’ll tell you it’s okay. She’ll tell you that she knows things now and that knowledge is everything!  She’s not delusional.  She’s not in denial.  She’s not lying.  She’s slowly dying.  “And so are you,” she will say.

Touche.

We are all dying. We start dying the minute we are born. Every day we reduce the number of breaths we will take in our entire lifetime.  Each day the number of cells we will regenerate in our lives is cut.  Each day our hearts grow a little older, our skin gets a little thinner, our bodies and our lives a little … a little … a little more precious. Yes.  More precious. At least it seems that way.  The fact of the matter is that we just never know when we will take our last breath.  We could be happy and healthy and safe and something – anything – could come and take that away.  It could be something as simple as an allergic reaction or something as horrible as a chronic disease or as random as a car accident.  There are no guarantees.  This life comes with no warranty.

My friend gets really excited about little tiny things these days: laundry, salt, kid noise, rice, wool, snails. It’s kind of infectious!  After a talk with her the other day, I had a very difficult time sleeping.  My mind kept wanting to take me to the gloom and doom and grief associated with illness, but somewhere along the lines, my mind jumped tracks and I started thinking about – get this – scrambled eggs.  You should know that I make the best scrambled eggs in the world when I make them the way I like them (with kale and cheese and chili peppers and hot sauce.)  They are amazing and someday I will win an award for them, I am sure.  I eat them a couple of times a week, but my conversation with my friend made me realize that I eat them, I love them, but I don’t often take the time to appreciate  them.  Each tiny bite has not only flavor, but color, texture, temperature, and aroma.  Quite a lot for breakfast, eh?

I woke up the next morning and made the eggs.  I took the time to appreciate all the fine details about those eggs the same way those hideously pretentious wine people appreciate fermented grapes.  I noticed that, if I looked really closely, my coffee had a very groovy looking oil slick like pattern on the top.  I saw that my dog Audrey has a little blueish dot in each of her brown eyes.  I found a new freckle on my arm.  Under the smell of dogs and boys and yoga mats, my van has a faint vanilla smell.  I counted the funny white hairs that are randomly growing on the left side of my husband’s beard.  I woke up. I opened my eyes. I decided that even though I am dying (as we all are,) I am going to live!  I’m going to notice things.  I’m going to be aware and appreciative.  I’m going to Love This Life  (click that or the picture below to read the Manifesto I recite in class often.  My friend is the one who introduced me to it, by the way.)

Someday we are going to have to say, “goodbye.”  I think it would be a damn shame if we did it without saying, “hello” first.

We don’t have to wait for “the big one” to have our wake up call.  It’s a decision we can make to open our eyes and start living.  We get the chance a thousand times a day, each time we take a breath.  We end our yoga practice with Savasana – Corpse Pose – a symbolic death.  We die so that we can leave the mat a new, reborn person.  That, friends, is the yoga of living.  And the yoga of dying.  Let us start now.

Namaste

Then Almitra spoke, saying, “We would ask now of Death.”

And he said:

You would know the secret of death.

But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?

The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.

If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;

And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.

Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.

Is the sheered not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?

Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.

And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

~Kahlil Gibran

 

Every Teacher is a Student, Every Student is a Teacher – Except When They Aren’t.

Yeah. Not a teacher.

It happened again this morning.  I was drinking my coffee and browsing my Facebook and Twitter feeds and the news and blogs and all kinds of stuff and generally checking in with the online world and I came across someone saying that they are a “Yoga Teacher” now.

Of course they are.

A few minutes later, I was talking to a good friend of mine.  She mentioned that she had been invited to go to a yoga class in a nearby town.  When I asked if I knew the teacher, she said that nope, I didn’t and no one else did, either, because this person had had absolutely zero training.

Of course they didn’t.

I saw the newest lineup of “yoga” classes at a local gym.  I also looked at the lineup of “yoga teachers.”  Zero real yoga, zero real yoga teachers, and tons of blind yoga students being led by untrained teachers.

Of course.

Hear that? That is the sound of shoulders and knees going out, of hamstrings tearing, and of Ahimsa being ripped to shreds.

Now, look, I never once claimed that everything I write will be kind.  I also never claimed that I gave a hoot or a holler if anyone agrees with me.  What I have claimed is that I will write the truth as I see it, so put on your big girl yoga panties and get ready for a hearty slice of Satya.

Not every person claiming to be a “Yoga Teacher” is a Yoga Teacher.  I’m astounded and shocked at what people are accepting as adequate training before being allowed to teach yoga.  A weekend training does not a yoga teacher make.  A memorized DVD does not a yoga teacher make.  Not even years of practice does not a teacher make. And, if I’m going to be completely honest (why shouldn’t I?) not even all 200hr Yoga Teachers are Yoga Teachers.  I’ll wait here as you get on your soapbox and get defensive and start huffing and puffing.  Breathe, folks.  Hear me out.

Most of the gyms around here and even (mindbogglingly) a studio or two in this area require absurdly small amounts of training before “yoga teachers” are allowed to teach.  We’re talking maybe MAYBE 20 hours.  In these trainings, these students are told NOT TO TOUCH anyone.  They are told nothing about alignment, nothing about modifications, nothing about anything, really.  It’s insane.  It’s harmful.  It’s like sending your newborn to some dude in a garage for pediatric services because that dude once took a mandatory health class in Junior High School.  Know how I know this?  Because I did it.  I took that training.  I started teaching with that little amount of training and even then, even before I knew that I wanted this to be my life path, I knew it was a total joke.  Still, I taught with that small training and I nearly lost my job because I knew due to my own personal research and study that folks were busting their knees and shoulders and necks and so, in order to prevent injury, I touched them.  You BET I touched them.  I moved knees and heads and arms and feet.  I was willing to lose my job in order to keep others from losing their safety.  I regret nothing.  Clearly, I eventually left that location and into a real yoga studio and took the leap and got my 200hr certification and training.

Guess what I learned after 200 hours of training, 200 hours of teaching, over 30 books read, and more than 16 years of practice?  I learned that I barely know anything.  Far cry from those folks who have 20 or 30 hours of training, one book read, 3 dvds watched, and a spotless yoga mat and think they know it all!

Let me stop right here and say this: EVERYONE HAS TO START SOMEWHERE.  I know this.  I started there, too, remember? But it’s a starting place.  Just a starting place.  If you think you’re going to get a decent yoga teacher training studying a program that is designed to be taught in a gym, well, please stay in the gym and think really hard about what you’re doing.  You’re teaching Asana.  Asana is the smallest part of yoga.  It’s actually the least significant part of yoga.  If you want to stay with that, fine.  But don’t tell me or anyone else you’re teaching yoga because you are not. If you want to teach yoga, use that training as a springboard to get you into classes with a highly trained and certified YOGA teacher.  Be an apprentice.  Shadow.  Learn.  Take notes.  And then, for goodness sake, get some real training at a highly qualified yoga school.

Even that can be tricky, though.  What is a good school?  Folks will point to Yoga Alliance and, while it’s something, it’s not foolproof.  YA is not certification.  It’s registration.  There’s a difference.  I am certified through White Lotus Foundation, but I didn’t pay the fee to register with Yoga Alliance because it really means next to nothing.  Yes, you have to be certified by a Yoga Alliance accredited Yoga Teacher Training school, but dear lord, look at who they accredit!  They accredit folks who really really don’t have much training in areas that matter themselves, much less have any business training other people to be teachers.  Perfect example: one of my dear friends and former / sometimes current students recently completed her 200hr YTT at a yoga school that I thought would be perfect.  It’s not too far from here, I have (limited) experience with the yoga teacher trainer, I thought it would be perfect for her.  Yes, it’s true she learned more than most do about the Yamas and Niyamas and the other limbs of yoga Patanjali mentioned, she learned next to nothing at all about:

• Modifications
• Adjustments
• Alignment
• Contraindications

She kind of left wondering what the hell she spent all that time and money on.  I wondered the same thing myself.  I mean, if you aren’t taught how to modify, how to adjust, even the very basics of alignment, you haven’t been taught to teach.  My friend is a very studious person, however, and she’s taken notes on every class she has taken, has read way more than what was required of her, and knows that she still has much to learn, so her training has served her well in that it taught her that there is so much more to learn! Reminds me a bit of me (and everyone else who truly wants to learn the path of yoga), that girl.

So what do you do?  Start with Yoga Alliance.  It’s a good place to start and will at least weed out schools you really don’t even

Vitarka Mudra: the mudra of the teacher. Every teacher is a student, every student is a teacher. Sort of.

want to look at.  You ask around.  You ask for references.  You check and double check credentials.  You look at syllabi.  You research.  If you want to be a teacher, get fully trained.  Do not settle for a place that doesn’t require 200hours before unleashing you to teach.  Do not settle for a place that doesn’t teach alignment, adjustments, assists, modifications, contraindications, anatomy, history, philosophy.  Look, I know that there are some excellent teachers out there who have been teaching long before Yoga Alliance and there are loads of folks out there who are excellent teachers out there who are not accredited.  I’m not here to say that you have to have all of that to be a good teacher, but those people have been teaching AND studying forever.  They know that you don’t stop learning. They know that you have to keep learning.  And I’ll tell you this – they know that the more they know the more they have to learn. I also know that, if you ask them, they’ll tell you to get a high quality education, that there are no shortcuts, that a mat in the front of the room doesn’t make you a teacher.

They’ll also tell you that if this is what you believe in, if this is what you love, if this is the path you feel has been chosen for you, then do not let anything stand in your way.  If you feel drawn to this, as though you were born for it, follow it.  Go after it.  Do what you need to do to be the very best at it you can be.  Do not stop.  Do not give up.  Do not see obstacles.  Dive in, swim deep, and be.  They will tell you that the world needs you.  They will tell you all of these things — and I couldn’t agree with them more.

Yoga is a sacred journey.  It is a path, a lifestyle, a way of being.  It is not something you do, it is someone you are.  Don’t cheat your students or yourself out of all the incredible gifts that a thorough, consistent, dedicated, all encompassing education can bring.  Don’t be in such a rush to call yourself a yoga teacher that you forget that you must first – and always – be a yoga student and all that entails.

Love and light from your ever-opinionated, constantly learning, 200hrCYT, highly flawed, rebel yogini.

Namaste

Satya, Scumbags, and Chef Boyardee: To Thine Own Self Be True

Besties back when we were younger and cuter. Sort of.

I was talking with on of my oldest dearest friends today. He and I have been closer than close for nearly 18 years now, having met over a cloud of cigarette smoke and cheap beer in our college dorm in January 1995. In close to two decades of friendship, we have talked about just about everything you can imagine.  We have shared nearly every experience people can share.  We talk in code that I’m sure drives everyone around us insane.  We have yet to find a single life experience that cannot be explained by quoting Steel Magnolias, he gives me shit for being older than him, I give him shit because I’m aging better, and I am responsible for introducing him to the Beergarita and thus the subsequent demise of his liver (sorry.)  We shared an apartment together for a while and we made 3am calls to our mothers to tell them that we loved them and tequila, we once shared custody of a psychotic cat, and we have enough dirt on each other to bury several generations of shame, but there is one thing on which we will never ever ever see eye to eye.  Each and every day we have nearly come to blows over this very important topic and, frankly, it doesn’t seem like either of us will ever budge. It’s vicious and vile, petitions have written, flow charts created, and campaigns waged on both sides to prove definitively who is in the right (duh, ME!,) but still, the war wages on.  Today, that old tired battlefield saw action yet again and I am going to state my position right here and right now for the entire world to see:

Chef Boyardee is disgusting.

There.  It’s out there and I’m pretty sure, since my readers are brilliant beautiful people, that you’ll agree with me.  After all, it is the only way to see things.  It is the only truth there is.

Or is it?

The older I get, the more I’m becoming aware that there is more than one way to skin a cat.  (Side note: who the hell thought of that disturbing idiom?  I mean … wow. Okay, moving on… )  There are multiple ways of seeing things and they can all be right (except that biohazard in a can.) The thing that matters is if it’s right and true to you!  (except for Jason and his beyond unforgivable food choices.)   It doesn’t so much matter what you believe as long as you truly believe it.  It doesn’t so much matter if someone judges what you like as long as you are okay with what you like.  It doesn’t so much matter who you are as long as you are truly who you are.

I grew up calling the lowest of the low “Scumbags.”  If they were disgusting and undesirable and causing trouble, they were Scumbags and I would avoid the holy hell out of them (until I was in my late teens and early 20s and then I’d date them. Oh hell, who am I kidding?  If I was single, I’d still be dating them.)  Anyway, Scumbag was always icky. You didn’t want to be called a scumbag.  However, just like a fungus, certain truths start to grow on you.  Suddenly, the term “Scumbag” doesn’t seem so bad to me at all.  I might even call myself one – but it’s like that whole deal with mama.  I can talk about my mama, but don’t you dare talk about my mama.Don’t you dare call me a Scumbag or I’ll make you eat a can of Chef Boyardee (a fate worse that standing in hellfire.)   There’s even a song that espouses the glories of being a scumbag! The thing is this: if it’s your truth and you’re okay with it, it’s not so bad!

One of the 8 limbs of yoga is Satya: being truthful.  Being truthful doesn’t just mean not lying.  It means being exactly who you are, not hiding your true self from anyone, most especially not yourself.  We MUST be honest about who we are. Lying about who we are, hiding who we are, portraying ourselves as anything other than what we are is not only dishonest, it’s un-yogic and it’s wildly unfair to yourself and to those around you.  First of all, no one is that good of a liar.  People will know you’re not being true.  It’s in the way you carry yourself, the way you defend yourself when no one is attacking you, it’s in your eyes.  And while folks hate being lied to, the biggest truth is that no one will respect someone who lies to herself. Just be who you are.  Just be who you are.  Just be who you are.  Be a queen, a king, a sad sack, a sick soul, a scumbag, a sentient being, a lover, a healer, a hell-bound whiskey drinker, but be it honestly.  TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE!  I’ve tried with all my might to make this blog about my truth, my scroll of Satya, if you will.  I have laid it all out here honestly and, while it hasn’t always been easy nor been openly accepted, I am better off for having done it and continuing to do it.  I spent years hiding who I was.  As a child, I hid my opinions.  As a youth, I hid my disbelief in my family’s teachings. As a young adult, I hid my own self worth.  As an adult, I started to hide the fact that I am not either a  “Scumbag”  OR a “Sadhana Mama,” I am BOTH / AND. It is my Satya and I am so much better for living it openly.  It is my truth.  It is who I am and I am more than okay with that.

Jason will continue to eat that swill in a can and I will continue to see it as dog food in a dish, but that’s okay because we’re both speaking our truth.  The fact that my truth is the correct truth is of little consequence.  What matters is that we have our truths, we believe them, and we’re living them.  That’s what is important.  That’s the Satya.  That’s the yoga of it all.

Whatever your truth is, STAND IN THE LIGHT OF YOUR TRUTH.  Don’t hide.  Don’t cheat yourself or the world of who and what you are.  So Hum.  I am That.  I am That.  I am That.  I am That I am That I am That I am That I am.

Namaste

 

 

 

Mirror Mirror on the Wall, You Are a Dirty F*ing Liar …

…and other truths yoga taught me about my body dysmorphic disorder.

I was talking with a very good friend of mine today.  I haven’t known this person very long – maybe 18 months or so, but we got very close very quickly and I adore her.  Several months ago, she moved out of the country and we speak mostly via Facebook Chat now, but we’re in contact nearly every day.  While we were very close when I saw her in person several times a week, the distance between us has somehow opened the door for us to be really truthful with each other about all kinds of things.  Today we talked about the big one that we share: we both have Body Dysmorphic Disorder.  Now, okay, she might not classify her self with that, so I don’t want to put words in her mouth, but I *do* have this disorder and have been diagnosed with it and have lived with it forever, so yeah, I can talk about myself. And her words and experiences sound an awful lot like mine, so you do the math.  Anyway, the interesting thing is that our stories are almost identical.  The tapes that play repeatedly in our heads are vile, evil, cruel, and vicious.  They say the same things : you’re ugly, you’re fat, you’re worthless, you’re a failure, you’re not good enough, you’ll never be good enough, etc. Word for word, same exact tape.  We could be the same person… except, check this out:

I’m short and curvy (meaning, I have hips and big breasts and curves,) and she is very tall and very thin.  Our stories and our tapes are the same, our experiences are the same, but our bodies could not be more different. How does that happen, you ask?  It’s easy: our tapes and our experiences and our mirrors are dirty fucking liars.

Before Yoga Sol opened in our permanent location, we sublet space in a belly dance studio.  The walls were covered with mirrors.  This makes sense for a dance studio, but was crippling for a yoga studio.  As a student, I was always distracted by what i looked like in certain poses.  Did my belly stick out in Vira II?  Did I look fat in Navasana?  Was I skinnier than at least one other person in the room?  Please note, this had NOTHING to do with alignment.  Occasionally mirror can be helpful for alignment (if you’re practicing by yourself or if your teacher is an idiot,) but that’s not what this was about. This was about vanity and competition and finding a thousand different ways to love and / or hate myself.  As a teacher, I noticed that I wasn’t alone in this.  I would teach a class and watch people catch sight of themselves only to then suck in their stomachs or to arch their backs seductively (and dangerously,) or to catch a glimpse of a person behind them doing a more advanced variation of an asana and then push themselves beyond where their body was ready to go leading to injury.

Clearly, I was thrilled to see no mirrors in the design plans for Yoga Sol’s forever home.

Now before those of you who know me go getting all up in arms about how I’m the perfect size or shape or how strong I am or any of that stuff, let me be very clear: I know this already.  I know intellectually that I am not fat nor am I unhealthy nor am I unattractive.  I know I’m stronger than your average person, I know I am healthier than I have ever been, I know, I know I know. This isn’t about that.  Not at all.  And this also isn’t a blog post about loving yourself as you are, regardless of weight or shape or size or health (although, I do think that those are very valid and important lessons to be learned.)  This post is about the lies we tell ourselves.  Well, okay, it’s about the lies I told (tell) myself and how yoga helped (helps) me see them for the dirty futher muckers that they are (contemplate that maybe they aren’t exactly true.)

The mirror lies.  Want proof?  Go to a store.  Try on a piece of clothing.  Not socks or a scarf, people.  Try on jeans. Ohhhhh yes, jeans.  Try them on in the fitting room and really study your reflection. Buy them.  Then come home and put them on and look at them in your mirror at home. Look the same?  I’ll bet not.  If they do, congratulate yourself for having the exact same mirror and exact same lighting conditions as the store. More than likely, however, it will look different. YOU will look different.  And, if I were a betting gal, I’d bet diamonds to dollars that these wretched lying mirrors will change the way you feel about yourself because suddenly, you don’t look the same.

I ask you, what kind of creepy destructive bullshit is that?

Yoga can be like trying on jeans if you’re not careful.  You can have a great practice and feel exceptional and light and free and expressive and wonderful and powerful and glorious and radiant and like a rock star …. and then you look at the person next to you and realize that you look as though you ate the other half of that person for lunch and your hand is no where near the floor and what exactly do you mean that not everyone chokes to death on their mammaries in Salamba Sarvangasana?  Goddamn it! Suddenly now that radiant glorious exceptional light and expressive person is replaced with a troll who really doesn’t belong on the freaking mat and can’t we please just go out and hide under the covers already?  Guess what?  It might not look like a piece of shiny glass, but looking at other people in class is exactly the same as looking at mirrors and what have we learned about mirrors?  They are dirty fucking liars.

We ARE beautiful and light and expressive and exceptional and wonderful and powerful and glorious and radiant and rock stars and we DO belong on the mat (and in jeans and, apparently, in string bikinis,) but the mirrors are broken.  They are liars.  They are untrustworthy and misleading.  All of them — all of them, that is, except one.  Only one mirror tells the truth.  Only one mirror shows us the way things really and truly are and, here’s the kicker: this mirror is not one you see with your eyes.  Nope.  You can’t hang it on a wall or put it in your purse.  You won’t have 7 years of bad luck if you break it nor will tell you if someone is a vampire or not.  No, this mirror cannot be broken, cannot be sold or damaged, cannot be dirtied or stained or cracked.  The only  bad thing that can be done to it is that it can be ignored because this mirror, the one and only truthful honest dependable mirror there is is the one that lives inside of you.  It is the one that always shows your goodness, your worth, your loveliness, your inherent beauty and grace.  It is the one you see when you close your eyes and just move.  It is the one that tells you to stay in pigeon just a little longer, the one that says it’s okay to take a few more breaths in Savasana, the one that shines like a diamond when you breathe deeply and bend gently.  It is the one that says, “Right there, that feels perfect,” the one that says, “You are strong,” the one that says, “look at all the progress you have made!”  That mirror is the ONLY mirror that isn’t a dirty fucking liar.  That mirror doesn’t show shapes or sizes.  That mirror shows light and love and grace and worth.  That mirror shows the truth – and it is the only mirror you need.

I still hear the nasty tapes.  I probably always will.  It’s a disorder and not one that will likely ever go away, but I can learn to ignore them. I can learn to recognize that they, like mirrors, are not telling nor showing me the truth.  I can choose to look inside instead of at other mirrors and other people.  I can learn to let all the other mirrors break (at least in my mind,) and focus on the one inside.  I can breathe.  I can bend.  I can practice – and all things, even acceptance, is coming.

Namaste

Bandhas and Badasses: @TylerMahanCoe, the “Crown Prince of Country Music,” Talks Yoga

Before we get started here, let me state right up front: I know the alignment is screwed up.  Ironic on a yoga blog, right?  I don’t know how this happened or how to fix it, but believe me, I tried and … yeah, I ranted about that on Twitter, too. Moving on.

I have had quite the week.  I randomly ended up on the river last Sunday dancing to some bluegrass.  A few days later, I got all up on my soapbox about Savasana, then I tricked my family into eating vegan fare, and it all came to a head when I started shooting the shit with Tyler Coe on Twitter.   I have spent more time in the last 10 days laughing and shaking my head than I have in the last 10 weeks combined.  When randomness rains, it pours.

When Tyler Coe brought up the idea of an interview, I was a bit perplexed.  I didn’t know much about Tyler at all and, even after Googling him, he was still very much an enigma.  Mostly he’s known for being David Allan Coe’s son and playing guitar with him, but I didn’t this interview to be about DAC or music because, well, that’s not what he wanted to talk about and it’s not exactly what this blog is about, either.  Finally, when you mention DAC to anyone, you’re likely to get one of three reactions: 1. Never heard of him, 2. That racist asshole?, or 3: I LOVE DAC.  It’s the 2nd answer that convinced me to do the interview.  Since this interview is not about DAC, I won’t go into it all, but suffice it to say that he has been misunderstood or at least misrepresented (even if he did some of the representing himself -we’re human and we make mistakes, you know?)  Anyway, part of what I try to show on this blog is that Yoga is for everyone and it is often misunderstood, as are the people who practice yoga.  To that end, this seemed like a great opportunity to again address that issue.

Over the course of several days, I interviewed Tyler via email.  I had hoped that he would be as colorful and unpredictable as his father and he didn’t disappoint.  I nearly didn’t do this interview, but I am so glad I did!  It was entertaining, educational, and enlightening, to say the least.

I’m sure many of you know who David Allan Coe is, but I promise that even if you don’t know DAC, you know his words.  DAC is one of the most impressive and evocative songwriters in history.  He was one of the original outlaws, spent 20 years in prison, lived in a cave, and still lives at the height of controversy (Google him.)  DAC is still touring, singing songs like The Ride  (embedding is disabled for that song, but watch it.  He’s wearing red Converse which, as you know, I have a soft spot for,) You Never Even Called Me by My Name (again, no embedding,) Tennessee Whiskey, and Longhaired Redneck, amongst many, many others.

Tyler Coe, b. 1984, is Coe’s oldest son.  Tyler started going on the road when he was 2 years old and first sang with his father on stage when he was 4 (see below.)  Tyler grew into a musician of his own right.  He taught himself to play guitar after a few official lessons left him cold.  Tyler has been touring with his father as a lead guitarist for several years now.  If you search YouTube, you’ll find a few videos, but even Tyler admits that the quality isn’t that great on any of them.  That said, they are worth checking out because, off to the side, you’ll see a tall, thin, red-headed long haired guy (the tresses were recently shorn, I assume) doing some magical things with a guitar.  You can find him on Twitter and roaming around Springfield, MO, thinking unique thoughts and stirring the pot.  No wonder I liked him immediately.  What follows is our conversation, and his responses are word for word directly from his mouth (um, keyboard – twas email, remember?)   Any emphasis in his answers (represented in bold) is mine.  And again, yes, I know the alignment makes all us yogis want to poke our eyes out.  If it bothers you that badly, just call me and I’ll read it to you.

I’m totally lying.  I won’t do that.

***********************

Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions.  I was a little surprised at first: people don’t usually approach me to interview them, usually it’s the other way around, BUT I think this is excellent.  I’m passionate about showing the public that Yogis come in all shapes, sizes, persuasions, political parties, religions (or completely absent of religion,) etc.  I think many people are put off by the idea of yoga because they believe that they have to be all dressed in white and chaste and sober and “pure” and chant and the whole nine esoteric yards.  I personally think that there’s room in the yoga community for *everyone,* so the inclusion of your story will help make my point.

TC: Hold up… You don’t have to dress in white and not fuck people to do Yoga?! I don’t even…

Okay, it is a couple hours later. I have calmed myself.

You’ve described yourself as “The Prince of Country Music.”  Growing up the son of David Allan Coe and touring with him as a guitarist in your father’s band doesn’t sound like the typical path that would lead someone to yoga.  How  and when did yoga become a part of your life?

TC:  Crown prince of country music, actually. But that is a distinction to be discussed another time. Yoga. I remember doing “yoga” as a kid, honestly. I obviously didn’t “know” what I was doing back then but I think that’s a major selling point of yoga, that it is a natural tendency that the body has. But it seems to me that a lot of people, at least in America, have a bad habit of disregarding signals from their body. (Like, I don’t know about you but if I eat a #3 from Arby’s my body only takes about 15 minutes to be like, “Dude… Look at what you’re doing to us right now…” And that fucking place is still in business.) As far as a conscious and deliberate “practice” it was not until my early 20s that I began to try to work it into my daily life. Credit most likely should go to Aleister Crowley for that. There have been periods since then when I have neglected to do any yoga at all and that was both reflected in and a reflection of the state of my general well being. (Not good.) 

I love what you say about honoring what your body is saying and how it is our natural tendency to move intuitively.  Do you practice a particular style of yoga? (Iyengar, Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Jivamukti, Bikram, etc.)  If so, what do you like about that particular style?  Anything you don’t like?

TC:  Particular style of yoga. I’m gonna go with Hatha but let me go recheck what all those words you just said mean on Wikipedia.  

 

Later: Okay, some of that shit is ridiculous. I’ve never taken a yoga class or anything like that. I’ve read a lot of books on the subject. (Some of them were ridiculous.) My two favorites are one called Awakening Ecstatic Kundalini by “Yogani” and one called Acu-Yoga by I don’t remember who. I’ve pulled a few pranayama exercises from other sources but could not tell you from where. Here’s what I do: a very light loosening up with a few asanas, three breathing exercises (Sheetli, Bhastrika and Nari Sodhan) and so-called “meditation” to just feel the effects of everything and let it all flow. This is first thing in the morning, before eating or drinking anything. If I have enough time and energy I will then go ahead and do whatever exercise I have planned for the day. I do the same set of asanas, pranayama and sitting at night, followed by one of the four routines in the Acu-Yoga book, followed by my last meal of the day. Is this boring to read? It seems like it is.

Not boring.  At least not to me! Do you practice while on the road?  If so, what is the reaction of others in the band?  Do they practice with you?

TC: I practice on tour if I am able. If it’s a toss-up between yoga and getting enough sleep, I sleep. If I don’t have a private area, it ain’t happening. The guys in the crew know I do something with the blue mat I carry in to the hotel but I don’t think they know exactly what. It probably keeps them awake at night trying to figure it out. (Probably not.) Nobody practices yoga with me. It’s a very private thing for me. Without getting too weird here, for me “actual” yoga is about getting in touch with my god-parts (I just made that up.) and having another person around can screw with that in a lot of ways.

I make things up often, too.  Creative license, right?  How would you say yoga has – or has not – shaped your life?

TC:  Um, Octagonally. 

 You live in southern Missouri, yes?  We’re neighbors! How is the yoga scene where you live?  Any favorite studios?

TC: The yoga scene in Springfield, MO is not something I’m very familiar with. I do know that a lot of girls are into Hot Yoga here. I’ve never done that so I can’t really comment on it other than to mock it like any other thing I don’t understand. Like, I have an image of chicks just sweating all over the place and there being a few dudes there who are either really into body odor or really oblivious of their own body odor. I’m probably very wrong about this.

I taught hot yoga for quite a long time.  Not Bikram, mind you, but hot yoga.  I loved it, but you’re right in one aspect: you never forget that smell.

What’s your favorite Asana?  Least favorite?

TC:  My favorite asana is not an asana but a bandha I do in the middle of an asana routine. Uddiyana bandha. I would try to describe it but I don’t think I could do it justice. (A thousand orgasms?) Anyone who has never done it, check that shit out. Try to not pass out. I would have to say that my least favorite asana is paschimottanasana (seated forward bend) just because I am really tight in the hips and it is so uncomfortable for me. It’s like having to sit and write thank you cards for the socks your aunt gave you for Christmas. “Fuck this. I don’t care. Fuck this. I don’t care.”

Ah yes, the “fuck this” mantra. I usually repeat it over and over and over again in full Navasana. Kapalabhati Pranayama, Nadhi Shodhana and Shiva Prananyama are my fav for practice, but Sittali (same as Sheetli, some folks use the H, others don’t) and Sitkari are fun to do because they freak people out.

 I used to get a shocked reaction from people when they found out that I am a devout, committed yogi and yoga teacher (sometimes I still do,) because I don’t necessarily fit “the mold.”  I would assume that has happened to you, as well, because of your heritage and your job.  If it has, how do you handle it?  What do you say to them?

TC:  I have actually been asked if I do yoga by strangers after concerts (I don’t know why. It seemed weird at the time too.) and just flat out denied it because I didn’t want to talk about it to them, for various reasons, depending on the person. I’m not gonna try to explain to the dude in camo overalls drinking Hamm’s that he is god just like me. I don’t know. This question would probably be better asked of someone who isn’t me and thinks about me way too much.

I throw in random stuff on my blog all the time because there’s more to a yogi than their yoga.  To tie it into the other sort of stuff I have posted, I have a few more questions.

People ask me this question all the time and I tell them it’s like picking my favorite strand of hair, but give it a whirl and take a stab in the dark. What’s your favorite song?  

TC: I definitely do not have a favorite song. I’ve been listening to Pyramids’ self-titled album quite a bit. Also, Angels of Light’s We Are Him has been on my turntable a lot lately, in anticipation of Swans’ The Seer, which did arrive to my house the other day but I have not had an opportunity to listen to the whole thing. It’s long. 3xLP.

What’s your favorite food?

TC: Also, no favorite food. I’m not really a “favorite thing” kind of guy. I can tell you with no equivocation that the best meal I’ve eaten so far in my life was earlier this year at Kabuto, an edo-style sushiya in Las Vegas. I somehow managed to get a reservation for myself on short notice. You can order either a nigiri course or an omakase course. I had the omakase course and it was mind-blowing, life-altering. I did not know that food could have that effect on a person. I thought I had eaten good food before. Since that day Kabuto has been a recurring theme in 90% of my dreams at night. I can’t wait to go back.

There are a few YouTube videos of you and your dad.  Do you have a favorite?

TC: No favorite YouTube video. I’ve seen several and we are way too loud at our live shows for a camera phone to capture the sound accurately. The pro-shots from TNN when I was a little kid are funny. Everyone likes the “Daddy What If” one the best, I’m sure. I don’t watch it much because when my father starts crying it makes me cry. Not that this is a bad thing but I’ve usually got shit to do besides sitting around crying in front of my computer. Usually.

Close your eyes, Tyler.

I did a little research and found you have a few solo albums out there.  What can you say about them?  Any more in the works?

TC: I made one album. I can say that it was highly conceptual, wildly overambitious and I had no experience at all with the technical side of recording sound. With that being said, I don’t think there is anything else like it in the world and enough people whose musical opinions I respect have said things that let me know I’m not deluding myself in to thinking it’s better than it is. I’ve probably criticized it more than anyone else has, as a matter of fact. I’ve been “working” on a second album for quite some time, pretty much the entire time since the completion of the first, but I don’t think anything has been recorded that will actually be on the album yet. It might end up being a novella before it is an album, too. I’m not really sure. It solidifies more every day but it still has some growing to do before it takes material form. It probably won’t sound anything like the first album.

And because it’s always fun to stir the pot, what do you think about nude yoga?

TC: When I do yoga in loose clothing I trip myself up and it defeats the purpose. I can only imagine that doing yoga in the nude would be worse. The shorts I wear for yoga and exercise are ridiculously short and tight. I order them from China. You don’t wear underwear with them. They have a little jock strap pouch on the inside. That is what is comfortable to me, the support. I wear all of my clothing pretty tight. It just feels right.

 Anything else you’d like to share about yourself, your passions, your practice, your belief systems, or anything in general?  The floor is yours.

TC: I would like to share that everything is going to be FINE.

Yes, it is, Tyler.  Finer than a frog-hair split four ways.  Thanks for your time and, if you ever make it to Columbia, first drink and first class is on me.

 

SavasaDos, SavasaDon’ts, and Other Rules of the Mat

Yesterday, I posted this picture on my Facebook page.  I have seen it before and I’m sure I’ll see it again.  I thought twice about posting it because, well, because it’s incendiary and rather abrupt.  Hmmm.  Sounds kind of like me, eh?  Yeah yeah yeah.  Anyway, I did end up posting it and there was a brief discussion that followed and it really got me to thinking about a lot of things that go on in a yoga class as I see it as both a student and a teacher.  I started listing a few things in my mind, a code of conduct, if you will, about what should and should not happen in a yoga class.  Again, I refer to the Disclaimer page – my views are my own and not necessarily those of anyone else.  I’m totally okay with other teachers or students (aren’t we both?) feeling differently.  That said, this is my blog and here are a few of  the rules as I see them.

• DO NOT LEAVE DURING SAVASANA – see notes.   First of all, let me say that the idea of walking out during Savasana makes my brain bleed.  It’s just not something I would ever think of doing.  I mean, I’d do that just as readily as I would jump up and shout “BOB WILLS IS STILL THE KING” during a funeral or something.  It’s just not something to be done! It’s disrespectful, it’s rude, and it totally throws people for a loop.  Folks are just starting to get into their space, the teacher is totally trying to set a mood and hold the space, and when someone walks by your head or slams the door, or disturbs the peace, it… well, it disturbs the peace.  Most importantly, however, Savasana is the most important part of the practice!  It’s when the mind reaps the benefits of the body’s work.  It is when the yoga becomes not just something you do, but who you are!  Leaving in the middle of it hurts everyone.  That said…  NOTES:  I get it.  Sometimes you HAVE to leave.  You might have a job to get to, a child who needs picked up, a doctor’s appointment … whatever.  I’m not unrealistic – life happens.  And honestly, I’d rather have you in class for 90% of it than none of it – your energy matters!!  If you have to leave, it is a good idea to tell your teacher before class that you will be leaving.  It helps if you know what time you will be leaving because she or he can then let you know when you need to go so you won’t be rushed.  And here’s the thing – the teacher will tell you before Savasana because, if you have to leave, please leave before anyone closes their eyes.  If you have time for a 3 minute Savasana but not a full 7 minute Savasana, perhaps consider going to the lounge or at least closer to the door for you Savasana so you don’t have to walk over / around others who are trying to bliss out.  If you are using studio props, just leave them on the floor.  The teacher will gladly pick them up for you after class.  Please leave silently.  Hold the door until it is fully closed so that it doesn’t bang upon your exit.  Please keep your phone silent until you’ve reached the parking lot.  Please respect what is still going on.  Again, I know life happens and I’d rather students be there for part of it rather than none of it, but it is possible to leave nicely.  I have a student who, because of her job, has left nearly every single class for the last 18 months early.  She has never once disrupted class.  She is silent, respectful, and always manages to catch my eye, bow, and mouth “Namaste” to me as she leaves.  GOLD STANDARD right there.  To that end ….
• BEGIN AND END ON TIME.  I have been guilty of this.  OH yes, I have been guilty.  Sometimes the energy is just too, too good to wrap up.  Sometimes a discussion gets started and time slips by.  Sometimes … well, sometimes doesn’t matter. Going over is just as rude and disrespectful (to the students and to the teacher who is teaching next) as leaving before the finale.  There have been times when I could tell that I was going to go over.  When I have been aware of it heading that direction, I have sometimes said, “It looks like we are running a little long.  If you need to be out of here by our stated ending time, I will alert you to that 10 minutes prior.  If you can stay, please stay.”  It goes a long way to easing that cramped, rushed feeling.  Still, though, it ain’t cool, man.  To all of my students, let this be my public apology:  I am sorry I have taken advantage of your time.  I am sorry I wasn’t respectful of your schedule and your lives away from the mat.  I will make every effort to not let that happen again.  Thank you for staying with me thus far.  (For the record, I made a vow Sunday night to end on time.  Yesterday, both my classes ended within 90 seconds of stated time.  BOOM!)
• NO SHOES ON THE STUDIO FLOOR, PLEASE.  Again, I have been guilty of this.  And I do know that, on occasion, a studio might be used for something other than yoga and it’s possible that those instances might require footwear.  If you are coming to take a yoga class, however, know that taking your shoes off before you walk on the floor is about more than not tracking dirt in.  We take our shoes off to be closer to the earth.  We take our shoes off as a symbol of all coming from the same place.  We take our shoes off as a sign of humbleness and simplicity.  And, not as symbolic but equally important, many people sit in meditation before practice.  Clomping across the floor sends freaky vibrations.
• IT IS OKAY TO GO TO THE BATHROOM.  Yoga is about self love and self-care. This isn’t first grade.  You don’t have to ask permission to get up, to get a drink of water, to go to the bathroom.  Please be comfortable. Please don’t do the pee-pee dance during Utkatasana.  Please get a drink of water.  Please get up to get a tissue.  Please – it’s your studio, too.  Just try to not knock someone in Natarajasana over as you pass by.
• BRING WATER.  Okay, again, there are some classes in which you wouldn’t bring water (this is unimaginable to me as leaving in Savasana, but whatever.)  Water is so vital!  Yoga detoxes you.  It releases pent up junk locked in organs and cells and joints and tissues.  It needs to be flushed out or else you just reabsorb all the goo! If you are taking a class in which you’re likely to get sweaty (Ashtanga, Ashtanga – Vinyasa, Power, Acro, and for Elvis’s sake, Bikram, etc.) you will be dehydrating as you go.  This is NO GOOD!  Please please please bring water.  Sip it often (except in Bikram, but as I’ve said before, I just don’t get that dude.)  Drink it up, please!  And not only while you’re in class.  Drink it all day!  You’re going to need to replenish and rehydrate.  Believe me, you might not notice right away, but it will catch up to you.  The last thing you want is to be feeling great and going out about town 3 hours after class and then fall to your knees because you didn’t drink you water.  Drink it up!
• BE GENTLE  with yourselves, with your teacher, with others.  Everyone has an “off” day now and then.  Don’t get stymied by it. Remember, we’re all just walking each other home.  We’re all going to trip now and then.  Be kind.  Be loving.  Be gracious.  Be generous.  Be gentle.  And most of all …