Archive for February, 2012
“If yoga was easy, it would be called stretching”
Posted by fratellic in Asana, Life Happenings on February 22, 2012
One of my friends asked me the other day, “Do you ever worry about people coming to your yoga class, thinking it was too difficult, and then never coming back?” My first reaction was “no of course not, because I just assume that if they like my class then they will be back, and if they did not enjoy it then they would seek out another easier class.” But then I began thinking (oh yes, now all barriers disappear with great thoughts; can you smell my brain burning?)…Someone leaving my class with a feeling of difficulty goes far beyond someone not liking my class.
I am a teacher. I am a teacher of yoga. Most students do not come to my class to get a workout (or at least in my mind they don’t). I believe students come to my class because they are called consciously (or subconsciously) to face their lives and their yoga practice with deeper meaning; they seek me out to help guide them along their journey. Okay this may sound a bit egocentric but what I am meaning to get across is that not every teacher is for every student, so I encourage you to find that teacher that speaks to your heart. For example, the teacher that offers the gentlest form of yoga practice just may be your most difficult class, but the teacher that offers the easiest class may not be teaching you anything but a bunch of stretches. As my teacher, Gina Caputo, once said, “If yoga was easy, it would be called stretching.”
So NO, I do not ask my students to stretch in the yoga practices that I offer. I ask my students to reach; reach beyond all their wildest expectations. I ask them to call upon themselves to find their evolutionary edge, and then dive deeper then they had before. Are my classes easy? I hope that most of my students would say “no.”
During every practice, I ask my students to go beyond their physical beings into their energetic selves; this is not an easy task. Sometimes during this journey inward, we discover and uncover things that we never knew lived beneath our skin. some of it may be great, and we gladly ride the pranic wave of excitement, and at other times we fight the fires of transformation, shutting down and closing ourselves up. The students who close down and shut themselves up are most often those students who leave thinking they are not going to return to my class. But I have confidence that when they are ready, these students will return, and they often return with a gusto in their hearts. They are stronger than they know, and when they find their edge; I think for them the taste of embodiment becomes so much sweeter.
So I would recommend not finding the easiest yoga class in which to practice, but find the yoga class that pushes your evolutionary edge and takes you to those places and spaces that you never knew resided inside.
~ Blessings on your journey ~
Psst…I have a confession…
I teach Prana Flow Yoga, a type of vinyasa yoga. The word vinyasa means breath-synchronized movement. Vinyasa yoga is often a term that covers a broad range of yoga classes, from the powerful and strength building classes of Ana Forest and Barron Baptiste, to the more slow flow of gentle yoga. Regardless of the class’ pace or promise, vinyasa yoga allows for a lot of variety, and almost without fail will include Sun Salutations, and these salutations most often include such poses as plank, chaturanga (or plank push up as I have heard it been called off the mat: as demonstrated below), and cobra/upward facing dog.
chaturanga dandasana
During this past weekend of teacher training, my teacher told me that it is most certainly okay to offer a vinyasa class without ever doing a chaturanga. Well, I have to admit I was curious to see how my students would respond to a chaturanga-less class. So, I have a confession to make…I taught a class without having anyone do chaturanga.
After finishing class, I was bracing myself for my students to berate me for taking out chaturanga. I was expecting to hear such things as “Are you crazy? I didn’t get my yoga on without doing chaturanga.” Or maybe I would even hear, “Wasn’t this class supposed to be a vinyasa class? (Screaming at me loudly) Why didn’t we do chaturanga then?” So as I waited in the store area, bidding farewell to my students as they were leaving the studio, I was met with unprecedented responses and feedback. I was told such things as, “That was the most full practice I have ever experienced,” and “I have never felt so open and rooted before; what a fabulous class.” Okay, I was (am) floored. Yes, I knew after many years of teaching that my teacher had to be correct, but still the scientist in me had to experiment with my own offering. I have to agree with my students; it was quite a full and liberating class. Honestly, did I miss chaturanga? Well, I am not going to lie…yes, but I was challenged to find my true essence of strength in other asanas. And I LOVED it!
I am hoping that you will also find some liberating aspect in your practice. And maybe it will begin by re-thinking what a usual vinyasa practice means for you.
~Blessings in the flow ~
Un-defining Myself
Posted by fratellic in Meditation, Philosophy on February 1, 2012
Last week, I asked my students to ponder the question: “Who am I?” I asked them to dive beyond the obvious, beyond their names or the names of the cities where they reside or the states they originally came from, into the layers beneath the surface of their identities. Of course I didn’t want them to answer me verbally, but I wanted to give them the opportunity to reflect on themselves.
What happened for me was much more unexpected…
I never give my students information or a reflection that I would not also take seriously, so I too have been reflecting on the question: “Who am I?” What I found myself doing was listing paths to an end, such as scientist, school teacher, yoga teacher, mother, and wife. First, I got frustrated with my inability to dive deeper when I asked myself: “Who am I?” But then I realized that I needed to figure out why I could not release my mind from these “positions” of myself. What I decided was that I have been defining myself by what society dictates as acceptable social practice. For example, when you meet someone new at a party of many unfamiliar people what is usually the first question you engage someone with? Hmm…could it be “what do you do for a living?” (I can see you all nodding in agreement right now, maybe even picturing yourself in this situation.) Knowing this, I finally figured out why I kept answering my own question of who I was with career positions, like scientist, teacher, etc; it was because in social settings everyone defines themselves by what they do, not who they actually are!
Okay, let’s put the ego aside for a moment, and dive beneath the layers. Who are you…as a person, deep inside your soul? Can you be more than what society dictates (or judges) you should be? This contemplation is NOT about what society says you should be, but actually who you are?
I sat for periods of time thinking to myself who am I underneath all these layers of skin and bones, I searched my soul to define myself. I am not a scientist, but I am a living breathing soul that is curious about the world in which I live. I like to ask questions like “why” and “how.” I am not a school teacher; rather I am empathetic to those people needing help. I am not a yoga teacher; instead I find myself part of a collective of minds who likes to search deeper into our beings where not even philosophy can satisfy its own desires. I am not a wife or a mother; rather I am someone who can fall ever so deeply in love with the creation of life.
Instead of defining myself by asking “Who am I?,”
I unraveled the mysteries of what is means to BE – my un-defining self.
