YOGA IN A TINY SPACE

In Octavia Butler’s Parable of The Sower, the middle class and the working poor all live in gated communities that they are constantly defending from homeless people who have been displaced due to Climate Change (not a farfetched idea and it is kind of happening already). Octavia Butler didn’t so much write a book of fiction as she did a book about what is really going to happen in our future. The book’s center character’s Dad is a teacher and he does most of his teaching online when the internet is working. You do not know how many times I thought about that during the pandemic, particularly whenever the “low internet signal” warning would flash up on my screen during a Zoom meeting.

So I am completely surprised that I voluntarily created a Zoom yoga class and that I am still doing it.

I never ever saw myself as the kind of yoga teacher who would create videos or record classes. The sound of my own voice makes me want to crawl up under a rock and die. I am still honestly amazed at how my yoga students endure the sound of my voice all the way through a class. I have nearly fallen over in shock when a student tells my voice is soothing. I just want to yell at them “DO YOU EVEN HAVE EARS!!?!?!?” I feel awkward and ugly in front of a camera, probably because I am rarely the one in front of the camera. I am always on the other side of the camera, taking pictures of others who probably also feel awkward and ugly in front of a camera. Videos and recorded classes where just not going to be my thing.

I learned some things after teaching that first class and bought myself a ring light. I now have two cameras going to give my students the best views and I no longer feel like I’m a yelling. I like that I teach the class in the very same place where I have my personal home practice. I like that I don’t have to leave my house to teach this class. I had one week (just one) where I did not have students show up to Zoom and the great thing about that is that I didn’t drive across town for nothing. Here’s the thing I like the most about this whole Zoom yoga teaching thing. I have two students who are my regulars. They always show up. That’s not what I like the most, though of course I love that they like it enough to keep coming back every Thursday. The part I like the most is that none of us are in the same state. Sarah and Christy are both college friends who I haven’t really spent time with since college ended for us. There would be a few gatherings with Sarah over the years, but Christy and I had our first visit in over twenty years back in 2019 when I was in D.C. for a conference. Now I see these women almost every week, which is crazy because we are all stretched out across the country with Sarah in southern Oklahoma and Christy in Virginia and me in the middle.

I have gotten comfortable teaching in this format, which is something I never thought would happen. Despite the weirdness of technology and not being in the same room, there is an intimacy to be found here. There is vulnerability here. I am allowing people to come into my bedroom with yoga props piled on the bed and a full laundry basket of dirty clothes right in clear view. None of it bothers now. I have always found joy in teaching yoga and teaching in this format doesn’t seem to diminish that joy. This week, the class will start with a seated warm-up before moving into a few rounds of sun salutations. Our asana practice will be a gentle flow of standing and balancing poses before winding down for final relaxation. This is a practice for all levels of yoga. There is a link to the Zoom room on my Facebook page or you can email me for the link. The class is free, but if you would like to make a donation, you can email me about ways to do that.

Hope to see you in the virtual world this Thursday at 6:00!

THE POWER OF TEN

My friend Kelly is still teaching Zoom yoga classes for work. The best thing is that they record them and upload them so they are accessible to us during the week. One day last week, I pulled up her most recent class to use for practice that day. Kelly teaches a traditional Hatha style of yoga. This means holding poses for longer than one breath. My own teacher training is based in Hatha yoga and this is my usual practice. Or at least it was. Over the last year my practice morphed into something very different. There was no stillness or settling into a pose for more than a breath. I realized this as Kelly was giving cues to slowly move us into tree pose, but since I knew where we were going, I just put myself into tree pose. Then she made us hold tree pose for an hour.

Not really.

I don’t know how long we were in that pose. All I know is that it felt like I was in it forever. My thoughts ranged from an astonished “Wow! Am I still in tree pose?” to a whiney “OH MY GOD WHY ARE WE STILL HERE!?!?” Guess which thought was the loudest. The rest of the class proceeded in this manner. Kelly would cue us into the next pose were we would settle in and I would have an existential crisis while wondering how much longer I had to be here.

How much longer do we have to be here?

COVID virus cases are surging in parts of the US where they have stopped mandatory masks and social distancing because one person they know got vaccinated and too many people still don’t know (or care) how viruses work or spread. The trial for Derek Chauvin who murdered George Floyd began this week, and a sixty-five year old woman was beaten in an anti-Asian attack yesterday. We had to explain the confederate flag to the Cabbage and how it represents a time in US history where people in the South were so mad about not being able to own people that they left the Union and started war and that people who fly that flag today are basically people who think that if you are not white, straight and a particular brand of ‘christian’ then you are less of a human being. I refrained from adding in that these people are usually ignorant and hateful and that they are flying the flag of losers. The confederates lost that war. I find myself growing impatient with just how much longer we have to be in this time slot of history. I am not sure that I had any patience for it to begin with and you can see that in how my daily yoga practice morphed into a monster.

The day after taking Kelly’s class, I rolled out my yoga mat and then slowed my practice down. I would hold a pose for ten long yoga breaths before moving into the next one. It was a struggle for me to not rush into the next pose, not rush my breath, but I stuck with it. You never know how long a moment in time is really going to last. It could be minutes, weeks. The time between Chris being sick and his passing was a blink. With Dad, the time between was years that painfully stretched out in length. Then there are the moments that you actually want to last for weeks and years, but instead just wiz on by in seconds. How do we slow those moments? In settling into a pose for ten long breaths, I am training my brain not only to have patience for the moments in life that are crap, but to slow down the good moments. What if we all just took ten slow breaths before reacting and responding to any and everything?

I am settling in because I have no idea how much longer I have to be here.

YOGA IN A TINY SPACE

On the last day of February (my true love gave to me), I was the most productive I’ve been on a Sunday in months. I woke up and made myself some cream eggs, which I ate while watching CBS Sunday Morning. Then I cleaned the kitchen, watched an episode of Alias Grace while I made up the calendar for March and then I cleaned the chicken coop. I came in from cleaning the coop and boiled eggs for the week while stripping the sheets off my bed and replacing them with clean bedding. Then I made two dozen mini egg cups for morning snacks, cleaned up the mess I made in the kitchen and started a load of laundry. I had the egg cups cooling on wire racks by 12:30 in the afternoon. I even took a shower and brushed my teeth, two activities that may not happen on a Sunday.

Who is this person?!?!

The Cabbage sat on the couch playing MineCraft while Michael snored on the other end and I created an event page on Facebook for my next virtual yoga class. Despite my poor video/lighting setup, my first Zoom yoga class appears to have been a hit. People enjoyed it and asked for more. I learned a lot about technology and how not to setup for virtual yoga. As a result, I purchased a ring light and played around with a setup in my bedroom that is not perfect, but feels more comfortable. This also means that Michael will not have to leave the house while I’m teaching a class. He was very helpful in setting me up for the first class and it was his idea to move me out to the living room where he pointed every spare lamp at my face. It worked, but I felt distant like I was on a stage. Josephine was crazy and spent the first five minutes of class hitting me with her toys or flopping against me. I had to put her in time out so I could teach. It did not help that it has been a year since I’ve taught an actual yoga class. I was rusty, but I think of last Thursday as my first pancake. It wasn’t pretty, but it was edible.

So if you are interested in doing some gentle, beginning yoga with me on Thursday evenings at 6 central time, shoot me an email. I’ll send you the Zoom link and ways to make a donation for class. This Thursday we will focus on our feet and building strong foundations for standing poses.

NEGATIVE YOGA

It’s 8:30 on a Monday morning, a Holiday for me and a snow day for Michael. I’m sitting at my desk with a cup of coffee, occasionally looking out the window at the snow swirling down from the sky. I did get up and do thirty minutes of a cardio X-Tende Barre class, but when it ended, I replaced my work out clothes with my pajamas. The weather app on my phone says that the current temperature in -7 degrees F (as in F-you). It also says that it feels like -25 degrees outside. Though part of me thinks that this would be a good day to scrub all of the kitchen cabinets, I am also thinking that it is a good day for wrapping myself up like burrito. Just for the week. It looks like temperatures make it into the thirties by Friday (Aw, jeeze. It’s lookin’ like summa’). I might be able to handle 32 degrees, which is something I never thought I would say. Temperature is a prime example of how things can always be worse and negative temperatures are not only the worst, but they make everything feel impossible.

Not that I would wish this weather on anyone, but it is a little bit reassuring to not be alone in my misery. The whole country even in Galveston TX is getting a real taste of winter. Well, not Florida. You can still go to Florida and not have to wear a sweater and thermal underwear. Michael mentioned something about taking the Cabbage sledding yesterday and all I could think about was the warning signs posted all around Lake Superior that basically say you have ten minutes to get out of the water before you die of hypothermia. The Cabbage often shows up at our house in shorts and no coat. It’s a miracle she hasn’t lost any digits to frostbite just getting from car to building. Sometimes I want to say to her parents “You have to tell her to put on warm clothes. She’s ten. She didn’t come preset with knowledge.” But what do I know? I chose not to have children because I knew I wouldn’t have the skill set to parent. I stand by that.

I’ve been thinking about Zoom yoga. Christy keeps commenting about it and I feel the nudge. I really do, but I also see all the limitations. Camera equipment and lighting and microphones. What do I know about about any of that stuff and producing a quality video in my tiny bedroom? Nothing. I know nothing. Then I think I don’t need to know about that stuff. Just teach the damn class, Cindy! So…that’s what I’m going to do. Starting Thursday the 25th, I will offer a Zoom yoga class at 6:00 PM (Central Time). The first class will be free to all who want to join in. If this goes well, the next classes will be donation based. Pay what you can or want. I was thinking of teaching a traditional Samatva practice. We will start with a gentle flow for warm up and then focus on a peak pose with gentle stretching and a guided savasana. I am also open to feedback from you and what you want or need from a yoga class. My practice is very adaptable to all levels and I will try to cover all of those modifications while teaching.

I will post this to Facebook and if you are interested, contact me via messenger or email (lucindamaddera@gmail) and I will provide you with the Zoom link for the class. Now, if you will excuse me, I’m going to go freak out about actually doing this.

JAPA

I signed myself up for a two hour Yoga Mala Zoom class on New Year’s Day that ended up lasting almost three hours. I had spent the evening before eating an array of hordevors from Trader Joe’s freezer section and washing it all down with a whole lot of gin. I woke up early New Year’s Day with a dry mouth, sinuses swollen from dehydration and a specific ache in my body. My first thought was how was I going to make it through a hundred and eight rounds of sun salutations without throwing up. I didn’t. There were some tears, but I made it through all one hundred and eight rounds. It was an intense start to the year. We’re dropping some bad habits this month and participating in Dry January. Starting the day with a yoga mala was my version of a Polar Bear Club, jumping into a freezing body of water.

This last weekend was the first weekend I’ve had without alcohol since Chris died.

That is not to say that I spend every weekend in a drunken stupor, but alcohol is a strong presence in my life. I’ll drink a bottle of wine on Friday and then spend Saturday evenings drinking gin and tonics until I stumble into bed. Waking up with a mild hangover is how I have crawled out of bed every Saturday and Sunday morning, moving through the daily chores of grocery shopping and laundry with a slightly throbbing temple. I have not always been like this. Friday evenings, during graduate school, were spent sharing pitchers of beer at Stonewalls. Often, I would end up drinking a little too much, but when graduate school was over those evenings of drinking a little too much ended. Chris and I would enjoy a craft beer or a glass of wine here and there, but alcohol was not a regular beverage. Alcohol became a regular weekend beverage when Chris died, an attempt to be numb, an act of boredom. An act of boredom turned into an act of habit. Inserting Micheal into this equation made the habit easy. He is the type that can’t have just one drink and he made sure my glass was never empty. He will struggle more than I will with dry January.

I don’t think I have ever really started a year with a clean slate, completely giving up a bad habit or diving straight into a bowl of kale. My so called resolutions never lead me in those directions. There is usually a good excuse for not quitting a habit. Now is not the time. I need this habit to get me through the next few months of grief. This habit makes it easier to be around certain people, to deal with minor irritants. What else am I going to do on a Friday night? I suggested dry January to Michael weeks and weeks ago. I thought for sure all of those excuses would bubble up and out and we’d start negotiating exceptions. It is my birthday month. What about my birthday Pimm’s cup? None of those excuses entered my mind until I typed them up just now. I have no excuses and there is no need for negotiations. I am open to the pain that comes with January and early February and I am prepared for it.

Late afternoon on Sunday, I did something I haven’t done in a really long time. I rolled out my yoga mat and did my own practice for about an hour and a half. I get on my yoga mat every day during the week, but on weekends, it sits rolled up in a corner of my room. There were random Saturdays where I would go to a studio class, but for the most part my yoga mat gathers dust on weekends. Sunday’s practice was not one hundred and eight sun salutations, less intense. I did my usual my usual vinyasa practice based on my training. It was a balanced practice of challenge and ease and it was good.

Maybe I am starting a new habit to replace and old one.

THE GIMMICK OF YOGA

Recently, Yoga Journal did a highlight on Kaiut Yoga. I started to flip right past the article, but the word ‘chiropractic’ caught my eye and I decided to give it a read. Kaiut yoga is almost identical to the style of yoga I was trained in, Samatva yoga. The practice consists of three distinct sections, a warm up, a main practice sequence and a closing sequence. The main practice sequence centers around poses that your body needs in that moment. It focuses on the parts of the body that are tight and lack free movement. Instead of contorting the body to fit into the pose, you make the pose fit the body. Which is also one of the main elements to Samatva yoga. The idea of Samatva yoga is that your practice is a balance to our daily lives. It is way to lesson the damage we do to ourselves with our usual daily activities, like sitting at a computer or microscope all day. Another aspect important in Samatva yoga is a twenty minute savasana (final relaxation) and just the other day there was an article about the benefits of a twenty minute savasana in the New York Times.

I moved into a very vinyasa/Ashtanga like yoga community. The studios I approached for teaching jobs mostly just dismissed me when I told them about Samatva yoga. I remember telling one studio owner about always ending my class with a fifteen to twenty minute savasana and she laughed at me. She couldn’t believe I would only spend about half an hour with the asana practice before moving on to final relaxation. I believe her words were “that’s a bit excessive.” I have had yoga teachers attempt to manipulate me into a yoga pose that is not right for my body. Every time I tried to explain that I don’t do poses where I don’t have joint on joint alignment, they would frown and walk away. I would be left alone with an inner commentary about how they think I can’t do a headstand and I’m using my wonky arms as an excuse. I’d have a whole conversation in my head about how I can totally do a headstand, but I don’t want to have achy elbows for the next three days because in order to have ‘proper’ alignment, I have to hyper-extend by elbows. It would make me feel wrong. I would question myself and think maybe I am just making excuses. Maybe I don’t do handstands because I’m weak. The dismissals and the self doubt played a big part in why I never really pushed to be part of the yoga community here. I have a couple of teachers I will work with. They know me; they know my background. Both of them know how to challenge me in my practice without asking me to compromise my safety. I miss their faces right now, but I have hopes for the Spring and Summer.

Yoga is no different than any other group exercise or sport. There is an undercurrent of focus on being the ‘right’ shape. B.K.S. Iyengar, a legend in the yoga community, was notorious for his focus on the right body shape. I heard a fellow yoga teacher tell a story about meeting Iyengar at a conference. Iyengar had given a talk then afterward there was a reception line where he greeted people in the audience. When the yoga teacher got his turn with Iyengar, he told Iyengar how much he admired him and that he himself had been practicing Iyengar’s style of yoga for years. Iyengar looked the man up and down and then patted the man on the belly as he said “It looks like you still have a lot of work to do.” All of us listening to him tell the story, gasped in shock, but this was quintessential Iyengar. You have to understand, Iyengar is more than a legend in the yoga community. He is considered to be one of the foremost yoga teachers in the world. His style of teaching inspired much of the styles of yoga we see here in the US. The teaching is that you make your body fit the pose and with today’s American ego this gets pushed to the extreme. The practice becomes all about perfection and sometimes even competition.

That is not true yoga.

There’s been a big shift in the last year to make yoga more inclusive. Well, of course. We’re seeing this everywhere, but Yoga Journal has been really pushing it in their magazines this year. There have been models of all race and genders appearing on the cover. They have featured yogis with disabilities, yogis of all ages and sizes. Still…I can’t help but think this a little bit of a too little too late situation. It feels like an attempt to jump on a bandwagon and I can’t help but feel a little bit sour over it. I also can’t help but feel slightly resentful. I received my training in teaching a balanced yoga practice eleven years ago and Yoga Journal is just now starting to feature my kind of practice. Yoga’s inclusion problem is deep and it is going to require more than just hanging a sign that reads “Everyone is welcome!” to fix it. This inclusion problem is going to require many current yoga teachers to open their minds real wide and maybe be a little less dismissive to alternative ways of teaching.

IN THE QUIET

Savasana

In the days that followed J’s death, I could not even look at my yoga mat without having a full on melt down. It took months of getting my mat out of it’s bag and rolling it out onto the floor before I could even step onto it. It took baby steps and time to get my practice back. Even now, fifteen years later, I can sometimes still hear my Mom’s shattered voice when I am in pigeon pose. That’s where I was when she called me to tell me something had gone horribly wrong and that memory is imbedded deep into my right hip now and forever. Sometimes I wake with an ache in that hip. Clinically, that ache is probably a bit of arthritis, but I know it as trauma.

When we were still in the hospital trying to figure out a way to fix Chris, I had my yoga mat with me. Every day they wheeled him out of his room for some lengthy test or surgery and I would unroll my mat in the corner of our room. The methodical motion of flowing through poses gave me something to do while my brain whirled with all possible outcomes of Chris’s illness. I never laid down for savasana. My excuse was that there was no way I’d ever be comfortable on the cold, hard, tile floor of a hospital. Surprisingly enough, I still managed to get on my yoga mat every day after Chris died. My flowing routine was the balance to the exorbitant amount of time I spent laying on the couch, drinking. I still left savasana from my routing though. My excuse was that I didn’t need a final relaxation when I spent so much time merged with the couch. When I finally did lay down for a savasana, it was in a yoga class I was attending. The moment I was still, a bubble of panic filled up in my chest and then I exploded into sobs. This would happen every time I laid down for savasana, until one day it didn’t. Again, baby steps and time. I learned to relax with my grief.

The last few weeks, whenever I have gotten still in savasana, that bubble of panic shows up followed up with the tears. Final relaxation feels a lot like it did after Chris died. It came to me a few night’s ago why this might be. We were watching the first episode of the new HBO series ‘Lovecraft County’. The first half hour was calm and almost slow, but then the episode started to build in tension. The last ten minutes or so of the episode had me jumping in my seat and clutching the dog. I believed I even screamed at one point. This year has felt like watching a horror flick or walking through one of those Halloween houses. There have been jolts of terror followed with calm moments. You relax a little and then you get hit with another jolt of terror. Just when you think you’ve almost made it safely out of the haunted house, another ghoul jumps out at you from out of nowhere. The thing is, is that it’s nothing really life threatening, except for the few things that were potentially life threatening. It is just scary. Like the dumb meth-head who climbed into the spare bedroom window of my mom’s house early Saturday morning. He snuck passed my sleeping mom to the dining room where he took her purse and then stole her car. See? Terrifying, but meth-head let my mom sleep. So I don’t really care about the rest.

These little scares and jolts start to add up. That bubble of panic and the tears that follow that keep brewing up whenever I am finally still is my body reacting to all of those little traumas. I have come to terms with this and have made it a point to settle into this pose at the end of every practice. I prop myself up and make myself comfortable. Then I set a timer for twenty minutes and force myself to stay put until that timer chimes. The wave hits and there are a few moments of discomfort and tears. Then the wave moves on and I am still and quiet. Instead of learning to relax with this new trauma, now I am learning to allow my body to react to the trauma.

Baby steps and time.

108 THINGS

Summer Solstice 108 Suryanamaskars

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It has happened three times in the last two weeks. I have gotten to work only to realize that I have forgotten to put any of my jewelry onto my body. My hand goes first to my throat to feel for my necklaces. A microsecond of panic sets in when I feel that they are missing. Then I check my ears for my tiny little elephant earrings and my wrist for bracelets. The panic subsides when I discover that all of the rest of the stuff is missing as well. That most likely means that I have not lost the necklaces. The whole point of wearing my necklaces, at least one of them any way, is to not lose some precious items. Chris’s wedding ring. My wedding ring set. My scooter charm from Tiffany’s. The heaviness of those rings disappeared a while ago. It was only after I added the scooter charm that I felt the weight of what that silver chain was carrying again. I was laughing with a yoga student not too long ago. She had taken off her big clunky necklace before class and was struggling to get it back on. She said she took it off because she feared an injury. I told her about my wedding rings and how one time as I was coming into down dog, Chris’s ring hit me in the mouth. I laughed and said something about how I could have chipped a tooth. I take them off now when I’m doing yoga. Usually. But the whole thing has become light as feathers around my neck and half the time I don’t notice them… until it hits me in the face in a forward fold.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I walk into the gym and grab a pair of hand weights. Then I get on one of the stationary bikes. While I’m watching something on Netflix or Amazon, I do various arm exercises and peddle on the bike. I started out with the tiny three pound weights. Now I have worked up to a whopping eight pounds. My goal is to just tone up my arms a bit, not build giant Hulk muscles. I am good with the eight pound weights. I can do enough repetitions of curls and tricep extensions to still feel the burn of my muscles working. I might move up to ten pounds weight soon, but I am content with the eight. I do not know how long it took me to recognize the moment when the three pound weight was just too easy or how long I stayed with the five pound weight before moving on to the eight. I did not keep track of time. I have noticed that about myself, lately. I struggle with keeping track of time. Or, at least, it is not something I pay attention to. Michael said something recently about it being June and how we needed to go to Bella Napoli’s. It took me a few minutes to understand what he was talking about. Anniversary thing. It is not that I forgot. It is that I just wasn’t paying attention.

Paying attention.

It is a choice, albeit a subconscious one, to pay attention to some things and not others. When I am doing my morning walk, I am paying attention to my surroundings. I hear the birds chirping and the roar of the water feature and the rush of the cars zipping by. I pay attention to how the sunlight filters down through the trees and hits the water droplets on the grass so that they look like they’re tipped with diamonds. I pay attention to chips in sidewalks because some times they are interesting. I do not pay attention to the passing of time and I no longer pay attention to the weight I carry around with me. Both of those things are just stuff that I have gotten used to. They happen whether I am paying attention or not. I suppose the other stuff does too, but again…choices. The thing is, I do not feel any lighter when that necklace does not end up resting on my collar bone. I feel nothing. That is the thing I notice. The nothingness. Not the heaviness of the chain or how light I feel without it. It is the bare nothingness that I feel. A moment of exposure.

Thursday night, I attended Kelly’s Yoga Mala class where she guided us through 108 rounds of sun salutations. I went into that class doubting my abilities to do 108 rounds of anything. I have refined my practice over the years and every movement I make is deliberate. I step back to plank without making a sound. I move from plank to chatturanga slowely and with control. It has taken me years to be able to do this, but it is one thing to do this ten or twenty times during my usual practice and quite another to do this 108 times. I did not believe I had it in me to maintain that kind of control. Kelly broke the class up into four groups with breaks in between. For each group we faced a different direction with a different intention starting with the East and new beginnings. By the time we were facing West, we were half way through. The intention for that direction was letting go and saying goodbye. I am so practiced at saying goodbye. It is the letting go part that is difficult. Mostly it is the letting go of this idea I have about myself that I am not strong enough for this. I can’t. I do not even know where this idea came from or how that seed ever got planted in my brain, but it is there, sprouting, growing. Telling me that I am weak, worthless. When did this start? From the beginning? I can not remember a time when I did not feel this way about myself. Or I did not pay attention to that time when I did not feel this way about myself.

I faced West, lifted my hands, my face, my heart to the sky before folding forward. I ripped that sprouted seed out of my brain. I let it go. I smashed and crumpled it up. I know my strength. I know the weight I carry. The weight is immeasurable, yet I carry it without even noticing the heaviness of it. That’s how fucking strong I am. I could hear something screaming in my head as we turned to face North for the final 27 rounds. It took me a minute to recognize the roar coming from a voice inside me that has been quiet for far too long, but there it was yelling and cheering. I was sweaty, but I was not exhausted. I moved with my breath, on my time frame and I took the time to carefully set up each pose. I completed all 108 rounds of sun salutation without once sacrificing my form. I did them all with the same deliberate control as I do in my own personal practice.

That is how fucking strong I am.

HITTING THE PELVIC FLOOR

Hanumanasana

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I attended an anatomy of yoga workshop over the weekend. Really, it turned out to be mostly a review for me. The studio that hosted the workshop also has a yoga teacher training. I was more or less just crashing one of these teacher training sessions. It was kind of cute to see all these new, fresh faced, yoga students who were just learning that psoas starts with the letter ‘p’. It was nice to hear someone teaching about applying anatomy to yoga to benefit the yoga student without causing injury. I feel like the concept of adapting the yoga pose to the individual body as opposed to forcing a body into the yoga pose, a concept I learned in teacher training years ago, is just now becoming a more popular idea in mainstream yoga. I did walk away from this workshop with two insights.

One? I undervalue myself as a yoga teacher.

The second insight was about the pelvic floor.

Raise your hand if know what the pelvic floor is and how to engage that pelvic floor.

I have known the anatomy of the pelvic floor since Anatomy and Physiology class in undergrad. If you think about your pelvis as a bowl, the pelvic floor consists of muscles that line the bottom of that bowl. They keep your guts from falling out when you stand up. They also give us control over the bladder and bowls. A weak or too tight pelvic floor can lead to incontinence. This group of muscles is part of the core muscles, which help the diaphragm expand and contract while breathing. I cannot tell you how many yoga classes I have been in where a teacher has said “engage your pelvic floor”. Another phrase I have heard from a teacher is “zip it all up!” None of these phrases have been helpful. I just shrug and squeeze all the holes between my legs as tight as I can muster. Jess once told me a story about a girl she went skiing with. They were on the ski lift and the girl looked down and then quickly back up and said “That made my tootie draw up!” That’s what I do when ever I am cued to ‘zip it all up’ or ‘engage the pelvic floor’. I draw up my tootie.

This is not engaging the pelvic floor. I mean, it kind of is, but not really, but this was the only thing I knew to do because I had no idea what my pelvic floor muscles even felt like when engaged. There’s an exercise I learned in training that builds arches in the feet. It’s basically lifting the toes, but part of it is to leave the big toe and the pinky toe down and just lift the three middle toes. I can almost picture some your faces while reading that because I made the same face when I was asked to do it. I had no idea what muscles to engage to just lift the three middle toes. I had to reach down and physically lift those toes with my hand so I could create a muscle memory for the action. I can’t really do that with the pelvic floor. Well, I can’t really do that in public any way.

The teacher on Saturday had us do an exercise that was meant to teach us about our pelvic floor muscles. She had us all press back into a wide legged child’s pose and on the inhale she told us to “feel the space between our legs expand and feel it contract” on the exhale. All the lights came on inside my brain at that same time. The pelvic floor and the diaphragm work together. The pelvic floor pulls down on the inhale (that expanding feeling) and then moves back up with the exhale. That’s an involuntary movement, but once you are aware of that movement you can do it voluntarily.

Try it.

You might be wondering why you would want to be aware of these muscles. What’s the point of voluntarily contracting the pelvic floor? In yoga, the pelvic floor is what helps give you lift. Any time you hear a teacher say something like “lift the body up” it is the pelvic floor that helps you do this. Those seated poses where you lift your whole body up off the mat? Engaging the pelvic floor helps you do that. But also, being aware of how those muscles feel allows you to have better knowledge of how to stretch those muscles. We want strong pelvic floors that can also relax a little at times so we don’t end up needing diapers.

This anatomy workshop was worth the money just for the way she cued us to breathe in child’s pose.

YOGAVERSARY

Taking on this week like a warrior.

13 Likes, 0 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Taking on this week like a warrior."

I went to a yoga class at work on Tuesday. Usually I just go on Wednesdays, but I was feeling the need for some discipline. I snuck into Amie’s yoga flow class knowing that I could easily disappear into a corner. The previous week, she had been teaching the class the basics of Ashtanga yoga and for today’s class she wanted to continue with that theme but incorporate more of the seated postures. If you are not familiar with an Ashtanga practice, you will hear the words “seated postures” and feel some comfort in knowing that you will be just sitting around on your mat. ‘Seated’ sounds easy and yes, once your butt is on the mat, the pose that follows is simple. It’s the getting there and getting out parts that are hard. It starts in down dog and involves bringing the weight into your hands and shoulders as you hop up and swing your legs through. Then you do all of this in reverse to get out.

Give me the fundamental standing asanas any day. The sweep through thing has never been my strong suit.

From the grumblings of some of the other students in the class, I take it it is not their favorite thing either. But the occasional Ashtanga practice is good for you. It’s simple, yet challenging and for certain personalities (or doshas) it is a practice that can take you out of a comfort zone. The full Ashtanga practice is not my yoga practice though. I prefer a more body balanced practice then what Ashtanga provides, but often modify an Ashtanga series to my own needs. I was thinking about my yoga needs while trying to fling my body forward into a seated position and doing some math in Tuesday’s class and I figured out that 2019 is my 20 year yoga anniversary. It will be twenty years since I walked in and attended my very first yoga class, which happened to be an Ashtanga class.

I hated it.

I’m not kidding.

I hated that first class, but I went back for more because I am prideful and refuse to accept failure. I recognize that hating my first yoga class is not a failure. It just seemed like a failure to me at the time because I thought (had set myself up for it) I would love yoga. And I do love yoga. Just not Ashtanga yoga. Twenty years later and I don’t hate Ashtanga any more either. That one class opened me up to the giant world of yoga and a yoga practice that brings me joy and comfort. It also gave me something that I have not found in any other format and that is body confidence. Being on my mat is the one place where I am not just comfortable in my skin, but where I truly feel like this body is beautiful. Yoga has also given me a community of women who are all strong, beautiful and so ridiculously supportive. Karen, my yoga teacher, continues to be a source of reference and knowledge in all things yoga and life. Then there’s Shannon, who talked me into teaching again. She set me up with Kelli Austin at Sunshine Yoga who promoted my strap workshop without really even knowing me. Now I have Kelly, who’s joy of life radiates out of her like an atom bomb.

Kelly made me realize something today. She teaches the Wednesday lunch time class that I normally attend and today I was her only student. I had stepped back to plank and suddenly I hear her exclaim “Oh my gosh! Look at how you’re on the tips of your toes! I’ve never seen anybody do that. It’s like you’re floating!” First, I had no idea that I was doing this in plank pose. Secondly, it makes me laugh because if she only knew how much I struggled with plank in those early years of yoga. Now I was making it look effortless, like I was floating. For my next trick, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat. No really, what is my next trick? I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want for 2019 and one of those things is to celebrate my yoga anniversary. I’ve already signed up for an anatomy of yoga workshop in February, but I’d like to speckle the year with attending yoga workshops. Maybe this is the year I finally take a Kundalini yoga class or I find a teaching gig at one of the studios near me.

I do know that I want to spend more time in the vicinity of the kind of women who constantly cheer each other on.

GUILTY

Wheat

3 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Wheat"

Someone recently posted this blog post by Rumya Putcha at Namaste Nation on a yoga teacher Facebook group I am part of. It is a very eye opening read and I have not been able to stop thinking about it. Rumya Putcha discussed the mis-appropriation of 'namaste' and cultural appropriation of upper class white women and yoga. Yoga is thought of and marketed as a white woman's domain. I have become hyper aware of the lack of diversity of people in yoga studio classes. I will be sitting on my mat, waiting for the class to begin and I'll look around the room. We all look alike and this makes me very uncomfortable. I don't tell you that to garnish some kind of sympathy or "Oh, no Cindy. You don't need to feel uncomfortable." I DO need to feel uncomfortable. This should make me feel out of place. 

“When you’re white in this country, you’re taught that everything belongs to you. You think you have a right to everything. … You’re conditioned this way. It’s not because your hair is a texture or your skin is light. It’s the fact that the laws and the culture tell you this. You have a right to go where you want to go, do what you want to do, be however—and people just got to accommodate themselves to you.” Ta-Nehisi Coates

My first exposure to yoga was in a gym setting. In fact, I did not attend yoga classes in yoga studios until yoga teacher training. Yoga was/is a workout option. There was no talk of the spiritual side of yoga or stories of the Gods who inspired these poses. The teacher said 'namaste' at the end of every class and we just nodded our heads in response. I didn't know the meaning of that word. I just assumed it was some sort of goodbye/thank you/blessing. Like ending a prayer with 'amen'. I have a giant Ganesh tattoo on my back, not because I am Hindu, but because I like elephants and was attracted to this Hindu God because of his elephant head. I did do my research before having him permanently placed on my body and I love this tattoo. But I do question what right I have to put Ganesh on my body in such a way. It is hard to admit because no one wants to admit to being part of the problem, but I am part of the problem. 

I see my mistakes and I'm working on being part of the solution. My roommate in college was full blood Cherokee. She used to invite me to her home in Stilwell Oklahoma mostly because she didn't have a car and missed her family so much. She would say "Drive me home this weekend and we'll have Mom make Indian tacos and we'll go to a stomp dance." I always agreed because her family was so nice and I loved going to the stomp dances. The dances would run late into the night and into early morning and I watched for hours as Cherokee men and women danced in a circle. I would help my college roommate tie on her tortoise shell shakers that fit the length of her shin and was always surprised by the weight of them. The dances were beautiful and mesmerizing but I never participated unless my roommate specifically dragged me into the circle. I was very aware that I was an outsider and that I had no claim to this culture.  This is how I should also approach yoga. I do not lay any cultural rights on yoga. It is a gift that has been brought to our Western society, a gift that should be treated with more respect. 

I chose to teach yoga at the Y because I thought it would be the best way to bring the benefits of yoga to a more diverse group of people. I teach my students how to move safely into yoga poses and to challenge themselves physically. I teach my students to focus on their breath and how linking your breath with your movement aids in calming the mind. I encourage my students to find joy in their practice. I do not teach the spiritual side of yoga. We do not chant or "om". I still say 'namaste' at the end of class. I don't know if it is the right thing to do any more. I say it, fully meaning the sentiment behind the word: that which is beautiful in me salutes that which is beautiful in you. But my students don't know that this is the meaning of namaste. This is another mistake on my part. When you know the meaning and reverence of something, you are more likely to be more reverent with that something. You are less likely to toss around a sacred word like namaste.

This is true for all languages and cultures. 

CHATTER

Camping

4 Likes, 3 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Camping"

My head space has been really crowded with chatter lately. There are fifty different thoughts and conversation happening loudly all at once in there. The other day it was so bad that I almost stepped off my yoga mat five minutes into my practice, but I stayed put and did my best to make the yoga teacher voice the loudest. There have been moments during my practice while holding a pose for an extended period of time, it has felt as if my brain would explode from the vibration of noise in there. There is a screaming voice yelling at me to get up, move, stop being still. 

Buddha said that the human mind is full of drunken monkeys. What an amazingly accurate description and such a visual one. I can easily see a wild pack of monkeys in various states of drunkenness with all the drunk personalities represented. It's like the party scene from Breakfast at Tiffany's except all the actors are played by monkeys. There's even one laughing hysterically one minute at it's reflection and then sobbing the next minute. Buddha taught that you should not try to fight these monkeys (because monkeys can bite), but instead learn to tame them by sitting quietly in daily meditation. The Yoga Sutras refer to these monkeys as chitta vritti. Sutra 1.2, "yoga chitta vritti nirodha" translates to "yoga is the silencing of the modifications of the mind." For years and years and years, yoga has been taught as a way to prepare the body for meditation and can even be a moving meditation in of itself. 

There are loads of scientific papers that validate the importance of meditation. It reduces anxiety. It lowers blood pressure. It down regulates inflammatory genes and up regulates immune system genes. Researchers even believe that meditation could aid in the prevention of Alzheimer's disease. So I really should be meditating. My meditation practice fell apart years ago though and every attempt I've made to revive that practice has failed. I have settled into the idea that my meditation practice is a moving meditation practice. It happens when I am flowing through rounds of sun salutations and when I take my walks. Yet, I recognize that I really need to practice the art of stillness. Those evenings around the campfire when I sat and journaled our day and then drew cartoons in the margins were the closest to stillness that I have come in a long time. That is why I have signed up for a meditation and journaling workshop on Sunday at Sunshine Studio. We all need a little nudge and I am hoping to gain some momentum from this workshop rebuild my meditation practice.

Because those drunk monkeys are starting to look like an out of control Frat party. 

KEEPING HOUSE

Stretch

7 Likes, 2 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Stretch"

We leave Friday morning for our grand camping adventure. Today is Wednesday. Sometime between now and Friday, I need to have my things packed, help make sure the others have their things packed, and the dog needs a bath. These are things that need to be done along with my regular daily things like work (I have a stack of papers to read) and teaching yoga. I probably should do a load of laundry as well just to be sure I have enough underwear. Oh...and clean the blood off the rug where the cat murdered a rabbit last night. The things that I need to do are pulling me away from keeping up with my regular scheduled programming. 

Today I should be telling you about something yoga related. I recently made a purchase that I should have made years ago. I finally broke down and bought a travel yoga mat. I have resisted doing this for years for a number of reasons. First of all, I love love love my Manduka eKO yoga mat. The top layer is firm and I have never had a problem with slipping while on this mat. The bottom layer is squishy and provides a nice cushiony support. Some of you may have looked at the price tag for this yoga mat and gulped. Trust me. I did the same thing the first time I bought this mat. I am now on my second eKO. The first one lasted me almost eight years and is still actually a good mat. It has one spot where the top layer started separating from the bottom layer and I decided that I just needed a new mat. That first mat saw me through yoga teacher training, teaching six hours of yoga a week, a daily personal practice and the death of a husband. I still have this mat. Michael uses it. 

Another reason why I have resisted the purchase of a travel mat is because I am cheap. I see no need to purchase something else when I already have something that performs and works well for me. Except, and this took me some time to figure this out, my eKO mat does not work well for me when traveling. It is big, bulky and heavy. It does not fit in a suitcase, or it does, but it takes up too much space in the suitcase. It barely fits in some overhead compartments. As a result, I end up leaving my yoga mat at home and then I don't do yoga while I'm traveling. Yes, I know I just did a post about not needing your own mat to do yoga, but this is a skill I have only recently acquired. When I saw that I could get a Manduka eKO Light on sale at REI, I snatched it up. I thought "You know Cindy? You have been practice yoga for twenty years. It's time you treated yourself." and this is what I did. The eKO light is basically just the top layer of the eKO. It rolls up skinny and is already shoved under the dinette in the camper. I can't wait roll it out during this camping trip. 

People frequently ask me about yoga mats. How much money they should spend? Who makes the best mat? If you are the kind of person who only steps onto a yoga mat two to three times a week while you are at the gym, then one of those $20 Gaiam mats are perfect. These mats are easy to clean. I used to just throw mine in with towels in the washer and then hang it on the clothes line to dry. These mats, when clean, also grip well and provide some cushion from the hard floor. The more you use a mat, of course, the more you see wear and tear. When you find yourself wearing out the $20 mat more frequently than usual, then you should consider upgrading. I don't know who makes the best mat. Like I said, I really love my Manduka, but I read a lot of reviews before I purchased that mat. Just do your research. If you spend $100 on a mat, you want to be sure that it is going to be durable and last you. I found reading reviews helped me choose a mat that is all of the above. 

There's my unsolicited advice on yoga mats and I am not being paid by Manduka or Gaiam to write this entry. We will be on the road Friday, so I'm just going to say. I am thankful for the reminder to treat myself. I am thankful for new adventures. And I am thankful for you. 

See ya in a week or so. 

YOGA AND SCIENCE

Blade

8 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Blade"

Yoga Journal recently ran an article on the safety of jumping back to plank or chaturanga. What I loved so much about this article is not just how it discusses the anatomy involved in performing jump backs, but how they visited an Applied Biomechanics lab to take actual scientific measurements of the impact on joints when jumping back to plank and chaturanga. Their data showed that there was no more force placed onto the joints than as if you were walking. The article goes on to say that hopping back is perfectly safe if you can hold plank properly without sagging in the belly. The same goes for hopping back to chaturanga. I stand with the quiet rule on this. If you can't hop back without making a sound, then you should work on your core strength and skip the hopping.As a research scientist, I want to see this experiment done with non-seasoned yogis because this is the side of yoga that I can totally relate too. What's the impact of hopping back if you don't have proper form? How can teach my students to stay safe in hope backs? 

Yoga has some stigmas and one of those is the whole hippy dippiness of it. I mean, Yoga Journal followed the anatomy article with an article on crystals and their healing powers. You guys know me and know how hard I rolled my eyes at this. The only time I was not fully engaged during my yoga teacher training was when we got to the not scientific lulu stuff like auras and energy bodies. I was all in on those lessons that focused on the anatomy of the human body because I could see it in action. I could place my hand on the body part that was working and feel the muscle working. I could also look at the scientific studies and publications about yoga. There are many many NIH funded research programs that involve studying the effects of yoga on health. There is published data that shows both the pros and cons of a daily yoga practice. For instance, studies have shown that yoga is a great exercise for relieving low back pain. Pranayama or breathing practices yoga was taught to relieve asthma when in fact there is no evidence that yoga improves asthma. Pro. Con. All scientifically based research.

The yoga we see today is not the original yoga. It has and continues to be modified to make poses safer and more accessible and even to fit trends. Yoga battles with preconceived ideas from non-yogis. There are people who believe yoga is a religion. There are many who think you have to be flexible to do yoga. There are people who think yoga is sitting in lotus with your eyes closed while chanting. Linking actual scientific research with yoga is a pretty powerful tool for battling those preconceived ideas. When I tell my students that chanting "Om" can be good for them I can point to a scientific study in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care that shows that humming increases the production of nitric oxide in the nasal passages. You end up humming as you chant "Om". The extra nitric oxide helps you fight of sinus pain and infections. 

I like have scientific evidence to back up some of the lulu sounding things I say.

MOON ZAP

Instagram post by Cindy Maddera * May 8, 2018 at 1:54pm UTC

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My period started today, so I'm thinking about what to do in my yoga practice this week. I used to never think about this. Back in the days when I had yet to establish a daily practice on my own, I went to yoga classes at the gym and did it all. I didn't even think about it. It was only later that I discovered there are views about menstruation and your yoga practice. Some teachers are adamant about NO YOGA during this time. I sort of regarded this view as dumb. I threw it on the ridiculous pile of things women have been told not to do while on their periods, like swimming in the ocean because you will attract sharks or hiking because you will attract bears. I am amazed that our species has survived with all of us women attracting predators all the time. The raging feminist yogini in me wants to shout "you can't tell me what I can and can't do!" Women have been fighting the stigma of menstruation since the dawn of time. 

Though in the defense of yoga, the reasons some teachers believe that you should not do yoga during your period is not because you are considered to be 'unclean' or you will attract wild animals to the studio. That time of the month is considered to be a time of cleansing and renewal and you should just take it easy. That's a nice thought and my kapha side tells my pitta side that this is exactly what we should do. Except my pitta side is a jerk and I end up trying to do all of the things on my yoga mat because I feel better when I get off my mat. A study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health of sixty four women found that practicing breathing exercises, cat-cow, down dog, cobra, plank and child's pose reduced the effects of premenstrual stress. Of course this is a small study that took place in Taiwan, but the data is sound. [A different rant is the complete lack of research in reducing PMS, at all] 

There are many yoga poses that are beneficial to relieving cramping and bloating. Twists and supported fish pose are great. Bow pose is good for belly bloat. There are also poses that I just won't do during that time. I avoid certain inversions like headstand and shoulder stand, but there's no definitive scientific evidence that inversions cause problems if performed during menstruation. Really it just comes down to how you choose to interpret the word yoga. Yoga means 'to yoke'. I hear 'yoke' and I think of two large oxen yoked together and pulling a plow. One ox is your brain and the other ox is your body. They are forced to work together. The brain listens to the body and the body respects the brain's choices. Sometimes my body does not want to take the stairs, but my brain says "Come on! It's good for us!" and I take the stairs. Sometimes when my brain is saying that, my body goes "no, really. My knee hurts." I take the elevator. Practicing yoga doesn't just take place on your mat.

That time of the month is a good time to remember that lesson and really listen to what our bodies are telling us to do or not do. You know how on some days during your period, you feel just fine and other days you feel like a truck is rolling back and forth over your fat bloated body? On the days you feel just fine, have a regular asana practice, but on those other days when you feel achy and gross, take care of yourself. Choose a restorative practice with cushions and blankets. Sometimes I do a little bit of both by mixing in an asana practice at the beginning and finishing up with restorative poses like supported supta baddha konasana and supported twists. Sometimes, I just don't do anything but rest in final relaxation. I will it admit that it has taken me years of practice in order to be okay with doing less, but this is true self care.  

Namaste. 

BODY CONFIDENCE AND YOGA

Don't carve trees. Even for love.

3 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Don't carve trees. Even for love."

I skimmed through an article the other day about how yoga fosters body confidence. I say 'skimmed' because the article wasn't giving me any new information. Nothing profound jumped off the page. Yoga teaches you to let go of perfection and to focus on your inner self. Ideally...this is what yoga teaches, but letting go of the idea of perfection in yoga is not so easy to see visually. Not until recently, like in maybe in the last two years, has yoga magazines like Yoga Journal graced their covers with models who are not super thin and wirey with muscles. Iyengar and Brikram yoga practices put an emphasis on alignment and perfection in poses and I have heard stories of serious Ashtanga teachers sending students away until they have mastered a pose in the ashtanga sequence. 

It is not just the yoga media and some forms of practices that seem counter intuitive to promoting body confidence though. There have been many times when I have walked into a yoga studio, looked around me and thought "I do not belong here." I have looked at the other students, I have met the teacher and I have immediately started listing all the ways I am not enough for this class. I am not fit enough, strong enough, young enough, skinny enough, enlightened enough. All of those not enoughs dissipate once I am moving on my mat, but to someone new to yoga, that whole experience can be very intimidating. Though Yoga Journal has gotten a lot better at showing a more diverse group of yogis throughout their pages, many yoga studios feel a little less diverse. It can be difficult to cultivate body confidence in that sort of environment. 

There have been many psychological studies on the effects yoga has women's body confidence. A study released in the September 2016 issue of Body Image handed out questionnaires to a hundred and something yoga practitioners and a hundred and something non-yoga practitioners and found that people who practice yoga scored higher on body confidence than those who do not practice yoga. They also found that the people who practice yoga scored lower on self-objectification. A study released in Psychology of Sports and Exercise in March of this year focused on the effects of mirrors on yoga students in a yoga practice and found that women in yoga classes with mirrors had greater body image anxiety. It is clear that yoga is good for us, but it is also clear that it has it's own set of complicated pros and cons.

One reason I choose to teach at the Y is because it is a way to expose people who normally would not go to a studio to yoga. My classes at the Y are a diversity of age, size, color and fitness and it is beautiful. I try every week to put an emphasis on safety over so called perfection. I purposefully set my class up in a way that they are facing away from the mirrors. I tell them to find the joy in their practice and I have started to see my students grow in their own confidence. These lessons are all well and good and something any yoga teacher worth their salt teaches. Something I feel I could do better as a teacher is pushing my students to create their own personal practice. Because this is where true self confidence blooms into the sweetest flower. Those times I practice on my own are moments when I feel the most beautiful. 

I know that cultivating a personal yoga practice hard. There are days I unroll my mat and think "I don't want to do anything." but I do something. It may be simply sitting back in child's pose and counting my breaths to ten, but it is something. There are no hard set rules of how long you should be on your mat or what you even need to be doing. That's the joy of making it your own. If you are a teacher, I encourage you to impress the importance of a yoga practice outside of a class. If you are a student, I challenge you to spend just five minutes every day this week on your mat, on your own.

Namaste. 

CHUGGA CHUGGA

Good morning, moon

6 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Good morning, moon"

Yesterday morning, I went out to start my car and the engine went "whir whir whir.....clickety clickety...ugh ugh ugh." I had a moment of panic before turning the key in the ignition again. Finally, on the third try, the engine puttered to life. My car is paid off in March (or April...something like that). My plan is to drive this car until the wheels fall off, but my plans and Murphy's Law don't always match up. So when there's a moment of starting hesitation, I get a little bit nauseous. Really, the only reason the engine struggled is because it is so awfully horribly cold outside. It really is the worst and I just go on and on about how one day I will retire to some place warm. I don't even care if it ends up being Florida. 

Once the car warmed up to a drivable temperature, I headed off to teach my first yoga class of the new year. I've been dreaming about teaching yoga. Really...not figuratively. I told you about the dream where I was teaching yoga in a room that had a potato bar (I still think Yogatado would be a great studio/restaurant idea). A few nights later I dreamed that I was teaching yoga in a space that was also hosting a birthday party. It was very loud and I had to shout. There were kids running around in between yoga mats. This dream turned out to be not too far off of reality. The space where I am teaching is an open space that also holds the free weights. A partial wall separates the room from the rest of the gym. You can hear everything from the work out area and people walk into the class area to get weights or just wander around. I totally had to yell to my students. 

When I first started teaching yoga to my coworkers at my old job, we had a hard time finding a class space. We ended up in stairwell. You opened the door and immediately to your left was a staircase but to the right of that staircase there was a closet/storage space. It mostly held a stack of folding chairs that fit under the stairs, leaving the rest of the floor area open for yoga mats. It was drafty or steamy depending on outside temperatures and occasionally someone would walk in to actually use the stairs or more likely hoping to use that space to make a personal phone call. I made a little sign to place on the doorknob outside whenever we were having class to warn people that yoga was happening in that room. Later on, I would end up teaching in real classrooms and yoga studios, but I never gave up the stairwell space for my coworker classes. 

I've been nervous and apprehensive about teaching yoga again after all this time of not teaching. The new teaching environment to most yoga teachers does not sound ideal, but to me, it's perfectly normal. In fact it was almost comforting to teach my first class of the new year after a five year hiatus in this noisy open space. It is familiar, which I know sounds crazy. One doesn't really link noisy open spaces with yoga. I see it as the perfect environment for teaching a student to be fully present on their mat and to guard their senses for relaxation. Because outside, in our every day lives, our environment is not ideal. I don't just mean the temperature, though saying the current temps are not ideal is being polite. Our world is busy with sights and sounds and things that make us uncomfortable. I don't necessarily want to teach people how to ignore all of this. Some times we need to be uncomfortable. I do want to teach people how to approach all of it with calmness though. This is a lesson that I needed to be reminded of, the practice of taking our yoga off the mat and into our daily life.

It is one thing to do yoga, but quite another to be yoga. 

YIN

Imagine you're standing on a beach. Your toes dig into the sand. The sun warms your face. You close your eyes and feel the warm salty air.

6 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Imagine you're standing on a beach. Your toes dig into the sand. The sun warms your face. You close..."

I received a supplemental Yoga Journal last month that was all about building a daily yoga practice. It included a chart for a six week program with different poses and plans and then told you what pages of the journal you could find those routines. One of the classes they recommended was a series of nine poses done in a Yin style of yoga. Yin yoga is a passive style of yoga that uses seated or supine posses to stretch the muscles and connective tissue in the hips and legs in order for you to sit longer and more comfortably in meditation. The idea is to hold each pose for 3-5 minutes. It is also the kind of practice that aids in lowering cortisol levels, a stress hormone that messes with your immune system and encourages the body to hang onto fat. 

My yoga practice has never been Yin. That doesn't mean I have a hard core Ashtanga practice either. I'd like to think my practice is a nice balance of difficult and relaxing. I start off with several rounds of surya namaskar, followed up with a focus on a few key poses. I try to throw in poses I generally do not like to do because one day they will become poses that I love to do. I finish off with some twists and a nice fifteen minute savasana. You see, a long time ago, way back when I learned about doshas, I read the part about how Kaphas tend to be overweight and sluggish and just went right ahead and declared that I was predominantly kapha. It is not true and I know that now, but it's still there in the back of my head whenever I get on my mat or the treadmill or find myself in a step aerobics class. That little kapha voice in my head says "Cindy, you are fat and slow so you better push yourself or you're going to stay fat and slow." Isn't that little kapha voice mean?

The other day, I rolled out my yoga mat and told that little kapha voice to be quite. I sat down on my mat and then proceeded through the nine poses in the magazine, holding each for five minutes. It was torture. You know how Professor X can hear thoughts from every person in the world and it's just a constant noise of chatter in his head? It was like that in my brain except all of the thoughts were my own. When the inside of my brain wasn't screaming in a million voices, I was the little kid in the back seat of a car saying "are we there yet?" over and over. And it was not like I was forcing myself to stay in the most difficult of yoga poses. They were the kind of poses that I typically do to cool down and prepare for savasana. They were the kind of poses that are yummy for the brief amount of time I had been usually holding them. Five minutes is a really long time. It's a life time. I wouldn't have been surprised to discover that years had passed while I had been on my mat in that practice. 

Yet I persisted, holding each pose until the timer dinged to move to the next pose. I took note of what the mind chatter was saying. Most of the chatter is me writing up entries in my head. How to write the story? Maybe that chatter wouldn't be so loud if I actually sat down and wrote the damn story. Eventually, I reached a moment when I was able to reel in all the mind chatter and settle into savasana. I got up from my mat knowing full well that I am more pitta/vata than kapha and feeling a little lighter. 

I got up from my mat knowing that I need to write the damn story. 

YOGA FAIL

This is not a post about not getting on my yoga mat or feeling guilty for not getting on my mat. In fact, I've been really good about doing my practice. You can find me in the middle of a sun salutation around lunch time about five days out the week and I'm not just doing the easy stuff. I always put in at least one or two poses that I don't really like do. Those poses eventually become poses I don't mind doing, so I add in a few other poses I don't like doing. I'm not just laying down in savasana, though that wouldn't really be all that bad of thing every now and then. My yoga practice has been really really good. Except for one thing.

The last three times I've sat down on my yoga mat to do marichyasana (as pictured above), I have not been unable to bind and clasp my hands. I haven't even been able to brush my finger tips together. The first time, I kind of just brushed it off because I hadn't done a lot of the preparation poses that makes marichyasana easy. I say 'kind of' because I never really needed to do the prep to easily bind, but what ever. The second time I was on my mat, I did some of those prep poses like twists and hip openers and I still couldn't grasp my fingers. This time, my ego became inflamed with rage. This is a pose I normally like to do! This is a pose that looks impressive in a carnival freak-show kind of way and I've always been able to do it well. I've always been able to do this pose with out effort. What was wrong with me?!?!

Yesterday I got on my mat with marichyasana on my mind. I thought maybe this time I needed to do something more than twists and hip openers. Maybe it was my shoulders causing the problem. This time I threw in a bunch of shoulder opening poses. I thought for sure that this time I'd bind myself up into marichyasana like I'd always been able to do. Nope. My finger tips were a little bit closer, but no where near close enough to clasp. This time my ego wasn't just mad. This time my ego got in there and started yelling inside my brain like a middle school gym coach yelling at the scrawny pre-teen to climb that rope. My favorite, easy pose has now become a pose that I don't like to do. What. Is. Happening?

I can't quite figure out what's different. I thought maybe it was a weight issue, but this body I have now is the same as that body up there in the picture. The other day, I got a notification that someone had recently 'faved' a photo I'd taken for my thirtieth birthday. It was an artfully nude photo and as I looked at it, I had to admit that I didn't really see any differences between that body and this body. All of this makes not being able to do this pose even more frustrating. It's a showy, trick of a pose. Like balancing on the palms of your hands in crow pose. I can easily do crow pose now. It used to be one of the poses I didn't really like to practice. It looks like I might have traded one marichyasana for one crow pose. Hello Ego! I see you've come to take me down a peg. 

That's the thing about yoga. One day you think you've made it to guru cave level yogini. The next day you're reminded that you still have lots and lots to learn. Today, I'm going to get on my mat. I'm going to do those hip openers and twists. I'm going to do those shoulder openers. I'm going to throw in some chest openers and maybe even do a little self massage of the muscles in between the ribs. I'm going to sit down and make another attempt at marichyasana and if my fingers still don't reach to bind, I am not giving up. I will make marichyasana my pose of the month if I have to. 

That's how you get to guru cave level yogini. 

WHAT'S YOUR MILK CRATE

International Yoga Day #yoga #internationalyogaday

See this Instagram photo by @elephant_soap * 8 likes

Years ago, Chris and I visited New Orleans together with Todd. We noticed that most all of the street performers had their own milk crate. That crate acted as a stage or a seat or even as part of the act as one performer balanced a milk crate on his head. If you had a milk crate, you had a job. The milk crate made Chris come up with an idea for a self help book called "What's Your Milk Crate?" The basic concept of the book was discovering the base for the job you wanted to do. It was really a great idea, one of the many on Chris's list of ideas, but nothing ever really came out of it. What's Your Milk Crate was a self help book for the creative type; at least that's what I believed for many years. It took me awhile to figure out that everyone needs a milk crate. It took me even longer to realize that I have many milk crates. Like a milk crate for science and a milk crate for yoga. Sometimes a crate wears out and needs to be replaced with a new one of a different color. Sometimes you have too many milk crates and you need to dump a few. 

Our kayaking tour group were all standing around on a beach eating lunch and chit-chatting. One of our guides, Katie, and another woman were talking about combining kayaking with yoga. Katie said that she'd love to take a group over to one of the islands to camp and do yoga, but she needed a teacher. Michael chimed in at this and said "Cindy could teach for you!" Suddenly, all eyes turned towards me like they expected me to start leading vinyasa right then and there. I stood there with my eyebrows raised and sort of stammered for a minute before I finally spit out that I used to teach. Meaning, I don't teach anymore. Though, I had to admit that it would be really great to be part of a kayaking yoga retreat. Then words starting falling from mouth in an effort to explain myself and why I don't teach any more. I feel like I've told this story a lot lately and it needs a rewrite. I talk about taking time off from teaching to get used to a new job and a new city. I talk about volunteering a little and then I say "my husband got sick and died and I just kind of stopped teaching all together at that point." Then I scramble back around and say something like "I didn't stop teaching because of Chris. I just stopped teaching."

My milk crate changed colors. 

That should be my answer when someone asks me why I don't teach any more. My milk crate changed colors. I am not opposed to teaching. I loved teaching yoga. Loved it! When I moved from a job that brought me joy to a job that was just a job, I taught lots of yoga. Teaching made feel good and balanced out the job that made me feel awful, but it made sense for me to take a break from teaching once we moved to Kansas City. Moving is stressful. Moving to completely unknown territory is a different level of stress and exhilaration. There was a whole lot of new happening around me with a new job, a new home, a new city. Adding to all of that with new classes and new students didn't seem like the smartest thing or the most economical. I spent more money maintaining my teaching certification than I did making money as a teacher. But these are not all of the reasons for stepping away from teaching. 

My yoga teacher once told me that people who really get yoga and the concept of yoga, don't teach. Those old gurus that hang out in Yogaville teach a workshop about once year just to help pay for their living, but they don't teach daily classes. I don't know if I "get" yoga, but I understand what happens to your personal practice when you are a teacher and I understand what can happen to your personal practice when you stop teaching.  I understand why those old gurus don't teach daily classes. When I stopped teaching, my yoga practice shifted. Before, my practice was one sided plus a savasana. I did all the poses on the left because I usually demonstrated by doing poses on the right and I never got a savasana. The shift in my practice was more than just one sided poses and savasana though. I've noticed this more lately. I find that being alone on my mat brings me the same kind of joy that teaching yoga did. There are times when being on my mat is so sweet, so juicy, that I don't want to leave. 

Up until this very moment, I struggled with what I guess I could call guilt over not teaching. To go through all that training and work and then not use it seems wasteful or worse, it seems like a failure. I was good at teaching. It is not often I am going to admit at being good at anything, but this? I was good at teaching yoga. My students loved me. I still get the occasional "I sure do miss you" message from an old student. And there are times when I hear something and my inner yoga teacher wants to blurt out an alternative way of doing things, but most of the time I keep my mouth shut. I do occasionally toy with the idea of starting a yoga podcast or putting together a workshop and that may or may not happen. Who knows. Right now though, I'm going to stop making excuses for not teaching. I'm going to stop making my decision for not teaching any more sound so negative. I'm going to stop apologizing for putting my practice first. 

I'm going to stop apologizing for putting me first.