Teaching troubles, or how Les Mills is taking over the world. February 9, 2010

I have resisted blogging about this for a while – mainly because I want my blog to be a positive space, and this is kind of a negative topic. But it’s been frustrating me, and I think it’s time to ask my blog friends for some advice : )

I decided at the end of July 2009 to register for Level 1 teacher training. So I spent the month of August contacting every gym and fitness center in town, asking if they’d have any yoga positions open in the fall of 2009. I sent lots of emails and made lots of phone calls, and I found two gyms that seemed pretty excited about me teaching, as well as a couple of “maybes”.

My Level 1 training was at the end of October, so about midway through that month I got back in touch with everyone who seemed interested. This time, I got some lukewarm responses and went in for an interview at one gym.

By the time I got back from my training I was doing my community service teaching, which took me through the beginning of December. During that time, I focused my efforts on the two gyms I thought were my best bets, and working with my local parks and rec department to get something going.

It’s now early February, which means I have been working on starting a class for more than 6 months. Both gyms that thought they’d have a class for me have fallen through. There are lots of gyms in town that used to offer yoga but are now replacing it with BodyFlow. The more I talk to group fitness directors, the more it seems that Les Mills and similar programs are taking over the world. My local parks and rec department is very willing to promote a yoga class with me, but we are both at a loss about where to hold it.

It seems so easy – all I need is a few feet of open floor and some willing participants – but the logistics have proven to be somewhat of a nightmare. Finding a rent-free space hasn’t been as simple as I thought, and none of the gyms are hiring at the moment. On a whim, I posted my information on an internet board at work, just to see what happened.

In the past month, I have been contacted by two women, one in my town and one in Bloomington, where I work, who are interested in organizing informal classes. These would be classes consisting of their friends, held at their homes, in church basements, free community center space, etc. I am thrilled about the possibility, and really hope it will work out. I’m hoping this is the way to finally get some teaching going. But I have to admit, I wish this process were moving a bit faster.

Is this a pretty typical experience? There were 12 people in my Level 2 last month, and I was one of two who didn’t currently teach a class. Is it just that this community isn’t very yoga-friendly? Bloomington-Normal has a combined population of over 125,000 people, and one yoga studio. What’s the deal with that?

Thanks in advance for what I know will be thoughtful advice and encouragement, and keep your fingers crossed that these two possibilities work out!!

Namaste,
Jamie

Re-defining yoga February 7, 2010

18 hours, 45 minutes!

There is a lot of talk out there about what yoga is and is not.

Yoga is not a religion for me, but in a lot of ways the contemporary yoga discourse is very similar to contemporary religious discourse: there’s a lot of “my way is the only way” going on. The good thing about the internet, of course, is that you can choose what you read! : ) And for every blogger or teacher who is adamant that they have defined yoga the “right” way, there are five others who are open-minded, willing to try new things, and are consciously refraining from judgment.

As my dear loyal readers know, in January I challenged myself to practice yoga daily for at least 30 minutes. I think I did a pretty good job.

This experience opened my mind because it not only challenged me to get on my mat, it also challenged me to define yoga differently. My definition now is much broader and forgiving. Before, my practice consisted primarily of vigorous Vinyasa classes – but, believe it or not, there are many times one is just not in the mood for 8 sun salutations! For instance, when it’s Friday evening at 11:30 pm.

So here are my “notes” (so to speak) from the month of January.

Yoga does not necessarily have to

• include sun salutations
• include any warrior poses
• make you sweat

Yoga can be

• one pose or a hundred poses
• energizing or calming
• empowering or humbling
• spiritual or silly
• meditating
• supta baddha konasana for 15 minutes, then child’s pose for 15 minutes

While practicing yoga, you can

• play music, but only if you want to
• use nothing, or use lots of props (blankets, straps, blocks, bolsters, dining room chairs)
• follow the rules or make up your own
• belly laugh at your laptop when your yogaglo instructor suggests you jump into crow pose from plank
• sing at the top of your lungs to a Brandi Carlile album – if that is just the kind of day you had
• let your dog in the room to give you kisses while in savasana

What about you guys? What practices have you had that break the rules and defy conventions?

Namaste,
Jamie

Have you seen this calendar? It cracks me up! My sister got it for me for Christmas.

I also read these books in January! Busy month!

YogaFit Level 2, Part 2: Eliminating Negative Self-Talk February 2, 2010

“There are avenues and supplements and books stacked on the shelves. Labyrinths of recovery in search of our best selves. But most of what will happen now is way out of our hands, so let it go, see where it lands.” -Indigo Girls

What is that chatter that goes on in our heads?

It’s amazing when you think about it, there are so many different levels we can be thinking on. I can be at work thinking through a complex task, but at the same time a melody from a song can be stuck persistently in my head, and I can be thinking about what I’m going to be eating for lunch. In order to focus, there is not just one voice I need to silence. There are many.

I wrote yesterday about the self-affirming mantra I created this past weekend: I am strong. I am me. The first part is intended to inspire myself to stick with a difficult pose or task. The second part is to remind myself that I’m an individual and that comparing myself to others is unhealthy. One could even argue it violates ahimsa or non-violence.

I am strong, I am me. It ended up being the perfect mantra. Every word is only one syllable, so it’s naturally rhythmic. But both of the key words (“strong” and “me”) are ripe with various meanings. It has two parts, so I can say one on an inhale and the other on an exhale. It means a lot to me. All of these characteristics make it the perfect mantra.

I have never experimented much with mantras because honestly I thought they were above me, meditation wise. I am not great with meditation and my mind wanders a lot, so I kind of thought mantras just weren’t for me.

But I was so wrong. What happened with this mantra (I am strong. I am me. isn’t it beautiful?) is it got stuck in my head, just like that Black Eyed Peas song everyone is singing. I mean it really got in my head during warm up, and it stayed in my head for the 90 minutes we practiced. And here’s the thing: once it got in my head, it required no more effort from me.

When my mind wandered during practice, all it took was a little focus to realize that my mantra was there, repeating itself in my mind all on its own. It wasn’t quiet while I was off in la-la land; it was on repeat, waiting for me to notice it again.

It was definitely A Moment for me. I don’t even have to repeat the mantra myself – all I have to do is set it in motion, and it takes on a life of its own.

At both of the trainings I’ve been to, we’ve discussed the fact that “our tissues hold our issues”. Yoga is my way to physically work on emotional issues, kneading them out of my muscles as I stretch, flow, and hold. It sounds silly and new age-y until you think about how true it is.

Often, during yoga class, we have moments of release when these issues are working themselves out. It’s not uncommon to have fits of laughter or tears out of nowhere during these physical releases. While I generally held my composure, I had this sort of release, thanks to my new mantra.

So if you’ve always thought that mantras were silly and unnecessary, or even distracting, I urge you to give one a try. They can be revelatory and inspirational. They can help you focus and they can hold your attention in a new way. So find something that means something to you – make it something you love and understand. “And let it go, see where it lands.”

Namaste,
Jamie

YogaFit Level 2, Part 1: Positive Self-Affirmations February 1, 2010

This weekend I went to my Level 2 certification class in Indianapolis, IN. It was a great weekend full of watershed moments for my personal practice and really incredible yogis. It was the perfect culmination of my 30 minutes a day January practice. I feel so fortunate to have participated.

In the YogaFit path, Level 2 focuses on communication between teacher and student. Communication in general is huge to me; I’m very interested in interpersonal communication on both large and small scales. Anyway, one of the things we focused on the first day was creating positive self-affirmations and sharing them with our class, and then transforming them into mantras.

Now I don’t want to give away all of the YogaFit secrets, because I don’t want to get sued, but in order to write our self-affirmations, we did a lot of introspection and used lots of feeling words.

What I took away from this session was something I already knew – a lot of my negative self-talk in yoga, and in life, stems from comparisons I draw between myself and others.

It took me years of having terrible body image as a teenager to realize that I needed to just stop looking at other women and comparing their bodies to mine (and it’s still harder than it sounds). It applies to yoga (my asanas probably won’t look much like the cover of Yoga Journal anytime soon), but it also applies to life.

My career, my salary, my family, my house, my choices – they all have one thing in common: they’re mine. They’re not anyone else’s. So drawing comparisons between my life and others is not only harmful, but also unproductive – it doesn’t even make any sense.

My negative self-talk can also be self-defeating. When my confidence wanes, I am guilty of sometimes telling myself “I can’t do it”. Even the way I phrased that sentence is self-defeating because I placed guilt on myself, so it’s definitely a vicious circle. And as we know, “I can’t do it” is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sometimes in a tough yoga pose I feel like I give up before I really need to. For obvious reasons, I’d like to change that.

So there we have it. My mantra: I am strong. I am me.

Tune in tomorrow to read about how I used this mantra to eliminate negative self-talk during practice!

Namaste,
Jamie

The night I didn’t practice January 28, 2010

Last night I did not practice yoga. It was the first January day that I did not do at least 30 minutes of yoga, which means I am going to come up a little short of my 30 minutes for 31 days goal.

I’m not going to go into all of it here, but basically yesterday was a rough day. I didn’t get home until much later than usual, and I got some bad financial news as soon as I did get home. What it came down to is this: I had almost exactly 30 minutes to myself, and I chose to call my mom instead of practicing.

Now throughout the month of January I have had a couple of other days that I considered slightly-to-moderately stressful. I practiced yoga on those days, and it really helped relieve the stress. But those were run-of-the-mill stressors, and last night was something more. I could tell that what I really needed was a good cry and someone to listen. If I had gotten on my mat I would have had a hard time letting go of the things that were stressing me out, and what I needed to do was face them, discuss them, and come to peace with them. I knew I couldn’t shake those toxic feelings to focus on practice, and I didn’t want them on my mat with me.

Maybe to some people it sounds like I’m making excuses. But to me, last night was a real-world equivalent to taking child’s pose during a strenuous class. When that’s what my body needs, I acknowledge it. My practice (and my life) is about finding a balance between the healthy place of pushing myself to achieve goals and the not-so-healthy place of demanding too much of myself before I’m ready.

And sometimes, you just need a good cry with your mom. : )

Where I Practice January 25, 2010

In the last months of our engagement and the first few months of our marriage, Andy and I lived together in an apartment which, while not small, did not exactly give us the space we wanted. When we found the house we live in now, I saw this room and immediately thought “YOGA ROOM!” Fortunately, Andy graciously agreed. : )

I feel so at peace in this room and I love it so much, that I decided to share it with you all tonight:

The painting was done by a friend of mine (Ben Gardner). The big white double doors open up into the living room, but are usually shut. The bamboo curtain divides the room from the study, where my hubby is usually writing while I practice.

And of course, my best buddy, who is always trying to get in the yoga room to see what exactly I’m doing in there (and give me a lick on the face).

Namaste,
Jamie

Yogaglo! January 19, 2010

I read about yogaglo on EcoYogini’s blog at just the perfect time. I was in the middle of a yoga slump, and tempted by the thought of quitting the gym. Introducing: yogaglo! For all of your practice-at-home needs! (enough links for you, there?)

So far, I give yogaglo an A+.

For those of you who don’t know, the yogaglo studio is located in Santa Monica, California. It’s a real live yoga studio with real live teachers and real live people of all levels who come in to practice. The only difference is, there’s a small camera in the back of the studio that records each class. About 24-48 hours after a class concludes, it gets posted on the website.

For $18 a month (or one and a half classes at the fancy studio in my area), you have unlimited access to the classes they post. You can take as many as you want, at any time of day. Classes are organized by teacher, style, level (1, 2, and 3), duration (from 5 minutes to 125 minutes), and category.

The advantages and disadvantages of yogaglo are closely intertwined with the advantages and disadvantages of a home practice. But since I began both at the same time, they have become one and the same for me, so I’m going to review them together here.

I think the main advantage of practicing at home is the lack of inhibition. I feel like I can take more risks in the comfort of my own home, whereas in a studio I might be too afraid of losing my balance, or just looking weird in the pose. I also talk out loud to myself and to the instructors, which is kind of funny. Usually, my hubby is in the next room writing, and I think he gets a kick out of my commentary.

Another advantage: yogaglo has LOTS of variety. They have so many different instructors and styles that I feel like I can practice for months without repeating a class unless I want to. I have been doing primarily 30-minute sessions, and they have a limited number of classes that are only 30 minutes. But I have gotten into mixing and matching classes: a 10 minute Vinyasa warmup and a 20 minute Anusara class. A 5 minute “yoga at work” stretch and a 25 minute Vinyasa class. The classes with shorter durations are almost always selections from 60 or 90-minute classes, and I applaud the site’s administrators for pulling out the warm ups and cool downs as separate sessions. People like me really appreciate that!

In one way, having the teacher in a tiny version on the laptop is actually preferable to being in a studio: you can move the teacher around! It’s awesome! If my laptop is in standard “class format” in front of me, and I know we’re going to be working on shoulderstands, I just move the computer right up by my head. No more craning awkwardly around my own body to see the instructor. Very cool and, if you pardon the lit-geek part of me, postmodern!

There are some cool things customizable to an account. Yogaglo donates 5% of their profits to non-profits, and I can choose which of the three I want my dues to benefit (they hope to add more organizations later on). Also, the account is portable. If I go visit my parents or am staying with a friend, I just find a computer with internet access and log in, and there’s my studio. They also have a commitment section, where it automatically logs your yogaglo hours, and you can log how much you practice elsewhere. They have a visual representation of a flower that “glows” when you reach 3.5 hours a week.

Of course, practicing at home also has its disadvantages. I feel much more prone to distraction than when I’m in a studio. While lying in savasana, I’m more likely to notice things like the paint job in the yoga room, the sound of the washer stopping, my cell phone buzzing in the other room, an errant toenail that’s annoying me. And there’s no one around to be annoyed when I stop the class to answer the phone (which I haven’t done yet, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time).

I also feel pretty distracted just by having my laptop there with me. My laptop does not represent yoga – it represents email, facebook, and other compulsive time-wasters. If I’m not feeling engaged or challenged, it’s easy to wonder about my inbox in the meantime. I don’t like this technologically obsessed side of me, but it’s there, so I’m accepting it.

Of course, the main disadvantage to any home practice is the chance that you’re settling into bad habits. It’s always good to visit a studio now and then to have someone keep an eye on your alignment!

For those who are interested, here is a complete list of categories offered by yogaglo:

Categories:

108 Sun Salutations
Absolute Beginner
Advanced Practice Anusara
Advanced Practice Vinyasa
Arm Balances
Backbend
Bhakti
Core Strengthening
Deep Relaxation
Gentle Yoga
Hip Opener
Inversions
Meditation
Partner Yoga
Pranayama
Restorative
Seated Poses
Shoulder Opener
Standing Poses
Sun Salutation Series
With Live Music
Workshops
Yin
Yoga at Work
Yoga Nidra

Namaste,
Jamie

Headstand, here I come January 18, 2010

Image from http://www.abs-exercise-advice.com/

I am in love with headstands – I can’t stop trying to perfect mine. It’s funny because I only tried my first one a few months ago, but now I end every practice with some headstand work.

I am nowhere near coming off the wall, but I am noticing some serious progress.

I get all the way up and then place just my heels on the wall for balance. I’m not gracelessly whacking my heels and hips up there just to get it over with, like when I started. It helped when I started walking my feet in closer to my head than I had been, making the top half of my body almost vertical before I even try to get up there.

I had another “aha” moment when I learned how to really engage my arms and use my elbows as part of the tripod.

Every once in a while, I have a moment of enlightenment (mainly, core engagement) that gives me a glimpse of what it will feel like when I don’t need the wall. But I know it would be foolish to take away the wall right now. At the moment, I focus on balancing for five breaths with one heel off and one heel delicately on the wall, then I switch. Then I try to come all the way off for a few breaths.

I’m in a delicate and humbling place right now. I just did a level two class on yogaglo where the guy “in front of me” did a handstand flow between poses like it was nothing. It will be years before I get to that point (if it’s even attainable!). I try to ignore my competitive nature in yoga, but at times like that it’s very challenging! It’s tempting to just rush into things with false confidence (kind of like I did with crow a few posts back).

At the same time, I know moving too quickly here will set me back a few steps. If I get ahead of myself, I could end up falling or even injuring myself. It would severely damage the fledgling confidence I’ve built. So I need to take it nice and slowly and enjoy the ride.

I hope you’re enjoying your ride too! What poses did you have a long love affair with before you felt confident in them?

Namaste,
Jamie

Gaiam’s 5-day fit Yoga DVD January 15, 2010

As I mentioned before, my friend Sarah loaned me the Gaiam 5-day fit yoga DVD. I actually only did the first three of the five classes because after that, I joined yogaglo and was too excited to do anything but that : ) (more on that later). So keep in mind when you read my review that maybe the last two classes are different.

Overall, I give the DVD a C+. Slightly better than average.

My biggest complaint about this DVD is that there is no way to tell which class you’re selecting from the main menu. The back of the DVD lists the following:

AM Peak Performance Yoga
PM Peak Performance Yoga
AM Yoga for Weight Loss
PM Yoga for Weight Loss
Stress Relief Yoga

But on the main DVD menu, they are listed only as numbers 1-5. There’s no way to tell if you’re starting an AM or PM class, which really is quite a big difference to me. I don’t want to be lulled to sleep if I got up early to practice.

Suzanne Deason leads three of the classes, but I only did one of hers. After that one, I wasn’t overly eager to do the other ones. In my opinion, her voice wasn’t very soothing, and she repeatedly referred to a “brick” that we supposedly needed, although I never actually felt like I needed one while participating. I am hyper-sensitive to these things, because then I start thinking that the inclusion of the brick is just Gaiam advertising to me, and I definitely don’t want to be advertised to while practicing. If I had really needed the block, I would have felt differently, I’m sure.

Rod Stryker does two of the classes on the DVD, both of which I did and really enjoyed. Rod uses beautiful language and cues about what the body is supposed to be doing and feeling. That being said, I’m wary of some of his cues – I’m not a fan of teachers using words like “stronger” and “more flexible” (as in, “if you’re more flexible, put your hand on the floor”). That seems to set the participants up for competition – with others, with themselves, and with the person on the screen. Also, I don’t know that a beginner could have kept up with him, as he mentioned the poses without much direction as to how to get into them.

I’m glad I checked out the DVD (Thanks Sarah!). I’d be interested to hear what some of you think, if you’ve tried this particular item, or other classes with Rod and Suzanne.

Namaste,
Jamie

DIY yoga mat bag! January 11, 2010

the materials

My friend Stephanie is a superhero.

She is a math teacher, so she gets the ultimate respect from me, the person who struggles balancing her checkbook. She is also awesome at all sorts of things I don’t really know how to do. She helped me paint my porch, she knows how to knit (really knit, because I can make scarves and nothing else), she can cook and bake, she does amazing things like making her own headboard for her bed, and on and on. Also, she owns a sewing machine and actually knows how to work it.

So a long time ago I found this page on yogajournal.com, but I kind of wrote it off as over my head. Meanwhile, I casually shopped for a yoga mat bag, but wasn’t flipped about any I saw. They were all either too expensive (lululemon’s start at $34) or just not very cute. But the other day, it dawned on me that maybe Stephanie could help me make my own yoga bag! And she agreed to help.

me, pretending to be a professional

The first thing I had to do was buy my materials. This took a lot of help from the kind Hobby Lobby employee, who seemed genuinely concerned for the success of my project due to my overwhelming ignorance of what I was shopping for. I finally picked everything out, and the total came to less than $11 (and I have a lot of fabric left over).

Then, we had to measure and cut the rectangle and circle. As you might expect, a rectangle is a lot easier to cut than a circle. First we had to figure out how big the circle should be if the circumference needed to be a certain measurement. I was over simplifying things, but once Stephanie remembered where “pi” fit in the equation, and got out her fancy graphing calculator, we got it figured out.

We tried a couple of different things to make the circle, and finally it dawned on me that Stephanie probably had a compass lying around somewhere (of course, at first I referred to it as a protractor, but she knew what I meant). So that was a great thing to have.

To save you guys some time, a 6″ circle is a good size to start with. I have a regular thin mat and 6″ was just slightly too big. You’ll need a bigger circle depending on how thin/thick your mat is. If you don’t have a compass, and don’t want to bother with pi, a small plate or bowl would work.

Once we got everything all set up, I learned the basics of the sewing machine (which I could not replicate on my own anytime soon). I did a little sewing, but Stephanie took care of the hard stuff for me.

Overall, despite some difficult angles of the fabric under the needle, the bag was not incredibly hard to make. It should be easy for those of you who do this stuff more often.

One suggestion I have that differs from the pattern is in regards to the strap length. I think the measurements they give you for the length are much too short, and I would definitely suggest adding a few inches on to the pattern (I did).

All in all, I was very happy with the finished product. Thanks to my great friend, and the helpful lady at Hobby Lobby, I now have an adorable yoga mat bag. I can’t wait for the first time someone compliments it and I can say that I made it all by myself (well, almost)! : )

Happy crafting.

Namaste,
Jamie