Wake Up Call

6:30am. Waikiki Beach. Waves lapping along the shore as you move through your vinyasa. Light rain falling. Amazing.

Doing yoga on the beach is like nothing I have ever experienced. It's more challenging in some ways because you can't anchor yourself like you can on a hard floor - the surface, sand, is always shifting and moving under your weight. So you really have to balance. But in another way, you can kind of maneuver yourself into stability by using the sand as a prop.

We used mats to do the lying down poses and stretching (I had to laugh at myself for kicking sand in my own face a few times). Then for the standing poses and vinyasas, we rolled up our pants and went right down to the water's edge. We did our DFD's with our backs to the water, and rolled through our chatarangas on a slight slope, which was really hard. When it came time to do balancing, we faced the ocean and got into tree pose, and then held hands in a line formation to help each other balance. I few people stopped by and joined in, which was cool.

The sound of the surf and the feel of the breeze were so refreshing. When you closed your eyes, it was wonderful to concentrate on those natural sounds. When class finished, the rain started coming down HARD, but I enjoyed it. It's a warm rain, and I walked the mile back to the studio taking my time and feeling how awake and alive my body felt.

Going to the Edge

Yoga is a non-competitive lifestyle and exercise practice. We are told over and over again to listen to our bodies, to go within, and to let go of any outside influences for the time that we are on our mats. You are expected to be conscious of your limitations, but also to seek and go to your edge, each and every time. Once you reach and honor that edge, you leave everything else behind and move forward.

For me, finding the edge isn't just about going deeper into a pose or attempting a posture that is difficult for me. The edge exists for me in the unfamiliar, a place or situation in which I don't know what to expect or what happens next. Shaking up the norm is very uncomfortable for me at first, and often I fumble through it, but when I emerge on the other side, it is with an unparalleled sense of accomplishment. It's the mental equivalent of being dropped into the wilderness having to rely on your own survival skills to get you out. Trial and error, or approaching something from a different way, have shown me new paths to get to my goals.

Tomorrow I will go on my first yoga retreat, with my friend Jude. I'm really excited, and I can feel my adrenaline pumping at the thought of spending an entire day, not just an hour and a half, devoted to yoga. We will drive up to Mayacamas Ranch in Calistoga in the morning, which is about an hour and a half north of San Francisco Our schedule will be: do a morning class, have lunch, have some free time to hike or enjoy the pool, and do a restorative class in the afternoon. It is truly a journey, one with a lot of new experiences in store. I've never done two classes in one day - how will my body react? What will it like being in an outdoor environment rather than being in my familiar, enclosed studio on busy Divisadero street?


Our partner in this experience is our teacher, Pete Chandonnet. He is a wonderful guide, and his experience as a life coach make his classes highly energetic and personalized. I've been in classes where he calls every student by name. He also makes the classes fun, and plays great music, which is always a motivator for me. One of the things that I love about yoga is the connection between student and teacher, and I am looking forward to getting to know Pete in this more intense study.

I keep looking at the pictures and imagining myself there, but just like with a longer, more distant vacation, I can't really envision it until I am there, in the middle of it. It just looks like a post card for now. But tomorrow at this time, we will have just returned, hopefully having found a new state of mind, and explored some new territory, both inside and out.

50 Ways To Leave Your Yoga Mat

Sometimes your yoga mat gets a little too funky to use any more (or in the case of one of mine, I was drying it on the back balcony, and it fell off - never to be heard from again...). But it feels bad to just throw it out - after all, you went to all that trouble to find eco-friendly rubber, now it's just going to sit in a landfill?

I came across this helpful list from Gaiam, one of my favorite sites for yoga supplies and products (very nice organic cotton pants and tops).

Some of my favorites are:

#2. Dog & cat dishes stay put. Cut to size required. – A. O., Trumbull, CT

#5. While taking my dog to the vet or groomer or just for a ride with the top down, her feet would scratch the leather going around curves. So I decided to take an old yoga mat and roll it out over the back seat of my car. Viola! She is comfy and can do her own version of Downward Dog without scratching my seats! – L. S., Powell, OH

#24. Place it under your sleeping bag for extra padding when enjoying the outdoors. It reduces pack load for those who like to do yoga on camping trips. – S. F., Brooklyn, NY

#37. Plug up drafty places and save energy — windows, doors, under window air conditioners. – R. N., Minneapolis, MN

I love that all of the ideas came from customers - it just goes to show you that when we put our minds to it, we can all be creative when it comes to recycling. Your own trash may be your treasure in diguise! And when all else fails - donate it (to an animal shelter, for example) - there are down dogs out there just waiting to snuggle up to your old mat.

Yo-Yo Yoga

I have decided that I am a Yo-Yo Yogi. I get all determined, attend classes regularly, get a momentum going in my practice...and then I stop. And then I feel guilty, and the guilt keeps me from returning.

Usually after a couple of months, I return (a little sheepishly), and I say to myself, "Ahhhhh, I remember why I loved yoga so much. Why did I stay away?" Then begins the task of trying to get into yoga shape, at least enough so that I am not crippled with soreness after every class.

I am about mid-cycle at the moment. I have been going back for a week, and my body is starting to do what I want it to again. I am feeling the calming benefits and focus that comes from physical awareness. The next step, the one that I always strive for, is when it becomes a need in my life, rather than something I have to motivate myself to do.

My goal this year is to break this stop/start cycle. In order to do that, I have to:

1/ Commit to going to classes regularly
2/ Be open to new teachers and more challenging levels
3/ Not be so hard on myself if I miss a class - and make time to go to the next one
4/ Change my mind-set to look at my practice as a gift rather than a chore

These steps could be applied to anything, really. But starting with yoga feels like a good place to put this action plan to the test. I'm ready.

Yo.

Finding Peace

I have had too much stuff in my head lately. I can feel it bottlenecking, which results in fractured thinking, poor sleep, stomach issues, and anxiety. In the past, that would have led straight to hedonism, but I am trying to be more health-conscious these days.

Today I am taking a "purification day", both in body and mind. I borrowed that phrase from my friend Kirsten, who did a "purity month" a few years ago. No coffee, light foods, and not too much stimulus. I started out my morning with some Pomegranate Green Tea, and apple, and a yogurt.


This afternoon, I am going to a 3-hour yoga workshop, given by one of my teachers at YogaStudio. I am really looking forward to it. I have been doing yoga more regularly, and I realize how beneficial it is to my mind and body - but sometimes an hour and a half seems too short. This workshop promises to incorporate the mind and spirit into the practice, which is something that I think will really benefit me. Cynthia is a teacher that I really like and trust, which makes a huge difference to me.


Outside, a steady misty rain is falling. I love this kind of weather - perfect for going inside yourself and being introspective.

Intention

I haven't written about yoga once since I started this blog. It is because, especially over the past few months, my practice has been sporadic at best. I always thought that I had great intention, just lousy follow-up.

Today I went to an afternoon flow class at Yogastudio, where I have had a membership for a little under two years now. It was Cynthia's class - she is one of those teachers who makes you work hard, but in an understanding and fun way, full of positive energy. She is very much in tune with her students, which makes it feel like you are taking a class from an old friend. Because I have that comfort level with her, I always feel very relaxed in her class.

At the beginning of the class, Cynthia asked us to think about our intention. Why are you here? What do you want to accomplish today? This is a common subject that yoga teachers talk about, intention. Usually I say to myself, well, I want to have a good class, I want to get better and go deeper in my poses, I want to quiet my mind, I want to feel good. Then when we start stretching, my mind often goes back to where it was before - wrestling with a problem, or simply going over my checklist of things to get done later. I try to be spiritual, it's just that it doesn't always stick.

Today, I decided that I was going to try to apply the same discipline to my mind as I apply to my body. I cleared out all of my other thoughts, and challenged myself. What was my intention? Why was I there? What came to mind was this: "I want to feel a shift".

With that, I had a focus for my practice. A shift does not just happen. If you do the same things in the same way, nothing changes. So it made me work a little harder, trying to feel that shift. I paid attention to my posture. I took my time going into poses, making sure I felt right before settling into the positions. When my limbs got tired and started to shake, I held the pose as long as I could. I tried to imagine myself in another time and environment, stretching and growing into the space. I forgot about the other people in the class and if my shirt was riding up in the back.

It was towards the end of the class that I felt it. We were in pigeon pose, which requires your hips to be very open and your hamstrings to be flexible. I have issues with both, but I love this pose and I was determined to hold it. I started to feel tight, and I wanted to release it - but I didn't, I stayed in it. I tried to imagine my muscles expanding to accomodate my wishes. And then I felt it - the shift. Mind over matter. My wanting to do something and working hard to achieve it.

After class I felt amazing. There were areas of my body that felt that they had been opened for the first time. Mentally, it was like a door opening - the door of possibility.

I think I have a better understanding of intention now. It is what we apply to something to give it meaning. It takes an action or a series of actions and brings them together to become something unified, something with a purpose. It makes us respect what we are doing, in all things, and with this respect elevates the ordinary to the extraordinary.

And what a great practice to take a moment to ask yourself this question before starting something, like your day at work. It may remind you of your values, your dreams, or it may tell you that you have lost sight of these and that you need to regroup with yourself. It is not enough just to do something if you want to have growth, you must have intention and with that you can be focused on achieving anything.