Noticing and the squeaky wheel

Tags

breathing, Christchurch, earthquake, heels, noticing, rajas, sattva, squeaky wheel, Yoga, yoga nidra, yoga teaching

I’m kind of big on asking my yoga students to get into the “noticing” aspect of yoga: move-breathe-move-breathe-move-breathe – sit still – notice the sensations in your body, notice the activity of your mind, breathe into any tightness etc etc; it’s not what you notice so much as it is the act of noticing something, anything; you’re training your mind and body to be sensitive to what you are feeling and experiencing.

And so on.

But I noticed something myself tonight – how easy it is for me to notice the squeaky wheel instead of noticing everything/everyone equally. Huh.

By this I mean that if someone is having a hard time with the practice or their alignment or something else is glaringly in need of support, that’s what I see. It’s not that I don’t see all of my students, but I do notice that I’m paying way more attention to those who need more attention.

Which kind of makes sense in some ways, right? But not really for those students who are going along pretty well and not getting as much attention as others. Natch.

So, experienced yoga teachers out there… have you noticed this in your own teaching? And if so, how do you manage to spread your attention more evenly amongst your students?

Also, tonight I taught with a tweaky back. Went to a wedding on Sunday night and had one of my very-super-extremely-rare-evenings of wearing heels. Heels are pretty to look at – especially this dark plum coloured pair with a peep toe and a bow – but an absolute killer to wear (just ask any woman who’s willing to be honest). So most of the time I don’t wear heels at all, especially after that whole broken toe/bone graft thing (massive OUCHIES).

But for a wedding sure, I’ll get all dressed up and throw on some heels. Dang, I’ll even dance in them! Being a Greek wedding, there was even some belly-dance music playing for a while and I COULD NOT walk away while that was playing!

My back was fine yesterday but when I woke up this morning – WOW – super-tweaky! Spent as much of today as I could doing forward bends and did a mini practice before I taught my class but it’s still a little bent out of shape. A hot shower, some tiger balm (and no, it doesn’t have tiger parts in it!) and a little more stretching… I’m working on it.

The other thing I noticed in tonight’s class was my first super-duper-really-and-truly-UBER rajasic student. Someone who had trouble with the static poses, and couldn’t even lie down quietly on his back for five minutes. He also told me after the class that the music was “too quiet”  for him, and that he used to practice Yoga Nidra six years ago “to Baroque music”. Riiiight… never mind that Yoga Nidra is considered to be “psychic sleep” and is meant to be done in silence. You can NOT meditate properly to Baroque or any other kind of music, not really…

So I’m hoping that the brief chat we had registered, where I suggested that a quieter practice might be a good balance for his endurance walking and high energy music. Don’t know if it got through or not, but here’s hoping.

Because too much rajas leads to instability. Just ask Christchurch in New Zealand! Rajas is the energy of movement, and hey, look… sadly they were hit with another earthquake.

Please hold the New Zealand people in your hearts and prayers. If you can donate, please give to the NZ Red Cross appeal.

And let’s all try to breathe a little more calming sattva into the world, shall we? We all really, really need it right now.

~ Svasti

P.S. Only three more days to go! 😉

The Workshop of Love – part 1

Tags

anahata, anja, Asana, breathing, Heart of Yoga, Intimacy, Love, maniacal grinning, Mark Whitwell, Sanskrit, strength receiving, ujjayi, Valentine’s Day, Yoga, yoga asana

Yoga is your direct intimacy with reality, which is nothing other than nurturing, abundance, continuity and healing…

I was almost late on account of the ridiculous parking situation but I made it, and walked as quickly as I could without running, hoping I wasn’t the last one to arrive. A guy was standing in the doorway of what I assumed was the yoga studio, and the very first thing I noticed was how darn tall he was. And let me tell you, it’s not easy to make me to feel short. Then I noticed his long gray hippie hair falling way past his shoulders. But nanoseconds later, I was compelled to pay attention to his eyes, as he gently but persistently sought eye contact with me.

Hi… It’s almost as though he was laughing as he spoke. I was just trying to get through the door, which he was almost entirely standing in front of with his broad, lanky frame.

Oh, hi… I’m generally shy when I first meet people and find I try to shrink in the corner a bit. And I finally realised (or recognised, after all I did make a flier with his photo on it – see above) that this was Mark Whitwell and he wasn’t having any of that!

I managed to drop the eye contact and sidle past him into a sea of yogins in a windowless room. Lots of people. There was Nadine, our first real-life in-person meeting. After a quick hug, she patted a name tag onto my left boob and I turned around to discover the only spot left for my yoga mat was center stage at the front of the room. Not exactly the easiest spot from which to play the wallflower.

This was Mark’s Heart of Yoga two day workshop over the Valentine’s Day weekend in February of this year. And I was about to discover there was no shrinking or hiding here. Quite the opposite in fact (and please excuse this rather tardy review, in which I won’t be able to cover everything we talked about and did in twelve hours, but I’ll do my best).

There is nothing to attain! There is no such thing as enlightenment, only Life in you as you. No need to realize God when God has realized you. It is intimacy you want and it is freely given. It is the search that is the problem. Looking for something presumes its absence. As long as we strive for a higher reality, the looking implies this life is a lower reality…

We started off slowly, with a bit of discussion. Mark asked Nadine to explain to everyone (most of the people in the room were yoga teachers) why she’d made exhaustive efforts to organise the weekend and bring him to Melbourne. This flowed into a discussion with others that had attended teachings with Mark before. It was both incredibly yogic, and yet a little confusing. I’d never been to a yoga workshop that started with a big ol’ chat like this before, and it was way cool.

Eventually we got around to discussing the principals of “strength receiving” (see this post for more info) and we began to move. And breathe. But the Krishnamacharya-style breathing (the lineage Mark is trained in) is quite different to the full yogic breath taught in almost every other school of yoga. It’s a breath (using ujjayi) into the upper chest, and an exhale from the lower abdomen drawing the belly towards the spine. (It’s better to learn this properly from a yoga teacher if possible).

I found Mark’s explanation of ujjayi breathing very helpful. Before that weekend, I always felt as though I strained my throat a bit when I did it. But the way Mark described it (…breathe from your throat, not your nostrils and make the in-breath as audible as the out-breath…) changed that.

As we moved and breathed through an asana practice, Mark asked us to notice how the strength receiving principals were occurring naturally as we moved our bodies.

The body movement IS the breath movement and the breath movement IS the body movement. We need to let the breath initiate and envelop the movement…

…If, on a daily basis, we are intimate with our own body and breath, it allows for spontaneous intimacy with others…

We all know how good it feels when we breathe deeply, right? In fact, just reading the previous sentence is enough to prompt most people to take a couple of hearty deep breaths. Intimacy with our own breath and body allows the heart to open and true intimacy with ourselves, other people and the rest of the world, to arise.

And combining the specific breathing practice with very gentle asana creates a focus on the heart chakra (anahata). It’s impossible to practice yoga like this and not radiate love!

Your whole body is breathing, praying…

Of course, being the teary-chick that I am, after this first session, I found myself silently shedding tears while we were all meant to be meditating – meditation being the natural resting place after asana practice, rather than something to struggle with or any attempt to control the mind.

But they were tears of joy.

Mark strolled around the room chanting in Sanskrit – slokas I knew, but all I could do was smile and cry. Then tap tap — the top of my head and anja chakra were being touched very gently as I continued my maniacal grinning, eyes closed and tears streaming down my face.

To be honest, I don’t think I’d felt quite as happy as I felt right then for a very long time – all from an hour’s asana practice. And it was healing.

Mark called an end to the session and I ran off to the ladies room to continue both laughing and crying in private. 😉

[Read part 2]

~Svasti

P.S. All quotes are from Mark Whitwell – his book and/or his Facebook status updates.