My yoga crayons

Tadasana--Mountain Pose

The foundational pose of yoga. It tells us so much about ourselves without having to do anything. I learn so much about people by just watching how they move or stand in this pose. How they hold tension in the body and how they breathe if they breathe at all. One of the most amazing poses that we center our practice on and yet little to no attention is ever paid to how vital it is. If we can do tadasana correct, then all the other poses are just about moving a foot or hand. They are the colors that we paint our practice with. I see so many black and white yogis that just do a pose, then I spot someone who takes a pose and makes it their own. Stand up right now. Feel gravity against your feet. Feel where you put your weight. Taking that time to feel, to analyze and to correct.

Some teachers might say that you lean too far back in your heels that you are living in the past, lean too far forward, you anticipate the future and then there is the person centered and balanced in the middle that takes what they learned in the past and applies it towards their dreams, goals and in every situation moving forward. I love that but I also know anatomically that certain people have only trained certain muscles and this might have nothing to do with the past or future, but about what they can fix right now. They need yoga to teach them not only to center their mind but also their body. Take this pose and make it about you. What do you need in this moment? A calm mind, a balanced body or spiritual session. Maybe next time you step foot on your mat you need to just close your eyes, stop analyzing all the little things you can fix and just be in the now of how your body is behaving.

I can sit here and write all this cool stuff that I know about yoga and the history of this pose but you can honestly just google it. I think what I find so amazing about this pose is how vital our feet are, how when one misalignment is present it affects the entire rest of the body. How true is that then for the rest of your practice? If you cannot properly use your feet, are you properly engaging the legs so that it is evenly distributed?  And then what about the spiritual aspect, how can one common misconception affect everything else that you do? To find the subtle body and mind and make those subtle adjustments.

Time and time again I see students walk in the door thinking they are masters or so skillful in the art of yoga. They just want to be in a pose without exploring all the amazing space between. Tadasana can be so easy, so boring and so beginner. But turn tadasana upside down into a handstand and it is not so easy anymore.We can make this practice very black and white but how boring is that. There are rules to yoga, then there are the people that take the rules, bend them a bit and find that spark, that color, that space. That is how I practice, how I teach and how I live my life.

To Feel

To feel is to have pleasure. 

To feel is to be alive. 

As a culture we associate feeling as being inferior, with having too many emotions and being "feminine" in nature. We are told to "fake it til you make it." That is the last thing I ever want to be known for. When you don't feel you miss out on life. Who wants to always be happy? To never know pain is to never truly live. Imagine if you could not physically feel anything. You could not feel if you were touching the ground, if someone was touching you. That feeling of safety and grounding would disappear. Now relate that to your emotions. I have truly experienced all sorts of issues this year that take up a lot of space in my head.  I had reached this place where I could no longer analyze, the walls had been built up for so long and I let them all just crash down. I held on to all these issues thinking I had to solve them and be the hero. I hurt so badly that nothing affected me anymore. I was numb, especially in my yoga practice. I would go in, lay down my mat, practice and then roll up my mat and leave. But subtle changes were happening which slowly led to my break down.

Last night felt so amazing after I just let everything out. I cried for the first time maybe this year and then I cried again today. It was detoxifying, liberating and closure that I needed. But it was the amazing people around me that made it even sweeter of an experience. They surrounded me and embraced me, no words were needed. Just the feeling of someone next to me was all I needed.

Yoga allows you to feel the body as deep or as shallow as you allow it to. How can you change the way you feel in class? By staying in savasana longer, crying in the middle of class and laugh when you fall out of ardha chandrasana (half moon). We feel the body as it shakes and as it stretches. Become an active participant in your body. Don't just be a body in the room, be a source of energy and support for others in the class. Be aware that we are all in different places, some very good and some are in very dark places.

We are ALL not at our full capacity but we ALL work towards it everyday. I have been hurt and I am not afraid to tell you how bad it hurts. As my mother would always tell me, "you can get better or you can get bitter." So what do you choose? Will you choose to let those situations drag you down into the mud with you or will you rise above those situations and be the change. I have this scar on the back of my arm. I no longer have skin there because it was burnt off from a motorcycle engine. I hated that scar for so long and I was bitter about it. I even paid a plastic surgeon to remove as much of it as possible. I was unable to get rid of all of it and I slowly learned to embrace it. To love that part of my life that has given me such a sweet appreciation for each moment, each day and each person that comes into my life. What is so symbolic of this scar is that I cannot feel anything in that area of my body. You can be scarred so much by  your past that you lose all feeling in that area. I will never have feeling there but I do have the rest of my body. In fact, I have the rest of my life to feel, to cry, to smile and to change. It is a sweet journey that we are on. 

In order to touch the lives of others you have to be sensitive and allow yourself to be a channel in which to serve others and be able to feel what they are feeling. I have felt pain that I hope none of you ever experience. I just want to be sensitive and allow myself to smile and embrace you when you feel pain and hurt. I am here as your teacher, your friend and as a fellow human being that has felt deep pain and immense joy! I hope to be someone that has touched your life, that has given you hope in your time of need. 

Frederick Archibald: A true yogi

Frederick Archibald:
A true yogi

Most of you know this amazing creature that is part of my life. He is the butter on my toast, the yin to my yang and the love of my life! I can say that the day he came home with me is the happiest day of my entire life. He is the boyfriend that never came into my life, a father that didn't take the time and the friend that never listened.

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This picture was taken on his second birthday. One of his many presents--an orange octopus!  I made him doggie pancakes and spent one of the best mornings with him. My joy comes not out of a dog, because dogs are great but my joy is in learning from him. He speaks to me without saying a word and teaches me things about myself that even the most knowledgeable person cannot speak. 

It is amazing to look back on the two and a half years and see how much he has taught me from saying nothing at all. All from being himself, napping 23 hours a day, and then being a hunk of wrinkles, all sorts of sounds and just pure love. I think our challenge lies in that we rely on words to communicate, where they are unable to speak they use their actions to tell us how they feel. So how can we as people learn to just be there for someone, not telling them how to act or how to react but just being a shoulder to lean on and presence in someone's life.

I have so much I can say about this man. But the reason why I write this blog is to connect yoga to you. Fred is not only an amazing athlete but also a yogi. He has a morning routine, a sadhana (one of the eight limbs of yoga) if you will, just as I do. Every morning he gets up and stretches. He does urdhva muhka svanasana and will pull himself all across my studio (see below), and ardha muhka svanasana. These poses are natural to him, a part of who he is, a dog. I mean, the poses are named after dogs! As a yogi, or someone who claims to be, what yogic principles do you follow in the morning? Do you stretch, read a morning text that sets up the rest of your day. Fred, bless his heart, is religious about taking his naps, 23 hours a day! But Fred is spiritual about his morning walk, his stretching and his time snuggling with me. When you are spiritual there is a different quality about what you do. You can religiously do anything but you can only be spiritual with what you are passionate about. What you say, reflects in your actions. Believe what you want to believe in but when it comes to yoga you either make it a part of you or you don't.

So let's talk about your Sadhana. As a teacher at Hot 8 Yoga, we are built upon the 8 limbs of yoga and this is just one of the eight. Every morning I wake up and do a simple practice (sometimes at 5 a.m. even this body acts a little different) and a 10 minute meditation. It is sacred to me, something that I make time for everyday. It keeps my teaching fresh, my mind alert and a smile on my face. It is a habit that I have worked hard to form and it helps knowing that my little buddy helps to keep me on that routine. Not all of you are dog or cat people but it is good to have a friend, a family member or just a yogi who is keeping you on track and holding you responsible.

who i am

I went surfing last Friday for the first time since moving here two years ago. Being out in the water, you can struggle and fight with the water. You can sit and enjoy the water, you can try to catch every wave that comes in. You can wait for the perfect wave that may or may not ever come. It is this duality; land meets sea, fish meets four legs and where my mind struggles to stay present. There is this moment right before the wave picks you up where you connect with the water, it is such a spiritual atmosphere, a washing away of what is not serving you and becoming aware of the moment, each moment that you have. It all has a purpose, the water, the fish, the seaweed. What is my purpose? 

My experience with the water is my own. It does not mean you will have those same feelings but how we relate to the outside world directly affects our internal state of mind, happiness and health. You can be afraid to get in the water, afraid to take a chance in life and that will affect the rest of your life. My thoughts toward myself are either supporting me or they are tearing me down. My yoga practice or surfing session is as easy or as hard as I want to make it and my relationships are as deep and connected as I make them. It is all in how I perceive and relate to the world around me. All of life is a series of choices, I have the ability to create the life that I want by my choices.

I starting thinking about all the violent thoughts that I hear people say all day long. It is all related to their experience. What you do in life is all based on perception. How successful do I want to be, how much love do I want to allow in my life and how much will I give back to the world around me. There is enough for all of us, enough success, enough money and enough love. There are waves rolling into shore all day, the question is, "Are you catching the waves or letting them roll right past you?"

I choose to be true and honest to who I am. I am stubborn and independent, I love turning the music up loud! I love to dance in my socks and bake cookies when I cannot sleep. Eat clean. Work hard. Forgive all. I smile when I cannot contain my joy, laugh often and cry just as much. That is my life, I won't apologize for it but I hope to take you on this journey with me and hope to inspire you to just be you. Be silly, fall in love, break someones heart, learn how to be on your own, laugh loud, smile every moment you can and enjoy this life.