To Think On...

Just got finished reading an interview with John Records, who heads up an organization called Comittee on the Shelterless, or COTS. It's an organization that provides shelter and rehabilitation services for the homeless (including yoga, meditation and energy work) in Petaluma, California, and the following has stuck with me all morning:

"I bring my own shortcomings and challenges to this work, some of which are rooted in my early life and losses. But to the extent that I've offered my being, my hands, my body, and my mind in service, that largely displaces fretful feelings. Last week I was working with a guy who's an abuse survivor and is seriously ill. He was about to undergo another round of medical treatment, and I said to him, "I don't know how long you're going to live, but I know you're going to be OK." That perspective echoes through all of this: we're all going to be OK.

In the book How Can I Help? Ram Dass talks about looking at someone who's dying from AIDS and thinking, This person is doing interesting work. That's true for everyone: were all doing the work of our lives. Homeless people are doing their work. COTS staff are doing their work. I'm doing my work. We're all works in progress, learning the hard way how to be more comfortable and happy, on a planet for slow learners."

-John Records, from an interview in The Sun.

Springing and Pulling

Had my very first ever pilates session with Kyra Miller at Spring and Pulley last night in Brooklyn. I have wanted to try Pilates for quite awhile now, particularly as my yoga practice has advanced and I have noticed a distinct lack of strength in my core as compared to other places. I am blessed with a naturally athletic body, one that builds muscle quickly, but the strength of my arms and legs in particular allows me to "cheat" in certain asanas by over-compensating with quads and biceps when I should be working on the articulation of smaller interior muscles. But most of all, my desire to stick a handstand and a forearm stand without the aid of the wall or a spotter has led me on a quest to tighten my core.

My brother (the martial artist/personal trainer extraordinare) gave me this crazy core bubble thing, which is essentially an inflated oval that you can stand/sit/balance/do crunches and push-ups on and which forces you to engage your core to stop the wobbling of the bubble beneath you. It's pretty cool, but I've not been super motivated to use it. Instead I just pull it out of one storage spot, remind myself I ought to be using it, and move it to another.

Pilates, however, I had a feeling might be more up my alley.

Kyra is an actress and went to the same college that I did (she for grad school, I for undergrad) and has recently opened up Spring and Pulley after teaching at other places for the last many years. It's a pretty dreamy set-up. The walls are a cool calming green and faces a quiet backyard in Carroll Gardens so it feels like a real respite from the city. I had the whole place to myself and she walked me through some basic mat exercises, on "the convertible" and then moved me up to the spring whatchamahoos on the fancy spring and pulley machine. ("the reformer"?) Heavenly. Totally heavenly. One, I am a sucker for anything that lets me stick my feet in rubber bands and move myself back and forth on a rolley-board. That is like...there's nothin' better! (These are all highly technical terms, mind you), but the best was the detailed discussions of alignment and musculature that went along with all the exercises. Kyra is supremely kind and encouraging and also very sensitive to the machinations of one's body. The kind of alignment instructions she gave me were so tiny and so precise, that each one pulled me deeper and deeper into the workings of my subtle body as I tried to release here and engage there.

Note: looking at Kyra makes a person want to do pilates. All the time. She has a gorgeous pilates bod, strong and supple and wide-open, so I was completely game for whatever she asked me to do. If I can have abs like hers...

Anyhow, the most thrilling part came at the very beginning and very end of our session when Kyra had me stand in front of a mirror and she very gently encouraged my body into a more natural standing alignment. As she put her hands on my back I felt my ever-jutting front ribs relax down, my tailbown scoop a bit under and my entire torso move forward until it clicked into what I can only assume was it's proper alignment and a shiver of ecstasy (no joke) fluttered across my chest and down my body. It was if all my musculature was calling out, THAT'S IT! RIGHT THERE! I felt as wide-open and relaxed and solid as I ever have standing on my two feet, and also felt exposed and vulnerable and as if I was leaning imperceptibly forward (this, from years of pulling back, sticking out my ribs and curling my pelvis under, I assume). It felt so good all I wanted to do was stand there, so that none of my muscles would ever forget what it felt like.

The discovery of this dichotomy (ribs out, shoulders back, pelvis under) at the beginning of our session helped us both focus on encouraging my body to relax and open during the work so that I could redirect my focus to my deep down abdominal muscles and urge them to pick up some of the slack. Again and again the key to finding my alignment in an exercise came when I remembered to relax and open my back ribs, letting the whole of my rib cage settle more naturally into my body. Each time I did this, breathe flooded my body.

So many correlations began to unfold for me--the feeling I have sometimes of never being able to really let a breath go, as if I am just endlessly inhaling, until I have to let it all out of me in a big shuddering sigh, the feeling I have often of emotions getting "stuck" in my upper chest and ribs, and a nagging compressed feeling in the muscles of my back around my rib cage and shoulders.

Kyra even showed me a couple small adjustments to make in my down-dog in order to continue to encourage a truly long and open spine, and today in yoga class I could not wait to test it all out. Gently, gently throughout class I brought my attention to my spine and the backs of my ribs and asked that area to open and relax, and as I did, my front ribs settled in, my spine extended, and breath flooded through my body. Again and again--in standing poses, in sitting poses, in twists--as my pelvis and ribs and head lined up in a more organic way, I could actually feel the line of energy extend from my sacrum to the crown of my head. Best of all, I felt truly IN my body, not jamming my chest out to show how "open" my heart is, but soft and strong and long in my spine.

Yoga Practice, meet your new friend...Pilates.

Thank you, Kyra!

Effort.

While speaking to a dear friend about a certain tendency I have (both in life and in art) to get caught up in my own feelings and fears about "how well I am doing", she offered me the following analogy: (oh wise woman that she is)...if I were sitting here with you, she said, and all I was thinking about was how best to advise you, what the right thing to say was, what the best way to say it was, if I was helping you enough or in the right way...I wouldn't have all the ideas and images and feelings that I am having now. And I wouldn't be here with you.

Favorite teacher Bryn quoted Osho the other day regarding effort...in a nutshell: Effort might get you to New Delhi, but it won't get you to the infinite.

And yesterday in class, a newer teacher, one whom I never taken from before, speaking on ahimsa (non-violence): make a vow to stop harming yourself, she said, and take all of that energy that you have been using every day to criticize and berate, and use it to do all those things you want to do, but beat yourself up for not having done already.

May we all give up just a little bit of effort today.

That's my wish for you.

Namaste,
YogaLia

Mind vs. Body

I can not think my way into presence...



I can not think my way into presence...



I can not think my way into presence...


(but man oh man I'm gonna try)

Back to Basics

Showed up to the studio on Saturday all ready to take a pre-rehearsal class and found out that I had inadvertently shown up for a Basics class! Heaven forbid!

I sort of stood in front of the sign-in sheet and stared at it, my ego railing against the idea of taking a, gasp, beginner's class (how will anyone KNOW how advanced I really am?!) but unable to justify taking off my yoga pants and going outside to kill time for two hours before rehearsal, yoga-free, when, after all, here I was, dressed and ready to go...and it was a class, after all...

So, I buttoned up my pride and found a place in the room, determined to be in the class with humility (and not a hoity-toity "i'm too good for this beginner stuff" attitude), which was not as easy as it might seem. In fact, I felt myself torn between two poles throughout the class: 1. not wanting to SEEM arrogant by modifying too many poses into their more difficult form, or by moving too quickly or being too much of a show-off, lest anyone should feel shown-up or slighted, and 2. very much WANTING to show-off and prove myself as better or more capable.

Does this sound like a familiar struggle to anyone? I mean, jesus christ, that is perhaps the most succint description of my entire LIFE's struggle: on the one hand not wanting to be too big, in order to not hurt any feelings or flare the insecurities of others, and on the other hand, wanting nothing but to prove to everyone how much better and more talented I am than everyone else, motivated of course by small feelings on my part. (God, I hope this sounds familiar to someone, or else it's just a really embarrassing admission...)

In the course of this small battle with the two poles of my ego I realized the following things:

1. That I am not perfect. Shocker. And that in fact many of the poses which I pride myself on my rock-solid ability with are perhaps lacking in some foundation principles. Hence the wobbling.

2. That sometimes going slowly is actually much more difficult (and more worthwhile) than speeding through.

3. That humbling experiences are good for a person. Namely, me.

4. That I have come a long way, but...

5. That it is important, once a person has come a long way, for that person (me) to remember that there was a point at which that person (me) began, a point at which some of the things that that person can do really well and with a lot of ease now, did not come so easily. In fact, there was a point at which there were many things that person (me) couldn't do at all, and so that person should not pretend that she is any better than those people who can't do those things that she can do. Because that would be really ass-holey.

6. Going back to basics once in awhile, can only be a good thing.