Yin and the Art of Enthusiasm Maintenance

Painting by William Bouguerau

The first time I ever went to see an Ayurvedic doctor, he told me two important things. One, he looked at me when I first walked in and said, "You know what you are, don't you? I don't even need to take your pulse."

I did know. In the Ayurvedic constitutional matrix, I am made of two things. Fire and Air. Pitta and Vata. Either burning up or drifting off into the cosmos. Surprised?

He took one look at me, and he knew.

The other thing he told me was that I should be avoiding caffeine (what?!) and that--and here's the part that, at the time, I just couldn't swallow, even more than the no caffeine--that I should mellow out my yoga practice. "You should not be doing a bunch of handstands and backbends," he said (my two favorite things).  "You should be meditating. You should be getting close to the ground. You should be spending a long time in savasana."

At the time I smiled and nodded, yes of course, with absolutely NO intention of following this advice.  Was this guy joking? He wants me to lay on the ground and call that a yoga practice? Maybe after I bunny-hop like a mad-woman up and down into handstand a dozen times and do something ridiculous on one leg and heat up my breath to within an inch of my life...maybe then I'll lay on the ground.

I suppose I knew, empirically, that he was right. Of course, it wouldn't hurt for me to spend a little more time rooting and a little less time...expanding.  But I really felt, at the time, that there was no way something that felt so good, could ever be bad for me.

Have you ever heard it said that people tend to go in the direction of their imbalances? In the same way that someone with a sweet-tooth craves sugar, I have discovered that a yogi who is revved up will want more rev, and a yogi who is slowed down, even if nearly to stuck-ness...will yearn for more slow.

Such is the way with me.

Until recently.  It has been years since that Ayurvedic prescription was handed to me and summarily torn up and thrown in the trash (by me), but recently, I have found myself digging it out and pasting it back together.  Maybe my body has hit some kind of tipping point.  Maybe I've just been practicing yoga long enough now that I can finally feel the signals coming from a subtler layer of the ol' body/machine.

For a long time, a yoga practice is just about the poses. And the breath. And the philosophy. It's just about the style you love and the teacher you love and the time of day you love to practice. It's about struggling with something new and mastering it (or not).  And it can be just that, for a long time. Which is plenty. And plenty deep.

But, then...then something starts to happen.

Because maybe you want to start reaping the larger benefits of yoga. Maybe you want to learn how to find the state of yoga in other areas of your life. Maybe you start to realize that you are different than every other body that has ever practiced or ever will practice, and therefore you have to bend the yoga to fit YOU. Maybe you realize that even though handstands seem more productive, that for you to really begin to touch the center of YOU...that you need to just lay on the ground.

The impulse I used to label as "laziness," this little call from my body to just hang out and open, I have finally begun to let express itself.  And, yeesh, okay doctor...maybe you were right.  Because, I have to say, for my body, which begins to rev up and pump and think and desire and long and all sorts of other various and wild and electrical things, from the moment I wake up in the morning, for this often over-taxed body of mine, in order for this body to get to the real yoga, that blissed-out oneness-with-the-world state...it needs to slow down. And ground. And relax.

Your prescription may be entirely different. Your prescription might be more fluidity. Or more fire. Or maybe more lightness and air.  For you to find the yoga in your life it might mean more time to yourself, or less. It might mean more investigation, or less. Whatever it is, though, most likely the answer is already right in front of you. And if that's the case, then all I have to say to you this morning is...

"You know what you are, don't you?"

Sunday Share...

I so loved this article on MINDBODYGREEN by Nancy Alder, read it here...I just had to share.

For anyone who is new to yoga, for anyone who finds they have a tendency to push or over-work in class, for anyone who has been injured in the room, or has just felt nervous about the whole putting-my-body-in-the-hands-of-someone-else thing...this article is for you.

No Butts About It...

We are great fools.  "He has passed his life in idleness," we say.  "I have done nothing today."  What! Haven't you lived?  That is not only the fundamental but the most illustrious of your occupations.  "Had I been put in a position to manage great affairs, I would have shown you what I could do."  Have you been able to think out and manage your life? You have performed the greatest work of all.  In order to show and release her powers, Nature has no need of fortune; she shows herself equally on all levels, and behind a curtain as well as without one.  To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct.  Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately.  All other things, to rule, to lay up treasure, to build, are at most but little appendices and props. 

- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592)

Need I add anything to that...?!  Maybe just this (written by the same dude):

It is an absolute perfection, and as it were divine, for a man to know how to rightfully enjoy his being.  We seek other conditions because we don't understand the use of our own, and go out of ourselves because we don't know what it is like within.  Yet it is no use for us to mount on stilts, for on stilts we must still walk with our own legs.  And upon the loftiest throne in the world we are still sitting on our own ass.

Some Tips for the Inversion Shy

A couple days ago, I recieved a letter from a reader requesting some yoga advice about a subject that I think is really relevant.  So, with said reader's permission, I am going to reprint some of my response here, in the hopes that it might be helpful to anyone else out there who may be suffering from...(drum-roll please)...

Inversion Aversion!!!

(Otherwise known as good old fashioned fear of going upside-down.)

The reader in question had a very real and serious concern, as she had an experience where she was dropped (by a teacher no less, argh!) when attempting one of her first handstands, and it really left a mark (emotionally).  I don't know if any of you have ever been dropped by anyone in a yoga class, but it is a truly upsetting (not to mention dangerous and painful) experience.  Also, the teacher/culprit of this dropping didn't do or say much to remedy the situation (she was probably freaked out about having dropped a student, but still!) and the impact on my dear reader was so profound that she stopped going to classes and relegated her yoga practice from that moment on to DVDs in her living room at home.

In the studio where I'm practicing currently the teachers are super serious about spotting in inversions--they tell students to opt out of spotting if they don't feel 100% comfortable and they really get on people if they aren't being attentive. The spotter, in those few minutes when a pose is being partnered, becomes an extension of the body of the person they are spotting--they should be breathing with you, anticipating where you are and what you need and being so, so sensitive to your comfort level, especially in inversions. If that's not happening, it can just be bad news for all involved.

Happily, however, the aforementioned reader has recently been bitten by the "I want to go back to class" bug--hence the re-appearance of her inversion fear--hence her letter to me.  Which, in a nutshell asked--how do you handle fear of inversions, and what can I do in class so that I don't feel pressured or freaked out when it comes time for headstand or handstand?

She is not alone in this question, I am CERTAIN.  So, in the hopes that it might also be helpful to someone else with a similar bug-a-boo, here follows my tips on how to deal with fear and the upside-down world:

1. You. Have. To. Keep. Breathing.

That's it. When you are ready to start to go upside-down again, do not leave your breathe, not even if your life depended on it...which it's going to feel like it does. Stay with your breath. Breath can overpower fear, it really can...or at least it can drown out the voice that's saying, no, you can't do this.

2. Tell the teacher that you're scared. Tell her (or him) that you were dropped before and that you are frightened. Tell her (or him) to reassure you that they are there, and to keep their hands on you at all times when you're going upside-down. This is no joke. Even if you're embarrassed...do this. It will help you immensely.

3. Be a spotter for someone else. And vow to be the very best spotter you could possibly be. Pay minute deliberate attention to their body, communicate with them, keep them safe, take care of them like they were you. This will help you feel a part of the process of inversions, and it will help you to learn what you need from a spotter when you're going up.

4. (this is an esoteric one, but what the hell)...Let the symbolism of the pose touch you. Ask yourself (your big self) what is in this pose for you, why it is so hot, what does it mean to turn your world upside-down, and let the poetry of that, the metaphor of that, keep you interested...let it be a balm for your fear.

and lastly,

5. Even if you never ever go upside-down again, your practice can be as full and as miraculous as ever. As long as you are present and breathing and bringing all of your beautiful self to the mat, it doesn't matter if you spend the entire first class in childs pose. And anyone who gives you any guff about what poses you are or are not doing...well, they have their own shit to work out.

xo
YogaLia

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I would love to hear from anyone and everyone about their inversion experiences...good and bad.  Have you ever been dropped? Have you ever dropped someone?  Do you invert? Or do you just happen to run off to the bathroom when it comes time to get all legs-in-the-air-y? Tell me your tales of the upside-down world!