Just When I Thought it Couldn't Get Any Better...

I'm having a love fest with my lady teachers out here, and before I say anything else, I need to give each of them a brief plug...because if any of you are in LA and want to take class with an amazing woman, I would recommend any and all of these loverly ladies...

Maria Cristina Jimenez, who is gorgeous and warm and calls us all "my chickens" and who, for some reason, makes me get all welled up as soon as I sit down and close my eyes at the beginning of class. This woman is just all heart and makes one feel, you know...loved. Which, as cheesy as it sounds, is important. She's also a kick-ass teacher with a really graceful hold on alignment and the deeper philosophical truths about the practice.


Hagar Harpak, oh, Hagar...how I love thee, let me count the ways: 1, 2, 7, 100,000,000,000. Hagar, Hagar, dresses like a rock-star. Hagar, Hagar, takes my practice so far. Hagar, I adore...lovely Israely kinda crazy Hagar. She blows my mind and my body wide open. And I know she is going to kick my ass and turn me upside-down, every single bless-ed time.

Gina Zimmerman,  Gina has become a more recent important lady teacher in my LA yoga life, and she is amazing. I told her the other day that I now have a Pavlovian response to her class, and as soon as I walk in the door my energy just shifts and calms and opens wide up. Gina is like...a rock. A beautiful, mossy, wet and womanly rock. Gina is like how I wanna be when I grow up. She is grounded like nobody's business and a philosopher for sure and classes with her are D-E-E-P, deep.

These are my girls, and I have been going from one to the next...a morning class with Maria Cristina, an afternoon with Hagar, an evening with Gina...and something is happening. I don't know if it's the combination of their alchemy or just the next stepping stone in this constantly expanding practice, but my heart is breaking open, and I feel like the three of them might just hold the rocks. Lately I am overwhelmed with emotion in their classes...places where things have been held are cracking enough to let the light in. I don't even know how to tell them, individually or collectively...but they are peeling away the layers.

Find them, people. Take class from them. Let the glass be broken!!

Shanti-Town Recommends...

Shanti-Town is proud to bring you word of an excellent new blog/book, written by one of my most favorite-est yoga teachers from NYC...

It's sweet! It's funny! It has cute pictures of a dog!

It's...(drum-roll, please)...The Yoga of Belle!

It's pretty ingenious, actually. The subtitle is "Life Lessons from my Chocolate Lab", and it's all about the primarily "yogic" lessons that the author (Edward), has picked up over the years from his gorgeous dog (Belle)...I was pretty moved by some of it...especially the section on letting go.

If you have a chance, pop over, say hello...they're doing a big push right now to try and generate some advance buzz for the book, so I hope you'll check it out...

xo
YogaLia

I Got Your Back...

You learn things when you start practicing yoga, about yourself, that you might never have known otherwise, like that you have a super flexi back, or that your hips are really open, or that you have good balance, or that you have the tightest hamstrings around...things which just, you know, don't tend to come up in the course of your life otherwise. (Unless you've given birth.  Or you're just...naughty.)

You also learn things like, "gee, I'm so disconnected from that part of my body that I can't even FEEL it. Even when I try really hard--gee, that's funny. It feels like that part of my body is made of flesh-rock."

(I don't know what "flesh-rock" is, but I am definitely in favor of someone starting a flesh-rock band. Please sing songs about yoga.)

Anyhoo, that is how I have felt (up until very recently) about my back-body.

In Anusara Yoga (the style I'm currently practicing) they talk a lot about the back-body. They say things like, "puff up your kidneys," or "move your waistline back," or "move from behind the heart"...people, seriously...the first time I heard "puff up your kidneys" I was like, wait...WHAT? My kidneys? A. I don't even know where my kidneys ARE and B. I don't really see, even if I did know where they were, how on earth I would ever "puff them up".

And so for a long time I just let these particular instructions go, as I was busy focusing on other things (like how to "move my thigh-bone back" and "inner-spiral my upper-legs"), and that's how the practice works, anyhow...you focus on the thing that holds the most juice for you at the moment, you work it into the whole of your practice, and as SOON as you've mastered it (and teachers seem to have a radar for this...) there is some brand new thing to work on.

That happened to me yesterday, actually...I was in class feeling like, "aw yeah, I've got this back-body think MASTAH-ed", and then, out of the blue, my teacher was like laser-focused on my shins.

Shins!

Ugh...that will be a post in a few weeks, I'm sure...

Anyhoo...I have had this series of breakthroughs regarding the back-body over the last several months...my kidneys and I have been getting to know each other and are now on quite good terms. As are the backs of my ribs and heart...we've been partying. And I have discovered that the back-body is like this magical land of loveliness. Who knew?

Now, a tiny bit of yoga-osophy...the back-body, at least according to the lore I've heard from my teachers, is considered the seat of the Universal Self. This is in opposition to the Individual Self which is housed, you guessed it, in the FRONT of the body. This makes sense right? Think about leading with your chin, or sticking your chest out or jutting your pelvis forward...all very self-oriented gestures, all signs of a person who is seeking out the personal, whereas the BACK body...well, shoot, what's back there? I mean, seriously, WHAT is BACK there?!  It's unknown, it's mysterious, it's unseen...and if you think about engaging BACKWARD there is an immediate association with falling, with sinking in, with...letting go.

(Theme! theme, theme theme!! Ding, ding, ding! That's the Shanti-Town recurring-theme bell...!)

So for me, I am a very front-oriented person. I'm ambitious, I've got a lot of striving and yearning in my make-up, and I have had to teach myself, over the past 4 years of practice, to not stick out my ribs and chest and chin. This is also something I've had to work on as an actress.  My boyfriend and favorite audition coach can always tell when I'm uncertain of what I'm doing because I start "chin acting" (Jutting my chin forward and up, and thereby totally disconnecting my HEAD from the rest of my body.)  And while those parts of me are often wonderful and lively and productive, there is a kind of disconnect that happens between what is going on in front of me, and what is going on behind.

Long story short (or medium-length at least), when I engage with my back-body, I have to REEEEEEEEEEEElaaaaaax.

Try it, right now, while you're reading this...just send your attention for a minute to your back body, and send even a single breath into the backs of your shoulders, the back of your neck, the back of your waist. Do it gently, with softness, just sort of filling up the balloon of the back. Notice a difference? Feel yourself having a bit of sigh and sinking into your seat and your self a little more? It's good back there! It's juicy!

Not to mention, how a repeated disregard for the back body can lead to a host of problems...as it's so much easier to slam bam crunch the back when you never spend any time there. It becomes just the invisible whipping-boy for the front-body instead of having it's own life and expression.

And my newly found connection to this back-body-wonderland has had a huge impact on my practice...it allows me to sink in more deeply to the poses as their happening, and each time I check in with my back-body it serves as a reminder to sit back, to slow down, to ease off...not because the other stuff is WRONG, not because it's wrong to strive or yearn or want or long for, but because those qualities have to be tempered with the other--the qualities of stillness and patience and trust. Because that's what's back there (at least for me) is the part of me which can settle in, which trusts that I'm held from behind, and that I do not have to work so hard absolutely all of the time.

It brings new meaning to the phrase "I got your back."

I do, Shanti-towners, I got your back. I also got my own.

xo
YogaLia

Synchronici-cookie

Yesterday I sent an email to a friend telling her that I wanted to become a baker and make cupcakes with yoga poses on them, and today, lo and behold...

I found these...

Which I hope will make their way to my tummy, very soon...

Breathing, Not Pooping...

So, I'm reading this anatomy book...mainly because I love the line drawings of people doing yoga...that's become one of my newest obsessions, doodling yogis (that and pouring over fashion magazines and cutting out pictures of models...because I heart models...)--but I have also been captivated by the actual content of the book (reading for content, a new discovery brought to you by YogaLia).

And yesterday, to my great delight, the anatomy book taught me how to breathe.

I always thought I was pretty practiced at the whole breathing thing, seeing as how I've been doing it for 29 years...but turns out, I had been doing it totally ass-backwards. Pun intended.

I had not set out to learn to breathe when I started reading the section on breath...I just thought I might pick up a few juicy tidbits about the whole in-out process and maybe refine my mental image of the breathing aparatus (and there is much room for refinement, as up until very recently my "mental image" of the inside of my torso basically consisted of a couple unidentified pouches and a lot of empty space...), but then, oh then...

In this book it explains how the breath moves in two directions, in and out (duh!)...or, more accurately, down (through the nose and into the lungs) and up (back out through the nose)...so far so good. The up/down description was new, but other than that, I'm good, totally on board. And then it starts to talk about how the "up" part of that equation is actually sort of difficult to master and done wrong by a lot of beginning yoga students, because for most people, when they think about expelling something, they think of a downward movement. Like, um...pooping.

Sorry. That's really the best analogy...

And at first I'm like, oh that's interesting...and then I start to think about it...and think about it...and suddenly I realize that I have been breathing totally wrong! Not just in yoga, people, I mean just in general throughout my ENTIRE LIFE.

When I exhale (up until yesterday) I have always imagined, for some reason, the air traveling down and out. I'm not sure where exactly I think the breathe is exiting...there aren't really many options down there. I think maybe I just imagined that it, like, osmosed through my stomach and out into the ether, but people, air doesn't go out your butt!! (Well...) Air goes out your mouth! Air goes out the same place it came in! Inhale, air comes in your nose and DOWN, exhale, air goes UP and out through your nose!

I just...I'm...flabbergasted by this discovery.

And not just because my idea about breathing is now more accurate, but because my breath has actually dramatically improved since making this find. No joke. As soon as I began to concentrate on my exhale with the knowledge that the breathe is leaving on an upward current...I'm not sure how to describe what happened except to say that everything just got...easier.

And I could feel the breath...leaving me. I could feel an actual letting go--letting the breath sail up and out instead of compressing it down into my belly and holding it there.

I could elaborate on the metaphoric resonance of all that, but I think it's probably pretty clear...if you've been reading any of my myriad posts on my attempts to "let things go" or be easier or chill the f-- out, you've probably already picked up the symbolic weight of this particular little gem.

BREATHING, my friends, not pooping...

Contradictions, Baby [an addendum]

So today while flipping through a yoga anatomy book that has been sitting on my shelf for good looks for the past many months I ran across the following description of the life-processes of a cell:

"The membrane's structure has to allow things to pass in and out of it--it has to be permeable.  It can't be so permeable, however, that the cell wall loses its integrity; otherwise, the cell will either explode from the pressures within or implode from the pressures outside."

Let me, just...um...

"...the cell will either explode from the pressures within or implode from the pressures outside."

And, later...

"All successful living things must balance containment and permeability, rigidity and plasticity, persistence and adaptability, space and boundaries."

Sound familiar?...

(all quotes taken from Leslie Kaminoff's book, Yoga Anatomy.)

Contradictions, baby.

Early on it becomes clear that yoga is a practice of contradictions, the largest one being, (among many others such as "root down and lift up", "curl in and open", "do this unbearably hard thing and breathe slooooowly"), that one must be Strong and also Soft.

I have been thinking a lot about this contradiction as it applies to my own life...

Early on in the LA-chapter of my practice one of my teachers talked about how visible it was in a person's practice what side of this equation they fell on: the uber-open-hearted, whose practice is loose and graceful but also sort of jelly-like and therefore wide-open for injury, and in the other corner, the rigid rule-adherer, whose practice sparkles technically but lacks that OOMPH of joy and soft-heartedness. He said that neither of these are ideal on their own, but both must be present in the practice. Things need to be strong and lined up and active, but the center must, must, must be soft.

Artists know this, instinctually. I know this as an actress--that there is a sort of sweet-spot right in the middle where preparation and hard-work meet up with in-the-moment ALIVE-ness--wherein the performance just lights up. I understand this as an artist--I still struggle with sometimes allowing myself to soften, but I understand it.

In my life, however, I find this contradiction totally f-ing confusing.

(excuse my language)

How, how, how am I supposed to be driven and be focused and have a vision of what I want and go after it and never say die and just like Will Smith my way into success AND be present and be open and "go with the flow"?!? (um, I'm not really sure about the Will Smith reference...I think I watched some bio of him at some point where he seemed all "I will manifest my dreams" ish.)

This is sort of a rhetorical question (sort of), but I have so often felt that I yo-yo between two poles: either completely engaged in a kind of "hustle", doing and doing and doing, OR throwing my hands up in the air, pledging to "just be", and spending way too much time journaling.

Neither is comfortable.

Neither is fruitful.

And, neither lasts.

So I know that there is an in-between point. I know that there is a sweet-spot, where both things exist...I have yet to FIND it, but I know that it exists. That isn't entirely true of course...it's there when it's there. It's there when I'm engaged in what I'm doing without being worried about the outcome of what I'm doing.

Let me say that again:  It's there when I'm engaged in what I'm doing without being worried about the outcome of what I'm doing.

As soon as I start to ask, "is this enough?", it's gone. As soon as I start to ask, "am I doing this right?", it's gone. As soon as I start to ask, "is there something else I'm supposed to be doing?", it's gone. And so I'm beginning to learn that the contradiction IS it. The pose is not one or the other, not soft or strong, it's both. And likewise my life can not be just effort or just ease--it must be both.

Root down and lift up.

Curl in and open.

Engage and release.

Inhale and exhale.

Inhale.

and

Exhale.