Ode to my Bro...

I have been meaning to do this for quite awhile, but better late than never...

(ahem)

Dear Shanti-Town Readers, I humbly present to you....(drumroll pleeeease)...

MY BROTHER'S BLOG (and website)!!!

For those of you who know me in real-life (not just cyber-life), you know how deeply I admire and respect and L-O-V-E (love) my big brother (and you know why he deserves a place of honor in Shanti-Town), for those of you who don't know me, you may be wondering what a bunch of plain ole' family pride is doing on a yoga blog? Well, I'll tell you. In addition to being just an all-around excellent person and stellar older sibling, my brother is also a FITNESS GOD.

I am not exaggerating. Following is proof of his other-worldy fitness skills:

1. When he was 9 and I was 5, we both started taking "karate class", for fun. My mom bought us matching white gi (the kind you could buy in plastic packages in the store, made of cotton, with iron-on dragons and stuff all over them) and in them we took ourselves proudly to class at the local Civic Center. I lasted about 8 months. My brother has never stopped.

2. When my brother was just a tyke he was tall and skinny-skinny and he wasn't so crazy about the skinny-skinny part so he started adding weights and various sports of force to his karate training. Now my brother looks like this:


3. When my brother was a teenager and running and lifting and karate-ing his brains out (and I was getting chubby and writing poetry) I once tabulated how many calories he was eating in a day (for breakfast he ate a mixing bowl full of cereal, so I figured it had to be a lot, and it was)....8,000 calories a day, people. 8,000 calories a day and not an inch of fat on him. (This is because he was already a FITNESS GOD-in-training).

4. At the tender age of 32, twenty-three years after he took his first karate class, my brother now holds the following distinctions:

He is a 3rd degree black-belt in Ishinryu Karate. (That's...well, that's really high up)

He holds a black-belt in Choy-lay-fut Kung Fu.

He holds a black belt in Arnis.

(Are you counting? That's three black-belts in three different styles of martial art.)

He runs an amazing karate/kung-fu academy in Washington State, which he has single-handedly made into a beautiful, dedicated, serious place of study for people of all ages.

He also heads up a thriving personal training/fitness business, AND...

He is developing HIS OWN STYLE of martial art.

I'm proud. Can you tell how proud I am?

My brother is one of the most focused, dedicated, passionate people I have ever been blessed to know. He has a rigor of mind and spirit that I am in awe of, and EVERYTHING I know about discipline, I have learned from watching him. He loves what he does. He loves martial arts and the improvement/movement of the body in a way that is so deep it makes me question my own dedication to everything in my life. And, to top it all off, watching my brother perform (no exaggeration) is like watching silk dance through water. Martial arts is his gift. His dharma.

Okay, enough, enough. I know. What can I say? I'm his little sister...I idolize the guy. But there is no need to simply take my word for it:

Check out the Academy HERE.

Check out the Personal Training HERE.

Check out the new martial arts style he's creating HERE.

Read his words, check out his photo galleries, and if you're ever in the Gig Harbor area, go and take a class from him. You will not regret it.

xo,
YogaLia

Blow it Out, People!

I'm thinking of the expressiveness of the body. I'm listening to a lot of passionate ballads (thank you, Beyonce) and thinking of nothing but explosive dance routines. And I'm no dancer. I'm thinking about how Seane Corn talks of the body as a vehicle for prayer. I'm thinking about watching an inspired performance and how the body really does seem to be a conduit for grace. I'm thinking that it is possible for the body to light up with the practice...I'm thinking that the body might just be the bridge between the mind, which desires divinity, and Divinity itself.

So, now I'm going to really piss off all my teachers who have spent so much time teaching me alignment and encourage everyone reading this to attempt the following: next time you are practicing, at home or in class, forget about everything except the potential for your body to be the carrier of inspiration. For just this one practice, worry less about if you're doing it right and more about what is moving through you. You are a channel for everything larger than yourself! Creativity, imagination, passion, grace, generosity, exuberance, f-ing ecstasy...it might just be in the air around you, and I dare you to consider how you can use your practice to actually open to the presence of these things.

Forget all the rest. Put your hands down, put your feet down and breathe like the breath might just be liquid gold coursing through you.

Close your eyes and have the most beautiful practice you have ever had in your life. I don't care if you look like a show-off, like a hippy-dippy, like a bad impersonation of a modern dancer, like one possessed. Maybe you don't look like anything at all. Just practice like you would dance alone in your room to your favorite song. Imagine being absolutely bowled over by bliss, and imagine that your body is the only path for that bliss to travel from the ether to your ever-loving mind and heart.

It doesn't matter if you're in a class with a hundred people or if you're at home in your tiny apartment, dressed in tattered sweats, listening to a well-worn yoga dvd (and you feel like you can't do half the poses)...it doesn't matter. Turn it off if you want. Just get in there with your body and turn off the editor. You have so much genius in you.

I want to hear stories of instant enlightenment people!! Or at least of one really really really delicious practice...

Love, love, love,

YogaLia

Listen to this!!

This is why I love Seane Corn.

Seriously, you will not regret it. I've listened to this interview 3 times, and I can not get enough of it. You have two options on the page, the edited (1 hour) and the unedited (1.5 hour) interview. I really dig Krista Tippett, the host, and for anyone who is artistically and/or spiritually minded, the archives of this show are a totally invaluable resource.

New Teachers, New Loves...

I've realized that I have not spoken too much about the teachers I have been taking from in LA...my New York favorites have odes written to them by me in this blog, but I have remained a bit tight-lipped about the Los Angeles lovelies.

Part of this, I have to admit, is a slow to retreat loyalty to my dear sweet Laughing Lotus. Oh my, I miss that studio. It was my home as a developing yogi in New York and there have been many times since coming to LA in which I have fantasized (I kid you not) about running back to New York just to be able to practice there again.

Don't get me wrong, the yoga in LA is great, and I was lucky enough to encounter Steven Espinosa (the great, the inimitable) as my very first Los Angeles yoga teacher and he promptly Blew. My. Mind. So, my seperation anxiety was kind of quelled from day one. But I miss the Lotus all the same. I miss Bryn and Stacey and Edward (now an Angelino himself, but not teaching currently), and Mary Dana and Alison and Sheri and all of them all of them. I miss getting off the crowded streets, riding the clunkly old elevator up to the studio and taking off my shoes for the first time all day. I miss hearing the traffic sounds waft up through open windows during the summer months at the studio. I miss the music and the radiator clunking in winter and oh god, I can barely continue...

You don't know until you leave a place, how deeply it's buried itself in you.

I have these sad little day dreams about Laughing Lotus, made all the sadder because I don't know if I am missed. Students come and go...that's the way of things, and by now I'm sure I am a bit of a memory there, and I can't help but admit that I have some deep heart pangs about that.

But look at me! This post is supposed to be about NEW teachers, and here I am waxing poetic about the radiator sounds, for gosh sakes.

Ahem. So. New teachers. Yes. Steven? I mentioned Steven? Yes...Steven Espinosa, god of yoga. Steven is my connector in the world of LA yoga and I owe my finding a home at Still Yoga in Silverlake entirely to him. He introduced me to Anusara and then graciously helped me to find a place for myself as a work-study student at Still, where I now spend many hours a week, sweating it out.

Side Note: I never thought I could really enjoy a yoga class without amazing music, but it turns out...I can! And I do, many times a week. I think the LA yogis think music is a bit blasephmous (I don't. And sometimes I make little fantasy mixes up in my head..."this is what I would play, if I were teaching...").

Anyhooooo, where was I? Ah, yes. The teaches.

Well, I'm not going to go through them one by one (not yet anyhow), but I will say that there are some AMAZING teachers in this fair city.

Like this one,

And this one

And this one

And also this one. This one has a blog, like me, and it is beautiful, and so is she. I'm going to be keeping an eye on her internet goings-on, whilst continuing to be inspired by her on a weekly basis in class...

These are not the ONLY wonderful teachers, of course, but they are the ones who are becoming my family of teachers here in LA, and I feel so blessed to have them. There has been so much that has been chaotic and unknown about the experience of coming here, and being able to return again and again to the studios at Still has been a hinge-pin for me in this city. No one can replace my first teachers (Jasmine! I love you!), and probably no studio can replace my home studio, but going to Still reminds me that moving forward can provide a respite all its own.

Thank you, to all of my teachers, East and West...

I'm going to go cry a little bit for the big apple now...

xo

YogaLia

Yoga Month!!

Waking Up

So, do you ever do this...you wake up in the morning and for whatever reason you decide to be good to yourself, first thing, and give your body a little stretch? You feel blood start to move around, oxygen start to move around and after just a few minutes, by god, you feel good! You think to yourself--why don't I do this more often? You think to yourself--why is THIS always what I resist when I need it the most? And maybe the opening of that window only lasts a few minutes, the one that blows in the air which whispers Everything Is Going To Be Just Fine--maybe it slams closed after you've only just felt your hot cheeks begin to cool down--but that one little gulp of air is enough. And you think, there IS something to this after all, because no matter how determined I might be to feel bad, somehow there is peace contained within my body? Do you ever do this?

This is what I want to talk about today.

The presence of the body.

Because--and I know you've heard this before--that is exactly what the body is--present. In fact, for some of us, in some moments...days...weeks of our lives, the body is the ONLY thing that is present. And it is, always, endlessly present. Your body is moving through the world in present time. It is feeling the machinations of your mind and your heart, in present time. It is taking in so much information--so much information that if something unexpected were to happen right now, your body would know it well before your mind. Why else would you turn to the doorway with a gasp before your eyes really had a chance to see who was there? Your body is processing all of your feelings, known and unknown, it is taking in the temperature of the air and the sound of the birds across the street. And when I am not present, when I am not WITH myself, my body (I've noticed) is also taking on the stress and strain of operating what is essentially a ship with no captain. Or at least, a ship with a captain who has fallen asleep.

And the tension in my neck, is a call to wake up.

And the tightness of my breath is a call to wake up.

And that funny feeling that I am not quite standing on the ground, is a call to wake up.

One of my teachers said the other day that she is now at a point in her practice where in every pose she is looking for the parts of her body which she can not feel, and from that she knows all the places in which she is still asleep.

And so, yes, yoga feels good because it is creating space, because it is making room for the breath, because it is working all the muscle groups, blah blah blah. But really what yoga is doing is reacquainting us with our bodies. And this is profound not just because we feel more connected to ourselves when we are in our body, but because our bodies might literally be the doorway to presence. I think we remember, even in just five minutes of moving around, what it is to be alive.

And awake.

Possible Impossibility

I wish that Blogger had a drawing feature so that I could make a little stick figure of the crazy thing I was attempting to do in class today. Many crazy things, actually. Things so out of my reach all I could do was prop myself up and gaze at the ladies on the other side of the room who seemed to float from one complicated position to the next. It's not all the time that I feel schlubby and inept in a yoga class, but today, I felt it. Big time.

Impossible Pose #1: Double bakasana. Okay, bakasana, for those who don't know, is Crow Pose. Basically your hands are on the floor and your knees are balanced on your bent arms, like this:

Not so bad, right? An intermediate pose, probably? Well, and I don't even know where this comes from exactly, but imagine spinning that little stick figure guy over so he's on his back, in bridge, his head and shoulders on the ground, his pelvis and butt up in the air, his elbows bearing his weight on the ground and his two feet in each of his two hands, so that basically he is balancing on his shoulders and elbows, with his knees bent bent bent and his feet pressing up against his bum and resting in his hands. This is double bakasana.

Can you even picture this?!

I could get one foot in my hand but couldn't even BEGIN to lift my other foot off the ground.

Impossible Pose #2: 4 minute handstand. That's all I have to say about that. You think 4 minutes doesn't sound like a very long time? Try it, mo fo! Seriously. It's not pretty.

Impossible Pose #3: I don't even know what to call this...the teacher called it "headstand droppings" or something like that, but I will try to describe it to you. The first thing we did was Urdhva Dhanurasana with headstand arms, which looks like this:

Which, I can do pretty well, because I have a really flexible back (though it's a bit rough on me shoulders)...but folks, this was just the WARM UP pose.

Next thing was, we were to get into headstand, sirasana A...which looks like this:

And then, from headstand, to DROP BACKWARDS into the above urdhva dhanurasana. Which I managed to do, but made the teacher come stand by me first (because I'm five years old, apparently), AND THEN (nope, not finished yet), from the urdhva with headstand arms we were supposed to "pump and jump", meaning pump with our heart and jump with our legs, back into headstand.

Now, this--ugh--my attempt at this was totally laughable. The teacher tried to spot me and she put her hands on my hips, asked me to pump forward with my heart, and began counting, "1...2..." and I knew when she got to 3 I was supposed to attempt to jump back up into headstand, but my legs pretended that english was not their first language. "Oh, you have to jump harder than that!" she said, and not one to turn down a challenge (even though I could barely tell what was up and what was down and was a little bit afraid I might break my neck in the process) I tried it again, flailing my legs up into the air, and somehow...landed back in headstand. "That's great," she said, "you popped in like 9 places."

Yeah, great.

I sat up to recover and looked across the room to watch a super incredible floaty boneless yogi, as she moved like a bird might move through the sky, from headstand to urdhva to headstand to headstand variations, to urdhva, back and forth back and forth, hopping with the ease of a little girl hopping over a puddle...and then turned to watch another woman, across from her, whose back seemed to bend in 600 different places as she did the same, back and forth, back and forth...

One girl caught me looking at her, with my mouth agape, and all I wanted to do was shout across the room to her, "how did your practice GET like that?!" I mean, my god. A practice so beautiful it makes me kind of choked up just thinking about it...

Sigh.

Of course my small mind (mini me) is sort of sniping in the background, like some petulant teenager leaning against a brick wall, cigarette hanging from her lips..."I bet she's a dancer. She's probably been doing it forever, it's probably all she does. How are her arm balances, I wonder? Has she seen my biceps...they rock."

And there were other things...hanuman (the bane of my existence!), twisted half-moon, pigeon pigeon pigeon...and by the end of class I thought, my god, this has been a class entirely composed of all the stuff I'm not very good at (except pigeon, I rock me the pigeon). And as much as I hate that...all the struggling and the feeling that my belly is just endlessly in my way...I was also really pleased with it. I have SO far to go, I thought. And it was a relief...the thought that it was all never-ending, was a total relief.

Which got me thinking about other things. It got me thinking about my work as an actress, and how hard it can be for me when I am not able, or not as good as, or totally in the dark about what some super-technical thing is supposed to look like--how I lambast myself, tell myself in a whole myriad of ways that I am hopeless and that my inability is just proof of that hopelessness. I started thinking about what a different feeling that is from this feeling in my yoga practice of an endless unfolding...about how I rarely beat myself up for not being farther along than I am, and how I am EXCITED to move toward the next thing and the next. I could use that, as an actress.

And I thought about my life, my quest for development of some kind or another, and how often I can do the same--how I can hone in on all the ways in which I am failing and write myself off as some kind of lost cause, forgetting that this same principle holds true: I will never get it done. Even when I get to the point where I am balancing only on my head in headstand, there is still going to be someone who can balance on her head AND have her legs in lotus. (For example).

I love you, dear readers, and I wanted to remind you of this...that it will never end. It will only grow and grow and grow. You will put water in the bucket and the bucket will grow. You get me? So go out there and just do, even if you think you suck, because you will get to where you want to go, I promise (and as soon as you get there...you'll have a new destination in mind.)

All my love,

YogaLia